Dreamwords: The Journal

I am told that time-travel screws the mind. And yet, if I stay, I am as dead as the others. Perhaps if I had space to think I would not go. Would dementia ease the pain? A part of me wants to sleep where I fall. Let the creeping sickness bring peace.

Enough!

This is a journal, of sorts, automated by my thoughts on an ancient book – insurance against a blank mind. I know little enough now and five minutes could surely answer many questions, but an audience of corpses spurs me on. Everything is corrupted, in my head and beyond reach. The facts that led me here are elusive but only one thing matters. The children are our future.

I have forty five seconds to finish this brief to myself.

If I survive the journey, I need to know the who, the what, the when and the why of it all. Perhaps there are clues in the past, in the time before the disease, before we learned to fear Dreamwords. What follows is scavenged from the voyage I am about to make, my thoughts cast like a net through the aether. The tricks of distance and of time, the uncertainty of the search criteria, and the limits of damage to my brain, will make it what it is. Right now, it is all I can hope for.

Two seconds.

And the children - I do not even know their names...

From the distilled thoughts of Jack Burns – Date ambiguous

I saw her on the summit of Arthur’s Seat. Below me, Edinburgh was as grey as my thoughts. I had crept from the house before my parents awoke and now watched the city’s neon glow fade from the underside of the cloud-base, leaving it drained of colour. District by district, rosaries of light disappeared and the houses and streets emerged from the night as would an old photo in a tray of liquid. The air was cold and I was dressed in shorts and tee-shirt, but I did not notice.

I was five years old.

I hugged myself, looking for comfort wherever I could find it. The previous day had been my first at school and the worst of my life. I could not understand what had changed to make my appearance so frightening to those around me. Too young to understand, I thought, at first that my condition had worsened, and later, when I stood on a stool to examine my left cheek in the bathroom mirror, I saw nothing that had not been there the last time I had looked. To my young eyes, the red stain was as normal as my nose or my father’s ears, but I was learning fast. Until that day, when nervous children lined up to take their first assembly, I had met mostly adults and was unaware of the effect my appearance had on people. Then, standing in the middle of a line of my peers, the girl next to me, Claire Thompson, started screaming and moved back as her eyes widened and her nose streamed with snot. All around her, others followed, the contagion of hysteria sweeping the line until I was left silent and alone in the centre of a circle. Mrs Crow, the duty teacher, scooped me in her arms and took me inside while another adult soothed the chaos I had started. I remember the smell of tobacco in her hair.

I remained silent as the teacher asked my name, and then, when I refused to answer, she said; It’s Jack, isn’t it? Jack Burns. Still I said nothing. And so the pattern for school was set. On that day, sitting at the front of the class, I was the only child who did not cry, even as I felt a crowd of eyes stare at my back. My silence was not unusual and that evening, when my parents asked me how I had enjoyed the adventure of my first day in school, I shrugged my shoulders and told them it was fine, but that, no, I did not meet any new friends.

I had no idea what compelled me to rise that morning and tiptoe from the house and I did not think about the anguish I would cause if either of my parents found my bed empty when they awoke.

Throughout the night I had watched them in my dreams; the circle of children calling for mothers to save them from the monster in their midst. Dreams, for me, are special. Sometimes I know I’m dreaming and sometimes I don’t, but always I am engulfed by them. They are as real as anything experienced with my eyes wide open - sight, smell, fear and laughter – everything vivid, the details scalpel sharp.

Perhaps I was simply escaping or perhaps I had left to meet the woman who was to change my life. Perhaps it was just time.

In the grey light, the castle washed into the background, painted by a hand skilled in camouflage. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked and somewhere else a faraway door slammed. Unlike my dreams, Edinburgh, that morning, was muted.

When she first appeared, I thought she was my mother and wondered briefly how she had known where I was. She had the same pale complexion and soft wavy hair as my mother and her slim figure moved with a grace that could have matched a dancer’s. But as I tilted my head to look at her face, she seemed to soar forever upward, contrasting sharply with my mother’s diminutive stature so that I was momentarily bemused by the attention she gave me. Her eyes defied the rule of the morning and sparkled bright blue and I noticed nothing else as she silently sat by my side. Transfixed by her, I watched as she tucked her knees to her chin, wrapped her arms around her shins and turned to the city. Moments later I did the same and together we watched as life leaked from the houses and onto the streets. I forgot about the children and I forgot about my disfigurement and for a time I was no longer alone.

