The White Witch

by Rory B. Byrne

  At ten years old, Dad thought open and honest communication helped me and him heal faster. He admitted Mom needed a break, mostly from him. They agreed she take the sabbatical to work on a book about quantum physics.

  The research facility, Equinox Technologies, headed by CEO and facility director, Brian MacIomhair, agreed to fund Mom’s research for a piece of the publishing. I never understood what she did for work. Teaching was a means to an end, and Mom’s brain, as far as I knew, was a highly sought-after commodity. I don’t know if that made Dad jealous. He said it didn’t, though he admitted to the relationship difficulties during our family therapy sessions.

  Later, I learned the acquiescence of my belief that something had happened to Mom caused me to get set up on the path that eventually took me to Scotland.

  We learned that Mom disappeared under circumstances that were thoroughly investigated by local authorities in Scotland and England. An esteemed researcher, a forty year-old mother of one, disappearing in the Highlands of Scotland caused a lot of sleepless nights for a lot of people besides Dad and me. The FBI got involved. They sent agents to the UK. Scotland Yard sent investigators to Edinburgh. St. Leonard’s Police Station in central Edinburgh sent their best Detective Superintendent to investigate the Equinox Technologies satellite office in Eskdale, Scotland.

  Dad worked with a private investigator that traveled to Scotland following the closure of the Missing Person’s case for Mom. I know Dad spent a lot of money looking for Mom. I know, in his way, he loved her and missed her. In the end, everyone concluded the same thing: Mom didn’t want us to find her.

  The police and FBI determined she’d last used her passport to travel from London to Demark. From there, her movements went cold in the Scandinavian township of Esbjerg. I did a lot of exploring on my own. I knew how to network and use social media, and I made some reliable contacts over the years with prominent academics who traveled in the same circles as my mother.

  I never found any correlation between Scotland and Demark. Other than quantum mechanics and advanced mathematics, people who knew Mom’s work didn’t see her traveling in their circles. No one considered foul play. No one thought she’d been abducted by pirates or aliens.

  I had an active imagination. I was the only person who thought Mom fell off the planet. At ten, no one listened. The therapist only listened because Dad paid her to. Eventually, I learned to play the game. I knew if I wanted to find out what happened to Phoebe Katherine Weatherspoon-Biel, aka my mom, I had to do my own investigation.

  All the while growing up, I found that one thing that drove me forward. Like the gold for the Olympic athlete, I had one goal. I had to go to Scotland.

  It took eight years and a second marriage for Dad before I finally made it happen. Shelia Heffner, now Biel, wasn’t an evil stepmother. She didn’t try to replace Mom. Shelia didn’t make up lies about Mom. She didn’t intimidate me or oppress me. I think Shelia accepted the fact I was Phoebe’s daughter, that Harper Zoe Biel had a mind of her own and wasn’t resentful to Dad getting married again four years after Mom disappeared.

  He had the marriage annulled. He did all the legal business associated with severing his life from Mom’s life. I got a Dad who did his best but never doted. I don’t blame my father. And I can’t blame my mother. I know there wasn’t a conspiracy between Shelia and Dad to make Mom disappear.

  Shelia worked in the registrar’s office at Cornell. She wasn’t the brightest woman. I think Shelia always found me a constant reminder of Phoebe. I intimidated her. But she loved Dad, and as far as I could tell, Dad loved her. That mattered, I suppose.

  Since I made up my mind to pursue Mom in my own fashion, love wasn’t something I knew anything about. All through high school, I focused on academics. Schoolwork came too easy for me. While it bored me to no end, I made the best marks possible without trying. I made sure that once I got all the searching out of my system that I’d return and go to college. I had an easy win and knew I had all the hallmarks of a great undergraduate student with a stunning future.

  While other girls chased or ran from high school crushes, I had books and mathematics to keep my brain occupied. I had fair weather friends, but nothing lasting. I had a singularity and knew whatever the future brought, I’d gain closure, even if I didn’t find my mother.

