#empty bothy

[trealamh]

The Restless

For day five of ScotEng week!

Horror // betrayal, ghost, forgotten // “Stay here.”

[This here was inspired by my mad chase across the grassland as something chased me in the night some years ago now in Hoy. You can find more informations on bothies, a cost-free shelter offered across Scotland, and their history here. This is my most esoteric entry by far. Enjoy! ]

-------

The camper is driving away.

Arthur is running as fast as his legs can take it, feet punching the ground and slipping on gravel in a mad dash to safety. He catches himself when he trips and pushes forward, the burn of his torn hands muted against the burn in his lungs as he struggles to catch his breath. His mind is blank. He does not let himself feel the terror biting at his heels in any conscious way, running on instinct and adrenaline. He yells after them, words or maybe a shapeless howl, begging against hope that the camper will stop, that it will turn, brakes squealing, to let him on. To wait for him. Some small part of him had thought that they would wait regardless of what he said. If I am not back in fifteen minutes, go. It had been the right thing to say. The only thing to say. They had all been afraid and still, bodies going into different stages of shock. Arthur had helped the rest of his friends load an unconscious Francis onto the backseat and offered to be the one to go looking for Alfred because it had been the right thing to say and do. And he had made them promise that they would go without him because he thought, he had truly and honestly thought—

It had only taken him ten minutes. He had gone searching and came back in ten minutes, not fifteen, because he had found Alfred’s torch thrown to the side and correctly assumed that he’d made it back to camp. Ten minutes.

The camper had already taken off in a cloud of dust, growing smaller in the distance, fading into the dark.

When he trips again his knees take the brunt and his thighs go numb. He thinks that he should scream, shout after the friends leaving him behind but there is not an ounce of air left in him, all of it burnt up in his lungs. The inertia of the fall knocks him on his front and some childish instinct has him tuck his hands into fists, so the ground rips up his forearms instead. It hurts less. It should not be possible from this distance, but he thinks he can see Francis, awake, banging on the back window. He would not have left Arthur behind. Francis would have made them wait. Francis would have pulled him into the van by the elbows and let Arthur catch his breath against his chest.

Arthur presses his forehead to the ground and chokes on a sob.

They should have known something was wrong when they arrived in the early afternoon to find the roads unkempt, not a soul for miles. They had only known to look for the bothy in the first place because they had overheard a local on the ferry whispering about the maintenance work it had needed to bring the roof down without collapsing the walls. The surrounding fields were used for cattle and it was a liability, having a structure that could come down at any moment and had no standing fence to keep the perimeter clear. All they had taken away from that overhead conversation had been clear skies and empty fields; cliffs and white sands and even ground for wild camping. What they should have heard was ‘danger’.

It had been beautiful at first. The flatlands of the isle gave way to the open cliffsides and the endless blue of the ocean and the north-eastern coast. They pitched their tents by the surviving stone wall, where they would be sheltered by the wind, and took their gas stoves and flasks to the waterfront. Arthur had thought then that it would be one of the dearest memories, their laughter that evening by the sea watching the sun set.

The whiskey had left him restless though and while the others crashed in shared tents and sleeping bags he had paced the perimeter of the ruins. The night was so clear this far north, so close to a perpetual twilight, that he had been able to navigate in the dark without a torch. He’d found smooth river stones piled into a miniature cairn some meters away from camp. Following the outcrop that gave way to the coast he’d found old fire pits and a witch stone, placed carefully by the edge like its owner had found it and left it there, intending to return. Arthur had not thought much of it and feeling something like kismet had rolled the stone between his fingers before looking through the gap; first at the ocean, then the grasslands.

It was through the stone that he had first seen it.

With a frightened gasp he had wrenched the stone away from his eye, blinking wildly and reaching clumsily for his phone. In truth, he had not needed any light to see that there had been nothing there. No looming figure, dark against the faint blue-grey of the skyline. Heart racing and clutching his stone, Arthur had hurried back to camp, looking over his shoulder with every flutter of birds’ wings in the brush and the faraway bleating of sheep. He had felt safe laying down to sleep next to Francis, though, and foolish when he’d retold the story the next morning over breakfast.

Then he found the bones. Vertebrae too large to belong to sheep, cluttering a freshly dug trench.

He had called out to the others, voice tight with alarm, but they had laughed it up. Alfred had kicked one of the bones carelessly and brushed fresh dirt onto the pile to cover them, so they would be out of sight. He’d seen the like in Texas, he’d said, dismissive and care-free. It could be a cow, a horse. And maybe he had been right, Arthur wouldn’t know, but a chilling suspicion had begun to dawn in the back of his mind. The ground had been undisturbed the night before.

They were not alone. And they were being watched.

He should have forced the issue instead of biting his tongue. He should have ruined the fucking trip. Ripped the tents with his pocket knife if that was what it took. They should have left before nightfall.

Shaking with adrenaline, Arthur slaps his hands against his mouth and forces himself to breathe through his nose. He shifts on his bruised knees and looks around wildly, looking for somewhere to hide. Keeping an eye for him and then he spots him. A shadow between shadows moving pitilessly closer at an even pace. Arthur can barely hear the howling wind over the pounding of his heart but he blinks the tears away and thinks fast. There is the road ahead, endless and exposed. He can’t outrun the night; his lungs will give out before he makes another mile. If he runs now, he will disturb the gravel and call attention to himself. For now, at least he is crouched down, holding himself as tight as he can to make himself seem small. From a distance he might be just small enough to be overlooked. Judging by the direction the shadow moves, he might just walk past him. God, if only he would walk past him, Arthur could make a run for the coastline. He could find a crevice between the weathered walls and sea-washed boulders until the sun rose. In the light of day he could find his phone, still plugged into its power bank back at camp. He could call for help. Walk up the road until he finds service and dial every number in his directory, dial emergency services. He will not be made a ghost haunting the friends that left him for dead. He will not be remembered for being forgotten. Arthur wants to live. 

The shadow pauses, its profile looking out towards the winding road, and for a soaring moment Arthur is sure that it will turn and go. Everyone else is gone, Francis who he had attacked. Alfred who he had lured away in an ill-advised fit of courage. They are all gone. There is no reason for it to suspect that Arthur has been left behind. 

The shadow turns its head and although Arthur cannot see his eyes he simply knows.

It can see him.

Arthur scrambles up to his feet and stumbles, blind with panic, until he can find his footing. Pain shoots through every muscle and joint as he tries to outrun the inevitable. In his desperation he turns towards the bothy, some animal sense in him promising him safety if only he can get behind the stone walls. Clearing the distance takes an inhuman amount of effort but he makes it, lurching past the empty door frame and reaching unseeing for something to block the entrance. There isn’t even a door, the wood long-rotted, but whatever Arthur can do to earn himself another heartbeat he will try. His hand closes around the back of a wooden chair and using the inertia of his failing body he tosses it behind him. Arthur throws his back against the far wall of the small cabin and  watches the wood bounce on the threshold. His lungs wheeze as he pants widely, afraid to blink for too long.

Earlier in the night they had set up lanterns on the cabin’s walls, where the roof would have been thatched onto the structure once. It had dispelled the shadows then and made them feel deceptively safe so long as they stayed within the pools of light. All they do is cast long shadows now as Arthur waits, terrified, for the looming figure to come. 

When it does, it kicks the chair across the room, clearing the threshold and stepping through unhurriedly. Arthur’s finger’s scratch the walls and low shelves behind him, searching desperately for something to use against the hulking shadow he is finally close enough to see.

He is a man, or must have been, once, dressed in a stained undershirt and muddy trousers. A boned mask obscures his features, a savage mimicry of a wolf or bear that tilts to the side as the man seems to consider him. If he came any closer the light might slip into the eye sockets of his mask but as it is all Arthur can see of them are the pooled shadows of an eyeless skull peering meaningly from between strands of unkempt hair. He is easily twice Arthur’s size in padded muscle alone and towers above him in height.

Arthur’s fingers find a thin shard of rock worked loose from the wall behind him and he holds onto it tight despite the pain. He blinks away the black spots that fill his vision.

“Why?” He demands, blinking away the black spots that swirl in his vision.

“Who are you? Why– what do you want?”

The man does not answer. He takes a step forward. 

Arthur could chance him coming closer but a sudden fury bubbles in his chest at the thought of this hulking man crowing him. He lunges at him, seemingly managing to catch him by surprise enough that he gets a good hit in with his shoulder. The shard in his hand splits in two under the strain of his grip alone so Arthur throws it blindly hoping one of the pieces will find the man’s eye behind his mask. The stranger recovers quickly though, bending over with a grunt and reaching around Arthur to get him in a corded grip. With his hands now free, however, Arthur can claw at him, looking for an opportunity to jab an elbow against his neck or face. When the man manages to catch his arms, he kicks. When he is pushed against the wall, he cranes his head and bites down. He is savage with it and in a triumphant moment earns a howl of pain when his teeth pierce the man’s skin. Blood floods his mouth however and he chokes, spitting the metallic taste and battling against the nausea that conjures hot bile up his throat. He is still spitting when the man regains the upper hand and lets go of one of his arms to grab a solid grip of his hair by the roots instead.

All Arthur knows after that is a sharp pain at the back of his head and then, nothing.

Nothing at all.

-

He wakes up curled up on his side, his cheek pressed down on a rough-hewn mattress that smells like peat. His head throbs but when he tries to reach up to his nape he finds that they are caught on a snare. The rope is not tight enough to grind down on his bones but it keeps his wrists crossed and anchored to the bed frame. He has to crane his head back to find where it’s been strapped and nailed down to the wood. Barely awake, he does not have the wherewithal to be frightened yet but when something grips his ankle his wits snap back into attention. 

His first instinct is to start kicking but his legs are pulled out harshly and pinned. There is not enough give to the rope around his wrists to accommodate him being yanked down so his shoulders are pulled forward, his field of vision obscured by his own forearms. The mattress shifts with the man’s weight and Arthur really panics then, bucking his hips up and twisting. He only stops when strong hands bracket his hips. It is the shock, at first, and then the knees that dig in firmly into the insides of his thighs, keeping him still as the man leans over him to grab wrists in a single hand. 

His heart is in his throat, mind racing with a million possibilities. He tries to pull his arms down to at least be able to look at the man on top of him but even his best effort is pointless. He had known as soon as he had seen him that he’d ne outweighed and outmatched but the reality of that body on his blinds him to reason. Arthur curses and bites back the urge to scream, only settling down when the man above him growls angrily and pins his turned face into the mattress with the weight of his forearm. He has gotten wise to the sharpness of Arthur’s teeth, it seems.

Angry tears smear into his temple and the stranger’s dirt-streaked skin as Arthur pants to keep his emotion at bay. He will not cry, he will not beg. He bites his lips and swallows the hitch in his breath, unwilling to give up the last torn shred of his pride. There is nothing Arthur needs to make peace with except himself so on and on, he curses until his voice gives out, too hoarse to continue. It is only then that the weight above him shifts, like the man crouched above him was only waiting for Arthur to tire himself out. He reaches for something Arthur cannot see, still blinded by his own arms, and the only weakness he allows himself is turning his face against his shoulder, bracing for whatever may come. 

All that happens is that something cold is pressed onto his palms.

He flinches, startled and hisses when his skin begins to burn but the man seems to have had enough. He hushes him harshly and squeezes his wrists to keep him still before dabbing roughly at the scrapes on his palms. Once he is seemingly satisfied with the work he’s done he moves to clean Arthur’s forearms next.

It is an action so absurd that Arthur’s is shocked to stillness. He lets his arms be raised and lowered without fighting and drops his head back to catch a sight of the bed frame once more, wondering if he is still asleep or half-dead already and hallucinating as he goes. The sharp scent of herbs bites at his nose and his fingers curl when some kind of salve is slathered on his palms.

The man slips down his body when he is done, clumsy and heavy, but for now not trying to hurt him. He goes as far as to ease his weight of Arthur when he winces and for now seems to trust that Arthur will not try to knee him when he shifts his knees off his thighs. It is enough leeway for Arthur to feel like he can risk provoking his temper so he pulls himself back up the mattress, using the rope to hoist himself back. He is stopped from going too far when the man grabs a hold of his ankle again like a warning but he is able to sit up at least and finally regain his sight.

Absurdly, the first thing he thinks is that the man’s eyes are the same shade of green as his.

His shoulder is clean and wrapped. Arthur does not know whether the mark of his teeth will scar but he imagines it might, for a while at least. Good. Good, Arthur hopes it does. He can see some bruising starting to form around the area. He is wearing a different undershirt, this one looser on his frame, but the same soot-stained trousers as he had been earlier. His feet, Like Arthur’s now, are bare. More importantly though, so is his face. He has the same stern features that Arthur has seen on the men who work the docks and pubs of the northernmost isles. It should not be right that he looks like them, or they like him, but the truth is that Arthur should not be surprised. He has known violence and fear at the hands of so many men who looked like this: ordinary, handsome even. It is almost disappointing that this is how it will end. It is a fucking waste.

The man does not hold his gaze for long, seeming more concerned with the hem of Arthur’s trousers. He does not let Arthur pull his legs away but does not pull them straight and splayed either. He lets Arthur keep his legs slightly bent while he rolls up the fabric up to his knees. Arthur is too tired to feel demeaned. It hurts to have the material pried out from the grooves in his torn knees and he can’t help flinching again. This time, the man only presses his thumb to the joint of his knee, like he means to hold him steady. 

Arthur is exhausted. He is shaking with crashing adrenaline and his ears are ringing from how hard he is clenching his jaw. Maybe from how hard the man bashed his head, as well. That the same man is now carefully cleaning his knees is so absurd that he feels hysterical laughter bubble up in his chest, breathy and hoarse. The man only looks up briefly before resuming his task. When he is done, he stands from the bed and reaches immediately for the mask that Arthur can see now has been sitting on a low table all this time. 

Arthur speaks without meaning to. “Why?”

The man pauses, half-turned. He is holding the mask against his face with one hand, the other reaching back to tie the leather tongs that hold it in place. Looking at him now, golden in the half light, Arthur realises that there is a small fire lit in an iron stove across the room and gas lamps sitting in every corner of the room. 

