Love by the Stroke of Midnight

by Raven McAllan

  “That’s something I’d like to know,” Marcail said as the boat pulled alongside the jetty. “Are you going to tell me?”

  “If you look into your heart, you’ll find out.” The glance he gave her made her feel cherished. Strange, as she knew she was— her family were close. Nevertheless, that feeling of family togetherness was different, and she had no idea how or why.

  Or if it was a good thing or not.

  “Tell me,” she begged as Paden threw the painter to Bonnie and prepared to get off the boat. “Show me, please.”

  “You can find out if you really want to. If you choose not to, well, I’ll show you at the time I’ve been informed is right. Until then, Miss Closed Mind, you’ll just have to wait and wonder. The choice is yours.”

  Now she really was pissed off.

  “Better a closed mind than a warped one, Mr ‘I think I know it all but who knows fuck all about the real me’,” she snapped. “Argh, bog off.” Childish, but probably better than sticking her tongue out.

  Wrong or not, Marcail had a horrible sense of injustice done, and not to her, but by her, all the time she was reuniting with her mum and Bonnie, and it stung.

  When Paden gave her a tight-lipped smile as she thanked him for bringing her across to the island, she counted to ten. That sense of being in the wrong, plus a tightness in her chest, and a niggling tingle that something momentous was about to happen, was unnerving.

  Bonnie nodded to him, stony-faced. “Thank you for bringing my sister to me.”

  Paden inclined his head with no visible change of expression. “Contrary to some current opinions, there is good in me.”

  What was that all about? Her mum looked away as Bonnie threaded her arm with Marcail’s.

  “Come on, Marcail, Mum knows we need a bit of sibling time.”

  The atmosphere was tense. It was like waiting to have a tooth out with none of the sense that it would soon be over and all would then be well.

  She headed up to her sister’s house with an awful sense of foreboding.

  * * * *

  “Messed up, did you?” Bonnie poured water onto leaves and waited for the brew to steep. “He looked mighty irritated.” She took down two mugs from the dresser.

  “You didn’t seem any better,” Marcail retorted. “What’s going on?”

  “I wish I knew,” Bonnie replied morosely. “I’m not sure I trust him, to be honest. Dad says he’s here for a reason and won’t say what that reason is. Dad’s being shifty.”

  That was their father all over when he didn’t want to be pinned down about something.

  “Skirting around the question, reason, or whatever, or just in general because he knows ‘we’d not want visitors’ shifty? Convenient bad leg shifty so I didn’t get him by himself and give him the third degree?”

  Bonnie tilted her head to one side. “I can’t make my mind up, and Mum just shrugged when I asked her.”

  “Can’t you sense what he’s here for, or whatever it is you do?”

  Bonnie put the mugs down with a thump, took Marcail by the shoulders and stared intently at her. “Is this really my sister I’m hearing? The sister who accepts she can hear voices? Acknowledges, albeit grudgingly, that I sense when there is something wrong with people who are close to me. Is she now asking me to go the extra mile and try and find out why Paden is here, who for and for how long?”

  Marcail grinned self-consciously. “I’m trying to be a bit more open-minded, but it’s hard going. You knew there was something wrong with me and Rotten Roddy, even before I told you. When I said I was going to New Zealand, you said ‘about time’.”

  “New Zealand is ordained, whatever you think, and no, I can’t say why because I don’t know. So please, for all you hold dear, don’t press me,” Bonnie said. “That’s all I can sense.”

  Marcail nodded. “I won’t, I’ll just try and find out when I get there.”

  “I hate this feeling of uneasiness,” Bonnie went on. “The Roddy bit was easy, I’ve never liked him and his arsiness was screaming at me. The minute you let your guard down, I sensed you had done something to get shot of him. I chose not to try and sense what, but let you tell me instead. It goes against everything I believe in and hold dear to pry.” She rolled her eyes. “Damned hard it is at times I can tell you.”

  “Does that mean you won’t look about the reason Paden is here?”

  Bonnie sighed. “It means I tried and got nowhere. All blocked it was, like someone had put a wall up and a notice saying ‘keep out’. Bloody irritating. All of them—it.”

