‘Jist come back lassie, don’t lose yerself oot der. Promise me.’
‘I promise.’
Dedire picked up the metal detector, switched it on and made her way down into the mire.
The day was bright and long, a stiff breeze blowing in from the sea. Onlookers came and went, some venturing off the Coffin Road to come closer, sitting higher up on dry land, any movement on the road attracting her attention, her eyes constantly scanning Ayres Kame, searching, hoping for Dylan.
He didn’t come.
The detector beeped sporadically through the day, forcing her to dig down into the soupy muck to find vague lumps of metal, an old rusting can, a nail, sinking to her knees, thankful for her waders, two sizes too large but they kept her dry.
The sun moved across the sky, and Stuart came as promised, lifting her spirits as she made her way across the field, uphill to their rock where they drank from the flask in silence, her burgeoning appreciation for straight scotch growing with every swig.
It took her a while to ask. ‘Have you heard from Dylan?’
Stuart shook his head. ‘Naw lassie.’
She nodded, took a particularly large gulp of whisky and shuddered. ‘Okay, well I’d better get back to it.’
Stuart regarded her thoughtfully as she stood up, shaking her numb legs to get the blood flowing through her veins. ‘I’ll jist stay a wee bit longer if ye don’t mind,’ he said.
Deidre nodded. ‘Okay, but you don’t have to. I’ll be okay. I won’t do anything stupid.’
Stuart regarded her with a wry expression. ‘Aye, but I’ll jist stay a wee bit longer aw da same.’
Deidre bent down, picked up the metal detector, looked down at the long metal rod in her hands. ‘Thanks Stuart,’ she said, looking at him, hoping these simple words would convey the depth of her appreciation.
He stood up, held his arms out and she stepped into them.
With such intense practice in such a short space of time, Deidre quickly became adept at differentiating the varied sounds of the metal detector, those that meant something and those that didn’t, which beeps were worth investigating and those that weren’t. This beep was different, one she hadn’t heard before and it made her heart race. Simultaneously, a movement on Ayres Kame caught her attention. Her audience had left her she realised, and she was alone out here except for a lone figure making its way along the Coffin Road. The metal detector beeped, incessant as it hovered where she held it, static, watching the person approach, her heart thumping in her chest as he drew closer, walking over the high land towards her.
Dylan.
Joy, happiness, relief flooded through her being, her blood effervescent in her veins. He’d come back for her. He’d forgiven her. She could see his face lit up in a wide smile, love shining in his eyes as he came to her carrying a bunch of white heather in his hand. She moved towards him, her world tilting sideways as a cold wet shock woke her into reality as she tumbled face first into a puddle of thick viscous muck, her mouth opening in a scream and drowned by a flood of gritty sludge as she sunk into a black morass. Clumps of fragile moss broke away in her hand as she clutched frantically for grip, something to hold, to pull herself out of the black hole she was sinking into.
Drowning.
Hands gripped her, pulling against the sucking grip of the quagmire that held her, slowly hoisting her out.
Stuart. Deidre lay like a newborn seal torn from her mother’s womb, half her weight over Stuart’s heaving barrel chest as she gasped for breath, gagging, spitting out the vile rotting decay that filled her mouth as they both lay panting on the mossy verge.
Stuart pushed her off suddenly; reaching out to grasp the protruding handle of the metal detector before it finally disappeared from view into the black tarry hole. He had to stand, wrenching it out with a heave, placing it on the spongy ground at Deidre’s side.
‘Yer gonna need dat,’ he said, breathlessly, dropping down beside her on the squelchy turf.
Deidre stared at it, lifting her eyes to Stuart sitting at her side, heaving in laborious breaths.
‘I thought I saw Dylan,’ she said.
‘I tink ye fell asleep. I watched ye walk right intae dat,’ he said, waving his hand at the small black pool at their side. ‘I tink its time t’go hame. Look at da mess o’us.’
Thursday, Out of Time
In their narratives of George, Mavis and Dot had told how they used to spy on him, watching from afar, fascinated and terrified by his madness. It seemed that people hadn’t changed. A different generation in a different time, but they still came to watch the Hart madness unfold.
