The Black North (31 page)

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Authors: Nigel McDowell

BOOK: The Black North
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‘And was she a happy enough woman, or sad?' asked Merrigutt.

Oona opened her mouth, then realised she had no swift answer, no certainty. So she said, ‘Don't know. A bit of both. She never did much about the house – that was Granny, and there were rows about it. Bad arguments.' Oona thought more, and then said, ‘I never even spoke to her much. I was out in the forest with Morris most of the time. It was like … like she was hardly even there.'

Then Merrigutt turned – she was crying.

‘Please,' said Oona, and her own voice quivered. ‘Tell me what you know.'

‘No,' said Merrigutt, ‘I'll not tell you, my girl: I'll show.'

74

Merrigutt settled a hand on Oona's and said, ‘Now: see all the nightmares I have in me.'

Slowly, Oona took the Loam Stone from the sack. The warmth of it was a low throb – steady heartbeat, deep breathing. Oona allowed a moment, and then let herself see –

In her mind she saw Merrigutt: girl about to become a woman, standing in the same living room they'd left minutes earlier. Merrigutt's mother was there too – younger, brighter, smiling. The pair of them were pacing. Barefoot, they wandered the room together. From their fingers fell scarlet – powder being sown slowly like bright seed on every surface. And magic made flowers sprout, sudden spring – daffodil and tulip and rose and crocus, brightest colours bursting from tabletop and floor and dresser and sill and hearth …

Merrigutt and her mother stopped – such smiles, such laughter, no bitter silence.

Oona heard Merrigutt's mother say, ‘You see now, my girl – see what wonders we can do. We don't need your father or any other man.' She linked an arm with Merrigutt, clung to her. ‘So let them stay where they are at the Burren, and we'll be happy enough here. We'll always have home as long as we have each other.'

Things began to fade, colour draining from the scene. Merrigutt's mother was lost. Not gone, if Oona looked close enough, but not as clear as she was. The mother was, Oona understood, suddenly less important. And what grew clearer, what meant more: a boy standing in the living-room. Tall, pale, dark curls, dark-eyed. He was holding Merrigutt's hand. And Oona felt for the first time that she shouldn't be seeing, wasn't decent to be watching … there might've been only these two in the world, in this one bright room. So close, they were passing words in whispers that Oona couldn't hear. Then some sound, some low song from someone approaching on the same path Oona had walked with Merrigutt. Was it Merrigutt's mother returning? Quickly from his belt the boy plucked a single snowdrop and slipped it into Merrigutt's hair. Oona heard words this time. He said soft, ‘I would do anything at all for you, Evelyn. Would you do the same?'

Merrigutt nodded.

‘Good,' said he. ‘Then meet me by the river at dark. Make sure you come just yourself.'

Merrigutt nodded again.

More sound closer, and the boy's lips pressed a soft kiss to Merrigutt's cheek and then he was gone.

Oona waited.

The scene in the living room shivered, changed, darkened. Oona heard words familiar, same cry and same kind of pleading she'd heard from her father but from Merrigutt's mouth –

‘What's happening to me, Mammy? How can we stop this?'

New sight, same living room: white easing through black outside the window, delicate shreds of snow. Spring was long-gone, a lost season. And Merrigutt was standing, staring down at her mother who was in her softer seat in the corner, facing the wall. Merrigutt was showing her mother her arm, sleeve folded back to the elbow – a grey-whiteness was creeping upwards, ashen stain, fingers as though they could fall away if shown a strong enough breeze.

‘Please!' said Merrigutt. ‘Do something to stop this, Mammy!'

‘I can't,' said Merrigutt's mother, and still she didn't look at her daughter. ‘It's sin that's made this come upon you. And serves you right! Deceiving me the way you did and getting yourself into this mess. Trust you to let something like this happen, and a grandchild on the way too.'

I'm so slow, thought Oona. So slow to see things clearly.

‘It's not sin,' said Merrigutt, and her unaffected hand went to the bold curve of her belly. ‘Not just me. Same thing is happening to all the girls. We're all changing, even girls married and decent and with daughters of their own. They say it's that thing out to sea – that darkness as sharp as a Briar-Witch's claw.'