  Saying ‘goodbye’ to Dad and Shelia wasn’t hard. They gave me a stable childhood. I disconnected long ago and didn’t blame either of them. I wasn’t self-destructive, and I didn’t act out of turn to get attention. The trip from New York to Scotland was to reward myself and sate my wanderlust. Dad knew I had it always in my mind to go. Like it or not, he supported my decision.

  Distant Relations

  The long-distance flight was dark and bumpy. Storm clouds caused significant turbulence. I had a place wedged in the center seat between an overweight business lawyer and a flirty, handsy consultant. The lawyer needed two tray tables—mine and his—to set out court briefs and work on the laptop. The consultant never clarified his traveling position, though six of the ten hours into the flight, he offered me a job with the consulting firm. Then he wanted to know what hotel I booked once we landed.

  I knew at eighteen, I was a catch. But a man offering me a job seven miles in the air, in the dark, over the Atlantic Ocean, wasn’t happening at all. I played down my looks—most of which I got from Mom’s Scottish roots. I didn’t get the red hair and green eyes—a rare trait in today’s genetics. Alternatively, I inherited a whitish tone to my skin and auburn hair with chocolate eyes, all came from my father’s Polish-Slovak background, along with the surname.

  Biel means the fair-haired or white person from Old Czech bielý, Slovak biely ‘white.’ All I know is wearing a bikini, while I could pull it off, wasn’t right when I went from pasty to crispy in under an hour. At least where I was headed, I didn’t have to worry about summer weather or hot sun.

  It was May in Scotland. From what I read about the weather, it went from soggy to damp, cloudy to foggy, all within the time it took to take the train from London to Edinburgh. It was a five hour, joyless experience that had my jet-lagged limbs aching and head pounding by the time I reached the Edinburgh Waverley railway station. I think I slept most of the way. But the constant chugging of the tracks under the lumpy seat made it impossible to know for sure.

  I arrived in the capital city of Scotland a little after ten in the morning on May 28. I had my backpack, a fully charged smartphone that I used to text Dad about my arrival, and the expensive hiking books with thermal socks, and, of course, my lucky jeans.

  The rhododendrons around the train platform had burst with brilliant colors. As I made my way out of the terminal, looking for distant relatives, I saw the bluebells and daffodils. The temperature was a balmy 55°F—a considerable difference from the 79°F I left back in New York.

  “Cousin Harper,” a young man called. I saw his height and massive arms. The cool springtime weather didn’t bother him. He didn’t wear a jacket. The sleeves pushed back on the black shirt showed off massive forearms and lots of bluish tattoos covering the skin. He had a lopsided grin and a black knit ski cap. “It’s Rory, Rory Weatherspoon.”

  I smiled and slung the backpack over my shoulder. Since I obliged to stay with the Weatherspoons, I had to make friendly with a warm hug. I never met Rory face to face, but we talked over the computer often over the years. I’d never know the Weatherspoon side of my family if I hadn’t reached out after Mom’s disappearance.

  “You are a sight to behold in person,” Rory said, his Scottish brogue so thick that I needed time to process the words, as if foreign to me. “I bet you’re tired as rain on the moors after all that flying and train ride.”

  Rory grabbed the backpack and pulled it from my shoulder. He was nearly a foot taller than me. We walked together off the platform to the Ford short-bed pickup truck. It wasn’t a rusty, banged up lorry as I imagined. Rory had an
excellent job as a farmer and sometimes stocker at a local grocer in Eskdale, where the family lived.

  “I’m a little tired,” I said. I got a second wind from stretching my legs, walking to the pickup truck.

  “It’s about three hours back home. I picked up some supplies for my boss.” I saw the short-bed of the truck had a tarp tied over cases of merchandise.

  Inside, the Ford smelled like cigarettes and greasy fast food. I saw the wrappers and the half-empty soda in the center column.