It did not occur to me that she should not be there or that her attachment to me could have been sinister. It was enough to know that she demanded nothing and did not flinch when she looked at me. Time drifted slowly and an early morning jogger grunted past us, over the rocky top and down the other side. His sweatbanded head was angled to the ground and I’m not sure he saw us as he dripped his way along the path.

When we could no longer hear the rattle of stones beneath his feet the woman spoke quietly and without taking her eyes from the view: I’m here to help you.

I looked at her, but she continued her vigil on the city. A small strand of hair escaped the tight flow and danced with the breeze until it became lodged between her lips. I asked for her name.

Muria, she said and pulled the hair free as she spoke.

That small action seemed to stir a memory that I could not grasp. She was a stranger and yet familiar. I was drawn to her; trusted her without knowing why. With the innocence of a five year old, I took her hand when she stood. Together, we walked down the hill towards a new day.

*

After that morning, I did not see Muria for another two years, but I never forgot her. On that day, she walked me home and knelt on one knee at the garden gate, penetrating my mind with her steady gaze. I have something for you, she said. Obediently, I held out my hands as she proffered a clenched fist. This, she said, as she unfurled her long fingers, is a magic stone. My hands bounced as they took the weight of the heavy pebble, its smooth, grey surface warm to the touch. I brought it to my face and pressed it to my cheek and held it there, rolling my head from side to side to feel the power of it.

What does it do? I asked.

It’s invisible, she told me.

I brought it down and stared at the object in amazement. Indistinguishable from a million others, it shone in my eyes as though it was the most precious of precious stones that had ever existed.

No one but you can see it. Keep it with you at all times.

When I told her that it was too big to carry everywhere, Muria said that it was not. When I looked again, the stone was smaller and I cupped it in my palm and thrust it into my pocket.

Whenever you feel frightened, Jack, she said. Take the stone and hold it tightly in your hand.

But what does it do?

The stone, Jack, is your strength.

I felt the round surface reassuring in my pocket.

If you so decide, you can throw the stone and kill anyone you choose.

I reeled back at her words and dropped the weapon in my pocket as though it was on fire. But as she continued, my hand, unguided by me, found it again and the heat was no longer frightening.

This is important, Jack. You have a grave responsibility. Use the stone only when you must.

Across the road, a small Scottie dog dragged an old man on a tight leash, but I only noticed because the man scolded the animal in a high pitched whine that penetrated Muria’s hypnotic grip. She brought me back. You must be brave, Jack. Other children do not understand. It is not their fault.

I nodded my head vigorously and was taken aback when the image of the girl who had started the raucous at school suddenly popped into my head. She was lying in a pool of blood, her head opened like a split tomato. Muria was there too and her eyes burned into mine and I felt terrible shame for what I had done. Muria held my attention and the scene vanished around her and we were back at the garden gate. She did not mention the vision we had shared, but simply said. The truly powerful do not hurt others, Jack. Remember that.

She did not say goodbye, but was suddenly gone. I stood there for some minutes before the cold forced me to move. I turned to the house, walked to the door and opened it. Back in my bedroom, and two minutes after covering myself with the duvet, my father’s alarm clock buzzed through the thin wall. My second day at school was about to begin.

Jack Burns

ONE

After fifteen years of being called ugly, Jack Burns could cope with people staring, but he wished they wouldn’t. The sun shone and Edinburgh’s streets bustled with bright faces. People dressed in colourful, cool clothing. Jack preferred black. Black jeans, black trainers, black sweatshirt. Together with his dark hair, the single unbroken shade framed his features and drew attention to his problem. This was his statement: In your face! He was proud of his badge. He couldn’t care less what others thought.

But he did.