‘Nonsense,' said Merrigutt's mother, but with little passion, little care.

‘I'll not just let this happen,' said Merrigutt, and Oona heard some shade of the Evelyn Merrigutt she knew: ‘I won't just stay and let this change keep coming. Not me and not the other girls either.'

Then Merrigutt's mother said, ‘You've no choice – this is home, my girl. And there's no getting away from the place you belong to.'

A darkening and no sight, only sound: a screaming, agony that was black and blood-red and weeping crimson. Silence, and then a single voice – Merrigutt's mother saying, ‘It's a girl. And let's pray to the Sorrowful Lady that she's nothing like her mother.'

Another change, new truth: not the living room then but the sight of Merrigutt alone in darkness. Look closer – on the coast, but the sea showing no white and making no sound. Oona could tell that Merrigutt was waiting. And it wasn't long before another figure stepped into sight: she wore a hood, was breathless and was quick to take Merrigutt's hands and said, ‘You got away all right?'

‘Did,' said Merrigutt. ‘You? Anyone see?'

‘No,' said this other girl. ‘How's the child?'

‘Well,' was all Merrigutt said.

‘Why'd you ask me here, Evelyn?' said the woman.

‘Say nothing,' said Merrigutt. ‘Just listen.'

They stopped. And in their silence Oona heard – whispers, words that she couldn't recognise but drifting in host from across the sea. Both Merrigutt and her companion stood hand-in-hand for long minutes.

Then Merrigutt said, ‘The Echoes.'

‘You think that's doing it?' asked the woman. ‘That whispering is the reason we're all going the way we are? All changing?'

Merrigutt nodded, then said, ‘We have to leave. We have to get away or else we'll change completely.'

‘Your little one,' said the woman. ‘She –'

‘Won't have a mother anyway if I stay,' said Merrigutt.

No warning, and the other woman whipped her hand from Merrigutt's and Oona thought the gesture meant disagreement. But it was only so the woman could drag her hood from her face, show how far her transformation had gone. And even in such dark Oona could tell two things quick: that the woman had been almost overcome by the Echoes, and that this woman was her mother.

‘Almost gone,' said Oona's mother. Her face was almost covered with the same ashen mark as Oona had seen on her father's arm, on Merrigutt. ‘Almost taken me. I'll be nearly nothing now soon.'

‘Caithleen,' said Merrigutt, and she settled a hand on the cheek of Oona's mother. ‘It must be tonight, or Sorrowful-Lady-knows I don't think I'll wake in the morning at all. We'll be only dust. We have to be telling the others, and quick.'

Oona's mother nodded.

Then together, some magic to move things: Merrigutt and Caithleen delved into their cloaks and scarlet powder was found and sown in the shape of men on the dark hillside. And as Oona had seen it so many times in the North, figures tore themselves free, smaller than the women but a strong dozen that awaited instruction.

‘Go!' Merrigutt told them. ‘Find the other girls who've been poisoned by these Echoes and bring them to the river! Hurry!'

So the summoned men moved off.

And then a shift in the scene that Oona knew was final, and last sight –

Her mother holding Merrigutt's hand as they hurried to the river, other girls around them running, trying not to stumble. Full moon was watching and shouts were following, a torment of echoes –

‘Stop them!'

‘Come back!'

‘You're not going to abandon your mothers and children!'

‘If you leave then just you wait and see what'll happen!'

‘By the Sorrowful Lady, you'll regret it all!'

But the women wouldn't wait – to the river and lowering themselves into boats, ropes undone and paddles found and Merrigutt calling, ‘Head South! Quickly!'

And the women had to fight to leave – thrash of paddles, no current to take them and on the riverbank shadows arrived to shout such abuse, such curses and swearing and promises of retribution thrown –

‘Abandoning your children and leaving your mothers – shame on you!'

‘You are now exiled! Let none of you ever darken our doors again!'

‘You'll regret this! Just wait and see – you'll regret ever leaving!'

But Merrigutt and Oona's mother and the other women only moved off into the dark.

‘Keep going!' Merrigutt told the small fleet. ‘Keep paddling – we're almost free!'

