On the Edge of Darkness

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘I have proof enough. I have watched you in the fire and in the water. I have seen you lying like a drab with the boy son of the Jesus priest.’ He moved towards her and Brid flinched backwards. ‘Collect your bags and come now, or I shall tie you like a slave and drag you behind my horse!’

  She had no choice. Trembling, Brid collected her belongings, kissed Gemma, who had been waiting silent and afraid inside the bothy, and climbed onto her pony. Somehow she managed to keep her head high, the colour still strong in her cheeks, as Broichan led the way up onto the track where his servants and his escort were waiting.

  The sun had barely moved a hand’s breadth across the sky when the riders crossed over into the next glen and were lost from sight.

  Once back at Craig Phádraig, she settled into the routine of the seminary, avoiding Broichan as much as possible, her defiance secret, her anger against him simmering, comforting herself in the lonely evenings with the knowledge that Broichan was jealous of her power and by watching Adam from afar. When he joined Robbie for bicycle rides or hikes in the hills she could see them from the body of a skylark, high above the fields; when he lay at night in bed, dreaming of her, she knew it and crept to the window sill in the body of a village cat, purring with secret delight, and when he swam in the burn up on the hillside, relishing the last of the summer’s heat, she thought herself into the slim brown body of a mountain trout and flicked her tail against his naked thighs.

  It was while she was watching Adam in her quiet cell one stormy autumnal night that Broichan walked in and caught her.

  ‘So, little cat, you have learned to spy on your lover.’ Broichan’s voice was a silky murmur.

  Brid jumped with fear. The small room, lit only by the smoky flame of an oil lamp, was full of leaping shadows.

  Watching her, Broichan smiled. ‘Such a waste. You have great gifts, my niece. You could have been a priestess, a seer, a bard, who knows, even a queen.’ He folded his arms under his cloak. ‘But you choose to betray me. You cannot be trusted with your talents – you waste them on a village boy and sully your initiation vows. Only one thing can redeem you, little Brid. Your blood shall be given to the gods with your brother’s when the time comes to dedicate the stone, so that your soul can be born again in a fresh guileless body – ’

  ‘No!’ She made to stand up, her face as white as alabaster, but he raised his hand and held it in front of her.

  Between his fingers, swinging at the end of a fine gold chain, was the egg-shaped polished red stone, its translucence gleaming in the light of the flame. ‘Don’t move, little Brid. Don’t even blink your eyes. You see, I can enchant you with the magic sleep and hold you here until I need you.’ He laughed softly. ‘Poor little niece. So clever, but not quite clever enough.’ He reached into the depths of his clothes and brought out a long-bladed knife. He held it for a moment in front of her unblinking eyes, letting the light of the flickering flame play on the gleaming blade. Gently he pressed it flat against her cheek. She did not flinch and he chuckled. ‘You will remember nothing of this, little Brid. Nothing at all when you awake. You will obey me and you will stay quietly here, to await your fate.’ Tucking the knife away again he leaned forward and snapped his fingers under her nose.

  She jumped and stared at him, blinking. ‘Uncle – ’

  ‘You work too hard, Niece.’ Broichan gave a cruel laugh. ‘Sleep now. I have great plans for you, my dear.’

  He walked out of the small room. Behind him the flame on the lamp flickered.

  The evening before he was due to go to Edinburgh Adam walked up one last time towards the stone. His trunk was packed and strapped, ready to go, in the hall. Tomorrow the carter would pick it up and take it to the station.

  He was feeling a little guilty as he climbed the hillside. Overwhelmed with excitement about the future he had spared practically no thought for Brid and Gartnait at all over the last month. In his knapsack was a chocolate cake. A peace offering and perhaps a farewell.

  The stone was in shadow. Panting slightly he stood as he had so often, running his fingers over the intricate designs carved on it. Below him, the hillside fell away into the velvet night. High above, on the west-facing slope, the sunlight still reflected pink onto the blackened heather and the rock. The evening was very still. He could hear no birds. Even the wind in the sparse grasses had died. He slung his bag off his shoulder and dropped it, then he stepped away from the stone. The Z-shaped cut – he thought of it as a lightning bolt, though Gartnait called it the broken spear – threw a hard narrow shadow across the smoothed surface of the granite. Beside it the carved serpent writhed unfinished, the tail only half drawn. It was the only incomplete carving on the stone. Under it the mirror looked as though someone had been scraping at it. The lichen had been rubbed away. He frowned. That was strange. As far as he knew he was the only person in the whole world, apart from Brid and Gartnait, who ever came to this lonely spot.

