The Black North

by Nigel McDowell

  ‘I wouldn’t take anything from there,’ said Merrigutt. ‘Looks and smells rotten to me.’

  Oona ignored the jackdaw.

  She did her duty before she took, kneeling at the Lady’s roots, closing her eyes and recalling whatever pieces of prayer she could. It took some forcing herself, but Oona begged help, guidance, strength, sustenance … Oh Sorrowful Lady, please aid me in my humble need! Please watch over and protect me with your warmth and light! Please provide for me!

  That should be enough, thought Oona.

  She opened her eyes and stood and took: from the Sorrowful Lady’s chest she plucked blackberries and hearth-bread, a shrunken yellow apple with a faint red blush and a vial of what Oona knew was whiskey. She ate and drank all, and knew that Merrigutt was watching everything.

  ‘I didn’t think the people of the South put faith in Sorrowful Ladies or Good Women or Merciful Maids,’ said the jackdaw. ‘You got rid of all your Worshipping Houses, did you not? Invaders have been doing the same up North – dragging all into the marsh and dumping them there, leaving them to sink.’

  ‘Well,’ said Oona, pressing fingertips to lips, licking up every drip and crumb, ‘the way you talk about the Black North, I’d say we’ll be needing any and all the help we can get. Doesn’t matter to me as long as it keeps me fed and watered for another while. Not agree?’

  Merrigutt said nothing, which to Oona meant the jackdaw agreed but didn’t want to say.

  ‘We need to keep on going,’ said Merrigutt then.

  ‘Not far to the ridge,’ said Oona.

  ‘I’d say a few hours of climbing, at least. And we’d need to think about disguising you before we go on. Maybe cut your hair or something.’

  ‘You’re not cutting my hair!’ said Oona. ‘I’ll look like some boy!’

  ‘You’ll have to learn how to change,’ said Merrigutt. ‘You’ll not stay out of the hands of the Invaders if you can’t be quick to adapt.’

  ‘Is that why you switch between bird and old woman?’ said Oona. Merrigutt said nothing.

  ‘Why not just stay one or the other?’ asked Oona.

  ‘Who made the rule saying we had to stay the same?’ said Merrigutt. ‘Now – you stay put. I’m off for a look.’

  ‘A look for what?’ said Oona.

  ‘Oh, just the usual sights,’ said Merrigutt. ‘My fellow ladies who might’ve come to some horrific end because of your careless ways. Or else Invaders who might be on the way to shoot us dead. Or Briar-Witches to tear out our insides and –’

  ‘Go then,’ said Oona. ‘Give me two minutes’ peace from your moaning.’

  ‘Just try,’ said Merrigutt, ‘not to use those two minutes to find trouble.’ As soon as the jackdaw went, Oona sank to the ground once more.

  ‘Rest a wee minute,’ she told herself, lying on her back, finding a flattish stone for a pillow and shutting her eyes. ‘Only a wee minute or two and she’ll back anyway to wake me. Bloody grumpy old bird.’

  17

  ‘Now, Oona Kavanagh – let me show you such nightmares.’

  Dreams in Drumbroken remained unbroken. No such thing there as nightmares: peaceful place, so peaceful slumber. But as Oona dreamed – as she found herself once more in a forest with its trees blackened – she saw not the usual whimsy or warm thoughts. Instead, she was invited by the same voice she’d heard once before. It enticed: ‘Follow my voice, Oona Kavanagh. Follow, and you shall see flame. You shall see what shadows haunt this valley, and what sin. Your eyes will see what they would rather not. Follow, follow …’

  And Oona was led, walking through a ruined forest until she heard a sound like ripping and splitting, screaming. This was not dreaming, she decided. She was afraid, but fear didn’t stop curiosity.

  She discovered a sight of falling stars, or were they rising sparks? Then she saw a house burning. Flames were wicked behind windows and there were onlookers all cheering and feeding the flames with whatever they could find, tearing up forest and tossing it to feed the appetite of the inferno and screaming –

  ‘There you are, Slopebridge! Not as powerless as you thought, are we?’