  “Ha, he irritates me,” Marcail retorted. She paced from one side of Bonnie’s tiny sitting room to the other. “Why is he here anyway? What’s he got to be aggravated about? This is our place and it’s my birthday and… Argh, don’t I sound up myself?” She didn’t add that he intrigued her, and with very little encouragement that intrigue could turn to sexual, if not romantic interest.

  Bonnie stared at her for a moment and raised her eyebrows. She didn’t need to vocalise what they both clearly knew to be true.

  “Yeah.” Marcail sighed as she curled her toes in her shoes. One of Bonnie’s ‘well, I don’t need to answer that’ looks and she was immediately on the defensive. Bonnie had always managed to give her sister that reaction. To allow herself time to collect her thoughts, Marcail tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. She had tried to put her tresses into a twisted plait, but as ever her hair had a mind of its own and escaped wherever possible. She’d long accepted her fine, silky, curly red locks wouldn’t behave, and generally wore them clipped back at her nape or loose.

  “Sorry, but that man brings out the worst in me, and a lot of worst I didn’t know I had. He just keeps telling me all will be revealed in due course.” Marcail flopped into a chair and decided not to mention he also made her want to jump his bones. “The head-voice isn’t a lot better.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Welcome.” “What’s in that pot?”

  “Camomile,” Bonnie said, as Marcail sniffed the aroma. “Relieves stress. You appear to need it.”

  “I’m not stressed,” Marcail retorted immediately, then laughed. “Not much and a lot less now I’ve given dear old Roddy the heave-ho.” She lost interest in the problem of Paden and her parents for the moment. “I’m glad you guessed something was wrong.”

  Bonnie smiled. “You were sending out enough signals. I knew I couldn’t help apart from be here for you and…well, Paden was here.” She scowled. “Not sure why.”

  Marcail didn’t comment on the sending signals thing. She was used to and accepted Bonnie sensed things that others didn’t notice.

  “Paden.” Marcail had to ask. “Are you two involved?”

  “Me and…” Bonnie blinked. “No, you ninny, I wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole, I told you I’m not sure I trust him. Evidently he’s here for you, didn’t he say?”

  “Told you.”

  “Go away.”

  “What?” Bonnie asked, startled. “Why?”

  “Damn. Now look what you’ve made me do.”

  “Oh not you, sorry,” Marcail said, contrite and worried her sister thought she was referring to her. “The annoying voice in my head. Do you get them?” She’d never asked, as she’d thought if Bonnie wanted to tell her she would do. Now, though, it seemed important.

  “I am not annoying. You’re just refusing to open your mind. Listen to your sister.”

  “Sometimes. I find them soothing.” Bonnie poured the tea and handed a cup to her sister. “Here.”

  “Soothing?” Marcail shook her head as she accepted one of the delicate china cups that Bonnie favoured. “Thanks, I wish.”

  “No?” Bonnie leaned forward. “Really?”

  “Really. I mean, why do I have these stupid conversations in my head?” Marcail demanded. “At first, when I was wee, I thought everyone did. Then when they tried to say I might be a bit addlepated at school I thought it was just me. Mum and Dad reassured me some
people had the ability, and it was nothing to worry about. They said those with no abilities didn’t understand. Like the teacher. So I was okay then, it gave me someone to chat to.” She grinned self-consciously. “When I realised I’d conjured up a different voice to my own, for years it was fine. Just something that I had. Then when I was about seven or eight I was out with Mum one day and overheard someone in the supermarket talking about someone who heard voices and was quite, quite mad. So I wondered if I was, you know? Then I thought, well, it’s me and if I’m crackers so be it and sort of accepted it. Now I just wish it would shut up.”

  “Not a chance. You need me. I’m here for you.”

  “Like now,” Marcail said with a snap in her voice. “Telling me I need it. For goodness’ sake, who needs a voice telling you that sort of stuff. I mean…” She mimed quote marks and rolled her eyes. “You need me, I’m here for you.”

