Cloud

1

From the window of the plane the first signs of land — the western islands — appeared. Between gaps in the clouds I could see them outlined in snow against the dark ocean. There were even glimpses of isolated villages and tiny houses. That anything as fragile as life, never mind love, could survive down there was hard to believe.

By the time we landed at the airport just south of Glasgow an hour later, it was after four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and already dusk. Snow was falling here, too.

I hired a car and was very careful at first, for I wasn’t accustomed to driving on the left side of the road. It made me feel rather disoriented, as if some reversal of the natural order had occurred. I eventually got used to the sensation of being in a looking-glass world. But I still had to go slowly, for the snow turned to sleet, then a heavy rain.

BY THE TIME I got to the edges of the city, night had fallen and the street lights were on. I’d taken the long way round so that I could approach from the east side. That way I passed directly through the Tollgate, which I hadn’t seen since the time of the explosion, all those years ago. I’d braced myself to confront bitter memories but instead was stunned at what had taken place in the intervening years. While the contours of the main streets were much the same, the entire area where I’d been brought up was transformed. The tenements had all been demolished, and newish apartment blocks with little rows of well-lit stores and fast-food restaurants had sprung up to replace them. As though no nightmare had ever occurred.

Quite bewildered, I just kept driving towards the city centre, keeping an eye out for a hotel. Soon I found myself near the docks, with the river alongside glinting in its old, menacing way. From what I could see through the lashing rain, the ships tied up at the wharfs looked as rusty as ever. But otherwise, this whole part of the city was also unrecognizable. The dangerous slums that used to crowd both banks had disappeared to make room for clusters of high rises and flashy office blocks. A few of the more historic buildings seemed to have been spared and spruced up — including one with an illuminated sign: The Strath Hotel. It looked inviting, so I parked on the street as near as I could and hurried back to it out of the cold wind and the rain.

Since the lobby was warm and a room was available, I checked in. I was famished, and so after depositing my bag in the room, I made my way down to the hotel’s low-ceilinged pub-cum-restaurant. It was thick with the smells of fried food, beer, and cigarette smoke. A dozen or more customers were sitting at the various booths. Some of the men wore uniforms— perhaps from the ships I’d noticed — and were accompanied by female companions in noticeable makeup.

A small table by a window looking out onto the wet street was vacant, so I sat there and ate a filling meal of fish and chips with a pint of strong dark beer. As I looked out the window, I couldn’t help marvelling at how much the city had changed. Yet the changes saddened me, too, for some reason. In the case of the Tollgate, it was hard to accept the fact that the bombed-out ruins from that far-off day of horror were now gone. Without them as a marker, the very existence of my parents was made to seem doubly transient and forgettable. I had to console myself with the knowledge that they still lived on vividly in my mind— the only memorial they both would have valued.

I then turned my thoughts to my meeting the next morning with the curator, as well as my return journey to Duncairn. The prospect of these things should have been exciting, but I hadn’t slept on the plane and was starting to feel very tired. By the time I’d got halfway through a second glass of that excellent beer, I couldn’t stop yawning. So I paid for my meal, plodded up to my room, and went to bed, even though it wasn’t long after nine o’clock. The rain drumming against the window mixed with faint sounds from the restaurant beneath lulled my senses.

DUPONT SHOWED ME into a cell where the volunteer, a pale man, lay quite still on his cot observed by keepers in labcoats. When this man held a fossil up to his forehead and closed his eyes, he’d be transported back millions of years. One of the keepers gave him an old rock and he began to describe strange plants and trees. Then he became aware of a huge animal approaching and he shrank back in the cot, screaming, the veins in his brow pulsing. The keeper prised the rock out of his sweating hand, for fear he’d die of shock. The man’s eyes suddenly opened and he stared up at me just as the iron door of the cell behind me slammed shut.

THOSE ACCUSING EYES and that slamming door startled me out of my dream. It took me a few moments to remember I was in the Strath Hotel. Perhaps the door next to mine in the corridor had really banged shut. Certainly, through the wall I could hear the laughter of a man and woman. The bedside clock indicated it was three in the morning.

I tried to put the foolish dream out of my mind and concentrated on getting back to sleep, for the day ahead would be a busy one. Sleep, however, refused to oblige. I started thinking about the Tollgate and reliving that other day, so many years ago, when my parents had been blown to pieces.

Only when I began to hear early-morning traffic in the streets outside the hotel did my grief-stricken and exhausted brain at last close down and I slept.

2

The rain had stopped overnight and there were even brief glimpses of a winter sun as I walked to the National Cultural Centre, about a mile from the hotel.

I arrived at the centre five minutes before my eleven o’clock appointment. It was a newish, boxy structure, but for one noteworthy feature: its east wing was actually a round clock tower, the remnant of a much older stone building.

Inside, I asked for the rare books curator and was directed to that old tower. There, I had to climb a flight of stairs that led directly to a large, circular room with walls of smooth stone and a polished wood floor. Several round windows had been cut in the stone, giving the effect of a ship’s portholes. Lamps dangled from the high plank ceiling. Dozens of grey metal filing cabinets fanned out from the middle of the room like an oversized set of dominoes. Beside them was an array of solid-looking tables and wooden chairs. But I couldn’t see any collection of rare books.

A SHORT, BALDING man whom I hadn’t noticed, for he’d been behind one of the rows of filing cabinets, came towards me with hand outstretched.

“Mr. Steen?” He had that familiar loud voice. “A pleasure to meet you. I’m Neale Soulis, the curator. We’ve talked on the phone.”

He wasn’t at all the elegant scholarly type I’d envisaged. He was fiftyish with a bulbous nose and wire-rimmed glasses. His blue suit was wrinkled, the knot of his tie askew: he was clearly a man uninterested in fashion.

We shook hands.

He had just begun to say more when a most alarming thing happened: the solid stone walls and the floor began to tremble so much I was afraid the tower was about to collapse. Then an ear-splitting noise came from above us: the bell of the clock was slowly chiming the hour of eleven. Soulis waited till the chiming ceased before he spoke again. At least, his lips were moving, but I’d such an after-echo in my ears I could barely make out what he was saying. He waited a moment more then spoke again, or shouted:

“Can you hear me now? I’m afraid you arrived just a bit too early. I should have warned you against that. Can you believe that clock used to go off every quarter of an hour before I got them to adjust it? Now at least it only chimes on the hour.” The reverberations had ceased but he was still talking very loudly. “This tower used to be part of the official residence of the Lord Provost of the City till it was bombed in the last war. The bell was cast in Hungary back in 1850. Did you know the Hungarians used to be the great bell makers of Europe?”

I backed away from him just a little. Perhaps the constant ringing of the bell over time had damaged his ears, for he had the loud voice of someone hard of hearing.

I looked around. If this was the Rare Book Room, where was the collection? All I could see were filing cabinets and study tables.

“Ah, we don’t keep the actual books here — they’re in Special Collections at the university, a few miles away,” he said. “If you’re around tomorrow, I’ll take you there and you can have a look at our collection. It’s extremely interesting.”

I told him that wouldn’t be possible, since later that day I intended to drive through the hills to Duncairn — strictly for nostalgic reasons. I might stay in the Uplands for a day or two, then I’d have to return to Canada and get back to work.

“I understand perfectly why you’d like to visit Duncairn again,” he said. “Well, perhaps on your next visit you’ll have more time. You see, this location is just a research facility. No other department was keen on using it because of the noise, so I volunteered for the sake of getting the extra space for our files. As you can tell, it’s not ideal, but it serves as a useful office for me, too. Visitors who come to see me are usually scheduled for a few minutes after the hour. I warn them to leave a few minutes before the next hour strikes. One advantage is, it helps keep meetings to the point.”

I couldn’t tell whether that was meant to be amusing.

“So, don’t worry. I’ll make sure I get you out at five to noon,”

he said. His voice was becoming more bearable now.

HE LED ME OVER to a cluttered desk half hidden amongst the filing cabinets.

“This is what passes for my private office,” he said apologetically. He sat behind the desk and I sat in front. I could see, lying beside a sheaf of papers, my copy of The Obsidian Cloud. He caressed it with his fingers from time to time throughout our entire interview.

“I’m very glad you were able to come and see me,” he said. “As I communicated to you, I consider this book a fascinating find. Isn’t it incredible that you actually lived in Duncairn when you were a young man — and then to discover this book in the middle of Mexico? And, as you said, but for the name ‘Duncairn’ on it, you probably wouldn’t have taken any interest in it. Believe me, the really exciting discoveries in our business are often made in just that fortuitous way — as though some god of books was at work.” His smile displayed rows of uneven and yellowish teeth. “There’s probably nothing to the entire Mexican connection, but we’ll check it out thoroughly. Perhaps some identifiable traveller brought it to Mexico, or some book collector acquired it long ago. In the trade, we call that part a book’s ‘provenance.’”

He then looked down at the pile of papers on his desk and began to sort through them, putting them in order.

“Now, let me tell you what I’ve been up to,” he said. “My assistant and I have already managed to do quite a bit of the preliminary research on when and how The Obsidian Cloud came to be published, who its author might be, and so on. Here’s what we’ve found out so far.

“As I said in my letter, even the physical dimensions of the book are quite uncommon.”

3

The irregular size of The Obsidian Cloud was what had caught the attention of Soulis when he first saw my copy. He’d taken a ruler to it — it was fifteen inches long by eleven inches wide. This was an unusual format known as an “imperial quarto,” which had gone out of style by the end of the nineteenth century. That was partly because these quartos were so large they didn’t fit into regular bookcases. But they were also unwieldy, as though they’d been designed more for lying on a sloped reading table or a lectern than being held.

And even in their heyday, imperial quartos tended to appear in limited editions, for they were very expensive to produce. The printing presses had to be adjusted to suit them, and that resulted in extra labour costs.

Some collectors of rare books called them “Scottish quartos,” because, for the most part, only printers based in Scotland would agree to produce them. With the Scots’ reputation for thriftiness, they believed they could make an acceptable profit out of these quartos by using up the remnants of quires of paper that would otherwise be discarded.

SOULIS HAD MANAGED to find some facts on The Old Ayr Press — the printer of The Obsidian Cloud—in a comprehensive history of Scottish printing. The firm, which was very small, had operated in the Ayrshire town of Kilcorran for a hundred and fifty years but had gone out of business during the Great War. The building where it was once situated had been demolished and the land was now part of a public housing development. The firm’s records had probably been consigned to the rubbish dump, too, so the exact publication date of The Obsidian Cloud might always remain a mystery. The title page gave the year of printing only as 18-something. The last two numbers had been so obscured by mould that the date could have been any time in the 1800s.

SO MUCH FOR THE PRINTER. But what Soulis would have preferred by far was information on who published the book. The publisher, in consultation with the author, would get a book ready for print and make sure the finished book was distributed and read. So knowing the publisher always opened a fruitful channel of inquiry for later researchers.

Sadly, in the case of The Obsidian Cloud, no publisher was listed in the front matter of the book. Possibly the Rev. K. Macbane had preferred to have the book printed privately — a lot of clergymen authors used to do that so they couldn’t be accused of seeking either fame or commercial success. In that case, The Old Ayr Press, having receiving payment from Macbane for the printing of The Obsidian Cloud, would simply have sent the entire print run to him to dispose of as he wished. It would be up to Macbane to send copies to his friends, or to magazines and newspapers. If he was ambitious enough, he might try to place them with various booksellers around Ayrshire, or even Scotland at large.

