Silver Skin

by Joan Lennon

  He didn’t seem to notice her at all. Mewie was watching from the other side of the fire. Cait caught her eye and they exchanged wry half-smiles. She shrugged, went round to help Mewie finish a bowl of ale and then, rolled up in her own furs, turned in for the night. Nothing would happen now until the dawn.

  It’s too cold anyway, she thought to herself and halfway through a yawn that showed white in the air, she fell asleep.

  Rab: The Ring of Stones

  It had been easy.

  As soon as Cait and the others were settled in their sleeping furs, he’d silently slid out from his own. He’d mounded them up to look as if they were still occupied. Then he’d just slipped away.

  No one paid any particular attention to him as he passed through the camp and into the darkness beyond. His breath puffed out in nervous wisps. He glanced up and for a moment there was the moon showing over the hills. It was at the full. Then the clouds covered it again. He realised he’d crouched automatically, to be less conspicuous in the sudden light. Part of his mind noticed this with a kind of remote surprise.

  He could see where Voy and the other Old Women were camped out by the causeway, guarding the entrance to the Ring. He moved away from them, on across the rough ground, following the curve of the bank and ditch. He kept stumbling and stopping to make sure no one had heard the noise he was making over the chilly soughing of the wind. It would seem that no one did.

  The standing stones lurked at the edge of his peripheral vision. He didn’t like to look at them directly.

  Far enough. He made himself stop. This is far enough – as good a place as any – you can’t just go round the Ring forever.

  The clouds had thinned again so that there was enough light to look down into the ditch. It was filled with water. He could see there was ice on its surface. Would it hold his weight? Of course it will, in this cold! Inches thick, at least. But the thought of breaking through and dropping into the black water held him rigid on the verge. How deep would it be? Over his head? If he fell through would he pass out with the cold and drown and they’d find him the next morning staring up through the ice like a corpse at a window and he’d never get home …

  You’ll never get home standing around peeing yourself either. He pushed the image of his own dead body out of his mind as best he could and slithered down the bank of the ditch. He felt at once how the steep sides blocked the bite of the wind. He teetered for a second on the edge of the ice and then, hunched over, knees bent, he crabbed out cautiously onto the frozen surface. The ice creaked. The sound made sweat break out on his cold face. He swallowed hard – made himself inch forward – ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ he whispered, but nothing on earth could make his feet move quicker – slide, pause, slide, pause, creak, slide, slide …

  At the last moment he panicked and flung himself forward face first onto the other bank and clung to it with numb fingers, his breath panting into the air in white frantic puffs. He lay there for a long while before he could make the shaking stop, get to his hands and knees and crawl upwards. As he pulled himself up over the lip, the moon slipped out from behind the clouds.

  He almost turned around and went back.

  Cait: The Encampment by the Loch of Harray

  She needed to pee again. What was it about cold weather that made you have to bare your bottom so often, getting even colder in the process? She tried to ignore the pressure and go back to sleep, but her bladder was having none of it. She groaned and sat up. She glanced across at the lump of furs that was Rab, curled up on the other side of the fire. He hadn’t stirred an inch.

  When she came back, shivering, from the latrine ditch, he was still there.

  Lucky him, she thought, burrowing into her own nest, hoping to find any of the warmth she’d left behind. Lucky … and then she was asleep again.

  Rab: The Ring of Stones

  He crept forward, into silence. Strangely, the night wind that blew outside the Ring did not blow here. The cold bit just as hard, but the air was still. Rab listened and it was as if something listened back. His breath came shallow and fast and hung like mist before his face.

  Go back. Go back. The words spoke themselves in his mind.

  The stones were black against the bowl of the hills and the sky. Clouds blurred the stars and caged the moon, letting its light out only a little at a time.

  You shouldn’t be here. You’re wrong here.

  ‘It’s true,’ whispered Rab, clenching his hands. He was wrong here. But without the Silver Skin he couldn’t get right. Ever.

  He made himself take a step, then another. He made himself walk towards the centre.