  Bonnie nodded. “Crap, isn’t it?” she said sympathetically. “You’ll just have to hope it all gets shown to you sooner rather than later.” She bit her lip. “I’m still not sure I trust what’s going on though.”

  * * * *

  And that, Marcail thought later as she unpacked in her room at the castle, was all Bonnie would say about it. She’d pleasantly but pointedly changed the subject and began to talk about Marcail’s projected trip, offering her advice and adding cheerfully that she might not know a lot about New Zealand, but if Marcail went nowhere else she had to go to Wanaka and see the Lone Wanaka Tree. A tree, in the water, that had sprouted decades before from a fence post. All she said, when Marcail asked why, was that to them, it mattered.

  To Marcail’s amazement, annoyance—disappointment—she wasn’t sure which, her voice visitor stayed silent. She’d decided she’d call it Cyril. For years she’d had no need to be annoyed with it or give it validity but now? It was easier to think, ‘bog off Cyril’ than ‘bog off stupid voice in my head annoying me rotten’. Especially as Cyril Murchison had been a particularly obnoxious boy in her hospitality—all things cookery—class at school. He’d got his comeuppance though when he’d untied the bows on one of her and one of her friend’s aprons once too often and Marcail had ‘accidentally’ spilled egg and flour down his back, with an insincere, ‘Oops, my bad. Just as well it’s not hot fat and your front, eh?’ He’d given her and her mates a wide berth after that, and it had been worth the detention she’d received for doing it.

  “Thanks, mo ghaol, what a name to pick. What’s wrong with my own name?”

  Marcail sniggered. To say, ‘shut up you’re getting on my nerves, my own name’ was a bit of a mouthful.

  The sound of laughter, male laughter, echoed around her room.

  “Okay, Cyril, that’s enough for today. Let me enjoy my first night home without worrying about brain farts or whatever. Give me a break.”

  “As long as you promise to open your mind a bit more from tomorrow. And not bloody Cyril. Just…just see… Deal?”

  Marcail sighed. “Okay, deal. How about Dragh?” Gaelic for ‘nuisance’.

  ‘‘I won’t answer that. Why not my name?’’

  “Do I need to answer silently in my mind as well? Like, I do not know your bleeping name and do not say I do. I do not.” How daft did she feel, talking out loud to a blank wall? “Gah, I feel stupid.”

  ‘‘If you say so. Now, as for replying? Up to you. While we’re close no need. Later…? Hmmm. We’ll talk about it when the time is right.’’

  She waited, but there was nothing more. At least it was only in her mind, and she couldn’t see Cyril. If he popped up in her bathroom, there would be murder and mayhem. She sang in the shower, and no one but no one was allowed to hear. Also, she tended to be naked.

  The wolf whistle she was convinced she heard was irritating. She gave a two-fingered salute. The laughter that followed made her scowl and grin reluctantly. “Okay then, but the bathroom is still for my eyes only.”

  Marcail toed off her boots, stripped to her underwear and had a shivery wash. One quick touch on the barely warm radiator convinced her that her mum hadn’t turned the radiator on until she actually saw that Marcail was there. The castle, as her parents had been wont to say whenever a child had asked for something they didn’t approve of, ate money. Did they want x, y or z, or not to freeze? Sometimes it had been a close-run thing, especially when the want in question was wet suits to play in the loch, or skis to spend a sunny winter’s day at the nearest ski slope.

  They’d got both of course, eventually, and had a reasonably warm room each. But the age of the castle and the fact it was a listed building meant draughts always found a way to get in.

  She dressed in warm, lined trousers, a thermal T-shirt and fleecy top and slid her feet, covered in arctic-weight socks, into fur-lined slippers. As ever at home, cosy not dressy was the order of the day unless it was a special occasion. That was two nights away so she could leave her finery in the wardrobe and opt for comfortable, warm and no chilly body bits. Even then, for her birthday outfit she’d checked if she could get a thermal vest under her dress.

  She could.

  Halfway down the stairs the lights flashed, and she rolled her eyes. If Baird had been about she would have blamed him. A stupid prank he’d pulled for years, usually accompanied with a woo hoo through a rolled-up newspaper. Maybe it was time her parents got a loan or a grant and had the lighting overhauled. Flickering lights and sockets that flashed when you put certain things in them couldn’t be safe, surely?