“What is the point?” He pulls his legs closer to his chest; his thighs are starting to burn from the night’s exertion. He means the man’s touch on his skin and the care for his wounds. Minor, for all that there might be in store for him. 

The man does not answer. He adjusts his mask and when he turns to face Arthur it’s with the same animal blankness he had exuded as he cornered him in the bothy. 

Has it been hours? A day? Arthur suspects the former. He is not hungry, only thirsty.

The man goes around the bed to approach him this time rather than climbing in the mattress the way Arthur had expected he would. He crouches by him, so large that it is only in this way that they are finally at eye level. Arthur holds his eyes, obscured by the deep set cavities of the skull, and holds his ground. He does not so much as flinch then the man’s hand comes up to touch his face, tracing his jaw with a calloused knuckle. He does not tilt his head, just follows the natural curvature of the bone towards his chin. Arthur is so focused on the slow drag of the caress that he does not notice the way the man’s breathing shifts, slowing down into deep, controlled breaths that fill his diaphragm with air. A deep, rumbling voice hums a singular note before he speaks, the words barely given shape behind the bone which distorts them further. It is not Gaelic or Scots of any kind that Arthur has heard but they ring into his ears like tide; rhythmic and familiar. 

Arthur is not aware of the way his defiant gaze softens, only of the way the pain at the back of his head seems to melt away, leaving only a light, tired throb behind. He feels his muscles yield to exhaustion and the pull of those dark, sightless eyes. Something hot and consuming pools in the pit of his stomach.

When he loses consciousness this time it is not sudden, but gradual. His head is cradled kindly and his body is laid out. 

Dawn crests, unseen, and Arthur dreams of cliffs and the howling winds of Orkney, a voice hidden in their midst.

-

They are told that Arthur drowned. Not one of them believes it.

After a thoughtless drive across the island to flee the horrors of the night, Francis had managed to scream sense back into them. With a fraction of diesel left in the tank, however, making the drive back to camp had been impossible. They’d had to wait until the morning after contacting the ferry operator on an emergency radio left by the docks. The search for Arthur had been fruitless. They returned to the mainland with Arthur’s phone still hooked to a power bank and missing a friend. Francis didn’t look away from the island once as they were escorted away. He also has not spoken a word to a single one of them since.

The official reports will read like a common tragedy: too little sleep and too much to drink, a prank or fight gone awry with one young man left behind. With Arthur’s phone found abandoned by the rest of his things and Gil’s phone missing, the theory had been born that he must have climbed onto a cliff edge trying to find reception and had fallen to his death, body lost to the ocean. The ferry operator, some local workmen who had joined in on the search,and the women who had leveled them with pity and censure on their return deflected their questions and refused them help in proving that there had been someone else there; a man. It is some time before the nightmares fade and the guilt settles into something they can live with. Arthur is brought up rarely and only as a memory. 

Until one day, the ferry dispatch on the mainland receives a mayday signal from an emergency radio long in disuse.

[tracksterman]

I actually did find a few bits of wood and some kindling, but decided to drop it off at the bothy while passing. The thought of forlorn, shivering bothy-ites clustered round the cold comfort of an empty fireplace in the gathering dark distressed me....but the hut turned out to be unoccupied, clean and tidy, with just some food to be carried out for disposal/my consumption. It was a grim walk through rain to the small island village and jetty for the Monday ferry. Back to the mainland, one eye on a deteriorating forecast for the second week of the trip - but, in truth, I've enjoyed this island interlude so much that everything else is a bonus.

[miriamvowen]

Outside by Ragnar Jónasson #Iceland #crimefiction #mystery

Fill, fair snowdrift, so gentle, the emptiness inside me, but not quite yet… …let me live just a little while longer – (Outside, Ragnar Jónasson) I am reviewing Outside because it is something a little different to come out of the Icelandic crime writing genre. The story is set over a weekend, in a mountain bothy in the Icelandic highlands. A group of friends become stranded in a…

[thejennawatt]

Empty Bothy

[scapegrace74-blog]

Love Stained, Chapter 6

A/N  As I hinted at last week, this week’s installment arrives a day early.  My latent Catholicism means that I feel squicky about posting sexy fic on Easter Sunday.  Or, I just really wanted to get this chapter out into the world!

Thanks to everyone who has reblogged, liked, kudoed or commented on this fic.  I really appreciate your support.

The full fic to date can be read on my AO3 page.

“This is some of your best work.”

Sunbeams from the skylight bounced off the perfectly pomaded gleam of John Grey’s hair as he bent to examine a photograph of a ram’s horn more closely.

“Ye always say that,” Jamie grumbled as he prepared a second espresso for his friend and agent.

“Yes, well, this time I mean it.  Ta,” he added as the demitasse was pressed into his hand.

English to his Scot, refined to his primal, and polished where Jamie was rugged, the two had nonetheless been close since their early twenties, brought together by a mutual love of rugby and fine art.

Taking his time to re-examine each of the six giant photographs Jamie had thus far printed, John turned to address their creator.

“I can definitely parlay these into a gallery show in Chelsea.  Potentially even permanent representation in North America.  Say the word, and I’ll make some calls.”

It was a point of some friction between the pair that Jamie continued to drag his feet about expanding his career outside of Scotland.  It wasn’t a matter of profit, as neither were particularly motivated by money: Jamie by constitution and John because he’d inherited more than he knew what to do with.  No, his agent simply thought that the world needed more of the exact sort of beauty Jamie’s photographs provided, and it was hard to begrudge him that.

“No’ just now, John.  I’ve got some other priorities here in Scotland.”

Shrewd hazel eyes assessed him.

“Is there something going on in your life, Fraser?  A new woman, perhaps?”

Only every other week, Jamie wished he could retort.  Outwardly, he held his glacial calm.

“What makes ye ask that?”

“You got a haircut, for starters” John explained.  The artist ran his right hand through his now cropped curls.

“And that’s a new watch,” John added.  “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear a watch.”

It was true.  He had shunned timepieces most of his adult life, preferring to measure time’s passage by the evolution of the sun’s light.  As a consequence, he was often late.  But passing by a jeweler on his way to buy more stop bath solution for his dark room this other day, this particular watch had caught his eye.  It had a dark leather band, a black onyx face and chunky silver hardware.  It had reminded Jamie of his father, although he couldn’t explain why.

“Well?” John prodded when he didn’t answer him.

“Ye ken fine well I dinna have a new woman,” Jamie snarled, eager to be left in peace.  “Will ye finish yer espresso and get out of here?  Ye ken it’s meant to be drunk all in one go and no’ sipped like a damn cup of oolong, aye?”

“Fine, fine.  I can tell when I’m no longer wanted,” John placed his empty cup in the tiny sink, not at all put out by his friend’s foul mood.   “You’ll let me know?  About Chelsea?”

“Aye,” Jamie appeased, ashamed of his churlish outburst.  “Ye’ll be the second to know.”

John slapped him on the shoulder and walked himself out.  Pushing the button for the freight elevator, he glanced back to the studio, where Jamie’s frame filled the open door.

“I know you don’t want to talk about it, and I’ve always honoured that wish.  But Jamie, it’s been over four years since Paris.  I hate to see you alone when you’ve got so much to offer someone.”

Swallowing hard, Jamie braced his forearms against either side of the frame.  Backlit as he was, he looked like a Norse interpretation of the crucifixion.

“I’m no’ alone, John.  Not so long as I have ye around to harangue me.”

The other man smiled sadly, shaking his head but letting the matter drop.

***

The following week, Jamie arrived at the bothy uncharacteristically early.  With no sign of Claire or her car, he wandered towards the nearby dunes.  The breeze was sweet with marram grass.  Sunbeams chased shadows over the textured landscape, creating endless varieties of light.  Claire was right, it was a peaceful place.

A scant fifteen minutes later, the sound of an approaching engine called him back.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long!” Claire greeted as she approached.  “There was a lane closed for construction on the Forth bridge.”

She was casually dressed in ivory capris and an oversized sweater that mimicked the oatmeal of the dried vegetation all around.

“No’ long at all.  And even if I had, it’s a bonnie day.  It wouldna have been a hardship.”

Claire laughed, a throaty, feline sound.

“You wouldn’t be so gracious if the weather was… what was your word again?  Plowetry?   There’s a spare key under this stone here.  Feel free to let yourself in anytime.”

Once inside, Jamie and Claire stood an arm’s length apart, awkward as they hadn’t been since their first meeting.  Jamie considered whether his early arrival had thrown Claire for a loop, depriving her of the time required to prepare for their session.

“Did you really find fossils in yon cliffs?” he asked when the silence grew stifling.

“Of course!  Ammonite shells, mostly, but I found a dragonfly in amber once.  In fact…”

From a shelf of assorted curios, Claire produced a translucent slab the same shade of golden topaz as her eyes.  Holding it up towards the light, the perfectly preserved insect was visible within.

“Uncle Lamb explained it was probably washed here by the tide, but twelve-year-old Claire was convinced it was a precious treasure given to a princess by a gallant Scottish knight.”

“A wee romantic, were ye?” Jamie teased.

“Let’s just say I had a very vivid imagination.”

They shared tender smiles, the earlier awkwardness dissipating like mist.

“Would ye mind…” Jamie began before censoring himself.

“What?”

“Oh, tis nothing important.  I was only going to ask if I might bring my camera the next time we meet.  To take some photos of the dunes and such.”

“You’d be more than welcome, Alex.  I didn’t realize you were a photographer.”

Warning bells, both professional and personal, clamored in his mind.  It wasn’t safe to be too well known.

“Och, it’s just a hobby.  Now,” he redirected the conversation to less risky topics, “are ye ready to discuss today’s session?”

With Claire’s tension visibly relieved by their easy banter, they settled into their customary positions on the futon.

“Today,” Jamie commenced with an oratorical flourish, “is all about talking.”  A pause for Claire’s anticipated reaction.

“Talking?  Last week was about touching.  Aren’t we going backwards?”

Raising a finger like a conductor directing an orchestra, his audience rolled her eyes.

“Ye are assuming, mo nigheann donn, that talking precludes touching, when in fact it will serve as the gateway to touch.  The rules of today’s session are that before ye lay a hand, or any other part of your body, mind, on me, you must first declare what it is that ye intend to do.  In as much explicit and carnal detail as ye see fit,” he added with a nudge of his elbow.  “And I shall do the same.”

Claire’s unique eyes were round and unblinking as she digested this news.  He silently observed her, knowing how important it was to the process for her to buy in at each step.

“Do I still get to decide if you act on your words?”  The birdlike tremble of her voice shimmered across his heart.

“Always, lass.  Ye may do all the talking and touching, if you prefer.  I only thought ye’d like to hear a few words of yer own.”

Jamie had given a lot of thought to the correct course of treatment for Claire’s dysfunction.  Although she’d never said so explicitly, the glimpses she’d given of her marriage led him to believe that her husband was the initiator of their sex life, and Claire’s role was as passive recipient.  While there were doubtless women out there for whom that arrangement would be perfectly satisfactory, his client wasn’t one of them.  For all her timidity, he sensed an active sensuality beneath her surface that she was yearning to claim.  It would be his very great privilege to help her do so.

“Start with something small,” he advised as she visibly debated her first move.

“Nothing about you is small, Alex.”

He might never know where he found the strength to not make the obvious retort.

“Okay, first I’m going to touch your hands.”

Fine but capable fingers reached out to where his own rested upon his thighs.  She traced their outline, seemingly fascinated by the length of each digit, the breadth of his palm.  Impulse satisfied, she picked up his left hand, cradling its weight as she urged him to turn his palm upwards.

“Open,” she prompted.

Close cropped nails teased the whorls at the end of each finger, dug into the fleshy mound at the base of his thumb.

“You’ve got a callous, here.” Her face was leaning forward, leaving him with a view of the ivory knobs of her spine where they disappeared below her jumper.

He could explain that she was holding his dominant hand, which spent most waking hours either holding a camera or submerged in chemical solvents.  Instead, he answered with an affirmative grunt.

Claire released him and sat back.

“Alright?”  He could see from her direct gaze that she was.  “My turn, then.  I believe I’ll start with your wee ear.”

To get to said ear, Jamie first needed to push back the walnut morass of hair that guarded it.  It was surprisingly soft and springy, like the fleece of a lamb.  Having temporarily tamed its vigour, his fingertips traced the ligament of her neck, which was admittedly not playing by the rules of the game.  Claire tilted her jaw to prolong the contact.  He seized the moment to dip his head and grab the tender nub of her earlobe between his lips, giving a subtle tug and quick lick before releasing it and leaning back.

“Velvet.  Like a deer’s antlers.”

Claire sat frozen with her mouth half open, as though she’d thought to scold him and then forgotten the words.

“I dinna say what part of me I’d be using to touch yer ear,” he justified pre-emptively.

Shaking herself from her stupor, a look of resolve settled on Claire’s expressive face.

“Your lips,” she declared, her eyes giving away her intention before she spoke.

Jamie’s tongue slipped out in anticipation.  Thankfully, he’d forgone the onions on his lunchtime burger and chewed a stick of gum on his drive to the bothy.  As Claire’s face drew closer and closer, his breath grew shallow, the blood in his veins racing madly.

At the very last second, she feinted backwards and instead of a kiss, his mouth was contoured by a single finger.  The sensation was still stimulating, perhaps more so because it was unexpected.

“Smooth,” Claire mimicked his reverential tone.  “Like a… banana peel.”

Mischief lit her gemstone eyes from within, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Verra funny, ye wee minx.”

Claire’s pupils dilated when, for his next move, Jamie stated he would be taking off his shirt.  Tossing the clothing aside, he leaned back against the futon as the afternoon sunlight played with the contours of his body.

“A regular exhibitionist, you are, Mr. Malcolm.”  The heaviness in her voice belied her light words.

From their earlier session, he knew she had a particular fondness for his chest.  Sure enough, she announced her intention to touch him there, and did so very thoroughly, rubbing his pecs and teasing his nipples with her nails until he was forced to squirm.  From there, she journeyed down the thin fletch of hair that bisected his torso until she met the concavity of his navel.  Jamie masked his groan with a cough.

