At the Water's Edge

  I turned to face the oncoming vehicles, because then I didn't have to see the men's leering expressions. The drivers also looked at me, but they were behind glass, so I couldn't hear what they said. Finally, I saw the end of the line.

  In all, twenty-eight vehicles had driven past. I wondered how many of the young men would come back alive from wherever it was they were being sent.

  I kept walking.

  The clouds were an intense gray, surging and changing, and appearing in some places to roll out of crevices in the hills themselves. It was astonishing how little it took for the same landscape to take on a completely different cast. The hills, with their fields and forests, were alternately bleak, looming, rugged, or majestic, depending on what the sky above them was doing. At that moment, they looked aptly funereal.

  It must have seemed strange to Anna that I did not cry. Perhaps she thought I was having a delayed reaction. I considered the possibility, but dismissed it almost immediately.

  I wondered if he'd been eating in his study when the meat lodged in his windpipe, or if he'd gone back to taking his meals in the dining room. Had he made any noise, or was he completely silent? Perhaps he'd turned purple and staggered around, trying to summon help. Perhaps he'd simply fallen facedown into a spinach souffle. I pictured these scenarios with morbid curiosity, but not sorrow, and definitely not grief.

  Although his letter to me had removed all doubt, I think I'd always known that he didn't love me, and apparently his lack of affection had engendered the same in me. There'd been a dearth of affection all around.

  My mother certainly hadn't loved me, despite her extravagant claims. Her affections, such as they were, vaporized entirely during the seven weeks she was on the run with Arthur and returned, redoubled, only when she was forced to go back to my father.

  Ellis had also never loved me. At least, not as a husband should love his wife, and recently, not at all.

  I reached the castle. Although I hadn't consciously chosen it as a destination, I climbed up and through the dry moat and across the interior grounds without hesitation. I found myself standing at the opening to the Water Gate.

  I picked my way down the hill, which was steep enough that toward the bottom I ended up in a graceless gallop to keep from losing my balance.

  In the scrub to the side of the landing, there were dozens upon dozens of cigarette butts. I was heartsick at the thought of Hank and Ellis setting up on the very spot from which Mairi had stepped to her death--drinking, smoking, and swearing, oblivious to everyone but themselves and their future fame.

  I stepped forward, as Mairi once had, until my feet were at the water's edge. I took another step, just a little one, so that the soles of my shoes were submerged. I watched the water swirl around them, then looked up at the loch itself, black and rolling, endlessly deep.

  What had Mairi's thoughts been as she walked in? When it was too late to turn back, when the water closed over her, had she regretted it or felt relief, believing that she was about to be reunited with her husband and child? I opened my mind, trying to channel her. I wanted to know what it was like to experience a love so deep you couldn't bear to exist without it.

  I felt her then--I felt Mairi and the cavernous depths of her grief, and had an overwhelming urge to keep going, to walk into the loch. Her anguish was boundless, her sorrow without end. I was drowning in it. We were drowning in it.

  I closed my eyes, lifted my arms, and let myself fall.

  A deep rumbling started in the water, like something was rising, followed by a great whoosh as it broke the surface. I opened my eyes, still falling--no way to stop then--and saw two blades of water curling from the edges of a channel that was being cut, but by what? Something was obviously racing across the surface of the water, but it looked like nothing was there. Before I could make any sense of it, the thing struck me in the abdomen, folding me around it and knocking me backward.

  I landed away from the water's edge, banging my head so hard my peripheral vision filled with tiny, sparkling stars. Although the wind had been knocked out of me, I staggered to my feet.

  The surface of the loch was smooth, the stones on the landing dry. There was no sign even of a dissipating wake.

  I scrambled up the hill, grabbing tufts of grass to speed my ascent. Only when I reached the top did I pause to catch my breath. I leaned against the inside of the ancient arch, periodically looking back at the loch, and trying unsuccessfully to calm myself.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  If Willie the Postie was surprised by my disheveled state when I entered his post office and asked about the possibility of making a transatlantic phone call, he didn't betray it. It was, after all, mere hours since he'd delivered the news of my father's death.

  He explained that overseas calls were by radio only, and that the equipment was at the Big House.

  "Thank you," I said, putting my gloves back on.

  "And where do you think you're going?" he demanded, angling his eyebrows fiercely.

  "To the Big House," I said.

  He raised a hand. "I'm afraid that's absolutely out of the question. The equipment is strictly for military use, no exceptions. It's not like a telephone box, you know. And anyway, you can't just go mucking about on the grounds of a battle school."

  "No. Of course not. I wasn't thinking."

  "You'll be sending a telegram then?"

  I cast him an embarrassed look. "I would, but I'm afraid my situation hasn't changed."

  "Ah," he said, nodding. "Under the circumstances, I think I can overlook the fee."

  "Thank you," I said. "That's very kind. I'll do my best to keep it short, but I'm afraid it might end up being rather long anyway."

  "I quite understand," he said, preparing to take my dictation.

  And I think he did understand, right up to the part where I asked the lawyer to please let me know what was involved in getting a divorce and whether I could do so from Scotland, and to please respond by either telegram or airmail, since I wished to settle both matters as quickly as possible.

