'You are,' Christine was smiling. 'You were arguing with yourself.'

  'Well, I said. 'If I were doing that, at least I would win the debate.'

  Christine's laugh held the tinkling of silver bells. 'That's true,' she said. 'Will you ever come back here?'

  'No,' I ignored the mocking laughter and shook my head. 'I have no intention of returning here.'

  'Oh,' Christine shook the moisture from her hair with a gesture rather like a springer spaniel drying itself. Her eyes were equally soft and puppy-like. 'I have.'

  'You would return here even after all that has happened? The loss of Kate and Mary and finding these two dead men, and now,' I gestured to Charlie, 'whatever happened to Charlie.'

  'Oh, yes,' Christine said. 'That's why I want to come back. There are so many mysteries here. I want to unravel them and find out what makes this place so terrible.' She smiled again. 'I like to unpick mysteries,' she said. 'That's why I tried to find out about you, Brenda. You were a mystery. You still are.'

  'I'm no mystery.' I said. 'I'm just an unwanted orphan of the storm.'

  Christine laughed again. 'You're even a mystery to yourself,' she said. 'Brenda Kirk suits you.'

  'If that's my name,' I said.

  'It is,' Christine was suddenly serious. Her smile dissipated, so her face altered from a mischievous elf into a studious academic. I had never seen such a fascinating transformation. 'And you should know more about your family Brenda. Or about one of your ancestors in particular.'

  'Do you know more than you are saying?'

  'I know more than I have said so far,' Christine said. 'I need time and space to tell you. We need somewhere private without anybody else present.'

  'Why is that?'

  'Because you won't believe what I have to tell you.'

  I looked at her solemn face. 'Why would I not believe you?' I asked.

  'Because what I have to say is unbelievable.'

  I was not sure how to reply to that, so said nothing as we trudged on into the recurring mist. At least we were heading home, downcast at the loss of two of our women, tired, hungry and aching, but moving in the right direction. Every step saw us leaving An Cailleach's malevolent influence further behind. Yet every step also brought us close to Tigh-na-Beiste with its memories of evil men and terrible events.

  'They're back,' Charlie's voice broke into the slide of mist and hiss of the rain. 'Over there. The men are back.'

  We all turned to peer where Charlie had pointed. The mist had thickened again, slithering down the hillside, gathering in grey-white patches in pockets of low ground, clinging to isolated rocks to alter their shapes and deceive our eyes.

  'I can't see anything,' Lorna said. 'Mist can play tricks with our eyes, Charlie. Anyway, they won't try anything with the four of us here.' She gripped her stick hard and lifted it like a club. 'Just let them try, that's all, just let them try!'

  I hefted my own staff. 'We're with you, Charlie. Nobody will hurt you while I'm around.' Brought up in an orphanage, and then as an adopted child, I was well used to taking care of myself. The boys in my orphanage had been a tough crowd, while adopted children had a rough time at school. Teachers and pupils often picked on us as motherless, unwanted and therefore, in their eyes, blameworthy children guilty of the terrible sin of being unsupported. I was used to receiving and giving hard knocks and pity help any man who tried to assault me. As An Cailleach had challenged me: gin ye daur.

  'Hurry, please hurry!' Glancing over her shoulder, Charlie increased her pace, so she nearly ran down that slithering slope. An Cailleach had found the weakness in the confident, brash, nearly aggressive suffragette of only a few days ago and had broken her.

  'Stay with us,' I shouted. 'We're stronger together.'

  'They're chasing me, not you,' Charlie said.

  'Nobody will hurt you when I'm here,' I promised. 'I'll kill them.' They are already dead, I said to myself. If Charlie's attackers are the Mahoney group, then I can no more kill them than … Than I can work out who my own mysterious apparition is?

  Oh dear God what is happening here?

  Lorna gripped Charlie's arm. 'Brenda's right,' she said. 'Stay with us, and nothing will happen to you.'

  Perhaps An Cailleach heightened our ability to feel each other's emotions, for Christine was next to be affected. 'I can see them,' she said. 'I saw movement back there.'

  'There's nobody here except us,' level-headed Lorna was the voice of common sense. 'Keep calm.'

  I took a deep breath to calm my now racing heart. 'Let's stop for a moment,' I said. 'Gather our thoughts and see what we can see.'

