Silver Skin

by Joan Lennon

  ‘I won’t forget you because that would be like forgetting myself. And if you don’t believe me, you’re just as stupid as … as Sketh! And anyway – I’m coming back and that’s a promise.’

  He leaned over to kiss her mouth but she turned her head at the last moment and he kissed her hair instead. It tasted of salt. Her smell was rich and complicated and achingly familiar.

  I don’t want to go! he thought and the thought was so clear and strong he felt as if he’d screamed it out loud.

  Rab didn’t want to go, but he went anyway. He didn’t want her to see the tears on his face.

  He didn’t see the tears on hers.

  Cait: Skara Brae

  ‘He’s gone then.’ Voy’s harsh whisper came out of the shadows as Cait re-entered the house.

  Cait hid her face in her hair. ‘He said he’d come back,’ she muttered.

  ‘He’s gone. He won’t come back.’

  Cait felt her shoulders sag. The Old Woman was right, of course. Selkies never returned.

  I’m so tired. Why am I so tired, all of a sudden?

  ‘Move me to the fire,’ the Old Woman whispered.

  She made a nest of hides by the hearth and settled Voy into it. The Old Woman looked more than ever like a malignant toad.

  ‘Heat … heat water. Bring me my bag of herbs.’

  It was hard for the Old Woman to handle the little sacks of medicines, but she snarled angrily when Cait tried to help. She bent herself over the herbs and the cup, hiding what she was doing, glaring over at Cait from time to time with her mismatched eyes.

  Like a buzzard hunched over a dead rabbit. Keep your secrets, old woman. I don’t want them.

  ‘Take my bed out.’ Strange sounds crowded closer around Voy’s words, but she pushed the sense past them. ‘Take it. Out.’

  She sounds like the voice in Rab’s skin. Perhaps it had a stroke too. But it made her chest ache to think about Rab.

  Selkies never come back.

  Cait pushed the thoughts away and did what Voy said. She laid aside the fleeces and hides. She lifted out the heather mattress, thinking as she did so that it would need renewing soon. It’s a good thing I brought in the fresh heather before all that rain, she thought. But most of her mind was numb.

  ‘Lift the slab.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do. Do it.’

  Cait bent down and felt along the stone floor of the bed. It seemed unbroken, even though she knew Rab had found the way to open it. That seemed so long ago now, but it hadn’t been any time at all.

  ‘A notch.’

  Cait felt again. Yes, there it was – a gap she could get her fingers into.

  ‘Open it.’

  Suddenly, there was nothing but horror in her mind. Whatever was under that slab had been trapped, pinned by the fifth spirit stone, all the years of her life, unable to escape. It’s my mother, she told herself. It’s my mother. But she couldn’t steady her breathing or stop the sweat from making her hands slick.

  ‘Open it!’ There was no denying that harsh whisper. There was no escaping the Old Woman.

  Cait forced her fingers into the gap and put her weight behind raising the stone.

  At first it resisted, and then, suddenly, something gave way and she was able to tip the slab up and lean it against the wall side of the bed.

  It was dark in the space below.

  Cait took a branch of the heather and lit it at the hearth. She paid no attention to the Old Woman now. It was as if she were alone in the house. Her heart beat unsteadily in her chest and her hand shook as she held the spitting heather branch high and looked into the stone cist.

  In the flickering light the skeleton lying at the bottom of the cist seemed to move. Shreds of rotted clothing tangled between the white bones, and there, wedged amidst the ribs, was the fifth spirit stone.

  And Cait found that all the fear had vanished, and only pity remained.

  ‘Mother.’

  Her hand was steady as she reached down, gently freed the spirit stone from the cage of ribs, and lifted it out. She dropped the stone gently onto the floor and let it roll away. She heard the words of release that the Old Woman murmured, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t need them. She was free. They were both free.

  ‘There,’ she said softly. ‘There.’

