Hold Back the Tide
Page 18
“Am I supposed to use that?” I point at it.
“Jesus Christ, Angus. She’s a child. And she’s not a prisoner,” Maggie says.
“I’m just following orders, Mrs Wilson. Mr Stewart said nothing about luxuries or special circumstances. Only that you’d bring the girl and she was to be locked in a cell for the night.”
Maggie looks conflicted, her attention moving between me and the sparse, grim cell.
“We can tell Giles you’ve changed your mind,” she says.
I take a breath, steeling myself. I survived seven years living in the shadow of a murderer. I survived being taken by the creatures, and I survived their caves. I can make it through one poxy night in a cell. Compared to where I spent last night, it’s lovely, I tell myself. It’s got a pillow, a blanket and nary a monster or corpse at all. And it’s better than being under Giles’s roof.
“No. It’s fine,” I say to Maggie, my voice higher than usual, but thankfully steady. “But if I need to use the bathroom I’d appreciate it if Mr Mitchell would fetch me to use a proper one.”
“I can’t promise I’ll hear you all the way up here, with the doors closed.”
“You will,” Maggie says, her eyes blazing. “By God, you will. And I’ll take the spare keys, thank you.”
“Mr Stewart said—”
“Mr Stewart has said enough,” Maggie snaps.
She holds out her hand and we both watch as Angus pulls a ring of keys from his belt and hands it to her in sullen silence.
“Now, do you need a candle or anything?” Maggie turns to me.
I shake my head. There’s a sconce on the wall, long candles already lit inside it, and the moon will still be bright enough to see by. Besides, I’m scared of having one in a place I can’t escape from. What if I tip it over and end up setting the place alight? I shiver.
“Water, food? Paper and pens? Maybe a book?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” I don’t plan to eat or drink anything that might force me to use the bucket. And I’m scared anything else, even the smallest of luxuries, will make me feel as if I’m here on a more permanent basis. My heart skips as I think it, and I force myself to be calm.
“All right then,” Maggie says.
I step into the cell, walking to the back wall and jumping up on to the bed so I can peer out of the window. I can see the square, see the cage set up, apparently ready, and the people still milling around, even though night is falling fast. I’ll be able to watch it all, even if I can’t help.
I climb down and go back to the door. I close it myself, ignoring how my stomach drops as the barred iron door meets its opposite. It feels important to me that I shut myself in, instead of letting someone else do it. I meet Maggie’s brown eyes and try to smile bravely. Neither of us is fooled.
“I’ll be back at dawn,” Maggie promises. “Just a few hours, really, if you think about it.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
“Are you sure you don’t need anything?”
Another nod.
“All right.” With that, Maggie slips the key in the lock, and turns it.
It’s a well-oiled lock, the bolt slipping easily home with a decisive ring.
Maggie stares at me through the bars, this woman with her iron-streaked hair and her iron-clad heart, and I decide that if nothing else comes of this horror, at least she was on my side. The support of a woman like Maggie Wilson is good for the spine. I stand up taller, and give her another, better, smile.
It’s returned full force, and she pats my hand, still gripping the bars, before she leaves. She doesn’t look back.
When I hear the lock on the outer door find its home, my stomach swoops.
The first lock I could handle; I closed the door, I expected it. But this second lock breaks me; it feels so final. The carefully collected calm I’d gathered skitters away, and terror takes its place.
Suddenly my chest hurts, my lungs won’t expand to let any air in. I bend at the waist, scrabbling at the buttons of the borrowed blouse, too tight at my neck. My heart is beating so hard I’m sure it’s bruising me inside, my vision narrowed so all I can see is the lock, the lock, the lock.
“Breathe, Alva,” a calm voice commands me gently, piercing my panic enough to let a lungful of air in. I do it again, and again, dropping to my knees and pressing my forehead to the cold floor, sucking in breath after breath, my muscles slowly relaxing as oxygen gets to them. The pain in my shoulder returns, tight from where I clenched, but it’s something to focus on, so I do.
Slowly, I come back to myself.
“Are you all right?” The voice is familiar; the words aren’t.
No. No, no, no, no.
“Alva?” my father says, from the cell beside mine.
TWENTY-THREE
I don’t answer, sitting back and leaning my head against the bunk.
“Alva?” my father says again, the ghost of that same old annoyed snap in his voice, the sound of a man not getting the answer he wants from his teenage daughter. It would be comforting, if we weren’t locked in neighbouring cells at the behest of a man who hates us both.
“I heard you. I’m fine.”
“What are you doing here? Why did Maggie Wilson bring you here?”
“I’m not talking to you.”
He’s silent. I close my eyes.
Though I can’t admit it – not even to myself – I feel better knowing he’s there. Not because he’s my father, but because I’m not alone. Next door, my father is in the same boat I am. A rock-solid bed, a threadbare blanket. A pillow that smells of someone else’s sweat. A bucket, no doubt dirtier than mine. But I’ll walk free tomorrow.