But no record of any such efforts had so far been found. Soulis had been methodically searching all the usual places: nineteenth-century book catalogues, literary journals, national and local newspapers, even registries of Scottish clergy. As yet, he hadn’t come across any mention of a Rev. K. Macbane, or of The Obsidian Cloud.

All of this made Soulis a little suspicious. Surely a book and an author dealing with such a sensational incident were bound to have attracted at least some attention, somewhere?

“In our business, it’s unusual to come across a rare book that presents so many interesting challenges,” he said. “I’m determined to get to the bottom of this one.”

I wondered: was it perhaps it a fake? Might someone have put it together to look like an old book, when it actually wasn’t?

Soulis assured me that he’d considered that possibility right from the start. He did that, as a matter of course, with any rare book.

“We’re not as easily hoodwinked as some people think,” he said. “One of the first things we do nowadays is to conduct a lab analysis. In the case of The Obsidian Cloud, the paper, the ink, the glues, and the bindings are completely genuine. So if any fakery’s involved, it’s certainly not in the materials the book’s made of.”

But what about this fantastic cloud at the core of the book? Surely, in the natural world, such a thing couldn’t really have happened? I put those questions to him outright.

“For myself, I don’t have the slightest doubt,” said Soulis.

He saw the look of surprise on my face.

“By that I mean I, personally, don’t have the slightest doubt the cloud’s nothing but a figment of Macbane’s imagination,” he said. “But, just to make sure, I had to see if there was any possible historical basis for it.”

He knew I wanted to hear much more on this, so he dug around for another paper amongst the pile on his desk and told me what he’d found out.

A PROFESSOR IN THE university’s history department, who took a special interest in the effects of weather-related events on history, had assured Soulis that some cases of exceptional weather did indeed make themselves so noteworthy as to be well documented. The great drought of the year 530, for example, was the direct cause of the massive outbreak of bubonic plague that devastated the Roman Empire. Then there was the unexpected hurricane that struck the Spanish Armada in 1588 and thus changed the entire course of European history. Another famous instance was the period known as the Little Ice Age, which brought about the Salem Witch Trials of 1692—the women who were hanged were found guilty of causing the unseasonable cold.

But most other “weather matters” were, from the standpoint of historians, recurrent and predictable. It was a quite normal Russian winter, for example, that was in large part responsible for wiping out Napoleon’s armies in 1812. Those Cape Horn tempests we hear so much about? They had, for centuries, sunk flotillas of ships and hindered exploration and trade. No ship’s captain with a modicum of competency could complain he was taken by surprise if he ran into one.

As for what might be called non-scientific accounts of history, there were any number of symbolic, or mythic, or allegorical appearances of weather events — Noah’s Flood, or the Parting of the Red Sea, to cite well-known instances. Indeed, religious literature was prone to searching for omens in sea and sky, or for any other obliging antics by the elements.

In short, the professor of history concluded, The Obsidian Cloud surely belonged to this latter, non-scientific category, for he had found no record in any reliable historical source of such an event ever having happened in the skies over Duncairn, or Scotland, or anywhere else on this earth.

I PRESUMED THAT settled the weather matter: Macbane’s cloud was an invention, as we’d already suspected. But I could see from Soulis’s expression that there was more to come.

“The professor’s conclusion would have satisfied me completely, but I was in for a bit of a surprise,” he said. “You see, I’d also written a letter to the Royal Meteorological Society in London to request an opinion on the cloud. I eventually got a lengthy response from the society’s nubionomist — that’s what they call their expert in cloud formations.” On his desk, Soulis found several pages stapled together. “Here it is. I’ll just summarize it for you.”

ACCORDING TO THE nubionomist, Macbane’s cloud certainly ought not to be dismissed out of hand as a piece of fiction. “A black cloud that acts as a mirror to the earth beneath may seem astonishing,” he wrote, “but like a magnitude ten earthquake, or a tsunami the height of the Eiffel Tower, it’s certainly in the realm of theoretically possible natural phenomena.”

In his mind, it was quite feasible that silica dust from some distant volcanic eruption, carried by high atmospheric winds, might indeed bring about what could be called an “obsidian cloud.” The high concentration of shiny particles in it might well be similar to the mirror effect produced by those tinted windows in some modern buildings. And if a cloud of that makeup were later to dissolve into rain, that rain itself would in all probability have black properties.

Even the rather grisly notion of eyeballs bursting during the height of the occurrence would be consistent. “In extreme weather situations, sudden catastrophic increases in atmospheric pressure are common,” the nubionomist explained. “In hurricane conditions, for instance, doors and even walls have to be protected to prevent implosion — the external atmospheric pressure is greater than the internal. Also, ear barotrauma, which laypersons know as ear-popping, is frequent during hurricanes. It is just possible that in an extreme case, something as fragile as the human eye might indeed be vulnerable, in the same manner as air can be sucked out of a glass container.”

The nubionomist did, however, finish this astonishing letter on a cautionary note. Yes, an event like an “obsidian cloud” was possible—in theory. But, to his knowledge, in the entire history of nubionomic scholarship no such phenomenon had ever been recorded. “Surely,” he wrote, “especially in more recent times and in a small, populous country such as Scotland, any happening of this sort would have been observed and reported in appropriate publications by any number of qualified persons. That it should have been recorded in only one little book of dubious origins and that it should cite no credible scientific witnesses give cause for a warrantable skepticism.”

The nubionomist promised to keep Soulis informed if any future developments were to moderate his findings.

“THE CLOUD SPECIALIST probably didn’t know just how right he was about the credibility of the witnesses named in The Obsidian Cloud,” said Soulis. “I’d already checked them out, and they weren’t what you’d call credible, by any means.” He looked at his watch. “I can tell you about them briefly if you like.”

I urged him to go ahead.

He glanced at another paper on his desk.

“Do you remember that Dr. Thracy de Ware who was supposed to have seen the cloud?”

I did remember the name.

“In the book he’s referred to as a ‘well-known naturalist and astronomer,’” said Soulis. “And it’s quite true that de Ware was well known in the early nineteenth century — but as an astrologer, not an astronomer. He used to go round the rural parts of Scotland predicting the future on the basis of the movement of the stars and planets. Nor was he a stranger to the justice system. I found his name in a number of court documents in connection with fraud — some of his clients lost fortunes on the basis of his predictions. In other words, he’d hardly be what scientists would call a credible witness.”

Soulis looked at his paper again.

“The book specifically mentioned the name of only one other witness — Meg Millar,” he said. “She was a poet and folklorist in Ayrshire around the same time as de Ware. According to one of the histories of Upland literature, she was called ‘The Moorland Minstrel.’ She compiled a collection of local legends and myths, which is very interesting. She also wrote hundreds of sonnets about the flowers of the region.” He rolled his eyes. “Only a few of them have survived, and maybe that’s just as well.”

I told Soulis I’d recognized Meg Millar’s name, too, when I first saw it in The Obsidian Cloud. I’d once read a story of hers about a disappointed man looking for a pot of gold. I didn’t tell Soulis that it was Miriam who’d given me the story, in Duncairn, and that the night I’d read it I was so full of love for her I’d no idea of the crushing disappointment she had in store for me. I’d sometimes wondered, looking back, if giving me the story was to prepare me for the blow.

“Yes, I’m familiar with that story, too,” said Soulis. “It’s one of her best known. In cultural studies they call it a ‘Dream’ story: versions of it are found in societies all round the world. They’re always about a hero who dreams of buried treasure then looks for it in the place the dream indicates. Sometimes he finds it, sometimes he doesn’t.” He added, “Naturally, in the Scottish versions, he doesn’t!”

We both smiled at that.

“As for Meg Millar’s life, not much is known about her, not even whether she was actually born in Ayrshire, or the dates of her birth and death,” said Soulis. “But the very fact that a collector of fantasies is used by Macbane as one of the authoritative witnesses to the cloud would again suggest it’s pure fiction.”

4

He checked his watch again. He’d been talking a little faster and louder the last few minutes.

“Well, it’s five to noon,” he said. “I think I’ve caught you up on everything of interest I’ve come across so far. If you want to get out of here before those chimes begin again, you’ll need to be on your way.” His fingers stroked The Obsidian Cloud once more. “Would you mind if I keep the book until my inquiries are finished? I could work with a photocopy, but it’s not quite the same thing as having a real book in hand.”

I assured him that he could keep the original as long as he wished, and he thanked me profusely. I could see he’d become very attached to it.

On our way to the stairs, he kept talking.

“Let me assure you once again, we’ll keep working hard to solve all the problems,” he said. “As you can probably tell, from my perspective The Obsidian Cloud has been an exceptional find. It may not be a work of the very highest literary quality, but it’s in a tradition of Scottish fantasy literature going all the way back to the Middle Ages. In fact it’s really quite a bizarre example of the genre and may have vague links to the even earlier European tradition of the speculum—have you come across that? It’s the Latin word for ‘mirror.’ Some of the ancient metaphysical scholars thought that every single thing in this world was a symbol of everything else — that in a way, they mirror each other. A clergyman such as Macbane might well have been familiar with that tradition. Anyway, my assistant and I are determined to find out everything we can about just who the Reverend K. Macbane is. Though there’s always the chance we’ve already come to a dead end.”

WE SHOOK HANDS at the top of the stairs and he promised he’d write if any other discoveries were made.

“I hope you enjoy your journey to the Uplands,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if you ran into someone who still remembered you?”

That was precisely what I was hoping, but I didn’t say so. In fact I’d no time to say anything, for he spoke first:

“You’d better hurry — the clock’s about to strike noon!”

I ran down the stairs as fast as I could and got through the front door just as the building began its pre-chime tremor. The noise of workday traffic in the street only partly mufled the first enormous clang from the clock tower as I rushed along the sidewalk away from it.

BUT I DIDN’T GO BACK in the direction of the Strath Hotel. On my way to the centre I’d realized that the area wasn’t all that far from the house where I’d lived with Deirdre, the cat lady, and Jacob, the violinist. I’d never forgotten the kindness of that odd pair to me in my time of need and wondered if they might still live there. When I arrived at where their house should have been, however, I saw that the entire part of the street had also been levelled long ago. A number of ultra-modern university residences now took up the space.

Again I felt sad, as well as slightly paranoid — as though some malevolent force had set out to erase all of these important traces of my former life. But of course, that was nonsense. Time and Progress were at work — there was nothing personal in it. They’d not the slightest interest in the nostalgic longings of Harry Steen from the Tollgate. I turned away and walked back towards the Strath.

I ATE SOME LUNCH then went to my room and scribbled a few pages of notes on what the curator had told me while it was fresh in my mind. I’d promised Frank I’d give him as complete an account as I could when I got home. Afterwards, still quite tired after my restless night, I lay down and tried to nap for an hour. But it was useless. Two main contenders — fascination over the new information the curator had given me and uncertainty about the upcoming journey to Duncairn — fought an all-out battle for my attention. Mere sleep didn’t stand a chance.

In the end, I got up, packed my bag, paid my bill, and set out for the Uplands. By the time I’d got to the outskirts of Glasgow, a mix of city smog and snow had slowed traffic enough for me to realize that the journey might take a good deal longer than I’d planned. The drive south was like a funeral procession all the way to the coastal town of Ayr, where I stopped for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. It was pitch-dark now, and I contemplated finding a hotel for the night. But the snow had begun to slacken off enough that I decided to keep going. I set out along the winding eastern road into the hills.