“That’s my abdomen, no’ my chest, lass.  I thought you said ye were a physiotherapist?”

“Just scouting out the territory for future turns,” she quipped.  The pad of her retreating thumb caused his diaphragm to ripple like a billowing sail.

“Well, fair’s fair.  Take off yer top as well,” he commanded once he was certain his voice wouldn’t break.

He had expected some reluctance, if not an outright refusal, so it was with stunned delight that he watched Claire grasp the hem of her cotton shirt and raise it over her head.  Beneath it she wore a simple nude satin bra through which he could just make out the outlines of her nipples.  The swell of her breasts rose and fell with the havoc of her breath.

“Ye’re sae bonnie, Claire.”  The compliment escaped the cage of his professionalism.  The rosy hue of her cheeks deepened in response.

“Stand up.”  It was an order, not a request, and he was quick to obey.  Nimble hands made quick work of the button and zipper of his jeans, tugging downwards until they slipped past his lean hips and accordioned towards the floor.  He kicked impatiently until he was free of them, clad only in black boxer-briefs that did little to conceal his excitement, if Claire’s fixation on his crotch was any indication.

“Did I do that to you?”

It was such a preposterous question, he would have laughed had it not been asked with such heart-breaking earnestness.

“Aye, ye did.  I’m a surrogate, no’ a monk.  But I meant what I said, mo nighean donn.  Dinna concern yerself.  I’m quite capable of handling it.”

Claire nodded but continued to let her gaze flicker to the prominent ridge as he sat next to her.

“What’s on yer mind, lass?  Today’s exercise is all about talking, so ye may as well get it off yer chest.”

“It’s just that… Frank.  My husband,” she clarified needlessly.  “If he gets… aroused.  And I’m not able to, err, see to it?”  Claire paused.  Jamie took her fluttering hands in his own, trying to calm them. “He says that it’s my fault.  That I should finish what I start.”

The veil of red that descended over his thoughts was familiar, but never in this context.  He didn’t let his clients see him angry any more than he let them see him joyful or despondent or impatient.  His role was to be a cipher, an empty mirror to help these wounded women better see themselves.

Without meaning to, his hand now held Claire’s like a vice, halting their anxious twisting.

“Remember what I told ye about taking advice from those no’ qualified to give it?” he ground out.

“You said I should listen to a professional.  I’m trying, Alex,” she sighed.

“Aye, ye are.  And yer doing a braw job.  Jus’… let this wee bothy be a universe, if ye can.  When we’re together between its walls, on this ratty auld futon, leave the world and its opinions waiting at the door.”

Claire nodded solemnly.  The fragile construction of her self-confidence and arousal that they had been working to build was broken.  There was no point trying to regain the hard-won territory until they met again the following week.  Still, he couldn’t bear to leave her without trying to bring the greedy gleam back into her eyes.

“Would you…” Claire began just as Jamie asked, “May I kiss ye, Claire?”

“Oh!” An exclamation like a burst soap bubble.  “Please.”

“What were ye about to ask me?”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

The contact started hesitant, dry.  Pillowy and firm, Claire didn’t move her lips.  Hardly seemed to be breathing.  He was considering a withdrawal when the tiniest shiver of movement glistened between them.  Like a pebble balanced on a slope, it set off a cascade of reactions, each more cataclysmic than the last.  Angles, adjusting and readjusting.  Tongues, touching, caressing, diving deep and retreating.  And beneath it all, the wispy sweet sounds she was making, entering through his ears, bypassing his brain and heading straight for his cock.

The shadows across the floor had lengthened by the time Jamie rose to leave.  The stiff material of his jeans was unforgiving, but he donned them without complaint.  He left Claire reclined in the waning rays of sunlight, lovely as a pagan goddess on her futon throne.  His car only made it over the first row of dunes before he pulled over, glanced around to verify that he was alone, then reached for his zipper.

[wolfpants]

Prongsfoot, "Why didn't you tell me?"

I hope you know that this actually pained me to write. But I kind of loved it. What have you done to me? <3

First of my 300-followers drabbles! I hope you enjoy the pain, @impishtubist.

Send me a ship and a sentence and I'll write you a drabble!

CW: Implied character death

--

They shouldn’t be here.

They’ve been running for miles, but they shouldn’t be here.

The skin around Sirius’s dark lips has taken on a sickly purplish tinge, and his fingers, wrapped as they are around his knees, are very red. James, who has always run hot, reaches for them, clasping them in his own with a wince. They’re like ice.

“Can’t f-feel,” Sirius gasps thickly, his body quaking minutely.

“Yeah. Yeah you can, come on,” James says, tilting his head down and blowing shakily onto the scarlet skin of Sirius’s hands, willing his hot breath to bring them back to life. “Come on, Pads, that’s it. Just breathe.”

Sirius’s inhales sound like a storm, like rattling branches and gusty wind, like rain pounding against the earth. His exhales ghost against James’s frozen face. His breath smells like cigarettes and the strawberry licorice they’d found buried deep in the pocket of his jacket earlier, that Sirius had bit in two and passed, without words, straight to James’s lips. James’s tongue had brushed deliberately, slowly, against the pad of Sirius’s thumb, back then, right before they had to run - an hour ago? Maybe two? Time has become meaningless.

Many things have become meaningless.

Outside, snow dapples against the smeared, single-pane window, gathering at the corners. It blurs the hills they scrambled over to get here, Sirius’s broken bike abandoned somewhere out on the crags, now probably buried under a mound of white. Once thrumming with magic, now a dead hunk of metal, a skeleton that will probably never be found.

Their magic isn’t working here. It hasn’t been working for miles.

Their wands, now useless splinters of wood, lie abandoned on the bothy floor between an empty plastic bucket and a crudely shaped cot without a blanket.

“This is it,” Sirius is murmuring, over and over again through chattering teeth, rocking a little where they sit huddled together on the dirty floor by the empty hearth. James doesn’t know how to start a fire without magic, and neither does Sirius. “This is it, this is it, this is it.”

Outside, filmy and putrid green, the sky glows with the mark.

“No,” James slurs, patting his hands up Sirius’s arms, rubbing at them uselessly. “We just h-have to… have to keep warm, yeah? Pads?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sirius moans, shaking harder. James shifts closer, fitting himself around him. “Sooner. Then we could have had…”

“What? Tell you what?”

“Time.” Sirius shudders. James pulls him closer, swallowing against the grizzly sickness building in the back of his throat.

James pushes his face into Sirius’s cold neck. Cigarettes, strawberry licorice, motor oil, snow.

He wonders who will find them.

At least they’re together.

[kelliestes]

The Oasis

 Until I was standing in front of one, I’d never heard of a bothy before. This one appears in what seems to be the middle of nowhere, although stone foundations and ruins scattered throughout the wide valley give evidence of a time when Strath an Eilich was not so deserted.

A bothy, our walking guide explains, is a shelter that is left unlocked and is available for anyone to use, free of charge. This one, called Dalnashallag, has a rusting corrugated metal roof covering a stone and plaster building comprised of one room on the left and a storage room on the right. The storage room is reminiscent of old houses with an attached byre for the family cow and goat.

I step inside and find two well-used couches facing each other and, at their ends, a fireplace with soot marks fanning up the wall. Scattered candle holders and an empty wine bottle decorate the blackened wood mantel.

Leaning against the wall next to the door is a small shovel. On the wall itself are written the words TOILET SPADE in black Sharpie with an arrow pointing down. I marvel that no one has taken the shovel or misplaced it.

With no running water, no electricity, questionable cleanliness, I can’t imagine sleeping here. But, then again, I am visiting on a warm spring afternoon. If I had trekked across that lovely moor during a rain shower or snowstorm, the building would be an oasis. It may even save a life.

I feel as though I’m doing something naughty, trespassing on another person’s property. At any moment, a shotgun-wielding mountain man might show up and chase me away. More likely, the bothy will next be used by a group of hikers or deer stalkers pulling cans of beer from their packs. Rather than chase me away, they might offer me a drink and a place by the fire.

I find the hut growing on me the longer I linger. I consider suggesting to my group that we stay here tonight where we can sit by firelight and tell stories and sing songs. But I quickly reject the idea because we all have warm showers, beds, and meals waiting at the end of our day.

As I walk away, the bothy pulls at me, demanding something more. I stop and look back and that’s when it comes to me – a better understanding. A bothy is a gift to strangers out wandering the moor and mountains. How lucky are they – are we – to know that free shelter is available should we need it. How lovely that most everyone who encounters the bothy respects it and the people coming after them enough to leave it in good condition. We could use more bothies around the world.

Bothies represent humans caring for other humans for no reason other than because they can. That, to me, makes the bothy one of the most beautiful buildings in existence.

*From my East Highland Way (Scotland) Collection. May 3, 2017.

[suranne-doesstuff]

This is a walk I do quite regularly. And these were taken on Tuesday, all sunny. It was roasting, we're not used to it.

Today's weather was cloudy and a bit cold, a quick change.

Me n my family wild swim here a lot and has become popular with tourists and a couple locals.

(Time for me to rant, sorry)

If you ever visit Scotland, especially the Highlands, PLEASE respect the land and put rubbish in bins. Pour your campavan/caravan etc waste where it's supposed to go!

I went swimming & picnic on Thursday here and found out there was blue-green Algae in the water which could have been from someone's waste. This Algae is not good, it's harmful to humans and your pets.

I didn't think much of it (I didn't picture it, sorry) at first but then I went home to go swimming again with my aunt and she showed me other pictures of the same type of Algae.

Please, please, please be respectful and look after the land. My aunt & I go camping and walking a lot and see a lot of rubbish and waste around, it's not great and is disgusting.

If you see a sign that says 'no parking' or 'private land' or see an "empty" space etc, then do not park or stay overnight! There's been many cases of people ripping/tearing down signs and then ignoring the rules. Stop!

Another thing. I, personally do not support the NC500! It promotes roads as if they're made for tons of traffic and heavy weights (especially single track roads), they're not. They're old roads, which in the past were main roads for the locals before better roads & bridges were built. We see so many cars and vehicles on them as if they're racing, as if the roads are race tracks.

I see people going on the NC500 go up hills in high heels, trainers, jeans, big brands, which then causes accidents. Mountain Rescue gets called out to save them, which is great that we have it, but those who are trained for it, aren't played, they're volunteers and aren't funded a lot. There's been so much accidents, which caused to cost a lot of money, just for idiots trying and failing going up dangerous mountains, not knowing what the hell they're doing. So, please, don't try it, unless you know what you're doing.

And for camping, PLEASE, for the love of god, stop buying cheap, pop-up tents from Tescos and leaving them. As well as, stop leaving your rubbish, waste etc where you "wild camped", if you can take it there with you, then you can take it back out.

Stop lighting fires, when you defiantly do not need them at all. And if you do have one, learn to do them properly. Burning fire on ground, scorches it and badly damages it. It takes years to grow back, that's if it does. If you take out one of those metal giant pit things, then don't leave it there. If there's a rocky bit/beach then do it on there. Having fires cause wild fires, in Scotland, we get bad winds, especially in winter, which then dries the land. This makes winter time a bad time to also have fires, especially since it doesn't snow badly, mostly anyway.

The last few years, with the summer's we've been getting, droughts have occurred, so summer is bad to have fires. But, in conclusion, anytime of the year, it's bad to light fires while camping in Scotland, but that could be my bias.

Bothys. I love Bothying, although, I've not been in many, just a few. I love it. They are buildings that are usually restored or just built from scrap. They're shelter for those who need it before or after climbing and walking somewhere, even after cycling. Anyway, most bothys are owned or looked after by the Mountain Bothy Association, they fix, make, help look after these bothys and make sure they're usable etc. Please, when staying in these, don't have a big group of people. And respect them. Don't expect electricity, heating, running water, or anything a hotel or your home would have. They're not holiday homes, you don't pay to stay in them, they're mainly shelter from bad weather. Most have plat forms, built in wooden bunks or if you're lucky, like my favourite bothy, it may have old bed frames, the metal ones. They usually have tables and chairs, and if you're lucky, a fire place.

Again, look after them, don't destroy them or ruin them. Some have had to close and be locked during lockdown because people were going to them and destroying & taking them apart. My aunt has stayed in some were people have taken blow up mattresses and tents, and other things in them, very unnecessary. They're not made to be driven up to, you walk to them and spend a day or more in the hills and walking or cycle etc. Look after them. If you wonder where the toilet is, you pee outside, AWAY from any water source. Same with your poo, you go far away (obviously not too far) from the bothy, and any water source and take the shovel that's usually provided in the bothy and dig a hole and poo in it and the cover it up with the dirt you dug. Don't leave tissue or wipes around the ground, not necessary, take poo bags and then carry it with you. Or burn wipes on the fire, if there is a fire place. Take small bags for rubbish and carry it out if you can't burn it etc.

That's my rant over. Lool.

[mapsofthelost]

The River

If out hiking in the highlands of Scotland, you may find yourself cut off by a river which you weren’t expecting. You look at your map, and are sure you know where you are, but can’t see any river marked. You look back up, and there it is for sure, broad and slow-moving. If it wasn’t so wide, you might think that it was just a stream in spate, or one of those rivers that only appears after heavy rain, and then disappears again.

You take your boots and socks off and try wading across, but after just a few steps you back off. The riverbed seemed to shelve quick and deep, and although slow moving the current was strong, wanting to push you off your feet.

You curse and move on, walking downstream hoping for a bridge, or somewhere the water narrows and there are stepping stones, but don’t find any, just the river, wide and slow. You must have looked at your map a dozen times, but the river is never there, and yet…it is there.

A little further on you come to what once was a tiny village, two or three cottages and a few outbuildings, crumbling roofs and empty buildings, but as you walk through it you realise it’s not entirely empty. Just past the last cottage, a man sits on a stone at the bank of the river, smoking a pipe. More importantly, he sits next to a small rowing boat moored with a rope tied around the base of the stone.

Hello you say, and he takes another puff of his pipe, looking out at the river, and the smell reminds you of your grandfather and warm rooms and love. Then he turns to look at you, and you feel…seen. He gives a nod.

