I was baffled to what the hell he was talking about and what was going to happen next, but nonetheless my curiosity had peaked. Whatever it was, I had to go along with his crazy scheme or else face more of my father’s infuriating wrath.
The sun finally set, and after driving along the island coast from north to northwest for another half an hour, dad pulled over onto the side of a narrow road. He exited the car and told us to get out and follow him, which we did with no questions asked.
He led us along a rough, grassy terrain then finally up onto a small rocky hill that breathtakingly overlooked a series of huge and spacious standing stones that spiralled out this way and that upon a large distant plane.
Even though the sun had fully set, there was still a good chunk of daylight lingering around in the western sky, so the strange-looking standing stones were still easily the focus of the surrounding valleys and hills.
“Behold the Standing Stones of Callanish,” dad cried as he sat himself down upon a small cluster of rocks on top of the hill. “Ma own father used tae bring me up here every now and again,” he continued before trailing off into silence.
I marvelled at the stones. The bigger ones seemed to be standing in a circle in the middle of the plane, while the largest of them all stood by itself right in the very centre. Another five rows of smaller, trailing stones took off from the centre and spread out in various directions.
I wanted to ask about them. Why were they all standing upright like that? Who had put them there and arranged them all to stand up in such a way? But the painful memories of asking him questions completely overwhelmed my pleasure for an answer. So instead I said nothing at all.
My sister must have been reading my thoughts though as she was the one who finally asked him a question regarding why the stones were unnaturally standing up the way they were?
“Because, ma girl, a tribe of silly cunts, a long time ago, thought they’d be a bunch of right smart-arses and stick them in the ground for nay good reason whitsoever, just cuz they thought they were being funny bastards at the time. Imagining all they baffled folk in the future, like us, raking their fuckin’ brains trying tae come up with all these fancy, scientific, smart-arse answers why the ancient, silly cunts had arranged the stones like that in the first place. Pure dead brilliant, likes, eh?”
My sister cheerfully smiled and agreed. I, on the other hand, was not overly convinced of my father’s explanation. It would have taken a great amount of time, care and effort and planning to arrange those magnificent big stones in such a way, and I’m pretty sure that thousands of years ago, time, along with the average human lifespan, would have been very precious indeed. Preciously shorter than it was now, especially when they’d put so much hard work and dedication into something that meant absolutely nothing.
“Ma father used tae say that it were an army of men who came tae overthrow a clan of mystical druids on the island and that it was their magic which turned that same army intae stone. The same standing stones ye’s see before ye’s now.”
Well that sounded a bit more plausible than his first story. But I didn’t believe in magic and fairy tales and special powers, so I guess I’d just have to do more research on the matter, if I ever got to see a computer or the town library again. But none of his explanations so far addressed the reason to why he’d stated that the stones were a special place to him.
“Anyhow,” dad continued as he suddenly stood back up onto his feet. “It really doesnae matter ah fuckin’ hoot who put they big fuck off stones there or why they even put them there in the first place.”
He hesitated for a second and clapped his hands together, looking us both dead in the eye.
“What matters, girls, is that this place is the starting point of your next big adventure. From here on in ah want ye’s both tae make your way all the way back home and by any means necessary and withoot drawing any attention tae yourselves in the slightest…”
At first, my heart absolutely sank to the pit of my stomach at his words. He was going to leave us out here in the middle of nowhere to fend for ourselves as we made our way back home again over hundreds and hundreds of miles without anyone’s help, all for the sake of his silly little survival games and to prove that we weren’t children anymore.
But the more his words settled into me, the more I realised that time without my father around and breathing down our necks was time that I valued greatly – in fact, time that I deeply valued more than anything else in the world these days.
“Nay time limit, likes,” he quickly added like he was doing us a huge favour with that statement. “And nay pressure. Obviously, the quicker ye’s dae it the more al be impressed. Ah think it took me just over a week the first-time ma auld man left me oot here…” a wry smile broadened across his face as he spoke his next sentence. “…but, by the fifth-time of asking ah was a fuckin’ natural at it. Christ, ah was all most home before ma auld man on one occasion.”
I gave out a questioning stare to my sister. Already the sky was becoming darker and the temperature gradually dropping. My sister returned my gaze with warm, smiling eyes. I knew she’d be loving this. Any chance she could get to redeem and prove herself in front of my father, she would welcome with wide open arms.
Then, just like that, Dad started walking away.
“Well, good luck, ma girls. See’s ye’s both when ah see ye, ah guess. And dinnae get fuckin’ picked up by any police either or any kind of authority figures for that matter, or ah will be mightily pissed.”
We both stood there in silence as we watched our father stroll casually away, back towards his warm, comfortable, waiting car in the distance. We kept watching too, like little abandoned puppies, as he climbed inside, started his engine, beeped his horn, and waved back at us before driving carefully off, back up the rough single-track road from where we’d came.
