The Puzzle Ring

by Kate Forsyth

  Suddenly another black and white whale came barrelling out of the abyss, slamming into her and knocking her sideways. She was flung against the stone pillar, tearing her skin on the barnacles. The hag-stone was knocked out of her mouth and would have fallen into the abyss had it not been secured about her neck by the cord. The whale spun about and came racing towards her, its jaws gaping open. Hannah choked back a scream, frantically shoving the hag-stone back in her mouth so she could breathe. She then slipped the golden loop onto her ring finger, clenched her fist about it, and swung round to the other side of the Hag. The whale went past in a stream of bubbles, moving astonishingly fast.

  Hannah seized the rope about her waist and yanked it three times. At once she was jerked upwards. The rope about her middle hurt her cruelly as she was dragged, in rough fits and bursts, towards the surface. Hannah could have wept with relief. She tried to help, but her arms and legs were so tired she could barely find the energy to move them. She looked around anxiously for the whale, and saw it swooping towards her. At once she spat out the hag-stone and thrust it towards the whale, shouting silently in her mind, seven times, ‘I defy thee!’

  To her relief, the whale spun away, as if it had slammed into a wall of glass, and disappeared into the black abyss. Hannah was dragged, coughing and choking, out of the water and onto the deck.

  ‘I thought you would’ve have had enough of almost drowning.’ Donovan’s mouth was twisted in a wry half-smile.

  Hannah managed to smile back, opening her hand to show him the slim hoop of oddly twisted gold upon her finger.

  The Blue Men

  ‘Ahoy port side!’ Fergus shouted, late the following afternoon as the small boat sailed up the Firth of Lorne.

  ‘What is it?’ Angus shouted back.

  ‘I don’t know. It looked like a man, but it can’t be.’

  Hannah stared out across the choppy water. ‘Gosh, look, there’s hundreds of them.’

  Men with wild hair and beards were bobbing up and down all around the boat. Their skin was not the blue of a summer sky, but rather the clammy, skimmed-milk colour of men who had been submerged in cold water a long time.

  ‘Where’s your boat hook?’ Angus shouted. ‘Let’s drag the poor souls aboard!’

  ‘No!’ Linnet cried. Everyone stared at her in astonishment. ‘They’re Blue Men! Have you not heard of them? They’ll wreck the boat for sure!’

  ‘The Blue Men of the Minch?’ Angus demanded. ‘What are they doing so far south? I thought they swam only in the Hebrides?’

  ‘They must serve the black witch,’ she cried.

  One of the Blue Men spun a long stone staff, and the wind hurtled against the boat, rocking it dangerously. The sails cracked like whips, and one tore free, flapping wildly. Rain lashed their faces, yet sunshine gleamed on the waters of the bay behind them, and glowed on the distant hills of the Isle of Mull.

  ‘If this keeps up, we’ll go down for sure,’ Fergus cried, clinging to the rudder. ‘What do they want with us?’

  ‘To drown us, of course,’ Linnet snapped.

  ‘To drown the puzzle ring,’ said Hannah, fingering the hard bulges in the hem of her chemise, where she had sewed the two golden loops.

  ‘But why? Why does the black witch care about the puzzle ring?’ Max demanded, looking greener than ever as the boat rocked wildly from side to side.

  ‘She thrives on chaos and unhappiness, so the last thing she wants is for me to break the curse,’ Hannah said. ‘Besides, there is the prophecy. “The thorn tree shall not bud, the green throne shall not sing, until the child of true blood is crowned the rightful king.” She’s afraid the true heir will be found once the curse is broken.’

  The wind howled like a banshee, and a great wave washed over the prow of the boat, knocking them all down and almost sweeping them overboard. The Blue Men shouted in triumph, as the sea surged in great grey-green waves around them.

  ‘What can we do?’ Scarlett cried. ‘I don’t want to die!’

  ‘The only way to defeat them is to beat them in a rhyming contest,’ Linnet gasped, wrapping both arms about the mast.

  ‘Hannah’s good at rhymes!’ Scarlett cried.

  ‘Not that good,’ Hannah protested. ‘Doggerel only.’

  ‘I don’t even know what doggerel means!’ Scarlett exclaimed. ‘Come on, Hannah! If we drown now, you’ll never break the curse.’

