Hold Back the Tide

by Melinda Salisbury

  “She’s telling the truth.” Mhairi Campbell’s voice booms from the back of the crowd, which parts like a wheat field in response.

  Mhairi Campbell has birthed five sons, one after the other, big granite lads, made of brawn. She’s tall, and broad, and would be well able to help Jim Ballantyne shifting the logs he cuts for the mill, if she wasn’t a woman, at least. She’s eye level with Giles Stewart when she faces him, thick arms folded before her.

  Behind her come Maggie, Gavan and Ren. The boys move immediately to me, Deirdre Gray stepping aside so they can stand at my left and right. Giles’s eyes follow his son, lingering on the bandage at his neck, as the crowd begin to whisper and nudge each other. Maggie stops beside Mhairi.

  “Are you all right?” Ren whispers.

  I nod, trying to ignore the agony in my arm.

  “What’s this now?” Giles says, though some of his surety has left him, his smug smirk replaced with wary eyes. “Mhairi, I thought you were a sensible woman.”

  “Don’t you try that on me. I said Alva Douglas is telling the truth. There are beasts up in the mountain. I know, because I saw them with my own eyes.”

  That’s why Mhairi was at Maggie’s. She was the person Maggie was referring to. She’s seen them.

  Mhairi steps closer to Giles, challenging him with her presence, and though he refuses to move back, I see the bob of his throat as he swallows. Next to him, Dizzy smiles briefly. He is proud of his wife, I think.

  Mhairi doesn’t spare him a glance, though; all of her attention is on Giles. “Last night I was sitting in the window. I couldn’t sleep, after what happened to the Logan girls – I don’t think many of us have.”

  The crowd nods and murmurs.

  “Our back room overlooks the brook, and I sat in there so as not to disturb Dizzy. I saw what I first thought was a person. But it wasn’t human.”

  “What do you mean?” someone in the crowd calls. Giles frowns, and Mhairi continues.

  “They were too tall. Too pale – milk white. Bone white. They’ve claws instead of nails, I could see that even from a distance. And they were as naked as the day they were born.” She hesitates, and I understand why. Though I’m still surprised when she says it. “They had no parts to speak of. Nothing down there at all. I saw two of them, skirting the bankside, looking into the village. Scouting, like animals do. I watched them turn and run, faster than anything I’ve ever seen, back up the mountain.” She turns to me. “I take it that’s when they got you?”

  I feel my skin heat again as the throng of people, who seemed to have forgotten I was there, all turn their attention back to me. I look as many as I can in the eye.

  “They got you?” Giles says to me.

  “They carried her off.” It’s Gavan who answers, stepping forward. “I saw them. So did Ren. This is what they did to me.” He peels back the bandage from his neck. The people gasp as one at the cut that slashes Gavan from ear to collarbone, livid red against his pale skin.

  “James was killed by them,” Gavan continues. “Cora was taken, with Alva, to their lair. She helped Alva escape to warn us. We have to rescue her. And we have to be ready. For when they come back.”

  “What about Hattie?” Connor Anderson steps forward, his face puffy and swollen, his eyes red. “Did you see her?”

  I can’t bear his desperate expression. “She’s dead, Connor,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”

  A shudder runs through the mob like a wave; people pull their loved ones closer, as if that will keep them safe. At the back of the group someone peels off, to find the Reids and the Ballantynes, I assume.

  Giles is looking thoughtfully at me. I can almost see his mind working, trying to figure out how he can come out on top here. Never mind what he’s just learned: two more children dead, one captive, the village under siege from unnatural creatures and his own son sporting a wound that could have been fatal. No, Giles’s only concern is coming out on top. How he can rise like cream.

  “Well, you seem to be the expert.” He meets my eye. “What do you suggest we do?”

  Clever, putting it on me. This way if it goes wrong, it’s my fault.

  But I have nothing left to lose.

  “First we need to shut down the mill.”

  Giles is speechless, his mouth moving noiselessly.

  “Why?” Maggie asks loudly.