  Willie understood that part too, but it was a different type of understanding, one not tempered by empathy. His entire bearing hardened.

  --

  Despite the warnings, I couldn't help myself. I had to see Craig Gairbh.

  I had no illusions about getting inside the Big House. I just wanted to lay eyes on the place. It was where Angus had lived before the war, and still spent his days. It was where he "took" the game and fish so many villagers depended on to supplement their rations. It was where the Colonel had made such a nuisance of himself, all those years ago, causing the international scandal that eventually led to Ellis and Hank deciding we had no choice but to find the monster ourselves. It was the nucleus of everything.

  There were no signs to direct me, although there were posts with holes in them where signs used to be, so I walked the periphery of the village until I found a dirt road that led into the forest. Because of my experience at the Cover, I took a moment to note where the sun was, as well as the relative positions of the hills, before winding my way in.

  Ancient rhododendrons began dotting the side of the road, the tips of their droopy leaves pulled toward the earth by the weight of snow, but already bearing buds for the coming spring. In one clearing, a constellation of purple crocuses poked defiantly through the crusted ice.

  About three quarters of a mile in, I caught my first glimpse of the house. I could see it only in bits and pieces, because the road was still twisting its way around, and many of the trees between the house and me were coniferous. Still, I got an immediate sense of its scope.

  I hurried around the bend to see more. The road grew wider and the thicket beside it disappeared, turning quite suddenly into a formal approach lined by hundred-year oaks. I stayed back, in the shadow of the woods.

  I was no stranger to large houses, but this was enormous. From counting windows, I could see that the center of the house had at least four main stories, and the end
towers even more. I could not begin to count the chimneys--I started at one end and lost track at sixteen, before I even reached the center. Semicircular staircases with stone balustrades approached the main door from both sides, and another row of balustrades graced the roof's parapet.

  This was no house. This was a castle.

  The entire front garden--or what had been the front garden--was enclosed in barbed-wire fencing and crammed with row upon row of corrugated metal shacks. They looked like Anderson shelters, only much larger. An enormous stone fountain, dry of course, rose from the center.

  The fountain looked to be from the Baroque period, with three or four human forms kneeling under an enormous vessel. I crept up behind a large yew to get a better look, and tripped on an exposed root. I fell forward, catching myself on the tree's rough trunk. Only then did I see the sign nailed to it, directly above my hand. It was bright red and triangular, with a white skull and crossbones on top, and a single word across the bottom:

  MINEFIELD

  I froze. My right foot was still partially on the root, leaving me precariously balanced. With my hand still firmly planted on the trunk, I looked down, studying my feet and the ground around me, wondering if there was any way at all of knowing where a mine might be buried.

  A spurt of gunfire crackled in the distance, underscored by male voices: bellowing, primitive, and fierce.

  I hadn't moved--was still standing with one foot teetering on the root and my hand braced against the trunk--when another round of gunfire went off, answered by a volley from a different, much closer location.

  I think I screamed. I'm not sure. But certainly my careless attitude toward live ammunition had been replaced by sheer terror. Tracer bullets at night were one thing. Minefields and machine guns were quite another.

  I was carrying my red gas mask case and wearing my red gloves, which would either make me visible enough that no one would shoot me accidentally, or else would make me an easy target.

  Guided by sheer instinct, I twisted away from the tree and leapt toward the road in long strides. My feet landed in a thick carpet of leaves three times before I reached it, and each time I was sure I was going to be blown to smithereens.

  When I found myself safely back on the road, I went completely still. I wondered if I'd been walking in a minefield the entire time, and how the hell I was going to escape.

  As shots continued to ring out in the forest around me, my eyes lit on tire tracks. I hopped into a rut and stayed carefully within it, placing each foot directly in front of the other. By the time I passed the last of the ancient rhododendrons, I was running flat out. My gas mask bounced behind me, hitting me in the back with every stride.

  I stumbled out of the woods and onto the street, my legs pinwheeling as though someone had shoved me from behind. I went straight over the white painted curb and crashed into the low stone wall beyond it.

  I leaned against it, doubled over and wheezing, as a red cow with very long hair and even longer horns gazed placidly at me, chewing its cud.

  --

  Meg was standing by the end of the bar when I burst through the door and slammed it behind me.

  "Maddie! Whatever's the matter?"

  I peeled off my gloves, but my hands were shaking so hard I dropped them. When I leaned over to pick them up, my gas mask slipped off my shoulder and landed on the floor with a thunk.

  "Leave them," Meg said. "Come sit."

  I left everything and wobbled over to the couch. I sat on the very edge and reached up to feel my hair, which was plastered to my forehead and neck.

  Meg looked anxiously at the door. "Why were you running? Is someone chasing you?"

  I waved vigorously, still out of breath. "No, no--it's nothing like that. Don't worry."

  She looked at the door one more time, then sat gingerly beside me.

  "Then what is it?"

  "Nothing," I said.

  "It's clearly something. You're all worked up. Wait here--I'll get a glass of water."

