by Gemma Amor
White Pines
Gemma Amor
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
White Pines
First Edition March 2020
Cover design by: Kealan Patrick Burke of Elderlemon Designs
Copyright Ⓒ 2020 Gemma Amor
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review and other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ISBN: 9781793845610
There are people I need to thank for making this book possible:
My Kickstarter backers- each and every one of you took a chance on this book based on the prologue alone, and for that you have my unending love and gratitude. There is a full list of backers at the end of this novel.
Thank you a million times.
Mr. M, for alerting me to Gruinard Island, and throwing me in at the deep end.
I didn’t drown (well, nearly).
The people of the Highlands, for being so friendly and not at all like the people in this book, thank heavens.
My brilliant editor (and friend) Dan Hanks, for diligently turning this into a much better book than I could ever have imagined, and being the most exuberant cheerleader a writer could hope for.
David Cummings of the No Sleep Podcast, for being so supportive of everything I do and boosting the Kickstarter so tremendously. You are a true mentor and a dear friend.
Sadie Hartmann, a champion for indie authors, a beautiful force of nature in the world of horror, and, hopefully, a friend. You said you wanted a novel. Here she is!
Brandon Boone, otherwise known as Shit Thom Yorke, for the White Pines playlist and for not supporting the Kickstarter, you tight bastard. Timing is everything.
The effortlessly talented Kealan Patrick-Burke for the stunning cover. You’re one of my favourite people too!
Eòghainn MacGriogair for the invaluable Gàidhlig advice (I hope I did it justice- the audiobook will be fun!)
My dedicated beta reader Aiden Merchant, a huge supporter and enthusiastic megaphone for my questionable talents.
The Poolewe Hotel, for the peace and quiet, and simply awesome fish and chips.
And BTP, my second home from home, although you probably don’t realise that. Best coffee and poached eggs in town.
‘One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age’
James Joyce, The Dead
Prologue
PART ONE: ROOTS
1. A House called Taigh-Faire
2. Nothing by halves
3. Below
4. A walk
5. Laide
6. Chapel of Sand
7. Matthew
8. The Beach
9. Calling
10. Open
PART TWO: TRUNK
11. The Tunnel
12. Anthrax Island
13. The boy
14. A place called White Pines
15. Party
16. Love not wanted
17. Unwelcome
18. Silence
19. One second
20. Marooned
21. Waiting
22. Behind the veil
23. Pig flesh
24. Plan
25. Dreams made flesh
26. Run for it
27. Don’t watch
28. Consequences
29. Only two
30. Escape
31. Defeat
32. All in good time
33. History
34. In the family
35. One god at a time
36. Back again
37. Rock by rock
38. Sealed
39. See
40. All that she knows
41. Job done
42. The Hunter becomes the hunted
PART THREE: BRANCHES
43. Granny
44. The Lair
45. Up
46. Down
47. To kill a giant
PART FOUR: LEAVES
48. What things I have seen
49. Locked out
50. Layers
51. Declassified
52. Anniversary
53. Replay
54. Luke
55. Ever burning
56. The Call
57. Beneath
58. The tree
Epilogue
With thanks and love
About the Author
Prologue
This is where White Pines used to stand.
Of the 1,351 people who used to live here, only bare, blackened earth remains. Instead of the self-made town, there is now a scar now upon the land, made all the more horrifying by its proportions, for the charred soil is laid out in the shape of a perfectly proportioned equilateral triangle.
It’s been over ten years, yet still it feels as if the Island is waiting for White Pines to return. Time has stopped here. Nature has not reclaimed the land. The ground remains scorched. Nothing grows. Not even weeds. Animals don’t forage here, birds don’t fly over the big, blank space in the soil where houses used to stand. I can’t even see insects flitting around on the breeze. There is no breeze, despite the fact that the sea is all around me.
I reach down, pull my gloves off, touch the dark soil with my bare hands. Nine fingers press down into the cold earth, and I shiver. I was told, years ago, not to do this, but I do it anyway. I was told, years ago, to stay away, but I come, anyway. Every year I make the journey, across the bay, through the stand of strange white pine trees that encircles the site, underneath the tall barbed-wire fence that marks the old settlement boundary, and I have done so every year since it happened. The event. The vanishing. Every year, just like this, I press my hands to the soil and feel the same peculiar tingle run through my fingers, a numbness which speaks not only of loss, but of a huge wrongness in the natural order of things. I can’t keep my hands pressed to the ground in this way for long. After only a few moments, my head and my teeth begin to ache. I rise, pull my gloves back on, and walk away from what used to be the centre of the community. A small square once lay here. In the middle of this square, a cast iron water pump stood, the Island’s main source of clean water. Birds used to sit on the roof that covered the pump, chattering amongst themselves and coating it with a white, crusty layer of shit. There was a carved sandstone bench next to the pump. Folk would sit there and feed the birds: seagulls, crows, sparrows, the occasional robin. The birds are gone, now. So is the pump, the square, the shit, and the people. The absence of things is so loud it pierces my brain with loss. What used to be, is simply no more.