Summer was his best time. In the holidays there was no gauntlet to and from school, no need to dodge Watson the class dick or Peters the school bully. He did not have to listen to chanting girls tell him to scrub, scrub, scrub ‘till there’s blood, blood, blood. Nor did he have to stand in his shorts every week as team captains, one after the other, reminded him why it was not fair to have him on their side. Mr Brown, the PE teacher, would explain, as if Jack were not present, Blue Team had him last time. If you don’t shut up, you’ll have him for the season. Now play!

Walking through Edinburgh, Jack saw couples holding hands, holidaymakers laughing, eating and drinking at pavement tables along Rose Street. Under the castle, in Princes Gardens, children ran, kicked footballs and played, carefree and happy.

Lovers kissed.

A few months ago, when he caught a businessman in an expensive suit gawking at him, Jack smiled before the offender could disguise his behaviour. He stuck a hand forward, head down and pleaded with all the sarcasm he could muster: Penny for a leper, Gov. Penny for a leper. The man mumbled something and looked away. In the following weeks, this became a game for Jack. He even made an occasional penny. Eventually, and beyond miserable, the only thing that had changed was Jack’s blackened mood and so he stopped doing it. Now he tried not to notice.

He looked up at the castle and in that instant, nothing else mattered.

TWO

He had grown up in the city, the fortress never far from sight. A month ago it was a boring backdrop to his life. Now it consumed him.

Before he arrived at the entrance bridge, Jack eyed the ticket collector, disappointed that it was not his friend, Angus. No free pass.

Inside, he was a different person. Engrossed by his surroundings, he barely thought about people staring. The battlements held the world at bay. Here was another time.

Cobbled paths and courtyards wound through a small cluster of stone buildings ingeniously constructed on an uneven platform. Ancient builders worked with nature, excavating, cutting and shaping the top of the volcanic plinth only as a last resort so that the castle seemed, centuries later, to have grown with the landscape - forever there.

Jack shivered. He closed his eyes and crossed a thousand years. Fire and blood and fear. It leeched from the walls, cobbled streets, the black cannons, dungeons.

Early morning, the crowds had yet to form. This was how he liked it.

He walked to the upper ward and populated the cobbled road with people he never knew, smells he’d never breathed and memories he could not have lived. Here was a broken sword, there a pool of blood. In his mind, a child dressed in a sack drawn at the waist with string kicked a bundle of rags that formed a makeshift ball. The ringing of hammer blows mixed with the stench of molten iron and bubbling oil. Screams and laughter. Love and hate and death

On the surface, Jack was a tourist among tourists. In the real world, cotton clouds lazed in a blue sky, dragging shadows over the city. Jack placed his elbows on the castle wall and leaned out as far as he could. Lying below him, his home town spread like a giant animated map, complete with sound and movement and the smell of summer. Despite being so cruel to him, he loved the place.

The crowds took Jack by surprise. For some reason they were huddled along the walls on the middle ward. He glanced at his phone. It was too early for the one ‘o’ clock gun and yet there they were. He had just left the model room which was situated half way up the Lang Stairs. Normally popular, the replica castle had been his to marvel alone. As he descended the steps, the contrast between the isolation at his back and the buzz of expectation ahead struck him as odd but he was more concerned about leaving through the throng than wondering at the curious dynamics of the incoming tourists.

At the bottom of the stairs, he almost collided with two girls. Both wore cream-coloured shirts tucked into well-fitting blue jeans, both had short dark hair. Both had fair complexions and dainty, slightly turned-up noses. They could have been sisters. But the girl on the right, slightly smaller and with eyes that seemed to draw him forward, made him drop his guard and he smiled. The girl crinkled her cute nose when she saw Jack’s face, grabbed her friend’s arm and sounded a clearly audible, Ugh, before turning her back on him. Jack paused for a beat, a sudden urge to confront her lost to the jostling crowd.

He pushed his way to the exit.

*

The red-haired girl kept her distance. There was no need to get close. She knew where Jack lived. At that moment, the connection between Jack and the unfolding mystery that had suddenly drawn the tourists to the castle was hers alone. That would quickly change. She had to move fast.

Billy McCaul – After the Plague

THREE

Corrine knew she should not be there. It was bad enough roaming out of bounds but if her father caught her dallying beyond supervision with Billy she would not be free of the village for weeks.

