“So, when I say let’s bring a cage to the cottage, it’s a stupid plan, but when a boy says he’ll get in the cage and be bait, it’s suddenly fine?”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
He’s right. I do. I just don’t like it.
I scowl at him as he continues. “It needs to be more secure, though, Alva has a point.” His eyes turn skyward as he thinks. “We’ll need to make sure none of the others can get inside the cottage. We’ll cut a hole in the door and bolt the cage to it. The creature will be in the cage, any others will be locked out, and it won’t be able to get to us.”
Gavan nods. “And so the sun doesn’t get to it, we’ll cover the front trapdoor with a piece of wood. Right, who wants to come with me to get the second cage?”
The rest of the day passes swiftly, thanks to the amount of work we have to do. By the time Gavan and I get back to the cottage, Ren has almost finished making the hole in the door, ready to bolt the cage to it. I take over from him, and he helps Gavan saw the backs of the cages off.
The first problem we encounter is how to tie the two cages together. It doesn’t matter if we use twine for the back of the second, because we need it to be easy to get Gavan out. But when we try using twine to lash the cages together, it soon becomes clear it won’t be strong enough to hold.
I can’t help the creeping doubt that this isn’t going to work.
“Chains!” Gavan says, dropping the rope he’s been twisting in his hands. “Jim Ballantyne has chains, for dragging the logs to the mill. I’ll ask him to borrow some. Ren, you’ll have to come and help me. They’re heavy, we’ll need the cart.”
Ren gives me questioning look, and I nod.
“Go on. I’ll finish here and then think about dinner.”
“How domestic.” Ren grins dangerously. “I’ll look forward to coming back to a home-cooked meal.”
“I said I’d think about it, not that I’d make it,” I say, moving aside so they can pass. “You’ll be lucky if I serve you bread and butter.”
“Aye, I would,” Ren says. He follows Gavan out, ducking under the barricaded part of the door, still beaming to himself, as I shake my head. As soon as he’s out of sight, I smile too.
I cobble together a stew using the last of the vegetables from the pantry, leaving it low on the heat while I have a quick wash and put on clean clothes. I think about refitting the silver horseshoe back above the door, before I remember we want one of the creatures to cross the threshold. I don’t know if the horseshoe thing works, but now isn’t the time to find out. I leave it on my nightstand when I go to my room, intending to take a nap so I’m fresh for the night ahead (suddenly the thought of sleeping where Ren was isn’t quite so strange), but instead I find myself standing up and walking back to the study. I take out the last three books, laying them gently around me.
The creatures appear in all of them, drawings and sketches spaced throughout, and as I stare at the pages between, flicking back and forth, I see that some symbols recur over and over: the moon, horseshoes, certain flowers, scratches beside them making a tally.
A list. Or dates. Maybe when they came, and how many were lost to them.
I fetch a fresh sheet of paper and try to work it out, starting with the most recent entries and working back. Slowly, I begin to make sense of it. The flowers are what’s in season and flowering; a thistle must mean June, or July, which makes sense because they’re hot months, and water levels naturally fall. The moon symbol is the moon phase: waxing, waning, full. This is when they came, before. On the earlier dates little pictures of animals are drawn – sacrifices, I guess, they must have tried animals first. Then the later tallies, the human sacrifices. Sometimes there are as many as five before the entry stops.
I work out that over a period of three hundred years the creatures came back once every twenty years or so. I put the books down, staring as I try to imagine living like that. Seeing the loch level start to drop and understanding what it meant. Praying and bargaining, hoping for rain. Knowing if there wasn’t a miracle, people you knew would die. They might be chosen to die.
They must have just kept going, kept asking or begging for volunteers, hoping it would be enough, until enough rain fell to trap them again. We don’t have time to wait for the rain. And if wasn’t for Giles Stewart’s greed, we wouldn’t have to.