More people had come today and in a distant part of her mind, Deidre wondered why they would bother to make the effort to come all the way out here, wondering what their expectations were.
Stuart walked behind her carrying the backpack, offering his salutations to the onlookers as they made their way along the Coffin Road. She searched their faces, wishing one would stand out from the crowd aware that she was teasing her heart with false hope, but it lingered all the same and wouldn’t leave her. Not yet, despite Dylan’s silence, his absence, her time running out, the three o’clock flight she was booked on with Dylan now seemed an unachievable goal.
Stuart took up his position on the flat rock, supervisor, guardian, a minder there to prevent any fatal mistakes. She’d accepted his offer humbly and gratefully, aware that had he not been there yesterday to haul her out of the black tarry pit, she would’ve been gone forever, lost, never to be found.
Never to be found.
The metal detector beeped into life and she began her trudge, step by step, across the mire.
Dylan
They’d called his name twice but Dylan had remained silent, seated in the passenger lounge, aware that he was holding up at least twenty other passengers on the small plane to Aberdeen. But still he waited, watching the doorway, waiting, hoping for Deidre to come running in at the very last moment, grudging and annoyed, angry if need be, it didn’t matter, just as long as she came.
He’d lagged all morning, watching the clock, checking his phone for missed calls when he knew it hadn’t rang. It had been constantly on his person or within earshot for the past two days. But still he’d checked, his fingers hovering over Deidre’s number numerous times.
But he didn’t call her.
With the windows shuttered and the electricity switched off, he’d finally closed the door of his little house, locked it and even then had sat in his truck for another five minutes, knowing he was already very late, still having to drive over to Katy’s to drop the truck off before she drove him down to Lerwick.
He’d been staring out the windscreen at the drizzling rain, the scene blurred and out of focus like a grey Monet painting when the phone rang on the passenger seat beside him, startling him. He swept it up to see Katy’s name light up the screen, his hopes crashing.
He answered curtly, annoyed.
‘Where are ye?’ Katy asked. ‘Ye shouldda been here fifteen minutes ago,’ she remonstrated. ‘Yer cutting it fine, Mister,’ she warned. ‘Ye’d better get yer skates on or we’ll miss da next ferry across t’Yell. Ye’ll end up missin’ yer plane.’
Katy was waiting in the car when he got there. ‘I wis gonna see if ye wanted t’drop off at Stayne on da way true, but der’s nay time fur dat noo,’ she said, picking up speed as they pulled onto the A968. ‘Hiv ye spoken t’Vee?’ she asked, glancing at him. Dylan sat with his elbow resting on the car door, his head cradled in his hand staring miserably at the passing scenery. ‘She’s been ringing me for da past two days. She said you’re no answering her calls. Ye’d better gi her a quick call afore ye leave.’
‘I’ll call her when I get home,’ he replied morosely.
Katy swung her head towards him again, sighed long and deeply before saying, ‘why don’t ye jist call her Dylan.’
‘I don’t want to talk to them.’
‘Deedree. Call Deedree,’ she insisted, bu
t he held his gaze out the car window, brooding and unresponsive. ‘You can be a stubborn bugger when ye want, Dylan Murphy. Cuttin’ aff yer ain nose.’ Katy tutted and muttered something about male pride and little else was said on the journey south, leaving him to stew in his own self-absorbed, self-induced misery.
Now he sat on the cramped little plane staring sullenly through the small round window to the empty tarmac, his hands sweating, agitated, gripping the buckle of the seatbelt, almost ready to unlock it and burst out of his seat and rush to the door before it was too late. Almost. Again, he craned his neck to see out past the airport boundary, searching for a car racing towards the departure lounge.
He’d known Deidre Hart for nearly three weeks and she’d changed his life. He knew that he was walking, flying away from the one person he’d ever felt wholly connected with, knew that anyone he met from this point forward would be measured against her. They’d had something special; their short time together intense and fiery and sparking with lust, but it went deeper than that, there had been friendship and an affinity, their conversations long and flowing, their silences in each other’s presence easy and comfortable, natural, with no need for pretence.
