The Visitors (15 page)

The selkie was furious. But a selkie in love is a strange and passionate creature. Angry as she was, she couldn’t bear to see him dead. She dragged him to the surface and left him on the beach. The sailor was badly shaken but unharmed, though all his poor shipmates were drowned in the storm.

The story doesn’t end there. The selkie resolved to discover more about the sailor and that wife of his. She needed to know what any earthly woman could offer better than a magical, beautiful selkie. She came to land and stowed her sealskin in the dunes. Disguising herself as an old woman, she made her way towards the town. Asking around, she
discovered that the sailor and his wife were childhood sweethearts and forever in love, but that they were blighted with great misery. They’d been married three years, and were still without a child. The young bride was beside herself with woe. She’d spoken to the priest and the midwife. She had tried remedies old and new, but nothing worked. She was barren. She could not conceive a child.

On hearing this, the selkie knew in a flash how to steal a portion of the sailor’s love. Still disguised as an old crone, she marched right up to their wee croft and hammered on the door. She was answered by the sailor’s bride.

The selkie claimed to be a humble midwife, a traveller to the island, who had heard tell of their plight and knew how to help. Despondent but polite, the lass invited her in right away. Inside, the selkie found a sorry house indeed. Both the lassie and her husband sat about, hapless and hopeless, miserable beyond measure. Craving a child, they barely spoke from the fear they would never have what they wanted most.

‘Fret not,’ said the selkie woman, smiling sweetly. ‘For surely I can help you.’

She took the unhappy lass to one side. The problem, she whispered, is not with you, but with your husband. When you go to bed tonight, turn down the light and leave – tell him you’ve gone to fetch a glass of milk, or to feed the fire. Then light a candle at your door and leave, leave the cottage and run, run as fast as you can. Run to the fairy stones on the hill. Turn thrice about the tallest and run, run back to your husband. If you return before the candle burns out, said the smiling selkie, then you shall right this great injustice.

The young lass studied the ugly old woman. She was doubtful but willing, in her sadness, to try anything for a child. She agreed to the plan. That night, when they turned for bed, the lassie popped out, leaving the room in darkness.
She tiptoed to the door. Hands fumbling with a spill, she lit a candle and bolted for the stones, running as though her life depended on it. Back in the cottage, the selkie slipped into the bedroom and changed at once into her proper form, that of a beautiful young woman. Cloaked in night, the sailor believed her to be his bride. In the darkness, the man joined together with the selkie, and they bound themselves in blind, unbridled lust.

Out on the hillside, the young lass reached the stone circle, turned thrice about the tallest stone and sprinted home, reeling with the blood that rushed about her bones. Her craving for a child gave her wings, and soon the cottage came into view, and sure enough! Her candle still burned at the threshold. She seized the lamp and burst into the bedroom, full of joy … And, by candlelight, she found the selkie entwined around her own true man. She moaned, sick with horror and betrayal. With a light now in the bedchamber, the sailor realised at once what trickery was afoot. He threw the creature from him, but the damage had been done. The laughing selkie fled back into the sea. As she escaped, she reached out her seal hand and brushed firm and low against the lassie’s belly. The candle spilled wax upon the floor.

The sailor and his bride continued in their life together, though their love was cracked in half. The trust between them lay shattered, but what could they do? They spent their nights in sadness and in silence. As the season rolled on, however, things began to change. Three months later, the entire village was amazed when the young lass began to show.

As twisted and polluted as it was, the selkie had kept her word. A child began to grow within the barren lass. With this, the sailor and his bride rekindled some of their lost love. The selkie had exacted a heavy toll … but the couple would pay most anything for a child of their own.

Three months turned to six months, and then to nine. On a dark, rain-spattered morning, the lass began to labour. It was hard. O, it was hard indeed. Nurses were sent for, and the cottage thronged with women. The kettle shrilled on the fire crane, and the shrieks grew louder in the bedroom, louder and more desperate. Then the lass uttered a scream so raw, so dreadful, so awful, that not a soul in earshot ever forgot it. And in that terrible moment, her child was born.

The women gathered close to deliver the baby, but then recoiled in horror.

It was a seal pup.

