18. McAlisters
No sooner had the girls gone to sleep, when Morrigan rapped her beak on the window.
“Ugh, that bird again!” Medea muttered.
“I can’t open my eyes, I’m too tired,” Electra murmured.
Under the pouring rain, Morrigan continued to rap the glass with her white beak.
“Get up, let her in,” Electra murmured again, her voice sleepy.
Yawning, Cassandra waddled to the window, rubbing her eyes on the way. She opened the shutters and the rain gushed inside along with the ivory-colored crow, which perched on Medea’s bedhead and cawed, making her start.
Medea grabbed her pillow and swung it above her head, but the crow dodged the blow and settled down on the top of an old cheval glass.
Cassandra closed the window and turned to the bird. “What has happened, Morrigan? Why won’t you let us rest a bit?” she asked sleepily, getting back into her warm bed and burying her bare feet under the blanket. She had just put her head on the pillow and was about to begin dreaming when Morrigan cawed loudly. Cassandra jumped up.
“McAlisters! At Cauldron and Broom! Hurry!”
In ten minutes, the witches were already leaving the castle. To their luck, Medea didn’t occupy their bathroom for half an hour as she usually did every morning. Upon hearing the McAlisters’ name, she got ready almost as quickly as her sisters. This was something they had faced already two months ago, when the McAlister clan was passing across Hollow and decided to find haven from the merciless rain in Cauldron and Broom. How many had there been? Twelve? Fifteen? Electra was sure she had counted at least twenty Scotsmen, and some of them were so alike she kept forgetting if it was Dougal whose mug she replenished, or if it was Malcolm who kept telling her to bring him more ale. Then there were Ranald, Tavish, Lachlan, Hamish, Gillian, Kenneth, Finlay, Donnan, and Somerled, and all of them big, loud, noisy, and not averse to having good pork or fine ale.
When the girls reached the restaurant, the feast had already begun. An oblong table was stretched from one side of the hall to the other, breaking under all kinds of food and mugs full of ale. The members of the clan were minding their food and chatting so loudly that people from the neighboring houses peeped their heads through the windows to see what was happening in the restaurant, until they were driven back into their homes by the furious rain.
The three waitresses were running from one end of the table to the other, looking like lost children in the crowd of auburn-haired, long-bearded Scots.
“There are the young ladies!” Boyd, the youngest of the clan, said.
“Greetings to you!” roared Ranald, the one with the longest beard, with food leftovers stuck inside that thicket. “Which of you will be kind enough to fill my mug with ale?”
“I hope that this time my tips will be more comforting,” Medea muttered, heading to the kitchen, where her Aunt and two other cooks were rushing from the oven to the pantry, and from the pantry to the basin, carrying vegetables, fish, lamb, and chicken, cutting, boiling, roasting, and toasting.
“Oh, girls, thank heavens you are here,” Andromeda said, cutting the paprika. “We didn’t think our guests would arrive so early in the morning. Apparently they came for breakfast, when I was expecting them for dinner.”
“Breakfast, sure.” Medea looked around, wondering what to start with. “They ask for ale already.”
“As you are here, you will help us,” said Andromeda, getting the Haggis rolls out of the oven. “Les, you may take this.”
The waitress masterfully took the three dishes and disappeared behind the door. Just then the other waitress entered the kitchen.
“Oh, Mrs. Fitzroy, now they want roasted pork with beans in lemon juice, tomato soup, Cornish pastries, crusted lamb with roasted vegetables, blueberry mousse and carrot cake with icing, salmon with pineapple and green peas, and the best ale we can offer!”
“Huh?” was all the three witches managed to say before the shelves with the cookware opened.
“Ready?” Andromeda said, cleaning the fish scales. The girls stared at the shelves in anticipation. “Electra—Cornish pastries; Medea—carrot cake; Cassandra—blueberry mousse. Go!”
