The Gloaming

by Kirsty Logan

  ‘Mara, wait. Please.’ Pearl’s voice was cracking, the vowels strained, tears softening her edges.

  And then Mara did the one thing she could think of that would make Pearl stop, that would burn up her tears, that would make her stand back and let Mara go. She said Pearl’s name, the secret name, the one she’d given up long ago and never claimed again. The silence after Mara spoke was sticky and thick. She couldn’t breathe.

  ‘That’s not my name, Mara.’ Pearl’s voice was low. There was a bang, a threatening shudder, and Mara turned to look as Pearl smacked her hand again on the closed door of the shed. ‘I said that’s not my fucking name.’

  Her legs shaking, Mara walked away, and she did not look back.

  Reverence

  ALL SIGNE AND Peter’s children were perfect, but Barra – her little Bee – was somehow even more perfect. He was beautiful, of course he was. He was a pixie, an elf, a creature from a better world. His tiny upturned nose, his wide and restless lips, his doll-chin. And loveliest of all, his eyes: the icy snowflake in the blue iris, a starburst each time he blinked. His body was so delicate that he barely looked real. He was so much smaller than Signe’s daughters had ever been. She remembered lying in her starched and weary hospital bed and wanting nothing more than to keep him inside her for just a little longer before he had to face the world.

  First there was one nurse, then another. Then the doctor. The nosy neighbour and the health visitor and the snippy mother at the shop. ‘Something is wrong,’ they said. ‘Something is wrong with your child.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ said Signe. ‘What rot. Look at that child – have you ever seen a more perfect child?’

  Yes, he flinched at loud noises and unfamiliar voices. Yes, he didn’t move towards walking or pottying as quickly as her girls had. Yes, during a tantrum he sometimes got so hysterical that he stopped breathing. But what of it? Not all children were the same, just as not all adults were the same.

  They could name it all they wanted, this thing they said was wrong with him. But Signe knew her child. They would just have to be patient, and everything would be fine. She never should have gone to the mainland to have him. It was no good for him there.

  Signe knew that her boy just needed some quiet. Some space to himself. Some privacy away from prying eyes. Somewhere he could catch a glimpse of the other world he’d left to enter this one.

  Répéter

  SIGNE WAS TURNING to stone. She had known for a long time that it was happening. At first it was a slowing, a stiffening. Normal enough for any woman of a certain age – and for an ex-dancer with a snapped Achilles tendon, inevitable. Her salted hair, now more grey than red. Her morning stretches making no difference to her sleep-stiff limbs. Her moving joints scraping like gravel underfoot.

  There was one more thing that she had to try. One more way to make herself lighter. One more thing she had left to give.

  She waited until the moon rose, then she walked through the sleeping house and through the garden and past the trees. She stood on the shore, ready to unburden herself to the sea.

  ‘Take it,’ she said, her hands held open to the waves. ‘Take my loss.’

  The sea did not.

  ‘Take my sadness,’ she said. ‘Take all the hope I had for my son. Take all the love I have for my husband. Take the freedom and honesty I couldn’t give to my daughters.’

  The sea did not.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Take it from me. It’s too heavy. I can’t carry it any more.’

  But the sea did not want her grief – or Signe did not want to give it away.

  She turned and slowly, slowly made her way up the stony beach. Over the years, she read her children so many stories about that other world – and so many of the stories had lost children. Hansel and Gretel, following breadcrumbs, fattening for a witch. Seven cursed brothers, turned to swans, lost to their loving father. Rapunzel, locked in her tower. But the thing about the children in the stories is that they always came home. So where was her boy? Why wouldn’t he come home?

  However hard we try to make a deal with the world, the world hasn’t agreed. Nature can’t love us back.

  Signe’s progress up the beach was slow, and she was almost at the treeline. Usually she would stride right past this point, eyes already seeing through the trees to home. But her joints creaked so very loudly, and her bones were so very heavy. She just needed a moment to catch her breath. She dropped to her knees and rested on the stones at the high-tide mark. The steady lap of the sea. The silvery fuzz of insects overhead. The chill of the wind on her bare arms.

  Idly, Signe stroked her hand along the stones, letting them click-clack together. Ready and rested, she glanced down to see where she could push with her hands to get back up. She paused.

  ‘Bee,’ she said, and she didn’t know why.

  Her eyes, adjusted to the moonlight, caught on something long and pale among the stones. Not driftwood. Not mussel shells.

  She reached out her hand. And then, just like that, my mother found my bones. The bones were dirty from their time in the sea, caked in sand and wrapped in seaweed, their edges smoothed by the tumble of waves. But they were small, and real, and mine.

  ‘Bee,’ she said, and now she knew why.

  Barra

  SO THERE IT is. The sea had taken me, and now the sea was giving me back.

  Remember right at the start of the story, when I told you about our last summer together? Me and my sisters on the beach, navigating a shore made squishy and silvered with jellyfish? Well, the thing about jellyfish is that they don’t mean to sting. They don’t have brains, so they can’t have intention. They don’t have eyes, so they can’t plot a path. They drift, thoughtless, on their way nowhere. But it doesn’t seem that way to us. Not if we’re summer-sea-swimming, legs dangling down in the dark, and a jellyfish brushes past, the contact a sudden sharp burn in the cold water.