  He felt like a thief.

  ‘But it’s mine,’ he whispered, his words white shapes in the air. ‘It’s mine.’

  She’d stolen it from him, when he was hurt and out of his head and couldn’t do anything about it. He needed it back and she wouldn’t give it to him. Nobody could call this stealing. He wasn’t betraying anybody.

  They were the ones who’d betrayed him. The Old Woman had intended this all along. She’d never meant to give him back his Skin, in spite of all her talk of earning it. Proving it was his. Had Cait known too? Had everybody known, except him, that this was the way it was going to end?

  They’d been lying to him from the first.

  ‘I’m not a thief,’ he said, thinking, Not my rules. I didn’t make them, so I don’t have to play by them. I refuse to be judged by them.

  And all the while he was stumbling forward through frost-rimed heather that wrapped itself around his ankles, trying to trip him up and drag him down. The processional path had been cleared turf, easy walking, welcoming worshippers into the heart of the Ring.

  He wasn’t walking on it now, and there was no welcome.

  It’s like those dreams where you try to move and the thing you’re trying to get to just keeps on being out of reach and you go on struggling and –

  The centre of the Ring, that had seemed so far away, was now, abruptly, right in front of him. The great square hearth, like the hearth he’d sat by with Cait and in every other house in the village, only writ large. He circled the hearth clockwise. He could smell the dung fuel, waiting for the morning. Waiting to be turned into fire.

  And when it’s blazing, she’s going to throw my Silver Skin into it and let it burn.

  Well, he wasn’t going to just stand by and let that happen – he was going to take back what was his – there – he had it in his hands at last – he was going home – it was going to be all right – it was –

  Cait: The Encampment by the Loch of Harray

  Cait stirred. Something had woken her. She half-opened her eyes.

  What …?

  Then the scream, furious and full-throated, came again and she was thrashing her way out of the tangle of furs.

  ‘Rab – wake up! Something’s happened! Rab! Rab?’

  But when she tried to shake his shoulder, the pile of sleeping furs fell in on itself. They had been heaped up to look as if there were someone in amongst them, but it was a lie.

  He wasn’t there.

  And then she was running for the causeway, her heart in her mouth.

  Rab: The Ring of Stones

  The scream echoed round the Ring, blurred and confusing. Rab clutched the Silver Skin to his chest and spun wildly, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. For a split second he thought it must the standing stones themselves, crying their outrage.

  ‘Stop – stop – sacri – sacril – sacrilege—’

  The words jumbled and overlapped but he could see figures now, streaming over the causeway, in their hands hastily caught up torches, shockingly yellow in the black-and-white night. A strangled laugh forced its way up his throat as he suddenly thought of pitch-fork-bearing peasants coming for Frankenstein’s monster in the old vids.

  You’re the monster, Rab – you’re the monster!

  It didn’t seem real. He wasted precious seconds thinking, This doesn’t seem real, before the smell
of the torches hit his nostrils – he tasted tin in his mouth – he turned and started to run.

  Cait: The Ring of Stones

  The causeway was blocked with milling, frightened people, rumpled and only half awake. But Cait could see light and movement from beyond the Stones – Voy and the other Old Women, the Cherts, the Hunters like Tron. Her night vision was spoiled by the torchlight, but she didn’t need her eyes to know that there would be someone else, inside the sacred space. Someone who had no right to be there.

  You fool – Rab – you fool –

  ‘Let me through! Let me pass!’ she yelled.

  Bewildered, stupid faces turned and stared and didn’t get out of the way until she pushed and shoved.

  ‘What’s happened? What’s happened?’ they bleated. ‘What is it? What should we do?’

  ‘Get out of my way,’ she snarled. She gritted her teeth and pushed harder – and suddenly she broke through the edge of the crowd and fell sideways against a Stone.

  Its rough edge slashed at her, cutting her shoulder and cheek. Moaning softly, she clutched her face and struggled upright, peering into the great circle. Her eyes were drawn to the torch-bearers. The hunters.