  'If we stop they'll catch us.' Charlie was badly scared. A night alone on An Cailleach had shattered her nerves.

  'Let them,' I hefted my stick, fully ready for a fight with any number of men. I had been petrified, soaked, dangled over cliffs and forced to watch the death of two of my companions. If any flesh-and-blood man tried to attack us, I would crack his skull and joy in his yells for mercy.

  'Everybody halt.' There was something nearly military in Lorna's order. We stopped and listened. I heard the patter of the rain on our clothes, the low gurgle of the burns and the melancholic, bubbling cry of a curlew somewhere on the hillside. I also heard, on the fringes of reason, the echo of voices, slow whispering through the mist. I could not make out the words or even the form of words, but the voices were real, muttering among the heather and rocks.

  'Can you hear them?' Charlie was near hysteria. 'They're watching us. They're talking about us.'

  'I can't hear anything,' Lorna said. 'Keep calm, Charlotte.' She sharpened her voice. 'Charlotte Gunn! Listen to me! There's nobody here except us!'

  We were silent again except for our laboured breathing. I heard the burn talking, its voice low and sinister. 'Be careful' it said as it surged over the rocks. I heard the heather whisper as it blew this way and that. 'They're coming, they're coming for you, they're coming,' it said. I heard the wind calling my name. 'Brenda Kirk, Brenda Kirk.' Behind everything, I heard the deep grumble of An Cailleach as she extended her hands to enclose me and pull me in. 'You're mine,' she said. 'You're mine Brenda Kirk.'

  'No!' I shouted out loud. 'You're not real! I can't hear anything! You're all in my imagination!'

  Christine's little hand slid inside mine. 'It's all right, Brenda. I'm here. It's all right.'

  It was not all right. It was anything but all right. I squeezed poor Christine's hand as if my life depended on it, which it did not, or my soul, which might have been in danger. 'Thank you, Christine.'

  'Can anybody see anything?' Lorna's voice was like steel. 'Stop imagining things ladies and concentrate on what is real, not what the mist makes you think.'

  Feeling my heart hammering like a wild thing, I did as Lorna said and stared into the clinging white mist.

  'Take one-quarter of the hill and concentrate on that,' Lorna said. 'Then move to the next section. Move in a slow circle.'

  'Deisil, sunwise, right handed and lucky,' Mary's voice whispered inside my head.

  'You're dead,' I told her, yet I obeyed her command, moving in the same direction as the circuit of the sun, the same way the Celts had moved for luck and our fishermen still did in some Scottish ports. Only Christine moved tuaithiuil, widdershins, left to right.

  We stared upward, hoping not to see what we feared most. I saw a figure looming up, tall and supple and dangerous, and readied my staff to fend off an attacker. It was an elder tree, twisted by the wind, mist-shrouded and harmless. A crouching creature turned out to be a rock, a gleam of metal the run of a burn. One by one, I eliminated every possible source of danger in that part of the hill before I moved on to the next.

  'Can anybody see anything?' Lorna's voice held us together. Her personality dominated our little group, binding us together with bonds forged in friendship and fear.

  'No,' I answered first. 'Only rocks and trees.'

  'Nothing,' Christine took hold of my hand, her fingers intertwined with mine. 'All serene, Lorna!'

  'I can't see anything either,' Lorna said. 'How about you, Charlie?'

  Charlie hesitated before she spoke as if she was scared to confess. 'No,' she said at last. 'I can't. They must be hiding.'

  'Very well then,' Lorna said. 'We'll continue. We'll walk slowly and keep close together. If anybody sees or hears anything, or thinks they see or hear anything, speak out at once so we can all check it. I don't want anybody to be alone in this.'

  'It's An Cailleach,' I said quietly. 'It's the hill herself.'

  'I don't know or care what it is,' Lorna replied. 'I only know there's something wrong here and I've not gone through four years of man-made hell, dealing with broken bodies and broken minds, to be defeated by some imaginary fears on a bloody Scottish hill!'

  It was the first time I had heard Lorna swear. The fact that she did proved that An Cailleach had also strained her nerves. That knowledge did nothing to settle my mind.

  I had anticipated trouble at the cliff-face, but we scrambled down the rope like champions, with Christine biting her lip to control her fear.