When the shoreline path narrowed to the point where two legs were better than four, they left the horses tied to a rock and grazing by a tumbling stream. Behind them, the abandoned houses of Camasunary and the distant relics of Elgol were the only signs to spoil the fancy that they were the last two people on Earth. It was wonderful and thoughts of being caught were pushed from her mind.

Ahead, Billy’s long stride paused and he turned to her and smiled that smile. See, he said. Where’s the lightning bolt? He looked out to sea, beyond the Isle of Soay. He raised both hands to the mountains, turned his head upward and shouted. Come get me, Oh Spiteful One. He glanced at Corrine, his eyes bright with mischief. Corrine shuddered at her lover’s blasphemy, but the sense of dread was fleeting. So far from home, so free from constraint, they felt invincible.

Take me now, Lord for I am unworthy! The shout bounced from high rocks and then faded to the whisper of the sea.

Corrine caught with him as his pretend impatience reached its limit. He feigned indignation to his audience of one. Anyone would think that the Big Man did not, in fact, exist.

Corrine slapped him playfully about the head. You big galloot, she said. You’ll get us hung.

Aye, he replied. But apparently not struck down by God as promised.

Corrine looked around her. So close to home and yet she had never been here. It was beautiful. All her life she had accepted that she would no more visit this side of the mountain than the dark side of the moon. Tales of ghosts, bands of murderous thieves and goblins had thrilled and terrified her as a child, but now, on the threshold of adulthood, she realised that the rules were not just for children. As far as she knew, no one, man or child, had ventured so far into the Dark.

Do you recognise anything? she asked him as they looked ahead.

All of it.

Corrine knew that, like her, Billy had never been here before and she was captivated by what he said. He had told her about the deserted houses, white boxes dotted on the hillside like monuments to the dead. This much she already knew as did anyone raised in the area but it was the detail he had painted that held her in thrall. White walls, black roofs, tiny white fences with gardens of grass and flowers so colourful that they took her breath away. This she had seen for herself as they'd trotted among Elgol's cottages to pick up the path to Camasunary. So long in her mind a place to fear, now that she had been there, it seemed absurd that she and her family had lived in cold stone hovels all these years. The builders were long dead and yet everything looked fresh, as though the occupants were not gone but simply out for the day. Gardens were weed-free paintings that appeared to require no maintenance. The structure of each dwelling was in perfect condition and despite the delicious notion that the buildings were haunted, Corrine had longed to explore them all.

Billy, however, was more interested in the path ahead. An explorer fixated on what lay beyond the next hill, he promised Corrine they would return to Elgol soon.

Camasunary was equally beguiling. Set in a tiny flat plain, squeezed by hill and sea, there were only six houses. Compared to her own, each was fit for a princess. One house in particular caught her eye. Nestled among a clutch of broad-trunked trees, its bright face and sky-filled windows had drawn her close. Billy relented and they had deviated from their route to take a closer look.

Corrine had heard of glass and was accustomed to the small baubles of such material that were used as the basis for their currency, but until Elgol, and now the mansion at Camasunary, she had never seen its use as a transparent wall. How the builders had formed such a thing was beyond her, but she did not believe they were the fruits of witchcraft.

Curiosity satisfied, they had rode on and soon after left their horses by the stream. Now they paused on the verge of a new world.

Corrine looked at the sky. It was mid-day and, if she was not to be missed, she should be home before dark. That was still eight hours away but each hour forward was another back and, much as she admired his courage, sometimes she had to rein Billy in for his own good. Or at least she had to try.

How far? she asked him.

To the loch?

He turned to the coastline ahead and, with an outstretched finger, traced the path as it curved left until he pointed across the water to the mountains ahead. If I’m right, there’s a natural reservoir just above the river there.

Corrine could not make out the sliver of silver he was pointing to despite her good eyesight, but she trusted that it was there. The lie of the land around the point was such that it would be strange if there was nowhere for the mountain runoff to fall. Billy seemed to guess her thoughts.

Everything we’ve seen until now could be viewed from a distance or guessed at from what others have told us. But have you heard of such a loch?

I’d be surprised if there wasn’t one.

