The Silver Bough (20 page)

When the children were dried and dressed they set off back to the car; this time, Graeme took the driver’s seat.

“Why don’t you sit in the front, Ashley?” said Shona. “You’ll see better, and it’s more comfortable.”

“I thought we’d go up and have a closer look at the Grand,” Graeme said, starting the car.

“Ooh, the spooky place!” Ewan exclaimed gleefully, and Jade squealed.

“Mum!”

“Ewan, keep your hands to yourself.”

“It wasn’t me, it was ghostly fingers!”

“Ghost fingers yourself!”

“Hey!”

“If you two don’t settle down, we’re going straight home.”

“Why is it spooky?” asked Ashley but, in the turmoil, her question went unanswered, and she soon saw for herself.

As the car toiled up the steep driveway, she was aware of the many potholes, and the fact that the verges were heavily overgrown, some weeds even growing up through the paving, as if it did not get much use. But not until they reached the top did she see that the Grand Hotel was an old, long-abandoned, empty ruin. There was scarcely a whole pane of glass in any of the windows, the white paint was peeling and streaked with ancient soot, and at least half the roof was gone. She gaped in astonishment, unable to speak.

“Shall we go in?”

“No, Graeme, that would not be a good idea,” said Shona swiftly and firmly over the two boys’ whoops of excitement.

He twisted around to grin at her. “Aw, come on.”

“No. Boys, settle down
now
. We are not going in. Graeme, I can’t believe you even suggested it,” she went on, exasperated. “You can see it’s not safe. What if a wall suddenly collapsed while one of us was standing under it? Just because it’s stood so long…just because the council can’t be bothered to fence it off or put up proper warning signs…who knows what that earthquake might have dislodged?”

He looked penitent. “I’m sorry.”

At last, Ashley found her tongue. “What happened to it? Where is everybody?”

They all stared at her.

“There were people here, less than an hour ago. I
saw
them,” she said, and heard the desperation in her voice.

“You must be thinking of another place,” said Shona.

She shook her head hard. “No! I was down below, standing on the road, staring up at it—I could see loads of cars parked over to the side there, and people going in and out, and I could hear
music
—I couldn’t have been mistaken about that—there was a party going on up here, a big, swinging dance party—‘In the Mood,’” she finished, as if that clinched it. “The band was playing ‘In the Mood.’”

“It
is
haunted,” said Ewan, sounding awed. “It’s not b.s., it really
is
. Whoah, boy, wait till I tell Fraser about
this
.”

“They weren’t ghosts—it was broad daylight—there were people here; there’s bound to be an explanation…” Ashley saw her protest made not the slightest impact on the round eyes and pale faces of the three in the backseat.

Graeme’s response was to reverse and head back down the rutted drive, with little or no concern for the effect that speed and potholes might have on his car’s suspension.

“Why should it be haunted?” Ashley asked.

“I never thought it was,” said Shona. “And, Graeme, you’ve never come across any evidence—I mean, nobody was actually killed in the bombing; the hotel was all but empty at the time…”

“What happened?”

“It was bombed during the Second World War,” Graeme replied, frowning through the windshield at the empty road ahead. “There was a military training base and an airfield nearby—presumably that was the intended target, or maybe one of the bombers heading for the shipyards on Clydeside flew off course. Anyway, there were plans to rebuild after the war, but it never happened. The bottom fell out of the local economy, and although there was talk of reviving the tourist industry with a showpiece hotel, I guess it was always too expensive a risk.”

“And nobody ever held a party in the ruins,” Shona said quietly. “Nobody ever would.”

“Because of the ghosts,” said Ewan.

“Because it’s simply not safe. I’m sure people—kids, mostly—poke around in there from time to time, but you’d never get a band up there today. Anyway, there’s nowhere to dance. The ballroom was destroyed—I’ve seen it.”

Ashley stared out the window, shocked and numb, feeling as if she’d been hit by a bomb herself—a mental bomb, anyway. She wondered what would have happened if she’d climbed up the hill by herself, intent on crashing the party from the past. Would it have disappeared as soon as she approached, like a mirage, or would the revelers have welcomed her in and made her one of them?

