Authors: Alex Nye
Mrs Morton sat at the kitchen table, holding her mobile phone tensely to her ear. She had spent the best part of a morning trying to get through to the Council, and her nerves were in a bad state.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for days,” she told them sharply, in her sternest possible tone.
“You and the rest of the world, madam,” the man on the other end of the line replied. “Listen,” he said. “We have eight major towns in the Stirlingshire area which need attending to. “You are, I believe, the only residents on Sheriffmuir?”
“Well no, as a matter of fact,” she began in a tone of righteous indignation. “There is the Sheriffmuir Inn and Lynns farm as well. We all …”
“Yes, madam, but I understand the road up on Sheriffmuir is a single track lane? With no road markings?”
“Yes, but …”
“Then it is
not
a priority road. We may be clearing as far as the inn within the next few days, but the Council bears no responsibility for clearing the road beyond that point. And besides,” the man from the Council informed her, “if we
were
to clear the snow, your children would be the only ones in an empty classroom. All the schools in the Stirlingshire area are closed until further notice.”
Mrs Morton put the phone down sharply.
“I’m going back to bed,” she announced to the room in general.
To help ease Mrs Morton’s bad mood, Granny Hughes suggested that a bout of spring-cleaning might do the trick.
“What about getting the wee ones to clear those boxes in the attic for you? You’ve been meaning to do that for ages now, and never got round to it.”
“Count me out,” Charles said. “Too busy.”
“Busy doing what?” Fiona snapped.
“Ah, can’t say. Top secret.”
“I’ll only do it if Samuel can help me,” Fiona bargained, quick as a flash.
“It’s a deal,” her mother agreed.
So Samuel and Fiona were assigned the task of sorting through the boxes of old toys and clothes that had been mouldering away under the eaves for the past decade.
As they climbed the narrow ladder to the attic, Samuel felt more than a little apprehensive.
“There’s no light up there, by the way,” Fiona told him. “The bulb went, and no one thought to replace it. So we’ll have to take a torch.”
They inspected the boxes and crates in the shadows, old toys spilling from them, as well as bundles of smelly moth-eaten clothes.
“Why we kept all of these things, I don’t know,” Fiona said. Then she rushed forward and bent down to examine an old dolls’ house.
“I haven’t seen that for years,” she cried. “I could clean it up and put it back in my room.”
“I think we’re supposed to get rid of stuff, not keep it,” Samuel reminded her.
Dust filled their lungs and made them cough as they sorted through the contents of the boxes. Mrs Morton had given them a supply of black bin liners, and they were to fill these with any unwanted rubbish. As they worked, Samuel noticed an old wooden chest in the corner, slightly apart from the boxes and crates they were sorting. He wondered briefly what was inside it. Its lid was firmly shut so he thought nothing more about it; they were too busy to stop and explore. Half-way through the morning the torch began to flicker on and off, as if the battery was fading. At last it went off altogether, plunging them into darkness.
“Samuel,” Fiona whispered, edging nearer to him. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” he whispered back. They clung to each other in the dark. It was pitch-black, and they could see nothing in front of their faces.
“What are we going to do?” Fiona said hoarsely.
“I don’t know.”
“We can’t move.”
“Wait till our eyes have adjusted to the darkness,” Samuel suggested hopefully.
But while they waited, they began to hear a sound nearby. It was the sound of breathing, gentle but definite, as if someone were in the darkness beside them. Fiona clung even tighter to Samuel’s arm.
“Can – you – hear – that?” she whispered slowly.
He nodded. Then remembering she couldn’t see him, he added “I hear it.”
“What – is – it?”
“I don’t know.”
It sounded as if it was just behind him. Samuel turned his head slowly, but could see nothing. He reached out a hand, and swept the air with it, seeing if he could make contact with anything, but accidentally knocked against a crate.
“Ouch!” he hissed.
“What? What is it?”
“Nothing. I hurt my hand, that’s all.”
“Samuel, I don’t like this.”
There was a silence.
“I can’t say I’m delighted by it either,” came the reply.
Still the sound of gentle breathing, a thin in-drawing and releasing of breath came from the darkness behind them.
Suddenly the torch sprang back to life. Samuel grabbed it and swung its beam into the shadows behind them. There was nothing there. Absolutely nothing.
