The White Witch

by Rory B. Byrne

  “You want to get out of here?” I asked. I didn’t want a straggler or a stranger. I knew she wanted some solidarity. All I wanted was a little fresh air to stop Marcia’s voice echoing in my brain. “We can go for a walk. Maybe the game will end while we’re out.”

  “Can I buy you a drink at the pub?” she asked.

  “We’ll walk the other direction,” I said. “I think two American chicks in the pub probably cause more of a stir than England losing to Belgium. Let me go get dressed. You might want to put on some warmer clothes.”

  We walked around Eskdale for a while without talking. The streetlamps were sporadic and random. Deep inky pockets filled spaces along the roadway while fog from the confluence rolled through the hamlet. It felt ancient and familiar. Amy shrugged her shoulders in the cold dampness. I walked beside her in my favorite jeans, hiking boots, a hooded sweatshirt with the Cornell logo, and the nylon windbreaker. It was after ten, and during the workweek, the majority of the people who weren’t watching the soccer match at the local pub called Three Heads likely sat at home watching the game. It kept the streets voided of anyone else besides Amy and me, two American strangers, not sure how to have a conversation.

  “What is that place?” she asked.

  We’d walked out of town, over the stone bridge and babbling brook. We walked by the closed shops and the grocer’s market. We’d walked west and along the blacktop roadway that probably had a number instead of a name. I knew subconsciously where we were headed, but I didn’t enlighten Amy until she asked about the tall chain-link fence that populated the field to the right of the road. Topped with barbed wire strands, the chain fence had that official-looking presence begging to violate, even with the posted ‘No Admittance’ and ‘Private Property’ signs reflecting the ambient light in the night.

  We’d walked perhaps two to three kilometers from the town center. The rural countryside had white dots in the field to our left, where sheep slept—the right side that went on forever, tall grass, and high-security fencing that followed the roadside.

  “Makes you want to climb it and see what’s on the other side.” Amy clambered over the ditch and grabbed the chain-link fence. Nothing but higher sloping hills on the other side blocked the property and the sight within the parameter.

  “It’s Equinox Technologies property.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They’re a company based in Edinburgh.” I pointed to the fence that Amy had in both fists. “This is a satellite facility they own. My mother worked for them.”

  “Is she here with you?”

  I shook my head. “She doesn’t work for them anymore, as far as I know. She disappeared here eight years ago.”

  Amy let go of the fence as if jolted by electricity. She stared at me, standing in the road. We didn’t have to worry about traffic. Anything coming along the thoroughfare in the dark gave away its location long before it reached us with headlights. We hadn’t seen a car since we left the Guesthouse.

  “Wait, your mom disappeared? Absconded? Vanished?”

  “Yes, all three of those, all at once,” I said. “I was ten when she came here for her research, and then I never saw her again.”

  “What happened?”

  So I went through the whole sordid sad tale all over again for a girl I didn’t know, who I’d never see again after they left the Guesthouse. I think listening to me and my problems took Amy out of her head. She squatted in the heather along the fence, leaning against the chain-link, listening to me. I felt better afterward. I think it had to do with me keeping it practical instead of fanciful like Marcia. I didn’t include any of the tidbits Gramma Marcia confessed. I didn’t want Amy thinking I’d lost my head in the Scottish Highlands.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I haven’t thought about it too much,” I said.

  It was a total lie. I thought a lot about it. I had had eight years of simmering and conspiring. I wanted answers. I deserved answers. People spent months looking for Mom. I arrived in Scotland about twelve hours ago, and Gramma Marcia gave me an outlandish idea that made more sense to me than anything I’d heard before. One thing I knew for sure about Mom, I couldn’t remember her smell, but I never forgot her love for me.

  “If it were me, I’d want answers right now,” Amy said. Spurred by my woeful monologue, she sprang from the grassy hillside. She looked at the fence as if expecting a way through to appear magically. “I’m game.”

  Amy moved along the ridgeline parallel to the roadway. I walked with her on the pavement. Somehow, she had a fire burning deep inside, and I had ignited that powder keg. I watched as she picked up speed. She wore low-top hiking boots and cargo pants, a pullover thermal insulated jacket designed for cold weather, and knit gloves that came from one of the pockets.

  I didn’t bring gloves on my trip because I thought May meant warmer weather. I anticipated the arctic chill, but for some reason, it didn’t occur to me that I’d have cold hands. I buried my fists in my pockets and watched Amy racing along the fence. Her hand glided over the chain links.

  It was one of those elements that made me wonder when we found the spot. I’ve never been one to think about coincident and theories. Sometimes Mom told me things before bed to open my mind. She explained mathematical coincidences, something that occurs between expressions with no direct relationship. There wasn’t a theoretical explanation. Mom taught frequency of occurrence and the probability of a coincidence with two independent events.

  So, if I thought about how Mom would have explained it, we happened upon the imperfection in the fence because it was something meant to happen. How could I resist such a tempting presentation?

  “Look at that,” Amy said. “It’s begging for us to go under.”

