The Loanhead of Daviot Stone Circle, as it was called, was just a bunch of 4000-year-old rocks. Sure, the spot offered a nice broad view of the countryside to the north and east, but aside from that, it was just a dozen rocks put in a circle being eaten away by time and seasonal frost. The north-east of Scotland was very rich in stone circles and other Druidic remnants, and so our circle put the tiny village where my grandparents lived on the tourists’ map. Not coincidentally, it also helped keep the village’s only pub in business.
We’d often walk up there with my grandmother. She’d tell me tales of old, how the residents of the area used the interior of the circle to bury the cremated remains of their dead.
A chill ran through me at the memory, making me return my attention to the sky above. I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen the Mirrie Dancers, as we Scots call the Aurora Borealis. It must have been some forty or fifty years ago. Grandma Gordon used to say they were like bad omens, a manifestation of dark spirits setting the skies ablaze. That grim thought remained with me. While others marvelled at the Northern Lights, I’d always looked at that strange, eerie display with mixed feelings.
I sighed as I took in the haze of yellow, green, and purple looming over the cove. If this was the herald of bad news, the dancers were a month and a half late. I smirked, thinking that maybe this island was so remote, that’s how long it took for them to deliver the bad news.
The smile faded as more thoughts drifted back to me, long-forgotten—or so I’d thought. She’d been an odd one, Grandma Gordon, but then, she was part of the House of Gordon. Apples never fell far from the tree in that family. And some tree that was, with roots that ran wide and deep and going as far back as 1200AD and King Malcolm III of Scotland.
I grew up listening to tales recounting the Clan’s glorious past. It always started with the exploits of George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly, his men defeating an English army at the Battle of Haddon Rig in 1542. Then came the ghastly story of the banquet at the Forbes’s Druminnor Castle in 1571, where twenty Gordons were killed. Of course, that one was always followed by the retelling of another massacre, this time of twenty-seven Forbeses of Towie at Corgarff Castle. No crime against the Clan ever went unpunished.
And on and on the history went. I remembered a painting of the brave George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly, who led Clan Gordon to victory at the Battle of Alford in 1645. I’d read the tales of the fierce regiments of clansmen who fought the Hanoverians in 1745.
I knew Father met with the current head of the Clan, the 13th Marquess of Huntly, several times. But I’d never had that privilege… not that I’d ever wanted to. Scotland wasn’t what it used to be and neither were the clans. The blood of our forefathers had ensured the lines endured, but any nobility of their actions or reasons for their sacrifices weren’t so much mentioned while the gruesome tallying of their body counts kept going on and on.
For all his prancing and prawning, Father got very little out of his meetings with the Marquess. I don’t know if he was hoping for a title or some land. I do know that he got neither. I may have been to blame for some of that. Surely it wasn’t coincidental that his first meeting with the Marquess was mere months before my 18th birthday. Though he never said anything to my face, I have little doubt that Father was trying to secure me an advantageous marriage.
Just like it was no coincidence either that, during that same year, I secured myself a life well beyond his reach. My first job was with a British bank that had offices in Manhattan in the USA. As soon as I heard there was an opening there, I was on a Pan Am flight to New York. I’d been bouncing round the globe ever since, never spending more than a couple of weeks per year on my forefathers’ land.
As a result, I never married, never gave my father the long-awaited male heir he’d been pining for. Another failure for him, which he added to the long list of reprimands and resentments he had against me.
The Gordons had fought on through the centuries, mighty warriors leaving behind a legacy to look up to. And all of that for what? What had it all culminated into? Just an old man on a deserted island without a hope of being found.
Two days later, I woke up with a sore throat. As the cold took hold of me, it only got worse. A strong fever weakened my already battered body and so I spend several days in a haze. I found myself caught between hallucinations and haunting dreams, hopes clashing with fears, dreams mingling with nightmares.
Unable to hunt, my food supplies started to dwindle by the fourth day. Not that I felt that hungry, but starving yourself when you’re this sick is never good. Half asleep, limbs aching and trembling, I tried climbing up the path to reach the forest in the hopes of finding some edible mushrooms or berries. I went a grand total of three steps before I twisted my ankle and fell to the forest floor. Just to add injury to more injury, I cut open my left hand on some rock in the process.
I rolled a spare shirt around the wound and spent the rest of the day cradling it against my chest. I kept alternating between sleep and slumber, suffering through cold chills and feverish sweats. I would have kept within the tent for another day, but thirst got the better of me. A night spent coughing and sneezing had left my throat raw. I’d have hacked off a limb for some warm tea and a dollop of honey. As it stood, I had to make do with what little rainwater the buckets and jars I’d placed near the tent had collected.
After filling up an empty bottle to the brim, I turned to walk back to the tent. I damn near coughed up a lung as I stood back up. Before I could go inside, something caught the corner of my eye. A man was standing in the bay. Though he had water up to his knees, he didn’t seem perturbed by the cold.
Every single part of me wanted to get back to the warm cocoon of clothes and blue and yellow blankets I had in the tent. Back to sleep and forgetfulness, far away from the biting wind. But I couldn’t move.
The man’s outline was familiar. It should have been. I’d known that tall, rigid silhouette the instant I’d laid eyes on him, even though he was facing away. A cough later, my feet started walking on their own. One step, then another, then yet another towards that man I knew couldn’t be there. I blinked hard, once, twice, four times… and the man was still there, impossible though it was.
I’d stopped just shy of the waves’ reach when my father turned towards me. He levelled a gaze at me that could freeze the ocean itself. He was the same as the day I’d last seen him, a little over six years ago.
It was at my cousin’s funeral. Gerard had died at the age of forty-eight from pancreatic cancer. He was gone four months after first hearing the diagnosis. If it’d been anyone else, I wouldn’t have come, but Gerard and I had been close when we were kids. Our parents had lived on the same street. As soon as his mum deemed me old enough to look after him, I’d take the little brat on hour-long bike rides out in the countryside. I would sit on the saddle and hold on to the handlebar grips while Gerard sat on the rear luggage carrier, holding onto me tight. The feeling of his tiny arms, just large enough to encircle my waist, was strong as I entered the church. His delighted cries of, “Go faster, Killian, go faster!” echoed with my every step.
I stayed near the back of the church for the service, making a point not to sit in the same aisle as my father. That way, I could do my best to ignore his presence as the ceremony went on. That was the very reason I’d showed up at the last minute, betting on the first couple of rows to be full.
But I hadn’t been able to avoid a run-in with my father later that afternoon. The mourners had gathered in the nearest pub; we couldn’t miss each other in that cramped up place. That tends to happen when you were the only two people who were a good head taller than anyone else.