The Stone Dweller's Curse: A Story of Curses, Madness, Obsession and Love

by Jacqueline Henry

  ‘Aye, or it could’ve been John an’ Olivia,’ Vee stated bluntly. Deidre looked at her, lifting her mug of tea to her lips and drinking, considering how she would reply to this comment. She’d realised early on through a dinner of thick hearty casserole and mashed potatoes that John and Olivia where monumental bores fixated on bird watching and their ‘lists’.

  Deidre felt a smirk twitch at the corner of her mouth amused by Vee’s bluntness. ‘That is a strong possibility,’ she said cautiously. ‘I’m sure they’re lovely people but...’ She took another sip of tea, swallowed, then heard herself speak, the words tumbling out of her mouth. ‘My God, I’m sorry, but they just bored the shit out of me and I fell asleep. I’m still jet lagged, so for God’s sake don’t talk to me about red breasted flalagoots and yellow bummed sparrows for half an hour. I mean, come on, change the subject-’

  Vee’s eyes widened, all expression dropping from her face. Deidre turned around, looking over her shoulder to the doorway where John the Twitcher stood. He was a tall man, his grey head almost touching the beam of the doorway. His timing was exquisite.

  ‘I just came to get a glass of water,’ he said, stepping into the room and making his way through the thick silence of the kitchen. He took a glass from the shelf and filled it with water from the tap. ‘The water has a delicious taste up here,’ he said, sipping before pushing away from the sink. ‘I’ll let you continue your… conversation,’ he said without looking at them and walked out the room.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Deidre mouthed, slapping her hand against her forehead in mortification as they listened to John walk off down the hallway. ‘How long was he standing there?’ Deidre whispered, smacking her hand to her mouth, supressing an embarrassed giggle.

  ‘Och well, he probably gets dat aw da time,’ Vee said, seemingly unperturbed, dolloping marmalade onto a roll and smearing it across the surface. ‘Maybe he’ll stop boring da shyte ootta folk at da dinner table. I’ve had to listen to it for two nights. Dey’re here for a week!’

  Deidre grinned, giggling as the other woman took a hearty bite of the roll and chewed thoughtfully, nodding. Her bobbed dark hair hugged her scalp like a swimming cap, her face flat and round. She was maybe in her late thirties, early forties, Deidre couldn’t tell, but she seemed older, at ease with herself; like her kitchen, a modern version of something old. Deidre liked her, trusting that intuition she felt that had nothing to do with reason, aware, even in this short space of time, that at a deeper level they were in sync, their understanding of each other unspoken.

  ‘Malcolm said he plays the fiddle in a band,’ Deidre said, recalling her conversation with Vee’s husband last night, a large, jovial fellow who radiated a warm easy going nature much like the woman sitting before her.

  ‘Aye, dey’re called Fiddlin’ Aboot. You’ll see dem da night, dey’re playin’ at da hall.’

  Deidre graced the other woman with a patient, non-committal look. ‘How long have you been married?’ she asked, changing the subject.

  ‘Well Gregory’s nine dis year, so eight years.’ She gave Deidre a wink and gulped down some tea. ‘We’ve been livin’ togedder fur aboot fifteen years. Den I fell pregnant. Didnae want da bairn growin’ up a bastard, noo, did we, so we got married.’

  Deidre marvelled at the other woman. Vee lived on this tiny island and had found someone to love, share her life with, while she, living in a city of six million people, couldn’t find a single decent guy. None she could connect with, they were all taken, snapped up a long time ago. She’d come up against that problem frequently, the ones she clicked with, the ones who got her, they all belonged to someone else. Or they were gay.

  ‘So, Dot is your grandmother and Mavis is your aunty,’ she clarified.

  Vee nodded her head, taking another bite of the roll.

  ‘And Mavis and Dot own this house?’

  Vee shook her head, swallowed. ‘Dis is Gran’s hoose. She married well. Granda’s family made a lot o’money in da herring trade back in da day. When Granda died Aunty Mavis retired an’ came back up from Lerwick an’ moved in t’help oot.’

  ‘Retired?’

  ‘Aye, she wis da Head Mistress o’one o’da high schools in Lerwick in da sixties.’

  ‘The Head Mistress of a high school,’ Deidre confirmed in an ahh moment, nodding, understanding now her fear of the old woman’s authority.

  ‘Granda died before I was born an’ dey were already running dis hoose for guests when I was growing up.’

