Barbara Erskine - On the Edge of Darkness

She jumped and stared at him, blinking. ‘Uncle –’

‘You work too hard, Niece.’ Broichan gave a cruel laugh. ‘Sleep now. I have great plans for you, my dear.’

He walked out of the small room. Behind him the flame on the lamp flickered.

The evening before he was due to go to Edinburgh Adam walked up one last time towards the stone. His trunk was packed and strapped, ready to go, in the hall. Tomorrow the carter would pick it up and take it to the station.

He was feeling a little guilty as he climbed the hillside. Overwhelmed with excitement about the future he had spared practically no thought for Brid and Gartnait at all over the last month. In his knapsack was a chocolate cake. A peace offering and perhaps a farewell.

The stone was in shadow. Panting slightly he stood as he had so often, running his fingers over the intricate designs carved on it. Below him, the hillside fell away into the velvet night. High above, on the west-facing slope, the sunlight still reflected pink onto the blackened heather and the rock. The evening was very still. He could hear no birds. Even the wind in the sparse grasses had died. He slung his bag off his shoulder and dropped it, then he stepped away from the stone. The Z-shaped cut – he thought of it as a lightning bolt, though Gartnait called it the broken spear – threw a hard narrow shadow across the smoothed surface of the granite. Beside it the carved serpent writhed unfinished, the tail only half drawn. It was the only incomplete carving on the stone. Under it the mirror looked as though someone had been scraping at it. The lichen had been rubbed away. He frowned. That was strange. As far as he knew he was the only person in the whole world, apart from Brid and Gartnait, who ever came to this lonely spot.

He walked slowly round, mentally recording each detail of the place that had meant so much to him, as though already he knew he would never come back. His plan was to leave the cake behind. He was pretty sure that Brid would not find it, but the birds and animals of the high screes would.

The sound of Brid’s voice behind him made him leap out of his skin. ‘A-dam! I knew you would come. I sent a message in my head to bring you here.’ Suddenly she was sobbing. She threw her arms around his neck, then, uncharacteristically she drew back. ‘I must come with you. My uncle plans to kill me.’ The statement, so flat and unemotional, stunned him into total silence. ‘He put me into a magic sleep, and he told me what he was going to do. But I have more power than him!’ She let out a wild burst of laughter. ‘I pretended to sleep, but I heard him. I did not make a sign. I did not move my face, but when he had gone I made my plans. I took one of his best ponies and rode in the middle of the night, and I rode until I came home.’ She smiled wearily, a humourless, cold smile which chilled him. ‘He plans to kill my brother too when the stone is finished. He knows now that Gartnait and I know what the stone is for. It marks the gateway to other times and to knowledge that is forbidden to all but the highest initiates, so we must both die. You see the mirror? That is the sign that from here you can see through the reflections into other worlds. That is how I have come to you. I am not going back. There is only a small part of the work left. When the serpent is finished Broichan will give orders that we are to be buried under the stone – a sacrifice to the gods.’ The hardness vanished and she kneaded her fists into her eyes like a child. ‘Gartnait has gone. He has gone south with my mother three days ago. He wanted me to go too, but I stayed. I waited for you.’

Adam had a strange cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘Brid, what are you talking about? Your mother and Gartnait would never leave you. Your uncle would never kill you. This is nonsense. All of it.’

‘Nonsense?’ she echoed wildly. ‘Broichan is the chief priest of this land. His word is the law. Even the king would not defy him if it was over a matter of the gods.’ Her eyes hardened again and he recoiled. ‘A-dam, don’t you see, you have to save me! I have to live in your world now. I am going to come with you. To your school in Edinburgh!’

‘No!’ Adam stepped back further. ‘No, Brid. I’m sorry, but you can’t. It’s impossible.’

‘Why can’t I?’ Her eyes were fixed on his face.

‘Because you can’t.’ He was filled with horror at the idea.

‘You can’t stop me! A-dam, I have nowhere else to go.’

‘Go with Gartnait and Gemma. You belong with them.’

‘I can’t. They have gone to the south.’

‘Then you must follow them. This is nonsense. Brid, I can’t take you to Edinburgh! I’m sorry.’

‘But you love me, A-dam.’

‘Yes …’ He paused. ‘Yes, I love you, Brid.’ It was the truth, but at the same time, he realised suddenly, there was a part of him which would be quite glad never to see her again. Her angry outbursts and her possessiveness, her wild declamations, had become alarming. And at the same time there was a part of him which had already begun to separate itself from Pittenross and everything there. He softened his voice. ‘Our love is for here. For the holidays. There is no place for you in Edinburgh. None at all.’ He hesitated. ‘Brid, women are not allowed where I’m going.’ He did not like to lie but in a way it was the truth. Robbie had found them digs to share off the High Street and one of the landlady’s conditions was, ‘nae young women’. Sharing the digs there would be only one other, a skeleton Robbie had bagged for him from a newly qualified doctor. The story was that the skeleton, known as Knox, had been divested of its skin and flesh by the young man himself who had now headed south for London to become a dermatologist.

‘Brid.’ Adam took a deep breath and caught her hands gently in his own. ‘You have to go back. I’m sorry. You know you aren’t really in danger.’ He deliberately closed his mind to the picture of Broichan with this cruel eyes, wild hair, and savage, tight-lipped mouth. ‘That was all a wonderful fantasy. A game we played when we were children.’ He frowned. ‘Brid, there’s a war about to start. I’m going to be a doctor. Please understand.’ He touched her face gently. ‘It’s just not possible.’

‘A-dam …’ Her face was ashen. ‘War does not matter to me. I will help you with the wounded. Please. I love you.’ She grabbed the front of his sweater. ‘If I go back I will die.’

‘No, Brid.’

‘A-dam. You do not understand.’ She was clinging to him, her face hard.

‘Brid, I do. Listen. You have to go back to find Gartnait and Gemma. Next holidays we’ll meet and we’ll compare notes, all right? You must understand. You cannot come with me.’

She let go of him so suddenly he staggered backwards. Through her tears her eyes were blazing. ‘A-dam, I will never let you go. Never!’ Her voice was almost vicious.

Adam stared at her, shocked. The skin on the back of his neck was prickling suddenly, but he managed to remain calm. ‘No, Brid, I’m sorry.’ He stepped away from her. ‘Please, try and understand.’ He could not bear the look in her eyes any longer.

He turned and began to run as fast as he could down the hillside, away from her.

The digs were situated up a curved stair in a narrow wynd of tall grey corbelled houses off the High Street. Adam felt an initial wave of intense claustrophobia as he surveyed his new domain, with its small hard bed, empty bookshelf and wobbly table, and then, seeing it instead through Robbie’s proud eyes he shifted his point of view and saw it as a haven of independence.