Ren.
I throw myself into his arms, squeezing him tightly.
“We have to go,” he says, though not before he’s pressed a fierce kiss to the crown of my head. “They don’t know I’m here.”
“Where’s Maggie?”
“Barred. All the women are. Men only. I volunteered so I could get to you. They think I’ve gone for more kindling for the fire.” He looks over his shoulder. “You have to go; they’ll realize soon enough there’s something wrong.”
“My father…” I say. “We need to get him out too.”
To his credit, Ren doesn’t question it, holding up a bunch of keys.
I take them from him and dart to the cell next door, eyes on the lock as I fumble with the keys, inserting one after another, not daring to look at my father until the key turns in my hand and the door springs free.
When I do look up at him, he’s smiling.
I’m hugging him before I realize I’ve moved. His arms fold around me, and I’m grateful to find he still smells like my childhood: a bit like our cottage, a bit like the loch.
“I hate to interrupt, but you have to go,” Ren says.
My father and I release each other and head for the door. My father pushes us behind him, listening carefully, before pressing a finger to his lips and beckoning for us to follow. We sneak down, past the closed door to the first-floor cells. Behind it the òlanfhuil is still moaning, and I feel it inside me, a kind of sharp ache.
“What are they doing to it?” I say.
“You don’t want to know.”
Ren, behind me, gently nudges me to keep going, and I follow my father all the way down. The room is empty, no sign of Angus Mitchell or anyone else guarding the place. My father whispers at us to wait in the stairwell, then skirts around the walls to the door, peering out of the tiny window.
“There’s a crowd,” he says quietly.
I cross to the door and look out.
Maggie Wilson, Mhairi Campbell and almost every other woman in the village are standing outside, though their attention is fixed on the window above us, where the sounds are echoing from. We’re not going to be able to get out without being seen.
“Go back upstairs and tell them you can’t find any wood,” my father tells Ren. “You don’t want to be caught up in this. Go on.”
I nod to tell Ren I agree and he turns.
“Oh. Here,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out my gun, and the two spare bullets. Then he pulls out the cameo of my mother, his skin flushing when he hands it over.
My father and I look at the gifts he’s given us.
“Be safe,” Ren says, heading back up the stairs, as I murmur, “You too.”
When he opens the door to the first-floor cells the screams are louder.
I can’t bear it.
The gun sitting comfortably in my hand, I make a decision. I open the barrel of the gun and count. Then I lock it in place and pull the hammer back, resting my index finger on the trigger. I put the last two bullets in the pocket of my borrowed skirt and hold out the cameo to my father.
“Da…” I hesitate.
He takes the cameo and looks at it, rubbing a thumb gently over the painted face of my mother. Then he smiles at me again. “I know. I understand.”
His blessing warms me. “Where can I find you, after I’m done?”
“I’ll go to the Wilsons’ store. No one will think to look for me there, and I expect Maggie will give me a fair hearing.”
I nod. She will, I’m sure of it.
“I’ll come to you there.”
“Be careful, daughter.” He reaches out and clasps my shoulder – the right one, thankfully – and squeezes it gently. “You’ve grown into a fine young woman,” he begins, but I shake my head.
“No. Don’t. Save it for when we’re home and this is done.”
As he turns to leave I call out.
“You’re sure,” I say. “About the cure. You’re sure there isn’t one?”
He shakes his head. “I’m truly sorry, but no.” He nods at the gun. “I can do this, if you want.”
“No. You need to go, while you can. This is for me to do.”
He looks at me for too long, disobeying my silent plea to be normal, to pretend like everything is, and will be, fine. Then he goes.
I listen for long enough to be sure he’s got away, peeping out to watch the women scatter like chickens as he fox-darts through them, sending them clucking into each other’s arms in outraged fright.
As the floor above me creaks, I begin to run, taking the stairs two at a time. The door to the first floor opens as I reach the top step, someone on their way to check what’s happening outside. Smoke billows out, obscuring whoever is there, and masking me too for the brief moment it takes me to pass them and enter the room.
