“Right, let’s go!” says Uncle Alistair.
“Right on!” echoes Camilla.
“Coming!” says Valentina.
Andy and I say nothing. We stay glued to our seats.
“Come on! We need to sort it. Andy, let’s go.”
We obey. My legs are like lead. We all run to the door of the cottage, looking for shelter from the pouring rain. The noise is so strong, I can’t hear a thing.
Andy tries the door. It’s open. We all walk in, leaving wet footprints on the wooden floor.
It’s a dark, cold, ruined shell of a place, with debris everywhere and spider webs hanging from the ceiling. Still, there are pictures on the walls and a sofa. Curtains. A sink and a stove with a kettle on it.
There’s no doubt. This rundown place is somebody’s home.
“Iain!” cries Andy.
The ghost is called Iain?
“Iain, it’s me. Andy.”
A door opens slowly. Slowly.
We all hold all breath, expecting the shadow to come out…
A man.
Standing in front of us, there’s… another Andy.
Andy and Other Andy look at each other, like in a mirror. They’re identical twins.
“What do you want?” says Other Andy – I mean Iain – gruffly.
“Alistair Grant!” says Uncle Alistair, taking Iain’s hand and shaking it. “And this is my nephew, Luca, and my niece, Vally. Goodness, we’re soaked! Any chance of a cup of tea?”
“Why are you shouting, Alistair Grant?” grunts Iain.
“Because I’m deaf,” answers Uncle Alistair, without missing a beat.
“Right, fair enough. I’ll put the kettle on. Take a seat.”
We look at each other. Andy is looking down. His chin is shaking.
“Iain…”
“What? Are you going to ask me how I’m doing? How I’ve been doing in the last twenty years?” cries out Iain.
“I… I….”
“Nice of you to ask. Not so good, since Mary died.”
“I’m sorry…” mutters Andy.
“Wait a minute. You’re twins, and you haven’t spoken for twenty years?” cries out Valentina.
“It was his fault!” shouts Andy.
“It was his doing!” cries Iain.
“Are you crazy? You’re brothers! And you,” she points at Andy, “live in that lovely, warm farm, with a really nice wife… while your twin is living in a ruin, on his own?”
Andy looks down, sheepishly.
“Hold your horses, Valentina. Let them explain,” says Uncle Alistair, and sits down on the dusty sofa. “This cup of tea?”
“Coming,” grunts Iain, and busies himself. Everybody is looking towards the two men; I’m the only one who’s in sight of the window, and the only one who notices a shadow passing quickly in front of the glass. The shadow has a weird shape… Like a human being, but his head is… wrong. I take a sideways step towards the window, and look out, just in time to see a strange creature, with the body of a man and the head of a wolf, running away towards the open fields. It’s the Luh! I’m about to alert Uncle Alistair and Valentina – better not let Andy know that the Luh is here – when Valentina tugs at my sleeve.
“Where’s the ghost?” she whispers.
“Look up,” says Camilla.
We all look up. I gasp, and Valentina lets out a small scream.
Right over our heads, there’s an old man. Lying on the ceiling, so to speak, like you would lie on the floor. Looking down on us. He’s glowing faintly blue.
“What is it?” cry Andy and Iain, in unison. It’s uncanny, they even have the same voice.
“I take it that’s your dad?” says Uncle Alistair matter-of-factly, pointing up.
“AAAAAAAAAARGH!” cries Andy, and faints.
“Ooooooooooooooooh…” whispers Iain, and passes out.
“They always were easily scared,” says the ghost, and floats down to sit beside Alistair.
Uncle Alistair throws some cold water on the twins’ faces, and they come to, spluttering.
“I knew you’d listen if I started taking your sheep! You always cared about sheep more than you cared for human beings!” booms the ghost. He sounds a bit echoey, just like Camilla.
“That’s not true! Are they ok?” mutters Andy.
“See?” says the ghost, looking at us. “What did I say? Cares more about the sheep than about us! Mark my words! Yes, they are fine and well, Andrew. In the old shed. And how’s my Hilda? She always was a dear one, too good for you! The daughter I never had!”