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not notice much about the journey that followed, as they left the coast road and headed inland on a very narrow, twisty road that wound up into the hills—almost a small mountain range. Forced to concentrate on his driving, Graeme had little to say, and everyone else kept silent. She had no clear idea of whether it was a long time or short, ten minutes or half an hour, before they pulled into a lay-by and parked.

It was a relief to be out of the car, which had smelled rather strongly of vinegar, cheese, and spices after the children’s snacks, and which had pitched and rolled like a little boat as it navigated a relentless succession of tight bends. Ashley breathed deeply of the good, fresh air, smelling grass and earth and growing things, including something that smelled like a cross between peppermint and coconut. The sun was deliciously warm on her bare arms and the top of her head. Deliberately, she cleared her mind of all thoughts of ghosts and other impossibilities, and pitched in with the others to help unload the trunk of the car.

“Don’t worry, it’s not far to carry things,” said Jade. “I could do the walk all by myself when I was only three.”

Walking single file—Ashley went third, behind the two boys—they followed a narrow, well-trodden footpath away from the road across rough moorland. And then, all of a sudden, they were there.

It was a lovely, almost Alpine scene: A very round, small, still lake lay cradled at the base of a mountain wall. The ground before it was covered in a rich green growth of grass, as the rocky, gorse-and-heather-covered hillside gave way to a meadow. Scattered throughout the grass were heaps of stones and also bigger rocks, as smooth as the boulders on the beach, inviting use like Stone Age benches and tables.

“I love it!” she exclaimed.

Jade smiled beatifically, clasping her hands in front of her chest. “I knew you would,” she said, as if this splendid setting was a gift she’d chosen especially for her cousin.

As Ashley helped Shona lay out the food and drink on an especially flat and well-situated rock, she asked, “Why do you call it the fairy village?”

“Don’t say that word here,” Jade whispered. At normal volume she went on, “Because this is where they live. That’s one of their houses.” She pointed at a pile of stones.

Graeme handed her a can of orange Tango and expanded on his daughter’s explanation. “This is, possibly, the oldest settlement on the Apple. It’s never been excavated—not professionally—but it looks like people lived here in stone houses about, oh…” He puffed out his cheeks to consider. “Four or five thousand years ago, I guess. We don’t know exactly what happened to them—”

“Yes we do!” Jade objected.

“At the time that Appleton was established as a new town, settled by incomers, there were already people living on the Apple,” he went on. “But they were incomers, too, mostly from Kintyre and Aran, and even from Ireland. They settled by the sea—some in Southport, and others on the stretch of bay known as the Ob—and they farmed the lower glens. But nobody came up here to settle. These hills belonged to the old, original inhabitants.” He paused to take a swig from his can. “They had lived all over when the Apple was still an island. Afterward, when the incomers came, they withdrew into the interior—here. And the incomers kept their distance. They were respectful. They knew what most people have forgotten now—”

“Most adults, you mean,” said Jade.

He nodded. “Yes, indeed. The earlier incomers were wiser than most of us are today. They knew the people who were here first weren’t to be messed with. They could do magic, and they were immortal.”

“So where are they now?”

Everyone looked at her like she’d said something stupid, or mildly embarrassing, and she felt her cheeks growing warm, but held her ground. “Immortal means they live forever. So where are they? If they used to be here, where did they go?”

“They didn’t go anywhere,” said Jade. “This is their home. Just because you can’t see them—They can do magic, don’t forget.”

“So what are you saying?” She looked at Graeme. “You believe these magical beings are all around us now, and we can’t sense them? You believe that?” She saw him cast a nervous, appealing look at his wife.

Quietly, but with the firm, no-nonsense tone she used with her children, Shona said, “Talk like that’s not respectful. It’s not your fault, Ashley; you weren’t to know. Graeme has been setting a very bad example. We should be polite when we’re on someone else’s land.”