1

Even though the snow was light, I had to drive cautiously, so it was all of two hours before I came through a pass in the hills— and suddenly I was in Duncairn. The road from the coast now became, for the next half mile, the main street through the town. It was lined at intervals by lampposts of the gallows type, with feeble bulbs hanging from many of them.

I’d been prepared for a town that was more or less rubble, after what Marsha Woods had told me. But from what I could see the roofs and walls of the buildings were fairly intact, though many of the windows were broken and there was no sign of people. Certainly, there were no footprints on the snow of the sidewalks or tire marks on the road. So Duncairn was still here, though it seemed to be a ghost town.

I reached the town square, noting the deserted buildings that had once been Kirk’s Pharmacy, the police station, and Mackenzie’s Café. The war memorial in the little park seemed to have survived, the three bronze soldiers with bayonets still at the ready, straining with blind eyes towards an invisible enemy. The Bracken Inn, on the corner of the square, was the only building that was lit up. I parked on the street in front, got my bag from the trunk, and hurried through its door.

During my long-ago stay at Duncairn I’d never been inside, but from the look of the lobby, it probably hadn’t changed much since then. The floral carpet was wilted and worn, a set of yellowing stag horns jutted out over the front desk, and the photographs of long-ago revellers on the walls were mostly in black and white. Scratchy piped music and the smell of fried meat filled the air.

I rang the desk bell and waited. A thin, middle-aged woman came along a dark passageway to greet me.

“Yes, there are indeed rooms available,” she said in answer to my inquiry. She had a southern English voice. I filled in the various pieces of information she needed. She gave me a room key and said the dining room would be open till eight.

My room on the second floor was ordinary enough, with the usual hotel furnishings. I stood for a while at the window — it looked over the square — then sat on the bed, overwhelmed with sadness. No doubt it was a normal reaction, coming back to a place you haven’t been in for many years — a deeper awareness of your own mortality, and that the world will persist without your presence.

Again, I wondered if that was why I’d never returned to Scotland. Often, over the years, whenever I’d tried to envisage myself as I was when I last saw Duncairn, it was like remembering a character from a book I’d read a long time ago.

It was almost eight o’clock and I thought of going downstairs for dinner, but suddenly I felt drained of all energy. It wasn’t so much the physical miles I’d travelled in the last two days, but the much vaster journey backwards in my mind that seemed to have exhausted me. I undressed, got into the cool bed, and within minutes was fast asleep.

I WAS UP THE NEXT morning around seven-thirty, hungry. I went downstairs to the dining room with its old-fashioned checkeredcloth-covered tables. The bacon and eggs were good and I ate with relish.

Afterwards, as I passed through the lobby, the Englishwoman was back at the desk doing some paperwork. She asked me how I’d slept and we chatted for a while. She seemed to welcome the opportunity to talk to a stranger.

She was, in fact, the owner of the inn: she’d inherited it fifteen years before from her uncle. Around that same time, the town’s decline had begun when the coal seam in the mine started to peter out, making the extraction process lengthy and unprofitable. The English owners of the mine (one of them was the uncle who’d left her the inn) decided to shut the operation down.

From that moment, according to the Englishwoman, the townspeople began to leave. Within a few years Duncairn became more or less deserted, the inn being used mainly as a base for visiting fishermen and grouse shooters. Occasionally, though, her guests were old townspeople who’d come back to visit the cemetery, or just to look over what was left of the place where they’d been born and brought up.

“They’re very sentimental about Duncairn, and I appreciate their business,” said the Englishwoman. “But I’m not sentimental. If there’s any charm in the ruins of things that were once useful, I haven’t noticed. I’d sell the inn at the drop of a hat if anyone would buy it.”

I confessed to her that I myself had once lived in the town a very short time: I’d been hired to teach here, but the job didn’t work out. I wondered about the school.

“Ah, the school,” she said. “Well it’s gone now too. It closed around the same time as the mine, and the school building’s been demolished. The principal carried on living in Duncairn for years afterwards, though. He’d often drop in for a glass of beer.” She frowned, remembering. “Sam Mackay was his name, a very nice man. He’s dead now. His wife died five or six years ago, too.”

I didn’t show how shocked I was to hear this.

“Yes,” she said. “I saw her quite a few times, but I didn’t really know her. She was buried beside him in the graveyard. Most of the townspeople had already moved out of Duncairn by then, so not many attended either of their funerals. You can still see their big house up in the moors. No one lives there anymore, so I’m sure it must be quite rundown by now.”

BACK IN MY ROOM, I sat for a while trying to absorb what I’d heard. Over recent years, I’d considered the possibility that Miriam might be dead. But I hadn’t considered it often or seriously. Rarely had a day passed, in fact, when I hadn’t thought about her and hoped she might be thinking fondly of me. Now the shock of hearing about her death made me feel empty to the core. I suppose in many ways she’d always been central to my entire sense of who I was.

Now I would never know for certain why she’d rejected me. But she had gone ahead and married Sam, just as he’d told me she would.

Ah, well. Knowing she was dead, there wasn’t much reason for me to prolong my stay in Duncairn. I made up my mind to leave the very next morning. For today, I’d walk the hills one last time and visit the house up in the moors.

And, of course, her grave.

2

I was glad of my winter coat when I set out across the moors into an eye-watering wind that morning. The natural landscape was unchanged from thirty years ago, as — no doubt — it wasn’t much changed since the last great geological upheaval of planet Earth. Mine were the only human footprints in the snow, but in sheltered areas I could see the delicate tracks of hares and rabbits and birds as well as various other moor creatures. Their patterns were so elaborate they might have spelled out some message, if only I had the wisdom to interpret it.

After I’d walked for a while, one of those black moorbirds darted past me, bringing to mind how Miriam and I had met, how she’d climbed the rock to warn me against their rather gruesome taste for human eyeballs.

And the rock! Yes, there it was, away to the west, a dark outline against the snow. It looked smaller now and the hills behind it less impressive. But at least they still existed, whereas Miriam was dead and her face was now only a ghostly image in my mind. Surely that, too, was one of the saddest things: how time and distance become a frosted window through which we can barely make out the features of those we love.

IN THIS MELANCHOLY state of mind, after a half hour of walking I reached the house.

At first glance, it too looked smaller, though perhaps it was just that the windbreak of evergreens had grown bigger. The oak tree on the front lawn was taller, but skeletal, with only a few leaves clinging to the branches, pretending winter hadn’t come yet.

The house, close up, looked neglected. A coat of moss made the name Duncairn Manor on the lintel only half legible. The paint on the door was peeling away. The thin layer of snow on the roof didn’t conceal the fact that some of the tiles were broken or missing. One of the chimney pots was cracked and another had fallen over. The downstairs windows were unbroken but had been shrouded with white cloths, so nothing inside was visible.

I knocked on the door just in case, then I tried turning the knob. The door squealed open and I stepped inside.

THE SMELL WAS the first thing I noticed — the damp smell of mould and abandonment. It might have been my imagination, but there seemed to be a hint of sweetness in it, too, as though a residue of the old man’s opium had lingered all this time.

Enough light came through the white cloths over the windows for me to see that the floor was dusty and swaths of faded wallpaper were in the process of detaching themselves. In the living room, chairs and couches and other furniture had been draped in dark blue cloths and looked like oddly shaped monsters asleep. Even the pictures on the walls were hung with these cloths.

The door of the library was ajar. Remembering that night long ago when I’d first seen Miriam’s father on the sofa before the blazing fire, I went over cautiously and looked in.

The room was deserted. The furniture was covered with cloths, the books were all gone from the shelves, and the grate was cold. From the window, there was a buzzing sound. I drew back the cloth just a little. Lying on its back on the sill was a huge bluebottle that must have somehow got into the house during the last days of summer and managed to survive. As I watched it trying to right itself, the wind suddenly whipped up outside. The tips of the evergreens bent over a little and the house groaned.

That was enough of this sad place for me. I began to make my way out.

All at once I remembered something and went into the living room again. Above the mantelpiece was a covered picture. I carefully lifted the cloth away.

Yes! It was the photograph of Miriam, intact after all these years. I stood there at the dead fireplace for the longest time, absorbing the image of that face I’d almost forgotten. She was indeed as beautiful as I’d always dreamt. My eyes filled with tears of pleasure mixed with grief.

At that very moment, I heard a measured creaking on the floorboards above my head. On that morning long ago when Miriam had gone upstairs to get me a book, I’d heard that same noise from her movements up there. Now, I was overwhelmed with the feeling that, quite impossibly, it was happening all over again: she was up there waiting for me.

I went to the bottom of the stairs, but I didn’t go up. The dust looked as though it hadn’t been disturbed for many years. I called out her name. I called it again and again.

Of course, no one answered.

I walked back into the living room, took the picture down from the wall, and tucked it under my arm. I stepped outside into the cold wind that no longer seemed so cold. Then I pulled the door shut behind me and left that haunted place without looking back.

3

For several hours after leaving the manor I walked the moors around Duncairn, putting off and putting off the moment. In the end, by a great act of will, I made my way to the eastern outskirts of the town — and the graveyard. It was a flat plot of land, surrounded by a low, weathered stone wall. The entranceway was through rusty gates wide enough for a hearse to pass, with gargoyle figures leering down from each gate pillar. My footprints were the only ones on the layer of snow along the central path, which was flanked by the most ancient headstones, many of them tilted and crumbling, the inscriptions on them too worn to make out.

Amongst the plainer headstones and slabs that marked the more modern burials, I soon found the grave marker I was seeking. It was a small, granite headstone with three names:

JOHN GALT SAMUEL MACKAY

MIRIAM MACKAY

There were no dates or inscriptions.

Feeling quite miserable, I stayed only a few minutes. Then, as I was leaving, I noticed a slight protrusion in the snow on the surface of the grave. I stooped and brushed at it with my fingertips. To my surprise, a tiny bunch of red carnations was lying there, still in its paper wrapper. Some of the petals were unwithered.

WHEN I GOT BACK to the Bracken Inn, I removed the photograph of Miriam from its frame and put it carefully into my suitcase. After dinner that night, I went to the front desk to tell the Englishwoman when I’d be checking out next morning. I also mentioned to her that I’d visited Sam Mackay’s grave and seen some flowers on it that appeared quite fresh.

“Oh yes, that would be their daughter who put them there,” she said. “She comes a few times a year to visit the grave. She sometimes stays the night here in the inn. She was here two weeks ago, in fact — that would account for the freshness of the flowers.”

Their daughter? I was surprised to hear that.

“Oh yes. Sarah. Sarah Mackay. She’s a very nice girl,” she said. “She’s an administrator of some sort at Eildon House.” This was, apparently, a government institution located in an isolated area of the Border country southeast of Duncairn. Sarah was clearly devoted to the care of her parents’ grave, as Eildon House was at least a three-hour drive away on the treacherous roads at this time of year.

“I could give you her phone number,” said the Englishwoman before I could ask.

She rummaged in her card index and found me the number.

“Eildon House is a strange place for such a nice girl to work,” she said, looking around as if to make sure no one was listening and lowering her voice: “It’s for people who’ve gone wrong in the head.”

BACK UP IN MY ROOM I dialed the number and got Sarah Mackay’s secretary.

“Miss Mackay’s gone for the day,” she said quite brusquely.

I explained that I was a visitor from Canada who used to know her parents. I was hoping to meet her and talk to her about them.

