On the Edge of Darkness. Barbara Erskine

– its special, wild magic.

      Reaching the stone he flung himself down at its foot and, sure that no one could see him save the distant circling buzzard, he abandoned himself at last to his tears.

      The girl had seen him coming, though. Often, before, she had noticed him, a boy about her own age, winding his way up through the heather and she had hidden, either behind the stone or amongst the trees, or in the soft, drifting mists which so often descended on this place.

      Three times lately she had heard him cry. It made her uncomfortable. She wanted to find out why he was so unhappy, to see him laugh and jump about as he had when he had brought the brown-and-white sheltie puppy with him. She had never approached him. She was not supposed to be here. Her brother would be furious if he knew she had strayed from his side, but she had grown bored with watching him carve the stone. The chisels, the small hammer, the punches, the tools of his trade laid out neatly on the heather with the rolled vellum template which he fastened to the stone to punch out the designs.

      The dog had seen her and barked, its hackles raised along its back. She was puzzled by that. Dogs usually liked her. But she kept her distance. She didn’t want the boy to see her.

      His tears were exhausted at last. Sitting up he sniffed and, rubbing his face with the sleeve of his sweater, he began to look round. Far above him he could hear the lonely yelp of an eagle. He squinted up into the blue but the glare behind the clouds was too bright and he shook his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them he saw the girl for a fraction of a second, peering at him from the trees. Startled, he jumped to his feet.

      ‘Hey! Hello?’ His call was carried away on the wind. ‘Where are you?’

      There was no sign of her. He ran a few steps towards the trees. ‘Come on. I’ve seen you! Show yourself!’ He hoped she hadn’t seen him crying. Blushing at the thought he peered amongst the soft, red, peeling trunks of the trees. But she had gone.

      It was twilight when he retraced his steps reluctantly towards the manse. From the path amongst the thickly growing trees on the steep bank of the burn as it tumbled towards the river he could see in the distance the lamp already lit in his father’s study window. Usually by now there would be a curl of blue smoke from the kitchen chimney but he couldn’t see it yet against the darkening sky. Nervously he wondered if Mrs Barron had stayed on to cook supper as she often did, or was his mother, an apron tied over her dress, standing in the kitchen wielding the huge iron pans?

      It was the back door he approached on tiptoe from the yard at the side of the manse. There was no one in the kitchen at all and no pans on the range. In fact the range was cold. With a sinking heart he crept out into the back hall and listened, half afraid that the quarrel would still be in progress, but the house was silent now. Breathing a quick sigh of relief, he tiptoed through to the front and stood for one long, daring moment outside his father’s study, then he turned and fled upstairs.

      His parents’ bedroom looked out over the wall towards the kirk. It was an austere room, the iron bed covered by a pale fawn counterpane, the heavy wooden furniture unrelieved by pictures or flowers. On his mother’s dressing table, uncluttered by make-up or scent or powder sat, side by side, neatly aligned, a matching ivory-backed hair brush, a clothes brush and a comb. Nothing else. Thomas Craig would not permit his wife to paint her face.

      Nervously Adam peered into the room, though he could sense already that it was empty. It was cold and north-facing, the room where he had been born. He hated it.

      Normally he liked the kitchen best. With the warmth from the range and the smells of cooking and the cheerful light-hearted banter between his mother and Jeannie Barron it was the nicest and most cheerful place to be. When his father was out. When his father was at home his dour, disapproving presence filled the house, Adam’s mother fell silent and even the birds in the garden seemed, to the boy, afraid to sing.

      Standing in the doorway, he was about to turn away when he paused, frowning. Like a small animal, alert, suspicious, he sensed that something was wrong. He looked round the room more carefully this time, but in its bleak tidiness it gave no clue as to what might be amiss.

      He had two bedrooms to himself. One, as sober and tidy as his parents’, his official bedroom, was next to theirs on the landing. But he had another room, up in the attic, known to his mother and Mrs Barron, but not, he was almost sure, to his father, who never climbed up there. In it he had a bright rag rug, and several old chests for the treasures and specimens which formed his museum, his books and his maps. It was up here, alone, when he was supposed to be doing his school work in his official bedroom, that he led his intensely private life; it was here that he wrote up his notes and copied diagrams and studied musty textbooks which he had picked up in second-hand bookshops in Perth, all designed to lead towards his ambition to be a doctor, and it was here that he sketched the birds he watched out on the hills and here he had once tried to dissect, then to dry and stuff the dead body of a fox he had found in a snare. Jeannie Barron had soon put paid to that enterprise, but otherwise the two women had left him more or less to his own devices up there. Today however it did not provide the sanctuary he had come to expect. He felt restless and unhappy. Something was very wrong.

      After only a few minutes’ leafing half-heartedly through a book on spiders he threw it down on the table and went out onto the landing. He listened for a moment, then he ran down the narrow upper flight of stairs, then the broader flight below and went to peer once more into the kitchen. It was as cheerless and empty as before.

      It was a long time before he plucked up enough courage to knock on the door of his father’s study.

      Thomas Craig was sitting at his desk, his hands folded before him on the blotter. He was a tall, rangy man, with a shock of dark hair threaded with silver, large, staring pale blue eyes and his skin, normally high-coloured, was today unusually pale.

      ‘Father?’ Adam’s voice was timid.

      There was no response.

      ‘Father, where is Mother?’

      His father looked up at last. There was a strange triangle of livid skin beneath each high cheekbone where his face had rested on the interlinked fingers of his hands. He propped himself wearily on his elbows on the desk, then cleared his throat as though for a moment he found it hard to speak. ‘She’s gone,’ he said at last, his voice lifeless.

      ‘Gone?’ Adam repeated the word uncomprehendingly.

      ‘Gone.’ Thomas lowered his face back into his hands.

      His son shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. An inexplicable pain had settled in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t dare look at his father’s face again, fixing his eyes instead on his own ragged plimsolls.

      Thomas sighed heavily. He looked up again. ‘Mrs Barron has seen fit to hand in her notice,’ he said at last, ‘so it would seem we are alone.’

      Adam swallowed. His voice when he spoke was very small. ‘Where has Mother gone?’

      ‘I don’t know. And I don’t wish to.’ Abruptly Thomas stood up. Pushing back his chair he walked over to the window and stood looking out into the garden. ‘Your mother, Adam, has committed a grievous sin. In the eyes of God, and in my eyes, she is no longer part of this family. I do not wish her name to be mentioned in this house again. Go to your room and pray that her evil ways have not corrupted you. A night without supper will do you no harm at all.’ He did not turn round.

      Adam stared at him, barely taking in what he had said. ‘But, Father, where has she gone?’ Little panicky waves of anguish were beginning to flutter in his chest. He wanted his mother very badly indeed.

      ‘Go to your room!’ Thomas’s voice, heavy with his own grief and anger and incomprehension, betrayed the depth of his emotion for only a moment.

      Adam did not try to question him again. Turning, he ran into the hall, out through the kitchen and on into the garden. It was growing dark, but he did not hesitate. Loping round the side of the house he headed down the silent street towards the river once more. Slipping on the rocks in the dark he felt his feet sliding into