  “Depends.”

  Before she’d formed a caustic reply to Cyril, and convinced herself she was going loopy, Marcail heard footsteps behind her. She ignored them. Ever since she was a child the castle was the only place she would admit to hearing things the rest of the family took for granted. Over the years she’d stopped protesting the family were imagining things, that they couldn’t hear, see or know whatever they insisted was correct, and instead Marcail had kept a careful silence. Then she would roll her eyes when later when whatever they had insisted had happened was corroborated. So someone had told them in confidence or whatever? Nothing to brag about.

  If she were honest, none of them bragged. They might mention something that was subsequently proved to be true, but never had anyone said ‘I told you so’.

  “’Why don’t you believe, Marcail? Is it so hard to open your mind a bit further? After all, you’ve let me in at last.”

  “And I’m beginning to think that was a mistake,” she muttered as she stood on the half-landing and contemplated the polished, curving wooden banister. “Keep your word and stop it already.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So you should be.” She ran her hand over the round finial at the top of the bannister. For some reason there wasn’t one at the bottom, the wood just curved almost in a circle over the last newel post. Dammit I must stop answering out loud.

  “I like it.”

  “You bloody would.”

  The bannister was right in front of her, mocking, daring her. Should she?

  Why not?

  With a triumphant whoop, she put her bum on the balustrade and lifted her feet in the air. The slide down to the ground floor was as fantastic as it had been when she was a child. Or indeed the year before.

  “Some things never change.” Her dad walked out of the lounge and caught her as she jumped down at the end. “Just as well I decided not to put a finial back there. Welcome home, love. It’s been far too long.”

  “Was there one there once, then?” Marcail asked as she hugged him tightly. He was correct, it had been far too long. Roddy had hated coming to the island, so her visits had got less and less frequent. Not that he’d been invited very often. His antipathy to all things Castle Bearradh had been blatantly obvious, and that included the rest of the family. Why she hadn’t waved bye-bye earlier was one of life’s big mysteries.

  “A finial?” her dad said. “Oh yes, in the shape of a clansman complete with dirk in the air. Goodness knows why it was there. Damned dange
rous if you ask me. I had visions of you impaling yourself on it, so I had it removed as soon as you could toddle. It’s still around somewhere, I think. Meant to be the figure of your great-however-many-grandpa who died at Culloden. There used to be another one somewhere, though for the life of me I can’t remember where.”

  Chapter Three

  “At the top, but it was taken down when you were a child, Ruari,” a new, though recognisable voice, said. “Due to a row over who should take a service of remembrance for those who died in the support of the Jacobite cause. My ancestor thought it should be him, yours disagreed. They had a wee bit of a stramash, and the upshot was two close friends of many years became estranged. The service was conducted over on the mainland, nowhere near here or my family’s seat, by a vicar who was known to call the Jacobites heathens, and from then on any service was in small groups.”

  Marcail tensed, and her dad stared at her worriedly before he looked up at the newcomer. “Ah, Paden,” he said easily. “All set for the ceilidh on Samhain? Got your story sorted?”

  Story? Her birthday… “Ceilidh?” she queried. “I thought it was just a family dinner.”

  “It is, love, in the storytelling manner. Just us. Plus Paden. He’s got a part to play in it.”

  Did her dad sound annoyed or defensive? It was hard to tell. Whichever, it sounded and felt wrong for whatever was happening to be on her birthday. Birthday celebrations were sacrosanct in their family. A tradition of only those invited by the birthday girl or boy could attend was followed from year to year. Marcail bit her lip to stop hurried, unhappy words from spilling over and forced a smile. “New tradition then,” she said lightly, and wondered why a shiver went down her spine. “Why did no one tell me?”

  “Ah.” Her dad reddened. “Must have slipped our minds.”

  “Nope, others wanted you to come to it happily with no preconceived ideas. Your papa disagreed. They overruled him. He is not happy. He thought you should have been told.”