Silver Skin

by Joan Lennon

  Hesta just smiled. She had always had such a lovely smile, but her face wasn’t pretty any more. Her teeth were coming loose and falling out, and it hurt to eat, so she didn’t, much.

  ‘Why don’t you see the future, if you have to see anything at all?’ Voy grumbled under her breath. ‘Find out what’s going to happen to the crops this cycle and when Benth’s baby’s going to come and things that matter! Or just fix the Sun while you’re about it.’ She sounded waspish, even to herself, but she was losing Hesta and she was afraid. Then she could have bitten out her tongue, for Hesta heard her.

  ‘Fix the Sun …’

  She became obsessed, spending more and more time behind the barred door, leaving the villagers with no one but Voy to tend to them.

  ‘Perhaps more of this and less of the other … perhaps boiling less … or more … in mead … in ale …’ She tried one noxious potion after another, seeking a way into a vision of the future.

  ‘Stop! Stop! I was wrong – the past is what we need to know about! We can’t know the future – it doesn’t exist, that’s why you can’t see it.’ Voy argued and pleaded and wept, all to no avail.

  ‘Can’t you see – if I know what is coming, I will know how to lead the people in the right direction,’ Hesta snapped in rare impatience. ‘I will know how to make things better. Stop the blight. Make the Sun warm again.’ Then she smiled as if to take the sting out of her words. She was all lit up inside. She was so thin that Voy could see the blood pulsing in the veins of her forehead.

  And then one day Voy waited outside the barred door and no call came. When she couldn’t bear the silence any longer she went in without a summons. Hesta was lying on the floor, limbs sprawled out as if she had been thrashing wildly, blood dried around her mouth and nose. She had stiffened. She had been dead for some time. Eventually the limbs would relax again, but until then there was nothing Voy could do with the contorted body except watch and weep.

  Except that the tears wouldn’t come. The white rage inside her seemed to dry them up. You did this to yourself! she stormed silently, staring down at Hesta with eyes that burned and ached. You talk to me of contentment with the way things are and then you do this to yourself – to me! How could you be so stupid – how could you be so cruel?

  I will never forgive you.

  Back in the here and now, she put her hand on the bag hanging from her waist. And she led her people down the hill.

  Cait: The Encampment by the Loch of Harray

  ‘She knows how to make an entrance, that Old Woman.’

  ‘Cutting it fine, aren’t they?’

  ‘Shortest distance to travel, last one to arrive … just showing off, I’d say.’

  ‘You’d think that was one village that wouldn’t want to draw attention to itself!’

  ‘Look – they’ve collected another freak!’

  ‘Midden! It’s ugly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Imagine breeding that with the big pale-haired one – ugh, trows would look pretty beside what would come out of her!’

  Cait didn’t turn her head, but she knew that they knew that she had heard every word. Rab tried to catch her eye but she just shoved a pot at him and told him to bring some water up from the shore.

  They’ll be singing another tune when they find out Skara Brae’s brought along its very own selkie, she thought. The news would be round every hearth fire before Rab got back from the loch. He wouldn’t look so ugly to them then.

  Anyway, what does it matter what they think? She ignored the feeling that was like a tight band round her chest and went on helping set up their part of the encampment, round the same square hearth they’d always used, as the afternoon began to fade and the loch turned the colour of slate in the failing light. It only mattered what they might know, this time, what they might have heard since they all gathered here last. Nothing would stop her going about to each hearth, like she always did, asking the same questions she always asked.

  Had anyone been visited by strangers? Had any Offlander boats been seen? And – most foolish question of all – had anyone been asking about her? Looking for her? She would ask and they would shake their heads and not bother hiding their scorn.

  They would sneer and she would swallow it and go on asking. Her own people – that was what was foremost in her mind. Always. Her own people.

  Rab: The Encampment by the Loch of Harray

  As the winter day faded, villagers were getting themselves settled around the scattered square hearths cut in the turf. Deerskin lean-tos sheltered the very old and the very young. Rab could smell food cooking over the flames. As he passed, each group fell silent, studiously not looking directly at him.