But the memories linger like smoke in the air.
It is time to leave. There are no answers here for me, not today. I walk slowly back towards the barbed-wire fence. The ragged remains of a few cards and flowers hang sadly from the wire, long-degraded evidence of a tragedy, of mystery, of a dirty secret. Time has erased the messages on the cards, just as time has erased the days that have passed since White Pines disappeared. But I know what is written in each one. The cards were left by me. One for every year since...it happened.
You see, no-one comes here anymore, except for me. There is no reason to. There is nothing to see, no ruins to mourn over. No visible remains of what has been lost. People need something tangible to attach their grief to. There is no comfort to be taken from wide open spaces full of no
thing.
And in a way, it makes things simpler. A secret is much easier to keep safe when there are no signs it ever existed in the first place.
The rigid pine trees outside of the barbed-wire boundary frown upon me as I hunker down onto all fours, preparing to climb under the fence and head back to the south shore, where my way off the Island lies. I notice there is no wind in their branches. There never is. I am, as usual, the only moving thing in this static, frozen landscape. I may as well be standing on the moon.
There is a tearing sound. The fence catches my jacket, shreds a long strip of the scarlet material right off. It hangs there, motionless alongside the wilted cards, the colour too bright amongst the faded detritus of grief. It seems brash by comparison, garish. And yet, I feel defiant, looking at it. The colour should be bright. It is fitting, symbolic, a brightness which proudly shouts that I have not forgotten. It’s a small, torn, defiant marker of my remembrance. A tiny red flag challenging the still, dead air.
Besides, I never liked this coat much anyway. It belonged to someone else, once, someone thankfully long-dead. I hadn’t liked her very much, either.
With effort, I free myself from the fence, and stand up, panting. I am not as agile as I once was. I am nearly fifty now, and things in my body don’t work as nimbly as they once did. I wonder if prolonged exposure to the echo of White Pines has something to do with the vicious onset of arthritis that twists my body in increasingly cruel ways. It certainly always seems worse after my annual visit. Or maybe it’s the cold Scottish climate. Or perhaps I’m just getting older, and this is what happens.
I pat myself down, making sure I’ve dropped nothing, left nothing behind except that single strip of red fabric on the fence. Then, reassured, I take one long, last look at White Pines, as is tradition.
The things I have seen here. Such terrible, terrible things.
As I think this, I see movement on the scorched soil.
There is a flicker. A change in the atmosphere. A familiar break in the static. Like a light blinking on in a darkened room.
Oh, God. I rub my eyes, wondering if I’ve imagined the flicker. The air shudders again. I haven’t.
Something is coming back.
The atmosphere breaks one last time, a contraction that gives birth to a shadow. And I see...
...I see a dark, limping shape headed down the slope towards me.
Fear fills my heart. Is it the Hunter? It can’t be. The Hunter is dead.
The shape moves in the way that a human moves, only more slowly, with a staggering gait. A small noise escapes my mouth. Not again, I think. I know how this works. It has been years since I’ve seen it happen, but every time, it’s the same. The air ripples, a shape moves, and something that once belonged to White Pines returns. Momentarily, like a mirage. A building, an item of clothing like a shoe, or a glove, or a dog, or even a person. They appear, and then, before anyone can do anything, they disappear again, blinking out of the world in a matter of seconds, leaving only small flakes of ash in the air, ash which drifts to the floor, and then melts, like snow.
Determination grabs my heart as the figure stumbles across the blasted earth. Maybe this time it will be different. Maybe this time, I can save just one of them, one, single part of White Pines, before the nothing sucks it out of existence again.
Another thought occurs, stealing my breath away.
Maybe this time, it’ll be Matthew.
Matthew, come back, from wherever he has been.
I scramble back underneath the fence again. This time, my jacket catches on the barbs and almost comes off entirely, but I barely notice. I wrestle free of it and leave it hanging on the wire, tilting forward, my eyes fixed on the goal, trying to make the silhouette out more clearly. It looks...it’s not large enough to be Matthew...it looks...
Like a child!
A child smeared with ash, eyes white and haunted in its face. The child cries, and the sound carries across to me: scared, lost, pitiful.
Run! I think, run towards me! You don’t have long!
The child runs, and I can see now that it is a small boy, maybe six or seven years of age, judging by his height and build. My stomach lurches with recognition. I know this boy. I know this boy! His cries grow louder as he moves, and the sound of him spurs me into action, giving my feet wings.
Because by now, the ghosts have normally winked out of existence. By now, he should have vanished again. This time, things are different. The boy is still here.
I might just make it.
I might just save one of them.
And I am moving, legs wheeling beneath me, pulled to the silhouette like iron filings to a magnet, throwing my body forward with all the speed I can muster, despite the inherent dangers of staying on the unhallowed ground for too long. I have to get to the boy before the Island steals him back. I have to. I have to repair it, somehow. The loss. In ten years, I have done nothing of any use except mourn. This time it will be different. I force my legs to move faster than they have for a long, long time, despite the pain in my joints, despite the awkwardness of my twisted bones.
