From Cairncry aloft in the vale of Hilton,
to th’wind-bit crags of Kincorth Land,
the city basks in the gathering darkness,
and smoulders in splinter islets of light.
But, lo, it’s heart is dark and hungering,
and juts in shadow against the bright heights.
See her children huddle in her dark dress,
and suckle at the feet of the Mither Kirk.
STRIKE, and watch the bats go sailing,
STRIKE, and the cobbled city rolls,
with each syllable of doom pronounced in,
Silence as the bell tolls.
It was mid-July, the hottest summer so far, and I was recovering from all the pollen that was flying about. I couldn’t sleep, even under just a sheet, completely naked. It was sweltering, even at the late hour that I got up to get a glass of water, just for some relief from the heat. The air was unnaturally inflamed, it seemed like, and I felt like I was roasting alive.
With my hands under the cold running water, I decided to open my window, reasoning to myself that one night wouldn’t give me that many bugs to deal with in the morning. At least there’d be a breeze. So, I went back upstairs and did just that. Pulled up my blinds, opened the window, and finally felt a cool rush of breeze. I went back to bed, with just the sheet covering me, the heat finally abdicating just enough as I drifted off into a dream land.
I’m not sure what time I woke up. It must have been the early hours of the morning, just before the sun had risen, earlier than I’d usually wake up. I couldn’t understand why I’d woken up until I rolled over, my eyes catching something out of the open window. I froze, processing what I could see. In the trees that overlooked my back garden, something was hanging on to two branches, staring at me with glowing, blood-red eyes. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I stared into the eyes for what felt like an eternity, something in me telling me if I broke eye contact something bad would happen.
Finally, something did happen. A bird flew past, drawing my eyes and it’s away. When I turned back to try to see more of the creature behind the eyes, all I could see was tree branches, and empty space where I was certain I’d seen a body.
For the next few nights, I made sure to keep the windows closed. I was certain, if I’d have looked any longer at those eyes, it would have moved, and killed me. No matter the heat, my windows were closed, aimed at keeping whatever it was out. But I didn’t expect it to keep returning, for me to see those eyes through the slats in my blinds, staring directly at me. I kept reminding myself whenever I could see it that it wasn’t real, and if it was real, it couldn’t get me, because there wasn’t an opening in the house.
Then, another unnaturally hot night rolled around. I sweated, trying to keep my resolution at keeping the windows closed. At around 10pm, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore, and that I’d only have the windows open for a few minutes. So I got up, trying not to look in between the tree branches and feed my terror, and opened the window a crack. I sat back down on my bed, picked up my book, and read for a few minutes.
I guess I must have fallen asleep again, because when I woke up, I could feel the creature in my room. I’d rolled over in my sleep, so I could see the empty tree branches and my window, pushed wide open. I froze, shut my eyes, and tried to think of something else, anything else.
I could feel it moving, almost exploring my room. I felt a terrible rush of cool, prickly air run over my scalp, and tried not to think about what would happen if my eyes opened, even a little bit. Instead, I thought about what I would do in the morning, as the air rushed over me again. I tried counting sheep in an effort to go back to sleep and make my terror fade away.
I guess I must have succeeded, because I woke up the next morning, not really remembering what had happened in the night. Until, that is, I rolled over and saw the window, pushed open wide, and a dark shape between the empty branches. That was the moment I knew I had to start looking for another place to live, and hope that it wouldn’t follow me.
Gothic Web
Blair Center
Is this not a Gothic Web?
graves tossed with every flow and ebb,
sights abandoned, sounds ghostly, ghoulish,
and pasts revived both fun and foolish.
Is this not a Gothic Web?
here, where you can search ‘What rhymes with web?’
Nothing truly dies; everything haunts
in phantom flickers and funky fonts.
The tail end of a storm from across the ocean
Set the boughs creaking and the branches in motion.
Atop the houses there perched whirling vanes
And rain showered against the delicate panes.
Laid sleepless, with the wind a demented banshee,
Guilt racked for the destitute on a night so beastly.
The draughts tormented, whispered and taut
And I lay shuddering at the thought.
And to sleep I must have ceded
For when I awoke the chimes repeated:
One, two, three, no more.
The wind still whipped beyond my door.
As I surfaced from my slumber, I became quite aware
That I was not alone for there
At the foot of my bed an apparition did arise
Cloaked in black with shining white eyes.
Sat, pressing hard down on my feet,
Frozen as I was, I made to entreat.
But stolen was the voice from my throat
And I found I could not utter a note.
From my mouth there came nought but silence.
Towards my intruder I made to kick in violence.
But between the synapses not a signal did pass,
The body was pinned as if behind glass.
Beneath the spectre’s presence I was crushed,
Outside, the storm seemed to have hushed.
Not a word he needed to fill me with dread
As he sat there, malign, and heavy on my bed.
His pallid face from beneath the hood
Spoke silent of threat and no-good.
It was only then I noticed the smell:
Sulphur and smoke, from where evil does dwell.
All-of-a-sudden, it seemed he had spread
And he suspended above from my feet to my head.
Then it was if he was pressing on my chest
And it was all I could do but to catch my breath.
I was sure he would break my every bone
Weighing down on me like a dreadful mort-stone.
As I aspirated on my panic,
He gazed sinister and satanic.
I screamed internally with hopeless anguish,
This horror I agonised to vanquish.
I strained, swearing my heart would burst
Before blackness fell, sudden like a curse.
I awoke from the boundless dark
To morning’s graceful, benevolent arc.
The sun streamed through the dripping branches
While songbirds went about their strange dances.
In a moment the threat had been stayed
And the memory of the terror began to fade.
But would this visitor return, and if then?
Could I ever sleep soundly again?
Barbara stood and stared in wonder at the mansion house before her. It was a tall, white building, resplendent and gleaming, and it was her and her sister’s new home.
Barbara and Alice’s father, George Pitcairn, had died some months before, and their mother had been struggling in the wake of this tragedy. She’d been left with no choice but to send her daughters to live with a distant relative, a wealthy laird named Thomas Gifford, and this enormous dwelling and the land surrounding it belonged to him and his wife, Elizabeth, known as Lady Busta. The couple had seen their fair share of loss throughout their marriage, having lost six of their fourteen children to smallpox some years prior, and the Giffords would be glad to have two more daughters to add to their household. As beguiled as she was by the sight before her, Barbara found herself having an odd feeling about Busta House and she silently questioned whether or not she could ever feel at home in such a place as this.
Kirsten looked out of the front passenger window as the car pulled into Brae and the sight of Busta House, as well as the smaller homes surrounding it, came into view. Even from the other side of Busta Voe, the huge white mansion was a grand and splendid sight, one she’d always been able to see from the house she grew up in, and while she’d taken it for granted during her childhood she found seeing it again now she no longer lived in Brae provided some comfort. She had of course visited the building plenty of times throughout her life, having had many splendid meals in the restaurant, and a couple of years before she and James had been married in the Long Room there, as well as spending their wedding night in a four poster room. This time, though, was different.
Kirsten peered up into the rear view mirror and smiled at the sight of their baby daughter, Charlotte, sleeping peacefully in her car seat. She always seemed to sleep best in the car, as if the motion of the vehicle lulled her somehow. James, meanwhile, continued to drive towards their destination without saying a word or taking his eyes away from the road lying ahead of him.
A few months earlier, Kirsten’s mother had entered a charity raffle that one of her friends was running. One of the star prizes had been a voucher that entitled the holder to a night’s stay in Busta House including breakfast, and she had ended up winning this – but had decided to give it to Kirsten and James because she felt they deserved it more. The idea was that they could have a night away from home to themselves and that the baby would get to stay with James’ parents, but earlier in the week, James’ mother had started with a vomiting bug, and Kirsten’s parents were away visiting her younger sister at university. When they realised rebooking would mean a far longer wait, Kirsten declared that they would just take the baby along with the carry cot. James had agreed, but reluctantly, and he didn’t even try to hide the fact that his enthusiasm for their night away had waned significantly.
In no time, the junction leading to Busta came up on the left side of the road, and James turned the car in. As the road merged into a single track, Busta House appeared before them, large and resplendent and even grander close up.
They reached the car park and parked as closely as possible to the huge stone steps that led them down to the main entrance. James carried the suitcase and the travel cot while Kirsten carried the car seat with their still sleeping daughter inside as well as the bag with all her essentials in it. Kirsten still sensed tension with her husband, but she said nothing more.
Barbara looked forward to her interludes with John Gifford, forbidden as they were.
Lady Busta had taken an early dislike to Barbara, for reasons unknown to anyone other than herself, and as such Barbara’s life at Busta House was one of cold charity, where she was mostly forced to spend time in the company of the maids. On arrival she had also been warned that the four surviving Gifford sons – John, the eldest and the heir to the estate, and his three younger brothers, Robert, William and Hay – were all renowned for being quite boisterous, unrestrained young men, but very early on Barbara had managed to catch John’s eye. Barbara had initially tried to resist John’s advances, but eventually she gave into her own feelings. This was received badly by Lady Busta, for when a friend of hers observed John’s attention towards Barbara and pointed it out she had responded that she ‘would rather see John lying dead at my feet than married to Barbara Pitcairn’. Instead it was her intention that John should wed one of the daughters of Gardie House in Bressay. But John only had eyes for Barbara, and was more than willing to defy his mother in order to have her. During another of these clandestine trysts, John proposed.
“You know I cannot,” she replied sadly. “I would dearly love to, but we both know your mother would never allow it.”
“Who says she has to know?” he said confidently. “We can wed in secret.”
“She would manage to find out somehow,” Barbara said. “She is clever like that. She will find out and then you and I will never know peace for as long as she lives.”
“She will not find out until long after the fact, and by then it shall be too late for her to do anything.”
“Could she not have you disinherited? You could lose the lairdship because of me.”
John shook his head. “My father would never hear of it,” he assured her. “It can be our secret, until the time is right to reveal it.”