The gun is steady in my right hand.
They’ve covered all the windows, so the air in the room is thick and close, reeking of meat and men. The only light comes from the candles in sconces on the wall, and the makeshift brazier they’ve rigged in one of the mess pails, the wood glowing red, the metal poles waiting inside bright white.
I pause for long enough to see which cell the òlanfhuil is in, long enough to see the shock and disgust on Ren’s face, standing as far back as he can, to see the growing fury on Giles’s face as he realizes who I am and what I’m about to do.
Long enough to meet the eyes of the òlanfhuil – James-that-was. Its skin is peeling from its body, a mess of wounds that have barely bled, the flesh hanging in strips, or blackened where they’ve held hot metal to it.
Aye, I see now who the monsters are. Gavan was right.
Afterwards I’ll think it sentiment, but right now it seems to me it’s asking for mercy, silently pleading with its eyes. They still look human. It’s the teeth, and the fact it’s still standing, somehow, even after what they’ve done, that gives it away.
It takes a shambling step forward, silent for the first time since it was brought here, and as Giles Stewart screams at me to stop, I squeeze the trigger and unload a silver bullet into the òlanfhuil’s chest.
It dies in silence, crumpling to the ground like a marionette with cut strings.
Then I turn, pulling back the hammer again, another bullet sliding audibly into the chamber, and level the gun at Giles.
“I wouldn’t,” I say, as he makes to reach for me.
The other men in the room all watch, and I notice with relief that none of them have guns. Probably should have thought of that earlier.
I look at them all in turn, fixing on Iain-the-Smith. “I assume the reason you brought –” it – him – James “– the creature up here was to figure out how to kill it?” I say. “Well, now you know. Normal bullets won’t do the job, silver ones will.” I pull one of the bullets from my pocket and hold it up to the smith. “Gather every bit of silver in the village – every candlestick, plate, spoon and trinket. Every horseshoe over a door. Melt them all, make as many bullets as you can to fit the guns you have. We’ll need them all to protect the village tonight, so you’ll have to work fast. Go. Now,” I say.
To his credit he doesn’t blink or question it; he leaves, his head bowed, moving so fast it’s clear he’s relieved.
As I look around the room I see the rest of them, Dizzy Campbell, Angus Mitchell, Wallace Talbot from the inn, look guilty, chins low, shoulders rounded, not quite able to meet each other’s, or my, eyes. With the door open, the smoke dissipating and the creature dead on the floor, looking like the seventeen-year-old boy that it was, the fire has gone from them. Whatever mob madness was fuelling their cruelty, it’s passed.
I hope they feel as sick of themselves as I do.
“You two,” I say to Dizzy and Angus. “Go and help Iain gather up the silver. And you.” I turn to Wallace Talbot. “You get a party of people together who are willing to go into the mountain with me to get Cora. You had remembered Cora Reid, hadn’t you? Or were you so intent on torturing that
thing you’d forgotten one of our own was trapped with them?”
“The girl won’t be alive,” Giles spits.
“We owe it to her to try,” I seethe. “Why are you still here?” I bellow at Dizzy and the others, who’ve remained staring between me and Giles.
“Let’s go,” Ren says, and they follow him, glad to have a leader. “I’ll be at Maggie’s,” he calls back to me, and I nod.
Then I’m alone with Giles.
“That was your son’s best friend.” I nod to the corpse in the cell, the gun still aimed squarely at Giles’s chest. “And your best friend’s son.”
“Was. Until he turned. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t James. You saw what it did to Jim, I know you were watching. James would never have done that to his father.”
“You know Gavan was bitten, don’t you?” I say. “That’s how they turn. From the bite. Will you do the same to him?”
Giles laughs. “Gavan was scratched, not bitten. Oh, it was deep, I’ll grant you. An inch or two to the left and he’d be dead. But there was no bite. He’ll not become one of them.”
My relief is a pure, clean feeling, and it scrubs away a little of the horror from the room. Not much, though. Because there’s still the body of a boy in the cell beyond us. And Giles hasn’t finished.
