The Darkest Shore

by Karen Brooks

Dear God… love? Did she love this man?

  As he crawled up her body, a rain of light kisses scorching her flesh in his wake, she knew in her heart she did.

  With a wicked grin, he kissed her mouth once again, lingering upon her lips, tugging her bottom one with his teeth. Gently, he lowered himself onto her. ‘I’m not hurting you, am I?’

  ‘Och, aye,’ she said, imitating his speech. ‘And it’s this kind of hurting I be wanting.’

  ‘Are you sure, Sorcha?’ he asked, staring into her eyes, holding himself back. ‘Because I tell you now, it’s the loving kind I want to give you.’

  In their dark depths, she saw what she’d always hoped she would — desire, compassion, respect, fierce protectiveness and, above all, passion. It was what she felt too.

  ‘Aye, Aidan, I’m sure,’ she murmured and, as he entered her, she knew her search for the type of love she’d longed for was over.

  After a time, she slid down his body, ignoring the pinch of healing wounds, and whispered, ‘Now, let me love you the same way too.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  Back tae auld claes an’ parritch.

  (Back to old familiar things.)

  As she stared out the window of her cottage one bright September dawn, Sorcha’s thoughts ran inwards.

  She was both astonished and relieved that the division she’d felt so strongly in the community when she was freed five weeks earlier had not erupted into violence. At least, not yet. Instead, it surged beneath the town like an underground torrent, searching for release.

  From the moment Sorcha returned to the harbour, a mere week after leaving the Tolbooth, the fishwives and fishermen rallied to welcome her and Nettie. Some of the shopkeepers made a point of greeting them when they passed on their first day back, as did the wives of the men away on long voyages. Emerging from their houses, waving and, on two occasions, bringing food to share while the fishwives worked, they’d been eager to show support. In their kind looks, forced laughter and sly references to the reverend and the bailies, she knew they were letting her, Nettie and others like Beatrix, who also came to the shore, know whose side they were on.

  The week she remained at home, some of her neighbours made a point of calling by, bringing soup, bannocks, and occasionally a dram to share. While there were those who pretended not to want to know what happened in the Tolbooth, the fishwives weren’t so tactful. They were keen to learn every single detail. Mainly because they wanted to add to their growing list of complaints against the reverend. Sorcha was reluctant to share anything, but Nettie felt no such compunction.

  When Sorcha warned Nettie against saying too much lest it came back to bite her, her friend explained that telling the fishwives made the entire nightmare more akin to the tales her da had regaled her with as a bairn. In the telling, she owned the story. She took it from the men who inflicted the pain and suffering, the officials who allowed it to happen and kept records, and made it hers.

  Unable to bear what had been done to his wife or to cope with her gruesome recountings of it, after a couple of weeks, in an uncharacteristic show of authority, Thom White reasserted his husbandly rights and insisted Nettie not only remain with him, as she had since she left the Tolbooth, but since the tenants had now vacated, that they shift into her house in Anster together. Letting him believe he had complete mastery, Nettie confessed to Sorcha she was relieved to escape the Weem for a time.

  ‘I understand why you went to Dagny, hen, even knowing it wouldn’t be a joyful reunion. Sometimes, you just need to put distance betwixt yourself and a place — mainly because of the memories it tosses up like wreckage after a storm.’

  What Nettie also admitted was her grave concern for Thom’s health. The cough he’d developed before she went into the Tolbooth had worsened and he’d lost a great deal of weight.

  ‘You’d think he was the one who’d been locked away,’ Nettie grimaced, her eyes filled with disquiet as she gazed at him standing beside the cart that would carry their belongings to Anster.

  Even with Thom ailing, Nettie found it hard to stay away too long and would often visit. Taking advantage of the long summer evenings, when it was still light enough to roam the coastal path, she’d wait until Thom was tucked in bed before making the journey. Without warning, she’d knock on Sorcha’s or Beatrix’s door and stay for a meal, sharing news. After a couple of weeks, with Thom rallying, she grew bored in Anster, so donned her fishwife’s apron and neepyin and returned to working down at the harbour, going back to her husband upon eventide.