“But we will need witnesses, and a reverend.”
“I will ask Reverend John Fisken when I see him next. As for witnesses, my brothers would easily do that for us – they will not tell Mother. It would all be entirely legal, and when we tell her about it, she will be unable to do anything, I promise you.”
Reassured by these words, Barbara Pitcairn agreed to marry John Gifford, and they shared a kiss to celebrate.
The room Kirsten and James were booked to stay in was a double, somewhat less fancy than the four poster suite they’d had on their wedding night, but still perfectly lovely. They’d brought the travel cot for their baby to sleep in, and they’d booked a table for the restaurant for that night. Kirsten was looking forward to the meal, but she was also acutely aware that they would have to bring the baby with them, and she was dreading how that would go.
“We sood o postponed,” James said. It was the first time he’d spoken to her since they’d set off on the drive to Brae.
“Nah,” Kirsten disagreed. “Hit widda been a godless faff tae reschedule. De midder couldna help bein poorly, an my fokk bein awa aside me sister eanoo…hit kin be a fine peerie family brakk fir wis, mebbe da foremist o mony!”
She cracked a smile as she said this, but James only shrugged. He wasn’t even pretending to be fine with the arrangement. She couldn’t help feeling annoyed. Yes, it would be fine to get away just the two of them some time, but on this occasion it just wasn’t to be.
The pair of them sat in silence, looking around the room, when James spotted the bit of plaster framed in glass on the wall. There was a signature scratched clumsily but clearly into it. He studied it closely for a brief moment, before asking, “Wha does du suppose Gideon Gifford wis?”
Kirsten looked at him. “Does du no keen yun story?”
James shook his head. “I keen aboot da gawst at’s meant tae haunt dis plaess, but nae mair as yun. Is dis Gideon onythin tae dö wi it?”
Kirsten told him the story of the Busta House ghost, and who Gideon was, and how he connected to the whole thing.
“Me midder ösed tae wirk here whan I wis peerie,” she added, “an a couple o da fokk at shö wirkit wi reckoned at dey wir encoontered da gawst. Een o da idder hoosekeepers said at shö cam intae da laundry room ee time tae fin a pile o sheets faalded up in an auld fashioned wye eftir dey wir been washed, an anidder at said he wis seen her idda restaurant sat at een o da tables…”
“Du doesna really believe aa yun, does du?” James smirked. It was the first smile he’d cracked all day, and Kirsten wished he hadn’t.
“Weel, yeah,” she said indignantly. “Whit wye wid I no?”
“Hit’s aa juist folklore,” James insisted. “Gawsts irna real.”
“Weel, du nivver keens,” Kirsten said, “mebbe we’ll get a veesit fae her da nicht.”
“Mebbe shö kin come an waatch Peerie Breeks fir wis so we kin hae a nicht o paess,” James joked.
As if on cue, the baby woke from her lengthy nap and started making noise. Kirsten lifted her out of the car seat and started preparing to feed her.
“I hoop shö sleeps through wir tae time,” she said as the infant latched onto her nipple.
“Shö’ll nivver sleep da nicht den,” James responded.
“I widda thocht du widda been wint wi yun be noo,” Kirsten retorted.
James didn’t reply – instead he got on with setting up the travel cot, and the only sound was of the baby suckling away on Kirsten’s breast.
Things had been going so well for Barbara – and then it all came crashing down around her.
After they had made the necessary arrangements, Barbara Pitcairn and John Gifford had wed secretly in December the previous year. The ceremony was conducted by the Reverend John Fisken, and the groom’s two youngest brothers, William and Hay Gifford, had acted as witnesses – they were fond of Barbara and were more than happy to keep her and John’s union a secret from their mother. At first, Barbara had gotten a thrill from being secretly married – then she realised that she was with child, and it all changed. John was elated with this news, convinced that Barbara was carrying the first of many sons the two would have, but Barbara had her reservations.
“Your mother will be so angry with us,” she fretted. “I dread her fury.”
“I promise you, Baabie,” John insisted to her, “there is nothing she can do to harm you now – after all, you are my wife, and the mother of the future heir to this estate.”
Barbara was somewhat assuaged by this, but it wasn’t to last. The same night that she told John her news, he and his brothers all went across to Wethersta for a party, along with John Fisken and a boatman. Barbara had sometimes joined them at these gatherings, but on this occasion she chose not to, being in the family way. After a night of revelry and celebration, the six men had set out on the return trip across Busta Voe with their boatman – but by the following morning they had not returned.
After a lengthy wait, Thomas Gifford had a search party sent out to dredge Busta Voe. They found the boat still upright, but empty apart from John’s hat and stick. Shortly thereafter, their drag hooks caught a body – that of John Gifford. They brought him back to shore, where his mother saw her fated words come true, and her son now lay dead at her feet.
When Barbara reached the harbour and saw John’s lifeless body lying there, she couldn’t help but throw herself over him, sobbing. Lady Busta did not take kindly to this and ordered her away, but Barbara had decided that now was the time to reveal all. With that, she produced the marriage certificate from her pocket and told Lady Busta everything.
If Barbara thought there was any possibility at this news bringing Lady Busta any comfort, she was to be greatly mistaken. Lady Busta was incandescent with rage at the betrayal, and since the officiant and witnesses now also lay dead at the bottom of the voe, Barbara effectively had no one to vouch for her.
“John would never marry you,” Lady Busta fumed. “He knew our views on that. He knew we planned for him to wed Jane Henderson of Gardie. He would never have defied us.”
“He didn’t love Jane Henderson,” Barbara shouted through her tears. “He loved me, and he only wanted me. Everything had to be done in secret because of you. He was going to tell you now that we’re in the family way…”
Lady Busta struck Barbara’s cheek hard, almost knocking her to the ground.
“You threw yourself at my son, you little whore,” she raged. “You tricked him with your wiles. Your marriage was a sham, and your baby is a bastard.”
“You have no heirs left.” Barbara was defiant through her sobs. “Our child is your only hope for the estate.”
Lady Busta paused. However she felt about this secret marriage, and John’s betrayal of her, she knew deep down that Barbara was right. She looked down at the weeping girl before her and leaned into her face.
“You had better hope,” she hissed, “that the bastard child you are carrying inside of you is a boy, for if it is a girl, you are no longer welcome in our house.”
With that, she snatched the marriage certificate from Barbara’s hand, turned on her heel, and strode away.
James and Kirsten ate in the hotel that night, with their daughter continuing to snooze at their feet in her car seat. James seemed to be gradually getting over his bad mood, and he was even managing to crack a smile at the folk who came by to coo over the baby and ask them all the usual questions about her. Kirsten fielded these questions too, but she wished folk would leave them in peace to eat their dinner.
Later that evening, they set the baby down in her travel cot before turning in themselves. They both managed to fall asleep quicker than they had done in a while. After a couple of hours, Kirsten suddenly awoke, hearing the baby stir, and expecting that she’d need to prepare for another night feed shortly. She sat up and was about to turn on the light when she realised she could see a figure standing over the travel cot.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Kirsten realised she could see a young woman, dark haired and wearing a white dress, peering into where her daughter was sleeping. The little one had just woken up, and Kirsten could hear her making funny little noises, not her usual crying when she needed a feed, but more like amusement. Kirsten felt James stir next to her. He too sat up, and Kirsten could make out that he was sat stock still, staring at the stranger gazing into her daughter’s cot and making her laugh.
Finally, Kirsten spoke. “Barbara?”
Startled, the dark haired stranger looked up and then promptly vanished. Kirsten switched on the lamp by her bed, stared briefly at the cot, then looked at James.
“Did du see yun?” she gasped.
“Du’s bloddy richt I saa yun!” he exclaimed.
“So much fir de sayin gawsts irna real!” she laughed, before sliding out of bed and going to the cot. The baby was still wide awake and making little gurgling noises, a crooked, gummy smile on her face, although whether this was wind or genuine contentment Kirsten couldn’t tell. She leaned down and lifted the baby up and out of the cot, brought her back to the bed, and began to feed her. James watched her as she did all this, still in a state of shock and wonder.
“Whit wye wis shö sae taen wi Peerie Breeks, tinks du?” he finally asked.
Kirsten shrugged, not taking her eyes off the feeding baby. “Mebbe shö thocht wir lass wis her boy,” she suggested. “I dinna suppose at a gawst keens ony idder.”
James smiled at this, and then he looked up at the signed plaster encased in glass on the wall with the signature etched into it. Gideon Gifford of Busta. Of course.
“Hear yun, Charlotte?” he said cheekily, peering around at the baby still guzzling from her mother’s breast. “Barbara Pitcairn towt du wis her Gideon. Da laird o Busta Hoose! Kin du imagine?”
Kirsten giggled, and James shuffled up next to her, put his arm around her shoulder, and kissed her cheek. The baby stopped feeding, and Kirsten cleaned her up.
“Dis’ll be a story fir wis tae tell,” James went on. “A veesit fae a gawst! Bringin her alang wi wis turned oot ower weel eftir aa.”
“We’ll mebbe keep her in aside wis noo, though,” Kirsten suggested, getting back under the covers with the baby still in her arms. “No at Barbara wis doin ony herm, but I doot yun’s been anoff excitement fir wan nicht.”
James agreed, and Kirsten lay a now sleeping Charlotte between them and then settled down herself. James took one last look at Gideon Gifford’s signature on the wall, smiled, turned off the lamp, and then cosied up to his wife and daughter for the night.
Barbara looked back at the huge white mansion as the coach pulled away, and she wept bitterly. That house was full of bittersweet memories for her these days, but it also now contained the most precious thing in her life, lost to her forever.