  ‘You think we’d lie down in the ditch and let you take our land?’

  ‘Coward!’

  ‘Thief!’

  ‘Liar!’

  Oona watched, and then asked aloud (though no one near heard or seemed to see her): ‘What is this?’

  And the voice of these dreams answered: ‘Slopebridge Manor.’

  ‘Slopebridge?’ said Oona. ‘Owner of the Big House?’

  ‘Yes. Slopebridge was Master. Was, until he was burned out by the men of Drumbroken.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Oona, watching the figures moving fast and looking intent on their fury.

  But then the screaming came again from those determined to burn the Big House, sentences that might’ve been questions but sounded more to Oona like grim statements –

  ‘Don’t you know we’ll drive you out! Same as is happening all over the Blessed Isle!’

  ‘Think you can drive our rents sky-high for no good reason and take what you like!’

  ‘Think you’re safe in there with all your riches and ill-gotten wealth! All your blood money!’

  Then things changed: Oona saw the onlookers not onlooking but hurrying, moving fast towards the blaze, and she was sure they were all men. They were throwing themselves into the flames. And then such screaming – everyone who was gathered around the house began to shriek as parts of the Big House began to fall and inside were such roars of agony as flame went taller and wilder, and with a scream of her own Oona Kavanagh tore herself free of sleep.

  18

  Oona found herself upright with hands outstretched and groping for things unseen. She was shaking. She faced night: cold stars were out but they looked shrunken, desperate like they were drowning in surrounding dark. Hidden almost behind cloud was the faint face of the moon, a chalk-smear on black. And there was no sight of Merrigutt, jackdaw or old woman.

  Oona breathed. Her throat was raw. So had she been shouting, or screaming? She closed her eyes like it might allow relief, but behind was waiting the vision of the Big House, its burning, and men drawn in towards flame … how had she seen these things? Must be imagined, she decided, but where had these notions come from? And the voice – those same commanding and beckoning and burning words?

  Oona opened her eyes again, needing to be up, and not thinking. But when she shifted she felt a hard hot weight against her side. It took more moments for her to remember, to recall more words: ‘Keep it with you. It’s a burden, but I know you can bear it.’

  Somewhere close something howled.

  Oona returned to the ground. She pulled her mother’s cloak closer, fingers finding the bound bundle she’d been given as a final thing before leaving the Kavanagh cottage, and decided: it’s about time I saw what exactly Granny Kavanagh has given me.

  19

  Oona’s trembling fingers tried for many minutes to unpick the knots of the cloth, and in the end she got her teeth involved to bite and tear and rip. And with a bit of scattered swearing, eventually the rags fell aside.

  Inside was a stone the size of a plum, and not far off the same colour – a bruised-looking thing, crimson dark. She let it slip into her palm and it was like holding a stone not long out of the hearth, warmed to only just holdable heat. Oona brought it closer. In its depths lived some slow, solemn flicker of light – not a reflection of anything, the moon too faint and stars too small. And when Oona tried to examine the light more closely it squirmed away from seeing. The longer Oona looked, the heavier the stone became in her hands. And the more she sought that small sliver of light that was finer than a single fair hair, the more it retreated, and the more something shook and trembled inside her.

  Her grandmother’s words returned: ‘And this is the most important thing – don’t lose sight of the light. Keep looking for it.’

  Like some second heart suddenly awoken, something inside Oona flut
tered, frightened. Like some unbidden voice burning in her mind, she felt addressed. And for more unknowable moments, Oona was shown again the sight of the burning Big House and heard screaming and saw men rushing towards death and –

  She shut her eyes and dropped the stone.

  But all that made up Oona Kavanagh – thoughts, feelings, senses – were like leaves upset by a gale, or hard earth being broken open. She stood and took a step backwards from her grandmother’s gift. Breathed in. She wondered again about her grandmother’s words: ‘It’s a burden, but I know you can bear it.’ Breathed out.