  As for Beatrix, there wasn’t a day went by when she didn’t call on every one of them — including Nettie. It was a way of assuaging the terrible guilt she felt at having given up their names in the first place. Holding herself responsible for all their misery, and for Thomas Brown’s death and Janet’s current situation, she couldn’t stop apologising or trying to make amends. Didn’t matter that no one blamed her. They knew Beatrix had experienced all their suffering and more. While some said it was remarkable that Beatrix had recovered so well, especially after being in solitude in St Fillan’s Cave for such a length of time, Sorcha knew she hadn’t. None of them had. But by focussing on her friends, Beatrix could get through, just as Nettie dealt with it by turning their terrible experience into macabre tales.

  Then there was young Isobel, still able to eke a living as a seamstress. Much to Sorcha’s relief and the reverend’s wrath, she learned to trade upon her new-found infamy. Sorcha was afraid that just as it had before, the villagers’ mood would swing faster than the northerly winds that swept down the coast. The majority might be with them for now, but when the drave lessened again as autumn fell upon them with cold cruelty, and the reverend kept raging about witches from the pulpit each Sunday, using Janet Cornfoot as an example of utter infamy and malice, she feared the town could turn against them again. It was as if she was holding her breath, waiting for it to happen. When she mentioned this to Nettie, her friend shook her head sorrowfully.

  ‘If you keep waiting for something to happen, you’ll likely will it into being, hen.’ Cupping Sorcha’s face in her hands, she kissed the tip of her nose. ‘It’s over. For us at least. For poor auld Janet, never mind Nicolas with her terrible hurts, it’s still ongoing.’

  Every few days after they’d sorted and sold any of the catch that wasn’t going to market, a few of them would meet and walk to Nicolas’s cottage, bringing supplies and gossip about what was being said around the Weem. Her health was slowly improving, but it would be a while before she’d be her old self again. The doctor advised her to lie in bed and keep her legs wrapped. He’d lathered her limbs with all sorts of pungent salves, swearing by their efficacy. Once he’d gone, Nicolas would order her husband to carry her to the ocean and prop her by a rock pool. Peeling off the bandages, she immersed her legs in the salt water. She persuaded Sorcha and Nettie to do the same; they were reluctant at first because the pain was so very great. Nicolas told them to dangle their legs for a minute at a time, to allow their bodies to get used to the cold and the sting. Within a few days, they were able to leave their legs in for longer and the dreadful welts and holes began to heal, the pus to dry up. After that, Beatrix and occasionally Isobel, Lillie and Margaret would join them, dipping their arms in the sea as well, amazed and grateful to Nicolas and her healing knowledge as their remaining wounds mended.

  Once, daringly, they’d even soaked their entire bodies. Slowly, the marks left by the pricker began to scab and turn pink. The infection that had entered so many of the lacerations disappeared.

  But it was the unseen scars that ate away at tranquillity, that entered dreams to tear away good memories and hope. Those would take longer to heal.

  Most nights, Aidan shared Sorcha’s bed. She marvelled that such a man had come into her life; so ardent, so understanding. Oft she’d wake with his arms around her as he comforted her out of a terrible nightmare. He never demanded she tell him what she relived, and for that she was grateful. How could she explain that
even her nightmares didn’t compare to the reality? Instead, she’d snuggle against his bare chest, feel the heat of desire rise within her, and stir her limbs to relish the life and passion in him as well.

  As for poor Janet Cornfoot, even weeks after they’d been released, she still languished in St Fillan’s Cave. The moment she retracted her confession before the legal representatives of the Crown, Mr Ker of Kippilaw and Mr Robert Cooke from Edinburgh, her fate was sealed. It was nothing but cruel and petty punishment and all in the Weem knew it.

  Once they’d recovered from the worst of their injuries, the fishwives determined to do what they could to change that.