But …
In a corner, pushed under the eaves, was the old wooden chest, which he had noticed before. Something had happened to it. Its lid had been thrust open, and the contents displayed.
Samuel stared at it.
“Is it just me, or wasn’t that shut before?”
He played the torch beam over it.
Fiona nodded. “I think it was.”
Both of them crept closer, and the weak torchlight picked out a pile of old linen. Fiona rummaged about, lifting old tablecloths and heavily embroidered pillowcases.
“There’s nothing here,” she said.
Samuel lifted out a delicate piece of finely-stitched
embroidery. “Someone was kept very busy,” he commented, examining it in the half-light.
Fiona dipped her arm deeper into the chest, and suddenly felt a bundle of dry paper. She lifted the package out. It was tied with colourless ribbon that had almost completely frayed.
“What’s that?” he asked, but Fiona wasn’t listening. She had gone deathly quiet.
She and Samuel stared at what they’d found, examining it in the torchlight.
At first it looked like a bundle of letters, but as they turned the pages over they began to realize that these were pages torn from a journal. “
The nineteenth day of April 1708
” they read. “
My name is Catherine Morton.
”
The torch began to fade again, and Fiona knocked it twice against the side of the chest in frustration.
“Damn it!” she hissed. “I want to read what it says.”
“Quick. Let’s take these downstairs and read them before the battery goes again.”
They took the bundle of papers and made their way down the rickety ladder.
Mrs Morton appeared suddenly from her room, alert to any sound.
“Finished already?” she demanded.
“Er, not quite,” Fiona said. “We've binned up a few things, but we just wanted to take a break.”
“I hope you haven't left it in a mess?”
“We'll get back to it in a minute,” Fiona muttered, her eyes gleaming with anticipation.
“All right then,” she said irritably, and turned her back on them crossly.
Charles withdrew into the shadows of the drawing room as they passed, to avoid being seen. He knew they had found something, and wanted to know what it was.
“The snow is beginning to get to her,” Fiona whispered as they made their way down the staircase and along the corridor to the boot room.
Across the courtyard Samuel's cottage was empty. Isabel was buried in her studio again, hammering away at a lumpy piece of metal, a look of pure jubilation on her face. Fiona and Samuel had the privacy they needed.
They went along to Samuel's small end room, closed the
door, sat on the bed and began to examine their find. The writing was faded and difficult to read, with a language and spelling that wasn't entirely familiar to them, but with careful patience they managed to decipher what it had to say. A girl spoke to them from the past, a twelve-year-old girl with a story to tell.
My name is Catherine Morton. To mark my twelfth birthdy I have decided to begin a journal. This is it. From now on, whativer I have to say, I will say it betwixt these pages.
I have lived at Dunadd all my life, and I have a suspicion I will die heer.
My bedroom is up in the tower, above the staircase, where none other can reach me. I have two older brothers, who tease me more than they oghte. I keepe to myself.
The house is verie old. It has stoode on this muir for hundreds of years. It has been in my family for generations, a legacy stretching far back into the past.
Needless to say, I am supposed to be educated as a lady. That is to say not educated at all, in fact, except to sit nicely and sew with a nete hand. But I'm fortunate in that we live so remote from society that I'm allowed to run free, within reason. There are the gardens, the woodes, the boating pond, and of course the muir itself, stretching away into endless emptiness like the sea lapping around an island.
Instead of sewing my sampler as I oghte, I spend my time in the hills. My brothers and I whittle bows and arrows for ourselves,
and play games. Sometimes these games can become dedly earnest. My brothers are not the most patient and mild-mannered of people, but I know how to handle them. It is their wish to bully me, but I have a manner of making them feart. They think I'm a witch because I hear voices sometimes. There are voices in the house, you see. I hear them, a boy and a girl, laughing, fighting, squeals of delight, sometimes quarrelling. Even banging. I am woken at night by their antics.
This afternoon I was in the drawing room, stitching my sampler because it was raining and we were not able to go outside to play, and I heard them again. A faint tinkle of laughter. Wicked. As if bottled-up. I looked up from my sewing and there was silence suddenly. No more voices again after that.
Mrs Fletcher was busy bustling about in the room behind me, and she tutted and said “Aye, that's right. It's good to see thee stitching thy sampler for a change, stead of gallivanting about that muir. Thou shalt have to grow accustomed to quiet pastimes now thou art growing up.”