The cups, plates, and cutlery jumped into the girls’ hands. It seemed as if the kitchen utensils knew what each of the girls was going to prepare, as the pastry wheel and brush leaped at Electra, while the whisk and the grater appeared in Cassandra’s and Medea’s hands accordingly. Carrots and swedes soared across the kitchen and landed in the basin. The kitchen utensils knew exactly when to appear and where to spring, as the salt shaker, sugar box, flour gab, bowls and glasses kept flying from one side of the kitchen to the other right when the girls would turn around to get them.
“Ouch!” Medea yelled when she made a wrong turn, and a potato hit her on the forehead. “Silly vegetable,” she muttered, mixing the icing sugar with the cream cheese.
“Put some ice on it,” Electra told her, decorating pastries with pickled onions and cherry tomatoes. Finishing, she placed them on a tray and hurried into the hall, where their guests were competing to see who could swallow the biggest piece of pumpkin pie.
“Elvira, more ale!” Finlay shook his empty mug at Electra. She didn’t correct him.
“I’d love some more soup,” said Dougal, putting his emptied bowl on Electra’s tray.
“Loved the pork and the gravy.” And Tavish placed another empty plate on the tray. After Electra circled the table, putting the pastries into the guests’ plates, her tray became heavy with empty dishes and mugs.
“Ale and music!” she heard behind her back, trying to get inside the kitchen without dropping the dishes off the tray.
“Medea, they seem to be calling you,” she told her sister as Medea was taking the carrot cake out of the fridge.
“Why’s that?”
“They ask for music. Your violin is in the corner. Go, amuse our guests.”
Medea took the cake into the hall, and some time later everyone in the kitchen heard the jaunty music of the fiddler. In a heartbeat, clapping and bagpipes joined Medea’s Celtic fiddle. The noise increased, and those in the kitchen heard the Scotsmen hitting their mugs on the table.
“Battle of Harlaw!” someone shouted. The sounds of merry music drifted into the kitchen. One of the Scotsmen began singing, and the rest of the clan joined him:
“As I cam' in by Dunideer3
and doon by Nether Ha'
There were fifty thoosand' heilan' men
a-marchin' tae Harlaw.
Wi' a diddy aye o' an' a fal an' doe
And a diddy aye o' aye ay.
“As I gaed on an' farther on
and doon an' by Balquhain
Oh it's there I saw Sir James the Rose
and wi' him John the Graeme.
Wi' a diddy aye o' an' a fal an' doe
And a diddy aye o' aye ay.
“"It's cam' ye fae the Heilan's man,
cam' ye a' the wey?
Saw ye MacDonald and his men
as they cam' in fae Skye?"
Wi' a diddy aye o' an' a fal an' doe
And a diddy aye o' aye ay.”
Electra and Cassandra peeped into the hall. The McAlister clan, in similar tartan kilts, with auburn hair and beards, in a merry mood that the mugs of ale had caused, were dancing around the table. Two of the Scotsmen were playing the bagpipes, and Medea was leaping on the table, with the violin in her hands. Two young members of the clan, fair-faced brothers Eoin and Olghar, climbed onto the table and joined Medea’s happy jig, singing:
“"Oh na, na, my brither bold,
This thing will nivver be
Ye'll tak yer guid sword in yer haun',
ye'll gang in wi' me."
Wi' a diddy aye o' an' a fal an' doe
And a diddy aye o' aye ay.
“Well, it's back tae back the brithers bold
gaed in amangst the thrang
And they drave back the heilan' men
wi' swords baith sharp
and lang.
Wi' a diddy aye o' an' a fal an' doe
And a diddy aye o' aye ay.”
Eoin and Olghar beckoned Tavish McAlister and pulled the portly and clumsy figure on the table. Tavish began singing and trying to hop as agilely as the young brothers. His foot slipped on spilled ale and he nearly crashed down, but tall Ranald and massive Gillian caught him in time and pushed him back on the table, giving out a roaring guffaw.