  Again the leader whirled his spear above his head, and at once the little boat was spun in a maelstrom of wind and water. The sail came crashing down in a tangle of rope, and Fergus would have been swept overboard if Angus had not lunged forward and caught him by his belt.

  ‘How dare you sail our sacred seas?’ the Blue Man roared.

  Hannah tried to think. ‘Bees, keys, wheeze . . .’ she muttered. ‘Ease . . .’

  Again the Blue Man whirled about his white spear. As the boat spun, Hannah shouted: ‘Why should we not float at our ease, instead of fighting the angry waves?’

  The Blue Man uttered a short, harsh laugh. ‘Why should we not show you our caves, deep beneath the white foam?’

  ‘Thank you, but I prefer the sky’s blue dome,’ she answered, quick as a flash, ‘where I can breathe the pure, fresh air.’

  ‘Where every day is weighted with care? Let us release you to the fathomless deep.’

  ‘I would rather laugh and run and leap,’ Hannah returned, trying to think of a word that had no rhyme he could match. ‘Knowing I’ll walk again in sunshine.’

  Without even a blink he answered, ‘Yet you could be swimming with me in the brine, diving through the great blue sea.’

  ‘Please, we would so much rather sail free, we mean you no harm, I promise.’

  He floated upright in the water, frowning, then with a flick of their tails the Blue Men dived beneath the waves and were gone.

  ‘I promise,’ Hannah breathed. ‘Of course. That’s a hard one to rhyme with.’

  Scarlett and Max and Donovan leapt up and down, shouting with joy and relief. ‘I knew you could do it!’ Scarlett shrieked.

  ‘Well done, my lamb,’ Linnet said, hugging her warmly.

  ‘It was just luck,’ Hannah said. ‘I didn’t have time to think. I just said the first thing that came into my head. I could’ve said “I swear” and then he could have said pear, or bare, or mare, or square . . .’

  ‘That was amazing,’ Donovan said. ‘You were so quick.’

  ‘I didn’t feel quick,’ Hannah said. ‘I felt as thick as a brick.’

  ‘Oh, God, she can’t stop,’ Donovan said. Max and Scarlett laughed too, and somehow once they started they couldn’t stop. Angus could only shake his head in bewilderment.

  They rested that night on the island of Lismore, and the next day Fergus worked to repair the damage wrought on the boat by the Blue Men’s storm.

  Hannah got up at sunrise and went out alone, taking only her rowan walking-stick with her. She found a high outcrop of stone, with early crocuses and daffodils pushing their way through the grass, and drew out the holey stone.

  Hag-stone, where is the last loop, the fourth,

  That was flung to the north?

  The landscape raced towards her, forest and mountain and moor, river and waterfall and circles of standing stones. At last it steadied, and Hannah could see a tall, cone-shaped mountain through the hole in the hag-stone. Its peak, perfect as any in a child’s drawing, was streaked with snow. Below it stood a tall rock, split right down the middle so that it resembled two hands folded together in prayer. The light of the rising sun struck upon the rock, making the lichen glow, and glittering upon a shard of gold that rested on the very tip of the stone hands.

  ‘It sounds like Schiehallion,’ Max said when Hannah described the mountain to her friends on her return. ‘That’s the only mountain I know of that looks like a perfect isosceles triangle.’

  ‘Schiehallion,’ Hannah repeated, trying to give it the same thunderous roll over her tongue. ‘Shee-HALLION!’

&
nbsp; ‘It sounds like some kind of war cry, doesn’t it? It means “hill of the fairies”, though,’ Donovan said. ‘Not quite so macho.’

  ‘It’s got to be the right place,’ Hannah said. ‘So far the rings have all been found at fairy places, haven’t they?’

  Linnet nodded. ‘Schiehallion is a gateway to the Otherworld. I do not know these praying hands, though.’

  ‘I guess we’ll find them when we get there,’ Scarlett said.

  ‘If we’re quick enough, we can get the last loop and get back to Fairknowe by the spring equinox,’ Hannah said. ‘That’s the twenty-second of March. I wonder what the date is today? If we don’t get back in time, we need to wait till the next thin day, which is not till the first of May.’

  Scarlett jumped up. ‘Well, let’s get a move on then!’