  And then she saw the prey.

  Rab was running. The pursuers had cleared sward under their feet, but he was struggling through uncut heather which clutched at his leggings, the tangled roots trapping his feet. She saw him stagger and lurch.

  There was a shout – it was Tron – his anger echoed strangely off the Stones – Rab hesitated at the sound – half-turned – and lost his balance.

  She watched as he twisted in the air, one arm flung up – the other clutching something to his chest – she could see the black circle of his mouth – and then he was gone. Swallowed up.

  Tron’s strong legs carried him past the centre of the Ring and into the heather with relentless speed. When he reached the place where Rab had fallen he shoved his hands down like a heron stabbing its beak into the water, and dragged Rab up. He began to haul him back towards the centre. Rab had gone limp. She wondered if he was even conscious.

  She wiped the blood from her cheek and walked towards the centre. There was no reason to hurry now. What was going to happen next was already decided. Rab had decided it for himself.

  He was going to die.

  Voy: The Old Women’s Encampment

  But Cait was wrong about one thing at least. Voy was not with the pursuers.

  She was still at the Old Women’s encampment, deep asleep, so deep that Mot gave up calling her and actually started to shake her shoulder. She came awake to discover his tear-stained face inches from her own.

  ‘What a strange dream I was having,’ she told him. ‘I was flying. What’s wrong?’

  ‘I thought you must be dead, when you didn’t wake up, and then there would be no one to properly open the Road to the Sun because my mother says you’re the only one who’s any good at it the rest are just girls compared to you and it’s their fault the Sun’s so sick and then it’ll be dead too and my mother says Tron’s going to kill our selkie if you don’t come …’ He ran out of breath at this point, wiped his wet face on his sleeve and jerked out of the way as the Old Woman rose out of her furs like a startled stag surging up out of a hollow.

  The crowd before the causeway parted precipitately. For a moment, Voy stood at the entrance to the Ring, watching what was going on inside.

  Then she smiled.

  It was a sight that made the villagers who saw step back. But then she said, ‘All of you. Follow me …’ and there wasn’t a soul who disobeyed.

  Rab: The Ring of Stones

  ‘Don’t kill him.’

  Tron’s grip on Rab’s tunic had twisted it tight at the neck so he was nearly throttled. The hunter held the Silver Skin in his other hand, two-fingered and at arm’s length, so that it hung, limp and bedraggled in the torch light.

  ‘What?’ Tron was peering about, trying to locate who had spoken. Rab could smell the rankness of the man’s sweat even in the freezing air. He was almost crazy with the desire to kill. Rab was suddenly overwhelmed with the memory of the boar, just a tiny trigger away from a luscious spilling of blood. His blood.

  Voy stepped clear of the crowd.

  ‘I said, don’t kill him.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I, Old Woman?’ Rab felt Tron’s grip tighten even further as his hatred found its focus. Each snatched breath was an agony and he scrabbled uselessly at Tron’s hand with his nails. The man gave him an impatient shake, like a dog with a rat, and repeated, ‘Why shouldn’t I kill him?’

  ‘Because you need him.’ She sounded patronising, as if Tron were just a little stupid.

  ‘Need this?’ Tron let go of Rab so suddenly he fell to his knees, crowing for breath. ‘We don’t need your fake Fey magic, Old Woman. We have something better. We have the Tears of the Sun.’

  ‘Tears of the Sun!’ Voy snorted. ‘It’s called bronze, Tron. You’ve got a bit of the new melted rock and, as far as my young Chert tells me, not a particularly good bit at that. Apparently it’s got more impurities than you’ve got nits in that hair of yours. Get your Old Woman to have a word with me, and I can put her in the way of a cure for that. Might even lend her a comb …’

  The crowd gasped and there was a nervous titter at the back.

  Tron flicked a contemptuous finger at Rab, bent double and wheezing. ‘And you think this – your make-believe selkie boy – can do better?’