“I’m trying to get that way,” you say, and point across the river. “But there’s…the river.” You feel stupid, obvious. He just looks at you. “And I couldn’t find it on the map, I don’t know what’s…why…”

“Do you want to cross?” he says.

“Oh, that would be - yes, please,” you say.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I need - there’s a bothy another 12 miles or so that way.”

“Are you sure? That you want to cross? And not turn back?”

You pause for a moment, but then say yes.

He rows you across in silence, refuses any payment, and when you get to the other side you thank him, but he’s already rowing back. The rising hills hide the river from you, and you arrive at the bothy footsore and tired, sleep well, and enjoy the rest of your holiday.

When you get home though, to friends and family, you know, you know in your heart, that although they look the same and sound the same they are not the people you left. No one that you know is the person that you knew before you went on your holiday. You cannot say anything to anyone, because they will call you mad, and you cannot prove how, but no one is the same as they were before you crossed the river.

[nishatgupte]

Wild Camping Spots in Wales

Wales is home to a wealth of wild camping spots that stay open all year, where campers can visit some beautiful places without the crowds that the summer months bring. Wales is home to mountains, waterfalls and moors and has a stunning coastline, with the Snowdonia, Pembrokeshire and Brecon Beacons national parks covering twenty percent of the country’s land. For keen explorers, including Nishat Gupte, the natural landscape of Wales is ideal for wild camping trips.

Plynlimon, Aberystwyth

Plynlimon is known as the Green Desert of Wales and is home to forests, peaks, and lakes. The reservoir of Nant-y-Moch twists throughout the Cambrians, and includes long shale shores, coves and an empty road hugging the shoreline. The hulk of Plynlimon is the highest point in the Cambrians and is home to the source of both the Severn and Wye rivers.

Cwm Caseg Tarn, Snowdonia

The northern region of Snowdonia offers some of the highest mountains in England and Wales but attracts far fewer visitors. Visitors must be prepared to make the climb, but those who do are greeted by views of the coast and Anglesey.

Porth Iago, Lleyn Peninsula

This island sits in a magical and often overlooked peninsula that is packed with wildflowers, empty coves and rugged cliff faces. Porth Iago is regarded as being one of the best beaches in Lleyn, and benefits from being both quiet and sheltered. The fee required to wild camp here is included in the parking fee that is paid on the way through the farm.

Grwyne Fawr Bothy

It might be a long walk to the top of this valley, but those who make the trek will be rewarded with the sight of a Victorian dam and beautiful lake. The small Mountain Bothies Association bothy sits at the north-western tip of this remote reservoir and has room for three people. However, it is advisable to bring a tent in case it is full, and your own fuel too.

Trefalen Farm Camping, Pembrokeshire

Trefalen Farm attracts serious campers with only simple facilities on site. The fields sit on the coastal path above Broad Haven beach, and the lower field gives easy access to secret coves. From Broad Haven, explorers can find lily ponds with abundant wildlife, a blue lagoon, and stunning sea caves.

[distase]

Dear Esther. I sometimes feel as if I’ve given birth to this island. Somewhere, between the longitude and latitude a split opened up and it beached remotely here. No matter how hard I correlate, it remains a singularity, an alpha point in my life that refuses all hypothesis. I return each time leaving fresh markers that I hope, in the full glare of my hopelessness, will have blossomed into fresh insight in the interim.

Dear Esther. The gulls do not land here anymore; I’ve noticed that this year they seem to shun the place. Maybe it’s the depletion of the fishing stock driving them away. Perhaps it’s me. When he first landed here, Donnelly wrote that the herds were sickly and their shepherds the lowest of the miserable classes that populate these Hebridean islands. Three hundred years later, even they have departed.

Dear Esther. I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been here, and how many visits I have made overall. Certainly, the landmarks are now so familiar to me that I have to remind myself to actually see the forms and shapes in front of me. I could stumble blind across these rocks, the edges of these precipices, without fear of missing my step and plummeting down to sea. Besides, I’ve always considered that if one is to fall, it is critical to keep one’s eyes firmly open.

Dear Esther. The morning after I was washed ashore, salt in my ears, sand in my mouth and the waves always at my ankles, I felt as though everything had conspired to this one last shipwreck. I remembered nothing but water, stones in my belly and my shoes threatening to drag me under to where only the most listless of creatures swim.

Level 1: The Lighthouse

Donnelly reported the legend of the hermit; a holy man who sought solitude in its most pure form. Allegedly, he rowed here from the mainland in a boat without a bottom, so all the creatures of the sea could rise at night to converse with him. How disappointed he must have been with their chatter. Perhaps now, when all that haunts the ocean is the rubbish dumped from the tankers, he’d find more peace. They say he threw his arms wide in a valley on the south side and the cliff opened up to provide him shelter; they say he died of fever one hundred and sixteen years later. The shepherds left gifts for him at the mouth of the cave, but Donnelly records they never claimed to have seen him. I have visited the cave and I have left my gifts, but like them, I appear to be an unworthy subject of his solitude.

At night you can see the lights sometimes from a passing tanker or trawler. From up on the cliffs they are mundane, but down here they fugue into ambiguity. For instance, I cannot readily tell if they belong above or below the waves. The distinction now seems banal; why not everything and all at once! There’s nothing better to do here than indulge in contradictions, whilst waiting for the fabric of life to unravel. There was once talk of a wind farm out here, away from the rage and the intolerance of the masses. The sea, they said, is too rough for the turbines to stand: they clearly never came here to experience the becalming for themselves. Personally, I would have supported it; turbines would be a fitting contemporary refuge for a hermit: the revolution and the permanence.

When you were born, your mother told me, a hush fell over the delivery room. A great red birthmark covered the left side of your face. No one knew what to say, so you cried to fill the vacuum. I always admired you for that; that you cried to fill whatever vacuum you found. I began to manufacture vacuums, just to enable you to deploy your talent. The birthmark faded by the time you were six, and had gone completely by the time we met, but your fascination with the empty, and its cure, remained.

Those islands in the distance, I am sure, are nothing more than relics of another time, sleeping giants, somnambulist gods laid down for a final dreaming. I wash the sand from my lips and grip my wrist ever more tightly, my shaking arms will not support my fading diaries.

Donnelly’s book had not been taken out from the library since 1974. I decided it would never be missed as I slipped it under my coat and avoided the librarian’s gaze on the way out. If the subject matter is obscure, the writer’s literary style is even more so, it is not the text of a stable or trustworthy reporter. Perhaps it is fitting that my only companion in these last days should be a stolen book written by a dying man.

The mount is clearly the focal point of this landscape; it almost appears so well placed as to be artificial. I find myself easily slipping into the delusional state of ascribing purpose, deliberate motive to everything here. Was this island formed during the moment of impact; when we were torn loose from our moorings and the seatbelts cut motorway lanes into our chests and shoulders, did it first break surface then?

When someone had died or was dying or was so ill they gave up what little hope they could sacrifice, they cut parallel lines into the cliff, exposing the white chalk beneath. You could see them from the mainland or the fishing boats and know to send aid or impose a cordon of protection, and wait a generation until whatever pestilence stalked the cliff paths died along with its hosts. My lines are just for this: to keep any would-be rescuers at bay. The infection is not simply of the flesh.

They were godfearing people those shepherds. There was no love in the relationship. Donnelly tells me that they had one bible that was passed around in strict rotation. It was stolen by a visiting monk in 1776, two years before the island was abandoned altogether. In the interim, I wonder, did they assign chapter and verse to the stones and grasses, marking the geography with a superimposed significance; that they could actually walk the bible and inhabit its contradictions?

We are not like Lot’s wife, you and I; we feel no particular need to turn back. There’s nothing to be seen if we did. No tired old man parting the cliffs with his arms; no gifts or bibles laid out on the sand for the taking. No tides turning or the shrieking gulls overhead. The bones of the hermit are no longer laid out for the taking: I have stolen them away to the guts of this island where the passages all run to black and there we can light each others faces by their strange luminescence.

I quote directly: “A motley lot with little to recommend them. I have now spent three days in their company that is, I fear, enough for any man not born amongst them. Despite their tedious inclination to quote scripture, they seem to me the most godforsaken of all the inhabitants of the outer isles. Indeed, in this case, the very gravity of that term – forsaken by god – seems to find its very apex.” It appears to me that Donnelly too found those who wander this shoreline to be adrift from any chance of redemption. Did he include himself in that, I wonder?

Dear Esther. I met Paul. I made my own little pilgrimage. My Damascus a small semi-detached on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. We drank coffee in his kitchen and tried to connect to one another. Although he knew I hadn’t come in search of an apology, reason or retribution, he still spiralled in panic, thrown high and lucid by his own dented bonnet. Responsibility had made him old; like us, he had already passed beyond any conceivable boundary of life.

I threw my arms wide and the cliff opened out before me, making this rough home. I transferred my belongings from the bothy on the mount and tried to live here instead. It was cold at night and the sea lapped at the entrance at high tide. To climb the peak, I must first venture even deeper into veins of the island, where the signals are blocked altogether. Only then will I understand them, when I stand on the summit and they flow into me, uncorrupted.

I would leave you presents, outside your retreat, in this interim space between cliff and beach. I would leave you loaves and fishes, but the fish stocks have been depleted and I have run out of bread. I would row you back to your homeland in a bottomless boat but I fear we would both be driven mad by the chatter of the sea creatures.

I find myself increasingly unable to find that point where the hermit ends and Paul and I begin. We are woven into a sodden blanket, stuffed into the bottom of a boat to stop the leak and hold back the ocean. My neck aches from staring up at the aerial; it mirrors the dull throb in my gut where I am sure I have begun to form another stone. In my dreams, it forms into a perfect representation of Lot’s wife, head over her shoulder, staring along the motorway at the approaching traffic, in a vacuum of fatalistic calm.

This hermit, this seer, this distant historian of bones and old bread, where did he vanish to? Why, asked the farmers, why asked Jakobson, why bother with your visions at all, if you are just to throw your arms up at the cliff and let it close in behind you, seal you into the belly of the island, a museum shut to all but the most devoted.

He still maintains he wasn’t drunk but tired. I can’t make the judgement or the distinction anymore. I was drunk when I landed here, and tired too. I walked up the cliff path in near darkness and camped in the bay where the trawler lies beached. It was only at dawn that I saw the bothy and decided to make my temporary lodgings there. I was expecting just the aerial and a transmitter stashed in a weatherproof box somewhere on the mount. It had an air of uneasy permanence to it, like all the other buildings here; erosion seems to have evaded it completely.

The vegetation here has fossilized from the roots up. To think they once grazed animals here, the remnants of occupation being evidence to that. It is all sick to death: the water is too polluted for the fish, the sky is too thin for the birds and the soil is cut with the bones of hermits and shepherds. I have heard it said that human ashes make great fertilizer, that we could sow a forest from all that is left of your hips and ribcage, with enough left over to thicken the air and repopulate the bay.

I dreamt I stood in the centre of the sun and the solar radiation cooked my heart from the inside. My teeth will curl and my fingernails fall off into my pockets like loose change. If I could stomach, I’d eat, but all I seem capable of is saltwater. Were the livestock still here, I could turn feral and gorge. I’m as emaciated as a body on a slab, opened up for a premature source of death. I’ve rowed to this island in a heart without a bottom; all the bacteria of my gut rising up to sing to me.

I have become convinced I am not alone here, even though I am equally sure it is simply a delusion brought upon by circumstance. I do not, for instance, remember where I found the candles, or why I took it upon myself to light such a strange pathway. Perhaps it is only for those who are bound to follow.

Level 2: The Buoy

Dear Esther. I have now driven the stretch of the M5 between Exeter and Bristol over twenty-one times, but although I have all the reports and all the witnesses and have cross-referenced them within a millimetre using my ordnance survey maps, I simply cannot find the location. You’d think there would be marks, to serve as some evidence. It's somewhere between the turn off for Sandford and the Welcome Break services. But although I can always see it in my rear view mirror, I have as yet been unable to pull ashore.

Dear Esther. This will be my last letter. Do they pile up even now on the doormat of our empty house? Why do I still post them home to you? Perhaps I can imagine myself picking them up on the return I will not make, to find you waiting with daytime television and all its comforts. They will fossilise over the centuries to follow; an uneasy time capsule from a lost island. Postmarked Oban: it must have been sent during the final ascent.

Dear Esther. I have found myself to be as featureless as this ocean, as shallow and unoccupied as this bay, a listless wreck without identification. My rocks are these bones and a careful fence to keep the precipice at bay. Shot through me caves, my forehead a mount, this aerial will transmit into me so. All over exposed, the nervous system, where Donnelly’s boots and yours and mine still trample. I will carry a torch for you; I will leave it at the foot of my headstone. You will need it for the tunnels that carry me under.

Dear Esther. Whilst they catalogued the damage, I found myself afraid you’d suddenly sit up, stretch, and fail to recognise me, I orbited you like a sullen comet, our history trailing behind me in the solar wind from the fluorescent tubes. Your hair had not been brushed yet, your make-up not reapplied. You were all the world like a beach to me, laid out for investigation, your geography telling one story, but hinting at the geology hidden behind the cuts and bruises.

I have found the ship’s manifest, crumpled and waterlogged, under a stash of paint cans. It tells me that along with this present cargo, there was a large quantity of antacid yoghurt, bound for the European market. It must have washed out to sea, God knows there are no longer gulls or goats here to eat it.

There must be a hole in the bottom of the boat. How else could new hermits have arrived?

It’s only at night that this place makes any sluggish effort at life. You can see the buoy and the aerial. I’ve been taking to sleeping through the day in an attempt to resurrect myself. I can feel the last days drawing upon me – there’s little point now in continuation. There must be something new to find here – some nook or some cranny that offers a perspective worth clinging to. I’ve burnt my bridges; I have sunk my boats and watched them go to water.

The buoy has kept me lucid. I sat, when I was at the very edge of despair, when I thought I would never unlock the secret of the island, I sat at the edge and I watched the idiot buoy blink through the night. He is mute and he is retarded and he has no thought in his metal head but to blink each wave and each minute aside until the morning comes and renders him blind as well as deaf-mute. In many ways, we have much in common.