  I’m like the green mound, he thought with a shiver. I’m like something that shouldn’t exist.

  He walked on, clutching the pot, trying to look as if he knew what he was doing. After living with so few people, and in spite of being so uncomfortable with the empty spaces, he was now completely thrown by the number of figures moving round the camp fires.

  The sooner this ritual stuff is over and we can get back to Skara Brae, the better.

  Ice had formed at the edge of the loch. He hesitated, uncertain how to deal with drawing the water without getting his boots wet. He put a tentative foot onto the ice and hopped back again quickly as it bent and creaked and the water slopped over it.

  ‘Rab! Wait for me!’ It was Mot. He ran up and took Rab’s hand. It felt cold and clammy. It felt good. ‘Cait sent me.’

  ‘She probably thinks I’ll get lost or fall in the loch.’

  Mot grinned up at him. He grabbed the pot from Rab and used the bottom of it to break the ice, then deftly tilted it on its side and let the water flow in. When it was full he handed it back to Rab, who pulled a face.

  ‘All right, very clever. I would have figured it out eventually.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Mot.

  Rab heard the whispers rising up behind him as he followed Mot away from the loch side.

  ‘Is that it? Is that their selkie?’

  ‘What else could it be? Stars, I’d no idea they’d be so ugly! It’s the colour of turds!’

  ‘Shut up – hasn’t the weather been milder lately? I heard it’s turned their luck and no mistake! They’ve brought boar meat to share!’

  ‘Yeah? I heard Sketh got gored getting it – nearly died. You notice he’s not here this time.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I heard he’s not dead. Went against a boar the size of a whale AND HE’S NOT DEAD! I’d call that luck.’

  ‘Ignore them,’ Mot whispered over his shoulder. ‘They’re just jealous.’

  There were square stone hearths laid into the turf, large communal ones, but Rab noticed that not all of them had people clustered round them. There were almost as many again that were left unlit. Some were hardly visible in the encroaching bracken.

  ‘Why are there so many hearths not being used?’ he asked. They seemed sad, all overgrown and lonely with so much bustle and life round the others.

  Mot shrugged. ‘Because there aren’t as many villages as there used to be.’

  Rab felt a shiver go down his back and huddled his clothes closer. ‘Why? What happened to them?’

  Mot shrugged again. ‘They died,’ he told him. ‘Sickness, maybe, or trows.’

  ‘Or maybe they just left?’

  The boy looked up at him, his forehead furrowed. ‘Where would they go?’ he said, and Rab had no answer to that. In his time, people didn’t go someplace else because everywhere was already full, but here and now, the world was wide and empty and full of dangers.

  ‘Did anybody go and check?’

  ‘Oh yes. Somebody would always go and check, when a village didn’t appear for a cycle. They’d go and watch for a day and a night, from a safe distance. But if there was no smoke, then they’d know.’

  ‘So they’re still there … only they’re all dead …’ Pictures pressed their way into Rab’s mind – villages just like Skara Brae, only cold and
dark, silent except for the wind howling through the passageways and ruffling the clothes of bodies, lying along the ground, women and men and children and babies … And no one coming close while they were dying and no one coming to collect their spirits when they were dead.

  Not that that matters, of course. That’s just superstition.

  He handed over the pot of water to Mewie and hunkered down by the Skara Brae hearth.

  And the cold sick feeling of a stone in his belly? Ignore that too?

  It must just be nervousness. That must be it – this was going to be a weird couple of days. He should be excited – this was an amazing opportunity! He was going to see an ancient ritual at first hand – none of the usual trying to make something up out of an inadequate handful of broken artefacts. What had the lecturer said? ‘When you really can’t figure out what something is, it’s easiest to just say it has a ritual purpose. Who’s going to be able to contradict you?’