Eoin saw Electra and Cassandra by the door, and beckoned them to the table.
“Ladies here!” green-eyed Kenneth yelled to the brothers. “Don’t jump too high!”
Eoin and Olghar stretched their arms and pulled Electra and Cassandra on the table.
“Some rade, some ran and some did gang,
They were o' sma' record
For Forbes and his merry men,
They slew them on the road
Wi' a diddy aye o' an' a fal an' doe
And a diddy aye o' aye ay.
“O' fifty thoosan' Heilan' men,
But fifty-three gaed hame.
And oot o' a' the Lawlan' men,
Fifty marched wi' Graeme,
Wi' a diddy aye o' an' a fal an' doe
And a diddy aye o' aye ay.”
After the guests sang every song they knew, danced as much as their legs could, and the torrent ceased, the McAlister Clan decided it was time to go.
“Thank you for the hospitality, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzroy,” Somerled, the oldest of the clan, was saying, standing by the door while the clan members came out one after the other. “I didn’t want to believe your premonitions, but I see now why you are so worried. Something will happen very soon. I can feel it. I can see it. Nature never lies; it feels the upcoming storm and has been warning us all to be ready.”
“I wish we could stop this somehow,” Colin said.
“You know you can’t. They will come. I can feel their vile breath already. But you know you might have the chance to stop it for once and for all. Fight back when they come. Destroy them to the very last one, and get rid of them forever.”
“Your words are full of sense, my friend, but you were here thirteen years ago. You saw what happened.”
“I remember that dark night.” The old Scot’s eyes filled with sorrow. “For one and a half centuries I have been walking the Earth, but even another hundred and fifty years will not erase the memories of that one night.” He tapped Colin on the shoulder. “If ever the McAlisters can be of help, you know where to find us,” Somerled said before following his clan. “One call, and we will come and stand by your side. McAlisters don’t forget their friends.”
19. The Silver Key
For the last fifteen minutes Caitlin McCormack had been staring at the roast turkey, trying to make a decision about its fate. Should she send it back into the kitchen to heat it up, or should she wait a little more? It had been getting cold, maybe she needed to heat it up a little? But what if just at that very moment Peter comes to the dining room? He will chide her if the meal is not on the table. But what if it gets cold before he comes for dinner? Then he will be angry with her. He is always upset when she doesn’t do her duty. “Is it so hard to prepare dinner?” Peter will tell her. “It’s not like you’re making a vase from a carnival glass.”
Caitlin didn’t take her eyes off the roast turkey. It was probably cold already, but if she told Mesida to warm it up, the meat would become dry. Peter hated when that happened. He was so precise; he liked order. Everything should be in order. Caitlin looked at the table. Is everything in order? The saltcellar and the pepper pot should stand together on the right side of the jar with compote. She looked inside the jar. The ice hadn’t melted away. Peter hates when the ice melts away; then the compote becomes watery. But without ice it’s too warm. Peter likes to have cold compote. What about the napkins? Yes, they seem to have the correct color and design. Peter hates those colorful napkins. Once Caitlin was inattentive and didn’t notice that the maid had wrapped the napkins into swan figures. Peter became very angry that evening. He doesn’t like it when napkins are turned into figures. “I can’t wipe my mouth with a swan,” he said then. But now the napkins are plain white and in a simple triangular form—the correct form. At the moment, the question was whether to send the roast turkey back to the kitchen or not. The whole world now revolved around that turkey. Caitlin stared at it. Peter knew it was dinnertime. He was probably on his way to the dining room.
“Can we start already?” Dickens asked.
“No, dear, we should wait for your father.”
Dickens leaned his jaw on his palm and began drumming fingers on the table. The silence lasted almost a minute.
“Shall I go call him?” Dinah asked.
“No need to do that. He’ll come in a minute, and then we shall eat.”
“This is ridiculous,” Dickens muttered. “If he decides to stay in his study the whole evening, are we going to starve?”