  Every evening after they returned from traipsing about the countryside with their creels, those who were able gathered outside the door to the cave. Uncaring who else heard, they’d shout to Janet, hoping and praying she did. They spoke of the day, the fishing, the tides, sunlight, rain, heat and lately the cooler winds and frosty morns. They told her about the tailor, Angus Riding, who became so drunk he fell asleep on a gravestone, frightening the grieving Mrs Tyler who’d come to pay her respects to her father and ran screaming when she thought he’d risen from the dead.

  They shared the tale of Mr Butterworth of Crail who, on advice from the doctor, came walking along the coastal path, his only company a bottle of medicine he’d been given by a French pirate who swore it would aid his melancholy. Finding the medicine made him feel quite hale, he’d downed the entire contents before he’d even left Anster, only to fall from the harbour wall. The tide was high and the current strong. Being a good swimmer, he’d struck out for what he thought was the shore. A Pittenweem boat picked him up almost drowned, halfway to the Isle of May. Turns out, the medicine he was drinking was a rough Irish spirit made from potato skins. The poor man was delirious and swore it was selkies who rescued him when it was really the strapping, thick-haired McDonald lads. Afeared these ungainly water faeries had come to claim him, as soon as he set foot on land, he’d bolted before he could be tended, running into the hills never to be seen again.

  It didn’t take long for the guards from the Tolbooth to come marching down the wynd, hollering at the women to be on their way and threatening to lock them up again. They knew it was the reverend who sent them, as his children would hang over the kirk walls watching, the younger ones even throwing rocks and sticks. The fishwives would pelt them with fish heads or clods of peat they’d collected to fill their creels, laughing when one hit its mark. The children would jump down and run away, screeching for their da.

  Rather than frightening the women, the guards trooping towards them, fists and pikes raised, emboldened them. The day Nettie hitched her skirts and showed Angus Stuart her pale skinny arse was one Sorcha wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Flustered, the man had stopped and stared, colour draining from his cheeks before he recalled where he was and ran at them, scattering the laughing women in all directions. When Therese Larnarch flung fish guts at Simon Wood, Sorcha thought she’d wet herself at the sight of the lad blinking through blood and slimy entrails, spitting and coughing even as he tried to bluster. Whenever the guards appeared now, the women would flee, running back to the shore road, cackling and shrieking, hoping Janet could hear both their defiance and their forced joy.

  Just below the surface of their bravado was a terror so great that Sorcha feared it could swallow them. Facing it, laughing defiantly at those who aroused it, enabled them to control it. They never admitted as much to each other. It was a dangerous game, but it was all they had. It was all Janet had, too. Sometimes they fancied they could hear the hollow ring of her mirth, the echo of her approval. Sorcha prayed it wasn’t just a fancy. Sometimes she worried that when the door to the cave was finally opened, they’d only find Janet’s bleached bones propped against the far rocky wall, arms limp by her side, her sightless skull yearning towards the opening.

  They’d begged leave to see her. Many of the other Weem folk had as well, even those who’d stood with Reverend Cowper on the day Sorcha was released. Whereas once their inclination had been to side with the man, when they saw what had been done to the women with their own eyes, how thin, ashen-cheeked and raddled-eyed they were, how utterly filthy and beaten and pricked, their feelings changed. When the released witches showed no propensity to harm anyone and Peter Morton’s symptoms vanished, any sympathy or apprehension the reverend stirred began to abate.

  Even the incomers, who were still drifting into the village to hear the stories and see the witches for themselves, began to dry up.

  At first Sorcha was pleased, but then she remembered what Aidan had told them: the incomers had spent a great deal of money in the Weem and in Anster, Silverdyck and beyond. If they ceased to come, this source of funds would cease to flow. He was concerned the reverend and the council would seek another means to lure folk back and make money, even if it meant discovering more witches.

  ‘But there aren’t any,’ insisted Sorcha for the umpteenth time.

  ‘We know that,’ said Aidan one night, pulling at the short strands of hair on her head. Now her hair was thicker and growing longer, she liked him playing with it. ‘But where there’s a yearning to see them, and money to be made through their appearance, there’s a way to produce them.’

  A chill entered her heart. A chill that not even this inviting autumn day so full of promise could disperse.