  “Do you want to get something to eat before we head back?” he asked.

  I shook my head and stretched out in the passenger seat. Rory dropped my backpack behind the bucket seats. I put on the seatbelt. I ignored Rory not buckling his seatbelt before the truck lurched from the parking lot and raced north up B901 toward Queensferry Road.

  I had to play nice and not worry about the jerky movement and speeding. The Weatherspoons had agreed to put me up for the whole time I would be staying in Scotland.

  “I cannot believe you’re here,” Rory said. “It’s good to meet you in person finally.”

  “I know, it’s been a long time,” I said.

  He stared at the road and dodged around morning traffic. “Me Ma made up a place all warm and nice for you.”

  It was the beautiful Scottish accent that made me feel like I was a million miles from home. The ‘you’ was ‘yer,’ the ‘to’ was ‘ta,’ it was the little difference in pronunciations and inflections that made the Scottish brogue so appealing to foreigners.

  It certainly didn’t make me miss New York. In fact, it made me appreciate where I was, and I thought I was a lot closer to Mom after hearing Rory’s voice.

  He looked at me. I don’t know if he saw familiarity between Mom and me, or if he was just admiring me. I was an outsider. I was the visitor. I know Rory was twenty-four and my cousin. That didn’t make him any less handsome with his straight, prominent nose, bushy black eyebrows, and forest-green eyes. Rory had thick earthy stubble on his chin and cheeks that matched the thick head of hair. He wore work boots and dungarees.

  It felt a little strange sitting in the passenger seat of the Ford on the left side. European vehicles had right-hand drive, so I faced the American side without a steering wheel in front of me.

  At some point during the last legs of the trip, I fell asleep from exhaustion. I don’t know how long Rory let me sleep. When he started talking again, the cityscape of Edinburgh transformed into rugged rolling hills of the Scottish countryside. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. The sky had a sea-blue tint and wispy clouds coating the midday sun. Across the rolling fields, I saw lavender blooms of heather and vivid green scrubby vegetation. It felt incredibly nostalgic and foreign all at once.

  I’d never been to Scotland, yet I felt my genetic architecture woke to the sensation of the surroundings. I felt the prickly awareness that gave me goosebumps and made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I don’t know if it were the fact I’d finally reached Scotland, or that I presumably rode on the same highway as Mom, but somehow, I felt like I’d eventually come home. It probably had to do with the fact I was drained and incredibly hungry. Away from the modern industrial familiarity that covered most of the twenty-first-century landscape, I felt my journey had come to an end. I had arrived in the place I had been dreaming of for the last eight years.

  “I remember your Ma,” Rory said. He glanced at me. There was a smile half-formed on his face. “She was a good woman.”

  I felt that cultural divide once he said it. Isolation made people use terms they heard nearby. Rory, like the rest of the world, had smartphones and access to instant information. His whole life revolved around demanding physical labor and the sprawling countryside. I think a few pubs had to do with what shaped Rory into manhood. ‘She was a good woman,’ sounded dated.

  “You were fifteen or sixteen when she came here,” I said. “How much do you remember of her?”

  Rory stared at the winding road ahead. We traveled at a speed that made me a little nervous. Every knoll hid the distance. It was impossible to anticipate other travelers. The narrow beltway twisting northward around the outcropping didn’t leave much room on either side for oncoming vehicles.

  “Phoebe didn’t stay too long with Ma and Gram. Da got sick when I was fourteen. I think we dealt with the loss more than the company.”

  I saw Rory’s face changed at the thought of his father, who succumbed to cancer when I was eight. It wasn’t a topic we discussed because it never came up, and it had happened a few years before Mom disappeared.

  “You need to talk to Gram about Phoebe,” Rory said. “She and Gram spent a lot of time together.”

  We drove another few miles in the quiet. The stereo in the truck played rap music. It made me smile. I saw Rory tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “What? You no like my music?” he asked.