The child she bore had indeed been a boy – her and John’s son, Gideon, the new heir to the Busta estate. Thomas and Elizabeth Gifford had taken him under their wing intending to raise him as a gentleman, but they never forgave Barbara, or acknowledged her as a daughter-in-law. Finally, Lady Busta decided she’d had enough after one quarrel too many, and she sent Barbara packing, deciding her presence in her own son’s life was disruptive and no longer required. Gideon was only six, and when he realised his mother was being sent away he had come running after her, sobbing, begging her to stay with him. She had reassured him that she would see him again, and that she would always love him, and as that house got further and further away from him she resolved that nothing in this world would stop her from reuniting with her son.
He's At That Age
Rory Barclay
My little monster’s growing so fast,
Nearly 4 foot and only age 3
Born of 2 parents but now there’s only me
My little monster loves playing games
Hides my keys under objects on door frames
Puts things in my food and laughs when I find them.
My little monster’s got teeth so sharp,
Sharp as lego bricks trodden underfoot
Scattered on the floor, increasingly at the shower door.
My little monster’s got some way with words,
Whispers without moving, goes out
and speaks to frogs, bats, cats and dogs.
My little monster’s got limbs so limber – not brittle,
He crawls on all fours at speed,
knocks me down like an axe through timber.
My little monster’s got the nose of his mother
But the ears of something else
Nothing ever sneaks by him, with how they’re pointed like an elf.
My little monster loves the shiniest things
Collects tin foil, rings, knives, paper clips
Like a magpie all covetous for trivial things.
My little monster’s got wits so sharp
and always peering, head pivoting like an owl
Always watching me silently, never can be caught afoul.
My little monster doesn’t like to go to church
Hisses at gospel and prayers
Takes bites out of wafers but at crosses he’ll just glare.
My little monster’s got a throat so gruff.
so diamond, so rough he growls
Every breath with those eyes, those yellowing eyes.
My little monster keeps tearing at his sheets
Gasps beneath covers, beats them tooth
and nail, by morning stuffing bleeds to the floor.
My little monster took the life of his mother
In the years since then
I’ve been starting to think I’m next.
“And so …that concludes…my exploratory, er, talk about witches, their trials and, ah, their spatial distribution, with reference to, ah, coastal regions here in, um, Scotland.”
There was markedly less applause at this point, in contrast to when the speaker had stepped up to the lectern.
“Thank you, Dr Kirsty Temple-Laing. And that leaves us with some time for questions, ladies and gentlemen.”
The facilitator shaded his eyes to scan the rows in the university lecture hall. He always had high hopes for these public talks, that they would attract people with good quality questions, but now, in the face of so little applause, he was grateful for any questions, no matter how pedestrian, opaque, or long-winded.
A young woman with short hair and many piercings took several minutes to ask about connections with the Wiccan faith, but this only led to Dr Temple-Laing’s mumbled apology that Wicca was “not within her purview”. An uncomfortable silence followed and people started to rummage for their bags and coats.
“I would ask the good doctor…” A deep voice boomed from somewhere near the centre of the theatre.
The facilitator was peeved that the man hadn’t raised his hand for permission, but at least it was another question, another member of the public engaging with the event, another tick in the involvement box.
“….why, in reading her speech, she had said cited the town of Keith when she meant Leith and not corrected the error?”
Dr Temple-Laing was taken aback and hesitated.
“Why,” continued the questioner, “she described the international plot against King James the First and Sixth as hinging on Norway, when it was Denmark? Why she scorned the possibility that a witch could transform into a beetle? Why she—”
“Excuse me, sir!” The facilitator, a small man with a keen sense of his own importance, was now flapping his folder of feedback forms in what he imagined was an authoritative manner. “This is not the sort of thing we’re here for tonight. Thank you, but we’ll hear from another member of the audience now.”
No one put up a hand. Some people were giggling. Dr Temple-Laing wished she were home with a cup of tea, a bar of chocolate and her cats, Ginger and Fluff.
“Well…,” boomed the voice. “If there are no other pressing inquiries for the good doctor…”
The way he hissed “pressing” not only made Dr Temple-Laing feel queasy, but also prompted ripples of recognition in the auditorium. They had only just heard her describe a case where, unusually for Scotland, a woman accused of witchcraft had been covered with a door and stones gradually piled on it to press her for confession, just like in Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible”, before a coach and horses was driven over the door for good measure, not like “The Crucible”. Some people in the audience felt the equine flourish would have been an excellent addition to the American classic.
“… then I would like to know more about her critical comments concerning the Devil in 1589 not accompanying witches on enchanted boats when they went off to wreak stormy havoc against Anne of Denmark’s attempt to sail here to marry foul King James.”
Dr Temple-Laing’s pasty complexion had acquired mottled patches. “I, that is, em, it is simply a case,” she faltered, “of recounting what was recorded at the trials. Time and again, Satan is described as …”
“As being everywhere, yes, yes, yet you sneered at his repeated absence when, as you elegantly phrased it, ‘things all kicked off’.”
“But he did stay behind!” she squeaked.
“Wench! Have you never heard of empowerment?” This thunderous attack elicited loud applause and laughter in the audience.
“Now, look here!” The facilitator had moved in front of Dr Temple-Laing – as a human shield he barely protected beyond her rib cage – pointing his folder accusingly and sweeping his eyes across the rows to bring this defiance of public lecture etiquette to order. “I will have to call security if this doesn’t stop right now. It’s most disrespectful!”
Silence followed and since the entertainment seemed to be over, students on the front row began to make for the exit.
“Not yet,” hissed the deep voice and bolts in all the auditorium doors shot into place. The room became hot and the air acrid. Some people whimpered and others were trying and failing to take photographs and recordings and put messages onto social media.
“You were right, wench, in saying Satan is everywhere but very foolish not to heed your own words… Kirsssty. I. Am. Everywhere.”
That was when the screaming started. Yet no one seemed able to move from their seats. Kirsty and the facilitator were locked in a craven half-crouch beside the lectern.
The hall filled with a pulsing absence of light.
“I attend all these talks and covens. I come to hear praise, to encourage disciples and enjoy the old days. But you took money from these people, my admirers – that is a solemn pact, Kirsty! – a pact to provide sound information in an interesting style. You read in a monotone – unforgivable – and didn’t even provide a PowerPoint!”
The air quaked with his fury and all eyes were drawn in gut-curdling trepidation towards the roaring blackness.
“Kirsty Temple-Laing – on bodies of water by all coastal regions be ye cursed! And beware, oh beware, my devout familiars, Ginger and Fluff!”
Pumpkin Carving
Emily Gevers
Carve me like a pumpkin
From breastbone to vertebrae
Get all the guts out
Scrape the flesh off my bones
Throw it all in a pot
And leave me to simmer on the hob
Throw the seeds out to the ravens
And pray for good harvest
Next year
With your sharpest knife
Sculpt me a face
to scare all the children away
And when you’re done
Place me on your porch, real gentle
And light me up
The girl sat at the table, watching the runny porridge drip from her spoon. She dipped her finger in it, bringing it to her lips. Too much salt, she thought.
“Mammy it looks like maggots.”
The woman at the stove straightened up from her hunched position, wiping her hands of flour on her skirt, white sludge smudging over the muddy fabric. “Dinnae complain,” She muttered.
“But Mammy it looks like maggots. You put too much salt in it again too.”
The woman sighed. “Go dae yer chores Elspeth.”
“But Mammy-”
“Go, be quick.”
“Mammy, Mhairi’s still not back.”
The woman turned, eyes sunken and reddened. “…She’ll be back later today.” It sounded to Elspeth like she was more attempting to convince herself.
“You said that yesterday. We should look for her.”
Her Mammy wiped her eyes, smudging the sludge of bread dough on her cheeks. “Just go dae yer chores.”
Elspeth scowled, making sure her wellies stomped loudly enough to be heard by her mother as she left.
—
The chickens bobbed their heads in appreciation as the seeds scattered on the dirt. Wee Mandy, the runt of the bunch tried to pick one up and missed, getting a beakful of mud.
“Stupid feckin’ birds,” Elspeth muttered, glancing around to see if she had been heard. She wasn’t supposed to say that word, nor any of the other ones Big Tom the Teenager down in the village had taught her and last time she had, Mammy had been ready to greet her with the wooden spoon.
This should’ve been Mhairi’s job.
Elspeth creeped over to the window, hands grasping on the ‘sill as she peeped in. Mammy seemed busy, from what she could gather from the fuzzy outlines she could see through the warped glass.
Good.
She felt the bars from the porridge drawer she’d snuck while she’d been sweeping the floors through the fabric of her skirt pocket.
Elspeth began to walk down the path, bouncing lightly to avoid the cracks in the cobblestone as she went.
If Mhairi was going to run off, she could take the blame when Elspeth brought her back.
—
Elspeth grabbed rope, the old lantern from the shed, along with a knife that really should’ve been in the kitchen. She looked towards the mountains ahead. As good a place to start as any, she supposed.
The path was worn, the heather parted from years of trampling feet and muddy from the rain last night. Elspeth bent down, grabbing a handful of the purple-and-white covered stems. She twisted them around her fingers, pulling off all the leaves and ferny stalks, leaving nought but the flowers behind. She took the knife, piercing a slit in the end to make a crown.
There was a gate separating their cottage from the mountains, and Elspeth climbed over it, tucking her skirt into her knickers to avoid it getting caught on the splintered wood. Her crown fell off, and she bent down to pick it up.
A linen cap lay on the ground, floral print visible through the mud and twill tape tie loose, as opposed to it’s usual neat bow. She bent down to pick it up, turning it so she could see the Mhairi embroidered in crooked letters upon the brim.
“Mhairi?” She called. “Yeh can stop hiding!”
Elspeth squinted around, left and right, up and down. Then she paused. The mouth of a cave stood out, high on the mountains, a black pupil amongst the stony eye of the rocks.
Elspeth jumped up and down on the spot, waving her arms and squealing. Caves were exciting, and surely if she had seen it, then Mhairi must’ve too.
Elspeth scrambled towards the foot of the mountain, not noticing the sleeve of her jumper being ripped by a neighbouring blackthorne bush, the reddish wool clinging to the thorns.