He’d fallen in love with her and would continue to be in love with her for some time to come. She’d said she loved him.
Anger broiled in the pit of his belly making him burn. He was angry with Deidre, angry with himself and resentful of these feelings he carried like lead shoes. He should be able to sit here, accept the decision he’d made and move on instead of clutching at the seatbelt ready to tear it off and bolt from the plane. It started moving, blowing away the remaining tatters of hope he had left. Taking one more cursory glance at his phone, he switched it off.
He was missing her already.
He could’ve spent the rest of his life with her, wondering as the plane picked up speed if he’d been too harsh, too rash in his decision to leave, to abandon her. Or had she abandoned him, choosing this ridiculous, useless quest over their relationship, their life together.
Quest.
Curse.
The tarmac became a blurred black ribbon below him. He stared at it blindly thinking about the curse, about its legends and the stories associated to it, the characters through the centuries he’d heard tales of, about Deidre and her odd behaviour over the past week, the change in her personality from the moment she’d hung that black cross around her neck. It was as if she’d been cast under a spell. Could this curse be real? In darker ages they used to burn people at the stake for a mere hint of witchcraft, but this was a time of science and technology, knowledge and facts that should be enough to erase the idea of curses into oblivion. He was leaving the surface of the earth and flying through the air in a metal can for God’s sake! But none of that mattered, and in a piercingly brilliant moment of clarity he realised what he was doing. He wasn’t leaving Deidre, he was running away from the curse, because he believed it was real and it terrified him – and he loathed himself for it.
Thursday Afternoon
Vee had supplied them with flasks of hot soup and they sat on the stone slab eating in silence, Deidre looking out across the loch, up to Ayres Kame where people still accumulated on the Coffin Road. They came, they watched and left again bored, replaced by others, every new movement filling her with hope, then crushing disappointment.
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, my watch got ruined yesterday,’ Stuart replied.
‘What time do you think it is?’
Stuart regarded her with a tight, compressed smile on his lips. ‘Whit time d’ye tink it is?’
‘Late. Too late.’
Stuart reached out a gnarly hand and patted her knee. ‘It’s never too late lass,’ he advised.
‘He’s gone.’
‘Ye don’t know dat.’
‘Yeah, I think I do.’ She finished the soup, stood up, picked up the metal detector and headed back down into the bog.
Three Months Later
A lone car sat on the verge at the side of the road, unusual these days to see any cars parked there at all as few people came to see the crazy Hart girl anymore. The novelty had worn off, Deidre offering little entertainment to her small audience, their interest petering out after the first week. An occasional intrepid tourist sometimes wandered past, veering off the Coffin Road, taking the high ground around the loch as they headed for the blowhole. Deidre would catch them watching her curiously as they trekked past, and one, an American, had ventured down into the marshland, calling out to her, asking what she was looking for. She’d pretended not to hear him and he soon departed realising the moist carpet of sphagnum moss he was standing on could barely hold his ample weight.
Deidre pulled into the side of the road and parked a small distance behind the other car. A man alighted, heading towards her as she got out of the car. She opened the back door to pull out the spade and her new metal detector, purchased over the internet and delivered to Walter’s store two months ago along with four pairs of heavy duty waders, thick underwear fit for arctic conditions and gloves. The days were becoming colder and noticeably shorter as winter raced towards them.
Deidre watched the man as he approached. He was tall and thin, gangly, remnants of a bad acne outbreak in his youth marring his cheeks, flushed red in the cold wind.
‘You’re Deidre Hart.’ It wasn’t a question.
Deidre retrieved her backpack from the passenger seat, slung it over her shoulder.
‘Yes,’ she said, looking up at him.
‘I’m Sandy Brookes. I do a bit of freelance work for da Shetland Times. Would ye mind if I hiv a wee talk t’ye?’
‘Not right now. Another time maybe.’ She turned towards the field, taking her first steps towards Ayres Kame.
