The sketches passed through her mind, all the places George had been, all the places he’d searched for Breeta, and never found her. He’d died alone and mad, white with frost and frozen stiff, his eyes eaten out. Cursed.
And now it was her turn. They’d warned her and she’d laughed. But even then it had been too late for her, this deranged fixation settling into her psyche like permafrost from the moment she first opened that briefcase. It was at that point that the course had been set, the curse bequeathed, sweeping her up like a strong wind, intangible and unseen, and forceful enough to drag her along in its grip.
Bog residue itched her skin, a fibrous clump stuck in the hollow behind her left earlobe. Deidre looked at her hands, encrusted with streaks of drying mud and sludge.
Cursed. She could see now, looking out across the landscape, the misery of this affliction, could feel the torment, the relentless urgency to fulfil an impossible quest. It gnawed away at her daily existence, like hunger, like the need to eat, it lived at her very core, impossible to deny.
She only had two days. George had searched for more than half his life.
Deidre stared at The Peg. The clam sea rose and fell in great swells around the base of the stack. Dangerous. Treacherous. Was there even a place to land on that slippery, barnacle coated surface? And how would she get half way up into the cave?
She pulled herself out from the chamber and made her way towards the headland of Muddow’s Table.
A wind blew across the open expanse penetrating her damp clothes. Her boots still squelched, the wet leather chafing against her heels. She’d stopped at the burn and drank a little, but the thirst was back again, a crust forming at the corners of her lips.
To her left, she could see Erdin Valley spooning out below her, Erdiness rising above it like a citadel, Brud Stone standing like a thwarted man ready to jump off the precipice.
The blowhole remained quiet as she neared the edge of Muddow’s Table, the sloping grass-covered surface of The Peg coming into view. A cacophonous riot of white sea birds swooped around its mass like a swarm of bees around a hive, nesting in the crags and clefts of its craggy walls. Stepping closer to the edge of the headland, she gazed down into the deep black water rising and heaving with enormous power between the two cliff faces. To take a boat out there would be madness, to try to land on The Peg would be suicidal. And senseless. Breeta would have had the advantage of the adjoining bridge connecting the two landmasses in the time before it had disintegrated and crumbled into the sea. From the top of The Peg she may have been able to clamber down into the cave. Perhaps.
Deidre studied the gaping maw in the wall of The Peg, it faced directly into the small inlet below, the small inlet where, on that day so long ago, the ground had been churned by many feet.
Breeta wouldn’t have come this way, she wouldn’t have gone into that cave. She would have been placing herself in direct view of the Norsemen with nowhere to hide and no avenue of escape.
Deidre turned her head towards Brud Stone on the other side of the valley. She closed her eyes, recalling the sight of Breeta’s form scuttling up the hill towards Muddow’s Table through the mists of that morning.
‘Deidre.’
Startled, she turned around. Dylan stood behind her, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, his face bloodless. She could tell by his expression that he’d gone past being angry.
‘I’ve been waiting on your resting stone,’ he said, nodding his head over his shoulder. ‘I was gonna give you another half hour or so before I started looking for you again. I knew you’d be around here somewhere and that you’d turn up sooner or later. I was just waiting and then you appeared out of nowhere and I saw you walking up here.’ There was a tone of sardonic amusement in his voice. ‘I came by myself this time,’ he continued, nodding as if confirming to himself that he’d made the right decision. ‘There was no need for everyone to know Demented Deidre was on the loose again.’ His eyes scanned the length of her. ‘Because God knows what she might be up to this time.’ He said this mostly to himself, with a slight shake of his head.
‘Dylan, I’m-‘
‘No.’ He held his hand up halting her move towards him. ‘You don’t get to speak because everything you say is a lie.’ He tucked his hand back inside his dry warm pocket, looking at her. ‘I asked you never to come here again and you promised me that you wouldn’t. You promised me.’ He spoke to her as if she were a simpleton, his demeanour composed, his tone mild and calm. Deceiving. Designed to wound. His eyes bored into hers like two icicles, sharp and cold. ‘As soon as I woke up and you weren’t there I knew where you’d gone.’ He scoffed, looked past her out to sea. ‘Then I found your note. I was heading to Stayne, just to see if you’d actually gone there, and I saw your car at the side of the road.’ He paused for effect, projecting his head forward. ‘Liar.’