“Dickens, patience is a virtue. And we should respect your father.”
“Sure, the way he respects us.”
After another minute of waiting, Dickens pushed his plate away and left the table. His mother called after him, but he didn’t come back. After another minute, Caitlin called the maid and told her to take the turkey to the kitchen and heat it up. Dinah was looking at her mother and shaking her head. Sometimes she doubted that Caitlin was indeed her mother. They were so different. She was so confident, quick-witted, and smart, and Caitlin so slavish, unsure, and tiring.
At last Peter McCormack appeared and without a word sat at the head of the table. Caitlin paled. Why had she sent that turkey to the kitchen? She bit her lips and didn’t dare raise her eyes. But Peter said nothing. He sat with an impassive face and looked at the center of the table. The main meal was missing. His silence was worse than his fury. Caitlin wished he would shout at her, or would throw a plate on the floor and break it. She wished he'd say something, even if those would be words of condemnation, but Peter was silent. And that silence was agonizing.
Mesida brought the turkey back. As Caitlin had predicted, it had become dry. And the ice in the compote had melted away. They ate in painful silence. Then Peter wiped his mouth with the napkin and left the table in the same silent way.
Dinah went after her father and knocked at the door of his study.
“Father, it’s me, may I come in?”
“Yes, my child,” Peter said. Dinah entered the study, and a faint smile appeared on Peter’s face.
“I didn’t want to bother you, Father, but I need to talk.”
“You never bother me, my precious. Has anything happened? You seem worried.”
“Yes, Father, I have done something and I need your advice.”
Peter sunk deeper into his armchair. “Tell me. Do not fear anything.”
“I did something to fight our enemies, but now I’m not sure if it was the correct thing to do.”
“Why do you think it wasn’t the correct thing?”
“I was aiming at them, Father, but now I realize that others may get hurt, too.”
For some time Peter looked at her without saying a word. Dinah thought he would get angry, but Peter was smiling.
“You remind me of one girl,” he spoke at last. “You are as pretty and as smart. You could be her daughter… There is no battle without loss, Dinah. If it might cause harm to our enemies and weaken them, then you have done the right thing.”
Those were the words Dinah was longing to hear. She left her father’s study with a calmer heart, feeling as if a heavy burden had fallen off her shoulders.
Dinah went to her room, on her way recollecting the events that had led her to Taidgroth. The idea to open the door of the second cave came to her when she heard bits of conversation behind the door of their living room. One spring evening, the sheriff called a Council meeting in the McCormack’s house. Dinah remembered well the misty evening when the members of the Council one after the other arrived at their house. First, her uncle Ma
gnus McCormack came. Dinah was sitting on the swing in the yard, looking at the carriages shrouded in mist that carried the members of the Council to their house. Her uncle walked down the path, his face grave and thoughtful. He didn’t even see her. Or pretended that he didn’t. Then Louis Baldric arrived. In the thick mist his corpulent figure resembled a walking barrel, and Dinah tried hard not to laugh at him. But the smile vanished as soon as she saw the silhouette of a woman walking next to Mr. Baldric—his wife Esther. Dressed in black, with a veil over her face, she paced to the door, her head straight, and poise stately. Five minutes later, Manfred Van Balen arrived. Then Derek Iron and Caspar O’Neal appeared on the tiled path. The last was Sheriff De Roy, in a hooded cloak, akin to a ghostly shape inside the grey fog, walking in silence, absorbed in thoughts of the darkest nature and spiteful intentions.
Dinah sat on the swing so long that the menacing obscurity around the house aggravated her fears that something vague and ghostlike was lurking in the fog. It could have been the wind that stirred the bushes and branches, or that thing that had come to life on the Halloween night. Dinah hurried inside, and in the living room saw her father, the five Council members, Sheriff De Roy, and Mrs. Baldric.
“Go to your room, my child,” Peter told her. “This is a conversation between the adults.”