I’ve begun to wonder if Donnelly’s voyage here was as prosaic as it was presented. How disappointed not to have found the bones of the holy man! No wonder he hated the inhabitants so. To him, they must have seemed like barnacles mindlessly clinging to a mercy seat. Why cling so hard to the rock? Because it is the only thing that stops us from sliding into the ocean. Into oblivion.

An imagined answerphone message. The tires are flat, the wheel spins loosely, and the brake fluid has run like ink over this map, staining the landmarks and rendering the coastline mute, compromised. Where you saw galaxies, I saw only bruises, cut into the cliff by my lack of sobriety.

I don’t know the name of the wreck in the bay; it seems to have been here for several years but has not yet subsided. I don’t know if anyone was killed; if so, I certainly haven’t seen them myself. Perhaps when the helicopter came to lift them home, their ascent scared the birds away. I shall search for eggs along the north shore, for any evidence that life is marking this place out again. Perhaps it is me that keeps them at bay.

I remember running through the sands of Cromer; there was none of the shipwreck I find here. I spent days cataloguing the garbage that washes ashore here and I have begun to assemble a collection in the deepest recess I could find. What a strange museum it would make. And what of the corpse of its curator? Shall I find a glass coffin and pretend to make snow white of us both?

Why is the sea so becalmed? It beckons you to walk upon its surface; but I know all too well how it would shatter under my feet and drag me under. The rocks here have withstood centuries of storms and now, robbed of the tides, they stand muted and lame, temples without cause. One day, I will attempt to climb them, hunt among their peaks for the eggs, the nests, that the gulls have clearly abandoned.

I had kidney stones, and you visited me in the hospital. After the operation, when I was still half submerged in anaesthetic, your outline and your speech both blurred. Now my stones have grown into an island and made their escape and you have been rendered opaque by the car of a drunk.

I have begun my ascent on the green slope of the western side. I have looked deep into the mountain from the shaft and understood that I must go up and then find a way under. I will stash the last vestiges of my civilisation in the stone walls and work deeper from there. I am drawn by the aerial and the cliff edge: there is some form of rebirth waiting for me there.

I have begun my ascent on the windless slope of the western side. The setting sun was an inflamed eye squeezing shut against the light shone in by the doctors. My neck is aching through constantly craning my head up to track the light of the aerial. I must look downwards, follow the path under the island to a new beginning.

I have begun to climb, away from the sea and towards the centre. It is a straight line to the summit, where the evening begins to coil around the aerial and squeeze the signals into early silence. The bothy squats against the mount to avoid the gaze of the aerial; I too will creep under the island like an animal and approach it from the northern shore.

When I first looked into the shaft, I swear I felt the stones in my stomach shift in recognition.

What charnel house lies at the foot of this abyss? How many dead shepherds could fill this hole?

Is this what Paul saw through his windscreen? Not Lot’s wife, looking over her shoulder, but a scar in the hillside, falling away to black, forever.

When they graze their animals here, Donnelly writes, it is always raining. There’s no evidence of that rain has been here recently. The foliage is all static, like a radio signal returning from another star.

In the hold of the wrecked trawler I have found what must amount to several tons of gloss paint. Perhaps they were importing it. Instead, I will put it to use, and decorate this island in the icons and symbols of our disaster.

Cromer in the rain; a school trip. We took shelter en masse in a bus stop, herded in like cattle, the teachers dull shepherds. The sand in my pocket becoming damper by the second.

The bothy was constructed originally in the early 1700s. By then, shepherding had formalised into a career. The first habitual shepherd was a man called Jakobson, from a lineage of migratory Scandinavians. He was not considered a man of breeding by the mainlanders. He came here every summer whilst building the bothy, hoping, eventually, that becoming a man of property would secure him a wife and a lineage. Donnelly records that it did not work: he caught some disease from his malcontented goats and died two years after completing it. There was no one to carve white lines into the cliff for him either.

Inventory: a trestle table we spread wallpaper on in our first home. A folding chair; I laughed at you for bringing camping in the lakes. I was uncomfortable later and you laughed then. This diary; the bed with the broken springs – once asleep, you have to remember not to dream. A change of clothes. Donnelly’s book, stolen from Edinburgh library on the way here. I will burn them all on the last morning and make an aerial of my own.

When the oil lamps ran out I didn’t pick up a torch but used the moonlight to read by. When I have pulled the last shreds of sense from it, I will throw Donnelly’s book from the cliffs and perhaps myself with it. Maybe it will wash back up through the caves and erupt from the spring when the rain comes, making its return to the hermit's cave. Perhaps it will be back on the table when I wake. I think I may have thrown it into the sea several times before.

Three cormorants seen at dusk; they did not land. This house, built of stone, built by a long-dead shepherd. Contents: my campbed, a stove, a table, chairs. My clothes, my books. The caves that score out the belly of this island, leaving it famished. My limbs and belly, famished. This skin, these organs, this failing eyesight. When the battery runs out in my torch, I will descend into the caves and follow only the phosphorescence home.

My heart is landfill, these false dawns waking into the still never light. I sweat for you in the small hours and wrap my blankets into a mass. I’ve always heard the waves break on these lost shores, always the gulls forgotten. I can lift this bottle to my ear, and all there ever is for me is this hebridean music.

In a footnote, the editor comments that at this point, Donnelly was going insane as syphilis tore through his system like a drunk driver. He is not to be trusted – many of his claims are unsubstantiated and although he does paint a colourful picture, much of what he says may have been derived directly from his fever. But I’ve been here and I know, as Donnelly did, that this place is always half-imagined. Even the rocks and caves will shimmer and blur, with the right eyes.

He left his body to the medical school and was duly opened out for a crowd of students twenty-one days after his passing. The report is included in my edition of his book. The syphilis had torn through his guts like a drunk driver, scrambling his organs like eggs on a plate. But enough definition remained for a cursory examination and, as I suspected, they found clear evidence of kidney stones. He is likely to have spent the last years of his life in considerable pain: perhaps this is the root of his laudanum habit. Although its use makes him an unreliable witness, I find myself increasingly drawn into his orbit.

What to make of Donnelly? The laudanum and the syphilis? It is clearly not how he began, but I have been unable to discover if the former was a result of his visiting the island or the force that drove him here. For the syphilis, a drunk driver smashing his insides into a pulp as he stumbled these paths, I can only offer my empathy. We are all victims of our age. My disease is the internal combustion engine and the cheap fermentation of yeast.

Jakobson’s ribcage, they told Donnelly, was deformed, the result of some birth defect or perhaps a traumatic injury as a child. Brittle and overblown it was, and desperately light. Perhaps it was this that finally did for him, unable to contain the shattering of his heart. In halflight, his skeleton a discarded prop, a false and calcified seabird.

They found Jakobson in early spring, the thaw had only just come. Even though he’d been dead nearly seven months, his body had been frozen right down to the nerves and had not even begun to decompose. He’d struggled halfway down the cliff path, perhaps looking for some lost goat, or perhaps in a delirium and expired, curled into a claw, right under the winter moon. Even the animals shunned his corpse; the mainlanders thought to bring it home unlucky. Donnelly claims they dragged it to the caves to thaw out and rot, but he is proving an unreliable witness.

They found Jakobson in early spring, the thaw had only just come. Even though he’d been dead nearly seven months, his body had been frozen right down to the nerves and had not even begun to decompose. His fingernails were raw and bitten to the quick; they found the phosphorescent moss that grows in the caves deep under the nails. Whatever he’d been doing under the island when his strength began to fail is lost. He’d struggled halfway up the cliff again, perhaps in a delirium, perhaps trying to reach the bothy’s fire, before curling into a stone and expiring.

They found Jakobson in early spring, the thaw had only just come. Even though he’d been dead nearly seven months, his body had been frozen right down to the nerves and had not even begun to decompose. All around him, small flowers were reaching for the weak sun, the goats had adjusted happily to life without a shepherd and were grazing freely about the valley. Donnelly reports they hurled the body in fear and disgust down the shaft, but I cannot corroborate this story.

This beach is no place to end a life. Jakobson understood that, so did Donnelly. Jakobson made it halfway back up the cliff. Donnelly lost faith and went home to die. I have the benefit of history, of progress. Someone has erected an aerial to guide me through these black waves, a beacon that shines through the rocks like phosphorescent moss.

Climbing down to the caves I slipped and fell and have injured my leg. I think the femur is broken. It is clearly infected: the skin has turned a bright, tight pink and the pain is crashing in on waves, winter tides against my shoreline, drowning out the ache of my stones. I struggled back to the bothy to rest, but it has become clear that there is only one way this is likely to end. The medical supplies I looted from the trawler have suddenly found their purpose: they will keep me lucid for my final ascent.

Level 3: The Caves

Did Jakobson crawl this far? Can I identify the scratches his nails ruined into the rocks? Am I following him cell for cell, inch for inch? Why did he turn back on himself and not carry through to the ascent?

From here, this last time, I have understood there is no turning back. The torch is failing along with my resolve. I can hear the singing of the sea creatures from the passages above me and they are promising the return of the gulls.

Donnelly did not pass through the caves. From here on in, his guidance, unreliable as it is, is gone from me. I understand now that it is between the two of us, and whatever correspondence can be drawn from the wet rocks.

Donnelly’s addiction is my one true constant. Even though I wake in false dawns and find the landscape changed, flowing inconstantly through my tears, I know his reaching is always upon me.

It was as if someone had taken the car and shaken it like a cocktail. The glove compartment had been opened and emptied with the ashtrays and the boot; it made for a crumpled museum, a shattered exhibition. I first saw him sat by the side of the road. I was waiting for you to be cut out of the wreckage. The car looked like it had been dropped from a great height. The guts of the engine spilled over the tarmac. Like water underground.

They had stopped the traffic back as far as the Sandford junction and come up the hard shoulder like radio signals from another star. It took twenty-one minutes for them to arrive. I watched Paul time it, to the second, on his watch.

There is no other direction, no other exit from this motorway. Speeding past this junction, I saw you waiting at the roadside, a one last drink in your trembled hands.

I’m traversing my own death throes. The infection in my leg is an oilrig that dredges black muck up from deep inside my bones. I swallow fistfuls of diazepam and paracetamol to stay conscious. The pain flows through me like an underground sea.

If the caves are my guts, this must be the place where the stones are first formed. The bacteria phosphoresce and rise, singing, through the tunnels. Everything here is bound by the rise and fall like a tide. Perhaps, the whole island is actually underwater.

I am travelling through my own body, following the line of infection from the shattered femur towards the heart. I swallow fistfuls of painkillers to stay lucid. In my delirium, I see the twin lights of the moon and the aerial, shining to me through the rocks.

In my final dream, I sat at peace with Jakobson and watched the moon over the Sandford junction, goats grazing on the hard shoulder, a world gone to weed and redemption. He showed me his fever scars, and I mine, between each shoulder the nascency of flight.

When I was coming round from the operation, I remember the light they shone in my eyes to check for pupil contraction. It was like staring up at a moonlit sky from the bottom of well. People moved at the summit but I could not tell if you were one of them.

This cannot be the shaft they threw the goats into. It cannot be the landfill where the parts of your life that would not burn ended up. It cannot be the chimney that delivered you to the skies. It cannot be the place where you rained back down again to fertilise the soil and make small flowers in the rocks.

I will hold the hand you offer to me; from the summit down to this well, into the dark waters where the small flowers creep for the sun. Headlights are reflected in your retinas, moonlit in the shadow of the crematorium chimney.

This is a drowned man’s face reflected in the moonlit waters. It can only be a dead shepherd who has come to drunk drive you home.

Level 4: The Beacon

The moon over the Sandford junction, headlights in your retinas. Donnelly drove a grey hatchback without a bottom, all the creatures of the tarmac rose to sing to him. All manner of symbols crudely scrawled across the cliff face of my unrest. My life reduced to an electrical diagram. All my gulls have taken flight; they will no longer roost on these outcrops. The lure of the moon over the Sandford junction is too strong.

I wish I could have known Donnelly in this place – we would have had so much to debate. Did he paint these stones, or did I? Who left the pots in the hut by the jetty? Who formed the museum under the sea? Who fell silently to his death, into the frozen waters? Who erected this godforsaken aerial in the first place? Did this whole island rise to the surface of my stomach, forcing the gulls to take flight?

I sat here and watched two jets carve parallel white lines into the sky. They charted their course and I followed them for twenty-one minutes until they turned off near Sandford and were lost. If I were a gull, I would abandon my nest and join them. I would starve my brain of oxygen and suffer delusions of transcendence. I would tear the bottom from my boat and sail across the motorways until I reached this island once again.

Of fire and soil, I chose fire. It seemed the more contemporary of the options, the more sanitary. I could not bear the thought of the reassembly of such a ruins. Stitching arm to shoulder and femur to hip, charting a line of thread like traffic stilled on a motorway. Making it all acceptable for tearful aunts and traumatised uncles flown in specially for the occasion. Reduce to ash, mix with water, make a phosphorescent paint for these rocks and ceilings.

We shall begin to assemble our own version of the north shore. We will scrawl in dead languages and electrical diagrams and hide them away for future theologians to muse and mumble over. We will send a letter to Esther Donnelly and demand her answer. We will mix the paint with ashes and tarmac and the glow from our infections. We paint a moon over the Sandford junction and blue lights falling like stars along the hard shoulder.

I returned home with a pocket full of stolen ash. Half of it fell out of my coat and vanished into the car’s upholstery. But the rest I carefully stowed away in a box I kept in a drawer by the side of my bed. It was never intended as a meaningful act but over the years it became a kind of talisman. I’d sit still, quite still, for hours just holding the diminishing powder in my palm and noting its smoothness. In time, we will all be worn down into granules, washed into the sea and dispersed.

Dear Esther. I find each step harder and heavier. I drag Donnelly’s corpse on my back across these rocks, and all I hear are his whispers of guilt, his reminders, his burnt letters, his neatly folded clothes. He tells me I was not drunk at all.

From here I can see my armada. I collected all the letters I’d ever meant to send to you, if I’d have ever made it to the mainland but had instead collected at the bottom of my rucksack, and I spread them out along the lost beach. Then I took each and every one and I folded them into boats. I folded you into the creases and then, as the sun was setting, I set the fleet to sail. Shattered into twenty-one pieces, I consigned you to the Atlantic, and I sat here until I’d watched all of you sink.