The rocks were uneven as she scrambled over them, and Elspeth winced as she felt a jagged one scrape against her shin. She saw the mouth of the cave looming over her. With a final heave, she hoisted herself to the entrance.
It was much bigger from up here, cragged and gaping, the highest point a head taller than her.
“Mhairi?” She called out. It echoed around the cave, twisting and whispering itself back to her. Elspeth giggled and listened to it reverberate around her.
Elspeth entered the cave.
—
The cave was damp, and darker than she expected. Elspeth fumbled with the box of matches, dropping two before finally being able to light the third, it bloomed, a shaking cone of flame that she quickly used to light the candle of the lantern. The flame of the match licked her fingers as it burnt down to the quick, causing her to drop it so she could suck on them. Elspeth let out a curse, looking around her out of habit. Oh right. No Mammy, she thought.
“Mhairi? Mammy’s looking for you! Yeh haven’t done your chores!” She called out, struggling to speak through her giggles. Maybe that would get her to come out. “Mammy’s got real mad!”
No answer.
“Eedjit,” Elspeth muttered.
The cave seemed to continue on for a while. Maybe Mhairi was further back, just waiting to spring out at her, to scare her.
The light from the lantern bounced off of the walls, casting jagged shadows that seemed to dance upon the rocks.
Elspeth carried onwards.
—
The cave ended at a drop, dark enough that even with her lantern she couldn’t see the bottom. Good thing she’d brought rope, then.
There was a spire of rock hanging horizontally over the opening and Elspeth tied the rope round it with enough knots that it formed its own mini-braid on its own. She tugged on it, grasping it in one small fist, the other still clutching onto the lantern.
The rope held steady as she clambered onto it, wellington-clad feet slipping as she tried to hoist them into place.
Elspeth slid down, down into the cave, watching as the light from the surface grew ever thinner, not seeing the rope slide slowly off of its spire.
—
Elspeth let out a screech as the rope gave way, tumbling down the hole, fingers scrambling to find a purchase on a wall somewhere. The ground came to meet her with a thud as she landed heavily, the lantern smashing on impact, the candle snuffed straight out.
She blinked rapidly at the sudden darkness, rubbing her head with one hand, still stinging from grazes.
There was more light down here than she’d expected, enough for her at least to see where she’d landed.
The cave was large and vaguely egg-shaped, the tunnel she’d fallen from being the tip. She squinted up. Somehow it was darker up there than it was down here. Even with the rope that now laid snaked around her feet, it would be difficult to climb. She gazed around the room.
A small tunnel lay against the wall, too cramped for her to walk through but big enough for her to crawl on hand and knee.
Picking up the fallen candle and shoving it in her pocket, she went over to investigate.
The tunnel seemed bright, almost warm compared to the cold dankness of the cave above. Well, she couldn’t exactly go back up, she thought, pushing the sleeves of her jumper over her elbows in preparation.
—
The tunnel rocks were smooth, and almost shiny, like many people had travelled this way before her, the oils and friction of their hands wearing down the previously jagged edges. Maybe Mhairi had fallen down here too.
“Mhairi?” She called out and in contrast to the earlier cave, the tunnel seemed to snatch it right out of her mouth, her call coming out small and muffled. Elspeth shivered.
The passage up ahead dropped, and Elspeth wriggled around to let herself go feet-first. Her skirt seemed to wrap around her, in a way that should’ve been blanket-like and comforting but instead only made the passage feel all the tighter. She gasped out a breath, and could almost feel the walls of the tunnel tighten around her.
She heaved herself down the incline, the rocks pulling at her hair, braids wanting to come undone.
The cave floor may have been smooth, but the walls were as jagged as ever.
—
The cramped tunnels made her think of vermin, squirming moles and rats, and rats always made her think of Mhairi.
She’d been a small child, and Mhairi had found a dead rat laying in the shed, putting it inside one of Elspeth’s boots. She remembered the feeling, of putting her unsocked foot in, feeling the fur with her toes, the glassy eyes staring up at her as she tipped it out, and the squealing laughter of her sister as she screamed.
Elspeth had gotten her back the next week by putting worms on her pillow as she’d slept, but she’d never been able to see a rat again without the panic taking over, her breath growing short and her hands shaking. Even now, years later, she checked her boots before she put them on.
Something seemed to move, shadow-like and quick-footed against the wall. Elspeth jumped, crying out in pain as a particularly jagged rock dug into her shoulder, parting the weave of her jumper.
The shadow was gone. Elspeth breathed in, trying to steel her nerves.
She could swear she could feel the cave breathing in time with her.
—
There were two paths ahead, left-and-up, right-and-down. Elspeth heaved herself into a cramped seat, shrimp-like.
She remembered a story Old Woman Moireach down in the village had told her, about a man in a maze who’d marked each path he took so he didn’t go in circles. Elspeth took out her knife, dragging it on the right path, the blade leaving a shaking white line on the stone. She drew another, making a cross. X marks the spot, she thought, snickering to herself.
She carried on upwards. This tunnel was narrower but higher and she walked at a sideways hunch. Another fork. Gotta keep it con-sis-tant, she thought, sounding out the long word several times as she took the right-hand path once more.
—
The tunnel was wider at this point and damp to the touch, strangely warm. Elspeth was reminded of a mouth, the caves opening up to eat her alive. It was lighter here as well, slivers of sunlight peeking through the occasional crack in the rocks, illuminating the top half of the tunnel while still leaving the floor in darkness. Her hand grazed the walls as her feet stumbled over the uneven ground. A rustling sound, shuffling and squeaking rushed by, the echoes of the cave making it difficult to tell what direction they were coming from.
The knife fell from her belt and Elspeth bent down to grab it, fingers brushing not smooth metal but something else, warm, wriggling and furry. Elspeth felt a strangled scream escape her throat, backing away to the opposite wall, only to be met with another small body wriggling against her calves.
The cave floor came into focus, glittering beads of eyes shining up at her, seeming to multiply whenever she tried to count. Wriggling worm tails and shining teeth as the rats approached, squirming to lay around her feet, crawling into her wellingtons, up the fabric of her skirt, the cacophony of squeaking shrieks only interrupted by her sobs.
Elspeth screwed up her eyes, kicking her feet wildly. The rats flew off and she heaved in a breath, deep and shuddering.
Elspeth opened her eyes.
She could still see the tunnel somewhat clearly, yet no rats were in sight, no sign of where they’d been.
She almost wondered if she’d imagined it.
The parts where their teeth had dug into her legs stung, throbbing in time with her pounding heart.
She felt for blood, finding not even indents.
Elspeth carried onwards.
—
There was a rockpool in the next clearing, the water dark and murky. Elspeth drank it anyways. It slid sluggishly down her throat, thick and gritty with dirt.
She took the right path once again, scratching out another X on the stone. The path went upwards, which seemed a good sign. The water had to come from somewhere, she figured.
—
The caves here smelt, the sweet, acidic smell snaking into her throat and making her cough.
She realised what it was.
She’d been 6, her and Mhairi chasing each other around the village fields. They’d found the dead body of a lamb, young, caught in barbed wire. Its flesh was swollen, oozing with pus and she could see in almost unnaturally sharp focus the insects crawling out of its torn belly.
The smell that hit her as she walked through the tunnels was that. The smell of rotting flesh, burning stomach acids.
—
She was beginning to tire, the X’s she’d been putting on the walls of the tunnels growing more and more crooked.
Just gotta find Mhairi, she thought. She’ll know the way out.
She turned a corner and found herself at a rockpool. A carved X stood smugly on the wall across from her. Elspeth felt something rather large and marble-like seem to stick in her throat. She turned back to look at the way she had come. One path back, two forward.
The stalactites on the tunnel back formed a smile. It seemed to grin at her.
She suddenly remembered the lantern, and how useful it would’ve been now had it not smashed.
She still had the candle.
And with fingers almost numb, Elspeth sparked the match, lighting up the cave with comforting warmth, the relief she felt cancelling out the pain from the cuts the embedded glass scraped into her hands.
The two tunnels ahead looked at her, all of a sudden more inviting than before.
There had been many forks in the path of the right one and she thought to not explore them would be foolish.
She plugged her nose, pinching her nostrils with the other hand to ward off the oncoming smell of rot.
Elspeth went through the right one again, emboldened with hope. The cave seemed to welcome her with open arms.
—
There was moss growing on the wall of this tunnel, green, fuzzy and damp to the touch, the verdant smell almost masking the stench of the tunnels. Elspeth found herself thinking of Mhairi once more, and the way she’d pick up the dead brown balls of moss and try to convince Elspeth they were baby hedgehogs, laughing when she’d build them shelters and try to feed them bits of old leaf.
“Mhairi,” Elspeth called out. “This isn’t funny anymore, please, just answer!”
The caves were silent as ever, the echo of her voice the only sound
“Hey, Mhairi?” she said, voice petering out. “…I miss you”
The echoes through the tunnel sound suspiciously like laughter.
—
It was beginning to get dark in the caves. How long had she been in here? She was beginning to get thirsty again. She should have brought a waterskin with her.
Elspeth sat down heavily the next time she came across the rockpool. She hadn’t seen slivers of light for a while now, having to feel her way along the walls with trembling fingers on trembling legs.
She suddenly remembered the porridge bars in her pocket and realising the growing chasm in her stomach, shoved them in her mouth with little abandon. The dryness coated her mouth, thick on her tongue.
Elspeth drank from the pool, the thick murky water only half helping to flush the porridge bars down her throat. She could see her reflection in the pool, distorted and quivering.
Her eyes glittered darkly, pupils so wide she could barely see the whites. Her face looked longer, her hair wilder, undone and almost seeming to cover her face.
The room seemed to spin, seeming bigger as her skin itched and prickled like she’d fallen into a patch of nettles.
She raised a hand and it was scaled and clawed as it felt the whiskers on her face, her twitching nose. She cried out and it escaped squeaking and shrill.