The word stung, the way he said it, the absence of emotion, as if she’d already been ostracised from his heart. As if she meant nothing to him, at best an old wound, an enemy.
‘I pulled over and sat in the car for a while. It took me a while to decide whether or not to come looking for you again. To come out here again. This place gives me the creeps.’ He muttered this under his breath, looking around him, glancing across at Brud Stone on the opposite headland before looking back at her. ‘I was trying to talk myself out of worrying about you, but I can’t shut it off that easily, it’ll take a while. I had to make sure you were okay first before I abandon all my responsibility of you.’
His words confused her, her heart thumping, her breath caught in her throat.
His eyes travelled up and down her form again. ‘Are you okay?’ He raised his eyebrows in question and she nodded silently, afraid to speak, knowing the wrong word, the wrong intonation could sever this fragile communication. He still cared, she thought, he’d come all this way out here because he cared. He was angry right now, saying things to hurt her and she didn’t blame him, but he would calm down and he would forgive her. She would make him. She would make it up to him. She just needed these two days and she could make everything right and they would go to Dublin as planned and live happily ever after. She would be free of this place. This curse.
And yet, all through that thought, like a thick black underscore, ran the knowledge that not all stories have a happy ending. Taran’s didn’t, he’d died alone, in the darkness, in pain and agony with a profound sorrow that had permeated these valleys for centuries like the blood spilled on the ground, the stain still there, buried deep.
‘You don’t look okay,’ Dylan continued, ‘you look like a lunatic. What happened to you this time?’
It took her a moment to realise she was required to answer this question. ‘I-‘ she stuttered, ‘I hit my head. I knocked myself out.’ Her hand went to her forehead, tentatively touching the throbbing lump.
‘Knocked yourself out?’ Dylan took an involuntary step forward. Stopped. ‘I’m not talking about that. You’re filthy.’
She glanced down at herself. The wind blew harder, knocking stiff strands of hair against her numb cheek, the blowhole gurgling behind her.
‘Everyone’s talking about you,’ Dylan said, his tone acerbic. ‘They drag up all the old stories, telling me what to expect next. And look at you, you’re behaving exactly like they say you will. You’re heading for the mental asylum like your crazy uncle.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’m not crazy.’
Dylan widened his eyes at her. ‘Really?’
‘I’m cursed, but I’m not crazy, Dylan. I know what I’m doing; I know what I have to do now.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not hanging around to watch, Deidre.’ He said these words with a musical lightness incongruous to the meaning. ‘But it’s not even about that anymore. It’s about you as a person,’ he said pointedly. ‘The person I would have to live with.’ His eyes held hers, making sure his words were getting through. ‘You lie, you sneak around and you go against your word. The first thing I tho
ught after I read your note was - she’s lying. What does that say about you, about your character? I don’t know if I really want to be involved in a close personal relationship with that type of person. I want someone I can trust.’ He paused. ‘It’s a shame because I thought this was going somewhere. I had great plans for us. But I suppose, we’ve only really known each other for a couple of weeks.’ He looked away, gazing out to sea for a moment and sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know if I can do this Deidre.’ His eyes focussed back on hers. ‘I don’t know if I want to. If I extract myself now I might still get away with minimal damage.’
Deidre held his eyes across the vast distance that had grown between them. Time had stopped, space expanding, pulling him away from her, the fragile line connecting them taut and strained, ready to snap. If it broke, he’d drift away and she’d never be able to reach him again.
‘I love you,’ she said, her words barely audible to her own ears.