There were chemical diagrams on the mug he gave me coffee in; sticky at the handle where his hands shook. He worked for a pharmaceutical company with an office based on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. He’d been travelling back from a sales conference in Exeter: forming a strategic vision for the pedalling of antacid yoghurt to the European market. You could trace the connections with your finger, join the dots and whole new compounds would be summoned into activity.

There were chemical diagrams on the posters on the walls on the waiting room. It seemed appropriate at the time; still-life abstractions of the processes which had already begun to break down your nerves and your muscles in the next room. I cram diazepam as I once crammed for chemistry examinations. I am revising my options for a long and happy life.

There were chemical stains on the tarmac: the leak of air conditioning, brake fluid and petrol. He kept sniffing at his fingers as he sat by the roadside waiting as if he couldn’t quite understand or recognise their smell. He said he’d been travelling back from a sales conference in Exeter; he’d stopped for farewell drinks earlier, but had kept a careful eye on his intake. You could hear the sirens above the idling traffic. Paul, by the roadside, by the exit for Damascus, all ticking and cooled, all feathers and remorse, all of these signals routed like traffic through the circuit diagrams of our guts, those badly written boats torn bottomless in the swells, washing us forever ashore.

When Paul keeled over dead on the road to Damascus, they resuscitated him by hitting him in the chest with stones gathered by the roadside. He was lifeless for twenty-one minutes, certainly long enough for the oxygen levels in his brain to have decreased and caused hallucinations and delusions of transcendence. I am running out of painkillers and the moon has become almost unbearably bright.

The pain in my leg sent me blind for a few minutes as I struggled up the cliff path: I swallowed another handful of painkillers and now I feel almost lucid. The island around me has retreated to a hazed distance, whilst the moon appears to have descended into my palm to guide me. I can see a thick black line of infection reaching for my heart from the waistband of my trousers. Through the fugue, it is all the world like the path I have cut from the lowlands towards the aerial.

I will drag my leg behind me; I will drag it like a crumpled hatchback, tyres blown and sparking across the dimming lights of my vision. I am running out of painkillers and am following the flicker of the moon home. When Paul keeled over dead on the road to Damascus, they restarted his heart with the jump leads from a crumpled hatchback; it took twenty-one attempts to convince it to wake up.

A sound of torn metal, teeth running over the edge of the rocks, a moon that casts a signal. As I lay pinned beside you, the ticking of the cooling engine, and the calling from a great height, all my mind as a bypass.

I’ve begun my voyage in a paper boat without a bottom; I will fly to the moon in it. I have been folded along a crease in time, a weakness in the sheet of life. Now, you’ve settled on the opposite side of the paper to me; I can see your traces in the ink that soaks through the fibre, the pulped vegetation. When we become waterlogged, and the cage disintegrates, we will intermingle. When this paper aeroplane leaves the cliff edge, and carves parallel vapour trails in the dark, we will come together.

If only Donnelly had experienced this, he would have realised he was his own shoreline, as am I. Just as I am becoming this island, so he became his syphilis, retreating into the burning synapses, the stones, the infection.

Returning to my car afterwards, hands still shaking and a head split open by the impact. Goodbye to tearful aunts and traumatised uncles, goodbye to the phenomenal, goodbye to the tangible, goodbye Wolverhampton, goodbye Sandford, goodbye Cromer, goodbye Damascus. This cliff path is slippery in the dew; it is hard to climb with such an infection. I must carve out the bad flesh and sling it from the aerial. I must become infused with the very air.

There are headlights reflected in these retinas, too long in the tunnels of my island without a bottom. The sea creatures have risen to the surface, but the gulls are not here to carry them back to their nests. I have become fixed: open and staring, an eye turned on itself. I have become an infected leg, whose tracking lines form a perfect map of the junctions of the M5. I will take the exit at mid-thigh and plummet to my Esther.

The stones in my stomach will weigh me down and ensure my descent is true and straight. I will break through the fog of these godforsaken pills and achieve clarity. All my functions are clogged, all my veins are choked. If my leg doesn’t rot off before I reach the summit, it will be a miracle. There are twenty-one connections in the circuit diagram of the anti-lock brakes, there are twenty-one species of gull inhabiting these islands , it is twenty-one miles between the Sandford junction and the turn off for home. All these things cannot, will not, be a co-incidence.

Bent back like a nail, like a hangnail, like a drowning man clung onto the wheel, drunk and spiraled, washed onto the lost shore under a moon as fractured as a shattered wing. We cleave, we are flight and suspended, these wretched painkillers, this form inconstant. I will take flight. I will take flight!

He was not drunk Esther, he was not drunk at all. He had not drunk with Donnelly or spat Jakobson back at the sea; he had not careered across the lost shores and terminal beaches of this nascent archipelago. He did not intend his bonnet to be crumpled like a spent tissue by the impact. His windscreen was not star-studded all over like a map of the heavens. His paintwork etched with circuit diagrams, strange fish to call the gulls away. The phosphorescence of the skid marks lighting the M5 all the way from Exeter to Damascus.

Blind with panic, deaf with the roar of the caged traffic, heart stopped on the road to Damascus, Paul, sat at the roadside hunched up like a gull, like a bloody gull. As useless and as doomed as a syphilitic cartographer, a dying goatherd, an infected leg, a kidney stone blocking the traffic bound for Sandford and Exeter. He was not drunk Esther, he was not drunk at all; all his roads and his tunnels and his paths led inevitably to this moment of impact. This is not a recorded natural condition: he should not be sat there with his chemicals and his circuit diagrams, he should not be sat there at all.

I have dredged these waters for the bones of the hermit, for the traces of Donnelly, for any sign of Jakobson’s flock, for the empty bottle that would incriminate him. I have scoured this stretch of motorway twenty-one times attempting to recreate his trajectory, the point when his heart stopped dead and all he saw was the moon over the Sandford junction. He was not drunk Esther, he was not drunk at all, and it was not his fault, it was the converging lines that doomed him. This is not a recorded natural condition, the gulls do not fly so low over the motorway and cause him to swerve. The paint scored away from his car in lines, like an infection, making directly for the heart.

A gull perched on a spent bonnet, sideways, whilst the sirens fell through the middle distance and the metal moaned in grief about us. I am about this night in walking, old bread and gull bones, old Donnelly at the bar gripping his drink, old Esther walking with our children, old Paul, as ever, old Paul he shakes and he shivers and he turns off his lights alone.

I have run out of places to climb. I will abandon this body and take to the air.

We will leave twin vapour trails in the air, white lines etched into these rocks.

I am the aerial. In my passing, I will send news to each and every star.

Final monologues

Dear Esther. I have burnt my belongings, my books, this death certificate. Mine will be written all across this island. Who was Jakobson, who remembers him? Donnelly has written of him, but who was Donnelly, who remembers him? I have painted, carved, hewn, scored into this space all that I could draw from him. There will be another to these shores to remember me. I will rise from the ocean like an island without bottom, come together like a stone, become an aerial, a beacon that they will not forget you. We have always been drawn here: one day the gulls will return and nest in our bones and our history. I will look to my left and see Esther Donnelly, flying beside me. I will look to my right and see Paul Jakobson, flying beside me. They will leave white lines carved into the air to reach the mainland, where help will be sent.

Dear Esther. I have burned the cliffs of Damascus, I have drunk deep of it. My heart is my leg and a black line etched on the paper all along this boat without a bottom. You are all the world like a nest to me, in which eggs unbroken form like fossils, come together, shatter and send small black flowers to the very air. From this infection, hope. From this island, flight. From this grief, love. Come back! Come back...

[englishgardenandantiques]

[dry-valleys]

“It seemed to be a place that a long-legged climber might choose to salute in the by-going; might link in the mind’s eye with a past when these vast, green, mountain tracts were not so empty as today, and other voices might be heard in a long day than bleating sheep and croaking ravens might even elect to rest here awhile, if for no better reason than that men had rested here before him “

Nigel Tranter, whose son Philip tragically died in 1966.

On a day off from my work with Trees for Life at Athnamulloch, which was my home for last week, I didn’t quite succeed in reaching Glen Shiel (site of a battle 300 years ago which changed the course of history after a Jacobite rebellion, aided by Spain, failed in 1719 and the Hanoverian government intensified its control over the Highlands as a response) but covered a lot of ground, seen here.

I got slightly further than (5,6) Camban bothy, then beat a retreat to that place, remote even by local standards, which is well maintained by the Mountain Bothy Association and shows Highland hospitality at its best. An abandoned farmstead, it triumphantly reopened in its present form in 1969 as a result of work from Tranter and his colleagues, all of whom volunteered for such a hard task because they believed in the results, and rightly so as we now see.

Then continuing the Affric Kintail Way, past (6- just about visible- 7,8) the youth hostel at Alltbeithe where I’d passed a group of volunteers heading out for their work in the morning. Although I was slightly disappointed by not reaching Glen Shiel, I know I can do it next time (already booked!)  and I was returning to Athnamulloch (9, with 10 taken by my colleague Conor in 2017, the rest being by me last week).

As well as the tree planting which was my main purpose of my visit, I enjoyed a simpler, more real way of life, in the spirit of the book Feral by George Monbiot which had inspired me to go there. Unlike Affric Lodge, we didn’t have many creature comforts but I soon got used to having no phone, wifi or shower (when bathing in the River Affric I saw a cyclist and bantered that I don’t know what is more foolhardy, plunging into that water or trying to cycle along the tracks you can see in the pictures; he said that the cycling was!)

But the camaraderie was the best thing about that week, and we shared not only tree planting- although Glen Affric has more trees than many places, we are aiming for far more- but cooking, cleaning, water-carrying (no mains water for us!) and whisky-drinking duties, and after one too many Highland Parks I said that it was like the Spanish Civil War in our group, which may be a slight exaggeration but was heartfelt.

And this is why my next trip, on which I vow to fully achieve the walk I began that day, is already booked and cannot come soon enough.

To all the bothies, lang may its lum reek!

[scotianostra]

An investigation subsequently concluded that it was on December 15th, probably in the afternoon that the three Keepers of the year old Flannan Isles Lighthouse disappeared.

The work of the forenoon had been completed and no light was visible that night. No trace of them was ever found.

I think we all know the story, I indeed remember reading about it in primary school, so even then I had an interest in our history.

The Flannan Isles actually has an interesting history, before the establishment of the lighthouse on the Flannan Isles -named after St Flann - which consists of seven rocky, uninhabited islands called the Seven Hunters, the island of Eilean Mor on which the lighthouse stands had two other habitations.

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland describe the islands ruins as "The Bothies of the Clan McPhail" and in appearance one of these ruins seems to have a chapel and the other a dwelling. Probably from as early as the 17th century the Flannans were attached to holdings in Uig parish, indeed Rev Hugh Munro wrote at the end of the eighteenth century:

"The people of the farms to which the isles are connected, go there once a year to fleece their sheep and to kill sea-fowls, both for food and on account of their feathers."

According to tradition grazing on the Flannans was exemplary, ewes would have twin lambs and even sickly sheep would benefit from a spell spent on the islands. By the 1920s Crofters were paying rent for the right to pasture 50 to 60 sheep. The sheep were distributed over six of the islands according to what the area could sustain: 24 to 30 on Eilean Mor, 10-11 on Eilean Tighe, 6 on Soray, 1 on Sgeir Toman, 2 on Roarein and 8 on Eilean a Ghobha. By the 1970s the Bernera crofters considered the cost and trouble of putting sheep onto the islands outweighed the benefits and the practice came to an end.

In the 1760s it was recorded that 38 stone of feathers were taken from the Flannan Isles, Rona and Sulasgeir and sold. The most prized bird for feathers was the eider duck, valued for its down as the puffin was for its flesh.

In 1899 a lighthouse was built on Eilean Mor by engineer David Alan Stevenson assisted by his brother Charles Alexander. This lighthouse led to a great mystery in December 1900 when the three keepers vanished without trace. A party, sent out to investigate why the light was not lit,some reports say they found an untouched meal on the table, this is untrue, a first-hand account made by the the relief keeper, stated that: "The kitchen utensils were all very clean, which is a sign that it must be after dinner some time they left."

Much has been written about these final log entries in the years since, as interest in the Great Lighthouse Mystery has evolved, for in some ways, as we have received them, they appear to be odd and foreboding. On the 12th of December, Marshall writes about a storm the likes of which he’s never seen, and mentions in passing how quiet Ducat was and how MacArthur had been crying. This perhaps shows the stress these men were under, day in day out.

Then on the 13th, he makes sure to put down that all three of them took to prayer, such was their disquiet and dread. Then, on the 15th, he notes that the weather has calmed, stating cryptically, “God is over all.”

The occurrence gained national publicity and became the inspiration for the following poem by Wilson Wilfred Gibson "Flannan Isle."

Though three men dwell on Flannan Isle To keep the lamp alight, As we steer'd under the lee, we caught No glimmer through the night!

A passing ship at dawn had brought The news; and quickly we set sail, To find out what strange thing might all The keepers of the deep-sea light.

The winter day broke blue and bright, With glancing sun and glancing spray, As o'er the swell our boat made way, As gallant as a gull in flight.

But, as we near'd the lonely Isle; And look'd up at the naked height; And saw the lighthouse towering white, With blinded lantern, that all night Had never shot a spark Of comfort through the dark, So ghastly in the cold sunlight It seem'd, that we were struck the while With wonder all too dread for words.

And, as into the tiny creek We stole beneath the hanging crag, We saw three queer, black, ugly birds-- Too big, by far, in my belief, For guillemot or shag-- Like seamen sitting bold upright Upon a half-tide reef: But, as we near'd, they plunged from sight, Without a sound, or spurt of white.

And still too mazed to speak, We landed; and made fast the boat; And climb'd the track in single file, Each wishing he was safe afloat, On any sea, however far, So it be far from Flannan Isle: And still we seem'd to climb, and climb, As though we'd lost all count of time, And so must climb for evermore. Yet, all too soon, we reached the door-- The black, sun-blister'd lighthouse door, That gaped for us ajar.