  She was right. The joining of two steep hills butting up against each other caused a gapping pathway under the consistent chain link fence. The area under the fence had heather and grass, but Highland wildlife used the path through the gravel and underbrush because it had kerf marks in the undergrowth that forged an area large enough for a human female to fit without much effort. I knew it worked because Amy stared at me from the inside of the protected area.

  “Are you coming?” she asked. “We can go up, take a look around.” Amy looked sad for a second in the dark. “I know you probably won’t find your mom, but I’m dying to see what they’re hiding over there. Aren’t you?”

  The Way In

  Through the fence we walked together in the dark for a few paces, and I couldn’t hear our footsteps in the grass over the beating of my heart. We were two Americans breaking dangerous laws in a foreign country. What happened if I got caught? What happened to my scholarship for fall classes at Cornell? What would Dad say if he ever found out?

  “Wait,” I said. The white iridescent haze over the top hill propelled me beyond the fear of getting caught. Somewhere up there, beyond the knoll, I knew the secrets of my mother waited within the compound.

  Amy froze and ducked, so she matched the height of the tall grass and heather.

  “Where’s your phone?”

  Amy tapped her jacket pocket. “Right here,” she said.

  “Turn it off. I left mine back at the Guesthouse. It’s turned on. If they track your phone, they’ll know you came here. We want plausible deniability.”

  Amy grinned in the dark and nodded. She fished her phone out of the jacket and powered off. “If Bill texts me, he’ll just have to wait.”

  “I think the game has another hour or so before it’s over,” I said.

  Amy moved through the grass, parting the tall stalks with her hands. I followed in the path she forged. I should take point. After all, it was my mother we went searching for on posted private property. Amy seemed keen to tramp through the wild grass. At least we moved uphill instead of down. If we got caught in the marshes, boots, or not, we’d have wet so
cks before the adventure ended.

  “This is exciting,” she whispered.

  Nighttime in the Highlands had a creamy dark blue. We’d lost the streetlights, but following the hilltop to our intended destination proved easy in the dark. My eyes adjusted to the nighttime. I ignored the midges hopping from the vegetation and buzzing around our heads. Amy had a problem with the insects we’d disturbed, waving her arms frantically. I watched more bugs spring up, following her actions.

  We followed the only light source, a brilliant whitish cast that made the top of the hill glow like a halo.

  “I bet there’s no one there at this time of night,” Amy whispered.

  I didn’t think whispering necessary. We were several hundred meters from anything resembling civilization. Amy reached the hilltop before me. I watched her crouch and wait. She stared out at the facility.

  “What are they doing here?” she asked.

  I reached the top and hunkered in the grass. Safe from anyone seeing us, we scanned the area. There was a second fence, same height, and style. Except the fence surrounding the parameter of the Quonset huts had coils of razor wire running along the top instead of the three strands of barbed wire.

  I didn’t answer Amy because I had no idea what went on inside the multiple structures. I got the impression when Rory and his dad ventured onto the property to take a look, there weren’t as many buildings. I counted eight structures of various heights, lengths, and widths. Added to the huts were contractor trailers. I saw collections of multiple ATVs. Most of the four-wheelers were single rider sizes, sport quads. I saw rows of UTVs parked near the fence line in front of one of the larger structures. One of the largest Quonset huts looked like it was part of the steep rounded mound that went several meters in the air.

  “I don’t know what they’re doing here,” I said. It was a safe answer.

  “I don’t see anyone around,” Amy said. She glanced at me in the dark. I saw her eyes sparkling from the high LED lights that populated the grounds inside the parameter fence. “Want to get closer?”

  Did I? I had never broken the law before. I didn’t know if we’d committed a felony or misdemeanor when we breeched the property fence. I suspected if we got closer, if we found a way into the parameter fence, we’d face felony charges in a foreign country.

  “You think your mom’s in there?”

  “It’s been eight years. I think if Mom were this close to her sister, she’d send a signal or something.”

  “You think they’re mining for something?”

  It was a good question. It was impossible to ignore the yellow earthmover parked close to the parameter fence near the gates. The excavator’s scoop arm extended in a fixed dormant position close to the guard shack, its big steel elbow pressed near the roof of the vacant guardhouse.

  “I don’t know what they’re doing. My grandmother calls the place daoine sìth.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s something people know from around here for generations. It’s a fairy mound.”

  “No way,” Amy said. She glared at the structures and swatted at the buzzing midges around her face. “What did your mom do for the company? You said she did research in quantum leaping or something.”

  I giggled. “Quantum physics,” I said. I pointed to the objective. “If I had any intention to get in the place, even though I know we’d be in serious trouble, I’d climb the stacks of barrels against the guardhouse and use the roof to reach the top of the fence. The arm on the loader is close enough to the razor wire; you can climb right over it.” I looked at Amy. “What?”

  She shook her head, smiling. “You want to know what happened. You want to get in there, don’t you?”

  “You’re seriously playing devil’s advocate,” I said. “Of course, I want to get in there. I want to know what happened to my mom. But this is all so unreal.”