*
The boys take a long time returning, so long that the turnips I threw in the stew are almost edible, so long that I start to worry they won’t come back at all. I sit on the stoop once more, mug of tea in my hands, watching, relief like shade on a sunny day when I finally catch sight of them, one of Gavan’s hands raised in a cheery wave, the other dragging the cart behind them. I put the mug down and go to help.
They’re both breathless and sweaty, but Gavan is glowing with purpose, and Ren is full of grim determination, refusing when I try to take the cart handle from him, even though I can see his leg is hurting him. They barely pause for water before they get back to the cages. And not a moment too soon, because over the loch the sky has turned pink. We don’t have long.
We lash the two cages together, winding the thick chains between them, the three of us pulling them tight before looping them again and again. This might actually work, I realize. A flicker of hope flares in my heart.
As the sky turns purple, we padlock the chain, the two cages now one, then Ren bolts it to the door, hammering the nails into the brackets they’ve brought back with them. With that it’s done; the trap is set. All that remains is the bait.
“How long do you think we have?” Gavan asks.
“Not long,” I say, looking at the sky.
“I’ll eat in the cage.”
“Gavan. You don’t have to do this…”
“I’ll be fine. You’ll be nearby with the guns. Leave a knife where I can reach it. That way if it all goes wrong, I can cut my way out.”
His faith is staggering. I hope we can live up to it. I hope I can.
Gavan crawls into the cage with remarkable cheer, and I tie the false back on, putting a knife nearby, as he asked. While I do, Ren dishes up the stew. The bowl won’t fit between the bars, so Gavan has to have his in mugs, topped up and passed through to him, as Ren and I sit on the hall floor, eating with him. The scrape of spoons against bowls and the soft ticking of the kitchen clock are the only sounds. All our attention is on the gaping hole before us, the door we’ve opened to let the monsters inside.
The night is still, no birds, no otters chirruping. No breeze to make the reeds rustle. Even the loch itself seems mute, the wash of waves absent.
We wait. We leave one candle burning, partly so we can see, and partly to act as a beacon, drawing the creatures to us. We don’t play cards, too scared to even talk in case we miss something outside. I keep the gun in my lap, the flintlock loaded with one shot next to me. Ren has the axe once more. We hold our breath.
The first hour passes peacefully. There’s no sign of the creatures, or anything else, and Ren goes to make tea, though Gavan refuses it on account of spending the next ten or so hours in a cage. He is already starting to fidget, shifting his weight, stretching out then drawing up his legs. There’s no room to stand, or move around. It’s too long to stay in there, I think.
“We should take turns,” I say, crossing to the back of the cage and pulling at the knot.
Gavan twists. “What are you doing?”
“You can’t stay in there all night; look at you.” I nod to where he’s rubbing the back of his calf. “We’ll take turns. I’ll sit in for an hour or so, then Ren can switch with me.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re clearly not. Stop being a hero.”
He looks as though he might protest, but I see the relief in his eyes at the idea of being allowed out.
“Fine,” he says, with a sigh that doesn’t fool me at all. “We need to move fast. Ready?”
I release the back and wait for him to crawl out, before slipping into
his place. I leave the flintlock gun outside, but keep mine with me, clutching it like a talisman.
“Wait,” Ren comes back, tea in hand, as Gavan makes to refit the rear, then returns to the kitchen. He reappears with a cushion, tossing it to me, and I shove it gratefully beneath me as they tie the back of the cage on.
My heart climbs up my chest, lodging itself in my throat as I face the other end of the cage.
The hole before me is a yawn, stretching out into the night, and I shiver.
“Here.” Ren holds out my mug of tea between the bars.
No sooner do I think of reaching for it than a white shape appears in the dark, and from behind the cottage something screams high and sharp; it sounds like the word no.
EIGHTEEN
“They’re here,” I whisper as my heart starts to thump painfully, my stomach clenching with fear.
Ren sucks in a sharp breath, reaching for his axe, as Gavan picks up the flintlock gun. My own fingers tighten on my gun, and the spring for the inner trapdoor.