The receptionist became much more pleasant.

“I’m sure she’d love to talk to you, but I’m not allowed to give anyone her home number,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to try phoning her here in the morning and see if you can meet her. Unless … let me have a look.” Papers rustled. “Oh yes, according to her schedule she is free between ten and noon tomorrow. I’m not supposed to do this, but I could always book you in for that, if you want?”

I did want.

“Good. I’ll make a note you asked to see her about a personal matter.” She made me spell out my name for her.

“All right, Mr. Steen,” she said. “I’ll leave her a message that she can expect you around ten tomorrow.”

1

The next morning, it was barely daylight when I checked out of the Bracken Inn. I had to drive very carefully: not only was the road slippery from a thin layer of fresh snow, but a winter fog made vision difficult.

As I passed the graveyard on the edge of town, thicker wisps of fog seemed to sway from the tops of the tombstones, especially those at the back where Miriam lay, as if she and all the dead of Duncairn were waving goodbye to me. A solitary raven was perched on the horn of one of the gargoyles at the graveyard entrance. Both raven and gargoyle were glaring at me with mad eyes.

The driving was slow for about ten miles, then the fog cleared sufficiently for me to go at a more or less normal speed for the next couple of hours. Near ten o’clock I at last saw the sign, Eildon House E.R.C., and began to make my way along a tree-lined road leading past acres of lawn and a half-frozen pond of green slime. Through the gaps in the trees, I caught glimpses of a huge mansion with arches, buttressed walls, pillars, and innumerable windows of the Gothic and Palladian sort: this must be the house itself.

I found a parking lot and from there walked to the front door. A set of stone steps bevelled with use led up to a portico supported by thick columns. The portico floor was of worn flagstone and the door itself was massive. When I twisted the ornate knob of the doorbell I could hear only the faintest of clangs from the inside.

After a moment, a man in a dark blue uniform with a guard’s insignia over the breast pocket opened the door. He checked for my name on a clipboard he was holding then let me into a high, gloomy lobby. He shut the door behind us and directed me to a corridor leading to the west side of the building: there, I’d find a waiting area.

My footsteps echoed as I walked along the wood floor. The smell of fresh polish was so strong it would disguise, if need be, anything less pleasant.

Around a corner, I arrived at the waiting area. The atmosphere was like that of another era, with dark wainscoting and murky oil paintings of unsmiling men with Victorian pork-chop whiskers looking down from on high. Several wooden upright chairs surrounded a low table. A small, barred window of bottle glass was embedded in the three-feet-thick wall, and through it I could see some huge flies gathered on the outside sill. I was relieved to find they were only distorted sparrows, which flew away when they saw my equally distorted figure through the glass.

From the elaborately moulded ceiling, a cord dangled with a single, unshaded electric bulb. The light it cast was so feeble it would have been difficult to read by — though, in fact, no reading material was lying around, not even out-of-date magazines. I sat on one of the wooden chairs — it wasn’t made for sitting in long.

In fact, the entire waiting room didn’t encourage waiting.

ALL WAS SILENT for a minute or two — then I heard the echo of brisk footsteps and a young woman came round the corner. She too wore an official uniform, but it was of a greenish colour with the word Director on her badge. She came right to me.

“Mr. Steen?” she said in a pleasant, friendly voice. “I’m Sarah Mackay … Miriam’s daughter.” She shook my hand.

I could hardly speak. Close up, she was so like Miriam in the photograph I’d removed yesterday from the house in Duncairn, I felt transported back in time. The blue eyes had the same honest quality as her mother’s when they’d first scrutinized me over the edge of that rock on the moorlands all those years ago.

“I was delighted to hear you were coming,” said Sarah Mackay. “I almost feel I know you, my mother spoke your name so often. She always wondered how life had worked out for you. I know she’d have loved to see you again.”

To hear that I hadn’t been forgotten by Miriam touched me deeply. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Let’s go to my office,” said Sarah Mackay, glancing round the waiting area with its grim furnishings. “At least it’s a little more comfortable than this.”

2

I followed Sarah Mackay along a maze of corridors, deep into Eildon House.

As we walked, she explained that the place had originally been the residence of Andrew Eildon, one of those nineteenth-century industrial barons. He’d spent much of his fortune on this house, acting as his own architect. Newspapers in his day had called it “Eildon’s Folly.” By the early years of the twentieth century, none of his descendants could afford the upkeep.

“Ultimately, the government took it over and converted it to its present use,” she said.

I guessed its “present use” must be as a place of confinement of some sort. The intersections of many of the corridors had checkpoints manned by uniformed guards with pistols in their belts. They nodded respectfully to Sarah Mackay as we passed.

I was curious about the letters E.R.C. I’d seen on the Eildon House highway sign.

“It means ‘Enforced Residential Community,’” she said. “For most people in this country, that’s a polite designation for ‘prison.’ Though only about half of our inmates have actually done anything criminal. Anyway, we think of them all as patients, not prisoners.”

By now we’d turned so many corners and walked along so many lookalike corridors that I was rather lost. I remarked that the place was like a rabbit warren.

“Quite so,” she said. “This labyrinthine design seems to put the inmates more at ease. They don’t feel regimented or spied on. That’s quite different from the more orthodox prisons. If you’ve ever seen any photographs of them, you’ll have noticed they look like a big wheel, with its spokes containing rows of cells and its central hub for observing the inmates at all times.”

I thought back, too, to Dupont’s reconstituted military camp, with its razor-wire-topped fence making it look like a prison camp. I told Sarah Mackay about my visit there. I wondered whether, no matter what the design of these places of confinement, the workers in them came to feel as though they were prisoners, too.

“There’s a good deal of truth to that,” she said. “Here in Eildon House, in the case of guards and other service workers, their salaries have to be high enough to keep them from looking for work elsewhere.” She frowned. “But as for those of us who’re professionals, we don’t mind spending the better part of our lives in places like these. It’s our calling — our vocation, you might say — and we’d do it for no money at all. Indeed, we’re sometimes accused of being attracted to those with afflictions of the mind by a kind of sympathetic hypochondria. Some of our critics even say that our sensitivity to the sufferings of others is a mental illness in itself.”

She must have seen that I was genuinely interested, so she talked more as we walked.

“I should have mentioned that Eildon House specializes in artists and academics who’ve somehow gone wrong,” she said. “By that I mean many of them have undergone the kinds of psychological traumas associated with people in their professions.

“Of all the artistic types referred to us, writers are in the majority by far. It’s no exaggeration to say we’d need ten Eildon Houses to accommodate all the writers with severe problems.

“Our academic inmates are often quite brilliant, as you’d expect. Yet they have a tendency to commit the most disproportionately awful criminal acts — for example, they might stab a department head to death over their teaching assignments, or shoot a dean who’s denied them even a tiny research grant. One of them is particularly infamous in this country for other reasons. His name’s Professor Artimore — you’ve probably heard of him?”

Naturally, I hadn’t.

“Well, he’s a very interesting case” was all she said.

3

By now, Sarah Mackay and I were walking along a corridor lined with century-old black-and-white photographs. The subjects wore the uniforms of Eildon House employees and were assembled in groups, like football teams. Their faces were unsmiling and wary, as is often the case with people who’ve never seen a camera before.

We arrived at a door with the sign Director on it and she led me inside.

The office was spacious, with a number of filing cabinets and a wide desk in front of a big window. Thick iron bars on the outside marred an otherwise beautiful view of the hills. The office walls were a plain, greyish colour with no ornamentation aside from several more of those old black-and-white group photographs I’d seen in the corridor.

Facing the desk were a shiny black leather couch and armchair. Beside them was a kneeling stool, the kind of thing you’d find in a church. She noticed me looking at it.

“Eildon House used to have its own chapel,” she said. “After the government took the place over, they put many things in storage, including the chapel furniture. That prie-dieu had actually been used by Andrew Eildon exclusively. When I saw it, I thought it might be useful in my office and had it brought up. Sure enough, some of the inmates now prefer to kneel when they come to see me.” She smiled. “You’re welcome to use it, if you wish.”

I assumed she was joking and smiled back. She seated herself in the armchair and I sat on the couch. Despite its expensive appearance, it was unyielding.

WE’D BARELY SETTLED when a young, pretty woman wearing a white housekeeping uniform came in. She was carrying a tray with a pot of coffee and two cups on it.

“Thank you, Georgina,” said Sarah Mackay.

The woman laid the tray on the desk and left.

“Georgina’s one of our inmates,” said Sarah in a matter-of-fact way. She saw my surprise. “Yes, half of our inmates are female. Madness is one of those areas where women have always had equal rights.”

I wondered why this Georgina wasn’t under lock and key. “It’s a long story,” said Sarah.

“She likes to help out and her medication makes her quite sociable, so most of the time there’s no need for her to be locked up. She’s here because she wanted to be a writer. Would you like to hear about her?”

GEORGINA, after graduating from university at the age of twenty-two, had decided to write a novel and bought a typewriter for the purpose. For a year following that, she stayed home every day, and for almost every hour of the day did virtually nothing but write—tap, tapping out her first novel, hour after hour, seldom leaving her room. She was so dedicated she rarely took time to eat, so that after a few months her body began to wither away and the tips of her fingers blistered, eventually bleeding onto the typewriter keys as well as down over her clothing.

Inevitably, Georgina’s family could no longer deal with her and a series of institutions for the mentally infirm became her home. If they took away her typewriter, she’d fall into a catatonic state. If they gave it back to her, she’d immediately revert to her suicidal typing. There seemed to be no middle ground. Drugs and extended counselling were ineffective.

“IN THE END, she was committed to Eildon House,” said Sarah Mackay. “When she first came here, her file contained some of the many hundreds of pages of the novel she’d been writing. I read them carefully. It wasn’t really a surprise to discover that her main character was a woman who sat in her room all day, writing a novel. In the course of writing, this woman came to understand that all the other inhabitants of the world outside her room were conspiring against her. What was worse, they weren’t actually people at all but huge rodents disguised as human beings. She could hear them hissing and scratching at her door trying to get in. She herself was the last real human being on this earth, and she knew that as long as she kept up her desperate typing the rodents couldn’t get at her. Hence, her compulsion — and, by extension, Georgina’s.”

After hearing this I felt curious: what was wrong with Georgina to make her believe such frightening nonsense?

“You’ve put your finger on a dangerous aspect of the writing profession — the inability of writers to separate reality from fiction,” said Sarah. “In an invented story, it’s quite all right for a heroine to believe that all the human beings in the world have turned into rodents. In fact, it contains interesting possibilities. And Georgina must have been sane enough at first, for she wrote about her heroine in the third person. But as she herself began to lose her grip on reality, she began to write in the first person— she’d come to identify completely with her character.

“As I mentioned, we’ve tried all the latest psychotropic drugs on her and at times they seem to help. She can wander about Eildon House doing little jobs — such as delivering coffee and so on, as you’ve just seen. If I let her have her typewriter back, she’s fine at first and writes about her character in the third person. But after a while she gradually reverts to the first-person narrator — a sure sign she’s returned to the manic state. So we have to take the typewriter away from her. That deprivation makes her catatonic again and we give her more of the drug till her behaviour’s quite balanced once more. It’s been a vicious circle so far, but we haven’t given up on her. If we can’t get her to stop reverting to the first person, we may try another mix of drugs that’ll make her give up writing altogether and become a normal human being on a permanent basis. But that’ll only be as a last resort.”