  ‘Where’s your mum?’

  ‘Och, she died aboot ten years ago. Cancer. It took us a while t’get oer it, but Da seems t’be moving on noo. He’s got himself a new lady friend. Dey’re getting on quite well.’

  ‘I lost my mum when I was eight and Dad died about nine months ago. I’m an orphan now,’ she said matter of factly, surprised that she wasn’t besotted by tears by this comment. ‘No family.’

  ‘Och, rubbish. Aunty Mavis said we’re related somewhere back in da line. Somebody’s granda married somebody’s sister or someting.’ Vee took a thoughtful sip of tea. ‘So whit does dat make us den?’ she asked.

  Deidre shook her head, shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t have a clue,’ she said.

  Saturday Afternoon – Over Ayres Kame

  Deidre spent the better part of the morning in the kitchen with Vee and the twins, Stuart joining them later for breakfast.

  Olivia had popped her head in saying she and her husband would grab breakfast on their way up to Hermaness. Vee and Deidre had exchanged glances, smirking secretly together. Dot and Mavis had turned their attention on Deidre, asking her more in-depth questions about her life, things they hadn’t gotten to yesterday with the briefcase expose. She wasn’t married but why wasn’t she married? She should be having bairns before it’s too late, they warned. Deidre had smiled wanly in response, mortified, her loveless life becoming more embarrassing, more difficult to explain the older she got. Maybe she would meet a nice Shetland boy while she was here, they enthused and she nodded politely, humouring them, staring out to the vast empty fields hazy with rain, and no Shetland lads in sight.

  ‘Aye well der’s da two Australian lads arriving tomorrow,’ Vee had added with a wink. ‘And she’s comin’ t’da hall da night.’

  ‘But ye’ll no be goin’ t’da croft da day, lass,’ Stuart broke in, ‘whit a miserable walk dat id be.’

  After a hot shower she’d sat in her room for a while staring out the window watching the weather, going over George’s sketches spread out on the desk in front of her, studying the hand drawn map. The enigma of George Hart had been chewing away at her thoughts since yesterday, her anticipation to look in the chimney burning a hole in her stomach. She could find her way there, she thought, looking down on the photograph of the two men in front of the ramshackle cottage. She would find it.

  With the rain easing to a fine drizzle later in the morning, Deidre pulled on her new pair of walking boots bought from a specialty outdoor store in Sydney. She’d also purchased a heavy-duty lightweight jacket, black, with fleecy lining and detachable arms and hood, it had also come with a complimentary compact torch, red. Deidre slipped the jacket on and grabbed her backpack. She was ready to walk.

  With the car in reverse, she’d been just about to press her foot on the peddle when Stuart stepped up to the car door. She smiled up at him, blurry through the closed, rain soaked window. He didn’t leave. She opened the window.

  ‘Where r’ye aff t’lassie?’ he asked, anchoring his hand on the roof of the car.

  Deidre stared up at him, the car still in reverse, exhaust fumes billowing in the cold damp air.

  ‘To see if I can find the croft,’ she admitted.

  ‘D’ye know where yer goin?’

  ‘It’s over behind Ayres Kame. Ayres Kame’s on the map,’ she replied, her hand going to the store bought map sitting on the passenger seat. She held it out for Stuart’s inspection.

  Stuart didn’t even look at it. ‘It’s nae good. Ye need da
local map.’ He tapped his temple with a blunt sausage finger, the motion dislodging droplets from his hair. ‘Ye canny drive der. Der’s nae roads,’ he’d replied quietly, his round, ruddy face gazing down at her, his white woolly hair wearing a gossamer net of raindrops. ‘Ye need t’walk.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied, ‘I was gonna drive as far as I could, then walk. I’ve got George’s drawings as well,’ she replied, producing a wad of landscapes and the sketchy hand drawn map with scribbled place names.

  Stuart sighed deeply, taking George’s sketches from her, droplets dripping from his white curls as he shuffled through them. ‘Ye canny be using George Hart’s drawin’s t’get yerself aroon lassie. On a day like dis! God knows where ye’d end up. We’d find ye danglin’ o’er da cliff face o’Erdiness.’

  He handed the drawings back to her. ‘Awright. But I’ll warn ye noo, it’s gonna be a long, cold walk.’ He headed around to the passenger door. ‘We’ll be walkin’ da Coffin Road,’ he said, getting into the car beside her. ‘An’ it’s no gonna be pleasant.’