  A flare of reddish colour at the body’s throat caught the light. Cait leaned closer and then gasped. Her mother was wearing an entire necklace of amber. Cait had never seen so many, so fine pieces of the precious stuff in her whole life, let alone all in the possession of one person.

  ‘She must have been a great lady,’ she murmured in awe.

  Voy grunted. ‘Because of the necklace? Who knows – maybe every child in her land cuts its teeth on amber. Anyway, it’s yours now. The cord will have perished long since. Take a new length and thread them, before they get lost.’

  Cait nodded. Gently, as if she were afraid of waking her mother, she lifted out each of the pieces of amber from among the bones and threaded them onto a fresh length of leather. When it was done she tied the cord and lifted the necklace over her head. It clunked against the necklace Mewie had given her. She was surprised at how light it felt, lying on her chest. She cradled the great central piece in her hand and felt it warm to her touch, and looked again into the cist.

  Cait didn’t know how long she stayed like that, looking quietly down at the bones of her mother. Only gradually did she become aware of the noise in the roof. It was the wind. The uneasy quiet had passed. The storm was rising. Her thoughts automatically reached out to Rab, then pulled back abruptly at the sharp pain.

  It was still too new, too raw. He was gone. She wondered when she would get used to it. They don’t tell you in the stories, how long it hurts. How long you go on looking out to sea, and hoping.

  She gave herself a shake. She’d spent her whole life dreaming of this moment. This was when her real life could finally begin. She could walk away from all the old constraints. She could walk away from Skara Brae and go in search of her own people, her own village. She would turn her back and walk away and never, ever come back, because no one could make her do it. No one could make her do anything, ever again. That’s what being free was about. Being able to walk away.

  As soon as the storm is over … as soon as it’s over …

  Meantime, there was work to be done, here and now. She turned to Voy. ‘The storm’s getting close. Shall I tell them to prepare?’

  ‘Tell them what you like. It’s not my problem.’ Voy drew a rattling breath and then said something that made Cait’s heart jerk into her throat.

  ‘You’re the Old Woman now,’ Voy said.

  For a moment, Cait thought she was going to be sick. As if a hard heavy stone was pressing down on her chest, pinning her there, trapping her. No. No, please, no.

  ‘What did you say?’ she whispered, swallowing hard to get the words past the bitter taste in her mouth.

  Voy didn’t bother to repeat her words. She knew she didn’t need to.

  ‘No! NO!’ Cait’s whisper grew to a shriek. ‘I don’t want – I never wanted—’ You’re tying me to them forever! This isn’t my release – the Old Woman can’t go away, can’t find her real village, her real people. ‘You can’t make me!’

  A horrible wheezing, rasping sound cut through her words.

  It was Voy, laughing at her. She held the cup cradled between her live hand and her dead one. Cait wrenched the cup from her, but it was too late. It was already empty.

  ‘What was in that drink?’

  ‘Corncockle.’

  One word, dropped into the space between them like a stone into a pool of black water. A crackling word, a silly-sounding word.

  It made Cait’s blood go cold.

  Rab: Bay of Skaill

  ‘I hope you’ve been keeping notes, Rab – you’ll be up for a bloody penthouse on the back of all this awfulness! This terrible experience – what you’ve had to endure – I can’t begin to imagin
e.’

  Keeping notes … all this awfulness … terrible experience … endure … Rab heard the echo of his own voice saying words just like that, but now they sounded like someone else. They didn’t sound like him.

  He remembered being so frustrated at not having recording equipment – so fed up that he wasn’t going to be able to remember half of the detail … He knew now there was nothing he would forget. Ever.

  Clutching the Silver Skin in his arms, Rab ran for the shore. Nervous twists of wind threw grit in his eyes and then disappeared into the cold marram grass. There was a metallic taste to the air. Directly overhead, the sky was heavy, like a stone weighing down on the world.