“She’s fine, Dad.”
“Good. You promised, Andrew,” says the ghost, and he’s so upset, he blurs a little. “You promised on my deathbed you’d make up with Iain. But you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And look at him now! Since Mary died, he’s on his own! Look at the way he’s living!”
“Dad…” mutters Iain, eyes downcast.
Uncle Alistair is watching the scene intently. He has a strange look in his eyes, an expression I can’t quite understand. Like someone who’s lost something, and wants it back.
“I’m going to have to go soon,” continues the ghost, “for good. Before I go, I need to know you’re reconciled. I need to know Iain is not alone.”
“What did you fight about, anyway?” asks Valentina.
“We went to an auction…”
“A livestock auction…”
“And Andy took the best ram –”
“And Iain nearly stole it –”
“I had it first!”
“It was mine!”
“A RAM! TWENTY YEARS OF SILENCE FOR A RAM!” booms the ghost, and his voice is so powerful that it shakes the windows. We all put our hands to our ears.
“There goes the rest of my hearing,” says Uncle Alistair, grimacing. “Look, the two of you. You need to talk this through, ok. Why don’t you go for a wee walk? To get some space?”
“No!” I shout. Everybody looks at me. “I mean… it’s so wet, outside.” I raise my eyebrows, looking straight at Uncle Alistair. The Luh is out there – if Andy sees it… Hopefully Uncle Alistair will catch my drift.
He does, of course.
“Luca is right! It’s very wet indeed! IT’S A FLOOD! Off you go to the bedroom then, come on!” he shepherds them through, like a sheep dog.
“But we…” Andy begins.
“SEE YOU IN A BIT!” booms Uncle Alistair, and closes the bedroom door right in his face. “What is it, Luca?”
“The Luh. Outside!” I whisper.
“Pfff, Luhs!” The ghost, now floating in mid-air, dismisses us. “Harmless creatures. My dad was obsessed with them, and so are my sons. Nonsense, I say, NONSENSE!”
“Yeah, well. Tea?” offers Uncle Alistair, politely.
“I WISH!” says the ghost, and his voice resonates like an echo.
Uncle Alistair does make tea and we clear a space on the sofa and warm up gradually, chatting about Shetland life and the afterlife for an hour or so.
“Here they come!” exclaims Valentina. The door that Alistair shut on Andy opens and the twins walk out, both red in the face.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” blurts out Andy.
“I’m sorry too,” sobs Iain.
“We made peace.”
“We did.”
“At last!”
“At long last!”
“IAIN!”
“ANDY!”
They turn towards each other, go in for a hug, get all flustered, and settle for a handshake, their eyelashes moist and their eyes shiny.
I look at Uncle Alistair. He’s drying a tear. I think I know what’s going through his mind: the twelve years in which my dad refused to speak to him.
“Don’t dare fight again or I’ll be back!” the ghost admonishes. He’s slowly disappearing, getting more and more transparent. He seems to be becoming water, dripping on the floor from every bit of his body. A real Shetland ghost, I think, turning
into sea and rain.
“Never!” the twins say, in unison.
“It’s time for me to go, now… Thank you, Alistair Grant! Thank you children!” says the old man. One last look at his sons, and he dissolves right in front of our eyes, leaving a little puddle of rain and a bit of blue liquid, the same colour as the night sky.
***
On the way back, Uncle Alistair is very quiet, and lost in thought. A conversation between Aunt Shuna and my mum came back into my mind.
“To think they were so close.”
“Were they? It doesn’t look like it now.”
“It’s true. Wherever Alistair was, there was Duncan. So different in personality, and yet… they were best friends.”
I just hope things can be that way again. I hope it can all be sorted out, just like for Andy and Iain.
It’s time for us to go. We’re packing up our van, when I notice something beside it. It’s a parcel, all wrapped up, to protect it from the rain.
I unwrap it. Inside, there are three beautiful sea trouts.