The urge to trigger the door and shut it now is overwhelming, but I grit my teeth, fighting it.
I can’t take my eyes off the hand that’s wrapping itself around the door frame, and I brace myself to come face to face with one of them again, breathing in shallow pants as I try to prepare for it.
I’m still not ready when it finally looms into view, crouching just beyond the entrance to the cage.
Like the one I saw outside the cottage, it’s hairless and naked, but where the other was wasted, this one is muscular. Still hungry-thin, but its thighs are taut and strong beneath that coarse-looking skin. It squats, feet splayed, like a spider, upper body bent low as it looks in at me.
This one isn’t blind. It sees me.
Its eyes are black, no iris, nothing but a drowning pool that fixes me in place as surely as if it had nailed me down. Its head tilts as it watches me.
Whatever these things are, they’ve been here for so long. Eternity rolls off it in waves, endless and fathomless; I feel so small, an ant beneath its foot. I am prey. Nothing more than prey. I am the rabbit in the snare, I’m the ptarmigan in a field while a gun is trained upon it. I’m weak.
It smiles at me.
No. Not a smile.
Its thin lips curve and part, and I get a first-hand view of how those long canines fit inside.
I would give anything not to know.
Its mouth keeps opening, its jaw unhinging as its fangs descend like those of a snake. They’re longer than my little finger, wickedly curved. Behind them, the back row of teeth waits to tear.
My fingers tighten on the trapdoor as Ren breathes, “Alva,” his voice shaking.
The thing stops moving and looks up at the top of the trap, where the door waits to fall.
Then it closes its mouth and makes a clicking sound.
And another one appears.
I know instantly that this one is either older, or more important; something in the way the first ducks its head and almost croons at it, deferring. The creatures click softly to each other, and Ren whispers my name again.
“Get out,” he spits through clenched teeth. “Something’s wrong.”
But this is our chance.
“I’m fine,” I say in a normal voice. The volume is jarring, but I’d hoped it would be. Immediately the creatures stop communicating with each other and look at me, their attention drawn by the sound of my voice. The younger one bares its teeth at me again, then turns to its elder.
They both watch me for a moment, then look back at the cage door, their heads moving synchronously on too-long necks as they peer at it. The older one makes a sound and the other one responds. Then, to my surprise, the older one sits on its haunches, and the younger copies it, both watching me passively.
“They know what it is,” I say. “They know it’s a trap. They won’t come in.”
“Fine. Then get out,” Ren says, his voice tense.
Without taking my eyes from the creatures, I reach slowly behind me.
The moment I move they leap back; it happens so fast I don’t see them do it, only their pale bodies glowing in the dark, suddenly a few feet away, chattering urgently to each other. I was right. They know what we’re doing. They know what happened to their friend and they fear it.
Which means if we want to catch them, we have to make them forget their fear. Override their instincts.
My fingers close around the knife, and I pull it into the cage.
“Don’t you dare. Alva, don’t you dare.”
“Gavan, stop him,” I shout as Ren starts pulling at the twine on the back door, trying to get to me before I can see my idea through.
When Gavan obeys, pulling Ren back, I hitch my skirts up, right hand still ready to spring the door, press the knife to the graze on my knee, and scrape the blade over it.
Crimson beads of blood well in the wound; a few drops only, but they’re enough.
The scent of salt and metal and life rises, catching on the air.
I don’t see it move, but it does. The younger creature screams and throws itself into the cage, triggering the door, which slams down behind it.
And I spring the second door as Ren wrenches the back off the trap.
His hands come under my arms and he pulls me out, both of us skidding over the wood, his arms around me, my gun flying out of my hand and across the hall, landing by my bedroom door.
The captured creature shrieks with rage, launching itself against the bars of the cage, and we all watch in horrified fascination as it flings itself from side to side, battering the sides of its prison, frantic and furious as it realizes it’s trapped.
“We got it,” Ren says in my ear, pulling me to my feet. “We did it!”