“But if he was,” he goes on, “I’d have done the same – maybe not myself, because I do love the boy, but I would have understood the need for it to be done. They can’t be allowed to live and hunt us. We were trying to find a way to put them down.”
“Well, now you know. Sunlight or a silver bullet.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
“I’m the daughter of the Naomhfhuil, as you pointed out earlier. It’s my job to know about it.” I let pride leak into my tone. I am proud to be my father’s daughter. “And my job to tell you your mill is the reason they got out.”
“Aye. But I didn’t know, did I? Of course if I’d known the stakes I would have slowed the mill down. But I didn’t. Your father kept that secret. So now your father is a killer multiple times over. These children. Your own mother.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I speak without thinking, so eager am I to absolve my father. “He didn’t kill my mother. She’s one of them.”
His face slackens.
I go on. “She was bitten when you first opened the mill. Remember my father telling you then that you were using too much water? One made it across the loch and got her. She turned that night, tried to attack my father. He fired wild and she ran away. And do you know how I know? Because last night I saw her. Here, in the square.”
“You’re lying,” Giles says, his voice low.
“No, I’m not. If anyone killed her, it was you. You and your greed and your obsession. So what’s your answer this time, Giles? Would you do that –” I point at the body “– to her? Would you let Dizzy, or Iain?”
His fists are clenching and unclenching at his sides, his face blank. His chest is falling and rising deeply again, but this time he’s controlling it, taking deep, measured breaths.
Then he walks past me. I stand, stunned, listening to his heavy tread on the stairs, the sound of the outer door opening, then closing.
I look at James’s body and see he looks like the one we first caught, an ash sculpture of a fallen boy. I walk to the window, tearing down the covering to let the breeze in. Then I wait with him while he turns to dust, watching the fragments of him swirl in the morning sun.
TWENTY-SIX
When I finally leave, the square is empty. The bodies of the fallen men are gone. I don’t know if that means they became ash under the sun, or if they were taken away; I can only hope that any who were bitten have been dispatched. The earasaids have been taken from the windows too, though the glass remains on the cobbles, glittering in the spring sunshine, ruby speckles glinting at me as I pass. It looks pretty, and I hate it.
It’s our saviour, but I find the sunshine blasphemous. It’s like the earth is spitting in my eyes. By rights it should surely be raining or thundering. The weather should be as grey and bleak and relentless as I feel. Not like this. Not birds singing, not bees lazily bobbing between gardens, not flowers opening and nodding at the sky. Not this life, as though nothing has changed, when everything has changed.
I walk to the Wilsons’ store, feet dragging in the dust, my gun heavy in my pocket. Iain-the-Smith will be in his forge right now, making bullets.
I exhale, a deep, shuddering sigh. At least if I do it, it will be quick. That’s something. I’ll be clean, and fast. I won’t let them linger in pain. I won’t make them suffer for what they are.
The thought of killing them makes me feel ill. Killing James – what James had become – had been an act of mercy, and I don’t regret it. But now I know they can feel pain and suffer. Now I know they’re alive enough to want to die, rather than be tortured. It’s changed everything, and the idea of sitting outside their home and gunning them down in cold blood as they try to leave makes my stomach turn. I think I see what Gavan was saying, about them just trying to survive. The problem is for them to survive, we all have to die, or turn. So they can’t be allowed to. I might have to murder every single one, and I hate that too.
I wish the loch would refill so I didn’t have to do this. If only there was another earthquake.
I stop, furious at my own stupidity. Of course I don’t need to sit outside and pick them off, one by one. I need to stop them from getting out. We need to cave in their lair, blocking the exits. We need to trap them again. We’ll keep them from getting out, write clearly about it in the Naomhfhuil log, warning people what to expect if it ever happens again.
It’s a long shot, but it sparks a little hope inside me.
Maggie’s store is closed, the shutters pulled down. I hammer at them until she appears, a rolling pin in her hand. Her expression softens when she sees me, and she pulls me through the door, and then, to my surprise, into her arms.