  Then a step forwards and Oona tried to be definite in it, feeling as though this stone was something that needed showing who was in control. She kneeled and took it up, and then looked again –

  The small shred of light brightened to a blaze, widening as slow as a fish-eye, and Oona was shown a single image – a wooden shrine for the Sorrowful Lady …

  Oona lifted her gaze – the same Sorrowful Lady stood before her, the same shrine.

  ‘So the house I saw is close?’ said Oona. The stone grew warmer in her hand, as if in agreement. ‘It’s close,’ she said. And not knowing what force was leading her or why, she decided: ‘It’s near. And there’s something in that Big House that I need to see.’

  Still no sight (or more likely sound) of the jackdaw, and Oona started uphill. The stone her grandmother had given held in her hands like an offering, Oona once more was climbing – out of the valley, out of Drumbroken, and feeling led into she didn’t know what dark.

  20

  Knowledge made Oona bold: she had the stone and her knife too, and she knew the Big House wasn’t far, though barely knew how she knew it. Something dreamed? Surely an imagined thing, but stronger – like something that clung close to memory, like an echo. But Oona didn’t have time for this or that doubt or to wonder or worry about it all. She’d stopped: sooner than she’d thought, she was there.

  Broad and high and blighted by burning, stone scorched and window-frames emptied and roof showing shattered ribs to the sky – the Big House of Drumbroken. As Oona looked, a mounting heat touched her palms, the fresh remembrance of fire – the stone was blazing. And again its warmth felt like an urging, a telling as strong as the voice she’d heard in her head saying, On. Go.

  Oona looked down: from her feet stretched a stone bridge, fallen in places and about to fall in others, crumbling but still managing to span a depthless dark. From somewhere in the below came the rattle of water over broken rock.

  Oona’s eyes again went to the Big House. The stone throbbed hot against her palms. She started across.

  When she searched for a way in she saw a large doorway – might’ve been a wide welcome in ordinary days, but it had become an invitation into a deeper dark, a doorway with no door at all. On the wall beside, Oona noticed an oval of oak hanging by a nail, saying –

  SLOPEBRIDGE MANOR

  BUT RECLAIMED FROM THE INVADER BY THE MEN OF DRUMBROKEN!

  And somewhere in the dark of Slopebridge Manor she sensed a rustling, a shifting like uneasy memories stirred, things shaken that would have rather stayed settled.

  Once more, the stone made its order: On. Go. Go in.

  And Oona had to obey.

  21

  On into a long, long hall that was rich with remains, so many things Oona had to keep herself from tripping on – torn carpet, toppled tables, a scatter of shattered crockery. On the walls were many frames showing painted landscapes, but all were darkened by the burning – scenes of perpetual dusk. All paintings except one, the largest: a portrait of a uniformed man with too many medals for Oona to count, a cap on his knee and a pistol resting on his lap beneath long fingers. A sculpted scroll at the bottom of the frame told – Major Arnold Slopebridge.

  On the right appeared another doorway devoid of door. Oona stepped inside.

  What little moonlight was admitted sketched a room in dull lines. So much shadow, nothing certain of itself. But Oona saw the throat of a large fireplace, heard it breathing with winter. She walked on and more detail was added: the coil and curl of candle brackets on walls, a darkened heap of an old sofa, a fallen cabinet with contents fleeing in fragments across a naked floor and –

  Oona swore and stopped just in time, just on the brink of a vast dark. The floor had been opened wide. Had been torn up? The stone blushed in Oona’s hands to tell her, Yes. And she saw for less than an instant this image: fingers tearing furious at wood, a determined ripping of floor by desperate hands. The unease of rustling and shifting rose all around and Oona looked to the walls. She could hear two voices in hushed yet fervent dialogue –

  ‘Is that him? Has he returned to his house?’

  ‘Don’t be daft! Why would he come back here, you eejit? He wouldn’t dare!’

  Oona turned and turned, seeking the source of the voices. She saw walls scorched in swathes and – like some new trick of her imagination – she thought some portions were almost human shaped. Then those voices spoke again, and there was no trick in them: Oona knew they were not merely imagined.