Although she had never been this close, the distant view was familiar. Here the mountains huddled in a semicircle and you did not have to see the deep bowl it contained to guess that it was filled with water. If Billy took her comment as a slight on what he was telling her, he did not show it.

Aye, true. But this is distinctive. It’s long and thin and empties over a lip on a water slide before reaching the sea. It’s high enough to be isolated from the salt and should be fresh.

Fresh water was not a problem in this part of Scotland but Corrine understood that Billy was trying to find out whether his vision was real or simply a dream formed from common knowledge and hearsay. So far it had been accurate but not conclusive. The presence, the shape and the surroundings of the hidden loch formed an objective he was determined to achieve.

Billy reached back and without thinking, Corrine took his hand and they walked on. After a while, she spoke as they continued along the coast. It’s strange, she said. The path. It seems no one’s walked this way for years and yet the grass is short and the edges, where it meets heather or rock, is sharp.

You mean like every other path or road in the country?

Corrine ignored the gentle jibe. Somehow, you don’t notice what you see every day. This is different.

As she finished talking, Billy suddenly stopped and she almost bumped into him.

This is the Bad Step, he told her.

The words recalled childhood nightmares. Local lore painted a scene of giddy heights and razor sharp rocks. On being there, she was at once disappointed and relieved to find themselves no more than twenty feet above the sea. Ahead, the path gave way to a slanting slab of rock that dropped left into the water. She could imagine children running down its face to splash into the playground below. Prepared by gross exaggeration, any dread that Corrine had evaporated and she stepped forward and forgot to be worried about the time.

A long fissure ran diagonally up over the length of the Step and it was a simple exercise to place her feet carefully and push off the slab with her right hand as she traversed the barrier.

Jumping onto the path at the other end, Billy took her hand again and said. So that’s the thousand foot drop everyone tells us about. The impenetrable gateway to Hell.

All those nightmares for nothing, Corrine said. Next you know, there’ll be no monsters roaming the mountains to gobble us up.

The rest of the path was clear and soon the spot that had been on Billy’s mind for so long lay directly ahead. Billy’s stride lengthened and Corrine’s step quickened to match his pace.

And there it lay.

The river tumbled down the slide exactly as Billy had described it. A frothing tongue of white water. A small group of stepping stones allowed them to ford the stream at the top of the slide and they caught a path running the length of its far bank. A short walk up a slight incline and, two minutes later, their heads rose above the surrounding land. There, the loch they had come to find stretched back and into the fold of the mountains; a u-shape huddle of dark plunging cliffs and jagged peaks that cupped, fed and obscured its hidden waters from the outside world.

Without feeling the need to speak, Corrine and Billy embraced, her arms around his waist, her head on his shoulder even as she took in the majesty of what she saw. Corrine had never been so close to the Black Cuillins. Like the Bad Step, it was supposed to be a fearful place, but as Billy craned his neck to the high summits, she saw a haven far from narrow minds and, for that moment, she felt it belonged to no-one but them.

The discovery was not the loch itself but what it meant for Billy. They had heard of people in other lands who had the Gift but, until now, they had not been sure that any of it was true. With the realisation that Billy had second sight, Corrine's quiet moment of reflection turned to worry and she raked over the stories of fabled heroes and hapless victims. She looked at Billy as he stared over the water and she fought back the tears and wondered how long he had to live.

Billy seemed to sense her mood and looked down at her bright, watery eyes. He took a thumb and gently wiped a tear and asked her what was wrong. Nothing, she answered. I’m just so happy.

FOUR

Billy and Corrine had an ally in their parents’ unwitting treatment of them as children instead of adults. With a population of eighty three, the residents of Inver Dalavil acted more like a large family than a collection of individuals. Wild sheep and deer roamed the hills and, while men hunted deer, boys younger than eighteen bloodied their hands on sheep.

The hunting party varied as toddlers became grown boys and grown boys became hunting men. With the mutton-run as a training ground, they learned to ride as though the horse was an extension of themselves and the spear an instrument that spat death with an unconscious flick of the wrist. This was no kindergarten; the kills were real and the food and wool crucial to the survival of the community. Other villages captured and penned the sheep but tradition was strong on Skye and the men of Dalavil valued the training ground for their young. Mentored by an experienced and aging hunter, four boys now formed the core of the hunt. Billy, Kane, Luke and Simeon lived for the chase. Each felt ready to join the men but with no-one to take their place, they were destined to herd wool until they turned eighteen.