Dinah went upstairs and found her mother in the small lounge. Caitlin was standing by the window, eyeing the trees outside, and shuddering from the sound of the wind that was howling wildly.
Dinah looked at her mother’s timid figure and thought about Mrs. Baldric downstairs. How different these women are, she thought. They both were still and silent, but Esther Baldric was calm, straight, and proud, while Caitlin McCormack was wan and piteous.
“Mrs. Baldric is down there, she’ll be taking part in the meeting. Why won’t you?”
“Your father forbade me to come out of the room,” Caitlin said.
“Why?”
“I think he believes that the conversation should be between the men.”
“But I just told you that Mrs. Baldric is down there.”
“Mrs. Baldric is another type of woman.”
Dinah clenched her teeth. “It’s not about Mrs. Baldric; it’s about you being useless. And Father knows that. He feels embarrassed in your presence, because you always say the wrong things.”
Dickens appeared in the lounge.
“What about you?” Dinah asked. “He sent you away, too?”
“They said no children. And I couldn’t care less.”
“Of course you couldn’t, child.” Dinah smirked and stormed out, but stopped behind the door when she heard her mother call Dickens.
“My boy, I want to ask you something,” she said. “And I want you to promise me you will do as I ask.”
“What is it, Mother?”
“I want you to promise me that whatever your father decides tonight, you will do just as he says.”
Dickens didn’t say a word.
“Please,” she said. “Promise you will always do what he says, and will support him in his difficult task of banishing the witches.”
There was a long pause, then, “I promise.”
“But Dickens, you must mean it. You are giving me a promise which you should never break. There was a fellow who once made a similar promise. I was staying at their house that night; I overheard him talk to his mother. He made the same promise, but when the time came he refused to fulfil it. He broke his mother’s heart.”
“Who was that fellow?”
“His name is Colin Fitzroy.”
Another long pause followed. “I am no Colin Fitzroy,” Dickens said with confidence. “I will keep my promise.”
Losing interest in their conversation, Dinah went downstairs and tiptoed to the door of the living room.
“What if we publicly declare that the witch is dangerous and arrest her along with her family?” someone said. Dinah couldn’t recognize the voice. It was either Marion’s father Caspar O’Neal, or Thomas’s father, Louis Baldric.
“And how shall we prove it?” another voice said.
“Strange things had been happening in the town. One even occurred with Peter’s wife.”
“No, Derek, it’s not enough. Whatever it was, it is over now. Nothing of the kind has happened in the last months, and if we arrest the witch without any evidence, the West Bank will stand on their side.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“We need help. We can’t overcome the witches by ourselves. You all know that we need them. If we have them back in town, they will help us to banish the witches.”
That was Peter McCormack’s voice, Dinah would always recognize it.
“What if we open the cave door?” another male voice suggested.
Then there was silence and no one spoke for almost a minute.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” another voice said slowly. She recognized him—it was Sheriff De Roy. “Whatever comes out of the cave might hurt the ones on the East Bank as well. We can’t take that risk.”
“Still,” Peter said, “I like the idea about the cave. I still have the key; it’s in my library, inside a book. I can go there myself. I’m not afraid to enter that cave and open that door. Whatever comes out of it will throw the town into disarray. And maybe our saviors will be back sooner than we expect.”
“The sheriff is right,” another man said. “Whatever comes out of the cave may help us, but at the same time may hurt us. We had better wait a little bit more. I believe the Hunters might be back. We only need to plant a seed of hate and stand aside. That seed will grow into the disarray we need. The more the folks argue with each other, the sooner they will be back. Fights, frays and mistrust seem to beckon them like a magnet.”
The maid paced to the door of the living room, with a cup of coffee in her hand and a frown across her face. She didn’t pay any attention to Dinah, and entering the room, headed to Mrs. Baldric. The woman’s face was covered with a black veil she had been wearing outside since her eldest son died fourteen years ago.