  Well, me! thought Rab, just as his emotions veered off again and he found himself desperately pushing down homesickness and the memories of that bright clean world of lectures and cheerful ignorance. He turned to Cait and began to ask, ‘What happens n—’ when a loud blustery voice bellowed so close behind him, it made him fall off the stone he was sitting on with a yelp.

  ‘Hurry up! Stop all this gossiping and sitting about! Show some respect! Get in line!’

  A small man wearing a magnificent cloak of overlapping otter skins was doing a good imitation of looming at them. His forearms were bare and Rab could see the muscles showing like cords. His face was like a discontented sack of walnuts.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he whispered to Cait, who stuck out her tongue.

  ‘That’s Tron of Piggar.’

  ‘Piggar? He’s from a place called Piggar?!’ Rab couldn’t help the snort of giggles coming out.

  Tron froze for a split second then went back to chivvying the women.

  ‘He wouldn’t be pushing everybody about if Sketh were here!’ added Cait. Rab wondered if she’d meant to speak quite that loudly.

  Tron narrowed his eyes, but didn’t seem to know who’d spoken. He pushed Mewie as she hurried past with her arms full of fuel. She stumbled and fell with a squeal, dropping her bundle.

  Then, suddenly, Voy was there. With a curt nod, Tron moved on.

  ‘Piss-face,’ muttered Cait.

  ‘Piss-face from Piggar,’ sneered Rab, but the stone in his belly was still there.

  Voy: The Encampment by the Loch of Harray

  Voy made herself into a still point amongst the bustle and disorder. At this stage, the people around her were all just themselves, just the Living, silly and messy and ordinary. And petty and vindictive and divided and weak and … you could go on for hours about the failings of the folk. But there was a change coming. When they would become more than those things – less themselves and more something else –

  ‘Shouldn’t we be starting?’ the girl asked her, getting restless. But Voy ignored her. She had already decided their place in the procession.

  Soon. It’s almost time …

  She sniffed the air. The smell of the wind was sharp and cold and did not bode well for a clear Road. Would Gairstay and the others have to wait again? She had the spirit stone safe in a pouch, hanging from her belt, on her right side. It was a comforting, solid, familiar weight. And on her left side, in another bag, was the selkie’s silver skin. It weighed near to nothing and when she took it out it would flow through her bent fingers like water, or mist over a stream that the Sun had warmed.

  Voy smiled.

  Rab: The Ring of Stones

  It began as a jumble, people shoving and hissing at each other, trying to locate over-excited children and then keep them under control, torches being lit, one from another, passing from hand to hand.

  Rab started to get impatient. What a mess – in the vids and the simulations these ancient rituals were made up to be all choreographed and solemn and awe-inspiring, when really it’s just a lot of standing around in the cold and people bickering.

  But then, gradually, something shifted. The scrum evolved into a procession. As the path of circles began, lit by dozens of torches flaring in the cold wind, Rab became aware of a feeling of focus, of concentration. It was different from anything he had ever experienced before. The procession circled the ditch, then crossed the causeway and circled again, this time along the inside of the Ring of Stones. How many feet had followed this course over how many years? They had worn down the way into a groove. Circles of torchlight moving, outlining the blackness of the ditch, reflecting off the tall grey faces of the standing stones. He wondered what it would look like from above – what’s the word for that? For a moment he couldn’t remember. Sky view – no, aerial view. Of course. Tip of my tongue. The aerial view would be amazing.

  He shrugged off the odd memory blip and let the lights fill his eyes. Voy had set Skara Brae at the tail end of the great snaking column, so that the full winding maze and blaze was before him. Around him. He shivered, and not from the cold.

  And then he saw that the front of the procession had turned inward, arrowing along the straight way that led from the entrance to the central mound. It circled at the centre and then unfurled into the surrounding space.

  At last he and the others from Skara Brae were approaching the centre of the Ring too. He could see the mound and on it a great square stone hearth piled high with the fuel that all the villages had brought. At the north side of the hearth there was a free-standing set of shelves on which had been placed the spirit stones from the different villages. When Voy laid the stone carved by Skara Brae’s Old Chert beside the others, he felt a surge of pride at the skill and fineness of the work.