Cloaked in a caul of blood and matter, it mewled and wriggled in the sheets. Alarmed by the scream, and struck by the sickened silence, the young sailor burst into the room. The seal child squirmed amongst the sodden blankets. Bellowing in anguish, the sailor gathered the pup and dashed down to the shore. Heart pounding, he crashed into the surf. He held the pup beneath the surface of the sea. He didn’t blink or flinch as the tiny seal began to buck. After long, awful minutes, it stopped kicking and fell limp in his hands.

At that moment, back in the cottage, the exertions of labour proved too much for the lassie. She expired, giving out her last breath even as the pup fought for air. The sailor slumped home to find the second tragedy – his wife dead. Ripped apart, demolished entirely, betrayed and left bereft, he lost his mind to grief. He took his little boat, and struck out for the New World.

No one heard of him again.

The top of Ben Sèimh dissolved in a haze of green and grey and amber. Gulls swung upon the inland currents.

‘Is that it?’ said Ailsa quietly.

‘That’s it,’ replied the shennachie, gruffly, turning to face her. He was in profile to me, and I studied his swollen-shut eye.

‘How could the sailor not know the difference?’

‘What’s that?’

‘In bed. Even in the dark. He’d have to know the selkie wasn’t his wife.’

‘It’s just a story,’ said the shennachie.

Ailsa made as though to speak again, then closed her mouth.

‘It was amazing, Izzy,’ I said, ‘cheers.’

‘No bother. Any time. Always good to dust off the older ones, remember how they go.’

‘Where was that one from?’

‘Raasay, that one,’ he said, and stoked the fire with a charred bamboo cane. ‘The circle’s still there. The stones are fallen in, but still there.’

‘I thought there was no truth in any of these tales?’

Izzy made a so-so gesture with his good hand. ‘Not like that. There’s no selkies, obviously. But some of the stories are pinned to real places, or real people. Creative licence, Flora. It goes a long way.’

‘They had to come from somewhere.’

The big man snorted. ‘From the bottom of a whisky bottle, maybe.’

‘Come on. No smoke without fire.’

He grinned and shook his head.

‘Picture the scene, Flo. It’s been a long, shitty winter. Your harvest was poor. Your best sow’s gone fallow. Your thatch is sodden. There’s beasties in your bed, biting your arse every time you try to sleep. Six hours of daylight at best, and everything is piss-wet through.’

‘Sounds like fun.’

‘Exactly. So you start telling stories to your pals, finding ways to warm the night.’

‘You don’t just invent a selkie,’ I said. ‘That needs a spark.’

‘Aye, of course. But that’s when Fergus falls into the loch and drowns himself, and old Mary sees a seal around the same time, and all of a sudden there’s a story to tell.’

‘So why are there different sorts of selkie, then?’

‘Because it’s a good story. Folk remember the good ones, and tell them again. But they tell them different to you, and so the stories change as they go.’

I harrumphed, but didn’t argue.

‘And that doesn’t happen with those books of yours, girl. Stuck on a page, a story has no life. It can’t go anywhere. It’s fixed down like a butterfly on a pin.’

‘Or a bear in a cage,’ I murmured.

He beamed at me. ‘That’s it. Now you understand.’

The fire crackled, and I drew a lungful of woodsmoke.

‘You seen the stones up on the Ben?’ asked the beachcomber.

‘Stones? No. What stones?’

‘There’s pagan spots here, too. From when the Norsemen came, hundreds of years before they converted to Christ.’

‘Why don’t I know about this?’ I said. ‘I’ve lived here all my life. You’re only an offcomer.’

‘An offcomer that knows more than you, clearly,’ he said, tapping his nose, then wincing at the bruise. ‘Whenever I move somewhere new, I make it my business to find out all there is about the place and its people.’

‘I’ve been up the Ben dozens of times. There’s nothing there.’

‘Oh, but there is. You just didn’t know where to look.’

‘All right, smuggo. Where do we go?’

‘Your side, the Atlantic side. When you’re right above the wind farm, strike straight up towards the peak. There’s a wee corrie up there. In the corrie, there’s Viking stones. Covered in moss, but you can still see the carvings.’

‘Shouldn’t you tell someone? The heritage people, or the tourist board or something?’

‘Why should I tell them?’ he scoffed. ‘All they’ll do is bang a roof on top and charge folk to go and see it. No. Everything is designed to fall away, in time.’

‘Can we make it today?’ said Ailsa.

‘Aye. If you go now.’

‘So let’s go,’ she said.

I went to grab my school bag, but Izzy stuck out a paw.