‘Yeah, I read that in your note,’ he replied quickly, coldly, his head turned away, looking down on Erdin Valley. ‘Right before the lie about sleeping at Stayne House. Just out of curiosity,’ he asked, looking back at her, ‘was that a deliberate lie, about sleeping at Stayne, or did you just get side-tracked on your way there?’
Deliberate.
Deceitful Demented Dreary Deidre. She was sneaky and a liar and guilty of everything he accused her of. Trust, a cornerstone of all relationships. She’d pulverised that stone to small bits and even if she painstakingly pieced it all together again close and tight, the cracks would always be there placing the integrity of the foundations in doubt.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she meant it.
Dylan stared at her for a long, long moment before he spoke. ‘Leave with me now. We’ll pack today. Leave today.’
It was an ultimatum. And it was impossible for her to submit too.
She couldn’t walk away from this, the emotional pull and hold was too strong, it had the same desperate urgency as if it was her dad lost out there. She couldn’t walk away and leave him, it was an impossible ask; the anguish this would cause, the worry and stress, the guilt would burn a hole in her soul. She could never rest, knowing she would have to seek, search and hunt until she found him again. Find Her. Breeta. And she knew she couldn’t stop until it was done.
The wind was blowing harder, the morning lightening up, noises rumbling from deep down in the blowhole. Dylan stood looking at her waiting for an answer, his expression hardening the longer he waited. He nodded finally, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, his lips clamped tightly together. ‘Ok, whatever it is you’re doing here obviously means more to you than I do. I’m leaving on Thursday,’ he added, his eyes locked into hers, the silence stretching out as she stared back at him, voiceless. ‘You’ll never find what you’re looking for you know. George never did. And you’re gonna lose me over something you’ll never find.’
Unable to articulate a single word she could only stand silent, mute, as he waited a moment longer before turning and walking away. She watched him leave knowing it was now, right now that she could stop this, she could still call out, could still run to him, catch up with him. Leave this place with him. But she let him walk away, her heart as dislodged and heavy as Neeps Boulder, rooted to the spot, held here; torn, tortured, cursed, knowing she couldn’t leave until this was done.
The wind had almost dried her damp crusty clothes by the time she reached the basin of Erdin Valley, her over occupied mind numbing her to the itch, the cold, the discomfort, the annoying wisps of hair breaking away from the stiff skullcap plastered to her head and floating like cobwebs around her face.
Hills enclosed the valley, the headlands of Erdiness and Muddow’s Table linked by the serpentine ridges of Ayres Kame. Deidre approached the small settlement of Betarra tucked into the sloping curve at the bottom of Ayres Kame, hidden beneath earth-encrusted mounds. It was as recognisable and familiar to her as her father’s house back in Sydney. She knew what was in there, under there, hidden and untouched for millennia; camouflaged by the visage of natural erosion, concealed by layers of turf growing over the rubble-filled entrance to Taran’s home.
This would be her starting point she decided. From here, she would follow in Breeta’s footsteps. Deidre closed her eyes, recalling the sight of Breeta that morning so long ago, her dark cloak scaling the side of the hill, moving like the shadow of a cloud across the landscape shrouded in tattered mist.
Opening her eyes again, Deidre charted a faint, almost invisible trail, the memory of a pathway leading off from the open flat ground in front of the settlement that had once served as Betarra’s central meeting point, the place of activity, the place where so much blood had been spilled. The thin path, as indiscernible as a cobweb, threaded its way up the side of the hill towards a low dip where Muddow’s Field ended before rising up and spreading dramatically into the wide flat plateau of Muddow’s Table. The pathway Breeta had taken.
Deidre began walking, retracing Breeta’s exodus.
The boulder-strewn expanse of Muddow’s Field appeared as she reached the crest of the hill, her eyes easily picking out the entrance to the chamber over on the far side of the moorland. She continued on over the curving rise of the headland until the cove came into view, the beach where Dylan and Stuart had found her naked in the ocean, the small inlet the Viking raiders had entered, churning up the earth with their heavy footprints. She had seen five of their longships enter the bay that morning; only three had crashed onto the beach of Erdin Valley, the other two had come ashore here. Deidre stared down at the small cove. It would have been swarming with Vikings. Breeta’s only option would have been to turn inland and head towards Ayres Kame.