  Amy slipped over the tip of the hill and began the slow descent into the valley. I followed her. I knew facing fines, and maybe jail, I might get some sympathy from the courts because I needed to know what happened eight years ago. If anything, I’d expose Equinox Technologies in social media or international news. It didn’t occur to me before, but maybe waking up people to a secret facility deep in the Scottish Highlands isn’t the kind of publicity they wanted. As I moved downhill, I picked up momentum and overtook Amy before I hid behind the stacks of wooden pallets near the guardhouse.

  “It’s empty,” Amy whispered. “There’s no one in there.”

  “I think you’re right.” We moved together to the thick blue plastic barrels stacked beside the cinderblock shack. “There’s a camera over there.”

  I pointed to the white CCTV camera facing the door with a keypad and overhead light.

  “That looks like the only one,” she said.

  I think she was right. I’d looked for a long time in all the corners of the sloping buildings. The door faced the overhead loading door for another hut. Two Quonset huts sitting at right angles, one had the man door, the other a closed overhead garage door.

  Amy followed me up the barrel after I reached the roof. The steel roofing panels were slippery from condensation. Carefully, I leaned over the razor wire coils and grabbed the cold yellow arm of the excavator. My boot tip touched the wire, sending eddies down the line, sounding like an out of tune and dull spring.

  Once on the arm, I shimmied down to the cab and climbed over the door to the track. Amy made her way down the arm, and I gave her my hand for support to reach the caterpillar tread. We squatted together in the shadow of the earthmover, scanning the grounds for roaming patrols or dogs. It was a lot of show without any substance.

  Once, the satellite facility had a thriving populace. I think after eight years or more—however long Equinox Technologies kept the place—they had cut back on personnel.

  Amy dropped to the gravel and skirted along the far side of the Quonset hut facing the door with the camera. Once she reached the prefabricated semicircle, she waited for me.

  “I don’t know if we can get inside,” she said. “I don’t see any other doors.”

  “Not on this side.” I pointed. It was something I’d considered once I reached the roof—the point of no return. “If we head around the backside of this building, I bet there’s a rear entrance. I think a building like this needs a few egresses.”

  “You’re too smart for your own good, Harper.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” I said.

  It wasn’t glamorous, but it was highly illegal. The window at six feet above the ground had a sliding glass opening and a screen. The window, from what I saw without hopping up, hung open a few inches.

  “I bet it’s a bathroom,” Amy said.

  She went to move one of the blue barrels stacked a few meters from the window. It didn’t move.

  “Give me a hand with this.”

  We rocked it and turned it along the ground. I balanced it on the corner base, while Amy steered it. We parked it under the window against the wall. When the barrel dropped, the contents sloshed inside, and the thick plastic banged against the reinforced steel wall.

  We waited, holding our breaths. Inside, it was dark. No one moved inside, and no lights came on. When I hoisted myself on the barrel and peered over the ledge, I saw two tiny stalls. The window had a height of at least a foot and a width of two feet. Inside, the shelf ran thick, as if the interior of the building had heavy reinforcement with concrete interior walls.

  I felt along the bottom edge of the screen, and the aluminum bowed in the center. When I dug my fingers under the frame and pulled, the screen popped off. I stopped and waited, watching inside. The only light shining into the small bathroom came from a tall streetlamp over my shoulder. It cast a giant silhouette of me against the two bathroom stall doors. I looked down at Amy. I saw her trembling. I think it was excitement more than the chilly ai
r affecting her. My hands shook, and my heart rattled in my chest.

  I reached inside, hooked my fingers against the interior bottom ledge, and pulled. It took a little to slide through the window space. I hadn’t anticipated how to climb down the other side. I managed to press against the wall facing down and swung my leg over until my feet touched the porcelain sinks. Once standing on the sink, Amy rose. Her face was a mask of shadows as she reached inside, and I helped.

  “Where did you put the screen?” I asked.

  “I left it leaning against the barrel. Why? Was I supposed to bring it inside?”

  “I don’t know. I never committed a burglary before.”

  “I did once, but this is a lot cooler. Besides, it’s only burglary if you intend to steal something. We’re not here to steal anything, right?”

  “I didn’t plan to get this far. I certainly don’t want anything from this place that can put either of us inside. Let’s get a look around. All I want to know is what they do here and why my mom came here.”

  “Fair enough,” Amy whispered. She opened the bathroom door enough to peek out before slipping through. I quickly and quietly followed her.

  Into the Void

  It was a research facility. The large Quonset hut had straight walls inside like an ordinary building. Only the lack of ceiling with the tract lighting suspended over the hallways gave away the curved roof far above the lights.

  Inside, we followed one passageway after another. At the end of every hallway, we checked for the company. Amy was right. At night, the place didn’t have any onsite personnel.

  “This equipment looks expensive,” Amy said.

  I wondered if she was getting second thoughts about having sticky fingers. I watched her closely because the moment she lifted something, I intended to shut it down and leave immediately. Instead, like me, she noticed the rows of prefabricated desks, computer towers, and lines of flat-screen monitors.