4

The story of Georgina being out of the way, Sarah Mackay now began interrogating me closely about my own life history. She applied herself to the task in the way, no doubt, she would question a new inmate. Only detailed and considered responses satisfied her. I had to tell her at some length where I’d gone after I fled from Duncairn, how I’d ended up in Canada, about my marriage, and about my work. She listened with great concentration, drawing me out with shrewd questions about Alicia and Frank. She seemed especially interested in the complexities and recent development of my father — son relationship with him.

Finally, she turned to the purpose of this present trip to Scotland. I was required to tell her all about my meeting with the curator, my finding of The Obsidian Cloud in Mexico, and the mystery of its author, Macbane.

Sarah listened to all of this with rapt attention.

“How fascinating,” she said. “His story sounds just like some of those old Upland legends Mother used to tell me.”

WE THEN CAME to the matter of how I’d discovered she worked at Eildon House. I explained that I’d driven to Duncairn after meeting the curator, partly just to see what the place looked like now. I’d also hoped I might even come across her mother, still living there. I’d found out she was dead, visited her grave, and seen the fresh flowers. Through that I’d learned about her own existence from the owner of the Bracken Inn and decided to track her down.

She sat back, apparently satisfied with my account of myself. “I’m so glad you did track me down,” she said. “Miriam would have been thrilled to know what had become of you.” She sometimes called her mother by her first name, as though they’d been more like friends or sisters than parent and daughter.

I understood — my own parents liked me to use their first names, though for other reasons.

“She might have been surprised at the kind of work you do,” Sarah said. “She seemed to think you had more of an idealistic streak.”

That hurt a little, but I said nothing.

“Did you know she herself was an only child?” she said.

I’d always assumed that was the case. As in other matters, I’d known so little about her.

“Yes, her mother — my grandmother — was a fragile woman with a weak heart who died at home just a few days after Miriam was born, and Grandfather never married again,” said Sarah. “When I was a child, Mother took me on a trip to see her birthplace. The people who owned the house didn’t mind us coming in to have a look round.” She recollected the scene for me. “It was on the east coast, north of Edinburgh — one of the big houses you find on the cliffs with a bow window in the parlour looking out over the sea. There was a huge rock a mile or two off shore, completely covered in bird droppings. When we were there, it was glimmering in the sun like the dome of a cathedral. But apparently the day Grandmother was dying the sky was overcast and the rock grew less and less visible till you couldn’t see it anymore. That was always the sign of a storm approaching the coast.

“After Grandmother died, Grandfather sold the house and rented a rowhouse in Edinburgh. He wasn’t really cut out to be a parent, so he hired nannies to look after Miriam. When she was ten, she was enrolled in a girls’ boarding school in Edinburgh. He wasn’t around much during her childhood, for he was a partner in an export — import business and had to make a lot of voyages back and forth to the Far East. That was where he developed a liking for opium. You knew about that?”

Indeed, I did. How could I forget Miriam’s distaste as she tended the opium pipe for that wreck of a man?

“Eventually,” Sarah went on, “he sold his share of the firm, too, and moved everything to the house in Duncairn, lock, stock, and barrel — yes, there really was a barrel with a lifetime’s supply of opium in it. Who knows why he chose Duncairn? We used to wonder if it was because the sight of the ocean stirred up bad memories for him and Duncairn was about as landlocked as it was possible to be in the Uplands.

“When Miriam was sixteen she left school and went to stay with him. Even though he wasn’t very old, he already needed looking after. The townspeople of Duncairn barely knew him, but they did get to know Mother and they liked her. After she married Sam Mackay, they lived together in the manor with Grandfather. Sam had the kind of temperament that was able to put up with him.

“In the course of time, I was born. I didn’t have much to do with Grandfather. He always seemed only vaguely a member of the human species, inhabiting his corner of the manor, with his strange smells and habits. I was only seven when he died of complications resulting from the opium. After his death I missed him — I suppose it had become normal to have such a weird creature at home.

“A much worse loss occurred when I was fourteen, and Sam died. He looked so big and strong but his heart was never good and it let him down too soon. His death seemed to take most of the zest out of Miriam.

“After I graduated from university, I worked in various institutions like this. Perhaps I was drawn to them because of having grown up with the enigma of Grandfather always close by. When I became director here at Eildon House I tried to coax Mother to come and live nearer to me. But she just couldn’t imagine not being in Duncairn.

“One morning five years ago, she was found by some fishermen at the foot of Tam’s Brig, a place up in the moors. What she was doing up there, I don’t know. She may have fallen off the bridge or she may have jumped. Either way, I suppose it was a good thing: by then she was ready to die. I just wish she’d found a less horrible way to do it.”

I was shocked to hear the way Miriam had died. The owner of the Bracken Inn, tactfully perhaps, hadn’t mentioned it. I’d never forgotten that day long ago when Miriam and I had gone up into the hills and looked down from the ruined bridge into the turbulent waters and rocks beneath. I tried not to think of her crumpled body at the bottom of the gorge.

But Sarah’s narrative was unrelenting.

“The worst thing was that when they found her on the rocks, the birds had pecked out her eyes,” she said. “She used to warn me never to fall asleep in the moors because of them.”

To hear about Miriam’s death and the mutilation by the birds was very hard to bear. The very first time we’d met, she’d warned me about them, too.

“She was buried in the cemetery alongside my grandfather and Sam,” Sarah said. “When she died, I lost my best friend. I loved her and Sam very much and they loved me. It took me a long time to be able even to think about them without crying. I still go to Duncairn from time to time to lay some flowers on Miriam’s grave — and talk to her.”

5

After a while, perhaps because of the confessional aura of the room, I began to justify myself to Sarah. I made it clear to her that I’d never have willingly deserted her mother, for my time with her had been the happiest in my whole life. The day Sam Mackay told me they were going to be married, I’d rushed straight up to the manor to ask Miriam how that could be possible, to beg her to change her mind. She knew I was there, she even looked out the window at me, but she wouldn’t open the door.

Yes, I was the innocent party — the party sinned against — no matter what Sarah might have heard to the contrary.

“But I didn’t hear anything to the contrary,” Sarah said. “Mother told me precisely what happened that last day when you came to her door, much the same way as you describe it. That moment preyed on her mind and was one of the major causes of her unhappiness all her life afterwards.” She spoke slowly and emphatically. “Refusing to see you was the hardest thing she ever did. But you must believe this: she did it for your own sake. She knew you loved her — in fact, that you loved her too much to give her up. So she took matters into her own hands. She decided to make the sacrifice herself.”

I didn’t understand.

“She’d come to the conclusion that it would be an awful thing for you if she were to inflict herself and her family baggage on you,” Sarah said. “She was aware of how uneasy you were about Grandfather and his addiction. But she couldn’t just up and leave him to fend for himself. And if you’d come to live with her in the manor, would you really have been able to put up with the sight of him every day, year after year? She felt she’d be ruining your life, and she couldn’t accept that. So she just cut you off.” Sarah looked right into my eyes. “She knew you’d be badly hurt, but she was sure you’d be able to recover as time passed.”

Hearing this, I felt a little uncomfortable, but I knew Miriam’s assessment of me had been right. When I wasn’t deluding myself about my eternal love for her, I’d actually spent long periods of my life getting along quite well without her.

“She was very wise about love,” said Sarah. “She used to tell me that first love is often a kind of self-love, a delight in the idea of being in love. In your case, she was afraid that to preserve that idea you’d have insisted on staying with her no matter how harmful it might be to you in the long run.”

Again, I understood how well Miriam had seen through me. I’d been so smitten with the notion of myself as the great lover I’d barely given a thought to the reality of what might have happened if we’d stayed together. Would it have taken very long for me to start resenting her — even hating her — for being stuck with her and that old man in their gloomy manor? But instead of facing the truth about myself, I’d spent my life blaming her for making true love impossible for me thereafter. My “broken heart” had become an excuse for my self-serving behaviour over the years.

“Sam knew all about your relationship with her because she’d told him everything, even before you did,” said Sarah. “But he still loved her and wanted to marry her. She tried to be as good a wife to him as she could. But unfortunately, you were the only one she really loved. She never got over you.”

The only one she really loved. What a grim irony, to hear that. All these years I’d convinced myself that I’d loved her and that she hadn’t loved me. Now I had to face the truth: my broken heart had never been more than a piece of self-indulgent nonsense— whereas she’d truly loved me.

“Yes, for the remainder of her life you were like a ghost that kept haunting her,” said Sarah. “She knew you’d always believe she’d treated you badly, and that made her feel tremendously guilty.” She paused and shook her head slowly. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my profession, it’s how good we are at guilt. My mother just piled it on herself for having done something in your best interest.” She sighed. “What a price we have to pay for being human.”

WE SAT SILENTLY for a while. Then, I suppose to get away from this sad topic, Sarah told me that she herself was engaged.

“We’re planning to get married in the next year or so,” she said. “He’s a lawyer in Edinburgh. We’ll try and find a house in some little town between there and here so that we can both continue with our work.”

Children? I wondered.

“We’re not planning on having any,” she said. “Mother would probably have thought that was a good thing. She was sometimes afraid that our family was cursed. Even if her fear wasn’t rational, it was quite understandable.”

OUR TIME WAS RUNNING OUT. Sarah made me promise, next time I was in Scotland, to come and visit her again for a more extended period. She’d love to show me more of the kinds of patients she had to deal with at Eildon House — she knew I’d find them fascinating.

This keenness, like a child wanting to show off her toys, reminded me of Dupont and how proud he’d been when he introduced me to his prize volunteer, Griffin. At the thought of what that had led to, I shuddered.

THE PHONE ON HER DESK RANG. She talked into it for a few moments then replaced it with a sigh.

“Oh dear,” she said. “The people from the ministry have arrived for our meeting. I’m afraid it’s something I can’t get out of.”

I assured her I understood. Anyway, it was probably about time for me to start heading for the airport — my flight was due to leave at four, with a much earlier check-in. She said there was no need to drive back the same route I’d taken. She pulled a map out of her desk and showed me a quieter, alternative road to the coast. At that, we both stood up.

“I’ll walk with you to the front door,” she said. “If you’d like, I’ve time to let you have a look at Professor Artimore. We’ll be passing near his cell on our way out. You remember I mentioned him — the most notorious by far of those criminal academics? People have actually offered to pay just to see him in the flesh. His research caused an uproar when it became public at the trial. He’s one of the strangest types we’ve ever had to deal with at Eildon House.”

Of course I was happy to go with her.

SHE TOOK ME ALONG a side corridor that led to a room with a door that differed from any of the other doors we’d passed. It was reinforced with metal struts and had a small, barred rectangle for viewing the occupant.

Sarah Mackay glanced through it then waved me over. “Take a look,” she said.

I peered into a small, sparsely furnished room with a caged bulb in the middle of the ceiling. Under it an elderly man sat strapped by the arms and legs to an upright wooden chair bolted to the floor. His grey hair was straggly and long. His face was grey, too, except for some angular bluish marks right in the middle of his forehead — they looked like letters of the alphabet, but from where I stood I couldn’t quite make them out. His cheeks were lined with anxiety or pain. His eyes were half closed with a faraway expression, as if concentrating on some problem.

After I’d had a good look, Sarah and I continued on our way. She was obviously keen on hearing my impression.

“Well?” she said. “He looks relatively ordinary, don’t you think?”