  "Please don't get up," I said. "What are you doing down here, anyway? You're not supposed to exert yourself."

  "I'm hardly exerting myself. I needed a change of scenery, so I brought down the crossword puzzles you gave me. Stay where you are. I'm fetching some water, and I'll have no arguments about it, either."

  I gulped it down noisily as soon as she handed it to me, not even lowering the glass when I had to pause for breath. When it was empty, I set it down and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

  "Thank you," I said, glancing over in embarrassment. I found Meg gazing at me with a combination of sympathy and sadness.

  "Anna told me about your father," she said quietly. "I'm very sorry for your loss. It's perfectly natural to be rattled. You never know how you're going to react to news like that."

  "It's not my father," I said. "I don't care about my father."

  Meg watched me for almost a full minute. I realized how awful what I'd just said sounded, and wondered if she thought me heartless.

  "Then what is it?" she inquired carefully.

  I let out a desperate, nervous laugh. "I'm not sure I should tell you."

  "Rest assured, I'll not be judging," she said. "I'm hardly in a position to cast stones."

  "You're going to think I'm crazy."

  "Well, I won't know until you tell me."

  I leaned in closer. "I was attacked by the monster today."

  Meg's eyes widened. After a brief pause, she said, "You were what?"

  I threw myself against the back of the couch. "I knew you'd think I was crazy! I didn't believe in any of this supernatural stuff before I came here. Then the Caonaig came for Anna's brother--there was never any doubt in Anna's mind that she'd come for Hugh, and she was right. And that damnable crow, signaling sorrow and chasing me into the Cover. And today, the monster--it rose straight out of the water and attacked me!"

  Meg stared at me for several seconds, then got to her feet. "I think we could both use something a wee bit stronger."

  She poured two small whiskeys and brought them over.

  "Slainte," she said.

  "Slainte," I said, clinking my glass against hers.

  "All right, then," she said. "How about you go back to the beginning?"

  I didn't know how far back she wanted me to go, so I started at the actual beginning, blurting out everything and barely pausing for breath. Everything, from how I felt nothing about my father's death because he had been completely indifferent to my existence, to my mother starving me for years, to her plans for fixing my nose and scrambling my frontal lobe, to the suicide attempt that I was supposed to foil, to discovering that Hank and Ellis had tossed a coin to see who had to marry me and now had abandoned me completely, to my belief that Ellis wasn't color-blind after all, to realizing I was crushingly in love with Angus, to my alarming experience at the bottom of the Water Gate, to sending a telegram to the lawyer asking how to go about getting a divorce, and, finally, to wandering into a minefield because, for whatever reason, the Big House held some kind of gravitational pull I couldn't resist.

  In the dead silence that followed, I realized what I'd done.

  "Oh God," I said, clapping my hands to my face.

  "If you're talking about Angus, it's hardly a surprise," Meg said. "I've seen how you look at him."

  I turned away, panting through steepled fingers.

  "And I've seen how he looks at you, too," she added quietly.

  My heart either skipped a beat or took an extra one.

  I lowered my hands and turned back around. She was staring straight into my eyes.

  "Go back a wee bit. Tell me exactly what happened at the water's edge."

  I told her again. "And then, just as I was about to hit the water, it was like a boulder of air exploded from the surface, knocking me backward. I know how crazy it sounds, but it's the God's honest truth, even though I can't explain any of it."

  Meg nodded knowingly, solemnly. "Aye. But I can. It wasn't the monster, Ma
ddie. If it had been, it wouldn't have pushed you away. It would have dragged you in."

  I shook my head. "But then what--"

  "It was Mairi," Meg said. "She died three years ago today, at that very place. She entered your head and your heart to see if you'd be true to Angus, and when she saw that you would be, she pushed you to safety. Maddie, she gave you her blessing."

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  In the space of one day, I'd gone from thinking that no one in the world had ever loved me to thinking that the man I was hopelessly in love with might feel the same way about me. It was more than just that, though--the ghostly intervention gave me hope that we were meant to be together. After the Caonaig, I was no longer inclined to ignore such a message.

  Meg wanted to return to work that night, just to lend a hand, but Angus was having none of it. I had to agree--she'd only just had her stitches out, and I still caught her wincing when she thought no one was looking. Still, I was sorry she wasn't going to be there, because I felt in need of moral support.

  A few minutes before six, when I took my place behind the bar, Angus came up beside me and laid a hand on mine. "I heard about your father. I'm very sorry for your loss."

  "Thank you," I said, looking up at him. "And I, for yours."

  He nodded slowly, and that was it. He knew I knew everything.

  As the evening wore on, I watched Angus's face, hoping for a sign that Meg's words were true. But he was understandably preoccupied, his expression unreadable.

  It was clear that the local men also remembered the anniversary, for they placed their orders solemnly and with diffidence. The only chatter was at the tables of lumberjacks, some of whom had brought their fiancees.

  At one point, when I was sprinting into the kitchen with a stack of empty plates, I ran straight into Angus. He caught my elbows to steady me.

  "You all right?" he asked.