  Because then we’re stung. We’re in pain. We’re damaged.

  We might think, Why did this happen to me? But we might as well ask, Why did this happen to the jellyfish? The answer is the same for us and for the jellyfish: it didn’t happen to you. It just happened.

  Back before I died, when I was little and golden and gorging myself on magic, the island never seemed small to me. Every day my sisters and I made the world anew. Every day was a world within a world. Perhaps if I hadn’t been born right when I was, my sisters would have been different. I think they were almost ready to stop dreaming and see the world for what it was. But how could they shake off their dreams, when they had to dream them all afresh for me? How could that other world not be real, when there I was pulling them towards it?

  The sea took me, and there I was all along. I was with my family, and not with them. I was close, and not close. Before I died I never really understood any of them. I never listened to them, and they wouldn’t have told me what they were really thinking anyway. But afterwards – well, afterwards I could go wherever I wanted. And I chose to be with them. In their heads and in their hearts. I finally understood them, at least a little.

  I had five years with them in their world, and I’ve had five years with them in this other world. My time is almost up.

  Braw

  SIGNE GATHERED UP my bones and carried them through the trees and towards the house. She paused at the back door, where a figure stood in the shadows.

  ‘Pearl,’ said Signe.

  ‘Oh,’ said Pearl. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Are you going to the house?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, no. I mean, I’m going to my house, because Mara, she thinks I’ve left the island, and – are those bones?’

  Signe glanced down as if she didn’t already know what she held. ‘It’s Bee,’ she said. ‘It’s my baby. He came home.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Pearl. ‘Oh.’

  The night air was warm, the sea breeze tickling their arms and cheeks. In the darkness clouds of glossy insects flickered, reflecting the light, becoming night again.


  ‘I can’t take him inside,’ said Signe. ‘I don’t want the girls to see him like this.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Pearl. ‘Let me help.’

  Together, Signe and Pearl took care of me. They unwrapped the seaweed and rinsed off the sand. From the outside sink they made up a soaking bucket of clean water. They scrubbed off the grime of the ocean, the muck of the land. The marks of the five years I spent away from my family, yet always with them.

  ‘Near the house,’ said Signe. ‘In the orchard. He liked playing there.’

  They did not need a big hole so they used their bare hands, scooping the damp soil of the garden with their fingernails, pushing the small stones aside with their palms. Then Pearl sat on the grass at a respectable distance, leaving Signe alone with her son.

  Under the moon, Signe laid down my clean white bones. She kissed each one as she placed it in the ground. She pushed the soil back into place. She did not mark the grave.

  ‘Now he’s free,’ said Pearl, speaking mostly to herself.

  Signe stared at her. ‘Why did you say that? What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any offence. I just meant – I don’t know. It’s something my mother used to say when someone died. She said that this world, for all its wonders, can be heavy. It can weigh us down, box us in. But afterwards, we’re free. We’re like birds, and we can fly to anywhere we like.’

  Signe sat back on her heels, her hands still holding the shape of me.

  ‘Signe, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean – I can’t begin to understand how –’

  ‘I was thinking about my girls. About me and their father, how we were always pulling them back here.’

  ‘Mara loves you. That’s why she came back. You were here and you needed her – you didn’t force her. You didn’t even ask.’

  ‘I’ve given my girls all I have,’ said Signe, ‘and I’ve taken too much in return. How can they make their choices when I’m still making them? How can they freely decide whether to leave or to stay? That’s no choice at all. But I can set them free.’

  Signe turned towards the cliff, then turned back. ‘You’re good,’ she said. ‘For Mara. I should have said that before.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pearl.

  ‘Will you look after her for me?’

  ‘She doesn’t need me to. You were right before. She needs to be free.’

  Signe and Pearl walked their separate ways. Birds must fly and selkies always leave.

  Soutenu

  BALLET DANCERS ARE unavoidably aware of the forces of the world. Gravity, friction, balance. Every movement they perform is a deal made with the world.

  Signe reached the base of the hill and began the trek upwards. Above her, the moon shone as bright as polished silver. The air smelled of grass and clean earth. Everything, even the wind, was silent.

  The benefit of the solo dancer is that she copes alone with a physical environment that is, if not always controllable, at least predictable. The floor of the stage or practice room will not suddenly change its position, and gravity will not suddenly release or strengthen its hold. This is not the case when she dances with a partner. With two people controlling the movement, the potential for conflict arises.

  Signe emerged at the top of the hill. For so long she had been feeling heavier and heavier with each passing day; now she felt as weightless as moonlight. She passed the silvered statues without looking at them. There was only one that mattered.

  Traditional ballet operates with strict gender roles. The woman is delicate and dependent; the man strong, supportive and in control. In a paired dance, or a pas de deux, much of the male dancer’s job is to support his partner and display her to the audience in the most effective way. The female dancer must feel free and able to move, and to do this she must be able to rely unthinkingly on her partner’s strength and stability. In any dance there is a complex interchange of trust, support, and acceptance. But the most important thing for both dancers is that their effort must never show.