  The roads were deserted; tourists thin on the ground in weather such as this, Deidre noticing with trepidation that the misty drizzle now spattered against the windscreen with force. Stuart sat silently beside her before telling her to pull over onto a verge at the side of the road.

  ‘Pull over here?’ she queried, looking out the car window to the landscape beyond, wide, open moorland fields stretching to a blurred ridge of low hills on the far side, sheep clustered in the desolate fields like woolly clots of mist.

  It’s the middle of nowhere, she thought to herself. I’m in the middle of nowhere on an island that’s in the middle of nowhere. Stuart hadn’t lied to her, this was gonna be a long cold walk.

  She reached for the umbrella in the back seat.

  ‘You’ll no be needin’ dat,’ Stuart advised, alighting from the car. ‘Dat’s Ayres Kame,’ he said, arm outstretched, his finger tracing the ridge of hills stretching across the horizon like a spine. ‘We can get ontae da Coffin Road oer da rise up der. Den we just follow da road aw da way t’George’s hoose,’ he added, stepping off the verge and beginning the trek off-road, heading for the hills.

  Deidre locked the car and ran to catch up with him, following silently, lagging behind, unable to keep up to his pace. There was no visible track that she could see, sheep and ponies scattered across the field, the terrain uneven, filled with tussocks of grass and heather, boulders, the comb of hills on the other side of the field looming like a mountain. They would be climbing up there she knew, pressing her hands to her face, her cheeks numb. The misty drizzle, as fine and light as dust, saturated the air, billowing around in the breeze. It clung to everything; her hair, meandering its way down each follicle to her scalp, running down the back of her neck, down past the collar of her coat. Her jeans were damp and she could feel it penetrating her long johns. She felt frozen to the bone.

  The actual physical activity involved of ploughing through this terrain hadn’t featured in her plan, thinking stupidly that it would have been a pleasant amble across green fields and over gentle hills. But the confronting reality was a cold hard slog, the ground slippery in parts, rocky, uneven and boggy, her new walking boots begrimed and spattered with mud.

  Stuart stopped ahead of her, turned, regarding his tourist wryly. ‘Ye look like a popsicle lassie,’ he remarked as she caught up to him. ‘Mind yer step der,’ he advised, pointing at a protruding boulder.

  ‘Yeah, I’m freezing,’ Deidre admitted, her teeth now chattering as she followed behind him.

  The remains of a grey stony edifice manifested out of the drizzle, the walls of this croft all but gone, worn down, crumbled below window level.

  ‘There’s a lot of old ruins around,’ she said, catching up to Stuart, walking abreast with him. She’d seen the derelict cottages in various degrees of ruin everywhere on her drive up, dotted across the valleys, at the side of the roads, some just piles of stone.

  ‘Aye, dey’re left oer from da clearances.’

  ‘Clearances? What’s that?’

  Stuart looked at her in surprise. ‘Ye don’t know aboot da clearances lassie?’ He tutted, dismayed. ‘Och, it was a terrible ting. Dey uprooted tens of tousands o’people, trew dem oot o’der hooses an’ shipped dem oot, doon t’da lowlands an’ America. If ye didnae dae as ye were tolt ye were trown in jail. Dey set hooses alight wi people still in dem, auld grannies and we bairns. It was dreadful. Dey emptied da highlands ootta der people. It wis more profitable for da lairds to graze sheep dan it wis t’have people pay rent t’use der land. So dey kicked dem oot.’

  ‘They just kicked people out with nowhere to go?’ Deidre asked sceptically.

  ‘Oh aye, ‘an dey did. Dey shipped boatloads oer t’Nova Scotia an’ doon to da southern cities. Dat wis back in da eighteen hundreds mind you, before dey brought in da Crofters Act. You should read up on some history while yer here.’

  They walked on, the ground tilting upwards and growing into one Ayres Kame’s many combs.

  ‘Aye, it’s a dreery day da day, Deedree.’

  Deidre stared at the back of Stuart’s head, aghast, heat burning in her cheeks despite the chilling wind. Had it followed her all the way here to this remote dismal place? ‘Dreary Deidre’, in the most dreariest place on earth.

  ‘Why is it called the Coffin Road?’ she asked, breathless as the terrain rose suddenly to a steeper gradient.

