Chapter Two #2
She realized the thought frightened her – not of him catching her gone, but catching her here and stopping her from going at all. A sense of desperation emboldened her now that they were standing in the shadow of their dying hours here.
She ran the rest of the way home, and was grateful to find it still empty. Hurriedly, she left a message on the slate on the table: I’m at the burial ground if you need me. J. Beside it, she left a small stack of oatcakes, in case he should be hungry when he returned; she was hopeful that if he did come back, a weary body and full stomach would override any anger at her absence.
Grabbing the knitted bed blanket, she silently crept through the crepuscular pause, past the dyke and circling around to the burial ground gate. The high bowed walls rebounded the worst of the winds and contained within them a distilled silence, almost perfumed in its sweetness. She saw a dark shadow stir as the gate creaked on its hinge.
‘It’s only me,’ she whispered, already recognizing David’s lean, nervy silhouette as he pushed himself back up to sitting. She imagined him lying with his cheek on the ground, his tears spilling into the earth that now held his sweetheart.
‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ he said in a low voice, watching as she picked her way between the crosses towards him.
‘I was waiting on everyone going inside – and staying there. There’s a nervy air tonight.’ She threw her blanket on the ground and settled herself upon it, on the other side of the domed grave from him.
‘But why did you need to wait for them to go inside?’
She gave him a bewildered look. Did he really not see the impropriety? ‘Because us, sleeping out here together, isn’t exactly...’ She swallowed. ‘Usual.’
A deep flush – of anger, she supposed – rose to his cheeks. ‘But we’re not...’
‘Of course we’re not,’ she said quickly, not wanting to hear the vehemence of the refutation. ‘But you know the gossip’s mouth is the devil’s postbag.’ She arranged her skirts, eager for the distraction. It felt impossible to look at him while discussing this. The thought had clearly never occurred to him that she was a married woman. Another man’s wife. The thought of ‘only Jayne’ at the heart of a scandal was probably ludicrous to him.
‘So then what did you tell Norman?’ he asked after a moment.
She swallowed. ‘I didn’t. He’s still out working, but I left a note saying where he can find me if he needs to.’
‘Does he know I’m here too?’
‘...No.’ She felt David’s eyes scanning over her, perplexed by her evasiveness. To him she had only ever been Molly’s sister-in-law, and even as she had slowly become his unexpected new friend and confidante, he still didn’t fully see her . She wasn’t sure anyone ever had. Her so-called ‘gift’ kept people at bay, a magnetic field that repelled them whether they realized it or not. ‘He’s been on a short fuse all week. I’m not looking for reasons to make him lose his temper.’ She was well aware of the village’s pity for her when Norman’s sporadic storming rages saw him move out of the cottage to the byre. No one seemed to have any idea that he was so much worse when he was quiet. ‘Did you tell your family you were coming here?’
‘Of course.’
‘And did you tell them I’d be here too?’
His eyes flickered in her direction and away again. ‘Well, actually, no...There didn’t seem any need to mention it.’ He plucked at the grass as she raised an eyebrow. Neither Christina nor Archie had tempers on them. ‘So what’s Norman still doing out at this hour anyway?’ he asked after a pause.
‘Helping the factor.’
‘...With what?’
She shrugged. ‘He says MacLeod is making Mathieson check all the cleits to make sure nothing is left behind.’
‘As if anyone is going to want our salted fulmars!’ he snorted.
She shrugged again, unable to admit that it suited her this way: Norman being kept busy made for a quieter life for her. She picked a long-stemmed dandelion from the grass and wove it between her fingers; in lieu of her knitting needles to occupy her hands, she needed something else with which to distract her body. She felt heavy and leaden, sure it must be visible in her clumsy movements. The golden shadows were flickering increasingly across her field of vision now, her own private aurora that no one could ever see or even know about. Not even her only true friend.
They were quiet for a few moments. ‘Well, we’ve nothing to hide if he does come here.’
‘...Norman?’
‘Aye. We’re doing nothing wrong. I asked you to join me tonight because we both loved Molly.’
‘Aye, we did. We do . And Norman does too, in his way.’
David’s eyes hardened. He would never forgive Norman for keeping him apart from Molly in her final months. They were different beasts, motivated by different values.
‘Not the same, though.’
‘No,’ she agreed.
