by Allyson Bird
The proximity of the fire did little to take away the chill, and as Brid put up her hands to draw in the warmth her eyes fell upon the covered box in the flither basket. Thanking Josh for his kindness she got up wearily, picked up the basket and left the inn.
Once at the cottage she placed the basket outside the door. Later that afternoon her mother would take the limpets out of their shells and bait the lines. Brid took the small casket, wrapped it deeper into her shawl, and crept into the dwelling. The main-room door was firmly shut against the cold weather so it was easy for Brid to climb the stairs unseen, although one step creaked under her weight—“Is that you, Brid?”
Brid greeted the call with silence.
“Brid, is that you?”
“I’m just going to change my wet clothes, Mother. I’ve left the flithers outside.”
“Fine, Brid. So long as I know it’s you.”
Brid realized she wasn’t the only member of the household who was more than a little jittery at the moment.
At the threshold of her room, Brid hesitated. The candle flame flickered as she passed over. Once inside, candlelight caught the profile of an old woman, and then rendered her into the darkness. She saw the rest of them, too; phantoms in the mirror, in the patterns of the old faded red curtains, on the grey bed throw, even in the pattern of water damage on the ceiling. The worn bedposts bore a resemblance to worm-ridden, charnel house heads.
Each night the phantasmagoria left their lair, where they waited for her during the day, and then they crept towards her, pressing their deformities closer to her so that she could hardly breathe in that room—lest they followed the intake of her quickening breath. She had told no one about them and even though they were driving her into madness (if she were not entirely mad already) she would keep their secret.
There was one face that would terrify her more than the others, and that was the one in the wooden lid of the old sea chest in the corner. It looked like the face of a drowned sailor bloated by death and days in the sea, with no eyes: just gnarls were those should be. Whilst Brid lay frozen in horror, the diabolical faces crept out of the shadows and hovered close by her pillow. An hour before dawn the last vestiges of mist would swirl to nothing beneath her bed and patterns became fixed on the surface of things.
There was a dead baby in the casket.
That is what she realised it was, bound in some foul green bandage. Its withered form could still be recognised, and within its mouldy shawl were charms and black tokens made of jet for the older, half-forgotten deities of the sea. Perhaps someone as grief-stricken as Brid had cast it to the ocean years before. The sea, through countless storms had cast it back up long after the spell had been fulfilled, and driven the offering into the soft cliff face. It wasn’t the only baby in the row of small cottages that night because Brid could hear the first cries of a newborn, not far away.
That infant gave a plaintive mewling, a weak cry of alarm, and Brid stared at the dead one cradled in her arms. She snatched the charms from between the rotten bandages then put back the swaddled, mummified thing in the tiny casket and replaced the lid. Reaching above her head she put the small treasure with her other tokens in the large fisher net, and dressed quickly. As she left the room, she remembered to take one of her best woollen shawls from the bottom drawer. Brid hurried downstairs and lit an oil lantern with a taper from the dying fire.
The fisherman families rarely locked their front doors. There had never been any need, theft being such a rare occurrence. And Brid had no trouble entering the Eskell household. Once upstairs she could hear Tom’s gentle snoring in the shadows and by the candlelight Jenna lay face-away from her baby, with her arm around Tom. The baby opened its eyes and looked at Brid. Even a newborn might cry at a stranger’s touch. But the infant didn’t make a sound when Brid placed one hand under its neck, the other under the body, and lifted it gently out of the cradle. She made it down the dark stairs with the assurance of one who knew she was guided, and slipped quietly over the threshold with the baby firmly bound in the green shawl. She clutched the child to her breast with one hand and picked up the heavy lantern with the other.
In her attempt to climb the pathway to the clifftop Brid only slipped once. The baby did not fall from her grasp, but the stumble caused the infant to cry momentarily.
“It’s fine, little one. I won’t fall again.”
At the top of the hill she placed the baby on the damp grass with the lantern by its side, illuminating its frightened face. Brid could not know its name, for it bore none; it was too young and hadn’t been christened. She tried to remember if Tom had mentioned anything about naming, but all she could hear was the swell of the sea crashing into the cliff face below her—and, far off—the scream of a woman in the night.
Brid knelt down over the child and pushed the charms under the folds of the shawl. She bound it; swaddling the tiny form and trapping its arms tight to its body. The baby let out a small cry of surprise when Brid held it high above her head. She spun round three times—her long grey skirt swirling in the strange, green mist that crept across the cliff face—and then, with the name of her fiancée on her lips, she threw the baby to the sea.
As the villagers hurried up the pathway towards the light of the lantern, Brid took the track that trailed off in the other direction down to the beach, and then she waded out into the sea. She felt something rough and icy make a grab for her thigh and then a cold hand on her leg that pulled her down.
Once summoned, there is no denying the deities of the sea. They know that you will deliver yourself up to them—sooner or later. It is only a matter of time.
Bull Running
Dedicated to all the crazy, wonderful mozos of the Fiesta of St. Fermin, to Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles.