  'Good girl,' I approved, to be rewarded with a smile.

  'Well done,' Lorna said, patting Christine's shoulder. Swarming back up, she unfastened the rope and threw it far away. 'If we are being followed, the men can find their own rope.'

  Charlie's laugh was as near to hysteria as anything I have ever heard.

  'Come on, ladies,' Lorna said. 'Nearly there.'

  We scrambled down the slope, chancing twisted ankles and scraped skin in our haste to escape. After a remarkably short time, the bogland stretched before us, as eerie and desolate as before, with swathes of mist spreading from the lowest levels and clinging to the black peat holes, while patches of bright green tempted the unwary onto the deep peaty mud. Two curlews whirred overhead, and a snipe gave its bleating call.

  'The causeway is about here,' Lorna said. 'I wish we had thought to mark it with a stick or something.'

  'There was a group of rowan trees,' I remembered. 'Three of them, I think, all wind-bent and battered.' I scanned what I thought was the edge of the bog, seeing stunted trees appearing and disappearing in the fluky mist.

  'We'll be lucky to find anything in this muck,' Christine said. 'Maybe we should split up and spread out.'

  'No,' I said. 'We stick together.'

  'Sorry, Brenda,' Christine at once reverted to the meek little girl she had been with Kate.

  I controlled my sudden panic. 'It's all right Christine. I wasn't rebuking you. It was a perfectly sensible suggestion. I just don't want to lose you, that's all.'

  Christine smiled at once. 'Oh, thank you, Brenda. I don't want to lose you, either.'

  'Over there!' Charlie pointed. 'Is that not our copse of rowans?'

  We trudged to the spot with our boots splashing up mud with every step. Mist trailed in great tendrils from the weeping branches of the trees, half concealing what few leaves remained, like the grey hairs on an elderly man's balding head.

  'It's a copse of rowan,' I said doubtfully. 'I hope that it's the right copse.' There were other groups of trees in the vicinity, straggled clumps in twos and threes on this side of the bog.

  Lorna thrust her stick into the mud around the trees. 'It is the right copse,' she said. 'The ground is quite firm under the first inch of peat. Shall I go first?'

  Kate would never have asked.

  'We can take it in turns,' I said. 'It's not fair that you should be in the most danger all the time.'

  Charlie glanced over her shoulder. 'Brenda's right. We should take it in turns.'

  'All right. Five minutes each,' Lorna stepped onto the causeway, testing each step with her stick. We followed, with Charlie close behind Lorna and Christine and I making up the rear. As before, I felt tense as soon as we stepped onto the causeway. The knowledge that we were all walking on bundles of old heather stalks was not a comfort.

  'We're moving at a fair pace,' I said.

  'And there's nobody behind us,' Christine added. 'Not long now and we'll all be safe at the inn.'

  The mist drifted in front, concealing the causeway and slowing us down. 'My turn to lead,' Charlie pushed past Lorna. 'Come on, Lorna, you can't have all the fun.'

  'That's more like our Charlie,' Lorna passed over her stick. 'Don't forget to test the ground.'

  'I won't' Charlie gave a quick grin. 'What a marvellous article this will make. My editor will be tickled pink.' She forged ahead, prodding the stick into the ground. 'Wait!' She held up her hand. 'There's nothing here.'

  'There was a dog-leg twist remember,' Christine called from behind me. 'We put a table across the gap.'

  'It must have floated away with all the rain.' Charlie's confidence of only a minute ago had already vanished.

  'It can't have gone far,' I pushed forward. 'Poke with your stick.'

  'I am poking,' Charlie leaned forward and thrust in her stick. 'There's no bottom here.'

  We heard the voices drifting across the bogland, vague and faint. Charlie looked up. 'What was that?'

  'I don't know.' I said. 'I heard them too.'

  'What's wrong?' Lorna asked.

  'We heard voices.' I said.

  'There's nobody here except us,' Lorna said. 'And nobody is on the causeway either. It's only the mist playing tricks with your imagination.'

  'I'm telling you,' Charlie said. 'I heard somebody. These men are back.'

  'They're not on the causeway, and they can't walk on water, so they're not on the bog. Concentrate on finding the table top and forget anything else.' Lorna shook her head. 'I've seen this sort of thing before, you know. Lots of men that came out of the trenches thought they saw and heard things that were not there. It's all to do with a strain on the nerves.'