She was speechless. Shona—sensible, grown-up cousin Shona, who looked so much like her own practical dad—actually believed in fairies.

Graeme took his wife’s rebuke meekly. “Sorry,” he muttered. He made an odd, bobbing bow toward the pile of stones Jade had pointed out earlier, and added, “I meant no disrespect.”

“Let’s have our picnic now, shall we?” said Shona. “What sort of sandwich would you like, Ashley? There’s cheese and tomato, egg, or ham.”

A few minutes later Jade crept close to Ashley, and whispered, “Don’t be scared of them. They’re nice, really. I don’t think they mind if we talk about them.”

“I’m not scared,” she said, rather haughtily. What she felt primarily was confusion. It had been one thing to listen to
Graeme
arguing the reality of magical beings; it was something else to find out Shona believed it, too.

“Anyway,” Jade went on, no longer whispering, but still speaking quietly, “I don’t think they’re listening to us. I think they sleep most of the time. I know what happened to them: They stopped having babies and got older and older, and littler and littler, and they moved their houses underground, and they don’t come out much. They don’t mind if people come here and visit, just so long as nobody builds their house up here, because the reul is theirs and always will be.”

“The what?”

“Reul. It means ‘star’ in Gaelic.”

“Star? Why?”

“I’ll get Daddy to show you.” She called out to her father. “Show Ashley the star!”

He slipped off the boulder where he’d been sitting with his wife, picked an apple from a pile of fruit, and took out his pocket knife. “Do you know what’s in the middle of an apple?”

She shrugged. “The core?”

He cut through it, not in the usual top-to-bottom cut, but across, and held up the two halves for her to see.

She saw the shape made by the pattern of the seeds. “It’s like a five-pointed star.”

“Exactly. And there are five peaks around us—known locally as ‘the pips.’”

“We’re right at the very heart of the Apple here,” said Shona, taking one slice of the fruit from her husband’s hand and smiling at him as she raised it to her mouth. Taking his cue, he quickly took a bite of the other half, his eyes locked on hers.

Jade rolled her eyes. “Mushy stuff,” she whispered to Ashley. “Don’t look.”

After returning from the reul, Graeme took them on a tour of Appleton, including all the notable buildings. Ashley scarcely heard a word of his commentary, too absorbed in scanning the streets for one particular familiar figure. She wanted to meet her stranger again in their company, thinking that either Graeme or Shona would be able to identify him if he really did, as he said, come from Appleton. Graeme had a particularly sharp eye for family resemblances, and despite being an incomer, he was well-informed about the locals. She’d had a taste of his skill on Saturday afternoon in the museum. There was a big oil painting there called
Appleton Fair Day
, one of those technically skilled, highly realistic Victorian pictures that were more interesting as social historical documents than as fine art. It depicted a good cross section of the local society of the time, from the well-to-do landowners and merchant class down to a ragged beggar with his skinny dog, all brought together in the market square. It struck her as a carefully staged snapshot of a vanished world, but, as she paused to examine it, Graeme had pointed out connections to the present-day population.

“If you look, you’ll see echoes of most of these folks on the streets of Appleton today,” he said. “Take a keek at this young lady, here—could be Shona in fancy dress, couldn’t it? Although you might not see it as plain as I can—she’s a bit older now—but this could have been a portrait of her on our wedding day.”

Staring up at the pretty young thing in a full-skirted, cream-colored, lace-trimmed dress, reddish-brown ringlets spilling from the sides of her bonnet, Ashley saw the resemblance. In addition, one of the boys chasing a spaniel in the lower left-hand corner looked uncannily like her cousin Ewan. She didn’t know any of the others, although he went on as if she should: “That dear old soul in black could be the former librarian, Miss McClusky, and that one there, except for the beard that’s Alistair Reid. That gloomy-looking fellow there’s the twin of the man who owns the petrol station, and see here—” She took his word for it. In Appleton, at least, it was not merely the buildings and physical landmarks that persisted down through the generations, but also many of the original faces.