  Signe made her weightless way through the statues, closer to the edge of the cliff. There was Peter: his strong back; his grounded feet; his arms raised to the sky, ready.

  The climax of a pas de deux is the male dancer supporting the female in a climactic lunge, fall or lift. To achieve this, the female dancer must accept the possibility – even the likelihood – of falling. The female dancer cannot control how she is lifted and held; only her own position in the air. She must surrender control and let her partner support her.

  Signe approached her husband. She slid her arms up his back, curling them over his shoulders. She pressed her body against his.

  A successful dancer follows rules. There are strict rules even for a standing dancer. When at the barre, the dancer must not roll her feet. She must straighten her knees, pull up her thighs, lift from her hips, stretch her ribs, lengthen her back, loosen her neck. Lastly, but most importantly, she must raise her eyes and look outward.

  Signe was ready. She was as light as a bird. She wanted to stay forever, cast in stone, looking into her husband’s eyes. She knew that they would hold their pose there together on the cliff, until the rain and wind and snow and sun wore them down finally, after years.

  She took a few steps back, feet tickling on the grass, and bent her knees. Putting her weight onto her right leg, she raised her left foot, toe pointed. It did not matter that there was no one there to see; her form would still be perfect. She pushed off the ground with all her strength: with her leg, the ball of her foot, her toe, right up into the air. She was so light that the wind might snatch her away.

  She twisted in the air so she was facing back to the island, and landed perfectly in Peter’s upraised hands. Her body was raised up above his head, and he was looking right into her face. At the last moment, before her muscles ground to stone, before the whites of her eyes turned grey, Signe tilted her head down to look at Peter. He was smiling.

  Drookit

  THE FIRST GREAT boom of thunder woke Mara and Islay at the same moment. By the time they’d blinked awake, lightning lit the room silver. Less than a second later, thunder shook the house again. Mara’s first half-sleeping thought was to roll out onto the floor, dragging her blankets with her, and hide under the heavy wooden bed. Islay’s first half-sleeping thought was to run through to her mother’s room, which was empty.

  ‘Mum? Mummy, are you here?’

  In reply, the wail of the storm.

  Islay ran instead to her sister’s room. That bed was empty too, the sheet rumpled.

  ‘Mara,’ she said, ‘bloody God damn you, Mara,’ speaking only to herself, a tiny fierce whisper in an endless empty house.

  ‘Under here,’ came the muffled reply. Islay, heart pitching, dropped to her knees. Together the sisters huddled under the bed. Lightning lit up the other side of the house. Somewhere, cannons.

  ‘Why are we hiding?’ Islay’s laugh shook. ‘This is ridiculous. We’re not children.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mara, not even pretending to laugh.

  ‘It’s only a storm.’

  ‘Still.’

  Thunder boomed again, and Islay let out a squeal, which she immediately covered with a cough. The windows rattled in their rotting frames, the wind and rain screaming into the room. There seemed as much weather inside the house as outside it. In the sudden flash of lightning, Mara put her arm around her sister and pulled her further under the bed.

  The next crash of thunder was lost as the wind slammed open the front door of the house. Islay screamed and didn’t try to hide it.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Mara, though she had no idea if it was.

  ‘It’s not,’ said Islay. ‘Mum’s not in her bed.’

  ‘Okay then, it’s not okay.’ Mara wriggled out of the covers and waited for Islay to follow. Already the edges of the window were emitting a steady drip. Outside the bedroom door they heard the wind hissing and screeching down the hallways.

  ‘Dad.’

&nb
sp; ‘I know,’ said Mara, wishing that she didn’t.

  In the grip of the storm the island was unrecognisable, a land from a forgotten myth. Mara and Islay, wrapped in patterned oilcloth, staggering in pairs of Peter’s too-big boots, leaned into the wind and fought their way up the cliff.

  Through the sheet of sideways rain, in the quick flash of lightning, right at the edge of the cliff, they saw a man with his head tipped back and his palms raised to the sky – and a woman balanced on his hands, legs raised, toes pointed at the storming clouds. The stone figures were locked together in a perfectly balanced pose. They were looking into one another’s eyes, unknowing of the storm around them.

  ‘That’s why,’ murmured Mara to herself. ‘That’s why he stood like that. He was waiting for her.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s safe in the house,’ shouted Islay. ‘We need to find somewhere to wait out the storm.’ She hunched under the rain’s assault, the wind stealing her breath. She laughed, and the rain on her face made it more like crying. ‘There’s nowhere we can go. If only we could go under the sea, or underground.’

  Mara shouted back: ‘We can.’

  They fought the storm down the cliff and between the fields and walls and gorse and empty land and battened-down houses, all of it invisible to them, all of it clothed in rain and blown twistwise by wind, right to the centre of the island. Mara held tight to Islay’s arm and pulled her to the door of Pearl’s house. The wind had ripped open the door of the library bus and torn book pages flapped around them, sodden with rain.

  They pushed and pulled and twisted the doorknob, but the door remained locked. Mara, despairing, smacked her fist against the door. She’d pushed Pearl away, off the island and back to her old life, and now this home was nothing but a shell.