As, on the threshold, for a spell, We paused, we seem'd to breathe the smell Of limewash and of tar, Familiar as our daily breath, As though 'twere some strange scent of death: And so, yet wondering, side by side, We stood a moment, still tongue-tied: And each with black foreboding eyed The door, ere we should fling it wide, To leave the sunlight for the gloom: Till, plucking courage up, at last, Hard on each other's heels we pass'd Into the living-room.

Yet, as we crowded through the door, We only saw a table, spread For dinner, meat and cheese and bread; But all untouch'd; and no one there: As though, when they sat down to eat, Ere they could even taste, Alarm had come; and they in haste Had risen and left the bread and meat: For on the table-head a chair Lay tumbled on the floor. We listen'd; but we only heard The feeble cheeping of a bird That starved upon its perch: And, listening still, without a word, We set about our hopeless search.

We hunted high, we hunted low, And soon ransack'd the empty house; Then o'er the Island, to and fro, We ranged, to listen and to look In every cranny, cleft or nook That might have hid a bird or mouse: But, though we searched from shore to shore, We found no sign in any place: And soon again stood face to face Before the gaping door: And stole into the room once more As frighten'd children steal.

Aye: though we hunted high and low, And hunted everywhere, Of the three men's fate we found no trace Of any kind in any place, But a door ajar, and an untouch'd meal, And an overtoppled chair.

And, as we listen'd in the gloom Of that forsaken living-room-- O chill clutch on our breath-- We thought how ill-chance came to all Who kept the Flannan Light: And how the rock had been the death Of many a likely lad: How six had come to a sudden end And three had gone stark mad: And one whom we'd all known as friend Had leapt from the lantern one still night, And fallen dead by the lighthouse wall: And long we thought On the three we sought, And of what might yet befall.

Like curs a glance has brought to heel, We listen'd, flinching there: And look'd, and look'd, on the untouch'd meal And the overtoppled chair.

We seem'd to stand for an endless while, Though still no word was said, Three men alive on Flannan Isle, Who thought on three men dead.

Read more at http://www.poetry-archive.com/g/flannan_isle.html…

The light, which was served by a shore station at Breasclete, was automated in 1971.

The pics show the lighthouse and ruined "chapel" and the three missing men, left to right Donald MacArthur, Thomas Marshall, James Ducat, and their boss Superintendent of Lighthouses, Robert Muirhead.

[nehswritesstuffs]

The Scottish Werewolf of Hackney - Part XII

...and we are done! Thanks for letting me entertain you guys with this story! More stories to come, so watch this blog!

Part I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI

FFN - AO3

With the pards gone and Basil back to normal, it’s time to get things in order at last. [3969 words; Whouffaldi werewolf AU]

Waking up the following morning was blissful and serene more than anything else for the occupants of the small, hillside bothy. Clara woke to the soft, steady breathing of Basil in his large half-wolf form, warm and furry and definitely alive. She kept smiling until he woke, waiting for him to change back into a human form before kissing him tenderly, making good—if tame—use of their time alone before their temporary roommate was awake as well.

Heading back down to London, however, was an affair that needed to be done with caution despite the renewed strength the werewolf found himself possessing. In the end, Clara and Basil decided to go separately from Adrian, attempting to draw less attention to themselves as a group. They took buses in different directions, with the couple heading towards Glasgow while their friend went to Aberdeen first, then Edinburgh. All three found that their mobile signals returning meant that their inboxes were flooded with unread messages that were mostly of some form of urgency. Some texts were sent (“sorry but I honestly did not get this until now thanks to a hiking trip”), calls were made (“I told you I was bringing him back”), and a long list of emails waded through that were a combination of junk, coworkers harping on one another, and worried students and parents wondering when it was their schedules could resume their prior normalcy. By the time they were all in London again, Mr. Coburn had been able to get the go-ahead from the police and contractors cleaning up to begin using most of the school again in an attempt to salvage what was left of the term.

“Your classroom is going to have to be wherever we can find room while others are on their lunch break, Miss Oswald,” the headmaster explained the day before school resumed. They were in his office, which had suffered no damage aside from a busted door that was already put back on its hinges. “Since it was one of the worst hit, the contractors put it aside as their project for when we’re closed for the holidays and concentrated on finishing as much of the other rooms as they could.”

“No word yet on if they caught the people responsible?”

“Not a peep, but I’m sure we’ll hear once things make progress. In the meantime, I’d like for the entire staff to administer no exams, only one paper to write if necessary—make the students feel like it is worth their time to show up now and we can concentrate on getting them back to where they should be next term.”

Clara nodded at that, glad that her boss was none the wiser when it came to what she had gotten up to while everyone was away. She knew that Adrian was in his classroom, getting it back in order, while Basil was figuring out what was left of the caretaker’s workshop that was still there and useable. They were ready to begin picking up the pieces that would lead them down a better path. She got the list of classrooms allotted to her during certain times and went into the staff lounge to begin writing the notification emails that were to direct her students to where they needed to go once class was back in session. With her curriculum for the following term now in shambles and in need of a revamping, she put in earbud-headphones and got straight to work—not even sharing a building with Basil was going to distract her.

Her patience was tested when he came in to empty the trash bins though. It was positively a crime to make a caretaker’s coat look that sexy.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

School resumed at Coal Hill, students and staff alike feeling as though they had just returned from an oddly-timed holiday. It did not take long for things to get back into motion, let alone for mischief to crop up from the more usual suspects.

“It’s only dry-erase marker; I’m not Banksy and working in spray-paints,” Courtney defended coolly. She was faced with the door-window she was accused of defiling, a bold “Ozzie loves the Scottie” scrawled across in red ink and her scrawl. Mr. Coburn was there and they were even keeping class from starting, which the rest of the students found more than agreeable.

“So you admit this was you,” Clara frowned. She motioned towards the glass in the classroom door, her voice filled with exasperation. “Why did you do this, Courtney?”

“You don’t allow mobiles during school hours, so how else can I get a message out there?” The rest of the class snickered in response, seeing their teacher’s eye twitch in a subconscious tell.

“You’re not the school crier, so stop acting like it,” Clara said. “Why did you even write that, anyhow?”

“…because you’re shacked up with the substitute caretaker, Miss. People need to know so that they don’t interrupt you and walk in on you kissing or something.”

“I think that’s enough, Miss Woods,” Mr. Coburn said. “I think writing some lines about telling lies in the main office will do you some good.”

“It’s not a lie though,” Courtney said resolutely. “I saw them having a snog in the caretaker’s office before the school was broken into, and since we’ve been back I heard them talk about one another as ‘us’ when talking about Christmas. One of my favorite teachers is leaving at the end of term and you just want me to be quiet about it?”

Clara’s face turned pale and her eyes went wide. She could see the sea of giggling students in front of her and the utterly confused Mr. Coburn out of the corner of her eye. After taking a deep breath, she calmly approached Courtney and leaned so that she was closer to her ear, dropping her voice so that only the two of them could hear.

“Don’t you ever mark up the school like that again, do you understand?”

“Especially if it’s about you, Miss?”

“Don’t. Mark. Up. The. School. Period. What uni would want to accept a student whose most remarkable trait is that they’re too concentrated with destroying the building grounds to actually bother with attending class and broadening their mind? Then how would you become President?”

Courtney nodded silently at that, quickly took the cloth Mr. Coburn was holding, wiped off her graffiti, and returned it before sitting back down at her desk. The rest of the class was now staring at her in terror—whatever their classmate had been told, it worked, and they didn’t want to be on the receiving end themselves.

“When I come back in this room, everybody better be able to participate in a discussion on Stephen Gordon’s childhood and the differences between her relationship with her mother and her relationship with her father,” Clara announced. She then walked out into the corridor to talk with Mr. Coburn, leaving all the students to open their books and frantically reread the passages they failed to do during their extended and unexpected holiday.

“Are you still sure you want them to read that book?” Mr. Coburn wondered distractedly.

“None of the parents have objected so far, and the book helps give the students a chance to put things they think of as modern issues into historical contexts, showing them a broader interpretation of history and society, as well as how differing views on multiple subjects have developed over the course of time. It’s not like ‘The Well of Loneliness’ is explicit or anything…”

“That’s not the poin—wait—that wasn’t even why I came here to talk to you.” Mr. Coburn shook himself from the distraction and attempted to not devolve into hysterics. “Since when have you been snogging Mr. Smith on school grounds?! Since when have you been leaving at the end of term?!”

“Basil and I have a relationship outside of school and it has developed into one that will involve us getting married,” Clara explained frankly. “I don’t know what sort of things Miss Woods has been seeing or hearing, since I’ve been behaving, but I plan on leaving at the end of next term for Bristol. My tenure doesn’t hold a candle to his, he’s not ready to be a pensioner, and can you imagine giving up being a dean of faculty to go on a fresh-hire’s budget? It makes no sense.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“At the end of this term; honest.”

“…fine,” Mr. Coburn sighed. He shook his head slightly, not entirely certain how to react further. “You’re one of my best instructors, I hope you know.”

“You’ll find someone else,” said a voice. Mr. Coburn jumped and saw Basil walk out from behind him, planting a quick kiss on Clara’s lips as he stood by her side. “By the look of that door earlier, I take it that the school has heard the wolf’s howl?”

“Go tidy your office,” she replied, not breaking her gaze with Mr. Coburn. She patted her fiancé on his rear, with him afterwards giving her boss a smug look and sauntering off, pleased that they were now able to be openly affectionate. “You know I adore the students here, but I love Basil. The clean break will be good for me in the long-run—didn’t you want me to put out my CV a few months after Mr. Pink died?”

“It seemed like a good thing to say at the time…”

“…and it’s a good thing now. We can talk about it later; better not let the kids get too prepared.” Clara then went into her classroom and shut the door behind her, leaning on the surface before stepping towards her desk with all her students’ eyes on her. She noticed that Courtney had her hand raised slightly, prompting her to point at the teen. “Yes?”

“Do I still need to write lines, Miss?”

“Not if you can tell me which one of Stephen Gordon’s parents is the most open-minded, with three examples why.”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Christmas came and Clara and Basil began to put their over month of planning into action. They went from her flat to his house, plotting their frantic incoming summer on the train to Bristol and on the car ride up to Blackpool. The sight of Basil’s beaten TARDIS pulling up the drive was a sight that made Clara’s father raise an eyebrow and her stepmother scowl, especially when she saw who was in the driver’s seat.

“Your first car, I take it?” Linda asked of the TARDIS once they were all inside.

“My only car—a man doesn’t choose to own a Tardyska, but instead the Tardyska chooses him. It takes effort and skill to keep a Type 40 in this good of condition, I hope you know.”

“Congratulations, Clara,” Linda said flatly. “Your boyfriend’s car is almost as old as you and he’s not getting rid of it for something safer anytime soon. You must be so proud.”

“Linda…”

“David, when I said she should go out and get herself someone like you, I didn’t mean someone our age.”

“…but you’re a teacher too, right Basil?” Dave asked, attempting to recall the conversation he had with Clara about her new beau only days beforehand. “Teachers don’t necessarily make all that much and…”

“Thanks for trying to help, Dad, but Basil is Dean of Faculty at his university,” Clara said. She patted her father’s arm and smiled in resignation; this was her fate and she didn’t like it, but accepted it as such, for bravery in the face of her father’s wife was work just short of deserving a medal for distinguished civilian service (or that was at least how it felt). “He can afford another car if that’s what he wants, but it’s not important.”

“Then what is?” Linda asked. Basil shrugged jokingly and picked up the suitcases that had been sitting by the front door from the moment they entered the house.

“Making sure that your stepdaughter is so thoroughly pregnant by the New Year that even you can’t argue a marriage during the Spring,” he grinned. With Dave’s face turning red and Linda’s adopting a rather statuesque look of shock, Clara pulled Basil along by the ear as she went up the stairs towards her old room.

“Are you going to be like this the entire trip?” she snapped. She let go of his ear and opened her bedroom door—the room smelled as though it had been aired out recently, though sitting on the bed revealed that the bedspread was still more than a bit musty.

“Simply making my intentions clear from the start,” he said. After putting down the bags at the end of the bed, he held her from behind, leaning down to kiss her neck as he pressed himself against her. “I plan on us having the finest litter this side of the Channel, I hope you know.”

“Don’t say litter.”

“I’m a wolf, remember?” He gently nibbled on her skin, not enough to leave a mark, but enough for her to feel. “Not here at your dad’s, but maybe when we go to visit my sister next week?”

“I’m not shagging you in a literal witch’s house.”

“She can’t hex you for anything—I forbid it.”

“We’re still not shagging until we get back to your pla—” She was cut off by the soft sound of knocking, at which she attempted to swat her fiancé away (with little effect) before turning towards the door. “Yeah…?” Dave poked his head in almost sheepishly, locking eyes directly with his daughter.

“Are you…?” he asked. He didn’t seem comfortable continuing her question, which he didn’t need to considering the look on his face.

“No, not yet,” she assured him. “Granddad will be the first to know when there are little Oswalds on the way.” This seemed to satisfy him and he closed the door again, allowing his daughter and surprise son-in-law some privacy. Clara finally pushed off her playful beau and began to unpack the presents from their bags. “Here; take these and we can put them under the tree while we apologize for being inappropriate.”

“Never apologize for being inappropriate; it’s unbecoming,” Basil teased. He took the brightly-wrapped packages from Clara and willingly followed her back down the stairs and into the sitting room where Dave and Linda were having a hushed argument. Their presence put the proceedings on-hold, especially after Basil held out the offerings in a sign of temporary peace.

It was a peace that they all knew to be fragile, mere seconds away from being destroyed at any moment, and the new couple wouldn’t have it any other way.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

There wasn’t much to the ceremony. Even though Linda had tried to convince her stepdaughter to wait until the summer so that they could get their vicar at a better time (for then he would not be planning for the parish’s hundredth St. George’s Day celebration), Clara and Basil were married instead by his sister, Missy, taking advantage of a weekend in mid-April that was the most convenient for everyone in attendance. Clara’s gran gave her away at the altar, Adrian was her Maid of Honor, and Bill was the Best Lady; the turning around of things made it so the attending humans were more concentrated on the traditions that were turned on their heads instead of the fact that there was a faun and nymph and even a non-Linda-type banshee in the audience, with a witch doing the officiating.