  I frown; she knows why, I’ve already told her. But then I understand. She’s giving me a chance to explain, in front of everybody. If the villagers agree, Giles will have to do it, if only to hold on to his status.

  “Their lair is under the mountain, beside the loch.” I pause. “We all know that before the earthquake there used to be two lochs.” I wait for them to nod. “Well, my guess is those things lived in the caves alongside the underground loch. When the earthquake happened, and the lochs merged, their caves were blocked off. But now, the mill is using up so much water that the entrances are exposed and they can get out. They can just walk across the loch bed.”

  “We should be focusing on killing them, not trapping them,” Giles says.

  “I shot one last night,” I tell him. “Right where the heart should be. It ought to have put it down, but it didn’t. The only thing that we know for sure hurts them is the sun. That’s why they live deep in the caves, why they only come at night. The sun burns them.”

  “How do you know that?” Deirdre Gray asks.

  “We trapped one,” I say. “Gavan, Murren and me. We set a trap, and we got one.”

  The crowd gasp, looking around.

  “We found it in the morning turned to ash. When we touched it, it dissolved to nothing. And this morning, when I escaped, one tried to grab me. I saw its arm start to burn in the light. They can’t abide the sun, I’m certain.”

  “What use is that to us?” Giles asks.

  “It means they can be killed. At least one way.”

  “There have to be other ways.” That’s Jim Ballantyne, his wife behind him. The Reids follow, and so do the Logans. They stand beside Connor, separated from the others by their loss.

  “There might be,” I agree.

  “Then I say we trap another,” he says, talking to the crowd now. “We secure the women and the bairns tonight, and we set a trap. We keep the beast out of the sun and we find other ways to kill them. And once we know how, we go to their lair and we slaughter them all.”

  “And get my Cora back.”

  Mrs Reid steps forward, reaching for my hands, though she stops at the last minute, folding her arms instead.

  “She’s alive, you say?”

  “She was this morning.”

  Mrs Reid closes her eyes.

  Giles has finally recovered himself. “You’re not seriously going to listen to the word of a murderer?”

  “I’ve killed no one,” I say, and both Ren and Gavan move closer.

  “You are your father’s daughter, though. The future Naomhfhuil. And was that not the point of the Naomhfhuil, originally – to commune with the things that lived in the loch? For all we know it’s you who’s been up there, coaxing them out, setting them on us. Look at the victims.” He turns to the crowd, happy to have found his stride. “Look at who they were.

  “Hattie Logan. Aileen Anderson. No love lost between those girls and you, was there? We all saw Alva take Aileen’s place at the Staff.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I begin, but Giles talks louder.

  “Cora Reid and James Ballantyne missing too – both friends of Hattie’s. Both enemies of yours,” he says to me. “Why, my own son told me they didn’t like you, isn’t that right, Gavan?”

  There’s disgust in Gavan’s eyes as he looks at his father. “What has that to do with anything?”

  “You don’t have to be afraid of her, son,” Giles says. “She can’t hurt you again.”

  “She didn’t hurt me in the first place,” Gavan says angrily, but no one is listening. Any ground I’d gained is gone, and the faces that look at me now wear the same old
expressions of mistrust.

  Maggie must think the same thing, because she steps forward.

  “Well, there’s one way to find out if she’s lying, isn’t there?” Maggie says. “We shut down the mill, then we do as Jim suggests and set a trap. We catch one and see what it is we’re dealing with.” She shoots me an apologetic look. “And we keep Miss Douglas far away from it.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  I watch the action in the square from the best table in Rosie Talbot’s inn, a place I genuinely never thought I’d set foot inside.

  From what I can see the trap that’s being built is a grander version of Gavan’s design, so he’s essential to the process, standing off to the side and consulting with Iain-the-Smith over a hastily drawn version, occasionally calling out instructions, while every man and woman with even the slightest hint of brawn puts it together.

  As I watch, they pause to take a break, wiping the backs of arms across sweaty brows, loosening tight shoulders, while Rosie moves among them, handing out mugs of thirst-quenching ale. My hand moves to my own shoulder, testing it. The ache is still there, but it’s faint and dull, the ghost of injury haunting the joint, instead of the raw, stomach-churning pain of the dislocation, and the sickening way my arm just hung there, barely part of me at all.