She scanned the landscape, Muddow’s Field fanning out for some distance before merging into the marshland of Swabbie Bog beyond encompassing the loch at the foot of Ayres Kame and stretching across to Beredale peat field on the far side. The only way to Ayres Kame from here was to take the ridge of higher ground above the loch, which would have exposed her to the marauders on both sides.
She pulled George’s map from her inside pocket, the old paper damp and fragile, flapping dangerously in the wind, crosses marked all over it in blunt pencil; the story of George’s relentless search. How many hours did each cross represent? How many days, months, years?
She only had two days.
A moment of total hopeless despondency filled her, leaving her feeling as empty and desolate as this wide, open space that stretched out towards Ayres Kame.
Tuesday Morning
The clock on the dash stated it was 8.12am, much later than she’d expected, but the car park of Stayne House sat empty Deidre noted with relief, pulling in slowly, her tyres popping and crunching over the gravel. Her stomach fizzed, full of emptiness and nervous burn, her hands sweating, aware that she hadn’t set foot in Stayne House since last Saturday, wondering if she could sneak in quietly, change and slink back out again unnoticed. Avoid Mavis. Avoid the kitchen, tiptoe in through the front door. She glanced down at her bog-soiled state imagining Mavis’ wrath if she caught her inside the house in this condition. Imagining Mavis’ tirade if she saw her at all in this state. All she had to do was get in through the front door and run up the stairs and if she was careful and quiet enough they wouldn’t even know she’d been there. Simple, she thought, bending awkwardly around the steering wheel, untying her boots and sliding them off with some effort.
As usual, the front door was unlocked and Deidre tiptoed quietly inside to find Vee’s boy, Gregory, dressed in his school uniform, his jumper stretched over his plaster cast, standing outside the kitchen doorway at the other end of the hallway. He turned to look at who was coming in through the front door and stared at Deidre, his mouth open, his eyes widening as he regarded the mess she was in. Their eyes met for a moment, both of them caught in a spell, like watching an unexpected bubble float through the air between them, before it broke suddenly.
‘Mammy! Mammy, Deedree’s here,�
�� the boy called out, pointing down the hallway at her.
‘Little shit!’ Deidre expelled under her breath, taking the stairs three at a time.
‘She’s come in tru da front door an’ she’s aw covered in muck!’ she heard him call, reaching the landing and running to her room.
‘Little fucker,’ she breathed, opening the door to her room and slamming it tight closed behind her, locking it. She could already hear the sound of feet coming up the stairs and she stepped away from the door, pulling her handbag out from under a pile of clothes on the chair. She placed it on the bed, rifling for her wallet.
A knock at the door.
‘Deidre.’ It was Vee as expected. Knock. Knock. Knock. ‘Deidre, can I come in?’
‘I’m getting changed,’ she called.
Another knock, rapid and sharp. She thought she heard someone yelp.
‘Deeedreee!’ cried Mavis, the old woman’s voice sharp and demanding and Deidre stood to attention, gripping her wallet tight in her hands.
‘Deeedreee!’ She’d never been spoken to like this before. The old woman intimidated her, the way she scrutinised her with those sharp intelligent eyes; the head mistress, all knowing, all seeing, nothing getting past her.
‘I’m fine Mavis. I’m okay,’ she called, the meek tone of her voice deceiving her.
‘Open dis door. Noo!’ Mavis commanded.
Deidre stared at the door, a nervous erratic giggle bubbling in her throat remembering the old woman’s strict rules about dirty boots; her eyes falling on the bed where she’d disembowelled her handbag, the white bed cover sprinkled with bits of crusty bog muck that had fallen from her like black dandruff. And then there was her behaviour to consider; to be in this condition to begin with, this would send Mavis into paroxysms.
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