  Within the hour, the little boat was sailing up Loch Linnhe and by early evening had tacked into the mouth of Loch Leven, which lay at the foot of the mighty Glencoe Mountains. Black and grim, with snow on their hunched heads, and mist huddled about their bare shoulders, the mountains seemed ancient and impenetrable. Hannah felt a shiver run down her spine. She closed her hand about the hag-stone, which still hung on its ribbon about her neck. For the first time it occurred to her that her hag-stone was made of the same substance as these old mountains, worn by wind and water over centuries to a mere nub she could slide her finger through. She had wondered at its inexplicable powers, which let her see over vast distances, understand strange tongues and breathe deep beneath the surface of the sea. She wondered no longer.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Scarlett asked when they had made their farewells to Fergus and paid him the money they owed, and watched him tack his little boat away over the shining water.

  Angus looked sour. ‘We start walking.’

  Glencoe was a long narrow valley, filled with the shining waters of the loch. On either side the steep mountains soared a thousand metres high. It made Hannah’s head spin looking up at them. She looked down, concentrating on the rough ground under her feet. Her arms and legs did not seem to want to work properly. It was just adapting to solid land again, she told herself. She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself against the chills that racked her. The others were a long way ahead now. Hannah stopped on the top of a slope and bent over, trying to catch her breath as the others turned, calling to her.

  They spent the night in a crofter’s cottage, huddled together in the stable on a pile of damp straw. When Hannah woke she knew she was not well. Her head ached, her limbs felt weak and her throat was hot and sore. She said nothing, though. All Hannah wanted to do now was find the last loop of the puzzle ring and go back home. It had taken them so much longer than she had expected, and the spring equinox was hurtling towards them. The very thought of not making it back to Fairknowe in time was enough to propel her up off the straw and back on the road.

  The six companions reached the top of the mountain range and began to cross Rannoch Moor, a bleak, bare, windswept expanse of peat bogs, heather, long stretches of lonely lochs, and weirdly shaped granite rocks. Clouds raced over the sky, bringing squalls of cold, stinging rain to lash their faces. Hawks called eerily, swinging through the sky. All Hannah could do was put one foot forward after another. She felt as if she had travelled a thousand years back in time, ten hundred thousand years, to a time before humans.

  By nightfall Hannah had fallen far behind the others. The ground was undulating beneath her feet as if her slight weight was irritating the hide of some immense and stony creature. She leant heavily on the rowan walking-stick, afraid she might fall.

  ‘Hannah, are you all right? What’s wrong?’ Donovan came quickly towards her.

  ‘I don’t feel so good,’ she said.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘My head . . . my throat . . .’ She tried to swallow, but it felt as if she had razor blades instead of tonsils.

  ‘Max!’ Donovan called.

  ‘What is it?’ Max came bounding towards them, thin-legged as a grasshopper. The setting sun glinted off his glasses.

  ‘Hannah feels sick.’

  ‘Oh, goody!’ Max rubbed his hands together. ‘A medical emergency. Doctor Max is here.’ He took Hannah’s wrist, pretending to read her pulse in a doctorly manner, but almost immediately his expression sobered. ‘Your pulse is galloping away. Ouch! You’re burning up. You really are sick.’

  ‘I don’t feel so good,’ Hannah said, and leant against Donovan.

  ‘We’d better get her some shelter,’ Max said. ‘I think she’s got the flu.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, swimming in the ocean in March,’ Scarlett said.

  ‘You don’t get the flu from getting cold,’ Max said. ‘It’s a virus. Let’s hope it’s not a bad one. Hannah won’t have any resistance to sixteenth-century viruses.’

  It took the companions more than an hour, walking slowly, before Angus found a small cottage where he could knock and ask for help. Built in a narrow dip between hills, with a view across Loch Eigheach, it was little more than one room with a low shed attached, where a goat was penned in with lengths of driftwood.

  A young woman opened the door a mere crack. She was thin as a stick and as white as whey. ‘Wha’ do you want?’ she asked in such a strong accent that Hannah could barely understand a word.

  ‘We have a sick lass here,’ Angus said. ‘She needs warmth, shelter.’

  The woman shook her head. Her tangled brown hair hung lankly about her thin face. ‘I don’t want any sickness here. I’m wi’ bairn.’ She opened the door a smidgen wider so they could see she was heavily pregnant, the hard bulge of her belly pushing out her ragged dress.