  Only thoughts of Aidan had the ability to do that. So, as Sorcha tore herself away from the window and prepared to go to the harbour, the sky transforming into a palette of rose and violet, she lost herself in thoughts of the captain, her love.

  Truth be told, her reason for living.

  THIRTY-TWO

  You are just menseless.

  (You want far too much.)

  Peter Morton skulked along the narrow lanes inside the crumbling town walls, doing his best to avoid anyone, wanting nothing more than to find a private place where he could lick his wounded pride and think about what had happened to him in Edinburgh.

  Ducking behind a coop in an untended garden, he waited while a group of soldiers led by brawny Sergeant Thatcher went past, arms swinging, weapons bouncing against their hips, voices low. What they were doing up this end of the Weem, God only knew. That officer of theirs was determined his men not remain idle, so sent them out of town to local farmsteads to offer themselves for work, or made them practise with their swords and muskets on the fields between Anster and Pittenweem.

  As the soldiers disappeared around the corner, Peter re-emerged cautiously. It was a glorious autumn day, warmer than usual for November. The sun shone, bees buzzed and starlings and lapwings cavorted and sang. Above a hedge of hawthorn, butterflies performed a ballet and Peter stopped to enjoy their merry antics until the events of the last two days flew back into his head.

  Summoned to the city by none other than Her Majesty’s advocate and questioned thoroughly by the Earl of Rothes, Peter knew he’d let the reverend down. The reverend and all those in the village who’d supported and prayed for him the entire time he was afflicted.

  Nae, bewitched.

  When he was abed with tremors, cursed, a victim of malice, folk had listened when he said it was witches who caused it. While he knew there were those among the townsfolk who doubted, as time went on and even the doctors who’d come from Edinburgh to examine him were inclined to believe it was malfeasance, they’d been persuaded as well. Never before had he been showered with such attention, such compassion. It made him giddy just remembering it.

  When he was first called to the city to give evidence, he was glad of the opportunity to tell how afeared he’d been. Travelling by the coach the reverend organised, dressed in his finest clothes, he imagined the men would commend him for his courage and how, by identifying the witches, he’d prevented others from being harmed. What he hadn’t expected as he sat in the stuffy room lined with books and documents on the second floor of a huge stone building, the smoke-wreathed light above the men’s heads making them appear otherworldly,
saintly almost, was scepticism.

  It was like a heavy blow; even now he struggled to recover from it. He wasn’t yet ready to face his family. Or the reverend. Insisting the coach leave him outside Anster, he’d wended his way back to the Weem, crossing fields to avoid encountering anyone. Favouring rarely used paths, he approached the village from the north, where he was less likely to be seen. Thank goodness the soldiers had gone.

  He made his way towards the western braes, knowing he’d have to head home soon. His ma would be expecting him. So would Reverend Cowper. He’d made it clear he wanted a full reckoning the moment Peter returned. How could he explain about the earl and the other gentlemen who’d questioned him as if he were the culprit and not a victim? From the moment they began, the men challenged the reports the reverend had written about Peter’s affliction. When they asked how they were to credit such tales when he looked so hearty, he told them the truth: his symptoms had disappeared about three months prior, as mysteriously as they’d begun.

  Red-faced, uncomfortable, shocked by their lack of faith, he felt their scorn as surely as if they’d struck him. And that was before they offered alternative explanations for what he had been through.

  How dare they suggest he’d feigned his illness! They weren’t there; they didn’t see the charm, feel its effects, hear his cries, his moans. They didn’t know how his body wouldn’t allow him to control it, how afraid he’d been. They didn’t know what it was like to live with witches as neighbours. But when the Earl of Rothes went so far as to call him a villain, Peter felt a deep resentment begin to burn. They thought being from the city, with their fine clothes, their peculiar way of speaking, their ability to read and write, made them better; they thought their understanding greater than his, the tawpie lad from a small place. Anger surged through Peter and he kicked a drystone wall, uncaring of the pain that shot up his leg. Fury towards those evil beings who’d made him suffer in the first place — the agony of the curse and now this latest humiliation — made him kick it again. A ewe bleated on the other side, sending him on his way.