I actually thought he seemed more than a little stressed.

She smiled at that.

“You’re quite right, of course,” she said. “And he certainly has good reason to be. Let me tell you about his case.

“Artimore was a renowned professor of linguistics at Edinburgh University. His main interest was in finding out how language first began to develop amongst human beings. I’m told that’s still one of the great mysteries for scholars.

“In the course of his historical research, the professor came across a rather sadistic, unethical linguistic experiment that had been tried without success as far back as the Egyptian pharaohs. Indeed, over the centuries it had been repeated over and over again — there was even a Scottish connection: in the late fifteenth century, King James IV of Scotland, who fancied himself quite a student of linguistics, had tried the same experiment, in vain.

“Linguistic scholars, including Artimore himself, had always denounced the entire effort as barbaric. But at the back of his mind, he believed his colleagues would feel quite differently if the experiment were to lead to a breakthrough in linguistic studies. So he made up his mind to try it.”

I’d no idea yet what exactly this Professor Artimore had done, but his rationale did sound similar to Dupont’s — that the end will justify the means. I readied myself to be appalled.

“The professor got in touch with some kind of underground market in human flesh,” said Sarah Mackay. “Through it, he acquired two newborn infant girls.”

I didn’t really need to hear any more than that. But human curiosity, like a dog’s nose, can’t control itself. I waited for more.

“He was a bachelor and lived alone in a Georgian villa in the New Town, one of the most exclusive parts of Edinburgh,” said Sarah. “He’d already had a room specially prepared in the basement, so he put the two infants down there with a serving girl to look after all their needs. The serving girl was a deafmute — that was vital for the experiment. She would be the only human being the children came into contact with, so they’d never hear language being used.

“From the day of their arrival in his house, and for the next five years, Artimore spent hours each day behind a one-way glass, observing the infants develop. Every grunt or gesture or attempt to communicate with either the maid, or with each other, he made meticulous notes on.

“But disaster struck.

“One afternoon, he had to attend the university for a meeting.

During his absence from home, a massive thunderstorm engulfed Edinburgh. A bolt of lightning struck his villa and set it aflame. Because of fallen trees and flooding all over the city, it took the fire brigade a long time to arrive. They managed to pull the deafmute servant out of the basement alive. They understood enough from her frantic noises and pointing to hack their way down again into the basement. There they found both children already dead from smoke inhalation. The rest of the house was in ruins and the professor’s study and all his notebooks were incinerated.”

PROFESSOR ARTIMORE, Sarah told me, had subsequently been charged with numerous crimes, including human trafficking, kidnapping, unlawful confinement, and manslaughter. The deafmute girl testified against him by sign language and in writing.

The professor would say nothing, but through his counsel, pleaded guilty to all charges.

At the sentencing, this same counsel argued, in mitigation of his client, that his was by no means the first attempt at such an experiment. He cited the well-known historical precedents— even that king of Scotland. He also maintained that similar experiments were still being conducted by a variety of linguists in less enlightened parts of the world, where the concept of human rights for children wasn’t taken seriously.

He went further. Even in our own hemisphere today, members of various professions were permitted to subject children daily to horrific behaviour-modifying procedures. These were often druginduced and unproven, yet the practitioners garnered not the slightest disapproval from the authorities. His client, Professor Artimore, may have been misguided, but he was essentially a humane man. He’d taken every measure to ensure the children were well treated — aside from confining them in a basement and depriving them of language. In reality, it was a violent act of nature that killed them, not the professor’s research.

The judge wasn’t impressed. Artimore was sentenced to life in a maximum security prison. He was later transferred to Eildon House as a more suitable place of correction for a scholarcriminal to serve out his time.

At first, several of his former colleagues used to visit him. Before the fire, he’d apparently hinted to them that he’d made the most astonishing, groundbreaking observations on the origins of language. These colleagues now told him he still had a scholar’s obligation to publish his research and make his discoveries known for the benefit of linguistic science. Yes, his behaviour had been atrocious in the eyes of humanity, but what was done was done— publishing his findings would be a clear way to make amends.

The professor maintained his silence in the presence of these former colleagues, and soon all visits ceased.

“He’s been here now for ten years,” said Sarah Mackay. “He hasn’t said a word to anyone since he arrived.”

I’d been curious all along about those marks that looked like letters of the alphabet on the professor’s forehead. It was as though someone had rubber-stamped them there.

“You’re almost right,” she said. “When he was in the penitentiary they caught him in the middle of the night carving them into his forehead with a piece of broken glass. They’re the capital letters THGIR. It’s been speculated that he’d been trying to write ‘THE GIRLS’—you know, as in an inscription on a gravestone. But he didn’t have a mirror, so it could have been ‘RIGHT.’ Anyway, whatever it was he didn’t get it finished.”

Hearing about Artimore’s research had recalled Dupont’s work and his attempt to give an ethical justification for what outsiders might consider his criminal behaviour. That in turn reminded me of Sarah’s comment that my own line of work would have disappointed Miriam, in view of the “idealistic streak” she’d seen in me. So I smiled and tried to make some facetious remark on the irony of “right” the wrong way round.

Sarah Mackay didn’t smile.

“‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are words we rarely have much use for at Eildon House,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons it’s not easy for certain types of people to work here.”

AFTER THAT we just walked together, silent for once, along the corridors of Eildon House and were soon standing on the front steps. The sky was overcast, suiting my mood at parting with Sarah Mackay. She looked directly into my eyes.

“You can have no idea just how curious I was to see you after having heard about you so often from Miriam,” she said. “This visit really has been lovely. And it’s been a special treat for me to know how interested you are in what I do here. You really are a kindred spirit.”

I assured her that it had been a great pleasure for me to meet her and learn about her work. I was especially grateful for everything she’d told me about Miriam. Knowing the truth was a comfort to me, at last.

She seemed about to say something else, then decided against it.

So I thanked her again for seeing me and told her that she was a remarkable young woman. Miriam and Sam must have been the proudest of parents.

Her blue eyes became resolute. I could see she’d made up her mind to say whatever it was that was on her mind. In fact, I had one of those disorienting feelings of anticipating what’s about to happen, as if it’s happened before. Those questions she’d asked earlier about Frank, and about my relationship with him, flashed through my mind and I knew almost with certainty what she was about to say.

“Yes, they were proud of me,” said Sarah Mackay. “But Sam wasn’t my father. You are.”

THE DRIVE WEST was quite straightforward, though the weather again turned into a mix of rain and sleet. I had to keep my mind on the winding road, especially when passing trucks sent up a blinding spray. But I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about that final revelation.

Sarah Mackay, my daughter! Apparently she’d been aware of that ever since she was a child. Miriam and Sam had believed she ought to know, and so they told her the truth. Miriam’s rejection of me hadn’t been based only on her belief that I wouldn’t be able to deal with her father. She’d also found out she was pregnant. Those two things together were, in her mind, too much to ask a young man — a boy, really — to put up with.

Over the years it had occasionally crossed my mind that Miriam’s final act towards me might have had something to do with what she felt were her obligations towards that old man. Never that she was pregnant. What an irony. As often as not it’s the man responsible for the pregnancy who runs from his responsibilities. In our case, Miriam knew I wouldn’t run — that if I’d known she was pregnant, I’d have insisted all the more on staying. So she’d told me nothing and driven me away. Though she was in love with me, she probably didn’t trust me to stay with her through thick and thin. She didn’t have the same kind of love for Sam, but she trusted him.

She’d made the hard choice and the right one.

That was exactly what I told Sarah after hearing this startling news on the front steps of Eildon House. I begged her to forgive me. She hugged me and told me there was nothing to forgive. We both had tears in our eyes as I got into my car and drove away.

AT THE AIRPORT, a heavy afternoon sea fog delayed all flights, so it wasn’t till well after four that we boarded the plane and took off. I had a window seat and glanced out from time to time, but my mind was still full of Sarah’s final revelations. By now, my feelings about what she’d told me had become more complicated. One minute I’d again start feeling sorry for myself: Miriam, by forsaking me, had killed my capacity for ever truly loving someone else. But the next minute self-loathing would take the place of self-pity: Miriam had realized, all too clearly, a basic truth about me — that I was really only capable of loving myself. And so it went, back and forth, endless variants and combinations of self-justification and self-condemnation.

The plane had circled back over the Uplands before heading out towards the ocean. There was just enough light to make out beneath us the low hills streaked with snow and the patterns of ancient fields enclosed by walls of heaped-up rocks. In one of these fields, the earth seemed to have been combed into rows that were exactly symmetrical but with occasional protrusions. A lone man with a long-handled hoe jabbed at one of the protrusions, then picked it up and hurled it onto a pile nearby. It appeared to be a human leg, blackened and mouldering. The pile held countless other such decayed body parts.

The man’s eyes turned upwards towards the plane, searching for mine.

CONVENIENTLY, the clatter of the drinks trolley jolted me out of this vivid dream and I got myself a pre-dinner scotch. While I sipped I wondered, as I often did, whether there was any sense to be made of my dreams. Perhaps in this case it might have been spawned by the sensation of flying above the world at an immense height — something no animals except birds had ever been able to do. Surely this novel experience must have altered the way humans now perceived their world. In the dream, the geometrical structure of those fields far below had seemed to me like humanity’s flimsy attempts to scratch a semblance of order out of nature’s chaotic state. The fields themselves were only fertile because the soil was fed by the rotting flesh, just under the surface, of generation after generation of men whose brief lives were snuffed out in yet another piece of human ingenuity— those old mine tunnels that failed to hold up the weight of the earth. To walk in those fields was, therefore, to walk on the remains of the dead.

As for the man in the dream who used the long-handled hoe, I was having trouble making sense out of him. I didn’t like the look of him or the way he’d looked up at me. So maybe he was Death, warning me that even though I was flying high above with a glass of scotch in my hand, my own turn would come.

Altogether, this interpretation of the dream, though a bit on the melancholy side, was quite pleasing to me. Indeed the brief nap, the dream, the scotch, or all three seemed to have got rid of the angst I’d been feeling over Miriam’s choice. Instead I was now full of elation at the thought of two much more significant revelations: that she’d only done what she did because she loved me, and that her daughter — the astonishing Sarah — was my daughter, too.

Add to these two things the memory of that illuminating visit to Curator Soulis in his strange bell tower, and I’d more than adequate cause for celebration. So when the drinks trolley came by again, I ordered another scotch in their honour.

6

I got back to Camberloo in the early morning, slept till late afternoon, then phoned Frank. Naturally, he wanted to know all about my trip right away. I had to check in at the office for an hour or two, but I promised I’d give him a full account over dinner later that night.

So, around seven, we got together at the Library, a recently opened restaurant in what had originally been one of those big old Camberloo mansions. Only a few diners were there that night. Frank and I sat at a table in the bow window of the former library of the mansion. The room was still lined with impressive mahogany bookcases, but the books themselves had been replaced by a wallpaper of false book covers. As for the meal: the tiny main course tasted all right but was so artisticlooking you felt like a vandal sticking a knife and fork into an oil painting.

Frank was full of questions about my visit to the curator and his research on The Obsidian Cloud. He made me go into detail on every aspect of it, even the characteristics of Scottish quartos— one of them might make a valuable addition to his collection at the Emporium.

So far so good. But now, after I’d brought him fully up to date on the curator’s findings, Frank asked me if I’d managed to visit Duncairn.

