by C. Litka
Chapter 18: Saturday 13 July
The rainy weather continued all day Saturday. I started work on transcribing the small notebooks, in part, because they weren't likely to prove very important, but make good practice for mastering TTR's handwriting before tackling the more significant work. And, if I'm to be honest, because I was no longer in a tearing hurry to put Glen Lonon behind me. I'd been given all summer to complete the project, and with those first, lonely weeks behind me, I found that I was no longer in a hurry to leave. I was now enjoying my summer in the highlands – just as Professor Blake predicted.
Looking over my notes of this last week or two, it's clear that cousin Nesta accounts for much more of this fondness for the highlands than might be prudent. At least I wasn't blind to this fact, though it's a rather uneasy line of thought while sitting alone in a damp, dim lit cottage on a gloomy Saturday afternoon. I missed the familiar certainty of Penny, her easy friendship, and my unquestioned love of her. Still, Nesta did not flirt, no matter how casual she was around me. I'd just have to keep my wits about me and follow her lead.
With Learmonte about, I had the evening to myself, though the weather was hardly inviting for either a bike ride or fishing.
I got to thinking about TTR's lab again. I wasn't eager to investigate it, if only because poking my nose into the affair struck me as ethically questionable – it seemed to be too private, a family matter. It certainly wasn't why I was here. Secondly, because the whole affair still seemed too outlandish. I doubted it existed outside of Guy's vivid imagination. And lastly, if it wasn't Guy's vivid imagination, and was as dangerous as he described, and I didn't care to risk my neck to satisfy my slight bit of curiosity.
And yet, I found I was reluctant to let something supernatural remain supernatural. Like the Riders, I'd feel much more comfortable with an explanation that did not require me to adjust my world view... So I spent an hour looking over the Ordnance Survey maps of Maig Glen, searching for possible spots where the lab might be located. Not with any specific plan in mind, mind you, but just, well, as an exercise in deduction.
Assuming the frequent electrical storms are, as in local folklore, due to TTR's device's continued operation, I confined my survey to Maig Glen. The old pine plantations seemed to be the only places that could hide a fenced-in building. The hills and upland moors are open to the four winds of heaven and, I assume, (since I've not tramped them) offered panoramic views, weather permitting, of the surrounding countryside. Knowing that Learmonte hosts large hunting parties, it'd seem impossible to conceal an isolated building unless hidden deep in the pines.
The problem was that, according to the Ordnance Survey maps, the pine plantations are all on the steep hillsides, making them unlikely places to build a lab. The maps are, however, of pre-Storm vintage and out of date. The only solution seemed to be that a forest was planted around the lab which has, in the last 30 years, grown up enough to conceal it from view. If I cared to find the lab, I'd need to find a woods not on my maps and on relatively level ground, which would mean walking the upland moors on either side of Maig Glen. Realistically, I rather doubted I'd have the time, or inclination to do, saving me the moral dilemma of poking my nose in things I've no business poking it into.
The obvious solution to the puzzle came to me just as I was drifting off to sleep. Unfortunately, I remembered it in the morning. I'll now have to decide what, if anything, I should do about it.