‘Och, please Deidre. I’ve come aw da way up from Lerwick.’
Deidre stopped, turned and looked back at the man. ‘To talk to me?’
‘Aye.’
‘Why?’
He took a step closer. ‘My granny used t’live on Unst when she wis a wee lassie. She used t’tell us aboot aw da myths an’ legends o’dees isles when I was wee boy. I remember her telling us aboot da Erdin Curse, aboot da crazy people who’d spent der lives oot here lookin’ fur someting. Den I got a call last week from Jimmy Lockheed, he lives in Baltasound,’ Sandy added as an aside. ‘He rang me up t’tell me der wis talk o’da curse again. A young woman, yerself.’ He nodded at Deidre. ‘He tolt me ye were oot here aw hoors o’da day wi a metal detector looking fur someting. I’d like t’dae a story on ye. Take a coupla pictures. Wid ye mind?’
Deidre regarded him coolly, silently, as he pulled a compact digital camera from his pocket, staring down at her, his pale colourless eyes blinking in the wind.
‘I don’t think so.’ She turned, walking away from him.
‘If its treasure yer lookin’ fur,’ he called to her retreating back, ‘ye know any finds hiv to be reported t’da coroner. Ye canny jist take it an’ keep it ye know. It’s no yours.’
Deidre ignored him, continued walking, heading for Ayres Kame and the Coffin Road.
What the isle had known of summer had gone. With the season finished, Mavis had insisted on extending Deidre’s reservation indefinitely, at family prices. Her only stipulation in this agreement being that Deidre return home before dark every night in time to sit at the table as part of the family and eat dinner with them. This she did, abiding by this rule, her time out on the moor becoming shorter each day as the sun spent less time in the sky, the span from east to west reducing as the world tilted on its axis. As directed, she returned to Stayne every evening, showered, changed and sat at the table with little to say, answering their questions with short, usually monosyllabic answers, feeling herself close down a little bit more with each rotation of the earth, her mind and heart anesthetized, accepting of the dull, repetitive routine of her days.
Only at night, in the depths of sleep did she feel any stirring of emotions
, Taran’s emotions, reliving his pain, his loss, his devastating need, his desperation. Every night, these feelings followed her through to the dawn, that same pain, loss, need and desperation driving her out of bed to the moor, her head filled with the sight of Breeta scaling the valley wall in the dawn light replaying repeatedly in a looping reel in her head.
It drove her mad.
She revised George’s sketches, studying his hand drawn map, the intricate criss-crosses that marked the area of his searches. She retraced Breeta’s journey up the hill to her last known position before she disappeared into the dawn mists, trying out her escape with different scenarios, different possibilities, different routes she might have taken. But they all led to the bog, to the spreading marshland at the foot of Ayres Kame.
Sharp shooting pain fired from her right shoulder, travelling like a lightning bolt down her arm, the months of arcing the metal detector back and forth starting to wear on her joints. She stopped for a moment, scanning the bleak expanse, numb to the wind, to the heavy drizzle that had set in.
This was her life.
She wondered how long this would go on for; how many months, years, how dead inside, how mad she would finally become.
Her heart had stopped racing every time the telephone rang at Stayne, her hope of hearing from Dylan all but gone. There’d been no contact with him since his departure, her memories of the love she had experienced in that short, intense moment of her life, tucked away in her heart like a fading love letter.
But sometimes, like guerrilla warfare, unsolicited memories would assail her like sniper bullets, her bones still able to feel Dylan’s arms wrapped around her, her lips remembering the tenderness of his kiss. At night, alone, she could still feel the sensation of his body pressed against hers, her skin still tingling with the memory of his heat, his fingertips leaving emotional scars where they’d touched her naked skin. She’d never known such exquisite bliss before, never felt so warm and loved and safe. In the dark, his face glowed bright in her memory, in the silence his voice rang clear in her head, sure sometimes that she had heard him call out to her and she would look up, scan the empty, isolated landscape to find that she was all alone with only the wind in her ears.
The Stone Dweller's Curse: A Story of Curses, Madness, Obsession and Love Page 25