A gift of fish, from a Luh who’s happy to be off the hook.
19. PICTURES OF A SEA SERPENT
Alistair Grant’s Scottish Paranormal Database
Entry Number 410: Zeuglodon
Type: Cryptozoology
Location: Off the coast of North Uist
Date: 1612
Details: The first recorded sighting of a sea serpent in Scotland is found in Lord James McTire’s memoir, dated 1612, kept in the McTire Private Collection at Loch Glas. Sea serpents, or zeuglodons, are ancient reptiles of the sea. While they may look frightening, they are timid, peace loving and wholly vegetarian.
We’re all in the living room, the fire’s dancing, crackling and hissing, and the rain is tapping on our windows. My mum and Aunt Shuna are sitting on the sofa reading books, my sister is watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the twentieth time, and I’m writing in my diary about our Shetland adventure. It’s perfect.
Well, nearly perfect. It would be even better if my dad was with us, instead of upstairs with Reilly, but you can’t have everything.
Suddenly, a horrendous, hair-raising noise comes from Valentina’s pocket. It’s the singing troll. I mean, it’s her phone.
“Oh, a text from Uncle Alistair.” I prick up my ears. “He says if we want to go see him later on, he’s got a job for us. You know, for his pest removal business,” she adds hastily, for my mum’s benefit. A look passes between us.
“Great. Go see him,” says Mum.
We run upstairs for our jackets. I’m ready straight away, and dying to know what Uncle Alistair really wants, but Valentina is rummaging about in her room.
“I’ll just be a minute, Luca. I’ll catch you up,” she says.
“What are you doing?”
“Private stuff!” she replies loftily. “Wait for me in the hallway.”
“Fine, fine…” I raise my hands. As I’m walking down the stairs, I turn around just in time to see her tiptoeing into my parents’ bedroom, clutching a wooden box. I wonder what she’s been up to…
“What did the text say, exactly?” I ask Valentina, as we walk down towards Weird HQ, wrapped in our waterproof jackets, hoods up and hands in pockets.
“Not much. Just that he has a job for us.”
“Cool.”
“HELLO GUYS!” he says, as we walk into the living room. I don’t know how Mary, living with him, puts up with his volume of voice. It’s ear-piercing.
“Hi Uncle Alistair!”
“LOOK AT THIS!” he shouts, straight in my ear.
I take his phone from him. It’s a picture. A blurry picture of… a sort of dinosaur. Like those Nessie pictures – the ones that for some reason are always blurred and taken from far away.
“A monster!” says Valentina cheerfully.
“Just don’t call him ‘monster’ to his face – he might take offence. He’s actually a very, very ancient kind of sea reptile. Cryptozoologists would call him a zeuglodon, or sea serpent.”
“So… he’s not a magical creature. He’s an animal, really,” I remark.
“Yes. That means that everybody can see him. Which is extremely dangerous for him.”
“Where is he?”
“At the moment, in Loch Brue.”
“That’s just down the road from us!”
“Exactly. I got an email from a Connor Moran, a fisherman down that way. He’s the one who took the picture. Not the best photographer, as you can see… There.”
He takes the phone back from me, pushes a few buttons, then he hands it back.
“Read his letter.”
To [email protected]
From [email protected]
Dear Alistair,
I found you on the web; I can’t believe you’re just here in Eilean. I think this might interest you. Sorry about the quality of the picture, I only had my camera-phone with me. I don’t even know what to call this – a dinosaur?
“Wrong!” chirps Valentina.
Anyway, whatever this is, it’s been here for a few days now. I have no idea where it came from, but I know it needs help before the scientists come and get it. This is, as you know, a small loch, and it won’t be long before someone spots the creature and calls the papers. After that, you know what’ll happen, and it’s not good. Thankfully it’s not summer, or it would have been spotted already. The bad weather buys us a bit of time. Give me a phone when you’re coming up.
Sincerely yours,
Connor
“How on earth are we going to do this?” I ask. “He’s enormous!”
