Rhona started leaving nearly every night after Aonghas was asleep, like she had the night The Silence had begun. There would be the swoosh of the shawl as it was tugged from the peg; the thump of the door closing; then another hour or so before she came back. The return was always even quieter than the leaving: only the sea-smell gave Rhona away completely.
One night, Catriona decided to follow her mother. She waited a few minutes after hearing the door closed shut, then slipped from under her blanket and padded over to the door. She stood there for a moment, her face against the wood, listening to the crackling of her father’s snores. Then she tugged her own shawl from the peg and stepped outside.
The cold hit her face first and she turned towards the village. But there was no flicker of movement on the path, only dark houses, all the way down to the shoreline. She turned towards the cliff and that’s when she caught sight of a figure, picking its way up the hill. Catriona drew her shawl closer to her body and began to follow.
The heather was stiff under Catriona’s bare feet; the first hard frost had come a few nights after The Winds, and it wouldn’t be long until winter was upon them, full and dark. Three stars were visible in the half-clouded sky but they offered little light. It was as if they simply existed to bear witness to the scene below: two figures, one following the other. But that was all right. Catriona didn’t need much light to go up Rua Ùige. She knew the traces of its spine, how it curved down to the cliff and rolled over onto its shoulder, shrinking away into the outline of Skye.
Rhona was heading to the outcropping of rocks at the edge of Rua Ùige‘s shoulder. The outcropping that if you fell, you would go deep, deep into the ocean’s body, never to return. Catriona hung back for a moment. Even in the darkness, Catriona could see that Rhona’s steps were full and sure. Catriona let herself edge a bit further towards the sea, until she was nearly parallel with Rhona and stopped.
Rhona reached the top of the rocks and stood there, head bent toward the sea. Then she folded herself and knelt down, so that from where Catriona was standing, Rhona’s shape blurred with the blackness. Body fusing with night. Catriona wondered suddenly if other girls had ever followed their mothers like this, if their mothers ever slipped into the night and returned with the sea-smell fastened to them. She thought probably not, and if they did, they returned with a warm man-smell on them.
The dark shape that was Rhona suddenly rose and stood, head bowed. Catriona crept closer. She could see Rhona’s outline broken into distinguishable parts: the edge of the skirt, just above the bare feet; the shawl, hanging down over both sides of the arms in square silhouettes; and the hair, stretched out in the wind in thick bands. Catriona stopped and stared down at the outcropping. No one she knew had ever fallen, but she had heard that someone had fallen once. But they had said that was because he wanted to. That the Next Life was the Right Life for him.
Rhona lifted her head up. She opened her mouth and the words came out:
Tha mi gur n-ionndrainn. Tha mi ag iarraidh tilleadh.
aaaI miss you. I want to return.
The words hovered and then broke on Catriona. The three-starred universe collided with itself and chose to collapse on Catriona, there in that moment. She sank to the ground and covered her eyes with her fingers, afraid to look up. Afraid of seeing nothing, for nothing would mean Rhona had left this life and gone to the sea.
But then again, her mother’s voice to the sea:
Ach, chan urrainn dhomh. Chan urrainn a-nis co-dhiù.
But I can’t. Not now, anyway.
And then the sound of feet on the rocks, the crackling of heather under feet. Catriona moved her fingers away from her eyes and saw her mother half-running, half-walking away from the outcropping.
Catriona didn’t feel any sounds as she ran down the hill through the heather. The sounds had stopped, just like the words had stopped. But, unlike the other day when The Silence had brought a calm gray feeling to Catriona’s mind, tonight the feeling was a swelling blackness. Like the mouth of a fresh cut when the blood first presses out. A blackness that if Catriona let it, could take everything away.
Catriona squeezed her legs harder and ran faster. The clouds had peeled themselves away from the moon and it shone like a stone, cold and white. Catriona stopped, feeling her breath come in gulps. She looked down the hill and for a moment saw nothing, only darkness.