For a few moments, I really thought that he might turn around and drive back for us with a big beaming smile on his face, while crying out gotcha, or the jokes on you’s’ ye wee bastards. Look at both your wee faces. Now get into the fuckin’ car. But if you knew my father, then you knew that was never ever going to be a realistic outcome.
When the lights of his car finally disappeared over the distant hills and horizon, my sister took my hand and began leading me back down the hill. I pretty much guessed that we’d have to find some kind of shelter for the night and fast.
If it wasn’t for my sister taking the lead then I would have been happy to just sit and wait up on that hill forever and day or at least until someone came and found me there, or I eventually just faded away into dust and bones and the wind carried me away to a better place.
Chapter 13
We walked in darkness for a good few hours that night, letting the stars and the bright light of the half-moon lead our way through the pitch-black countryside. We were so lucky that it was such a beautiful, clear sky.
Some of the books our father had given us to study over the years had been about astronomy and celestial navigation—how the old sail boats and ships from the past few centuries, way before digital maps and satellites, had navigated their way through the seemingly never-ending oceans at night, using only the stars and constellations as their guidance.
We wanted to keep south—well, southeast to be precise—so we always knew to look out for the plough first and foremost if we ever found ourselves lost. Find the Big Dipper, or the Big Frying Pan as we liked to call it. Draw an imaginary line from the pan’s outside edge, not its handle, and you should come very close to the last star in the Little Dipper, or the Little Frying Pan as we also liked to say. The last star in the Little Pan’s handle is the North Star. So, as long as it was a clear night, we could take our bearings from that.
When we came to a row of three cottages, with only two of them with lights switched on, we decided to take a closer look. We crouched down low and approached the first lighted window in the row. An old couple sat watching tv in the first cottage. The second co
ttage had their curtains fully drawn so we couldn’t get a decent look at the people inside.
The third cottage had its curtains sprawled wide open. There were no lights coming from anywhere within that we could see, and the cosy little cottage seemed to be fully furnished too.
We discussed breaking a window and climbing inside for the night. My sister convinced me that there was no one home or coming home anytime soon. Even the fire place looked as though it hadn’t been used for quite some time, something she’d cleverly spotted with her keen eye.
I, on the other hand, needed much more convincing, so I egged my sister on to take a closer inspection around the back of the secluded property, just for peace of mind more than anything else. I really didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks.
Again, we didn’t find anything that gave us suspicious, second thoughts to deter us from breaking into the old cottage and holing ourselves up for the night.
My sister was going to use her own t-shirt rolled around a half brick we found lying around in the backyard to break a small section of the back-kitchen window. But I’d noticed that the small, frosted bathroom window around the side of the cottage seemed to be slightly ajar, by no more than a centimetre or two at most.
It was enough for the trained eye in the dark, like ours, to see that it wasn’t fully locked. And with just enough room to dig our fingernails into the tiny gap and then slide our fingers even further within, using both our strength combined, we were able to pry the stiff window open, just enough, to wriggle both our petite and skinny little bodies inside.
We found a living room, a double bedroom, a bathroom, and an empty kitchen lying in wait. The fridge was disappointingly bare once we stumbled across it hidden in a darkened cupboard at the far end of the kitchen. We dared not turn any of the lights on though for fear of being discovered by someone passing in the night or by one of the neighbours still awake and watching their late night tv shows.
We were so damn hungry, but we bided our time and patiently waited until the lights went out in both the other cottages before doing anything about our hunger pangs.
After an hour, we opted to try the old folks’ cottage, the first cottage in the row. Their front door was securely locked, but when we tried the handle of the door around the back, we found it unlocked just like most isolated homes out in the wilderness, which we’d quickly come to discover for ourselves living out in the secluded highlands.
Inside the old folks’ cottage, we made sure to be as quiet as we possibly could. The back door led straight into their kitchen area anyway, so that was one less thing to stress about.
Again, without turning on any lights, we found and opened their fridge freezer and took out about half the contents inside, from cheese, tubs of soup, cold meat, and ginger ale. When we raided their kitchen cupboards, we found some bread, cake, and biscuits.
We took our new stash back to our own little cottage and very eagerly had ourselves a nice and quiet midnight feast in the dark before eventually falling asleep together on the large double bed in the main bedroom.
I must’ve slept for a good few hours when I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night to such a fright. It was still so dark all around, although the break of dawn couldn’t have been far off. I felt the soft lips of someone or something kissing my cheeks, then my forehead, then my lips, then back to my cheeks again, in one continuous motion, over and over.
At first, it felt good and warm and nice all over to be woken up like that, and in my hazy dreams it was the face of James Brewster that I saw, my old schoolboy friend, who was hovering over me, gently kissing me awake from my deep dark slumber.
In the dream I had been running through a thick, dark forest before suddenly falling down a deep hole in amongst the trees. James had appeared above me before climbing down the hole to pull me back out again. But when I’d found myself paralysed and couldn’t stand or even move my body in the slightest, to stop me from freaking the hell out and calling for my mum to come and help me, James, without any words, had just smiled one of his warm, dimpled face smiles before covering me in warm delicious kisses all over my face.