  He walked slowly round, mentally recording each detail of the place that had meant so much to him, as though already he knew he would never come back. His plan was to leave the cake behind. He was pretty sure that Brid would not find it, but the birds and animals of the high screes would.

  The sound of Brid’s voice behind him made him leap out of his skin. ‘A-dam! I knew you would come. I sent a message in my head to bring you here.’ Suddenly she was sobbing. She threw her arms around his neck, then, uncharacteristically she drew back. ‘I must come with you. My uncle plans to kill me.’ The statement, so flat and unemotional, stunned him into total silence. ‘He put me into a magic sleep, and he told me what he was going to do. But I have more power than him!’ She let out a wild burst of laughter. ‘I pretended to sleep, but I heard him. I did not make a sign. I did not move my face, but when he had gone I made my plans. I took one of his best ponies and rode in the middle of the night, and I rode until I came home.’ She smiled wearily, a humourless, cold smile which chilled him. ‘He plans to kill my brother too when the stone is finished. He knows now that Gartnait and I know what the stone is for. It marks the gateway to other times and to knowledge that is forbidden to all but the highest initiates, so we must both die. You see the mirror? That is the sign that from here you can see through the reflections into other worlds. That is how I have come to you. I am not going back. There is only a small part of the work left. When the serpent is finished Broichan will give orders that we are to be buried under the stone – a sacrifice to the gods.’ The hardness vanished and she kneaded her fists into her eyes like a child. ‘Gartnait has gone. He has gone south with my mother three days ago. He wanted me to go too, but I stayed. I waited for you.’

  Adam had a strange cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘Brid, what are you talking about? Your mother and Gartnait would never leave you. Your uncle would never kill you. This is nonsense. All of it.’

  ‘Nonsense?’ she echoed wildly. ‘Broichan is the chief priest of this land. His word is the law. Even the king would not defy him if it was over a matter of the gods.’ Her eyes hardened again and he recoiled. ‘A-dam, don’t you see, you have to save me! I have to live in your world now. I am going to come with you. To your school in Edinburgh!’

  ‘No!’ Adam stepped back further. ‘No, Brid. I’m sorry, but you can’t. It’s impossible.’

  ‘Why can’t I?’ Her eyes were fixed on his face.

  ‘Because you can’t.’ He was filled with horror at the idea.

  ‘You can’t stop me! A-dam, I have nowhere else to go.’

  ‘Go with Gartnait and Gemma. You belong with them.’

  ‘I can’t. They have gone to the south.’

  ‘Then you must follow them. This is nonsense. Brid, I can’t take you to Edinburgh! I’m sorry.’

  ‘But you love me, A-dam.’

  ‘Yes…’ He paused. ‘Yes, I love you, Brid.’ It was the truth, but at the same time, he realised suddenly, there was a part of him which would be quite glad never to see her again. Her angry outbursts and her
possessiveness, her wild declamations, had become alarming. And at the same time there was a part of him which had already begun to separate itself from Pittenross and everything there. He softened his voice. ‘Our love is for here. For the holidays. There is no place for you in Edinburgh. None at all.’ He hesitated. ‘Brid, women are not allowed where I’m going.’ He did not like to lie but in a way it was the truth. Robbie had found them digs to share off the High Street and one of the landlady’s conditions was, ‘nae young women’. Sharing the digs there would be only one other, a skeleton Robbie had bagged for him from a newly qualified doctor. The story was that the skeleton, known as Knox, had been divested of its skin and flesh by the young man himself who had now headed south for London to become a dermatologist.

  ‘Brid.’ Adam took a deep breath and caught her hands gently in his own. ‘You have to go back. I’m sorry. You know you aren’t really in danger.’ He deliberately closed his mind to the picture of Broichan with this cruel eyes, wild hair, and savage, tight-lipped mouth. ‘That was all a wonderful fantasy. A game we played when we were children.’ He frowned. ‘Brid, there’s a war about to start. I’m going to be a doctor. Please understand.’ He touched her face gently. ‘It’s just not possible.’