  I just … I just need to let them know I’m all right. It’s the right thing to do – let them know – then explain how I can’t go back, not just yet. It’s only fair – they’ll have been worrying about me all this time …

  Or would they? Hadn’t he already interfered, by being here, by letting Voy get her hands on the Silver Skin, by telling her who he really was? Maybe he’d already changed time. Maybe it was already too late.

  So what if I end up being my own great-great-great-grandfather, or whatever’s supposed to happen. I don’t care. I’m staying, till I know what happens next.

  Even if it means you never existed? The question forced its way into his head.

  That’s not going to happen.

  You don’t know that.

  All right. I DON’T know.

  But that didn’t change his mind. He wasn’t going to run away in the middle of a crisis. But was it a crisis? THE crisis? Maybe at some point in the future, they all just moved away. Found someplace nicer to live. Went off to find Cait’s people, maybe – found them, intermarried, all that, lived happily ever after …

  Maybe the village had been deserted for years when the sand filled it in? A great storm uncovered Skara Brae in 1850. But what storm buried it in the first place? A coast like this, unprotected from thousands of miles of open ocean and its winds – it must change constantly. Slowly and then, sometimes, drastically. A storm could take all the sand between Skara Brae and the sea and dump it on the houses, enough to bury them completely. Bury the houses and everything they contained. Everyone they contained.

  But was that what happened? Was that what was about to happen? There were storms all the time here. The islands were like a magnet for bad weather. There was no reason to think this was THE storm, the one that buried Skara Brae for thousands of years.

  But what if it was?

  I’ll go to the shore and get a message home and then I’ll come back and somehow, somehow, make Cait and the others leave Skara Brae. I’ll think of something. I can’t just let them die, smothered, suffocated in sand.

  His Com was not going to be happy, but it wasn’t his Com’s call.

  He didn’t care about the thing – the Non-Intervention Contract – he’d signed, promising not to interfere. He’d been another person then.

  I’ll go home – of course I’ll go home – but just not NOW – not if this is THE storm – not knowing what I know …

  As he panted towards the shore, he said to himself again and again, But it’s not this storm … it’s not this storm …

  At the top of the dunes he stopped and stared. The dark line of seaweed and flung flotsam that marked the furthest reaches of the tide had disappeared. Greasy swells crawled across the bay. Their motion only seemed slow – as he watched he saw how quickly they worked their way up the beach. It was like a tide that had forgotten how to turn. It was like a tide that was determined to eat the world. He looked out to sea. An angry purple bruise was spread across the horizon, bulging up into the sky. Sullen sheets of lightning glared across it.

  Any hope that he’d had, died then. The storm that was coming was no ordinary storm. History was about to happen.

  Cait: Skara Brae

  There was no poison more feared. Corncockle grew among the barley fields, a deadly snare for the unwary. There was no cure.

  ‘Why? Voy, why?’

  ‘Because it’s time.’ The Old Woman’s words cut through the crowding strange sounds that tried to suffocate them. They cut through the rising ruckus of the storm. Sweat stood out on her twisted face with the effort of speech, as she fought doggedly for each syllable. ‘Because I choose not to be just another Benth, just another extraneous crone. Because I choose to be remembered for ever.’

  And then she laughed, even though that too was a cruel effort.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ She reached out her working hand and dug her fingers into Cait’s arm. They felt like the claws of an eagle. ‘I choose to be the question they ask – the children of time – long after the likes of Sketh and Tron – and you – have passed out of mind. They’ll ask – about me – and they won’t find the answer—’

  And then there was only enough energy left for her to laugh with. She let go of Cait’s arm and cackled and wheezed.

  A sudden gust of wind shook the roof. Dirt trickled down, making the fire stutter. Without thinking, Cait reached over to mend it, but Voy shook her head.

  ‘Leave it. It’s time. Make my bed.’

  Cait reached for the stone to cover the cist.

  ‘No!’

  ‘What? I don’t understand.’ But she did.

  ‘There!’ Voy pointed, jabbing the air with her finger. ‘Make my bed there!’