  ‘Please,’ Linnet said. ‘She cannot walk any further. Can we shelter in your shed?’

  ‘I don’t want you here,’ the woman said. ‘My man’s been called up by the laird and I’m here all alone.’ Her voice quavered with fear.

  ‘If you let us use your shed, we can help you,’ Angus said. ‘These lads are strong. They can gather firewood for you, and draw water from the loch . . .’

  ‘We don’t go near the loch if we can help it,’ the woman said with a shudder.

  ‘What is your name, lass?’ Linnet said kindly.

  ‘Edie,’ she said after a moment, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  ‘Edie, my name is Linnet. I can help you too. I can clean for you, and sew, and milk the goat, and I can make up some tea for you to help the pains in your belly.’

  ‘Very well then, you can stay, but I don’t want you or your fever anywhere near the house, and you must help me while my man is gone. Tether the goat out under the trees, he’ll come to no harm outdoors for a day or two.’

  Linnet nodded and gently guided Hannah into the shed, which was filthy and smelt strongly of goat.

  ‘My guess is she’ll make us work hard for the privilege of staying in this muck,’ Linnet said grimly. ‘Come, my lamb, sit and I’ll see if I can clean it up a little.’

  The Devil’s Influence

  The next few days were a blur. The fever made the whole world seem as fragile and transparent as cellophane, with another, darker world pressing up close behind. Hannah heard weird laughter and sobbing and a high whining sound, and saw, against her closed eyelids, faces like demons, contorted and coloured like dancing flames.

  ‘Hannah, you must give me the hag-stone,’ a demon with Linnet’s soft voice said. ‘I can heal you.’

  ‘No!’ Hannah cried. ‘It’s a trick. Go away!’

  ‘I’ll give it back to you,’ the demon promised.

  ‘You’re lying,’ Hannah sobbed. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Can’t you just take it?’ some other demon asked.

  ‘Hag-stones can only be found or given,’ the demon with Linnet’s voice said. ‘If I take it, it will turn against me.’

  Hannah could not make sense of the words. She felt like she was in the abyss again, fighting hard to swim to the surface, while the black immutable tide dragged her down.


  She wanted her mother, and wept at her absence. She wanted Linnet. Not the slim, young woman she knew now, but the stooped old woman with the lilting voice and cloudy eyes she had known before. She wanted to be at home in her own bed, in crisp sheets smelling of lemon washing powder and her quilt with all its soft velvets and silk in patches that she loved to rub between her fingers. She wanted it all so badly she could not help sobbing, which made her headache and sore throat worse.

  ‘It’s all right, Hannah.’ Donovan laid a cool damp cloth on her forehead. She stared at him blankly, then turned her crimson face from side to side, her breath sharp in her throat.

  ‘She’s got a high fever,’ Max said. ‘We’ve got to bring her temperature down. I’ve already given her all the aspirin I brought with me, and there’s not exactly a chemist nearby where we can buy some more.’ His voice was bitter rather than sarcastic.

  ‘There’s an elder tree down by the loch,’ Linnet said. ‘Both elderberries and the flowers are good for fevers. I’ll go and see if it’s blossoming yet.’

  She was back a few minutes later, a green flowering branch in her hand, a rueful expression on her face. ‘That girl Edie saw me praying to the tree,’ she confessed in a low voice. ‘We do not cut an elder tree without asking permission first, for it’s sacred to the Great Mother, you know. But now she thinks me a witch and has barricaded herself inside her house, weeping and praying. I think we should leave as soon as we can.’

  ‘We can’t go till Hannah’s fever has broken,’ Max said firmly.

  ‘Is she going to die?’ Scarlett asked, clasping her hands together.

  ‘Lots of people died of the flu in the olden days,’ Max admitted.

  ‘She’s not going to die!’ Donovan said fiercely.

  ‘Let me make her some tea from the elderflowers,’ Linnet said, ‘and maybe she’ll be well enough to leave in the morning.’

  Linnet lifted Hannah up and held a cup of something hot and fragrant to her lips. Hannah drank it down gratefully, then fell back asleep. She woke some time later, to find Linnet kneeling beside her again, holding the steaming cup.