‘Flora,’ he said, ‘stay another second, will you? I’ve something to tell you.’

I looked at him, puzzled, then Ailsa.

‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you by the fence.’

Standing beside the beachcomber, I watched her go, taking a thin path that wound between the scrub. When she was out of earshot, I turned to Izzy.

‘What’s up?’

‘Tell me about Ailsa,’ he said, still watching after her. ‘Who is she?’

‘Ach, she’s just a friend. She’s new to the island. She’s moved to Dog Rock. She doesn’t know anyone.’

Izzy raised his eyebrows. ‘All the way out there? She reminds me of someone. Where’s she from?’

‘Islay, most recently, I think.’

‘Good whisky on Islay,’ he said, thoughtfully, as though that was how he judged the quality of a person.

‘Is that it? I thought you had some big secret to tell me.’

‘No, no. It’s just that new people make me nervous, turning up like that.’

‘Don’t be daft. Don’t worry about Ailsa,’ I said. ‘I’ll vouch for her. She’s not the police or anything like that. She’s like me. One more year of school to go, and then I guess she’s leaving. I’d better catch her up. I’m off.’

‘All right, lass.’

‘You look after yourself, won’t you? And watch out for Lachlan coming back.’

‘Tell you what. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for Lachlan Crane, and you keep your eyes peeled for those stones. They won’t come easy. They don’t like being found.’

Ailsa waited by the first fence, and I quickly caught her up.

‘All good?’ I said.

‘Hmm? Aye, I’m fine.’

We struck out straight across the field.

‘What do you make of Izzy, then?’

‘He’s quite the character.’

‘And the rest. He’s a legend.’

‘That’s pretty bad, what Lachlan did.’

‘Lachie’s a dick. Izzy wouldn’t hurt a fly. If I ever had a problem, he’s the first person I’d go to.’

‘That’s good to know.’

‘Did you like the story?’

‘Not really,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It seemed a bit … well, one-sided.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, it’s not like any selkie story I’ve ever heard. The shennachie on Rum told stories of the seal folk, and they were different. Selkies are supposed to be gentle, aren’t they?’

‘Aye, that’s what I thought, until I started this research. Some stories have them being soft and sad, but this book I found, and Izzy’s stories, they’re all saying that selkies go out of their way to hurt people and break their hearts.’

‘That’s not what I’ve heard. The stories I know are all about heartbreak and loss, that’s true. But they’re mostly about people and selkies being kept apart. The selkies feel love, too.’

‘I’d like some of those stories, too,’ I admitted.

‘Izzy’s story was just mean. It’s not like I need a happy ending, but that was plain brutal.’

‘That’s nothing,’ I said. ‘You should see this book I found at a jumble sale. Izzy’s stories are nothing compared to that.’

Ailsa reached the fence first. Pressing down on the top strand of withered barbed wire, she vaulted nimbly across.

‘It’s a shame,’ she said, and pinned the wire for me to follow. ‘Selkies should be something wonderful and magical, and that sort of story makes them monsters.’

‘But selkies aren’t real,’ I said, ‘and history evolves. Over time, people decide what’s important.’

I clambered over the fence, and we scrambled through the birches to the road. We fell into easy step on the weathered tarmac. It was only half a mile to the track that led uphill. We huffed a way up the flank of Ben Sèimh, taking a sparse path through the scrubby heather. We walked with trousers tucked into socks, trying to keep the ticks out. Though the mountain was only a few hundred metres high, it was an ordeal to get there. Halfway up, the path forked. Ahead, the main track continued to the summit. Branching right, a fainter route traced a girdle onto the western side of the Ben.

‘This way,’ I panted. ‘He said it was in line with the turbines.’

Ailsa flapped a breathless hand at me, and we plodded on. The walking improved as the gradient levelled, and it became easier to enjoy the view. Panoramas from the Ben were usually spectacular, with the Sound dropping into blue and the Highlands rising in the distance, but the day was cloaked in haze, and the mainland was barely visible, everything washed out to sepia. Crofts and houses whitewashed stark against the heather.

Rounding the Ben, the turbines appeared beneath us. Staring out to sea, they chopped and pounded with the Atlantic gusts. Only one of the three was working, the other two standing impotent, swaying and knocking in the steady breeze. The sounds floated up the hillside in clunks and clanks. We followed the track around the mountain until we were above the wind farm. I kept checking the turbines below me against the peak above.