I braced myself. It was time to come straight out with the truth, more or less: Frank already knew about my short spell in Duncairn as a young man, but I hadn’t told him that when I was there I’d fallen in love with a girl named Miriam Galt. She’d eventually rejected me, and in despair I’d fled the country. But I’d always been curious to know how things had worked out for her. So I’d taken this opportunity to revisit the town, on the off chance she might actually be there.

Frank looked surprised at hearing all of this for the first time, but he didn’t seem upset, nor did he consider my visit to Duncairn in any way a betrayal of his mother, as I’d feared. He encouraged me to tell him more about the visit.

So I described for him the present decayed state of Duncairn, and how I made the sad discovery that Miriam, my old love, was dead. Then I found out, almost by accident, the reason she’d driven me away all those years ago — she’d been pregnant with our child, a daughter as it turned out. I’d managed to track this daughter of mine down, and met her at a place called Eildon Hall where she worked. Her name was Sarah Mackay.

I was just about to explain that I’d actually known Sam Mackay, Sarah’s proxy father. But Frank, my audience, had progressed from surprise, to incredulity, to delight.

“Do you mean I have a sister — a half-sister? That’s great news!”

I could see he really meant it, and I was very relieved. Gordon must have felt this way about Alicia’s reaction when he revealed she had a half-sister on a remote island in the Pacific.

“Tell me all about Sarah,” Frank said.

So I tried to remember every detail about my visit to her and the impression she’d made on me. He was captivated by all he heard, and we both marvelled for a while about this new member of our family.

“I’d really love to meet her,” he said. “Do you think she’d mind?”

Quite the contrary, I assured him. She’d asked all about him, too, and I knew she’d love to meet him. I’d invite her — along with that fiancé she’d mentioned — to come and pay us a visit so that Frank could get to know her.

The prospect seemed to please him immensely.

IN FACT, I was beginning to think that this making of confessions might be a good thing for me. Wasn’t it time Frank was told, for example, that his grandfather, Gordon, had also fathered a child in a far-off, exotic land? In other words, that his own mother had a half-sister in Oluba who was, therefore, his half-aunt? And that I myself had had more to do with this exotic, tattoo-covered half-sister than I’d been willing to admit to Alicia?

But then I wondered if maybe it wasn’t his mother’s unexpected death that had prevented her from telling Frank about Maratawi. No, maybe even Alicia, with all her fondness for truth, had come to believe that some family secrets were better left untold.

If so, I agreed with her.

I thought back to my midnight fling with Griffin, for example, which still made me shudder. What if I were to confess my part in that little episode to Frank? Wouldn’t that be a good one to get off my chest? I could share it with him, beg for his sympathy on the basis that I didn’t know I was making love to a monster.

But the very idea that a father should try to offload his personal nightmares onto his son seemed unnatural. Indeed, by the time Frank and I had finished our meal at the Library, I’d come to a decision: the confessional path was strewn with a few too many thistles for someone like me.

1

The next month was a busy one at Smith’s Pumps and I was preoccupied with office matters. I was at my desk early on a Monday morning, assessing upcoming requisitions, when I saw amongst the pile of mail that had just arrived a thick envelope from Curator Soulis.

The address was written in pen and was barely legible. I was amused at the thought of Soulis in his tower, his desk vibrating from the chimes of that great clock above him as he tried to write. Fortunately, the letter inside the envelope was typed and was accompanied by several other pages, which seemed to have been photocopied. I began reading.

Dear Mr. Steen:

Let me begin by saying again what a pleasure it was to meet you, and by reiterating how grateful I am to you for having entrusted The Obsidian Cloud to us here at the National Cultural Centre. This letter is to bring you up to date on the results of our research since we met.

I have some rather exciting news, so I thought I’d communicate the details to you without delay.

As I intimated when you were in Glasgow, the major focus of our research would be to identify the author, Macbane. That task has been much more time-consuming than in many cases we encounter. My new assistant, Jean Murdo, and I had spent many hours poring over old book catalogues, journals, and newspapers but could find no reference to Macbane or to The Obsidian Cloud. We’d even looked up the Rev. K. Macbane in numerous registries of Scottish clergy from throughout the country. As I reported to you on your visit, we had no luck whatever.

Since then, Jean and I checked all available Registers of Birth. You may not be aware that till the middle of the nineteenth century in Scotland, many births went unrecorded. This is a major problem for the researcher. Nonetheless, we were hopeful we might find our author’s name somewhere in one of the many registers, especially Old Parish Registers, which, though they’re by no means comprehensive, are our best resource.

But even these registers present additional, chronic problems for the researcher: the handwriting can often be illegible and the spelling of names tends to be quite haphazard, depending on the whim of the Registrar— spelling in those days was not at all standardized.

Knowing this, we included in our search such variant spellings as Macbeane, Macbayne, Macbyne, MacVaine, and so on. To our chagrin, after we took the diverse spellings into account, we ultimately came across hundreds of possible candidates.

Using all sources at our disposal (census results, military lists, etc.), we were able to eliminate quite a number of them — some had died either at birth or quite young from disease, or as soldiers in various wars, or had emigrated to Australia or Canada where they’d disappeared from the records. As far as most of the others were concerned — farmers, shepherds, carpenters, doctors, etc. — we followed up on them to the extent we were able, but could find no information whatever to indicate they might be authors on the side. Though, of course, any one of them might have been our man.

We were beginning to think we’d exhausted all avenues. Then, by the purest chance, we found what we’d been searching for all along.

Jean Murdo deserves all the credit. She, like myself, had been quite captivated by The Obsidian Cloud and had often talked to her husband about it and about our hunt for the elusive Macbane. Now Jean’s husband happens to be a barrister in a big law firm here in Glasgow, and when he came home from work just a week ago, he had surprising news for her.

Shortly before finishing for the day, he’d been searching for legal precedents regarding some matter his firm was involved in. He’d been obliged to consult the multi-volumed reports of Scottish court cases over the centuries. These books are usually written in such dry legalese that no one else can stomach them, except lawyers.

Jean’s husband had been skimming through Volume VI of the mid-nineteenth-century Scottish Law Reporter, which consists of brief outlines of the facts in many of the legally interesting cases of the day, with a few notes on the judgments and their significance.

The title of one particular case quite unrelated to his own research just happened to catch his eye.

He glanced over the case and immediately realized its potential significance for Jean. So he photocopied the pages in question and brought them home to her. I’ve recopied the salient pages for you here. I suggest you refer to them now before reading the rest of this letter.

This sounded so exciting, I immediately did as he said. The photocopied pages were a little smeared and blurry, being copies of copies of a much-handled and ancient tome. But their contents were vivid and startling.

2

THE CROWN V ISABEL MACBANE AND ROBERT LEANIE

At the session of the Edinburgh Assizes held in the summer of 1866, Isabel Macbane (née Leanie) and Robert Leanie, her brother, were arraigned for the domestic murder of Macbane’s husband, Revon Kenelm Macbane.

The Attorney General, who prosecuted the case himself, was satisfied from the evidence laid before him that he should prefer differing charges for the respective roles the accused played in the murder. Robert Leanie was therefore charged with the act of delivering the mortal

wounds with a carving knife. Isabel Macbane, who was at the scene, was charged with “art and part,” known in English law as “aiding and abetting.”

Upon their arraignment, the prisoners refused to plead.

The trial proceeded before a jury, with Justice Alexander Weir as presiding judge. He entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of the prisoners, as is customary when accused persons refrain from cooperating.

Various witnesses were called to give evidence. It was established that the victim of the crime, Revon Kenelm Macbane, who had been educated in the parish school, was a clerk in the office of the Kilcorran coal mine. Isabel Macbane, to whom he was married for five years, was a farmer’s daughter.

On the evening of June 12, the aforesaid Isabel Macbane entered her domicile in the company of her brother, Robert Leanie, a farm hand. They approached her husband, Revon Kenelm Macbane, who was writing in his papers at the parlour table, whereupon Leanie did intend to stab him to his death, in an act of murder with the assistance of Isabel Macbane. Which murder they duly did perform. The corpse having been mutilated further, the two accused did set about to burn all books and papers in the domicile. Thereafter they fled to England where they were arrested as they attempted to board the Dover packet for Calais.

Thus, the case against Robert Leanie and Isabel Macbane having been presented, Justice Weir attempted to question

the accused. They did remain silent, jointly refusing a response.

Justice Weir then directed the jury, lacking any reason to do otherwise, to return a verdict of guilty: Robert Leanie of murder, Isabel Macbane of art and part, as being his accomplice and inciter in the act. The verdict having been so returned, Justice Weir subsequently donned the black cap and pronounced sentence of death by hanging. The prisoners were to be held for one week then to be executed upon a gallows erected in the town centre of Kilcorran, near the domicile where the crime occurred.

…

At the 1866 Michaelmas Assembly of Justices held in Edinburgh at the Chief Justice’s chambers, consideration was being given by the Assembly to the better preventing of the horrid crime of husband-murder.

The Chief Justice alluded to the prevalent and traditional method used by Scottish wives in husband-murder, viz. the administering by said wives of covert doses of strychnine, causing the victims’ certain deaths, slow and painful. The Chief Justice recalled that in previous eras, judges were given latitude in imposing penalties suited to crimes in order for the deterrence of similar offences by others.

In the instance of husband-murder, dissection after hanging or public gibbeting were the most common sentences imposed upon such wives. The Chief Justice averred that the sight of ravens feeding upon a gibbeted corpse in the Grassmarket was not easily forgotten by the populace. He regretted the diminishment of Scottish law

through the subsequent abolition of such penalties by the Parliament in London in the Act of 1834.

Justice Alexander Weir now spoke. He adverted to the recent trial of Isabel Macbane and Robert Leanie over which he had presided. He revealed that in the women’s cell of the Calton Hill prison on the day before her removal to the place of execution, Isabel Macbane discovered to him, in the presence of his secretary, the reasons and manner of her actions towards her husband, the cruelly murdered Revon Kenelm Macbane. For accuracy, Justice Weir read from his secretary’s transcription as follows:

JUSTICE WEIR:

Why did you request this interview?

ISABEL MACBANE:

Because my death is near, I wish the full truth to be known.

JUSTICE WEIR:

Proceed.

ISABEL MACBANE

: My marriage to Rev Macbane was arranged through my father by means of a dowry. But Macbane was not a good husband to me. Within a year of our marriage, when he came home from work, he spent his time at his writing table. All the energy left in him was drained into his pen. Though he shared the same bed with me, he was infertile in it and I was thereby doomed never to bear offspring. But he was fertile enough with the other woman.

JUSTICE WEIR:

To whom do you refer?

ISABEL MACBANE:

The woman was she who tends the Kilcorran subscription library where he went many times. She could read his own writings. I did not learn to

read for as a child I must tend the pigs on the farm of my father, so Rev Macbane had contempt for me.

JUSTICE WEIR:

Was there adultery between your husband and this woman?

ISABEL MACBANE:

Yes. My brother Robert Leanie at my request spied on them and witnessed the adultery through the window of her own dwelling. That woman was already much swollen in the belly as my brother did see with his own eyes. When Rev Macbane came home from her, we seized his arms at his back and fastened them with a rope. He admitted the adultery and I told him he would die for it as he only married me for the dowry for the printing of his books and that he planted his seeds elsewhere. He said he might have loved me if I was able to read. I promised him that I would burn every last one of his obsidian clouds and all his papers. He begged me to spare them for they were innocent of any offence.