  Mhairi Campbell put the joint back in place for me after giving me a hefty dose of cheap whisky, and even the burn from that gut rot didn’t mask the pain of having someone forcibly push a bone back into a socket. I screamed so loud I’m sure the creatures heard it in the mountains and smiled.

  Giles thinks he’s won. If they succeed and catch one, then it’s not my success, and I can’t share in it. And if they fail, they have a scapegoat. Either way, he thinks he’s back on his throne, the would-be king who brought the whole of Ormscaula together to face monsters he doesn’t believe in; I see it in his eyes, he either won’t or can’t accept what he’s been told.

  He is outside with the others. He turns towards the window now, mug of ale in his hand, raising it slightly as if toasting me, and I stare back at him. He thinks having me in here gives him an advantage, but I’d say right now we are even. He might have locked me up, but I shut his mill down.

  Actually, when I put it like that, I’d say I was ahead.

  It’s eerie in the village without the rumble of the mill in the background. No hum of the pulping vats smashing and shredding the wood. No creaking and groaning of the waterwheel as it sluices water into the huge tanks, and then the waste water out, to carry on down the mountain. Every so often one of the villagers looks up, frowning, trying to place what’s missing. He’s working, his friends are around him, and yet something is wrong. It’s partly the fact he’s outdoors, the sun bearing down on his neck, in the fresh air, instead of the dark, sour-smelling mill. But it’s mostly the silence.

  The door to the pub kitchen opens, and I turn.

  “I’ve made you a spot of tea.” Maggie, charged with babysitting me to be sure I don’t interfere, walks over, laden with a tray.

  I look at the clock above the bar. Five. Not long until sundown. I rise and take the tray from her, ignoring her protests, and put it on the table, careful with my left arm.

  “Has anyone been sent to find Cora?” I ask.

  “It was decided catching one of the creatures was the priority,” Maggie says, her voice full of apology.

  “So she has to spend another night up there, in a pitch-black hole, alone,” I reply bitterly. “I promised I’d get her out.”

  “No one wanted to go there without knowing what they were up against,” Maggie replies. “Even her brothers agreed it was better to wait to have the dawn on our side. Cora’s tough. Believe in her.”

  “It doesn’t matter how tough she is. You don’t know what they’re like.”

  “Aye, well, if the trap works we all will. Now eat up. We’ve a long night ahead of us.”

  She’s put together a nice spread: cold chicken and ham, bread and butter, some hard-boiled eggs and a block of cheese, as well as a thick chunk of pork pie, the crust crumbling into the juices of fat, silvery pickled onions. And despite everything, I’m famished. I don’t need any more encouragement to dig in.

  I make short work of the food, eating my way steadily through the plate until all that’s left is crumbs and my rounded tummy. I brush down the blouse and skirts I’ve been lent to wear instead of Maggie’s nightgown. I watch the work outside the whole time.

  “I wonder what we’ll use as bait. Do you know?” I ask.

  I’ve been trying to figure it out. Our trap worked because it was contained – only one of the creatures could get in, and we had the control over when the trap sprung. Of course, we hadn’t banked on them copying us and learning how to open the trap; Gavan will have told them that.

  But this trap is out in the open. I can’t imagine a creature will come alone, and even if one does, and goes into the trap, how will we keep the others from rescuing it, or get out to it before the sun rises without being killed ourselves? What do we plan to do with the person who’s the bait – leave them out there all night with the things trying to get in at them? I pour a cup of tea, my mind whirring.

  Maybe they’ll use me, I think darkly.

  Movement outside catches my eye and I see Giles is walking towards the inn, a smug expression lighting his self-satisfied face.

  Does he plan to use me? I cover my alarm with irritation. “Ugh, what does he want now?”

  “Alva, listen,” Maggie says hurriedly. I look at her, my stomach plunging. “He’s coming for you. You’re to stay with Giles tonight.”