  He thumbed the volume control on the steering wheel. He rapped along with the lyrics for a little bit. It made me laugh more. Once Rory turned down the music again, he snickered.

  “I bet you’re stereotyping me, thinkin’ I listen to some Gaelic folk songs or bagpipe solos.”

  Rory didn’t finish school, having to take care of the family bills once his father died. I helped him get the GED through online studying. Rory never had much interest in learning from texts. He was a man of the land. Education came with hard work and providing for his family. His mother, Aunt Beth, and Gramma Marcia made up the rest of their household. Beth and Mom were siblings, but I never understood the dynamic of Gramma Marcia. The woman was kin in the sense that she shared the surname. I never knew much about the woman, other than she had no time for internet interaction. The Weatherspoons, I believe, earned their intelligence from the Scottish countryside. We were a smart bunch, but knowledge and finances didn’t always work together. Rory, like me, descended from the bloodline who lived for more generations than anyone knew, planted, grew, and flourished.

  “No, I was thinking that rap conquered the world without even trying,” I said.

  “You are smart like your Ma,” Rory said. “I remember her talking to me about some weird math stuff. I didn’t know what she said.”

  “Quantum mechanics,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s it.” He shook his head, staring at the road. “She had it in her head all the time.”

  “What do you know about the company she worked for?” I asked. “Equinox Technologies has a facility out here somewhere. I never found it on Google maps.”

  Rory nodded. “They drive up about once a week from Edinburgh. The place isn’t much to look at,” he said. “It’s about three miles from the edge of our property. I know when they bought the land, they wanted the rest of the farm. Da and Ma didn’t want to sell.”

  “What do they do there? Do you know?”

  Rory shrugged. “It’s all fenced in, can’t see too much except for at night sometimes, we hear the helicopters.”

  “They fly up from the city?”

  “Yeah, I suppose.” He gave me that mischievous lopsided grin. “You know, me and Da went over the fence once when I was thirteen or fourteen. It was before he got sick. We went across the fields and got to the top of the hill to see the—what do you call those half dome buildings? They look like cylinders stuck in the mud.” Rory made a mound motion with his left hand to show the shape.

  “Quonset huts,” I said.

  The metal arch buildings were prefabricated metal kits, easily and quickly assembled for private and military permanent structures. It made sense. Having a core of engineers build structures in the middle of the ragged countryside took a lot less time with drop-shipment of the building kits.

  “Yeah, well, they had two great big ones out there stuck to a side of a mound. They were the same color as the ground. I suspect they look more like the surroundings now. It’s probably why you can’t s
ee them from space.”

  “Have you been back there?”

  Rory shook his head. “Da never wanted to go back. I think a few locals hunt the grounds for rabbits. The place has security. But they don’t mingle. I never met someone from out there at the store.”

  The Ford pickup slowed, and Rory turned off to the left, where the byway split into two branches. He waved to another smaller truck passing in the opposite direction. I stared out the window, taking in the township limits of Eskdale, a hamlet in the County of Dumfries, along the shore of the River Ness. The town center sprung up inside the river’s estuary.

  Once we reached the last steep hillside and coasted into town, I saw the sparkling gray water of Beauly Firth. More to the northwest, Moray Firth merged with Beauly at a confluence where the A9 motorway continued northbound towards the next nearest town of North Kessock over the bridge.

  The guesthouse kept Rory’s mother busy. I suspected Gramma Marcia had something to do at the four-star bed and breakfast. The family-owned redbrick building with its wrought-iron gate and the chest-high spiked fence was over two hundred years old.

  The Weatherspoons had owned the place as long as it existed. I know they always had plenty of room. They gave me an open invitation, and I had to wait until I was eighteen and alone before I took up their offer. Dad wasn’t interested in traveling to Scotland, not after what happened with Mom. I knew he felt betrayed. I knew he had no interest in maintaining contact with my mother’s side of the family. It was all on me, and I was the reflection of the woman. I was the one with fiery and stubborn blood running through me.