JUSTICE WEIR:

What are these obsidian clouds to which you refer?

ISABEL MACBANE:

They were his books of which he had printed fifty copies by the use of my dowry.

JUSTICE WEIR

: Describe the murder and the mutilation of the body.

ISABEL MACBANE:

I brought the carving knife from the kitchen and gave the knife to my brother who stabbed Rev Macbane through the ribs five times, once for each year of our marriage. He was still alive and begged to be spared. From his desk I took his jar of ink and his pen with the steel nib. My brother held him by the jaw and I poured the ink down his throat and with the pen I cut open his throat like a Spring hog. Then the ink mixed

with his blood spilled out of the cut and down his belly. I watched him till the light went out in his eyes. Then we gathered all his obsidian clouds and the other papers from his desk and threw them into the fireplace till they were burnt, so that nothing of them remained but ashes.

JUSTICE WEIR:

Have you remorse for your crime?

ISABEL MACBANE:

Only that my brother is now to be hanged because of me. He would not have killed Rev Macbane, for he acted only at my bidding.

The transcription having been read, Justice Alexander Weir declared to the Chief Justice and all those at the Annual Assembly of Justices that after the interview with Isabel Macbane, he thought much about the aptness of her sentence. He believed it was certainly commendable in her that she should have murdered Revon Macbane, her husband, outright by means of force, rather than by the act of poisoning him through stealth. But in Justice Weir’s opinion, illiterate though the woman was, she understood well that exterminating the memory of Revon Macbane by the burning of his books and papers was the same as to kill him twice, and so a double crime. Upon this consideration, Justice Weir argued that in such cases the double penalty of gibbeting, in addition to mere hanging, ought to be restored as in the time before the Act of 1834.

The Chief Justice concurred with these remarks and proposed a motion: “That the new leniency in sentencing in capital cases is most regrettable and should be reconsidered for taking insufficient account of the deterrence effect generations of our predecessors on the Scottish Bench deemed necessary.”

Motion seconded, by Justice Alexander Weir. Motion approved,

nem. con

., by the Assembly of Justices.

3

I had to go over the photocopied pages more than once. I could hardly believe what I’d just read. The language in them was a little old-fashioned and sometimes hard to follow because of the legal terms, but the meaning was clear enough. I was in a state of shock as I returned to Soulis’s letter.

I know you’ll be as delighted as I am at the discovery of this documentary evidence, brief though it may be. Moments such as these are what a researcher lives for.

It had never for a moment entered our heads that “Rev” was an abbreviation of the given name, Revon, and not of “Reverend.” We’d quite naturally assumed the writer was a clergyman. We’ve since discovered that Revon is in fact an old name (Middle Scots for “raven”), and is still used in some families in the Uplands, though infrequently nowadays.

Macbane himself may have actually hoped this confusion with the religious designation would help convince some publisher to take a chance on the manuscript. If so, the ploy was quite understandable. Hard though it may be for us to believe, at that time, even the most insipid books by a clergyman were guaranteed a wide readership.

But if such a ruse was intended by Macbane, it clearly didn’t help him get a publisher. We now know from no less reliable a source than the Scottish Law Reporter that he had to pay out of his own pocket — or, more accurately, out of his wife’s dowry — for the private printing of fifty copies of The Obsidian Cloud in large quarto format by The Old Ayr Press. The firm probably gave him a bargain price; as I suggested to you when we met, they’d have been only too happy to use up the remnants of some old reams of paper. Macbane would have brought the fifty copies home for storage.

Obviously not every single copy was consumed in the fire set by his wife: you, for instance, found one in Mexico — more on that in a moment! — of all places. So perhaps Macbane had already managed to place a few with booksellers, or given some away as gifts. Perhaps he’d even persuaded the local subscription library to take one — after all, he seemed to have had more than the usual lender’s privileges there.

Indeed that rather cynical suspicion led us down another track: looking for the identity of the woman at the library with whom Macbane had the adulterous relationship. We knew there were bound to be documents somewhere about Kilcorran’s subscription library. Even if we could find nothing about the woman, it would be fascinating if we could at least discover what kinds of books Macbane read.

These subscription libraries, by the way, were very common all over Britain. Patrons had to pay a small fee (a “subscription”) for the privilege of borrowing books.

A history of the county of Ayrshire recorded that the Kilcorran branch was in operation for more than a hundred years and only closed in the 1890s when a free public library took its place. The original library had been housed in one of the wings of the old Kilcorran town hall, which was demolished at the turn of the century.

But we were sure the subscription library’s records must be preserved somewhere in the town’s archives, so we kept digging. We haven’t so far found the membership and borrowing records, but we did stumble across a list of the librarians who served there.

Now here’s the exciting part: from 1864 till 1866 the librarian in charge of the Kilcorran subscription library was a woman by the name of Ramona Vasquez — a citizen of Mexico — from the city of La Verdad! We discovered subsequently in the city’s archives that her husband, Alonso Vasquez, was an of ficial representative of the Mexican government’s Ministry of Mining. He was based at Kilcorran for two years, studying mining operations in the Uplands before returning to Mexico. It seems that he brought his wife with him for his two-year appointment in the Uplands. She must have been proficient enough in English to be able to look after the Kilcorran subscription library.

We speculate (remember, this is only speculation) that Señora Vasquez may have met Macbane at the library, encouraged him in more ways than one, and possibly received a copy of The Obsidian Cloud, which she may have taken back to Mexico with her — conceivably this very copy which is now yours. We can’t be certain exactly when the Vasquez family went back to La Verdad: we haven’t been able to find any other reference to them in the Kilcorran archives. But if Macbane was indeed the father of Ramona Vasquez’s child, we have yet one more possibly fruitful research avenue to explore. Vasquez is such a popular name in Mexico, future scholars will certainly be kept busy.

On the other hand, thanks to the Scottish Law Reporter, we do now have definitive, albeit limited, information on The Obsidian Cloud and on the life of Macbane himself: he was educated at a local parish school, he was married, he was murdered, and The Obsidian Cloud, published between 1864 and 1866, seems to have been his only work in print. This latter fact would account in part for the lack of success of our earlier inquiries. The most tragic aspect of the matter, from a researcher’s standpoint, is that since all of Macbane’s other papers were incinerated at the time of his death, his entire reputation may have to rest on this one book.

Regarding Macbane’s wife, Isabel, we were also hopeful of finding more about her on the basis of the trial record, but so far we’ve had no luck. Unlike Macbane, she seems to have been kept too busy on her father’s farm to attend the parish school for a basic education. Illiteracy was the fate of most farm children of the day, especially girls. Sadly, it turned out to be one of the important factors in the murder of her husband.

Now that we know Macbane himself went to the parish school, we’re trying to find some documentation on the one located at Kilcorran. These schools existed in every town in Scotland before government-supported education was introduced, so no doubt a file on the Kilcorran school is tucked away in a dusty corner of the vaults of the Ministry of Education. From it we might learn something more about Macbane’s background and parentage, for example.

In sum, I’m very confident that there’s much yet to be uncovered. In my profession we tend to be optimistic. These recent findings show precisely why a curator must never give up.

Now, on a final, related note, I venture once more to beg you to consider donating your copy of The Obsidian Cloud to our permanent collection. I regret that we don’t have suf ficient funds for any kind of remuneration, especially since you’ve already been most generous. But we would certainly issue a tax receipt to you for an appropriate amount, if it would be of any use to you in Canada.

My plan for the book would be to have it installed in one of our special book display boxes in the exhibit area of the centre. These boxes are generally used to show off the works of the great luminaries of Scottish literature: first editions of Hume, Scott, and Stevenson are in one of the boxes right now. But we pride ourselves on showcasing less well-known literary curiosities we feel are deserving of special attention. The Obsidian Cloud would certainly fill that bill.

I myself will be writing a detailed account of our discoveries regarding Macbane in the feature article of the spring issue of Archivists Quarterly. Naturally, you will be fully credited there for your involvement. I am certain the book will become a subject of great interest to scholars of the period. In the not too distant future, I fully expect to see new editions of it in print.

Again, thank you on behalf of the National Cultural Centre for having put The Obsidian Cloud into our hands in the first place. I do look forward to hearing your intentions regarding its ultimate disposal and hope you will consider this institution a worthy recipient.

Yours, etc.

Soulis.

4

I was as appalled at Soulis’s findings as he was elated.

From his point of view as a curator, it was a job well done. He and his assistant had managed to unearth some key answers to what had at first looked like an insoluble mystery. Most importantly they’d established that a man called Revon Macbane really had once existed, and that this man was indeed the author of The Obsidian Cloud.

In his letter, Soulis barely mentioned Macbane’s brutal death. For him the murderers’ truly unforgivable action seemed to be the incinerating of Macbane’s other papers, which would have been invaluable for scholars.

BUT I WAS NO CURATOR. My link to Macbane and his book was an intimate matter — I’d come to think of him as my author, my discovery. For me, the revelation of how he’d died was as shocking as if I’d just heard that a close friend had been sadistically tortured and murdered.

Indeed, reading the letter only strengthened the feeling that my relationship with Macbane was a special one. I’d always thought it curious enough that Mexico, of all places, was where I’d stumbled on the weird old book that evoked a moment in my own past in Scotland. Now, to find out that Macbane himself had had an actual, physical link — if only in the form of this Señora Vasquez — with Mexico!

Nor could I ever forget the most important way in which Macbane’s life intersected with my own — that, but for him, I’d probably never have known of Sarah’s existence. I owed him a profound debt of gratitude. Which made it all the harder to bear the thought that his brutal murder meant he’d never hold what might be his own child in his arms.

In my frame of mind, Soulis’s letter really was appalling. If I’d even remotely guessed what his research would uncover, I wouldn’t have considered putting the book into his hands. It was almost as though, by making that research possible, I myself had murdered Macbane.

SO THAT WAS my first reaction — regret that I’d ever sent The Obsidian Cloud to Soulis in the first place. By letting the book out of my safekeeping, I’d betrayed Macbane. Because of my curiosity, he’d been dragged into a callous world of “facts” where his weird book and his mutilated body would qualify equally as grist for the scholarly mill.

BUT IN TIME, when I calmed down, I realized that my instinctive response to Soulis’s letter was just a selfish whim. Book lovers naturally do feel a kind of possessiveness and protectiveness in how they relate to certain authors and books, as though they were pets.

No, I’d done the right thing sending the book to Soulis. If by some miracle Macbane could have foreseen that over a century later a copy of The Obsidian Cloud would be found a world away from the Uplands in the Bookstore de Mexico, he certainly wouldn’t have wanted the finder to keep it all to himself. His dying words clearly show that. He’d have hoped his book would become known to others, not kept hidden in a vault like some rare painting for a private collector’s unique viewing pleasure.

He’d have applauded my decision to bring it to the attention of a man like Soulis, and maybe through him to a wider audience than he’d found in his life.

Anyway, one thing would always be mine alone: the experience of discovering The Obsidian Cloud. When I opened that old quarto for the first time and saw there on the title page the word “Duncairn,” I could almost have believed the book had been waiting for me, had somehow chosen me — a man with his own private mystery in Duncairn — to bring its mysteries to light.

Of course, I’m aware that the very idea of a book having such powers is just romantic nonsense. Yet even to this day, thinking about that moment causes the little hairs on the back of my neck to rise, just as they once did in the oddly named Bookstore de Mexico in the sweltering heat of La Verdad.