by kc dyer
Not even a single cab.
It had begun to rain lightly, anyhow, so I found myself a small hostel room and lay down to sort out my plans.
I woke at ten the next morning with my copy of OUTLANDER on the pillow. Turned out I had slept on the map. A hint of purple ink traced across one cheekbone as I gazed in the mirror while I brushed my teeth.
Clearly, all the travel had begun to catch up with me. But I knew it couldn’t last—I’d have to return to the city and find a job, very soon.
I had a cup of tea while the hostel supervisor banged dishes together in the kitchen, and then headed out toward the bus station to see if I had better luck locating a cab than I had the night before.
Down the street I found a little parking sign with a taxi symbol on it, and planted myself there. If there was a cab to be hailed, I was going to be the one to hail it.
An hour later, not a single taxi had passed.
Not a single car had passed, as a matter of fact. My stomach rumbled and I began to think about finding something to eat. But what if the cab came when I left my spot?
Finally, after another twenty minutes, I spied a lady walking her dog. She smiled at me warmly when I stepped forward.
“Ach, no love—we do have a local taxi-driver, but last I heard his transmission needed an overhaul. We migh’ try callin’ up tae Inverness, but it’ll be a fair wait, I’m sorry to say.”
I must have looked disappointed, as she reached out and patted my arm fondly. “Where’re ye off to, pet? Here to see family?”
“No, not exactly. I’m looking for—well, I’m looking for this.” I held out the very-creased map to her.
She switched the leash to her other hand and pulled on a pair of glasses that had been dangling around her neck on a chain. After a moment, she glanced up at me over the rims.
“Are ye sure, pet? Them stones are … well, are ye sure?” Her voice had dropped to little more than a whisper.
I nodded, and decided to risk the truth. “I’m really just checking it off my list. It’s a—it’s a bit of a long story.”
She pulled her glasses off and they slid down her chest with a quiet rattle. The wind whistled around us a little, skittering last year’s leaves along the ground. She looked down at her wristwatch and muttered. “Half-twelve. Should be enough time …”
Her gaze returned to me, over the top of her glasses. “Well,” she said, “if ye are sure, then best I drive ye, pet. Come along—it’s just this way.”
The little terrier on the leash gave me a short, sharp bark as if to say ‘get a move on’, and we were off.
Valerie Urquhart, for that was her name, had lived in Drumnadrochit all her life, as had her father, and her father’s father. “The family’s got property in the area,” she said. I later discovered that the entire region was in the realm of Clan Urquhart, including a nearby castle on Loch Ness that had been in her family for generations. Whether it was modesty or for some reason I never learned, she shared none of these details with me.
What she did share, however, was her gift.
We were in her small Volvo, rocketing along the road less than ten minutes after I’d first met her.
“It’s all right, pet,” she said, expertly gearing down to take a sharp corner. “I knew right away you were a good person. I read faces like books, aye? An’ when ye showed us the map, well, it was clear I had to help.”
The countryside was primarily farm fields, each lined with low rock walls that wound up the hillsides. Any forested patches were mainly peppered with deciduous trees, so the area still had a bit of a bleak, pre-spring look. I could see alders and willows and even a few elm trees through the windows as we whipped past. And there was the barest trace of green to the blur of trees going by, showing spring weather might not be too far away to hope for, at least.
The little terrier, whose name was Wullie, stood on his hind legs the whole way, front paws balanced expertly on the back of the front seat as we rounded the corners. Gerald’s map indicated the distance as twenty minutes from the town. Valerie had the car parked and was hopping out with the dog in under twelve.
My heart sank. I could see before I even got out of the car that this area was flat, again— not on a hillside, and not really even among the trees. Sheep placidly grazed one field over, beyond a ragged rock wall.
The small parking lot was entirely empty, and Valerie had stopped to wait for me by the path leading to the stones.
“So, ye’ve seen the stones at Clava, I take it.”
I nodded and stepped past her onto the path, but she put a hand on my arm. “Emma—your family. Before they went to America—were they Scots?
“Not that I know,” I said. “My dad’s family was Irish, and I may have had a great-grandmother from Aberdeen, but I think that’s it.”
“Ach, that’s Celtic on both sides, then,” Valerie said. She reached out and took one of my hands in both of hers, and then closed her eyes.
We stood there in a most awkward silence, me desperate to withdraw my hand but not wanting to offend the kind lady who had, after all, driven me well out of her way. And she, standing still, humming softly to herself.
After what seemed like an eternity, she opened her eyes and looked at me earnestly. “There is a great longing in you, Emma. And yer willin’ to work hard fer what ye want, there’s nae doubt about that.”
She was still holding my hand, and she unclasped hers from around mine but did not quite let go. Instead, she turned my hand around, so the palm was open and facing up. “Sometimes the best thing is to jes’ hol out yer hand like this, in yer mind’s eye—p’raps when you are about to drift off to sleep or even jes’ when ye have a quiet moment. Hold out yer hand and picture what you want in it—in your own grasp.”
We both looked down at my palm, held out between us. And for an instant in my mind’s eye, I saw a hand there, clasping my own. My fingers curled inward to a fist, involuntarily, and she patted it softly before releasing me.