After years under the watchful eye of Walter the herdsman, the boys no longer needed an adult to manage the hunt. It was not unusual for Walter to sneak away to undertake some private business in New Broadford. Particularly uninformed was May, Walter’s long-suffering wife. A round woman with red nose and a permanent smile, she never tired of telling anyone who would listen how proud she was of her skilful man who did so much for the community.

Ironically, left alone, the boys improved their skills. They adapted and interpreted their training and became so good at what they did that they could spend half the day wandering the hills aimlessly and still bring home the mutton.

Under Walter's tutelage, the four riders would scour the hill for grazing sheep. Huge flocks wandered freely, owned and nurtured by nature alone. Early in their training and without guidance, the young hunters spooked the sheep, the sight of horses in the distance starting a chase that took the party farther from home than their elders thought safe. Now, more experienced, their tactics seldom varied. Three riders would make the long journey around to the back of the flock while the other remained close to spring the ambush. Once in place, the chasers would gallop to drive the animals towards the lone killer hiding behind a tree or a rock or hugging the grass with a spear at his side. That way, if they missed on the first try, providence and proximity to the village would usually offer them a second bite at the apple.

A few days after his trip with Corrine to the hidden loch, Billy suggested a new tactic to Walter. It seemed wrong to him that they hedged their actions around the notion of failure. If they planned for success first time, he argued, they might improve their kill rate. We should use the lie of the land, he had said. Use it as a whip to herd the beasts into the trap and not to the favour of home.

Walter stuck to what he knew worked and pointed to their success as proof that he was right. Remember, lad, he’d told him. Even if it worked on easy meat, when you move to the stag and the hind, one false step and they're gone. We canny afford to chase them from the larder. He insisted they continue to work towards the village even if it meant trying to chase sheep uphill or ignore an opportunistic cliff. Walter encouraged Billy but was reluctant to change. He ruffled Billy’s head with a big calloused hand. I like the thinking, lad. You’ll make a fine hunter, but we miss too often. Think how many times we’ve won on the second run. Use the land right enough, but don’t let it push you from home.

Billy was not happy and, when Walter left them to make one of his frequent visits to New Broadford, he convinced his friends to try things his way.

A week later, on a fine summer’s day, they found their quarry on the north slopes of Beinn nan Carn. Normally they would orient the group to chase the animals south, back towards the village. If they followed their training, they would be running the hunt uphill with so many ways for the sheep to scatter that it was bound to fail on the first try. Mounted and looking down beyond the flock, the land was sprinkled with dips and streams and lochans and bogs – a tapestry of obstacles that could be used to their advantage.

Billy watched the sheep, their white heads chomping at the heather, apparently untroubled by the riders above them. This, Billy knew, was an illusion. The slightest move towards them and they would run. Until then, the roaming mouths would eat. Planning his moves like a game of chess, the boy choreographed each twist and turn of the hunt, driving the animals in his mind towards a series of choices where only one option made sense. Here an outcrop to force them left, there a loch to force them right. Curling his fingers around the shaft of his spear, he could taste the kill and knew with absolute certainty that his way was right.

He explained the plan to the others and then left them, turning his horse west and beyond sight before circling right to get below the sheep. Fifteen minutes later he was in a small dip in the landscape, called Glen Suardal. He took a small wooden peg from a cloth bag slung from his shoulder, pushed it into the ground and tethered the horse. Keeping low and moving silently, he ran at a crouch to a point below the waiting sheep and lay flat on the ground. Steadying his breathing and calming his heart, he put his fingers to his lips and whistled two loud blasts. Out of sight, he heard the shrieks and calls of his friends and the pounding of hooves as they charged down the hill. Billy's muscles tensed and his fingers clamped hard around the spear as he waited for the panicking animals to appear directly above him. Two interminable minutes later the terrified flock poured into the glen. To Billy’s horror, instead of dropping into his path, they appeared way to his left and over a hundred feet down the slope. He sprang to his feet and tried to close the gap but it was no use. They were gone and he and his friends looked on as their quarry slowed to a stroll and wandered down the hill towards New Broadford.