  ‘A-dam …’ Her face was ashen. ‘War does not matter to me. I will help you with the wounded. Please. I love you.’ She grabbed the front of his sweater. ‘If I go back I will die.’

  ‘No, Brid.’

  ‘A-dam. You do not understand.’ She was clinging to him, her face hard.

  ‘Brid, I do. Listen. You have to go back to find Gartnait and Gemma. Next holidays we’ll meet and we’ll compare notes, all right? You must understand. You cannot come with me.’

  She let go of him so suddenly he staggered backwards. Through her tears her eyes were blazing. ‘A-dam, I will never let you go. Never!’ Her voice was almost vicious.

  Adam stared at her, shocked. The skin on the back of his neck was prickling suddenly, but he managed to remain calm. ‘No, Brid, I’m sorry.’ He stepped away from her. ‘Please, try and understand.’ He could not bear the look in her eyes any longer.

  He turned and began to run as fast as he could down the hillside, away from her.

  6

  The digs were situated up a curved stair in a narrow wynd of tall grey corbelled houses off the High Street. Adam felt an initial wave of intense claustrophobia as he surveyed his new domain, with its small hard bed, empty bookshelf and wobbly table, and then, seeing it instead through Robbie’s proud eyes he shifted his point of view and saw it as a haven of independence.

  Throwing his bags down on the bed, next to which lay his trunk, he raised his hands above his head and gave out an exultant shout of freedom. They were, Robbie told him gleefully, just ten yards from the nearest pub. In the corner the skeleton of Knox grinned amiably at him. Within seconds it had acquired a hat and a university scarf, the box containing Adam’s gas mask was slung irreverently round its shoulders – it was only days after Chamberlain had returned from Munich and the threat of war had receded once more – and the two young men had pelted back down the stairs to sample a pint of Tennent’s. It was the first time that Adam had ever been in a bar.

  It was a path they were to tread many times over the next few months between the exhausting rounds of lectures; in Robbie’s case they took place in the Old Quad, and in Adam’s in the new buildings in Teviot Place for chemistry, anatomy and dissection, in the Botanical Gardens for botany and in the King’s Buildings for zoology. After the initial strangeness of university life, and the shock of having so much freedom away from the deadening atmosphere of the manse, he took to the course like a duck to water, avidly soaking up each subject as it came, taking little time out to look for recreation. Once a week he wrote a dutiful note to his father. His mother he went to see at last.

  She had changed out of all recognition. Gone was the tightly pulled-back hair, the sober dresses, the strained, pale face. When he walked hesitantly into the tea shop on Princes Street where they had agreed to meet he stood for a moment staring round, his gaze passing over the vivacious pretty woman with the swinging curly hair and fashionable hat who was sitting near him, already presiding over a teapot and a plate of cakes. Only when she stood up and held out her arms did he look into her eyes and see there the love and fear and compassion and feel the overwhelming rush of emotion which brought tears to his own eyes.

  ‘I wrote, Adam. I wrote often, my darling.’ She was holding his hand openly on the tabletop, playing obsessively with his fingers as though reassuring herself that they were all there. ‘You must believe me. You do understand? It’s not your father’s fault. He is such a good man. He must have thought it best if you didn’t get my letters.’ She looked away suddenly and he saw the pain; the glint of a tear on her eyelashes. ‘I wasn’t good enough for him, Adam. I’m weak. I needed things …’ She couldn’t speak for a moment and busied herself pouring more tea for him, her hand shaking slightly. ‘I was suffocating, Adam. I felt as though I would have died.’

  He didn’t know what to say. Smiling at her silently he squeezed her hand and buried his face in his cup.

  She was blowing her nose on a lace-trimmed handkerchief. After a moment she looked up at him and smiled. The tears had gone. ‘So. Are you going to be a good doctor?’

  He grimaced. ‘I hope so.’ He withdrew his hand to stir some sugar into his cup. ‘If I am, it’s because I learned it from you. Visiting all those poor people in the parish. Hating to see them suffer. Wanting to help them.’

  He looked down into his tea, distracted suddenly by a memory of a young man lying beneath a tree. Gartnait, with Brid’s small hands busy tending his wound. How strange. He had not given her a thought since he had been in Edinburgh.