When I jolted awake and swiftly realised that the feeling of being kissed all over my face was not, in fact, a dream but a chilling reality in the eerie darkness of the night, a disturbing shiver rippled through my spine, from my neck all the way down to my tailbone, and my entire body seized up in micro seconds.
I eventually opened my eyes only to be confronted by the most horrific and terrifying ghostly face, with thick, horrid, black lips and thick, round, black eyes. Huge evil eyes, to be exact. I wanted to scream to the high heavens, but I dared not even move a muscle for fear of what this horrible, chilling demon-creature might do to me.
Then I noticed the long, raven coloured hair on this ghostly creature, not too dissimilar from my own jet-black locks. When I finally blinked a few times, just to see if I could make the ghostly apparition disappear, my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and I was able to see that the face of death hovering over me and smiling with a sinister grin was in fact none other than my mischievous sister.
She chuckled hard, then backed up onto her knees, jerking away from my frozen-with-fear frame. She clapped her hands hard too, then covered her mouth just to stop herself from howling with laughter.
My eyes were still wide with shock and horror. What a transformation she’d gone through. And what the hell had she done to her face? She chuckled again at my startled expression. She said she’d never seen me look so terrified before, even compared to the previous night when our father had wanted us to kill that poor woman. What a difference a day made. So easy to laugh and joke about that disturbing event now.
When my heartbeat began to relax down to its normal state, I sat up and composed myself a little bit better. I asked what the hell she’d been up to? She told me that she couldn’t sleep and that she’d eventually become fed up with nothing to do. In her bored state of mind, she had meandered next door to the middle cottage for a nosy, opened their unlocked back door, and wandered inside for a rummage around.
The woman who lived there had all kinds of various make up and face paints stashed away in her cupboards, so she’d taken some of the white and black makeup and paint, come back to our cottage, and painted her entire face ghost white, with black borders around her eyes and lips, like some kind of hideous and freaky zombie-ghost child.
I shook my head in disapproval, yet even that couldn’t stop me from finally forcing a grin. What a crazy character she could be at times. When she insisted on painting my face the same way as hers, her new survival adventure face, she called it, I found her insistence too hard to resist. Her enthusiasm for doing spontaneous, crazy acts, was very infectious indeed.
Once our faces were both painted the same, my sister announced that we should leave soon, at least before the sun came up. But before we did, we should go back into the old couple’s cottage and gather some more supplies for the day ahead. I agreed and we both wandered back inside the old folks’ cottage again. We put all the supplies that we thought we might need into an old carrier bag, filling it to the brim this time. Then my sister unleashed the most mischievous look in my direction. She told me to put the bag down in the middle of the kitchen for the time being and follow her. We’d come back for it soon enough.
Of course, I didn’t want to do this. I felt the knots forming inside my stomach at just the mere suggestion of following her even deeper into the old cottage. I just wanted to leave with our bag full of grub and get a good few hours head start before the old couple realised they’d been robbed of most of their food supply. But my sister wouldn’t take no for an answer and swiftly pulled me into the old couple’s living room then towards the closed hallway, before finally emerging in front of their bedroom door.
When she put her hand on the door handle, I immediately froze up. I didn’t wish to go inside. No way. Not a chance. I didn’t want to do anything to these poor old people whose only crime was t
o gullably leave their back door unlocked.
The knots in my stomach doubled, then tripled, making me feel extremely anxious and bloated with fear. My sister shushed me and gently creaked open the bedroom door before quietly leading me inside.
The room was so dark, but I could clearly hear someone’s loud snoring instantly upon entering. As we approached the bed, I just assumed it was the old man making those deafening and horrific snorts, but I was shockingly surprised to discover that it was in actual fact the old woman.
My sister tried her hardest not to break out into a fit of giggles. She even tried to mimic the old lady by making her own pig-like grunts and snorts. I hit her a slight dig in the ribs for that. But it just made her giggles even worse, almost hysterical in fact. She even began crossing her legs and saying that she was gonna pee herself with laughter. All the while the old couple didn’t even stir an ounce at our racket.
As my sister moved ever closer towards the bed, I still had no idea what we were doing here or what the hell my sister’s intentions were towards the couple. I thought we might just stand over them for a while, watching them sleep, and make fun of them or until my sister got bored and decided that enough was enough. But no, as soon as my sister had positioned herself right beside the old lady’s upper body, she softly began shaking the poor old dear awake.
I felt absolutely mortified by my sister’s actions. What the hell was she doing? Why was she trying to wake these poor people up and get us caught in the process? My delayed reactions were far too slow to stop her though.
The old woman suddenly stirred in her sleep as my sister continued to shake her awake. The old woman gave out one last distorted snort before opening her eyes, fully wide and staring up at the crazy, twin ghost girls standing right beside her bed.
A chilling silence filled the air. Then my sister unleashed a sinister grin and whispered ‘Boo’.
My Sister And I: A dark, violent, gripping and twisted tale of horrifying terror in the Scottish Highlands. Page 10