  Cait’s heart juddered in her chest. Voy was telling her to make her bed in the cist, beside the empty bones. The two women who had given Cait life, lying side by side, one dying, one dead. But then, she thought, why not? There was no horror there in the cist. Her mother was at rest. Her bones wouldn’t mind the company.

  Voy pointed again. ‘There.’

  Cait began to work, just as she’d done hundreds of times before. She laid fresh heather down, plumping it up to make a fragrant, springy mattress. She smoothed the supple hide over it, carefully tucking it in at the edges. She shook the fleece, hard, to make the wool stand up and dislodge any vermin, and laid it to one side.

  The drug in the drink had almost finished its work. The glitter in the Old Woman’s eye was dimming at last. Except she’s not the Old Woman – I am. Me. She almost felt like laughing, it was so ridiculous.

  ‘Now.’

  Cait lifted her. It was no effort – such a little weight. She carried her from the dying hearth and laid her down in the cist, her last strange resting place.

  The Old Woman sighed, as if in contentment. Then she reached over and lightly placed her live hand over the bony hand of the other woman. It was a gentle gesture, almost loving.

  And then she was gone.

  Cait laid the fleece over them both. As she stepped back, she kicked against something loose on the floor. It was the spirit stone that had been missing from the shelves for so long. She bent, picked it up and put it back in its place beside the others.

  There was a scratch at the door. When she opened it, Ailth was there. He didn’t speak. He just looked at her and waited.

  ‘Voy is dead,’ Cait said. ‘Tell the others.’

  Ailth nodded and backed away, carefully keeping his gaze away from whatever mysteries the house of the Old Woman might contain.

  Cait pulled the door stone across again and waited. It was not long before the scratch came again, and again she pulled the door stone aside.

  They were all there, all the villagers, crouched in the passageway. Above the growing whine of the wind, Cait could hear Sketh swearing steadily somewhere at the back of the crowd – I’ll be needing to take the stitches out soon, she thought in an oddly calm part of her mind – but everyone else was silent. Their eyes glittered in the torch light. They were watching her. No, they were looking to her.

  The amber of her mother’s necklace flickered in the torch light, a deep red circle round her throat. She could feel it warm against her skin. She could see the impact of it registering in the faces of the villagers.

  ‘Voy is dead,’ she told them.

&n
bsp; They nodded, accepting. Not surprised.

  ‘The storm that is coming is not an ordinary one,’ she told them.

  They knew that too.

  ‘This is what I have decided we should do …’ As she gave her instructions, she waited for the outrage, the disdain, the opposition. The cries of Why should we listen to YOU? What right have YOU to tell us what to do?

  But the cries did not come.

  Rab: Bay of Skaill

  ‘Put on the suit, Rab – there’s not enough power.’

  There was no point in arguing when his Com was still so weak. He began to strip off. He laid aside the wool and hide that had felt so alien at first, placing them carefully in a dip in the sand beside the Silver Skin. For a cold, shuddering instant, he was between worlds, between times – not tied to any. Then he reached for the suit. He dragged it on, ripping it even further in the process. He could see his own brown skin through the tears.

  Will it work with the seal broken? Can it generate enough power to send a message all that way? So far into the future?

  The sky felt lower every time Rab glanced up, as if a malicious force were pushing down a lid. The boiling of black clouds from the sea drew closer, growing percpetibly. They were hypnotic to watch, so mesmerizing he jumped in surprise when his Com’s voice suddenly spoke. It sounded like a shout, but it was only going through a check list of things to do, consider, calculate …

  Rab felt a sudden wave of affection. I’ve missed you!

  ‘—narrow the band width – no more than 6.e units to the vertical degree – to have any chance – with the storm as an anchor, surely that would …’

  The stuttering was gone, now that his Com had more energy to draw on, but the damage to the suit was clearly affecting it still. Rab could tell it was having to struggle with all the calculations necessary to send a message through the reluctance of time, measurements and equations which normally would have only given it delight. But he had to talk to it. He had to make it understand the situation.