Comforted by that, I clamber back on to the bed and peer out between the bars, fingers wrapping around them instinctively. The moon hasn’t quite risen yet; everything is shadowy and dark, though I can see some people are still outside, briefly lit by the windows that look onto the square. It seems like every lamp in Giles’s house is blazing, and I watch those inside taking it in turns to do as I am, peering out at the cage.
“You told them. About the òlanfhuil?”
His voice sounds different; he’s moved, standing at his own window.
“That’s what they are?” I ask. “Òlanfhuil?” Similar in sound to Naomhfhuil, I realize.
“It means ‘blood drinker’ in the old tongue.” He answers my unspoken question.
“I thought Naomhfhuil meant ‘holy saint’?” I say. “Fhuil is in both words – what does it mean?”
“Blood. Not holy. The words are similar, and got confused, over time.”
Blood saint. Jesus, that’s creepy.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about them?” I whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me about them?”
The silence stretches long and thin like twine between us. “Alva, I had my reasons,” he says at last.
“What?” The words leave me before I can bite them back. “What possible reason could you have for protecting those things? Do you actually think they’re gods?”
“I know they’re not,” he says softly.
“Well then, why?” When he doesn’t reply, I continue. “They killed Aileen Anderson and her baby, you know. And Hattie Logan, and James Ballantyne. By keeping your mouth shut you killed them as sure as you killed my mam. You almost killed me.”
“What do you mean?” he asks, and I hear fear in his voice.
“They took me and Cora Reid,” I say. “Out to the mountain, to their den. Put us in a hole for later, saving us for their supper. Like we store the dried sausages and bacon. That’s what I was to them, Da. Meat. And Cora is still there.”
“Alva…”
“Spare me, Da, would you?”
“I was trying to.” His tone is dark.
I don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to say to that.
Below I hear the sound of men, arguing, their voices raised though I can only make out a few words – one of which is my name. A door closes – the do
or to the gaol, I think – and then I hear a voice I know, cursing. I doubt he’d be using that kind of language if he knew my father could hear him.
“Ren?” I call down to him.
“Alva? Is that you? Are you all right?”
Even if I stand on tiptoes, I can’t see him; the angle’s wrong. “I’m all right,” I call down.
“I can’t believe they’ve locked you up; who the hell does Giles Stewart think he is?”
Best not to scream my honest answer to that across the square. I’ll tell Ren it was my decision in the morning. “Is the trap ready?”
“It’s ready.”
“Who’s going to bait it?”
“Giles has got a bunch of men drawing straws now. One of them will sit in it, while the others wait in the windows with guns.”
“Where will you be?”
“Maggie’s. She’s got my mam and a bunch of others there too. Everyone whose house isn’t secure has been brought into the heart of the village. Giles sent Mhairi around to do a census so everyone is accounted for.”
I hadn’t even thought about Liz Ross or any of the others who live outside the main village. That was smart of Giles, I think grudgingly, though I bet he hasn’t got any of the poorer folk in his own house.
“Wait a minute…” Ren says.
I can’t see anything, but the sound of scuffling at the wall, a thud, then a soft grunt, tell me he tried, and failed, to climb the wall. I smile to myself.
He steps back, and I can finally see him, his hair silver in the light, rubbing his hands on the tops of his thighs as he looks up.
“You all right?” I ask.
But his attention has moved to my right, his eyes wide. Ah. He’s spotted my neighbour.
“As you can see, I’m not alone,” I say.
“Mr Douglas,” Ren says, nodding his head respectfully.
“Murren,” my father mumbles from the cell beside mine.
“Do you mind?” I say to my father, before asking Ren, “Has he gone?”
Ren shakes his head. Someone calls out to Ren and he turns, then back to me. “Look, I’ve got to go, but I’ll be back in the morning with Maggie.”
My heart sinks, but I nod. “All right. Stay safe.”
“You too,” he says, eyes darting to my father once more.
Then he turns and starts to jog towards the Wilsons’ store.
I climb down, my neck and shins hurting from straining. It’s starting to get cold, and I have no earasaid, so I throw the blanket around my shoulders, coughing at the dust that puffs up as I do. Then, I settle in to wait.
I fall into a doze, and wake myself up shivering, my teeth chattering violently. Without glass in the windows, or any kind of shutters, there’s nothing to stop the cold night air seeping into the room.
“Alva?” my father calls, his voice a whisper.
I let out a sigh. “What?”
“Here. Come to the door. Put your hand out.”
To cold and tired to protest, I do, and reach through the bars to feel something soft. A blanket. His blanket.
I hesitate. “I don’t need it.”
“I know you’re a better liar than that,” he says, and I feel a smile tug at the corners of my mouth in response to his tone. It’s resigned and annoyed. But there’s something else there too. Respect, maybe.
I take the other blanket. I put them both around my shoulders, pulling one up over my head like an earasaid. Then I climb back to the window and peer out.
The moon is high, but clouds have drawn in, making the light patchy. Most of the windows are dark now; only a few have faint glow inside them, though I can’t guess at the time. Late enough that the world feels asleep. I see someone sitting in the cage, but I can’t make out who, until he stands, and I see his broad back. Jim Ballantyne. I watch as he works out a kink in his leg and sits back down, pulling a blanket around his shoulders.