“Not really. He’s only about nine feet long.”
“Still too big to fit in our van!”
“That’s not a problem. Remember Sorley and Mairi?”
“YES!” cries Valentina.
“Of course!” I say enthusiastically.
“I’ve called them already. They’ll be here by tonight.”
“Cool,” sighs Valentina.
I don’t say anything, but I’m so happy to be seeing them again. Especially Mairi.
Sorley has given us regular news of the mermaids since that night in Glasgow. They now live in a loch called Loch Glas, which is next to Sorley and Mairi’s home, and they are doing great. Sorley is always vague about where he and Mairi live, and the whereabouts of this loch. I’m curious. I think there’s more to Sorley and Mairi than meets the eye. They have a lot of sophisticated equipment, just for a start. And they seem incredibly skilled, like they’ve been doing this supernatural rescue thing forever.
“We’re setting off tonight. I’ll come and get you.”
“We can’t just leave in the middle of the night!” I protest.
“Well, we don’t need to say we’re trying to get a zeuglodon to safety. We can say it’s a photographic expedition. We’re going to get pictures of some animal that we’re more likely to see at dawn… white otters? What do you think?”
“White otters? Do they exist?” asks Valentina.
“Only in Tasmania. An albino variety. Still, your mum and dad don’t know that…”
“Might work,” I venture.
“No danger in taking photographs. Unless, of course, you fall into the water, eh Luca?” Uncle Alistair elbows me.
“Very funny,” I mutter.
“It’s Friday, after all. It’s not like we’ll be missing school. And it’s only down the road,” insists Valentina.
Everything on Eilean is only down the road.
“Come on. Let’s head back to your place via the chip shop. I’ll bring supper over and speak to your mum and dad.”
“The chip shop? You’ve got plenty of fish here!” I say, laughing. Since Mary has moved in, there’s always a bucketful of fish in the fridge. The kitchen smells like Donald’s boat. She is trying other foods though. Last week, at ours, she devoured my mum’s home-made pasta. But then, who wouldn’t?
We walk out to the rainy street. Alistair strides incredibly f
ast as usual. He has very long legs and is always in a hurry. We struggle to keep up.
“So… how did the monster… I mean…”
“Sea serpent. Or zeuglodon.”
“How did the zeuglodon… get… into… Loch Brue…” I’m panting.
“Was it a fold in time?” shouts Valentina above the noise of the rain.
“No, this animal is very much from our time. It must have swum through an underground stream. There’s one that goes from Loch Brue to the sea. This is not the first time we’ve had sightings of mysterious creatures there.”
“Oh… wow…” I wonder what else hides in our lochs.
We have to interrupt the conversation because we arrive at the fish shop, its neon lights illuminating the dark street. As soon as we take hold of our warm, yummy-smelling paper bags Alistair is off again, at the speed of light.
“Quick, before it gets cold!”
“I’ve never heard of an underground stream on Eilean…” I manage to blurt out, scrambling after him as fast as I can.
“Hardly anyone knows about it. There’s a map that tells you all about this stuff… underground streams, caves, wells, fairy mounds, even a few folds in time, the lot. The Secret Map of Scotland. I’ll show you one day.”
“HELLO! SUPPER’S HERE!”
“Oh hello, thank you! How thoughtful. Did they help you then?” asks my mum.
“With what?”
“The pests. The ones you mentioned in the text.”
“Oh, those! Yes. Yes. They certainly did, Isabella. This time it was ants. An invasion of Purple Ants. Nasty business.”
“Are they dangerous?” exclaims Mum, in alarm.
“Dangerous? No, not at all. Just… smelly. They let off a terrible smell when they feel threatened. Had to carry an air freshener around my neck. Cats love Purple Ant smell, for some reason. I had a few of them following me all the way home, trying to chew my trousers. But enough about me! Will I set the table for you?”
“That’d be great, thanks. I’ll go and call Duncan.”
Ten minutes later, we’re all sitting around the table. Yes, Dad too, believe it believe it not, like Aunt Shuna says.
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