“Thank heavens you’re all right,” she says. “When Murren told me he’d left you behind I could have flayed him alive.”
I wince at her choice of words, and she falters. Ren must have told her what Giles and the others were doing. Bustling to cover the moment, she urges me through the shop, behind the counter and towards her private rooms.
“Anyway, you’re safe here now,” she says. “Gavan’s in the parlour, and Ren’s just cleaning himself up.”
“Good. A bunch of people will be here in an hour to help me rescue Cora. Where’s my father?” I ask. I want to run my plan past him.
“He’s already gone to the caves.”
For a moment I think that an earthquake has actually happened, that the earth is willing to save me the bother of caving in the tunnels. The house seems to tilt, and me with it, but it’s only when Maggie catches me I understand my knees have buckled, that dizziness knocked me sideways.
“What?” I say, my ears ringing with the sound of my own rushing blood. “What are you talking about?”
Maggie helps me upright, watching me with concern. “He said that was the plan you’d come up with. He’d go ahead to the caves, scope them out.”
“No… No, that wasn’t the plan,” I whisper.
Why would he do this?
But I know why. For the same reason he told me to stay away from the windows in the cottage and forbade me to go outside. The same reason he was out of the cottage, wandering around at night. The same reason he wouldn’t tell anyone they were back. For my mother. Because despite it all, he loves her still. Even though it’s hopeless. He doesn’t want me to shoot her.
I pull the gun from my pocket and one of the spare bullets, loading it into the empty chamber. Seven bullets. It doesn’t seem like much at all.
I’m going after him. I can’t wait for the others.
“Do you have any rope?” I ask Maggie.
She heads back into the store and I follow, taking the reel of thick cord when she passes it to me and looping i
t over my shoulder.
“And some candles. Thick ones that’ll burn long.”
“You’re not doing what I think you’re doing?” Maggie says, even as she walks away, returning instead with a hurricane lamp, a good-sized tub of paraffin in the bottom, and a box of matches.
“It depends what you think I’m doing,” I reply, offering a grateful smile as I tuck the matches into my pocket and hook the handle of the lamp over my wrist.
“Alva, you’re just a girl.”
“No such thing as ‘just a girl’, Maggie,” I say. “You should know that better than anyone.”
She sighs, but doesn’t argue.
“Tell Ren…” I begin, then falter as he appears in the doorway between the shop and Maggie’s quarters. His hair is wet, fresh from bathing and darker because of it, but it still hangs in his eyes, and the sight of it makes me smile. His feet are bare as he walks towards us, his mouth curving into a grin in response to mine.
His smile dies when he sees the rope and the lamp. “Tell Ren what?”
“You remember I told you the lochs merged after an earthquake?” I say.
A crease forms between his eyes as his brows draw together, but he nods.
“Well, we need another earthquake. Or something like it. Today, before sundown. You need to figure out a way to collapse the entrance so they can’t get out. That’s how we’ll stop them. We’ll block the caves, and then trap them again. Hopefully for good.”
“Alva—”
“Ren, I don’t trust anyone else to do this. I need you. Do you understand?”
His expression is a heartbreak. “I think so.”
I swallow. “Good. Do it. No matter what happens, do it. Before sundown, Ren. I’ve got to go. I’m sorry.”
I turn and run.
The climb up the mountain is made no easier by the fear that batters me like a summer storm. You hear of terror helping people enact impossible feats: overturning carriages to rescue trapped babies, or lifting timber from collapsed buildings to get to their loved ones, but there’s no truth in it for me as I try to get to my father. I don’t benefit from a burst of miraculous energy or strength. Instead my sides pinch with stitches, my calves and thighs burn as I push myself onwards. My lungs are dry and heaving, I sound like an old woman, but I don’t slow or stop. I don’t look back at Ormscaula, I can’t. All I can do is keep going, because I can’t lose my father now. I can’t let him do anything stupid.
Hold Back the Tide Page 20
