Page 8 of The Midnight Secret

Jayne stared as hot words were exchanged between them briefly, before Donald took Effie away from the confrontation with a black-eyed look. But he didn’t see Effie turn back and nod to the other person, reluctantly though almost conspiratorially too.

Jayne frowned, confused by the encounter, and as she passed by the coffin cleit a few moments later, she glanced over to her right and saw Frank leaning against the stones.

Another shadow passed over her, her heart quickening as indistinct images surfaced – or were they memories? She looked again at the islanders walking back towards their cottages for the last time: Donald hastening Effie away; Effie’s furtive look back; Lorna standing in the McKinnons’ doorway...Jayne had a sense that nothing was quite as it seemed.

Only that players were already moving into position, and that the ending had begun.

Every cottage door was open, amber lights blazing through the windows as if the tiny isle was trying to announce itself to the moon, now high in the sky. They were approaching the midnight hour, the sea shushing its lullaby, but though the number of people lingering on the street had finally dwindled away, still voices carried through to outside, as if the villagers were restless and unnerved in their denuded homes. No one knew quite what to do with themselves. All evening Jayne had watched the comings and goings from the rocks, shrouded in the darkness as she knitted socks she didn’t need. Waiting.

She had seen Norman and Frank heading up earlier towards the cleits on Ruival, heads together as they strode out; she had watched as the Gillies brothers sat on the street wall, smokingtheir pipes. Effie had streaked towards the Am Blaid ridge like a white moth, flitting and darting and glancing back as she headed to see her friends in Glen Bay. The curtains had been drawn on Crabbit Mary’s bedroom window all evening – the only curtains still up in the village – but Lorna hadn’t come again to the doorway; too busy within? And she had seen David kiss his mother on the cheek and slip around to the back; away from the cottages, he was lost to the darkness, but she knew exactly where he was heading. She slowed her stitch rate, knitting several more rows to give him some time alone with Molly before she decided to head back to number two.

She slowly walked the grassy path, barefoot in the moonlight. If she had been in more of a rush, she wouldn’t have caught sight of Frank Mathieson’s stocky silhouette as he walked along the top of Mullach Bi, backlit by stars, and it stopped her in her tracks as she watched him heading for the ridge. The rush of static came again, flooding through her veins and rooting her to the spot.

It felt so unnatural to know what he did not, the stalled vision of his face, blood, rocks and a rusty knife flashing behind her eyes. It told her only who – not when, where, how or why.

Where was Norman? The question pressed into her consciousness and she swivelled her eyes, locked in a body that could channel but not direct. There was no sign of him that she could see from here, but the island had fallen into an inky immersion with only a narrow strip of lighter sky along the top of the cliffs. He could be anywhere on the moor, walking around on the far side in Glen Bay, or out of sight around Ruival by the Lover’s Stone, or meeting up with Frank on the saddle of the Am Blaid ridge.

Or heading back here alone, right now, their work done for the night.

She realized the thought frightened her – not of him catching her gone, but catching her here and stopping her from going at all. A sense of desperation emboldened her now that they were standing in the shadow of their dying hours here.

She ran the rest of the way home, and was grateful to find it still empty. Hurriedly, she left a message on the slate on the table:I’m at the burial ground if you need me. J.Beside it, she left a small stack of oatcakes, in case he should be hungry when he returned; she was hopeful that if he did come back, a weary body and full stomach would override any anger at her absence.

Grabbing the knitted bed blanket, she silently crept through the crepuscular pause, past the dyke and circling around to the burial ground gate. The high bowed walls rebounded the worst of the winds and contained within them a distilled silence, almost perfumed in its sweetness. She saw a dark shadow stir as the gate creaked on its hinge.

‘It’s only me,’ she whispered, already recognizing David’s lean, nervy silhouette as he pushed himself back up to sitting. She imagined him lying with his cheek on the ground, his tears spilling into the earth that now held his sweetheart.

‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ he said in a low voice, watching as she picked her way between the crosses towards him.

‘I was waiting on everyone going inside – and staying there. There’s a nervy air tonight.’ She threw her blanket on the ground and settled herself upon it, on the other side of the domed grave from him.

‘But why did you need to wait for them to go inside?’

She gave him a bewildered look. Did he really not see the impropriety? ‘Because us, sleeping out here together, isn’t exactly...’ She swallowed. ‘Usual.’

A deep flush – of anger, she supposed – rose to his cheeks. ‘But we’re not...’

‘Of course we’re not,’ she said quickly, not wanting to hear the vehemence of the refutation. ‘But you know the gossip’s mouth is the devil’s postbag.’ She arranged her skirts, eager for the distraction. It felt impossible to look at him while discussing this. The thought had clearly never occurred to him that she was a married woman. Another man’s wife. The thought of ‘only Jayne’ at the heart of a scandal was probably ludicrous to him.

‘So then what did you tell Norman?’ he asked after a moment.

She swallowed. ‘I didn’t. He’s still out working, but I left a note saying where he can find me if he needs to.’

‘Does he know I’m here too?’

‘...No.’ She felt David’s eyes scanning over her, perplexed by her evasiveness. To him she had only ever been Molly’s sister-in-law, and even as she had slowly become his unexpected new friend and confidante, he still didn’t fully seeher. She wasn’t sure anyone ever had. Her so-called ‘gift’ kept people at bay, a magnetic field that repelled them whether they realized it or not. ‘He’s been on a short fuse all week. I’m not looking for reasons to make him lose his temper.’ She was well aware of the village’s pity for her when Norman’s sporadic storming rages saw him move out of the cottage to the byre. No one seemed to have any idea that he was so much worse when he was quiet. ‘Did you tell your family you were coming here?’

‘Of course.’

‘And did you tell them I’d be here too?’

His eyes flickered in her direction and away again. ‘Well, actually, no...There didn’t seem any need to mention it.’He plucked at the grass as she raised an eyebrow. Neither Christina nor Archie had tempers on them. ‘So what’s Norman still doing out at this hour anyway?’ he asked after a pause.

‘Helping the factor.’

‘...With what?’

She shrugged. ‘He says MacLeod is making Mathieson check all the cleits to make sure nothing is left behind.’

---