“That’s the way,” she said. “Now let’s see about these stones, shall we?”
I hadn’t said a word about my travels, or my intent regarding visiting the ancient site, but after our brief moment in the parking lot, I felt almost as if I had no secrets from Valerie—as though she had some weird grasp on my inner life. But instead of making me feel self-conscious and ridiculous, I felt strangely at peace.
That didn’t last long.
We stepped off the path into the clearing, which I could see had been fenced away from a farmer’s field. Just along the neat footpath was a collection of rusty red Highland cattle alternately grazing and staring into space. The circle of stones, eleven in number, was startlingly similar to the ones near Culloden. It surrounded a pile of rocks, indented on one side, with a rounded hollow center.
“It’s a cairn,” said Valerie. “Long deserted. Robbed, in times past, of any valuables. But something still remains.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Twas the old ’uns that built this cairn, and the ones at Balnuaran, too,” she said, quietly. “Aligned with the midsummer moon, but not jes’ any moon. The entrance lies in the path of the rare, long moon, wha’ comes but once a generation.”
She stepped to the edge of the cairn. “Did ye walk through the ones up north?” she asked.
When I nodded, she gestured toward the low entrance. “Those at Balnuaran are open to the sky, but this one still has its roof. It’s corbeled, y’see, strong enough to hold those rocks in place for millennia.”
Pointing at the middle, she walked back over to where I lingered near one of the low standing stones. “When the archeologists finally went in, there were no remains of the body. Just a sort of stain on the stone, showing how they’d placed her, face out to see the moon as it waxed full on all her children and theirs, each in turn.”
“It was a woman?” I asked. “I thought these old monuments mostly revered kings and warriors and so on.”
Valerie smiled. “Oh, they’ve no
proof, o’ course, as there were no remains found to test. But I’ve had my hand on that center stone.” She pointed to a large slab that rested to one side of the opening at the top. “And I can tell ye, I feel her still, or what she once was.”
We stood silently together and watched the wind create weird shapes in the dead grasses sown across the roof of the cairn, each lost in our own thoughts.
“Can you climb down through there to get into the center?” I asked her, at last.
Valerie nodded. “Oh, aye—it’s called a passage grave for a reason, y’know. But I’d not like to do it m’self, I’ll tell ye, as it is a wee low ceiling. I’m too claustrophobic for that sort of thing these days, though I done it enough when I was a young’un, up to no good here with the other boys and girls.” She chuckled, eyes distant.
I walked over to the entrance, a dark smudge of shadow amid the gray stone. “It was here that the ghost stood,” I blurted. “At Clava. I saw him and another man—a friend who was there—saw him, too. I could see his kilt in the moonlight, but not much else. Heavy boots, maybe.”
Valerie, walking up to join me, burst into delighted laughter. “Ach, girlie, someone’s havin’ ye on. Ye’ll see no tartan-clad ghosties at these sites. The spirits of any who remain here—even those of the warriors who may have guarded them—came long before the plaid. Long before the bonnie sort of folk you’d recognize these days. It was the old ’uns that made this place. Tha’s why I came with ye today. Whether ye’re of the Celtic blood or no’, it doesn’t do to come unlearned before the old ’uns.”
I opened my mouth to argue with her. And then I remembered. “My friend who was here—he stayed all night hoping to see the ghost.”
“And …?” She crossed her arms then, waiting for me to finish.
“He’s in the hospital,” I admitted reluctantly. “He caught a chill and it turned into pneumonia.”
Valerie nodded, tracing a finger along the surface of the standing stone. “American?” she asked, though from her smile, I felt she must know the answer.
“From Georgia,” I said. “But his mother’s family came from England.”
She shrugged. “Who’s to know what’s at play?”
We both stood quiet a moment, and then Valerie raised her head. “I don’t have a sense of him, I’m sorry to say. But I hope he’ll be well again soon.”
“I think he’s doing much better,” I said.
She nodded, and stepped back onto the path. “And glad I am to hear it. But for you, though … have ye seen enough? Is there anything else I can answer for ye?”
Looking back over the low cairn, I could see the old stones standing sentinel around it. Behind it fields dotted with red cattle spread across the landscape, completed by the white coats of sheep on the nearby hillside. The only sound I could hear, apart from the cars on the motorway in the distance, was the jagged cawing of a crow as it flew overhead.
I turned and walked back to Valerie. “This is such a beautiful place,” I said quietly. “Just looking around here, it takes my breath away. I can understand how your family has stayed here for so many generations. You must never want to leave.”
She whistled sharply for Wullie and then smiled at me as he came bounding up. “For all that’s true, pet, I am fond of a wee jaunt to Pamplona in February. The winters here can be a mite dreich.”
Future Feelings…
9:00 pm, March 20
Drumnadrochit, Scotland
Just back from an amazing visit to another set of standing stones. This time, my guide was someone who knows things. Her heart and her blood are in this soil. And she taught me the Scots word for the constant rain and mist, too.
We did not see a ghost, or find a Highlander to sweep me off my feet. But she has reminded me that my dreams are always within my grasp.