Billy held his anger in check. His friends must have done something wrong. Such mishaps were normal, but when they happened, the group would lie low for a while, secure in the knowledge that they were still within bounds before trying again. Now, without a word, Billy returned to his horse and he and his friends turned home and began their search for another flock.

FIVE

His mother was at the door when Jack arrived home, the twitch of the curtain hardly dead before she appeared. She was red-eyed again. Recently, she’d been crying a lot. She threw her arms around her son and hugged him tight. Oh, Jack. Jack.

Jack felt her trembling, a familiar blend of perfume and bleach pleasant in the air surrounding her. She ran her fingers through his hair and he brushed them aside.

Mum!

He pulled away. What’s wrong?

I…

She seemed to change her mind then and turned back into the house, the fresh and sudden smile at odds with the dark shadow below her eyes.

I need a reason to hug?

As Jack closed the door, he caught his mother pull away from a fearful glance at the phone. The plug was out - the green power light dead. He took both her hands in his and led her to the settee, sitting with her as though he was the parent trying to comfort a distressed child. Fair or not, he put her state down to pregnancy hormones.

You can talk to me, Mum.

She reached up and touched his scarred cheek with the back of curled fingers. You know we love you.

Jack guessed what was coming. Adopted by a young couple who thought they could never have a child, their recent miracle might have made him insecure. It did not, but he had sensed his parents’ worry and tried to make light of it whenever they threatened to get serious with the talking thing. He’d never seen her so bad, though. The least he could do was listen and put her mind at ease. He was lucky. Without his parents, he would be a scientific curiosity - a lab freak. The small measure of normality in his life was down to them. They deserved the luck embodied by the bump in her belly.

She told him she loved him. That Dad loved him. We picked you, Jack. She looked to her lap. Their clasped hands. We picked gold when we picked you. And then her favourite saying. You were hand knitted.

Jack felt uncomfortable. This island of affection could make the bleakness beyond the door intolerable. Without it, he would have died many lonely deaths and yet, now a master of coping, life was easier with no gauge to measure the chill of the world outside.

She took a deep breath and the shift of light in her eyes revealed tears about to break. Before she could say her piece, the doorbell rang and his mother shot to her feet as though it had been a grenade through the window.

Without thinking, Jack turned to answer it but his mother reclaimed his hands and they were now clenched so hard that her nails were digging into his flesh.

No! she hissed.

That was when Jack realised something else was wrong. His mother’s overreaction was closer to paranoia than prenatal personality disorder.

The bell rang again. Jack would not let it rest, determined to find out what was upsetting his mother. Two things happened in quick succession to stop him. First, his mother seemed to stagger so that he had to steady and sit her down again and then he heard his father’s calm and friendly voice talking to the person (a man) at the door. The words were indistinct but amiable and by the time Jack had fetched a glass of water for his mother, his father had joined them and promised to sit down with Jack that evening to tell him all he needed to know. Frustrated, Jack knew he would get nowhere hectoring his father. Dad would deal with Mum - calm her down, Jack supposed - and then they would talk. The deal was done. Later it would be.

Studying was one of Jack’s lifeboats. At school, he had to hold back but not at home. He was an infovore, grazing on dozens of topics at once and settling on one or two as passion took him. Right now, it was anything to do with the history of the castle.

He left his parents to talk downstairs. The occasional raised voice hinting at frustration and disagreement rather than anger. At one point he heard his father say, He has to know. Jack had no idea what he was talking about, but now worried that there might be something wrong with his mother. Or something wrong with the baby.

He blocked the voices, buried them through his second favourite pastime after roaming the castle grounds for real. He loved the Net. No-one could see him. Out there, he was Castle John. It had only been a few months but other forum members were beginning to turn to him with questions regarding Edinburgh’s history. The irony was not lost to him when he discovered that its biggest mystery was sixteen years old and he knew nothing about it.