I tried not to mind at her words. I don't think I like the idea of growing up.
For my birthday I was given this booke, a leather-bound volume. Mother taught me to read and write, and she considers it will be good for me to keepe a journal.
I shall not let anyone read it, however. I am afeared they would not be plesed if they culd see what is written betwixt these pages. Mrs Fletcher says that Mother has new-fangled ideas in teaching a wee slip of a lass to read and write, and that my father would strongly disapprove if he knew. Thankfully he is too busy to notice. So I make as if not to draw attention to myself and pretend ignorance as necesserie. Tis better this way.
Father is ⦠well, Father is Father.
I respect him, but I keepe my distance.
I'm learning to blend in to my surroundings. If I spend an hour a day with my head bent over my embroidry silks, then no one notices if I slip off into the woodes later with none to accompanie me.
We have a privat world up ther, beyond the boating pond. The adults see naught of how I excel at shooting and riding, or how I canst beat the boys at their own games. I can yell and holler as much as I like up ther, fire off arrows that hit the mark a thousand times.
I'm free when I'm up on the muir. As wild as my brothers. As long as Father sees naught.
I want to write today about this new thing that has happend.
A boy from the Lynns Farm has begun to come up to Dunadd to help with the horses. He's about my age, but his mother has decided he's old enough to be employed as a stable boy, when he is not helping out on their farm.
Lynns Farm lies hidden amongst the trees in a hollow of the muir, not far from the waterfall.
As soon as I saw him I knew we could be friends. But he would not respond at first. If anything he seemed angry with me for even trying. I said I should like to help him with the grooming, but he looked at me and laughed.
“You?” he said, as if the idea amused him.
“Why not?”
He looked awkward at that.
“It's not really a task for ladies, if you see what I mean.”
“Who says I am a lady?”
He laughed again, and shrugged.
Then he turned his back on me, and carried on with what he was doing. He was trying to ignore me, I culd tell. But I would not allow that.
“I can ride any horse in this stable,” I told him. “Bareback,” I added.
He nodded and said nothing. Unimpressd.
The boy lives with his mother and brothers on the farm as our tenants. They rent the land from my father. Perhaps that explains his awkward behaviour towards me, but I am much offended that he should put up such barriers, walls to stop us communicating.
“Why is it called the Lynns Farm?” I asked him then.
He looked at me. “It's from the Gaelic, Lin meaning waterfall? I wouldn't expect thee to know that, of course,” he added.
“Shall thee come up every day?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Can't say.”
I'll look out for him, though.
It's lonely up at Dunadd. Douglas and James are not guid companie. They can turn vile if they've a mind to.
I forgot to ask the stable-boy his name.
I found out his name today. It is Patrick. And his familie name is MacFarlane. It suits him, I think, and I told him so.
I also told him about the voices I sometimes hear. He looked at me oddly.
“Thee wants to be careful, miss,” he murmured. “Thee dost not want to be taken for a witch.”
I laughed. “That's what my brothers think.” My eyes lit up. “It terrifies them. It's a guid way of keeping them in their place. âI'll put a spell on you,' I tell them,” and I lift my arms to demonstrate to Patrick the trick I play on them. I can put the fear of God into my brothers with that little ploy.
But Patrick did not seem amused. He carried on with his work. It does not seem as if he likes my brothers much. Who can blame him? He also can not understand why I should want to be friends with him.
“Why dost thee come here?” he asked me.
“I live here,” I retorted.
“No,” he said. “I mean, why here?” He motioned his hand to the stable itself.
I shrugged.
“Company!”
“Why wouldst thou seek my company?”
“Why not?”
“But we're different, thee and I,” he pointed out. “Our families are different. You can read.”
This seems to concern him far more than it concerns me. I turned away, hurt.
“But I have no one else,” I said then. “I don't have any friends of my own age. There's just me ⦠and my brothers.”
I made as if to leave, but he stopped me.
“Wait,” he called.
I turned back.
“I suppose thee couldst help a little,” he relented. “It's mucky work though, for a girl. You'll catch it if your ma sees.”
“She
won't,” I said. “I'm very careful.”
So we have become friends.