Something had happened that caused one Spanish family great cause for concern. A boy named Lorenzo called upon sixteen-year-old Elise at the small house she shared with her Aunt Pilar, in the little village of Alqueria. Only for a moment did the aunt leave them alone in the room. Elise was standing in front of a large mirror that showed her from head to waist. Her long, brown hair spread round the upper part of the frame. A look askance from her hazel eyes, a strange reflection—and a hint of something otherworldly and rather demonic—had made the boy afraid.
He made his apologies and left, troubled by what he had seen. The only other person he told was his cousin, Bonita Mendoza, who thought that she would curry favour with Elise by giving her a gold bracelet, which had been meant for Bonita’s sister-in-law. It had not been enough. For, less than a week later, Lorenzo was found dead in the olive grove at the back of his home, with a bull’s horn through his heart. The horn had been driven in so deeply, and with such force, that it had nailed him to an olive tree. After the postmortem, and when the horn had been removed, it was marvelled that it had not been sawn from a bull but wrenched from its head, and black, bloody flaps of hide still clung to it. The funeral was a quiet affair, with only immediate relatives in attendance. Soon after, the Mendoza family left the area.
Elise was prone to blackouts, for which the doctor could give no explanation. She had one just about the time of Lorenzo’s death.
Five years later in 2003, during the hottest summer for decades (the final count would be four thousand dead in Spain and over eighteen thousand in Italy by the end of the summer), Elise Moreno decided to give up her job as a tour guide in Barcelona, prepare to don the dour clothes of a pilgrim, and set out on the road from Pamplona to Santiago de Compostella. She wore the sign of the pilgrim: a small cockleshell badge pinned to the green scarf she wrapped around her neck to keep off the hot sun. Elise had no idea why she was going—as she wasn’t religious—feeling simply a desire to go; compelled to make the journey. She packed a rucksack with a change of shorts, three T-shirts, several pairs of panties, and a bra. The idea was to travel light as a pilgrim and that appealed to her. She caught a taxi to the airport and thought about how she liked the idea of leaving material t
hings behind.
The flight from Barcelona to Pamplona was short, but there was enough time to read. For amusement she took along The Canterbury Tales, whose characters had undertaken another pilgrimage, many hundreds of years before.
On the plane, Elise sat next to an English woman who recognised the title of the book.
“The Canterbury Tales—are you a student?”
“No, just interested.” Elise half-smiled at the woman.
“It’s unusual for a young woman to be seen reading Chaucer, unless made to do so.”
“Really?”
“Are you going to Pamplona for the festival?”
“No, the Camino.” Elise pointed to the shell badge.
“Ah, I see—a pilgrim.”
“Not exactly.”
The last remark seemed to close all lines of communication, as Elise stared harder into the book, not reading so much as letting the characters drift off the page and make up a modern-day story in her head. She began to daydream her way along the Camino, not the pilgrim way to Canterbury. The present-day counterparts of the old stories jostled and jibed with one another to get in the front of the queue and attract her attention. This may have seemed a strange game to any ordinary person, but, Elise was used to the strange—it happened to her all the time.
Less than twenty-four hours later Elise had registered for the Camino and was on her way from her accommodation---a shabby hostel in Pamplona.
Pamplona; famous for the bull running which took place in July each year; a good golf club; a fine incorporation of immigrants from South America; and the Volkswagen factory. It was now late June. The usual tide of students and devoted faithful diminished in number as the summer heat threatened to boil people alive. Everyone setting out with the expectation of reaching their destination. For most, the first accomplishment was to complete the three-and-a-half week hike—seven-hundred kilometers—through parched days and uncomfortable nights. Another goal was to validate and celebrate belief. And a third, for some, was to find something to believe in. On this trip, not all would finish the journey; some would lose their beliefs, and more would find something that they had not bargained for.
A few pilgrims had come on organised tours, sending their baggage ahead by bus, staying in the best places, which, to Elise, undermined the whole concept of humility and the leaving behind of worldly goods. She had briefly met one tour operator as he shunted his pilgrims on to the tour bus in Pamplona. Those pilgrims called him Marcus, and he reminded her of the pardoner in The Canterbury Tales who sold false relics to believers. Marcus jangled his tips in his pocket and wore a perpetual smile.
Elise rose early and left Pamplona in the last week of June, taking with her a map, plenty of water, bread, cheese, and biscuits. She left before the morning progressed and the horrendous summer heat began to sear the valley. She walked up the ridge of Sierra de Perdon and looked across a countryside that had suffered much from the heat of the summer—the grass, tinder dry, ready to combust spontaneously. After the walk, she found a newly built hostel for the night, which was unusually quiet for the time of year. The heat had kept more than a few people away from the Camino. She travelled twenty-three kilometres that day, carried three litres of water, drank it all, refilled twice and felt as if she could have still walked further. Elise had no idea where her strength was coming from.
The next day she travelled twenty kilometres to Estella, spoke to no one and avoided a big, black, bad-tempered dog that snarled at her. Elise snarled back, stamped her foot and the dog slouched away whimpering, its tail between its legs. Estella was a pleasant town, and the hostel had a shaded courtyard where she ate pizza and thought of nothing interesting.