And here it was. The top post. Only three hours old and already the replies numbered in the hundreds. Workmen had uncovered an object while removing some loose stones on the castle cliff. Like a high rise window cleaner’s platform, the rig had been a scar on the cliff for days but Jack had thought nothing of it. There was a link. He clicked and his jaw dropped. As he read, his amazement turned to anger.

His life was a lie. His parents, liars.

The New York Times:

The Book, The Castle, The Twins

Almost fifteen years ago, one of the strangest events of modern times took place on a stormy night high on the ancient battlements of Edinburgh Castle, Scotland. Lightning and thunder kept most people indoors. Claims that a white ball suddenly exploded on the edge of the rock were dismissed, the convenient weather and lack of witnesses too much for sceptics who appeared to win the day. According to the few who claimed to see the event, the sphere then rose like a bubble inside the fortress. If those five witnesses had come forward that night, instead of responding to the media frenzy, their stories might have been believed. The unlikely incident was soon placed alongside UFOs, The Loch Ness Monster and curious events that go bump in the night.

Two of the so-called witnesses were revellers caught by the storm after a drunken party. Another two were homeless, huddled in separate shop entrances on Princes Street. The last (and favoured by UFO evangelists) was a policeman returning home after a twelve hour shift. The officer swore that the incident happened exactly as we describe above. Two months later, the man took early retirement. Stress, this reporter was told.

There is no doubt that something strange occurred that night because, when security guard Trevor Matthews made his rounds of the castle courtyard at six a.m., the sound of a baby crying over the trailing wind brought him to a small bundle abandoned on the cobbled yard. That single cry became two and soon he was running inside, freezing twins screaming under his coat. And so the strange birth of a mystery that has never been solved was born.

Infants taken into care, a plea for the mother to come forward kept the story alive for a week. No-one claimed the children. It was rumoured they had been separated to give them the best chance of a normal life.

The story faded to a footnote.

Until now!

Details are sketchy but we are told by reliable sources that an object found yesterday, buried in the cliff below Edinburgh’s castle, is directly linked to that strange night. The sphere was said to bear a man holding a book in one hand as two small figures held close to his side. A minor entry to a crazy story, that book has now been found at the impact point. Partially fused to the rock, skeletal fingers curve the spine and we have to wonder if the crazy witnesses were not so crazy after all.

We will update this story as details emerge.

Jack sat back, the tingle running his spine somehow turning to a shiver and then trembling fingers as he jumped straight to the latest entries to find out what people were saying. In that instant, Jack had no solid reason to link himself to the story and yet there he was shaking - not with excitement, but with dread. Sixteen years. Adopted. The castle. The whispers through the years. His mother. The phone. He needs to know.

Before he could rationalise his fears, there it was on the forum. He found it in the third entry from last and then realised the thread extended backwards to dozens before.

He scanned quickly, words flying at him in chunks. The babies. Boy and girl. The birthmark. The disfigured face. The boy.

And the line that said it all and told him that his life was about to change forever.

With a mark like that, the boy should be easy to find!

SIX

Jack did not notice his own tears. His obsession had a new focus. With each search the number of articles grew like a virus, destroying his old life and replacing it with a pit yet to be filled. The more he looked the crazier things became. Newspapers from Bangalore to Birmingham and blogs from Russia to Reno were talking about searching for him. He gave no quarter to the idea that he might be mistaken. Too many small things leapt from the page of his childhood. They now made sense if he ignored the impossibility of the original story being true.

Frantic fingers flew across the keyboard, dozens of tabs and windows stacked on windows as search after search brought new meaning to self-discovery.

Despite the first report and his personal ignorance, the story did not die all those years ago. Once you knew where to look, there were hundreds of sites actively discussing the event. He was bemused to realise that thousands of people had known and yet he had never heard of it. How could he not know? This was Edinburgh, for Christ’s sake, not China. It was tiny.

He wanted to stop looking, but it was impossible. He was drawn from site to site, reading the same thing again and again, occasionally finding some new fact or ridiculous conjecture. Most of the traditional media organisations told the same tale, and after a while Jack understood that they were just copying each other and he became frustrated. Some of them gave links to places where readers could get more information and it was on following one of those links that Jack entered a world of bizarre theories and crazy people. But soon he wondered who was crazy and who was sane.