  I drop the teacup and it shatters. “No.” I stand, looking around for another way out of the inn.

  Maggie reaches out to placate me. “He won’t hurt you.”

  “I’d rather be the bait in that cage. You know what he tried to do to me, I told you.”

  “Alva, please, calm down. The others… Well, they’re not keen on the idea of you being in the same house as them. Giles holds a lot of sway, Alva, you know that. And then there’s Lachlan, in gaol for what he did to your mam. It’s one night, and he won’t try a thing, I promise. He knows I won’t let him get away with it.”

  Before Maggie can say any more, Giles opens the door to the inn and walks over to us.

  “Oh dear,” he says, voice dripping with false concern. “That’s a face. I take it you’ve told her? Let’s go, Miss Douglas.”

  “There has to be somewhere else,” I say to Maggie desperately. “Anywhere else. What about with you?”

  “No one will have you,” says Giles. “It’s home with me. Unless you fancy a night in the cells.”

  “I’ll take the cells,” I say.

  Giles smiles a wide, ugly smile. “So be it.”

  A new wave of horror crashes through me as I understand I’ll be spending the night with my father.

  It would only take a moment to cross the square to the gaol but I make Maggie walk me around the back of the village. I won’t give Giles the satisfaction, I won’t have the villagers pausing to watch me heading there, don’t want to see the pity in Gavan’s eyes. Or Ren’s. I don’t have much dignity, but I will fight to preserve this scrap.

  The injustice of it is burning me, leaving a black, molten hole inside my chest, but I hold my tongue, even though I want to scream. There’s no point in seething at Maggie; she’s on my side, and I’m short on allies. So I walk placidly beside her, as though we’re just out for a stroll after supper.

  The sky is darkening and streaked with cloud as we turn on to the side street by the gaolhouse: a tall, slim building, on the edge of the square opposite Giles’s house. Mercifully the door is on the side, so no one sees as we approach.

  “I want a cell overlooking the square,” I say to Maggie as she opens the door for me. “I want to watch as it happens.”

  “I don’t see why not,” she says gently, ushering me inside.

  Angus Mitchell, a thin, weasel-faced man with light auburn hair and skin alm
ost as pale as the creatures, is on duty today. There aren’t often people in the gaol for more than a night or two, so there’s no permanent gaoler. When one’s needed, Giles gets one of the men from the mill to do it. It must be Angus’s turn. He stands, reaching for my arm, and I pull away.

  “She’s not a prisoner, Angus,” Maggie warns him. “I’ll see her to her room.”

  He scoffs. I meet his watery blue eyes and for a minute we’re just two people, amused at Maggie behaving as though I’m staying at an inn. Then the shutters come down, blanking his expression, and he pats the ring of keys at his skinny waist.

  “I’m to come with you to lock her in. Mr Stewart’s orders.”

  Maggie tuts. “She doesn’t need to be locked in. She chose to come here, of her own free will.”

  “Mr Stewart,” he emphasizes, “says she’s to be locked in to keep her from trying to get her father out.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I say, but I know there’s no point.

  Angus gestures for us to mount the stairs. “To the top, Mrs Wilson.”

  I follow Maggie up to the second floor, passing the closed door on the first floor. They must be keeping my father there, and I’m glad I’ll be on a different floor. This is going to be bad enough, without him nearby.

  At the top of the stairs Maggie pushes open the door, which isn’t locked. There are four cells. I count the doors, two facing out on to the square, two the street behind.

  “She wants one over the square,” says Maggie, and Angus laughs.

  “Does she now?” he replies. Maggie fixes him with a glare that turns his skin puce. “First on your left,” he mutters, and I follow Maggie to it.

  Good. That’s one less thing to worry about. It frees me up nicely for the horror I feel when I see where I’m to spend the night. Maybe I should have chosen Giles’s house…

  The cell is small, twice as wide as my bed at home and not much longer, a single window, glassless and barred high on the far wall. It’s barely furnished at all, outfitted with a wooden bunk, a thin-looking pillow and blanket, and a metal pail.