For six days Elise lived a solitary life, and if she met a fellow pilgrim she simply waved hello and went quickly on her way with no real comprehension of why she was there. The hostel was not too full and she kept to herself. One hot night, she opted to sleep upon an old table outside because a German girl, delirious with a fever, had been crawling around on the floor inside. The next day Elise was told that the girl had malaria and she was taken to a nearby convent hospital to be looked after by nuns.
On the seventh day Elise took the easy pathway surrounded by forest on each side and met up with an English boy called Michael, and his German friend, Frantz. Elise felt awkward, shy even, and was happy to hide behind her sunglasses and floppy hat, even though the sun hung low in the sky. She wore a vivid red thin-strapped top and beige shorts. With a forced smile she dumped her small rucksack in the dust and sat on a nearby rock, whilst the boys chatted to her.
“Have you been on the Camino before?” Michael asked her.
“No, but I believe that I can do it, even though the days are hotter than I thought they’d be,” Elise replied.
“It’s been too hot for me,” he stated. “What brings you on the Camino—travelling alone?”
Elise looked thoughtful for a moment. “I can look after myself. Besides, it is rare to hear about robbery, or worse, on the pilgrimage.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.”
Elise merely smiled.
“You still haven’t said why you are doing it?”
“Why does anyone? I’m here looking for something.”
“You’ll find it on the Camino—everyone finds what they are looking for on the Camino,” Frantz added.
“Even sinners like you, Frantz?” Michael gave him a friendly nudge on the arm and then took a swig from a water bottle.
“But why are you going in this direction? You are supposed to finish in Santiago, aren’t you?” asked Elise.
“We were, but now we are going to get a bus to Pamplona.”
“Why?”
“To run with the bulls. We’ve been thinking about it after reading Hemingway and, well, it seems like fun.”
Michael rummaged about in his rucksack, pulled a book out and passed it to Elise. She noted that his brown hair was too long over his blue eyes. He kept sweeping it away with a shake of his head.
“Ah right—The Sun Also Rises. I’ve read it,” said Elise. “It’s about desire.”
“It’s about bull fighting and sex,” replied Michael.
“Both dangerous.”
“We’re young. We’re meant to face danger occasionally.”
“Putting aside the camaraderie, bravado, and Hemingway’s book, bull running is dangerous,” she repeated.
“And fun,” he replied. “Why don’t you come with us?”
“To watch?”
“Of course to watch. As you say, it would be far too dangerous….” Michael hesitated.
“…for a girl, you meant to say,” she finished.
“Well, yes.”
“No—I won’t go to watch.” With total conviction, Elise suddenly knew what she wanted to do. “I will run with the bulls too.”
She took off her sunglasses and for a moment a ray of evening sunlight broke through the trees and Michael caught sight of some strange reflection in her eyes. He blinked, and then there was nothing there, just the beautiful, hazel eyes of a stunning Spanish girl.
That night, whilst the boys slept in their tent (they had offered it to Elise but she had refused), Elise lay on top of her sleeping bag, thankful for the slight breeze, and gazed heavenwards. She marvelled at the brightness of the nearest stars and wondered about the strong compulsion she now had—to go to Pamplona. She wasn’t entirely unhappy that she seemed to be guided by impulse and not determination. It wasn’t long before Michael joined her. But soon all she could think about, amid the fumbling, was how beautiful the stars were and that there were so many constellations out there, though most of them she could never quite identify. Taurus would be visible to someone tonight.
It was the kind of sex that young men do, when they sense the girl isn’t really interested. After he was finished he mumbled an apology, which—in her distraction—she didn’t hear. She said nothing. He went back inside the tent. Later she heard Michae
l swearing in his sleep, fighting off creatures in his nightmares, and she supposed one of them might be her.
In the morning nothing was said. Michael smiled sheepishly as she packed her rucksack and she smiled warmly in return—the incident filed under impulse, opportunity, and youth.
They chose a hostel on the outskirts of Pamplona, the other hostels being full of eager, young people there for the next day’s bull running, and they ate outside at a café. Elise enjoyed the evening, in the company of the two young men who flirted in turn for her attention.
As she raised her wine glass to her lips she could hear the blunt sound of something chipping on stone. The noise grew louder and a woman screamed. The people at the table in front of hers were closer to the cobbled street; they flung their chairs to one side and almost clambered over her to get into the café. Red wine spilled down her blouse as Michael grabbed her hand and dragged her into the entrance. Frantz followed close behind.
“Get inside. Quick,” shouted Michael.
The sound became louder, thunderous.
Something horrid was thrown into the entranceway of the café.
Outside, a sweat-soaked bull scrambled and slipped on the wet cobblestones, fell to its knees in front of the occupants and glowered at them. They fell back in panic into the dubious safety of the premises. The bull managed to get to its feet and then, with an indignant bellow, was gone. Another scream and Elise craned her neck to see what else was causing the commotion. A few people ran off in the opposite direction that the bull had taken—away from the blood-soaked body on the pavement. Others stood over the man, staring and pointing him out to their fellow onlookers.
“Look—his hands and feet have been tied together,” cried out one person.
Elise managed to break through the circle around the body. She looked down.