First, though? I need to find a job.
- ES
Comments: 13
Gerald Abernathy, Ft. William, Scotland:
Nothing?
Nothing?
Ah, well … at least you didn’t get sick. Email me, y’all!
Jack Findlay, Edinburgh, Scotland:
Don’t have an email address for you, Emma, so I thought I’d just drop you a quick note here on your blog to let you know all is well. Ankle is broken, but plastered and I’m back down to Edinburgh for re-coup and a chat with my editor. Thanks again for your help, and Godspeed.
Jack
(Read 11 more comments here…)
I leaned back in my seat and sipped the last of my almost-cold tea. So Jack’s ankle was broken. I felt a spasm of guilt as I thought about him taking that long walk all the way from the castle to the road. But at least he was okay. Still writing. When my life returned to some semblance of normal, I would have to stop and buy one of his books. Gerald certainly thought he was a great writer. And speaking of Gerald, wherever I ended up next, I needed to email him. He clearly wanted all the details from the trip to the circle.
Not that I had a lot to share.
By the time I’d read the last of the comments as they rolled in, the woman at the front of the cafe had cleaned off all the tables and was looking at me pointedly. I gathered up the remains of my biscuit and backpack and stepped outside. The bus stop was right next to the coffee shop. A solid, dreary rain had begun to fall and I’d been hoping that the cafe would stay open for shelter until the bus arrived, but no joy on that front.
I pulled up my hood, waited for the lights of the next bus and thought about Valerie. About the moment when she’d held my hand. The circle of stones hadn’t been Craigh na Dun, I’d known that all along. And even as star-struck as this voyage had been from the start, I had no real expectation of a Highland warrior suddenly manifesting for my approval. I couldn’t quite remember just what I had been thinking at the onset of this journey, but the route I had taken had provided dreamy young Scottish men in distinctly short supply.
I had to face facts. In spite of the rain, and the cold and my inability to find a reasonable facsimile of Craigh na Dun, the country was beginning to take a hold on me. The Scottish grip was squeezing tightly on my heart. But finding my Fraser had not happened. I needed to earn enough to buy the plane ticket as promised, and go home.
A pair of lights swung round the corner and the bus pulled up at last.
Filleting Fish…
8:00 pm, April 3
Glasgow, Scotland
Been here for almost two weeks now, having caught the bus down from Drumnadrochit. Have to admit to having a bit of a struggle finding a job. As pretty much expected, it seems that a visitor’s visa generally doesn’t allow a person to work while they are visiting. At least not legally. So for your edification here are a few thoughts on things you should not do while looking for work while away from your homeland:
Don’t be a linguistic loser: Affecting a Scottish accent in order to convince potential employers of your local status is not recommended. They can tell. They really can.
Pathetic principle: Do not turn down a position as a street-hawker with a haughty “I can do better”, only to return and apply again when it turns out you can’t. Because they remember. They really do.
Fatal flaw: And above all, do not overstate your skill set, particularly as a salesperson of seafood comestibles, as——and trust me on this one——it leads only to a back room, an apron that smells of fish guts, and a plethora of scaling-knife wounds.
From these tips you may be able to tell I found something last week at last. I was going to call myself a piscine executive, but the truth is I have been cutting up fish for a man who owns a shop here in Glasgow. However, twelve-hour days of chopping and gutting don’t leave much time for blogging. Or Fraser-finding. Hoping things will loosen up a bit, soon.
- ES
Comments: 6
HiHoKitty, Sapporo, Japan:
Emma-san! I too work in a factory. Chin up——twelve hour days do not sound that bad. I work fourteen each day, plus English class and violin practice, yet I
still find time to read your blog. Is your new employer handsome?
(Read 5 more comments here…)
Flogging Fiction…
1:00 am, April 15
Glasgow, Scotland
So——ah——the fish-processing job didn’t work out, in the end. My supervisor was … well. It just didn’t work out, is all.
Anyway, I’ve got another job, selling speculative fiction magazines door to door. Starts tomorrow. There’s a really small quota——I think it’s going to be perfect. More time to blog, anyway, and if I’m going door to door, I’ll get to explore the city as I work, and maybe meet a few people!
- ES
Comments: 6
SophiaSheridan, Chicago, USA:
Emma, I can lend you the money you need. You can pay me back when you get a decent job here. Chopping off fish heads? Direct sales? And I thought nothing could be worse than your coffee-shop drudgery. Come home!
(Read 5 more comments here…)
Financial Flagging…
11:00 pm, April 30
Glasgow, Scotland
Glasgow is an amazing city. But, you know? I’m re-thinking my role in direct sales. I suspect I lack what my sister would call the correct skill-set. Or financial acumen. Or the ability to sell anything except maybe a decent latte.
- ES
Comments: 0
I logged off long before my money had run out and gently rested my head on the edge of the desk. Now that I had the time to blog again, I couldn’t find any words to say. My enthusiasm for writing had dried up, along with my quest. Glasgow was amazing—I wasn’t lying. But it was a city—a fairly big city—with all the attendant city issues. Like expensive housing. High jobless rate. Creepy employers.