  ‘Him?’ Voy barely looked at Rab. Her attention was entirely on the hunter. ‘No. Not him. It’s the skin that’s important. Though of course if you kill the human form of a selkie then the skin dies too. I’d have thought everybody knew that.’

  Rab staggered to his feet, still struggling to catch his breath. He looked out over the crowd, torch-lit faces open-mouthed, eyes wide, over-excited by the drama being played out in this bizarre theatre.

  ‘A selkie.’ Tron snorted. ‘How do we know he’s not just some back-birth – some freak you’ve been hiding – Skara Brae runs to freaks – everybody knows that.’

  ‘Look at the mark on his arm.’ Voy’s voice dropped, so that it was deep and mysterious. Everyone edged closer to hear. To see. ‘And look at the mark on the skin …’

  Tron chucked the Silver Skin to one of his men who caught it with evident reluctance.

  ‘Lay it out,’ said Voy.

  The man did as she told him. He spread the skin on the hearth stone and backed quickly away. It looks so small, thought Rab. Such a little thing. The damaged sleeve was uppermost. Tron grabbed Rab’s arm and dragged it down beside the skin, twisting it so roughly Rab couldn’t help crying out. He looked from one to the other for a moment and then he shoved Rab away so that he stumbled and fell again.

  ‘That?’ Tron sneered. ‘That’s nothing. A steady hand and a sharp stick from the fire could have burned that onto the boy. That’s no proof he’s a selkie.’ He raised his voice to reach all of the crowd and said again, ‘There’s no proof here.’

  Rab was aware of bodies shifting and a rustling of disappointment. They wanted more than this. They didn’t want the drama to end so soon.

  I have to do something …

  ‘I can prove it’s my Skin,’ Rab croaked. Not loud enough. Everyone has to hear. He rasped as loudly as he could. ‘I can prove the Skin is mine!’ He didn’t dare look at Voy. Please, please, let this work … please!

  ‘Well, freak?’ Tron’s eyes glittered in the torch light. ‘How do you think you can do that?’

  ‘Let me hold it.’

  Tron grunted suspiciously. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because … because it will speak to me.’ Please make it so. Please make it so. ‘It will speak to me and to no other person here present.’ He realised he was starting to talk like a character in an old vid, but no one else seemed to notice. ‘I, er, I challenge you to do as much. Go on, draw the skin over your hand and see if you can make it speak.’

  He saw the expression on the man’s face sh
ift. You’re scared! You bloody bully – you’re SCARED!

  ‘Here, I’ll show you—’ and Rab reached out for the Silver Skin, but before he could take it, Tron knocked his hand away.

  ‘This is another trick, isn’t it, boy?’ he snarled. ‘You pick up the skin and then you speak, but you pretend it’s not your voice at all. I’ve heard of tricksters who can throw their words, so that they seem to come from another place. But let’s see how well you do with a gag, eh?’ He whipped the greasy strip of leather out of his hair and before anyone could protest, had muzzled Rab tightly.

  Rab was terrified he was going to throw up and suffocate in his own sick. He could feel his stomach clenching. Breathe! Slow breathing, one, two, slower, one … two … one … two …

  He managed to calm the gag reflex, until he could look Tron in the eyes again. He could feel how the leather strap had pulled his face into a wide artificial grin. He could see how horrible he looked by the flicker in the man’s eyes. It was a tiny satisfaction in amongst all the fear.

  No one tried to stop him this time as he stepped forward and picked the Silver Skin up. Take it carefully, Rab. Slowly. He slid his bare arm into the undamaged sleeve of the suit. Please. Com. Please. Talk to me.

  Nothing.

  He’d stopped breathing. He felt how every face was turned towards him, with only the deceptive flicker of the torches to show the tremor in their hands.

  Please …

  And then – was that something? Was something happening? And then he was sure – that was it – the cool tingling sensation of the Silver Skin struggling to draw power from his skin. Ever so slightly, the suit began to blur and his dear Com was speaking …