The porridge bars came up thick and heavy as she coughed against the ground, having leapt away from the pool. She opened her eyes, gummy with tears.
Her hands were smooth once more, her nails their bitten stumps. She hesitantly looked over at the rockpool to see her normal face, pale and teary, nose dripping. She wiped it on her jumper.
She brought her hands once more to the rockpool, shaking, the water slipping through her fingers.
The taste of bile was strong on her tongue. She looked at the water cupped in her hands. She let go of it and it splattered back into its home.
Elspeth stood on weary legs.
The left passage extended downwards and Elspeth shivered at the sight of it.
As she went through the right passage the X carved on the wall seemed to glare at her.
“X marks the spot,” she muttered, trying to bolster herself.
The silence of the caves seemed angry, the sound of her footsteps seeming wrong in their loudness.
—
Left-turn, right-turn,
Rockpool.
Right-tunnel, right-turn,
Rockpool.
—
Left turn, right turn.
The floor crunched beneath her feet.
Her foot went through, something squelching. Elspeth looked down.
Eyes, white and glassy stared up at her, embedded in skeletal cheeks, almost accusatory. Rags draped over an emaciated figure, the ribcage of which her foot was currently nestled in, bones digging into her ankles like teeth.
Shaking, she yanked her foot out, casting her eyes around the tunnel. Bones, old ones, new ones, ones still attached to their owners.
She looked around, frantically staring at each one, squinting for familiarity and sighing with relief when she found none.
None of them were Mhairi.
The boy beneath her, the freshest of the bunch, seemed to grin, teeth yellow and stained with bile.
As Elspeth ran past him on shaking legs she swore she could see his eyes swivel to follow.
—
She turned a corner.
There was the rockpool. She didn’t drink from it, her throat begging for the water.
Elspeth looked into the rockpool.
The reflection blinked and its eyes seemed greener than usual, hazel washing away into moss as its face continued to distort, hair turning from twin braids to a neat bun, colour turning ever-so-darker.
“Mhairi?”
The reflection smiled at her hungrily showing blood-stained teeth before melting back into familiarity.
—
She was tired, bruised and bloody.
Elspeth tried to call out for her sister, the words getting caught in her crusted-up throat. She stepped forwards on matchstick legs, brittle-feeling and stiff.
—
Two passages glared at her, eyes on the rock face.
The right passage moved upwards, always upwards and yet she always seemed to end back at the rockpool.
Elspeth took the left path.
—
There was a dark figure against the wall, slumped over.
—
The woman makes bread, dough slapping against the countertop in time with her distracted humming.
She calls out for her child. No answer.
Footsteps lay in the mud beyond the cobblestone path
The woman calls out. No answer.
Wool, from a sweater, knitted last summer and finished I. Time for the winter. A cap, painstakingly crafted by young fingers.
There is a cave on the mountain.
It seems to beckon.
I left Marchmont farm when I was sixteen, thinking I would never, ever, be back.
But eleven years later there I was again. I had fallen asleep in the passenger seat while my boyfriend Mikey was driving. I worked with Mikey’s aunt Pearl in the care home, and when she heard I had no family she would invite me over for lunch or afternoon tea. After I met her husband Jim, he became such a fan of me that he had insisted Mikey came to his sixtieth birthday party to meet me and told the home I was not to be scheduled all weekend so that I had no excuses. Mikey was sweet and had been working as a sheep shearer in New Zealand before coming back to Scotland a week before Jim’s party. He never left again.
We lived in a cottage on his uncle’s sheep farm where Mikey worked. Some weekends we would take long car rides to different towns to follow the British Superbikes Championship. Mikey was a huge fan of racing but an accident that cost his father his legs scared him off riding or racing again.
Mikey told me he had seen an advert in the paper for a car so asked if I wanted to come with him to view it. It was lambing season and we had spent the night before elbow deep in blood and tissue. Exhausting and emotional work made worse by the heat: that weekend had been baking hot, the kind of weather that makes every move tiresome. I said I would come so long as I didn’t have to drive. I just liked to be in his company. Still, I was exhausted, and the sticky, damp spring air was bubbling with the heat. I think I fell asleep as soon as we left our drive.
Waking up when the car stopped was more than just a little disorientating. I was somewhere more familiar than I had expected, back on Marchmont farm where I grew up. My skin started to itch. The sun was so strong, stinging my eyes. The house looked the same, as if frozen in time, with the same curtains hanging limply in the windows, the same eerie stillness in the air. There was one single track dirt road to the south, along which a group of rubblestone sheds sat haphazardly. I always remembered them as threatening to fall down but clearly they hadn’t yet. The yard sat in a valley, and in each direction there were hills with endless fields of livestock and crops, but no other houses to be seen, just trees and cows.
Mikey, unperturbed, got out of the car and slammed the door. He sauntered over to the front door of the house and tried the silent doorbell.
I rolled down the car window. “Mikey, there’s no one there,” I hadn’t thought about this place for so long, and when I did it felt like it was maybe a fever dream. I hadn’t told anyone what happened here in such a long time, not even Mikey. The air was so wet and hot I felt like a frog, boiled alive and helpless.
“Should be, I called the number in the paper, woman said she would be here. Marchmont Mill?”
“No Mikey,” I felt sickness rising in my stomach. “You’ve got the wrong address,” My chest was tight and my palms sweaty.
Mikey didn’t look at me as he said, “I’ll just try the sheds,” his eyes too firmly on the prize. “Oocha bugger, ats a beauty! Martha this’ll be right up your street, a wee Golf. Though I can’t see the Merc I was looking for,” he said from the door of the shed.
Snot started to bubble in my nose as my eyes welled up. I couldn’t breathe, my mouth gasping. I reached for the door handle and pulled, which took a lot more effort than usual. The door half open, I unbuckled my seatbelt, which released some of the pressure on the chest but not all of it. I don’t know what was happening, but my legs felt detached, and I had to think hard to move them. Feet on the ground I tried to stand but my legs gave way. I fell forwards, hitting my head on the top of the door frame, then recoiling backwards. I slid down the frame of the open car door, scraping my spine along the grooves in the metal and landing in the dust.
As I was lying on the floor of the yard, trying to steady my breath and gather my thoughts amongst the pain, I could hear something scuffling in the dust, moving towards me. “Michael?” I whimpered but it wasn’t Mikey, it was just a little rabbit, who snuffled at my feet before scampering off in another direction. I didn’t know what I expected: I knew the house was empty, I was the last one to leave.
I lay on the ground panting like a dog, clutching my chest, and closed my eyes. I counted one elephant, two elephants, three elephants, as I tried to breathe through my mouth.
Laying still on the ground and counting the elephants I began to regain control of my breathing and heartbeat. The heat was still prickling my skin, and I thought that maybe if I was lucky it would split from my body and peel off like dry PVA glue, leaving me behind dead and still. As the panic subsided, Mikey returned, confused that I wasn’t in my seat. When he walked round and found me he dropped to his knees and pawed uselessly at my arm.
“Martha, what’s happened? Do I need to call an ambulance?”
With my head cradled in his lap I said, “No Mikey, I just need to tell you about this place.”
Can you only chew with one side of your mouth? Or not chew at all? Does iced tea send an ice pick of agony through your sensitive roots? Does blood drip from your canines every time you floss? Every time you slice a salami sliver of puss-pocked meat from your bloated gums? Can you hear a mad giggling echoing from the holes in your molars? Did, by any chance, your local vampire coven make the terrible mistake of turning a baby into an immortal creature of the night? A baby that proceeded to lose its first milk fang? A fang that was placed under a pillow? A fang that was swapped out for a fiver and a smiley-face sticker? A fang that a certain fairy gleefully pushed into the soft flesh of her own throat, thus attaining eternal life and an insatiable hunger? Is this fairy taking up rent-free residence in your mouth now, not as a bloodsucker but a devourer of teeth, undead and parasitic and safe from the sun as it noshes on your pearly whites till your nerves are bare? Does literally everything I’ve just said apply directly to your lived experience?
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Jeremy had been off work for better part of a week and he was not dealing with it well. There were three very prominent reasons for his frustration. Firstly, Jeremy was the Office Manager for a very prominent and award winning recruitment consultancy and he knew that the shower of random slackers that he constantly had to keep organised, would be relishing the opportunity to let things slide without his careful hand at the tiller. Secondly, this was ruining his near spotless sickness record, which would then undermine his ability to admonish the workshy skivers at the office, predictably falling ill on a Monday morning or whenever they felt that they simply couldn’t cope with turning up and doing a decent day’s work. Thirdly, of course, was the illness itself. Jeremy prided himself on living a healthy lifestyle – 5 fruit or veg a day, regular brisk walks in the fresh air, vitamins and supplements – his body was a temple.
As such, when this bug hit him, it took him by surprise and irritated him both due to his own newfound weakness, and also due to these rarely experienced symptoms. One minute feverish and sweating, the next shivering uncontrollably. Aching all over, nausea, dizziness…and the coughing. Without a shadow of a doubt, the worst was the cough. A deep persistent itch within the recesses of his chest that led to harsh convulsive coughing fits. Jeremy would lay as still as he could in his bed, breathing raspy shallow breaths, trying to do everything he could not to trigger the scratchy little sensation in his lungs. Trying not to give in to his body’s urge to throw his battered frame forward and hack out little grey wet gooey lumps, until he could feel his lungs almost bruising his back, and his throat scratched and hoarse.
“Are you alright dear?”
“Do I look like I’m alright?” Jeremy croaked back, as loudly and brashly as he dared, without triggering the accursed itch and bringing on another eruption of coughing and pain. It was 5.30 in the morning and Sarah, his wife, was getting ready to head out to work, when Jeremy had awoken with the 7th coughing fit that night. She popped her jewellery box back on her dressing table and finished getting dressed, choosing to ignore the muttering insults emanating from her stricken husband.