Then she saw the outline. The outline that meant that the world had stayed its collision, that tonight was just another half-clouded, three-starred night, that tomorrow the sun would screech from the hollows of the earth and rise.
—
Catriona woke in the grey that hovers between darkness and dawn. She pushed the blankets away and stood up. Rhona was bent over the fire. Her dark hair hung down her back and Catriona thought of last night, when it was stretched in the wind and Rhona’s face was like a little white moon in a sea of hair. Catriona wanted to run to her mother and embrace her. To hold her and make sure she could feel Rhona’s flesh, real and warm, in her arms.
But instead, Catriona dressed herself. Not quickly, not slowly, but simply dressed herself in neat, mechanical movements. Then she went to the table and saw a plate, heaped with scones. All nearly the same size. Rhona turned. On her face was a sort of smile: lips and cheeks raised, but missing all the joy that usually goes with smiles. As if the lips and cheeks couldn’t reach deep enough to find the happiness, but rose anyway, like a bucket from an empty well.
Catriona offered a smile back and sat down. The Empty Feeling flickered inside of her as she ate her scone and watched Rhona’s shoulder’s blades move under her grey dress. As if Rhona were part of the sea: every bit of her body a slice of wave; some foam; a long, undulating nothingness that eventually turned into more nothingness. Catriona walked over to the spinning wheel, keeping her eyes on Rhona the whole time. She began to pull the wool through her hands in neat, precise motions. The thread filtered through her hands, her foot stamped the pedal. It was as if the body was one being and the mind another. The body spun while the mind fixated on the grey dress putting peat on the fire, stirring the stew.
The grey dress flitted in the house shadows until they thickened into night. A candle was lit. Aonghas returned. The table was laid with stew and scones. Catriona felt her body rising and moving toward the table. Sitting down. Everything normal except for The Silence on the female side of the table and the words that fell like salt from the male side of the table.
Catriona watched as her mother put stew in her mouth, chewed a lump of potato. Catriona realised that her father was probably watching Catriona staring, but Catriona didn’t care. If Rhona was here, that meant she wasn’t in the sea. That the universe hadn’t collided with itself.
Not yet, anyway.
The meal was finished. The dishes were cleared and washed. Catriona and Rhona took their places by the fire, mending by its light and the one candle. Aonghas took his pipe, drawing the smoke out in long breaths. The candle became whittled by its own flame. It died. They went to bed.
Catriona lay there, wondering how long it would be before the feet and shawl and door-closing sounds. There was no moonlight through the window, just darkness, yet Catriona saw shapes moving against her eyes when she closed them. Purple pressing against the eyelids, floating pieces of nothingness that were somehow so distinct in their shape-feeling. As if they had always been there, always known this exact time and this exact space.
The purple was receding as Catriona heard feet sounds. But there was no shawl sound to accompany them.
Catriona realised the feet sounds were moving toward her.
She lay very still. Rhona’s presence would have been like shadow, but it was too dark to have shadows; it was like the purple shapes, yet somehow felt less fixed in this space, this time.
Then the words, in a whisper:
Tha fhios a’m gun do lean thu mi a-raoir. Is chuala tu na thuirt mi. Ach na gabh dragh mu sin.
I know you followed me last night. And you heard what I said. But don’t worry.
And her finger at Catriona’s hair, nothing more than a finger, feathery and cold, but so very gentle. And the words:
Tha mi airson tilleadh. Ach chan urrainn dhomh. Air sgàth ‘s gu bheil thusa an seo.
I want to return. But I can’t. Because you are here.
Then the finger, the feet, everything moving away from Catriona. And Catriona suddenly feeling lifted. Light. Warm.
The Empty Feeling was gone and it its place a warm, steady glow.
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(Photo: Lauri Sten/flickr.com/ CC BY 2.0)
- Half-clouded Sky, by Cassie Smith-Christmas - August 26, 2021