And already Oona could see the women hopeful – checking themselves, running hands and slow fingertips over their bodies, faces. Hope rewarded: the Echoes looked to be leaving them, skin softening, pale, restored. There were smiles, low shouts, some weeping: such happiness! Oona saw her mother and Merrigutt embrace.

But beneath all, Oona felt the Loam Stone telling otherwise –

No, this is not the end. This is not being free. Watch, wait for the nightmare …

Only minutes, and then –

‘What's happening to me?'

Cry of one woman, then more, then all: the women gasped and grabbed at their bellies, groaning, seized by sudden agony. Oona could hardly watch. Her mother was making such an effort to take only a breath, finding it impossible to stay upright. Merrigutt was holding Caithleen's hand and whispering, ‘It's all right. It's all right – we're free now.' But Merrigutt herself was in the same state as the others.

And from far off, the firm words of their mothers –

‘You cannot leave the place you belong to! You've no home now! And if you've no home then such a change will happen to you – worse than the Echoes! A dispell of the flesh! You'll not know yourself and there's no way back!'

And then screams of the same kind as Merrigutt had made in childbirth.

Oona forced herself to witness: flesh and hair became feather, limbs darkening to grubby and ragged things, bodies shrinking tight, feet sharpening to claws and mouths speaking not with screams any more but sharp
caws.
A sound like skin being stripped: mouths not mouths but beaks snapping.

Oona heard Merrigutt's distant voice say, ‘Now you know, my girl. Now you've seen.'

Oona's final sight: flurry of dark entering the night-sky, a flock of jackdaws screaming as the Loam Stone, satisfied, let Merrigutt's nightmare melt from Oona's mind.

75

Oona sat, saying nothing. Any sound came from elsewhere – cup being settled in its saucer, another stick added to the fire, clearing of a throat wearied by a long winter. The creak of a board outside the bedroom?

Finally, Merrigutt ended the silence –

‘You can think what you need to think.' She took her hand from Oona, eyes shut as though reliving all past pain. ‘I wouldn't blame you anyway if you hated me, thought me the worst in the world.'

‘I don't think that,' said Oona. She didn't know what she thought about many things – anything any more – but she was certain of this. ‘I don't hate.'

‘I left my daughter,' said Merrigutt.

‘Yes,' said Oona.

‘Never came back and never set eyes on her till today.'

‘I know. I saw.'

‘Then you should think bad of me, my girl.'

‘I won't.'

Merrigutt opened her eyes. And Oona wondered: Does the old woman look younger? Are the eyes less clouded, face less worn, hair darker?

Then Oona said, ‘You did what you thought better than anything else. So did my own mother.'

A moment, and then Merrigutt said, ‘I don't regret it. Even seeing her after fifteen years, I don't think I did the wrong thing. If I'd stayed – I wouldn't have stayed. Couldn't have survived, wouldn't be here at all. The Echoes would've taken me, and she'd have even less than what she has now.'

Moments transforming into minutes: a long while of saying nothing, and Oona had to think, and understand all the silence of the house, all the bitterness.

‘What happened after you left?'

‘Went anywhere we could,' said Merrigutt. ‘Everywhere across the Isle, but never back here. Never home.'

‘You were all transformed,' said Oona. ‘How can you be like this now? How come my mother was able to stay human?'

‘Because,' said Merrigutt, ‘like I told in your cottage back in Drumbroken: a dispell can only thrive where there's little enough hope, where it's let in and let settle. And we fought against it. But it was an old and poisonous magic, so potent it couldn't be undone. Best we could all comfortably do was make ourselves look like old women. None of us could shift it, except your mother. She fought harder than any.'

Merrigutt paused, and for once Oona found the patience to wait for more words.

‘I saw it happen,' said Merrigutt. ‘We were in a forest together in a small and quiet county in the South. A valley, a near-silent place. That's where she first laid eyes on your father. She was in human form when he saw her, and that was it – she was free, never changed back. She was restored to the girl she'd been before we'd abandoned home.'

‘How?' asked Oona.

‘Hope?' said Merrigutt. ‘Or love too, I suppose? Who knows for certain. But I'll say this – she was free, I think, because she found home. She saw your father and saw a place she could properly belong.'

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