“OK, that’s me off then. There’s tomato soup in the cupboard if you can manage it, and I’ve put a bottle of Lucozade on your bedside table if you want any. Try to get some rest, and don’t forget to let your work know that you aren’t going in”
“Yes, yes, I know, I know…”
Jeremy squinted in the darkness at the brightness of his smartphone, constructing an informative but not overly sharing text message to his boss, while he listened to his wife head downstairs, gather her coat and bag, and head out to her job as an admin assistant at a local care agency. As the front door slammed shut, Jeremy was pleased to be alone again. If there was anything he hated more than his body failing him, it was having someone else witness his weakness and seeing him huddled over in the foetal position, sweating and shaking and retching and more.
Also, Sarah irritated him at the best of times, so when he was already at the end of his tether with the constant annoyance of the itch and all, it was better that she wasn’t around to make things worse. Thank god she’d taken up that little job of hers. They didn’t really need the money from it, but she was starting to go a bit stir crazy rattling around in the house all day, so at least this gave her something to do rather than pestering him about this and that, and gave her a little bit of spending money for whatever-it-is-women-waste-all-their-money-on. Having to haul his aching frame down to the kitchen to fix himself some soup was a small price to pay for a bit of peace and quiet and a bearable marriage.
Peace and quiet was definitely all he desired since falling ill. The coughing fits were so strong and so regular he could barely think anymore, due to lack of sleep. He seemed to spend every moment trying to find a comfortable position he could sit or lay in, so that he might not bring on the itch, and therefore snatch some more precious rest. He was asleep when Sarah returned from work, and she sat downstairs, watching television on a low volume, not wanting to disturb him. Quarter of an hour later, when he awoke with the now familiar barking, hacking and cursing, she prepared them both a simple supper of boiled chicken and potatoes (“You’ve got to keep your strength up”). They then both watched television in separate rooms, Jeremy trying to occupy his mind so he might drift off, and Sarah enjoying control of the living room telly for once. Then, when the hour grew late, Sarah joined her husband in bed, the lights went out, and the house fell silent.
One hour later, Jeremy sprang bolt upright in bed. He felt the itch in his chest, but it was stronger than ever now. His throat and back were so sore, he was trying his hardest to fight the cough back. Resist. Mind over matter. But…this felt different. The itch. The scratchy convulsions in his lungs. It felt like it had a mind of its own. With a wet splutter, Jeremy could hold the coughing back no longer. He barked and retched into his hands, feeling the little wet globs splat slimily onto his palms. Then, something more. Almost like something stuck in his throat. He could almost feel the bile rising up, like a wave trying to flush out something. Maybe this is it, he thought in the back of his mind. Maybe this is why I’ve been coughing so very much. My body needs to get this out of me. Once this big glob of phlegm and germs are out of me, the worst will be over and I can get back to normal. He gave in to the coughing, almost pushing it forward, ignoring the pain he was in. He could feel whatever it was tickling his throat, and with one almighty cough, it was out and in his cupped hand. Spluttering, he turned on his deskside lamp, and there in his hand, wet and still twitching, was a spider. A relatively small, spit covered, house spider.
“Sarah? Take a look at…” he said, but when he turned to look at his wife, he looked up to see her bringing her jewellery box down hard onto his skull, Jeremy’s world turned to darkness.
When Jeremy woke up, the first thing he felt was the throbbing pain on his forehead where his wife had struck him. As he started to move his head, he realised he must have been bleeding at his head as it was ever so slightly stuck to his pillow. Next, he realised that his mouth was taped closed with thick duct tape and it was at this point Jeremy realised both his hands and his feet had been handcuffed to the bed, restraining him. He looked around the room, and spotted a note stuck to the mirror of his wife’s dressing table, using the same tape that was covering his mouth.
Jeremy,
I finally let you breathe in the Queen and her egg sac last night.
Glad to be able to give you the babies you would never give me.
Jeremy looked down in horror at the remains of the now broken jewellery box that was abandoned on the sheets of his bed. He could see inside the cracked wooden case, and it was filled with webs and filth and spilling out of it were countless tiny scuttling spiders. As he focussed, he could see all the tiny dots, all over the covers, for what they truly were. Hundreds of little arachnids. Everywhere. As he lay there, feeling these tiny invaders crawling across his skin, he could feel something else. Building. Growing deep inside his chest. The itch.
“And so …that concludes…my exploratory, er, talk about witches, their trials and, ah, their spatial distribution, with reference to, ah, coastal regions here in, um, Scotland.”
There was markedly less applause at this point, in contrast to when the speaker had stepped up to the lectern.
“Thank you, Dr Kirsty Temple-Laing. And that leaves us with some time for questions, ladies and gentlemen.”
The facilitator shaded his eyes to scan the rows in the university lecture hall. He always had high hopes for these public talks, that they would attract people with good quality questions, but now, in the face of so little applause, he was grateful for any questions, no matter how pedestrian, opaque, or long-winded.
A young woman with short hair and many piercings took several minutes to ask about connections with the Wiccan faith, but this only led to Dr Temple-Laing’s mumbled apology that Wicca was “not within her purview”. An uncomfortable silence followed and people started to rummage for their bags and coats.
“I would ask the good doctor…” A deep voice boomed from somewhere near the centre of the theatre.
The facilitator was peeved that the man hadn’t raised his hand for permission, but at least it was another question, another member of the public engaging with the event, another tick in the involvement box.
“….why, in reading her speech, she had said cited the town of Keith when she meant Leith and not corrected the error?”
Dr Temple-Laing was taken aback and hesitated.
“Why,” continued the questioner, “she described the international plot against King James the First and Sixth as hinging on Norway, when it was Denmark? Why she scorned the possibility that a witch could transform into a beetle? Why she—”
“Excuse me, sir!” The facilitator, a small man with a keen sense of his own importance, was now flapping his folder of feedback forms in what he imagined was an authoritative manner. “This is not the sort of thing we’re here for tonight. Thank you, but we’ll hear from another member of the audience now.”
No one put up a hand. Some people were giggling. Dr Temple-Laing wished she were home with a cup of tea, a bar of chocolate and her cats, Ginger and Fluff.
“Well…,” boomed the voice. “If there are no other pressing inquiries for the good doctor…”
The way he hissed “pressing” not only made Dr Temple-Laing feel queasy, but also prompted ripples of recognition in the auditorium. They had only just heard her describe a case where, unusually for Scotland, a woman accused of witchcraft had been covered with a door and stones gradually piled on it to press her for confession, just like in Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible”, before a coach and horses was driven over the door for good measure, not like “The Crucible”. Some people in the audience felt the equine flourish would have been an excellent addition to the American classic.
“… then I would like to know more about her critical comments concerning the Devil in 1589 not accompanying witches on enchanted boats when they went off to wreak stormy havoc against Anne of Denmark’s attempt to sail here to marry foul King James.”
Dr Temple-Laing’s pasty complexion had acquired mottled patches. “I, that is, em, it is simply a case,” she faltered, “of recounting what was recorded at the trials. Time and again, Satan is described as …”
“As being everywhere, yes, yes, yet you sneered at his repeated absence when, as you elegantly phrased it, ‘things all kicked off’.”
“But he did stay behind!” she squeaked.
“Wench! Have you never heard of empowerment?” This thunderous attack elicited loud applause and laughter in the audience.
“Now, look here!” The facilitator had moved in front of Dr Temple-Laing – as a human shield he barely protected beyond her rib cage – pointing his folder accusingly and sweeping his eyes across the rows to bring this defiance of public lecture etiquette to order. “I will have to call security if this doesn’t stop right now. It’s most disrespectful!”
Silence followed and since the entertainment seemed to be over, students on the front row began to make for the exit.
“Not yet,” hissed the deep voice and bolts in all the auditorium doors shot into place. The room became hot and the air acrid. Some people whimpered and others were trying and failing to take photographs and recordings and put messages onto social media.
“You were right, wench, in saying Satan is everywhere but very foolish not to heed your own words… Kirsssty. I. Am. Everywhere.”
That was when the screaming started. Yet no one seemed able to move from their seats. Kirsty and the facilitator were locked in a craven half-crouch beside the lectern.
The hall filled with a pulsing absence of light.
“I attend all these talks and covens. I come to hear praise, to encourage disciples and enjoy the old days. But you took money from these people, my admirers – that is a solemn pact, Kirsty! – a pact to provide sound information in an interesting style. You read in a monotone – unforgivable – and didn’t even provide a PowerPoint!”
The air quaked with his fury and all eyes were drawn in gut-curdling trepidation towards the roaring blackness.
“Kirsty Temple-Laing – on bodies of water by all coastal regions be ye cursed! And beware, oh beware, my devout familiars, Ginger and Fluff!”
Barbara stood and stared in wonder at the mansion house before her. It was a tall, white building, resplendent and gleaming, and it was her and her sister’s new home.
Barbara and Alice’s father, George Pitcairn, had died some months before, and their mother had been struggling in the wake of this tragedy. She’d been left with no choice but to send her daughters to live with a distant relative, a wealthy laird named Thomas Gifford, and this enormous dwelling and the land surrounding it belonged to him and his wife, Elizabeth, known as Lady Busta. The couple had seen their fair share of loss throughout their marriage, having lost six of their fourteen children to smallpox some years prior, and the Giffords would be glad to have two more daughters to add to their household. As beguiled as she was by the sight before her, Barbara found herself having an odd feeling about Busta House and she silently questioned whether or not she could ever feel at home in such a place as this.
Kirsten looked out of the front passenger window as the car pulled into Brae and the sight of Busta House, as well as the smaller homes surrounding it, came into view. Even from the other side of Busta Voe, the huge white mansion was a grand and splendid sight, one she’d always been able to see from the house she grew up in, and while she’d taken it for granted during her childhood she found seeing it again now she no longer lived in Brae provided some comfort. She had of course visited the building plenty of times throughout her life, having had many splendid meals in the restaurant, and a couple of years before she and James had been married in the Long Room there, as well as spending their wedding night in a four poster room. This time, though, was different.