  I gripped my staff tightly, scanning the mist. Although I knew that nobody could walk across the surface of the peat bog, and nobody could pass us on the causeway, I remained nervous. Far too many strange things had happened on this peninsula.

  'Over there,' I could see something solid beneath the dark surface of the bog. 'That's our route.' Stretching over, I tapped with my stick. 'Found it, folks! Panic over! Come on.' I took the first step and breathed a sigh of relief when my boot landed on wood, part-hidden by half-an-inch of dark water. 'Come on, Charlie.'

  A bank of mist rolled over us then, clinging close and rendering everything outside our little world invisible. I could not even see Lorna, a mere three yards away.

  'Hurry, Brenda!' Nearly pushing me over in her haste, Charlie strode in front.

  'The causeway is over to the right,' I remembered. 'Be careful Charlie.'

  'We're fine now,' Charlie turned toward me. She smiled, and an expression of utter panic crossed her face. I have never seen anybody look so scared. 'Brenda!'

  'What is it?' For one second I was paralysed. 'What's wrong?'

  The figures loomed up through the mist, tall and broad and muscular. There were three of them, striding over the bogland with their hands outstretched. Knowing they could not be real, I swung my stick. 'Get out of here! Get out of my mind! Get out of my life!'

  My staff hissed through empty air, with the force of the blow nearly unbalancing me. I recovered, ready to do battle with man, woman, monster or witch. The figures vanished as suddenly and completely as they had appeared, yet in that short space of time, Charlie had gone.

  'Charlie?' Flapping my hand before me in a vain attempt to clear away the mist, I peered along the causeway. 'Charlie? Where are you? Charlie!'

  She was fifteen yards away, a nebulous shadow in the mist, fast diminishing. 'Charlie! You're off the causeway! Charlotte Gunn! Charleeee!'

  'What's happening?' Lorna called from further back. 'Brenda! What's happening?' I heard her sharp footsteps on the causeway as she marched towards me. I had no time to wait; I had to help Charlie before she lost herself in the bog.

  'Charlie!' I stepped into the mud, finding it less deep than I had feared. 'I'm coming for you, Charlie!'

  I heard the splash of heavy footsteps and a gurgling cry. 'Charlie?'

  For an instant, a gap appeared in the mist, and I saw Charlie, blundering into the bog at right angles from the causeway, sinking deeper and deeper with every clumsy footstep. I raised my voice in a shriek that Christine and Lorna joined in. 'Charlie, you're going the wrong direction. Come back!'

  When Charlie looked back over her shoulder, I saw the panic in her eyes. It is something I will never forget if I live another week or another thousand years. If all the terror and horror of humanity could be collected together and distilled into a single look, then Charlie's expression would surpass it. I looked into the madness of the damned.

  'Charlie!' Without thinking, I leapt further into the bog and splashed toward her, lifting my legs high to escape the suction of the mud. I was aware of the mud engulfing my feet and legs, aware that beneath me was an unknown depth of peat, yet I had to try. I could not watch Charlie splashing to her death without doing something to help.

  Charlie stopped moving. She was thigh deep in mud and still striving to run. 'Charlie!' I was five yards behind her with the bog dragging at my legs. I felt myself sinking deeper. 'Charlie, keep still, it's worse if you struggle.' I stretched forward as far as I could, without hope. We were too far apart. I could only watch in agony.

  'Don't let them get me!' Charlie forced herself around, so she was facing me. Trapped in the mud, I could not help as Charlie slowly sunk, inch by terrible inch. The dark peat sucked at her hips and then around her waist. For a moment I thought that her jacket would save her as it ballooned up, trapping air like a lifebelt. I was wrong. It only slowed the inevitable, prolonging her suffering.

  'Don't let me die here, oh, God Brenda please don't let me die here.'

  'We're coming!' I heard the welcome voices of Lorna and Christine. They were laboriously and oh-so-slowly pushing the table top across the surface of the mud, using their bare hands to paddle it as if it were a raft.

  'Hold on, Charlie,' I said. 'Help is coming.'

  Mary's death had been terrible, but at least it was quick. Watching Charlie slowly sink was infinitely worse. I watched the mud slither up to her chest and further until it was lapping at her throat and then her chin.

 

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