Even as the surrounding well-wishers partied all evening, no one imagined the perils that had to be faced in order for the couple to get to where they were that moment. There was no lindworm, no pard, no stepmother, no unimpressed sister that was going to stop them. They may have known each other for a short time—that much was glaringly true—but they had more behind them than couples that had been together for years and that was what really counted.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Bill loved babysitting.

From the moment she first held her nephews and niece, she simply knew it’s what she wanted to do while finishing up uni—being the best auntie-nanny by day and a beleaguered upper-level student by night—and there was nothing that would make her not enjoy her choice in life.

“GET OUT OF HERE THIS INSTANT!”

Well, almost nothing.

Bill did a quick check of her charges before investigating. With two toddlers dressed in their shorts and t-shirts at their small table scribbling crayon drawings and the third nowhere in sight, she went towards the bathroom to find that the door was cracked open. It was there she found her girlfriend in the tub and the final tot smacking at the bubbly foam atop the water.

“Arthur, you know better than to bother Auntie Heather while she’s taking care of nixie things,” Bill scolded gently, scooping the boy up. She bent down to kiss her girlfriend, during which the boy caught a few more fistfuls of bubbles. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“He needs to learn boundaries, now,” Heather insisted. She sunk lower into the bubbles, with her chin becoming submerged. “Doesn’t he have them at Basil and Clara’s?”

“Plenty of them, but he’s still just a baby.”

“A baby that can turn into a wolf at any minute! I’ll be glad when they’re potty-trained and I can stop worrying about Gran’s lace curtains.”

“The curtains are high up, so I don’t know why you’re so worried,” Bill smirked. She gave Heather a wink and exited the bathroom, leaving the nymph to commune with the water for as long as she needed. Once the boy was with his brother and sister again, she went back to her laptop sitting on the nearby coffee table and continued to write her dissertation.

Three paragraphs further and suddenly Bill had a small, clothed puppy in her lap, staring up at her with the largest eyes possible. “Crikey, Joan, you don’t know what kind of eyes you inherited. Those things are dangerous!” The puppy stood on her hind legs and stared up at her caretaker, whimpering softly. “Very cute, but very dangerous, young lady!”

“Ahn Bee! Ahn Bee!” The young woman glanced over and saw the girl’s brothers stomp over to climb all over her. Soon she had a human and puppy in her lap and another puppy resting atop her head, rubbing its snout in her hair happily.

“Auntie Bill,” she said, reminding them for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. The puppy atop her head sneezed and subsequently turned back into a human, sliding off and landing on his brother and sister. Soon, all three were human and smacking one another. Bill separated them by lifting the boys up, one under each arm, and leaving the girl on the floor as she stood. There was a knock at the door and she groaned in frustration. “It’s open!”

“How are my pups doing?” Basil called out as he entered the flat. He walked into view, which prompted his daughter to toddle over towards him with her arms up and out in excitement. Picking her up, he kissed her nose and placed her on his shoulders before taking his sons from their sitter. “Were they good today?”

“They’re starting to transform smoother,” Bill said. “Percy didn’t cry when Clara dropped him off this morning either.”

“An improvement all the same,” Basil nodded. “Same time tomorrow?”

“You got it.” Bill led her mentor over towards the door and got it for him, letting him back into the world with his pint-sized progeny. “Don’t forget that I have a presentation on Friday and can’t take them then!”

“Don’t worry—Nardole’s overdue for some pack-sitting duties,” Basil chuckled. He carried his children over to the car and made certain all three were firmly contained in their booster seats before getting behind the driver’s wheel. The kids shrieked in glee whenever he would take a turn just a wee bit too tight, or need to stop a bit more sudden than was for comfort, enjoying the jostling they got over the roads that were prone to bumps and their father’s boggling ability to adequately drive while still engaging the parking brake. They pulled into the university’s staff parking before three, with Basil leading his children up to his office, simply trusting that they all followed him once he released them from their booster seats.

It was now a common sight around campus, Doctor Basil Smith-Oswald and his brood, and he took no measure to make his pups less visible.

“This is still not a nursery, sir,” Nardole frowned when he saw his boss enter his office. The children ran towards him and jumped up and down, reaching for the tea tray in his hands, which held their tea snacks. They began babbling angrily when the faun only lifted the tray higher, keeping it definitely out of reach.

“What’s the point of being Dean of Faculty if I can’t abuse my position every once in a while? For the good of the world?” Basil flopped down on a couch and reached for the tea that was laid out for him on the adjacent table.

“I don’t know how these rugrats are for the good of anything—things were much calmer and quieter when you were still a bachelor.” Nardole placed the tea tray on a short, plastic table in the corner of the office dedicated to the triplets’ playthings, allowing them to attack their sippy cups of juice and begin demolishing their snack. “Certainly was less messy in here for a start.”

“No wonder you’re an old maid with faun-pattern baldness and a job where you can be as fussy as possible,” Basil sniped. “You’d have the most boring children ever.”

“I would not.”

“Yes, you would.” Nardole turned his attention towards the door and saw Clara hanging up her jacket and helmet on their pegs by the door. She sat down next to her husband and began to pour herself some tea. “Please refrain from insulting my children from here on out. I know it’s difficult, but what’s also difficult is my understanding why on earth you signed that contract extension at the end of last year, when you knew the children were only months away from walking.”

“Yes ma’am, Mrs. Oswald,” Nardole grumbled. He sulked out of the office; once the door was closed, Basil leaned in to land a kiss behind Clara’s ear.

“It still makes me a bit tingly to hear you refer to as Mrs. Oswald,” he admitted. Their daughter came over to them and crawled into their laps, face and front covered in yogurt. “Oh, would you look at that—we’re getting better at this, aren’t we?” He went and took a napkin from the table and began cleaning her up. “How was work? You’re here early.”

“Power went out thanks to a mishap with the science teacher’s drone,” she explained.

“I knew that lump of mashed potatoes dressed as a person was going to screw up one of these days.” By the time he had cleaned up their daughter, both their sons were over and demanding attention. Soon all three babies were clean and snuggling into their parents, which put a decided end to tea time.

The family stayed silent for a while, the only sounds being the heavy grandfather clock in the corner and Nardole shuffling outside the office door. Basil wrapped his arm around Clara as their children slept on and whispered in her ear.

“Thank you.”

She raised her eyebrow at that. “For what?”

“…for giving me a second chance at this.”

“Thank you, Basil, for exactly the same.”

[firstfootingscotland]

Shuffles at Féis Lochabair

Greetings from Lansing where I am spending a few days before heading to Washington and Oregon for shows with banjo-player Allison de Groot. While Scotland is feeling more and more like home, it's wonderful to pay a visit to the state of Michigan where I grew up for a mouthful of dry cold air and lots and LOTS of snow!

Before returning to the United States I had the pleasure of spending Saturday, February 9 working with step dancers from Fèis Lochabair in Fort William. Fèisean nan Gàidheal have been incredibly supportive partners in the First Footing residency, facilitating interaction with dancers from across their national network. I was eager to get to interact with dancers from this community as I boarded the train from Edinburgh at 7:15am on Saturday morning. 

The trip was quiet until six bearded men in all-weather gear boarded the train an hour into the journey. As big men are wont to do, they straddled the aisle, taking up two tables on the train with backpacks and crampons. Amid their outdoor accoutrement, soon their table was also strewn with cans of Tennents lager and empty crisp bags as they laughed and boisterously chatted to the trolley hostess. They played pipe band renditions of "Amazing Grace" and pop versions of "Caledonia" on repeat on the speaker of their smartphones as we sped northward through the Trossachs, through Rannach, Corrour, and Roy Bridge. Here the men rowdily disembarked, pouring out of the train still singing and I presume in search of hills to walk and bothies to nap in while the rest of the train rode on in silence until we reached Fort William. As I alighted from the train, the sunlight made the snow on the mountains sparkle in the afternoon light. Shortly I was picked up opposite the train station and whisked away by car to work with the dancers of Fèis Lochabair. 

(Snow on the mountains en route to Féis Lochabair)

Dancer and dance teacher Jane Douglas hosted me incredibly warmly, greeting me as the enduring afternoon rays streamed in through the windows of the bright community centre. As the dancers arrived, I felt very lucky indeed to meet such a welcoming group of movers. The first class, specifically for dancers in under the age of eighteen, impressed me with their crisp percussive articulation and their astute timing. After warming up, I led the group through a series of step dance combinations that I hoped would be both stimulating and challenging. I was startled by their verve; they were eager, even willing to execute the steps one at a time in a circle consecutively as we endeavoured to dance as one, each dancer continuing the phrase where the previous left off. "As though we were singing a song or playing a tune together," I told them. Soon we were passing steps back and forth around the circle together, working to maintain a consistent dynamic and tempo.  

(Working with a group of students and their instructor Jane Douglas during my February 9 visit to Féis Lochabair) 

Over the course of the class, I began to get a sense for the patterns of footwork the dancers were familiar with. When teaching I find it takes some time for me to observe and process the specific step conventions the students have previously been exposed to; to gain a sense through of their movement history as we dance together. For me, the goal then is to share material that departs from these physical patterns or builds on them to break physical patterns, proposing new physical possibilities. For example, this group was familiar with the common step dance pre-fix of audibly placing weight on one foot, brushing the opposing foot forwards and backwards striking the floor once in each direction, hopping on the weight-bearing foot, and tapping with toe of the non-weight-bearing foot. "Step, shuffle, hop, tap." The convention of hopping after the shuffle is found throughout many step dance forms and as I watched the practiced ease with which the dancers demonstrated this step, I could tell it was a gesture their bodies were comfortable with from their great work with Jane! 

I hypothesized internally that a similar step convention with a slightly different use of weight would be challenging but also help develop new neural pathways and motor skills among the students. To that end, I suggested the dancers try a step with a similar beginning, again audibly placing weight on one foot, brushing the opposing foot forwards and backwards striking the floor once in each direction, and instead of hopping on the first, weight-bearing foot, rocking back and placing weight on the shuffling foot, then finally stepping again with the first weight-bearing foot. "Step, shuffle-ball, change." While this step enunciates same number of sounds, it uses a slightly different use of weight.... and shifting weight is what step dance is all about! This new step proved to be a challenge but the students took it up swiftly. After a few repetitions, suddenly the class was collectively departing from well-worn physical patterns, using their weight percussively in new ways. 

(My second group of students with their instructor Jane Douglas during my February 9 visit to Féis Lochabair)

The second group of students, all adults this time, smiled encouragingly as I thanked them for attending and for welcoming me so warmly to their community. We began the second workshop by warming up and then working through a series of exercises reconsidering the dynamic possibilities of one particular step dance rudiment: the shuffle. 

(Diagram 11.1 from Flett & Flett’s 1964 book, Traditional Dance in Scotland)

Shown above in a digram from Flett & Flett's 1964 book Traditional Dance in Scotland, this step is comprised of a swinging brush contacting the floor in a forward motion, followed by a retraction, brushing the floor as the foot returns. The shuffle is a two-way exchange of energy directed through the foot, striking the ground twice in action and reaction. 

In my ethnographic work, I've encountered many gestures that employ a similar pendulum-like step dance rudiment with diverse names: Flett & Flett call it a “treeple.” In tap dance they’re called "shuffles," while in Appalachian clogging, they are referred to as "double-toes," "rallies," "trebles," or "batters" in Irish step dance, “látigo” (Spanish for "whip") in flamenco, and “frotté” (in French, literally, "to rub") in Quebecois gigue. 

In addition to its wide geographic dispersions and culturally-specific meanings, this step is also an incredibly malleable rudiment. It can be altered in many ways, including changing which parts of the foot contact the floor, shifting the rhythmic feel of the shuffle, the step's metre, and even its timbre. After discussing, demonstrating, and having the students embody these various axis of variation during Saturday's class, I asked each student to dance two shuffles with the stipulation that could be similar or contrasting) and instructed the group to repeat them. In addition to a few giggles, this exercise also usually yields some really interesting variations in the infinite variability of the step. This workshop was no exception! My hope in sharing the exercise was that the dancers might reconsider the shuffle's many possibilities, identifying their own tacit presuppositions about the step or biases based upon culturally-specific experiences of the different ways the shuffle functions in percussive dance forms. (1) I've found this strategy consistently helps students discover something new in a step they may have known for many years. I was certainly not disappointed as the dancers extemporized new combinations of shuffles that I had never seen!

After the workshop, a quick rest, and a bite to eat, I was one again whisked to the next event, a cèilidh benefiting Fèis Lochabair at the Ben Nevis Distillery. There, musicians from the Fèis Lochabair Cèilidh Trail set up the PA, called the dances, and performed for and with one another as students from Jane's school performed both highland and step dance pieces. Afterwards, I took to the floor myself to perform two short solo sets. (After which one attendee remarked, "that was proper Brechtian theatre with step dance!") 

(Dancers at the February 9 Féis Lochabair cèilidh at the Ben Nevis Distillery)

As I watched dancers sashay through a Virginia Reel at the end of the night, I couldn't help but genuflect on the opportunity to share steps and shapes here. It had been a full, rich day, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. As I sped southward on the train towards Edinburgh the following morning, the sweet sounds of pipes, piano accordion, mandolin and dancing feet ringing in my ears, I was very grateful indeed to have spent a day dancing in the shadow of Ben Nevis among the rich community of Fèis Lochabair. 

First Footing is a collaboration between dancer and dance researcher Nic Gareiss, the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland, University of Edinburgh Moray House School of Education, and the School of Scottish Studies with support from Creative Scotland. For engagement opportunities check out the First Footing website.

(1) This method of teaching and creating is largely informed by the work of philosopher Michel Foucault, especially the way that his writing explicates and reveals the power of tacit presuppositions. Here I apply this to step dance pedagogy: What do we presume about a step, about its morphology, its utilization. Once we identify the assumptions we've made, it's possible for us to explore new movement possibilities that critique or work against those presuppositions. For more on this, see Michel Foucault's 1969 book, The Archeology of Knowledge.