Kirsten peered up into the rear view mirror and smiled at the sight of their baby daughter, Charlotte, sleeping peacefully in her car seat. She always seemed to sleep best in the car, as if the motion of the vehicle lulled her somehow. James, meanwhile, continued to drive towards their destination without saying a word or taking his eyes away from the road lying ahead of him.
A few months earlier, Kirsten’s mother had entered a charity raffle that one of her friends was running. One of the star prizes had been a voucher that entitled the holder to a night’s stay in Busta House including breakfast, and she had ended up winning this – but had decided to give it to Kirsten and James because she felt they deserved it more. The idea was that they could have a night away from home to themselves and that the baby would get to stay with James’ parents, but earlier in the week, James’ mother had started with a vomiting bug, and Kirsten’s parents were away visiting her younger sister at university. When they realised rebooking would mean a far longer wait, Kirsten declared that they would just take the baby along with the carry cot. James had agreed, but reluctantly, and he didn’t even try to hide the fact that his enthusiasm for their night away had waned significantly.
In no time, the junction leading to Busta came up on the left side of the road, and James turned the car in. As the road merged into a single track, Busta House appeared before them, large and resplendent and even grander close up.
They reached the car park and parked as closely as possible to the huge stone steps that led them down to the main entrance. James carried the suitcase and the travel cot while Kirsten carried the car seat with their still sleeping daughter inside as well as the bag with all her essentials in it. Kirsten still sensed tension with her husband, but she said nothing more.
Barbara looked forward to her interludes with John Gifford, forbidden as they were.
Lady Busta had taken an early dislike to Barbara, for reasons unknown to anyone other than herself, and as such Barbara’s life at Busta House was one of cold charity, where she was mostly forced to spend time in the company of the maids. On arrival she had also been warned that the four surviving Gifford sons – John, the eldest and the heir to the estate, and his three younger brothers, Robert, William and Hay – were all renowned for being quite boisterous, unrestrained young men, but very early on Barbara had managed to catch John’s eye. Barbara had initially tried to resist John’s advances, but eventually she gave into her own feelings. This was received badly by Lady Busta, for when a friend of hers observed John’s attention towards Barbara and pointed it out she had responded that she ‘would rather see John lying dead at my feet than married to Barbara Pitcairn’. Instead it was her intention that John should wed one of the daughters of Gardie House in Bressay. But John only had eyes for Barbara, and was more than willing to defy his mother in order to have her. During another of these clandestine trysts, John proposed.
“You know I cannot,” she replied sadly. “I would dearly love to, but we both know your mother would never allow it.”
“Who says she has to know?” he said confidently. “We can wed in secret.”
“She would manage to find out somehow,” Barbara said. “She is clever like that. She will find out and then you and I will never know peace for as long as she lives.”
“She will not find out until long after the fact, and by then it shall be too late for her to do anything.”
“Could she not have you disinherited? You could lose the lairdship because of me.”
John shook his head. “My father would never hear of it,” he assured her. “It can be our secret, until the time is right to reveal it.”
“But we will need witnesses, and a reverend.”
“I will ask Reverend John Fisken when I see him next. As for witnesses, my brothers would easily do that for us – they will not tell Mother. It would all be entirely legal, and when we tell her about it, she will be unable to do anything, I promise you.”
Reassured by these words, Barbara Pitcairn agreed to marry John Gifford, and they shared a kiss to celebrate.
The room Kirsten and James were booked to stay in was a double, somewhat less fancy than the four poster suite they’d had on their wedding night, but still perfectly lovely. They’d brought the travel cot for their baby to sleep in, and they’d booked a table for the restaurant for that night. Kirsten was looking forward to the meal, but she was also acutely aware that they would have to bring the baby with them, and she was dreading how that would go.
“We sood o postponed,” James said. It was the first time he’d spoken to her since they’d set off on the drive to Brae.
“Nah,” Kirsten disagreed. “Hit widda been a godless faff tae reschedule. De midder couldna help bein poorly, an my fokk bein awa aside me sister eanoo…hit kin be a fine peerie family brakk fir wis, mebbe da foremist o mony!”
She cracked a smile as she said this, but James only shrugged. He wasn’t even pretending to be fine with the arrangement. She couldn’t help feeling annoyed. Yes, it would be fine to get away just the two of them some time, but on this occasion it just wasn’t to be.
The pair of them sat in silence, looking around the room, when James spotted the bit of plaster framed in glass on the wall. There was a signature scratched clumsily but clearly into it. He studied it closely for a brief moment, before asking, “Wha does du suppose Gideon Gifford wis?”
Kirsten looked at him. “Does du no keen yun story?”
James shook his head. “I keen aboot da gawst at’s meant tae haunt dis plaess, but nae mair as yun. Is dis Gideon onythin tae dö wi it?”
Kirsten told him the story of the Busta House ghost, and who Gideon was, and how he connected to the whole thing.
“Me midder ösed tae wirk here whan I wis peerie,” she added, “an a couple o da fokk at shö wirkit wi reckoned at dey wir encoontered da gawst. Een o da idder hoosekeepers said at shö cam intae da laundry room ee time tae fin a pile o sheets faalded up in an auld fashioned wye eftir dey wir been washed, an anidder at said he wis seen her idda restaurant sat at een o da tables…”
“Du doesna really believe aa yun, does du?” James smirked. It was the first smile he’d cracked all day, and Kirsten wished he hadn’t.
“Weel, yeah,” she said indignantly. “Whit wye wid I no?”
“Hit’s aa juist folklore,” James insisted. “Gawsts irna real.”
“Weel, du nivver keens,” Kirsten said, “mebbe we’ll get a veesit fae her da nicht.”
“Mebbe shö kin come an waatch Peerie Breeks fir wis so we kin hae a nicht o paess,” James joked.
As if on cue, the baby woke from her lengthy nap and started making noise. Kirsten lifted her out of the car seat and started preparing to feed her.
“I hoop shö sleeps through wir tae time,” she said as the infant latched onto her nipple.
“Shö’ll nivver sleep da nicht den,” James responded.
“I widda thocht du widda been wint wi yun be noo,” Kirsten retorted.
James didn’t reply – instead he got on with setting up the travel cot, and the only sound was of the baby suckling away on Kirsten’s breast.
Things had been going so well for Barbara – and then it all came crashing down around her.
After they had made the necessary arrangements, Barbara Pitcairn and John Gifford had wed secretly in December the previous year. The ceremony was conducted by the Reverend John Fisken, and the groom’s two youngest brothers, William and Hay Gifford, had acted as witnesses – they were fond of Barbara and were more than happy to keep her and John’s union a secret from their mother. At first, Barbara had gotten a thrill from being secretly married – then she realised that she was with child, and it all changed. John was elated with this news, convinced that Barbara was carrying the first of many sons the two would have, but Barbara had her reservations.
“Your mother will be so angry with us,” she fretted. “I dread her fury.”
“I promise you, Baabie,” John insisted to her, “there is nothing she can do to harm you now – after all, you are my wife, and the mother of the future heir to this estate.”
Barbara was somewhat assuaged by this, but it wasn’t to last. The same night that she told John her news, he and his brothers all went across to Wethersta for a party, along with John Fisken and a boatman. Barbara had sometimes joined them at these gatherings, but on this occasion she chose not to, being in the family way. After a night of revelry and celebration, the six men had set out on the return trip across Busta Voe with their boatman – but by the following morning they had not returned.
After a lengthy wait, Thomas Gifford had a search party sent out to dredge Busta Voe. They found the boat still upright, but empty apart from John’s hat and stick. Shortly thereafter, their drag hooks caught a body – that of John Gifford. They brought him back to shore, where his mother saw her fated words come true, and her son now lay dead at her feet.
When Barbara reached the harbour and saw John’s lifeless body lying there, she couldn’t help but throw herself over him, sobbing. Lady Busta did not take kindly to this and ordered her away, but Barbara had decided that now was the time to reveal all. With that, she produced the marriage certificate from her pocket and told Lady Busta everything.
If Barbara thought there was any possibility at this news bringing Lady Busta any comfort, she was to be greatly mistaken. Lady Busta was incandescent with rage at the betrayal, and since the officiant and witnesses now also lay dead at the bottom of the voe, Barbara effectively had no one to vouch for her.
“John would never marry you,” Lady Busta fumed. “He knew our views on that. He knew we planned for him to wed Jane Henderson of Gardie. He would never have defied us.”
“He didn’t love Jane Henderson,” Barbara shouted through her tears. “He loved me, and he only wanted me. Everything had to be done in secret because of you. He was going to tell you now that we’re in the family way…”
Lady Busta struck Barbara’s cheek hard, almost knocking her to the ground.
“You threw yourself at my son, you little whore,” she raged. “You tricked him with your wiles. Your marriage was a sham, and your baby is a bastard.”
“You have no heirs left.” Barbara was defiant through her sobs. “Our child is your only hope for the estate.”
Lady Busta paused. However she felt about this secret marriage, and John’s betrayal of her, she knew deep down that Barbara was right. She looked down at the weeping girl before her and leaned into her face.
“You had better hope,” she hissed, “that the bastard child you are carrying inside of you is a boy, for if it is a girl, you are no longer welcome in our house.”
With that, she snatched the marriage certificate from Barbara’s hand, turned on her heel, and strode away.
James and Kirsten ate in the hotel that night, with their daughter continuing to snooze at their feet in her car seat. James seemed to be gradually getting over his bad mood, and he was even managing to crack a smile at the folk who came by to coo over the baby and ask them all the usual questions about her. Kirsten fielded these questions too, but she wished folk would leave them in peace to eat their dinner.