  ‘Cause it wis da road people used t’carry der deed on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Der used t’be wee toonships aw oer dees valleys,’ Stuart explained. ‘If a dearly beloved passed on, ye had t’carry da coffin t’da gravesite o’er in Haardale.’

  ‘Carry the coffin?’ Deidre clarified.

  ‘Aye. Naebody had cars back den, few people even had a cart. Everyting wis carried on yer back or a pony’s back,’ he added, ‘so dat meant ye had to carry yer deed in der coffins on yer shoulders to der resting place. Der’s restin’ stones aw da way along da track where da coffin bearers could rest da coffin. We’ll pass one on da way to da croft.’

  They reached the crest of the hill and Deidre gasped, exposed suddenly to the full brunt of the elements, the drizzle suddenly transformed to icy needles in the velocity of the wind.

  ‘We’ll go further doon an’ get oota dis wind,’ Stuart said. Deidre nodded, following, pulling up the hood of her jacket and drawing it tight around her numb face. He stopped on a well-worn track half way down the hill, pointing out to the North West. ‘Dat’s Neeps Boulder oe’r der past da peat field,’ he said. Deidre nodded, recalling the story the twins had told her yesterday. She’d had another look at George’s drawing of the boulder this morning. It had been in a slightly different position, marginally higher up on the hilly sloping moorland. ‘An see dat track doon der?’ he said, pointing. Deidre could see a vague pathway cutting across the glen below. ‘Dat’s da Coffin Road. It starts in Houllside, cuts around da peat field den up here onta Ayres Kame, where we’re standin’ noo, t’get aroon da Swabbie Bog den on aw da way oe’r der past Hart Croft. It den swings oer da Burland Knowe an’ on t’Haardale. It disnae get used noo o’course. Naeybody lives aroon here anymare. Ye get da odd tourist,’ he added, glancing over his shoulder at Deidre following behind him.

  A small pool of black water came into view over the next rise, the water churning in the wind mimicking the sea in the distance.

  ‘I can’t believe they carried coffins with a dead body in it all this way,’ Deidre said.

  ‘Aye, an der were rules t’be followed as well. Fur instance, da feet of da corpse had to be pointing away from da hoose dey had just departed from so da spirit couldnae find its way back again. An’ da road has t’cross oer water. Spirits cannae pass back oe’r running water, ye see,’ he explained. Deidre walked quietly at Stuart’s side, hands stuffed into her pockets, intrigued by the local history, awed by the hardiness of the people that had once lived in these valleys.

  ‘D
a Blow Hole’s oer der,’ he advised, pointing west to the coastline as a bursting spume of water erupted from the headland. ‘But if yer gonna go der, pick yer wedder. It can be treacherous on a day like dis. Da sea comes blowing up through da hole an can sweep ye away t’da Arctic Circle if yer no careful.’

  The road turned up hill again.

  ‘I’m sorry for dragging you out here in this weather,’ Deidre said, wiping the rain from her face, pulling out a wad of damp tissues from her pocket and blowing her nose. ‘I just wanted to see the croft. I didn’t realise it would be so far.’

  ‘Aye ah know dat lassie. Ye’ve come a long way t’see it. It’ll no be much furder noo. Erdin is just aroon dis next bend.’

  She could see a ruin on a far off hillside, looking as though it had imploded upon itself, beyond repair.

  ‘What kind of condition is Hart Croft in?’

  ‘Well I havnae been doon dis way in many a year but da last time I saw it, well, ye couldnae live in it. You could probably fix it up at some expense.’ He cast another wry glance at Deidre. ‘But ye wouldnae be daen dat. Der’s a load a nice new places aboot da place... away from here.’

  ‘Away from here so I don’t catch the curse?’ Deidre replied with a smirk, trying to weed out the gloom she felt taking root in her psyche.

  ‘Aye,’ Stuart stated simply.

  Deidre smiled at him, shaking her head. ‘You’re all fixated on this curse business.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ he replied, assuredly. ‘An’ it wid pay ye da take heed.’

  ‘Otherwise I might get the curse as well?’

  ‘Oh aye,’ he repeated with certainty.

  Deidre shook her head. ‘I think it’s all a story you lot make up for the tourists.’

  ‘Oh is dat right?’

  ‘Aye, dat’s right,’ she replied, mimicking his accent. ‘Hey hang on.’ She stopped, waved down into the valley below causing him to look down. ‘Isn’t that Brigadoon down there? Look they’re waving at us.’ She continued waving to the empty valley.