‘You’re the only one who understands.’ David looked over at her, his elbows slung over his knees, and she felt that spring of panic again at the thought of losing him – this – tomorrow. They might end up living two miles apart or ten; they had no way of knowing till they got there. ‘Jayne, I want you to know that whatever happens—’
But he was stopped in his tracks by a sudden commotion. Someone was running...sprinting...their breath coming heavily as they flew down the slope, past the cleits and the burial ground. David looked back at Jayne with wide eyes and pressed his finger to his lips as the figure tore past in a whirlwind. From their seated position on the ground, below the curved stone wall, they couldn’t be seen; nor could they see who it was darting back through the dyke and into the safe-holding of the village confines again. But Jayne caught sight of a streak of corn-blonde hair above the stones, and she heard the lightness of the footsteps...
‘Effie,’ she whispered, seeing his apprehension. ‘She went up earlier to see Flora and Mhairi.’
‘Ah.’ He looked a little rueful. Had he thought it was Norman? She could have told him her husband would never run so fast, nor sound so desperate, looking for her.
They straightened their backs to peer down the slope towards the small village. They couldn’t see the dyke while still seated, it was too close to here, but from this distance the square amber pools of light from the cottages spilled onto the street in a crooked smile. The smile was becoming snaggle-toothed as, one by one, the doors were finally closed and the St Kildans’ last night in two thousand years finally yawned.
They watched together as their home was swallowed into darkness and silence. The moonlight shimmered on the mirrored bay, the grassy slope now stripped of its flocks. All around them birds were sleeping in crevices and ledges, whales and seals slipping through the water like inky shadows, but somehow they felt utterly alone. The vista was jet-black and midnight-blue and silver – but the golden glimmers stole Jayne’s peace, robbing the scene of its beauty.
With a frustrated sigh she lay back, pulling the blanket around her. She wanted to be in this moment with David and Molly, but her mind felt untethered from her body, a balloon that kept pulling away.
‘What is it?’ David asked as she clutched the blanket beneath her chin.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered, staring up into the fathomless galaxy of stars and feeling the scale of her solitude. She was exhausted, her body physically spent from the effort it took to channel the energy of the visions.
Beside her, she heard David lie back too and do the same. They blinked in the darkness, the sky seeming to grow brighter with every breath, another world coming alive as their own subsided into slumber.
‘...You know, Jayne, I disagreed with the minister tonight.’
It was a controversial statement. No one ever disagreed with the minister. ‘Which part?’ she asked. ‘Avoid the evil and it will avoid thee?’
It had been the recurring theme in his polemic. David chuckled lightly.
‘I do worry about his worry for our souls. Why does he so terribly fear the worst for us?’ she asked.
‘Because temptation has never been within reach before.’
But that wasn’t wholly true. Jayne knew it had sat upon David and Molly’s shoulders when they hid, kissing, in her box room; she knew that it had danced around Flora as her fiancé once secretly landed his seaplane in the northern bay; and she had seen how Effie had thrilled in the earl’s son’s grip as he had taught her to swim. Other villagers would have had their temptations, too – some secrets were better kept than others, but temptation was everywhere. Even on a rock in the Atlantic.
‘So what did you disagree with, then?’ she asked.
‘It was when he was speaking of the final judgement, saying our bodies, being united to Christ upon death, will rest in their graves till the Resurrection.’
‘You disagreed with that?’ It was a fundamental tenet of Presbyterianism.
‘Aye. I believe our spirit does separate from our bodies at the moment of our deaths – but not that it goes to God. It goes...somewhere out there.’ His gaze roamed the skies as if searching for Molly’s face. ‘Where else could a countless number of souls reside but in infinity?’
Jayne blinked, understanding in a flash. David had spent the past few months trying to stay with Molly here; it made the thought of leaving her here unbearable. Abandonment in its truest form. But if her spirit was up there, then it wouldn’t matter where he was in the world, he would always be able to look for her.
‘You could be right.’
She heard his hair rustle against the ground as he turned to look at her. ‘Do you really think that or are you just humouring me?’
‘When have I ever humoured you?’
There was a pause, then another rustle as he stared at the stars again. ‘It makes better sense to me.’
‘And it comforts me,’ she replied. ‘To think we could still be with her, wherever we are.’
‘Aye.’
A golden flash dazzled her, blinding her suddenly, and she closed her eyes tightly, knowing the moment must be drawing close now. She turned onto her side, facing him, giving a shiver as she pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Clear skies always turned chilly at night.