  ‘I still reckon it could be him. Who else would come? Everyone else is too scared. This one doesn’t look scared.’

  ‘Not him.’

  A new, third voice. One deeper, slower –

  ‘It’s not a “he” anyway, it’s a she. Only a little girl.’

  Oona waited. She found herself craving response from either of the first two voices. Found herself holding her grandmother’s stone tight to her chest, a deep need in her for warmth. Then the deep, slow voice ordered, ‘Go, my friends – explore, find out for yourselves.’

  And suddenly things were plucking at Oona – like a teasing breeze they tugged on her dress and cloak and tossed her hair and again she turned and turned on the same creaking spot of floor, trying to catch sight of something. She thought of her knife and whether showing it would do any good. Again, she looked to the walls – the black there, had it shifted?

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘And why are you hiding?’

  A chorus of voices then, countless echoes –

  ‘Not hiding!’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘Bloody cheek!’

  ‘Coming in here and invading this place!’

  ‘It’s our own – we fought for it and you’ve no right to set a foot in it!’

  Their tone sounded to Oona like the old men of Drumbroken when she’d stepped into the Tower – disgruntled, more put out than anything. But then from the walls came that deep, slow voice, the one that seemed most keen to command:

  ‘She doesn’t seem at all worried, my friends. Well, let’s see how long she stays not scared.’

  Then such a rush through the room as the scorching stormed – dark squall! – and the sight itself sent Oona twirling on her toes. She staggered, threw out a hand and found a candle bracket to cling to stop herself falling, but dropped the stone. Had it fallen into that larger dark in the floor? Oona wanted to fall to her knees and seek but she stayed, gripping the bracket as the men’s voices spoke again, this time with plenty of wheedling words and a lot of low laughter –

  ‘She’s as scared as any, look!’

  ‘Who is she, that’s what I want to know? Coming here to thieve?’

  The return of the deep, slow voice –

  ‘Why else would she come?’

  On the chimney breast, Oona saw shadow shaping itself: surely an arm, surely a hand, then without a sliver of doubt she saw a single, scolding finger … and then a face that told her –

  ‘This girl has heard about the gold and riches hidden beneath these boards. Heard of the treasure behind these walls stored by Slopebridge that we came to claim. She’s come to steal it from us, to take what belongs to no one but us!’

  Oona cried out, ‘No! Look: I don’t want any bloody treasure or whatever you’re talking about, so you can get that idea out of your head!’

  But the voice from the chimney breast told her cold –

 
‘Enough. We are men of honour, of dignity, and we tell nothing but the truth. And I tell you one thing for true: as sure as I’m a man of Drumbroken, as surely as I drove that fool and coward Slopebridge from this place, you won’t be leaving here alive with our treasure. Get her!’

  22

  ‘No!’

  Oona screamed and abandoned the candle bracket: fleeing and just leaving the stone wherever it lay was all she thought of. But again she was spun by whirling dark and this time fell – her skull met stone, spine met broken floor, and her fingers met something else. Something warming? At Oona’s touch, the stone Granny Kavanagh had given glowed and gave enough light for Oona to rise, to feel she could fight. She stood and brandished it like it might be a weapon. Then words as well as images crowded her, a deep knowing –

  ‘You all burned here because you were too selfish to leave it all when it was going up in flames!’ she told the walls. ‘Too bloody stupid to go back to your families, too greedy! You came here to get rid of Slopebridge and then stayed to tear up floorboards looking for what he took, and you didn’t care whether you died or not!’

  The walls calmed, a little: looked like they were breathing, trembling. And what remained of the men said –

  ‘How dare you come and judge what we did so harshly!’

  ‘We should be heroes for what we did that night for the sake of Drumbroken!’

  ‘Aye! We drove out Slopebridge!’

  ‘He would’ve had us all in an early grave if he’d kept on the way he was going!’

  ‘Working us day and night, putting the rents up and up and up!’

  ‘We needed to act or else –’

  ‘Else what?’ said Oona. She stepped forwards and stood on the brink of black. ‘He put you in your graves anyway!’