Gavan’s plan has worked.
We end up all three of us in a tangle of a hug, my heart still ricocheting off my ribs, my body limp now the danger has passed, adrenaline and victory making us giddy, all the while the creature hissing and shrieking behind, railing against the gaol we’ve locked it in.
My ears are so full of Gavan’s laughter and Ren telling me I’m a lucky, lucky fool, that the first moment we notice something is wrong is when the sound of metal against metal punctures our bubble.
As one we turn, in time to see the second creature lifting up the trapdoor at the front of the cage, its long fingers wrapping around the handle at the top and turning it, before pulling it up, the way no lugh or wolf ever could.
And the one trapped inside the cage reaches up and copies it, opening the back of the cage.
“Go!” Ren screams, hurling me into the kitchen, slamming the door behind us, bracing against it.
“Gavan? Ren, Gavan’s still in there!” I force him aside. “We have to help him! Where’s the gun?”
“I don’t know. Alva, no!” I throw myself at the door and open it as Ren tries desperately to stop me, his fingers scrabbling at my skirts.
One of the creatures is bent over Gavan, fangs elongated, desperately trying to bury its face in his neck as he attempts to push it away.
There’s blood beneath him. He’s already bitten.
I let out a horrified sob and his eyes find mine as he mouths my name. I dive to where the flintlock gun is lying against the wall, rolling over and firing at the creature. I miss the head, the bullet burying itself in its chest, where its heart should be.
But it doesn’t die.
It rears back from Gavan, screaming. It falls to the ground, clawing at the wound, as Gavan reaches out to me.
And the second creature comes from nowhere.
The last thing I know are its teeth as it bears down on me, slamming me back into the wall, where my head cracks with a sickening thud. I drop the gun, and hear Ren screaming my name.
Then everything is black, and I know nothing.
NINETEEN
When I wake, it’s dark, I’m lying face down, and someone is crying nearby.
I try to sit up and a sharp, searing pain flares inside my skull
. Tentatively I touch the back of my head. My hand comes away sticky. Slowly, carefully, I shift on to my side, breathing heavily as another burst of agony blooms behind my eyes. I hold myself still while I take inventory of the rest of my body, relieved when, aside from the pain in my skull and the graze I reopened on my knee, I find I’m whole.
And alive. Unless this is hell, this claustrophobic, oddly warm place, where every breath tastes of metal and dust. My eyes are open, and yet I can see nothing, the darkness is so total.
No, I’m not in hell, I realize. I’m in the creatures’ den. Where else could I be that smells musty, and feels so gritty and dense beneath me? I must be in the caves, out on the loch. I strain my ears, hoping to hear water, but it’s silent, other than that muffled crying.
Why aren’t I dead? Why have they brought me here? And who else is here with me?
I force myself to sit up, battling another surge of sickness. “Ren?” I whisper. “Gavan?”
“Alva?” a female voice asks softly.
“Yes. Hattie? Hattie, is that you?” Hope rises.
She’s silent for so long I start to wonder if I’ve imagined her.
Then, on a breath: “No. It’s Cora. Cora Reid.”
“What?” Cora Reid was not missing, as far as I knew. “What are you doing here?”
Again, she’s quiet for the longest time. “I was with James earlier. We heard Gavan, with Murren Ross, asking to borrow his father’s chains, and got suspicious. So we followed them back up the mountain to your cottage. We hid in your hen house, waiting to see what you were all doing. The next thing I knew…”
“They came,” I finish for her. I remember that scream: No, just before the creatures attacked. It must have been her. “Did they take James? Is he here too? Is he all right?”
She starts to cry again, harder, a sad, definite answer to my question. He’s dead, then.
I shuffle towards the sound, bumping against her a few seconds later. I reach out with my right hand and pat her awkwardly. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
“What are they?” Cora’s voice shakes. “Their mouths… Their bodies…” She swallows. “Is that what killed Aileen? Did they get Hattie? What about us?”
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