‘Cold?’ he asked, lifting his head to see her better.
‘I’m all right,’ she murmured. ‘Just tired.’ She placed a hand on the grassy dome that lay between them, as if patting Molly.
‘Goodnight, then,’ she heard David say as he too turned inwards, his own hand reaching out and accidentally covering hers. ‘Sorry.’ He pulled it away sharply, positioning it somewhere else instead.
Jayne stared into the darkness, jolted momentarily by the unexpected touch. His hand was warm and rough, not as large as Norman’s, nor as cruel, and she realized she couldn’t remember the last time anyone other than her husband had touched her hand. Her arm. Her hair...Any part of her, in fact.
She wished he would cover her hand with his again, the both of them covering Molly and protecting her. They were here to lie with her in companionship, after all – so why was it Jayne who felt so alone? She didn’t want to sleep. She knew there would never come another night like this, when she could lie under the stars and talk to her friend; her nights were so very different. She wanted to stay awake all night, to search for Molly in the stars until the sun broke cover. Was that what David wanted too? She had thought she heard regret in his voice as he wished her goodnight...But she was subject to forces he couldn’t possibly understand, and her eyelids fluttered heavily, dragging her under and away from this, into a place of darkness.
The sound had been indistinct – a stone rolled out of position on the ground, perhaps; a distant dog’s bark or a stray bird squabbling on a ledge. But something had woken her.
Jayne sat up slowly, her entire body leaden as if she had woken into dreamland. Was she, in fact, still sleeping? She looked around, disoriented. David was still lying on his side, his arm slung over the grassy grave like a strap, the blanket twisted at his waist, sharing an intimacy in sleep that had never been afforded to him when Molly was alive.
Another sound came, this one more like a grunt, and she got to her knees just in time to peer over the wall and see a figure heading down the slopes towards the village. It was difficult to see clearly before they slipped through the dyke and were almost hidden from view again; she could make out only a head and shoulders. But the houndstooth check of a lambing shawl seemed distinctive as the figure crept past a window before turning out of sight.
Jayne sank back onto her heels, trying to make the connection, but the fugue was still heavy upon her and she slowly sank back to the ground, the grass rising up in a soft embrace.
Whispers, so quiet by day, could slice through the night like knives, and if her eyes were closed, her ears were open. Jayne stirred again, sitting up in a trance. The moon had moved its position slightly on the water; David had rolled onto his back. This was the same act as before, but a different scene. How much time had passed? It was after midnight, she knew that.
The whispers came again, and she tried to rouse herself more fully to escape the delirium that had her pinned between worlds. Her body moved clumsily, her balance off as she got to her knees in time to see two figures moving through the narrow gap in the dyke. Both heads were bent with concentration, but one of the figures was propping up the other. Were they injured? Could she help? She must help...
But she couldn’t move, her limbs as useless as if the bones had been snapped.
No. The protest, strong in her mind, made no register in her throat and she felt her heart rate quicken as the terrible vision flashed through her mind and stayed there. Surely this was it now? Fate had swung its mortal blade, and she was free of the bonds that had captured her these past few days?
But her eyelids fluttered again and she felt herself slump, still caught after all. She was like a fish in a net, hoping to be thrown free, but instinct telling her there was worse still to come.
Heavy breathing. Just air upon air, the clash of hot breath into the cool as the dark night lengthened and stretched. She could tell they had entered the dead of night now, and Jayne swayed, her body moving by rote as she got to her knees, peering over the wall back down to the village and waiting for the next figure on the stage.
But the sound that came next was behind her. She was looking the wrong way. Staggering around, her skirt catching under her knees, she turned and looked up the slope to find a figure heading for the ridge. Arms swinging, they would have marched right past her and David here. Had they peered in and glimpsed them hugging the grave? Or did they believe themselves to be fully alone in the witching hour? No witches here...?
Jayne watched the figure stride strong and solid over the grass, instantly recognizable even though it was also...inexplicable. She frowned in her half-wakened trance. It made no sense to her.
But then, it didn’t need to. She was given images, not narratives. She was only a witness, not a judge.
The figure disappeared into the shadowy moor and she felt the darkness engulf her once again, her head hanging as she placed her hands on the grass and sank back into oblivion.
It was all over, finally. Or about to be.