  And around the hearth were the offerings. Bowls of food and barley ale – carefully crafted pottery jars and flint blades – skins of animals and the wings of birds. Each village had something fine to offer. To put into the fire to please the Sun. Attract Her attention. Open the Road.

  Except he couldn’t see anything that they had brought! He turned anxiously to Cait and whispered, ‘Where’s ours? We don’t have anything—’ but she was staring past him.

  Tron of Piggar had stepped up onto the mound.

  He was a showman, that was certain. He waited a long moment, to be sure that all eyes were on him, then with a big gesture, he swirled his magnificent otter-skin cloak.

  There was a murmur of awe.

  ‘It’ll have taken his woman months to sew that.’

  ‘A fine offering indeed.’

  ‘If anything can appease the Sun …’

  What a waste, thought Rab.

  But Tron had something else in mind. With another conjuror’s gesture, he produced a bundle from under the splendid cloak. He let the wrappings drop to the ground and held the object up suddenly, turning in a slow circle so all could see.

  An axe. Fire-coloured, set in a wooden haft. The darkness of the wood was a dramatic contrast to the dull sheen of the metal.

  Bronze …

  A ripple of whispers echoed the word in Rab’s head, vibrating from the circle of stones in strange patterns of sound. So near the centre, it seemed to him as if hissing waves were surrounding him, passing over his head and returning like surf on a shore.

  ‘The Tears of the Sun,’ announced Tron. ‘A substance both precious and rare. Till now, this has only been a rumour. A whisper from the south. But not any longer. As you can see. It comes from fire and I will return it to the flames, and the Road to the Sun will open.’

  Ahhhh … And the sigh returned, ahhhh …

  ‘Very nice,’ said Voy softly, yet, because of the strange acoustics of the Ring, her voice carried to every person there. Niiisss came the echo. ‘Pretty.’ The echo sounded like piiittteee. As she spoke, Voy was untying a bag at her belt. She began to draw something like moonlight out of the leather mouth, gently and without fuss. She walked quietly around the top of the mound. Without appearing to ask for attention, she held
the eyes of every person there, as she cradled something in her arms like a precious child.

  Rab’s breath died in his throat. Skara Brae had something to offer to the Sun after all.

  His Silver Skin.

  Cait: The Encampment by the Loch of Harray

  Every cycle, after everyone had left the Ring of Stones and the entrance was sealed for the night, it was always as if a load had been lifted from the shoulders of the people. Cait noticed it each time, and felt it in herself as well. It was an interval of ordinariness between the first procession and the second, just before daybreak, when they would all return inside the Ring of Stones, light the fire, wait and watch and hope that the offerings would be acceptable. As one again. But for now, there was nothing anyone could do except be themselves.

  Conversations broke out, as bright and warming as the cooking fires of the camp that pushed back the night. Babies were shown off and, doubtless, quietly compared in the mothers’ minds unfavourably to their own. The old men passed round the barley ale and complained about their bones. Children renewed friendships, raced about, snatched food from whatever pot was nearest and evaded bed time. The young men and women eyed each other speculatively. There were whispers and giggling to be heard off in the privacy of the dark.

  Cait was restless. She looked for Ailth around the campfires, but he was deep in animated talk with the Chert from that piss-face Tron’s village, and then, before she could attract his attention, he was off whispering to Voy.

  Where was Rab?

  She found him sitting by Mewie’s fire, swaddled up in sleeping furs so that only his head showed. He was staring into the flames, his face closed off and miserable. He was brooding about his skin.

  She hesitated. There was nothing in the stories about anyone ever destroying the skin of a selkie. But what if it works?! What if Voy is right? What if this is the way to heal the Sun? If that were true, he must see how important that made him. He was their luck. He was their hero. She tried to hide from the thought that, also, without his skin, he would have to stay with her. She felt a need for him suddenly that was more than restlessness. She went over to stand beside him, in the hope that he might look up at her and smile. That she might be able to draw him away from the light for a while.