“Your coffee, Ma’am.” The maid placed the cup on the table in front of Mrs. Baldric.
“Freshly made?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“No sugar?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Two spoons of milk?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Mrs. Baldric touched the cup. “It’s cold. I want it warmer.”
When Mesida left the living room and returned to the kitchen, Dinah could hear her swearing under her breath. She plastered her ear back on the door.
“I remember what this place looked like thirteen years ago,” said the only female voice in the room. “Witches and wizards, elves and dwarves. Wicked sorcerers, crazy mechanics, malicious stargazers. I hated the town and rarely left the house. Then we were saved by those merciful creatures. They saved us from that unnatural weirdness. Sadly, not before the witch poisoned my son. And sadly, they were not able to extirpate them. Their remains were spared, and the Hunters’ work was left unfinished. We need to finish what we all started thirteen years ago.”
“What do you suggest, Esther?”
Someone in the living room paced to the door, and Dinah rushed upstairs to her room before they caught her spying. Late at night, when the meeting was over, she sneaked into her father’s library and began searching for the key. Peter had forbidden his children to touch his books, but tonight Dinah was going to disrespect her father’s ban for the first time in her life. She took the books, opened them, looked inside, and put them back into the bookcase. The thick volume in a brown leather cover had a surprise for her: the insides of the book had been cut out, and a big silver key rested there. Dinah looked at the door of the library, listened attentively, and not hearing a sound, took the key out of the book. It was heavy and cold, incised with engravings. She put the key under her pillow, and spent the night thinking over what would happen if she opened the door of the cave.
; She went to the cave early in the morning. If she hesitated or postponed, she might change her mind or be a coward. The cave was dark and deep and chilly. As a child, she and her friends had been playing nearby, sometimes even venturing to enter the cave during a game of hide-and-seek, but never had any of them gone so deep into the darkness. The dim light of her lantern didn’t help to drive away the fear, but Dinah was determined to find out what kind of door was hidden in the depths of Imgroth. And to open it.
Although she didn’t see under her feet, she could feel the shallow water and the damp earth. Sometimes she’d shriek in fear when something would hover over her head, and her shriek would echo in the cave’s endless passages. She tried not to touch the walls and not to look at them, as the illuminated bedrocks would disclose disgusting creatures akin to spiders with shiny shells and prolonged limbs. Dinah shivered from their sight. Sometimes she wished she were blind, and would continue making her way through the cave by using her senses of hearing and touch rather than witnessing all the malevolent life forms that inhabited the depths of the cave. But still she didn’t turn off the light, and held the lantern before her eyes.
Trembling, breathing unevenly, she reached the door of the second cave. The iron panel was illuminated by dim sunlight slanting down through the cracks above. Dinah looked up and her gasp echoed in the cave. She heard bats flutter over the sculpture above the iron door: a stone face so appalling it left no more doubts about the horrors lurking behind it. A silent onlooker of the fear that possessed anyone who dared stand before its menacing appearance. The image was old, not a century old, but more ancient, with the traces of all the millennia it had spent in the silence of the cave.
Dinah forced herself to take a step. She was closer to the door now and saw the runes engraved across the door and on the walls around it. She didn’t know what they meant, but was sure they couldn’t carry a good message. This was the door with the horrors behind it, in the cave where, as the legends told, witches and other evils used to hide from just punishment.
Dinah took the key out of her pocket and put it inside the keyhole, but couldn’t turn it for almost a minute. She wasn’t sure that nothing would jump at her if she opened the door. What if a menacing creature was standing there, right behind the iron, waiting for her?
“You have to do this,” she whispered. “Do it and get rid of them.”
She turned the key and waited.
Nothing happened. Taking a deep breath, Dinah pulled the handle. The emptiness behind the door was terrifying. A sudden wail chilled her blood, and when a cold breath whiffed into her face, Dinah jumped back and shut the door. She pulled out the key without locking the door, and ran away as fast as she could.