Finally, gloriously, after what feels like eons of running towards each other, he is within reach. I lunge for him, grasp his outstretched arm, heave him up into my embrace, ignoring the screams of pain my bones make. With the boy wrapped tight to my chest, I make an abrupt turn, wheeling about and almost over-balancing, and then I shuffle back towards the fence, hating my weak body, wishing I was younger, wishing I was faster, desperation and fear urging me on nonetheless. I had been full of power, once. I had been something extraordinary. Beyond human. Where was that power now? Why give me such a gift, only to take it away again? The Island is cruel, indiscriminate.
It deceives.
‘Hurry!’ The boy shrieks, and I can feel him flickering in my embrace, his form pulsating between solid and...something else. Something less real. Something less now. I move faster, sobbing with the effort of carrying him, aiming for the beacon that is my crimson jacket hanging from the fence. It looms brighter and closer, the colour still defiant, and now, more hopeful than I could have imagined possible.
Behind it, tall pines with brilliant white bark watch, impassive. They are always watching.
They can go to hell.
Because we are going to make it. The fence is mere feet away.
‘Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!’ The boy babbles as we close in on the boundary, and I feel him flicker once again, almost disappearing from my grip completely. I stumble to my knees, and make a decision. I hurl him at the fence, and he coalesce back into solidity, made more real by his proximity to the invisible border that runs parallel to the fence. A border I set in place and sealed, many years ago. Is it still fast? No time for that now.
The boy hits the wire, rights himself, scrambles to his knees and disappears underneath, like a rabbit into a burrow. As he goes, his legs vanish completely, and he wails in panic, but then they reappear, and, against all possible odds, he is on the opposite side of the fence, and he is whole once more. Whole, and real.
I hold out a hand, a signal to stop him from moving. The message is clear: stay still, stay there until I can get you.
Shuffling and shambling the last few steps, feeling the air snap and wane around me, I wonder if this is my time, finally. My hair stands up on my scalp, as if pulled upright by static. Will White Pines take me where all the others went? Am I ready, after all this time, to follow?
Would I be leaving, or arriving?
I am ready. I want to find Matthew. I want to know, once and for all, where he went.
But then there is the boy. And the boy needs help.
Oh, God. I saved one. I saved one!
It is not time.
A red jacket waits, like a flag at the end of a race. I push back underneath the fence, where wire knots scrape my back. I cannot believe what has just happened. Tears roll down my cheeks. A faint breeze picks up from somewhere, the first breeze I have felt in ten years in this pla
ce.
The tall, pale pines rustle gently around us, as if applauding.
I lie down next to the boy on the ground and hold him tightly, soothing him as he sobs hysterically, great, big, wonderful, real sobs.
I’ve got you, I think, over and over again, as we lay crying on the floor, clutching at each other. The boy is here. He is not a ghost, or a memory. He is real. His tears are hot against my cheek. The stink of ash, and of something else, is rich in my nostrils. I hold him so tightly I fear I may break him.
I have done it. I have saved one.
One survivor. One, of so many lost souls.
I saved one.
I begin to laugh, hysterically. If I can save one, then I can save more.
My courage rises for the first time in years. It rises, and becomes a great marble plinth of resolve, upon which, a small boy stands like Eros, his face streaked with tears.
I am going to find out what happened to White Pines, once and for all.
And this boy is going to help me.
Maybe, together, we can save them all.
PART ONE: ROOTS
1. A House called Taigh-Faire
Before all of this, there was a house. An old stone and slate house, once painted a pristine white. Now, rather like me, it had faded and discolored to something greyer, shabbier, altogether less attractive, if no less robust.
It was once a guest house. The last guest checked out in 1988, and after that it stood empty for some time, clinging like a weathered barnacle to a lip of stone that juts out above the shore of a beautiful sandy cove called Little Gruinard beach, in Gruinard Bay, on the northwest coast of Scotland. As idyllic and isolated a spot as you could possibly imagine, and once you got used to the breathtaking views, once they stopped being a distraction, you realised there was something wild about the house, too, something untamed, as if it were not built by man’s hands at all, but rather formed by natural design. A part of the empty, golden sands of the bay with the deep blue sea beyond, and the impressive hummocking mountains that squatted down around it protectively.
The house was called Taigh-Faire, which meant ‘watch house’ in Gaelic, and it belonged to my Granny before she grew too old and infirm to live there alone. When my Granny died, the house became mine. It was a surprise bequeathment, for I had not seen her since I was a young child. I could barely remember anything about her, and never got the impression, from what I did remember, that Granny had liked me that much. She had been a cold and uncompromising character, according to my mother. The only real, concrete fact I knew about her was that she was missing the little finger on her right hand. Just like I was. I’d lost mine in an accident involving a door, although I didn’t remember it. I never knew how Granny lost her finger, but as an adult, I found the shared injury amusing. It was a good story to trot out at parties, at any rate. Not that I went to many of those.