  He looked back at his mother. Her face was sober. ‘I hated all that. The visiting. I had no idea, when I married, what it entailed – being a minister’s wife.’ She paused, not noticing the crestfallen disillusion in her son’s eyes. ‘I’ve met someone, Adam. A good, kind, gentle, understanding man.’

  Adam tensed. He didn’t want to hear this.

  ‘I hoped your father would divorce me. I was the guilty party.’ She glanced at Adam and looked away again. ‘That way I could marry again.’ She refused to meet his eye. ‘But of course he can’t do that, being in the church, so, I – well, I’ve had to pretend.’ She was staring down at her hands. Almost unwillingly Adam looked down too and saw that the narrow gold wedding band had gone. Instead she wore a ring of carved twisted silver.

  ‘I am sorry, Adam. I will understand if you hate me for it.’ She was pleading, still not looking at him.

  He bit his lip. He wasn’t sure how he felt. Anger. Hurt. Rejection and yes, hatred, but not for her, for the unknown man who had stolen her from them.

  He cleared his throat nervously. ‘Are you happy now?’

  She nodded.

  Again he looked away. She was happy! Had she ever really wondered how he was, imagined his loneliness, his desolation when she left? He found himself suddenly near to tears, remembering Wee Mikey’s teasing. The boys in the village had been right all along. She had gone off with another man. She was, as his father said, a whore.

  He stood up abruptly. ‘I have to go, I’m afraid.’ He schooled his voice with care.

  ‘Adam!’ She looked up at him at last, devastated.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother.’ He didn’t even know what to call her, he realised suddenly. Not Mummy. Never Mummy. Not any more.

  ‘We will meet again, Adam? Soon?’ There were tears in her eyes again.

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’ Suddenly he couldn’t bear it a moment longer. Turning, he blundered out between the tables and almost ran into the street.

  Jeannie Barron baked less often now. She had agreed to stay on after Adam left; the minister’s needs were very meagre and the house very quiet. Her work did not take her so long, and it was cheerless without Adam there. So it was with some pleasure that she looked up at th
e knock on the kitchen door and saw the pretty face with its frame of long dark hair peering round at her.

  ‘Brid, my lass. How nice to see you.’ She smiled and beckoned the child in. But she wasn’t a child any longer. As Brid sat down at the kitchen table and fixed Jeannie with a cold stare the woman felt a shiver of apprehension whisper over her skin. ‘So, how are you? You’ll be missing Adam, as we all are,’ she said slowly. She turned the dough and thumped it with her fist.

  ‘You will tell me where he is.’ Brid’s eyes, fixed on hers, were very hard.

  Jeannie glanced up. ‘Did he not tell you where he was going?’ Alarm bells rang in her head.

  ‘He tells me he is going to Edinburgh to study healing.’

  ‘Aye, that’s right.’ Jeannie smiled, relaxing again. ‘He’s very bright is our Adam.’

  ‘I will go too.’ Brid folded her arms. Her expression had not changed. ‘You will tell me how.’

  ‘How to go to Edinburgh? That’s difficult.’ Jeannie was playing for time. If Adam hadn’t given the girl an address to write to then he had a reason. ‘It costs money, lass. You’d need to go on the bus or on the train.’

  Brid looked blank.

  ‘Why not wait until he comes home in the vacation? It’s not so long. He’ll be back before you know it. Besides, he hasn’t written to tell us yet where he’s staying.’ She hoped she would be forgiven the lie. ‘Edinburgh is very big, lass. Bigger than you can ever imagine. You would never find him.’

  ‘I will ask. The people will know where the healers’ school is. You will give me money.’

  Jeannie shook her head. ‘No, Brid. I’m sorry. I can’t afford to hand out money, lass. You must find your own.’

  ‘I will have yours.’ Brid had spotted Jeannie’s handbag on the dresser. Pushing back her chair she moved towards it, putting out her hand.

  ‘No!’ Jeannie had seen what was coming. Stepping away from the table she grabbed it, covering it in flour. ‘No, miss! I had a feeling you were no better than you ought to be. You get out of here now. This minute, or I’ll call the minister! If you want to go to Edinburgh you go your own way, but I warn you, you’ll not find Adam. If he wanted you to know where he was he would have told you. So, that’s an end of it, do you hear me?’