He gives a single nod.
“Goodnight, Ren.” I cross the bridge at a march, leaving him staring after me.
I hadn’t meant to stay down in the village until after dark, and I soon regret it as I climb the mountain towards home. The moonlight is bright enough when the skies are clear, but wreaths of cloud keep scuttling across it, plunging me into darkness and forcing me to stop walking until the light returns and I can see the track once more.
Twice I think I hear something behind me, and I turn, half-expecting to see Ren following, ready with a new argument, but the track is always bare, the fire in the village square visible as a glowing dot in the distance.
That’s when fear starts to creep in. Lughs, mountain geists… All the things that could hurt a girl alone on the mountain, and I didn’t bring a gun with me. I see a rock that looks to have decent weight and pick it up, grateful to have some kind of weapon.
But still, it’s a long, creepy walk home, and for the first time in my life I’m relieved when I finally step on to the cottage path and see there’s golden light inside, winking like a friendly eye.
Of course, that means my father’s home tonight, and therefore knows I’m not. My stomach begins to churn as I imagine his fury.
Screwing my courage together, and preparing to face him one last time, I start towards the cottage.
The reflection from the moon makes a pretty path over the water of the loch and I stop just outside the cottage, taking it in for the last time, breathing in the smell of the water, and the rushes, and the mud. It looks like a scene from a fairy tale, everything cast in pewter and black, the reeds silvered by the moonlight, the shadows between them velvety dark, the water beyond the mirror of the sky above, glittering as though a thousand stars sit just beneath the surface.
I will miss it, I think, taking it into my heart and holding it there. Even if I don’t want to, I will. I take my time, committing it to memory.
One last look, and then I turn for home. And freeze.
There is a tall, bone-white creature standing between me and the front door.
ELEVEN
It has its back to me, facing the door. It stands seven, maybe eight feet tall, its skin corpse pale. It has no hair at all, its head and long limbs bare, and it wears no clothes or covering; I can see its ribs and every vertebra of its spine, the buttocks flat, the skin tight over the wrists and ankles, as though it’s starving.
When it turns, slowly, I freeze, my rock gripped in my hand so tight it hurts.
Shock ripples through me as I take it in; the eyes are large but filmed over, the nose nothing more than two holes, like a snake. The lips are the same bone white as the rest of its skin, stretching wide across its face. I can’t tell whether it’s male or female; its crotch is completely smooth, its chest flat and unmarked too.
Whatever it is, it’s not human.
My entire body turns to ice as it looks towards me, its head weaving oddly side to side, but its eyes stay unfocused, no jolt of connection with mine. Then it raises its chin. It’s smelling the air, I realize. It can’t see me. It’s trying to locate me by my scent.
I don’t move a muscle, not a single one, locking my knees.
It tilts its head. One long, pointed nail – no, talon – at the end of a slender finger with too many joints taps against its thigh as it sniffs the air again.
I feel the breeze against my face. I’m upwind of it, my scent blowing away behind me, out towards the loch.
But it still knows I’m here. It’s waiting for me to give myself away.
Behind it the cottage goes dark; my father must have snuffed the candles out in the kitchen. He’ll be heading to his study, the other side of the cottage.
If he looked out of the kitchen window, he’d see me. He’d see it.
Look out, Papa. Please. Please look out, I think, a tear escaping my eye.
The creature turns back towards the house, head canting as it listens. Then, fast as I can blink, it turns and runs towards the sheds.
Still I don’t move. Can’t move. For all I know there is a horde of them behind me, for all I know it’s a trap, and the only thing keeping me alive is the fact I haven’t moved.
Somewhere to my left, down near the sheds, I hear a scream. It sounds like a woman being murdered.
It’s the same scream I heard a few nights ago, outside my bedroom window.
It wasn’t a lugh.
The shutters in my window open slightly, drawing my attention. Then my father throws them wide, staring out at me, still rooted to the spot, silvery tracks on my cheeks.
He vanishes and a second later the front door opens. I move then, flying towards it, throwing myself into the house. I collapse to the floor, my legs no longer working.
I can’t take my eyes off the outside, expecting the pale thing to come after me at any second.
My father shuts the door and throws the bolt, and I see a flintlock in his hand, cocked and ready. He walks past me, into the kitchen, and I hear the sound of a chair being dragged over the slate floor, then a cork being pulled from a bottle, liquid hitting the bottom of the glass.
He’s back, scooping me up like I’m a wean, carrying me into the kitchen. My skirts are cold and damp against my legs, and I realize I’ve wet myself. Shame burns through me, but he doesn’t seem to notice, dropping me into a chair near the stove.
He opens the door, releasing a blast of heat that scorches my face, and shoves the glass into my hand.
“Drink,” he says, and I do, relishing the burn of the whisky as it sears a trail down my throat and into my stomach. If it hurts it means I’m alive.
I glance over at him. He’s moved to the sink, leaning over, peering out of the window. I can’t help looking too, terrified I’ll see it again, blind eyes somehow fixed on me anyway. But the only thing in the window is his reflection.
He closes the shutters and walks towards me, topping up the glass up again.
“Slowly, this time,” he says, and I take a sip, and then another, until I notice the glass in my hand isn’t shaking any more.
He watches me. And then he says, “So you saw one.”
I nod.
And then his words sink in.
Saw one. As in, there are more. And he knew about them.
I understand now. His fury when he caught me outside the other night. His forbidding me from leaving the cottage. It makes sense. He knew they were out there. And he didn’t tell me.
“What are they?” I ask.
He is quiet for a long moment.
“You remember why the Naomhfhuil role was created, originally? That the Naomhfhuil’s job was to deal with the gods of the loch?” he says finally, filling a glass for himself and sitting at the table, his eyes in shadow. “What you saw tonight is what our people once believed were those gods.”
For a moment I think I’ve misheard him. “As in, the gods that were supposed to have been killed in the earthquake?” He gives a brief nod. “That was a god?”
“No,” he says immediately. “They’re not gods. They were never gods. It was a word people used to explain things they didn’t understand, creatures they couldn’t comprehend.” He pauses, looking at me over the rim of his glass. “Do you understand?”
“Aye,” I say, the whisky turning me bold. “They’re not gods. Though I can’t imagine why anyone would think giant white bald things with no private bits were gods.”