Later that evening, they set the baby down in her travel cot before turning in themselves. They both managed to fall asleep quicker than they had done in a while. After a couple of hours, Kirsten suddenly awoke, hearing the baby stir, and expecting that she’d need to prepare for another night feed shortly. She sat up and was about to turn on the light when she realised she could see a figure standing over the travel cot.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Kirsten realised she could see a young woman, dark haired and wearing a white dress, peering into where her daughter was sleeping. The little one had just woken up, and Kirsten could hear her making funny little noises, not her usual crying when she needed a feed, but more like amusement. Kirsten felt James stir next to her. He too sat up, and Kirsten could make out that he was sat stock still, staring at the stranger gazing into her daughter’s cot and making her laugh.
Finally, Kirsten spoke. “Barbara?”
Startled, the dark haired stranger looked up and then promptly vanished. Kirsten switched on the lamp by her bed, stared briefly at the cot, then looked at James.
“Did du see yun?” she gasped.
“Du’s bloddy richt I saa yun!” he exclaimed.
“So much fir de sayin gawsts irna real!” she laughed, before sliding out of bed and going to the cot. The baby was still wide awake and making little gurgling noises, a crooked, gummy smile on her face, although whether this was wind or genuine contentment Kirsten couldn’t tell. She leaned down and lifted the baby up and out of the cot, brought her back to the bed, and began to feed her. James watched her as she did all this, still in a state of shock and wonder.
“Whit wye wis shö sae taen wi Peerie Breeks, tinks du?” he finally asked.
Kirsten shrugged, not taking her eyes off the feeding baby. “Mebbe shö thocht wir lass wis her boy,” she suggested. “I dinna suppose at a gawst keens ony idder.”
James smiled at this, and then he looked up at the signed plaster encased in glass on the wall with the signature etched into it. Gideon Gifford of Busta. Of course.
“Hear yun, Charlotte?” he said cheekily, peering around at the baby still guzzling from her mother’s breast. “Barbara Pitcairn towt du wis her Gideon. Da laird o Busta Hoose! Kin du imagine?”
Kirsten giggled, and James shuffled up next to her, put his arm around her shoulder, and kissed her cheek. The baby stopped feeding, and Kirsten cleaned her up.
“Dis’ll be a story fir wis tae tell,” James went on. “A veesit fae a gawst! Bringin her alang wi wis turned oot ower weel eftir aa.”
“We’ll mebbe keep her in aside wis noo, though,” Kirsten suggested, getting back under the covers with the baby still in her arms. “No at Barbara wis doin ony herm, but I doot yun’s been anoff excitement fir wan nicht.”
James agreed, and Kirsten lay a now sleeping Charlotte between them and then settled down herself. James took one last look at Gideon Gifford’s signature on the wall, smiled, turned off the lamp, and then cosied up to his wife and daughter for the night.
Barbara looked back at the huge white mansion as the coach pulled away, and she wept bitterly. That house was full of bittersweet memories for her these days, but it also now contained the most precious thing in her life, lost to her forever.
The child she bore had indeed been a boy – her and John’s son, Gideon, the new heir to the Busta estate. Thomas and Elizabeth Gifford had taken him under their wing intending to raise him as a gentleman, but they never forgave Barbara, or acknowledged her as a daughter-in-law. Finally, Lady Busta decided she’d had enough after one quarrel too many, and she sent Barbara packing, deciding her presence in her own son’s life was disruptive and no longer required. Gideon was only six, and when he realised his mother was being sent away he had come running after her, sobbing, begging her to stay with him. She had reassured him that she would see him again, and that she would always love him, and as that house got further and further away from him she resolved that nothing in this world would stop her from reuniting with her son.
Pumpkin Carving
Emily Gevers
Carve me like a pumpkin
From breastbone to vertebrae
Get all the guts out
Scrape the flesh off my bones
Throw it all in a pot
And leave me to simmer on the hob
Throw the seeds out to the ravens
And pray for good harvest
Next year
With your sharpest knife
Sculpt me a face
to scare all the children away
And when you’re done
Place me on your porch, real gentle
And light me up
Memento Mori / I Remember You Will Die
Molly Maclachlan
aren’t her bones just beautiful? and her heart?
I think I’d like to dig her up after time and keep her with me.
found another pile of bones in the same spot as I did last year
practically clean, just a small amount of tissue and dirt.
there was a mummified head under the porch with no body.
I got a big box of damaged skulls from someone local
obtained ethically and given lots of TLC. I still cannot
get the muscle to rot off. If you wanted to clean bones quickly
peroxide for sure. you have to cut the meat off but it doesn’t smell.
my freezer is packed. I will be keeping some of the hides and skulls
but have a lot of other bones and guts that I don’t really need.
if no one wants them I will grind them up for use in the garden.
-a found poem made up of comments from a taxidermy forum
aren’t her bones just beautiful? and her heart?
I think I’d like to dig her up after time and keep her
with me.
found another pile of bones in the same spot as I did
last year
practically clean, just a small amount of tissue and dirt.
there was a mummified head under the porch with no
body.
I got a big box of damaged skulls from someone local
obtained ethically and given lots of TLC. I still cannot
get the muscle to rot off. If you wanted to clean bones
quickly
peroxide for sure. you have to cut the meat off but it
doesn’t smell.
my freezer is packed. I will be keeping some of the
hides and skulls
but have a lot of other bones and guts that I don’t
really need.
if no one wants them I will grind them up for use in the
garden.
-a found poem made up of comments from a
taxidermy forum
At Halloween. The sweat sang soft silky lullaby’s to my raw nerves. A Clackson like sound from the courtyard, low and moaning, like some dying, terrible beast trying to claw it way up the riverbank. Broken bones, broken heart.
The torrential rain had stopped. The spate, full flood, fixed fast, frothing, foaming, fierce, frantic, filling the trough of the small steam. Pulling at the banks trying to enfold them in its jaws.
The chanting had started again. The hairs in the back of my neck pricked up, like a small pack of hyenas, hunting an injured lion. Fear entangled with the stench of perspiration and gore.
They were here by the gate, in the dank moonlight. Which spread like the couloir of a corpse, bobbing listlessly, in a stinking marsh pool at midnight. Hooded and bedecked in ceremonial robes like a 14th century Vatican Kul Klux clan outing from the slaughterhouse. Robes pristine white with a hint of rosary blood, communion plasma and burning crosses. Fear turned in on fear, covered in fear, by fear itself, stepped in undying fear, for fears sake.
The chanting rose rhythmically, Alister Crowley on acid, at a cannibal’s feast. Chanting in time with doom itself. Tapping out deaths last waltz. Swirling round a ballroom of fate, entwined with gothic horror. Shocking to the core like finding a dead bat, trampled fresh, bleeding at night, slick and monstrous under foot. Piercing the small child in your soul.
The fluorescent green entity’s crept slowly from the dank fast flood. Changing black and taking form in the courtyard morphing into broken shapes and hideous maimed orc like contorted golem cadavers. Pulling forward relentlessly towards the door as I look from the back window into the night. Panic and hideous fear consume. All goes black.
The nicht was dark an drear the sky,
The moon was hidden deep
By clouds that cloakit aa those folk
That assignations keep.
That figure risin fae the bog,
Wi mud his claes were claart;
His hands were steepit dark wi bleed
As near as black’s his hert
An mirkest nicht hung roon his steps
That shambled tae the burn.
Through whins an stuntit birss he scirt
Til mossy grun an fern
Were slurpin blubbert neth his feet
Wi reek o deid folks’ breath
But there aheid there glimmered licht;
The burn ran clear aneth.
He lookit far its waters clear
Ran sparklin wi moonlicht.
He doused his hands files thunner clapped;
The burn ran dark as nicht.
If he could win awa fae here
He micht yet get safe hame.
He lookit up an spied a horse
That plashit in the faim.
Though aa was drear it shone as white
As if it was broad day;
It nickert soft syne bood its heid
An drank. So right away
But careful like for fear it ran,
He plowtert tae its side
Files grabbed its mane an mountit high.
On it he meant tae ride.
He kent he’d soon be hame wi folk
That didna mean him harm
So dug his heels intil its flank
Files whisprin owre a charm
Tae keep him safe till he won hame.
That’s fan the horse turned roon
Its heid an snickert in his face
An howled wi sic a soon
As made his bleed run caal wi fear
For he foresaw his fate.
Aa roon aboot the water rose
Until it ran in spate.
Foam sprayed white horses filled the burn
An tuggit at his coat;
Ere he could blink they reached his heid
An cloggit in his throat.
Ere lang the clouds had blown awa;
The moon shone in the sky
An glimmer licht was sparklin as
The burnie gurgled by.
At Halloween. The sweat sang soft silky lullaby’s to my raw nerves. A Clackson like sound from the courtyard, low and moaning, like some dying, terrible beast trying to claw it way up the riverbank. Broken bones, broken heart.
The torrential rain had stopped. The spate, full flood, fixed fast, frothing, foaming, fierce, frantic, filling the trough of the small steam. Pulling at the banks trying to enfold them in its jaws.
The chanting had started again. The hairs in the back of my neck pricked up, like a small pack of hyenas, hunting an injured lion. Fear entangled with the stench of perspiration and gore.
They were here by the gate, in the dank moonlight. Which spread like the couloir of a corpse, bobbing listlessly, in a stinking marsh pool at midnight. Hooded and bedecked in ceremonial robes like a 14th century Vatican Kul Klux clan outing from the slaughterhouse. Robes pristine white with a hint of rosary blood, communion plasma and burning crosses. Fear turned in on fear, covered in fear, by fear itself, stepped in undying fear, for fears sake.
The chanting rose rhythmically, Alister Crowley on acid, at a cannibal’s feast. Chanting in time with doom itself. Tapping out deaths last waltz. Swirling round a ballroom of fate, entwined with gothic horror. Shocking to the core like finding a dead bat, trampled fresh, bleeding at night, slick and monstrous under foot. Piercing the small child in your soul.
The fluorescent green entity’s crept slowly from the dank fast flood. Changing black and taking form in the courtyard morphing into broken shapes and hideous maimed orc like contorted golem cadavers. Pulling forward relentlessly towards the door as I look from the back window into the night. Panic and hideous fear consume. All goes black.