Then he stands again, staring ahead, his blanket falling soundlessly to the floor, and I follow his gaze.
Three of them are there, in the middle of the street, watching him in the cage. It’s as if they just appeared; one second the square was empty, and the next they’re there, as if that’s always been the way.
Cloud obscures the moon, and I lose them.
When the light returns, they’re closer to the cage, and I can see them more clearly. The ones in the centre and on the left, on the gaol side, are tall, hairless and pale like the others I’ve seen. But the thing on the right is smaller, closer to human-sized, with noticeably darker skin, like there’s a light furze over its body, its chest and back, and legs covered to the ankle. One of their young, I realize, brought hunting. Animals do that; take their young out to teach them to kill.
They want to teach it what they learned last night. How to open the cages.
As I watch they push the younger one forward, and it moves, with less grace than the adult ones, towards where Jim is transfixed. He reaches out towards the creature, and to my horror I see that he is beckoning it into the cage. What is he doing?
I’m distracted by movement in the side streets. Then the bottom falls out of the world, and I feel like I’m falling through the wall.
Stalking towards the square are more of them, more than I’d thought possible. From what I’d seen I’d guessed there were maybe five or six of them, a small family. But there are at least twice that moving silently towards where Jim is trapped, some passing through the streets and some on the roofs, moving like large white spiders.
“Are you seeing this?” my father whispers. I don’t have the breath in me to reply.
I freeze as the two adults that brought the young one turn to us, their heads tilting at the same time as their eyes seek us out.
“They can hear us.” I whisper back.
At my faint whisper, their lips pull back from their teeth into a synchronized, silent snarl, and I break out into a cold sweat, my pulse quickening with some ages-old instinct.
One of the creatures makes that hateful clicking sound, and it echoes through the square. The others freeze in place, all of them turning to the window I’m watching from.
Cloud returns and I swear, pressing my cheeks into the bars, desperate to see what they do next, if they’re still looking at me.
“Alva, get back,” my father barks, and the habit of half a lifetime means I do it instantly.
It saves my life.
There is a monster at my window.
It must have climbed, or leaped, two storeys, holding on to the ledge of my window to keep itself there. It stares at me, pallid face striped by the bars between us, then its long fingers fold around the metal where mine were just moments before.
Black eyes fix on me as it takes me in.
“Alva, are you all right?” my father calls, his voice tight with panic.
“I’m OK,” I say.
The creature smiles, as if it’s understood me. Slowly, it shakes its head.
No, you’re not, it seems to say.
From outside, I hear shouts, screams, and the sounds of gunfire, as the villagers realize the siege has begun. The creature flinches, turning to look behind, and that’s when I notice a mark on its chest, a dark, circular patch. This is why it climbed up here.
I shot this one. Last night, in the hallway of my cottage. I put a bullet where its heart should be.
I tell myself I’m wrong, that it can’t be the same creature. The scar looks old; it’s just a coincidence it’s sporting a wound exactly where I hit one. But I know in my bones it’s the same one. In addition to being faster than us, and stronger than us, they can heal quickly.
And it’s remembered me.
Dawn, and real safety, feel a long time away.
“Tell me what it’s doing now,” my father calls.
“Nothing. Just looking. I … I shot it. Last night. I think it remembers me.”
At the sound of my voice it clicks softly. I raise my hand to my own chest and touch the spot that mirrors its wound.
It tugs on the bars gently; then, holding them with both hands, it forces itself backwards, trying to rip the bars from the wall. I don’t know whether it’s strong enough to do it but I don’t plan to find out. I pick up the pail and throw it. The sound it makes as it bounces against the bars is clear as a bell, a high, metallic gong.
The creature screams in fury and slams a hand against the bars, sending a shower of mortar to the floor.
Beyond it, the others answer in screams, their shrieks mixing with the frantic human cries of the villagers.
“Jesus, Alva, what the hell’s going on?” my father shouts.
I drop to the floor and reach for the pail as the thing hurls itself against the window above me, a long arm reaching through the bars and scrabbling for me, the claws dangerously close to my face when I look up.
Pail in hand, I wiggle backwards and stand. It withdraws its arm and stares at me, holding the bars, the hatred in its eyes unmistakable.
I raise the pail, intending to beat its fingers until it lets go, but I don’t get the chance. As I take a step forward it turns, head rotating almost all the way around, like an owl. Then it’s gone, dropping silently out of sight.
Scared it’s a trick, I edge to the window, pail held out before me.
“What’s happening now?” my father calls.
“I don’t know. I think it’s gone. Or it’s trying to make me believe it has.”
The square beyond is silent too, no more gunfire, no more shouting.
“Stay where you are, let me see.”
I wait, head cocked, listening. I hear him suck in a sharp breath.
“Don’t look, Alva. For God’s sake, don’t look.”
I look, and the pail falls from my hand, hitting the floor with a metallic thud and rolling under the bed.
Jim Ballantyne is dead inside the cage. His body is slumped forward, his neck a mess of red and pink.
His head is beside him.
I turn away and retch, pressing my hand into my mouth, the other across my belly.