Life has brightened up since we became friends. When I've finished my sewing and bible study, and helped with the chores, I go outside to find Patrick. In the dark sweet-smelling warmth of the stable, we groom the horses together, and tell stories and talk. He listens to me as if I have something important to say. (At home I am mostly ignored, and ridiculed by my brothers if I dare to offer an opinion). The stable smells of hay and leather and freshly-ridden horses, and I love it. No one can see us as we talk in the shadows. And for now, no one notices what I do. I'm still too young for them to trouble with much. That will not always be the case, I know. There will come a time when things will be expected of me. Lady-like things. But I am practising the art of becoming invisible.
Sometimes, when Patrick has finished his work, we wander off onto the muir. I've shown him the boating pond at the top of Glentye, and he has shown me the waterfall near his mother's farmhouse.
These little exchanges are the currency of friendship, I told him.
“Big words,” he said to me. “Those are big words thou uses. Thou ârt becoming a proper lady.”
“I'm not a lady yet,” I reminded him.
I do not want to think about what happend today. Life has been
so perfect, full of interest. I am not lonely any more. I always look forward to seeing Patrick.
But today my brothers cast a shadow over that, as they do over iverething nowadays. They always have the last say. Father listens to them. It's a sad thing to say about one's own brothers, but there is an element of cruelty in them. My mother, Lady Cecilia, dotes on them and they have been raised to issue orders, to give commands, not receive them. I am afraid it has not been good for them in the end. We were up at the boating pond, Patrick and I. We were walking along, idling I suppose, when Douglas and James appeard from nowhere. They had been hiding in the woodes, and watching us. They towered over Patrick, crowded round him.
“What is this?” James sneered. “Our little sister with a stable-hand?”
James put his face up close to Patrick's then. “Our father doesn't pay you to idle around in his daughter's company.”
“I've finished my chores for the day,” Patrick responded, to which James, angry now, seized my new friend by his shirt.
“James, stop it,” I cried, and pulled him off.
Patrick glared at my brother as if he wud floor him with a single blow, but he did not raise his fists.
James turned to me then. “If father gets to hear how thee has spent thy time, and what sort of company thou keeps” he hissed “thou shalt be punished as he sees fit.”
He didn't need to finish his sentence. I knew how Father wud punish me.
After they'd gone and left us alone, Patrick's face seemed to close over.
“Your brother's right,” he told me. “Thou shouldst be getting back.”
He looked resigned, as if life was turning out only as one would expect.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“There's no sense in thee coming to the stables any more.”
“But we're friends,” I told him.
“No, we're not,” he murmured. “You're the daughter of Sir Charles, and I'm a stable boy.”
He would not look at me at first. He meant what he said. There is a stubbornness about him that I have observed before.
“Thou art my only friend,” I said.
His glance flickered up at me for a moment, then he was silent. He turned away from me and began to walk down the hill, towards the white turrets of Dunadd.
He left me ther without a backward glance. I have found a friend, only to lose him again. The only real friend I have ever had. I shall visit him tomorrow in the stables, just the same.
I have taken to locking up my journal in the ebony box in my room, just in case anyone shud decide to pry. The key I have hidden away so that no one will ever find it. The ebony box is where I kepe my treasures, things that are precious to me, although of little or no value to anyone else. I am sure that in the future my ebony box will prove useful. I shall store my most important secrets in it, and one day I shall hope to be buried with that box in my grave. Oh dear, “what a morbid thought” Mrs Fletcher wud say, “for one so young!” I am not supposed to have secrets, but already I have one or two. Enough to require a box with a key.
I went to the stables where he was working this morning, but he would not look at me. He refused to speak or meet my eye. I tried to talk to him, but I have met with a solid wall of silence. So I left again. Up in my room at the top of the tower I have been hearing the voices of the boy and girl again. They squabble and fight, keeping me awake in the early hours, and when I look for them in the darkness, my candle picks out only shadows, the bulk of my own furniture, the bed, the table, the chest under the window. Nothing else. But I can hear them as plain as day.
Who are they? What happened to them?
I remember Patrick's words to me. “Be careful they don't take thee for a witch.”
People are ignorant. Men burn witches if they've nothing better to do. In a village a few miles distant, they burnt a young girl only the other month. She'd been cursing the men in the village, they say, and when three of them died of the plague, she was held responsible.
My brothers would never accuse me. Witches are not usually from families of wealth and influence like mine, or people who are expected to spend their days sewing by candlelight. They are people with work-reddened hands, who work as Patrick works.