Cassie, inexplicably, did just as she was told.
On the way back up the hill dragging the sledge behind her, Fran told herself it was pathetic to be so pleased. Was it such a big deal? She didn't even believe in learning by rote, for Christ's sake. If they'd stayed south she'd have considered Cassie for a Steiner school. Yet here she was, thrilled to bits because she'd stuck the two-times table on the classroom wall. And Margaret Henry had smiled at her and called her by her first name.
There was no sign of the old man who lived in Hillhead. Sometimes when they were going past he came out to greet them. He didn't often speak. Usually it was just a wave and once he'd thrust a sweetie in Cassie's hand. Fran didn't like Cassie having sweets - sugar was nothing but wasted calories and think of the tooth decay - but he'd seemed so shy and eager that she'd thanked him. Then Cassie had thrust the slightly dusty striped humbug into her mouth, knowing Fran wouldn't stop her in front of the old man and Fran could hardly ask her to spit it out after he'd gone back inside.
She stopped there to look down at the water again, hoping to recreate the image she'd seen on the way to the school.
It was the colours which had caught her attention. Often the colours on the islands were subtle, olive green, mud brown, sea grey and all softened by mist. In the full sunlight of early morning, this picture was stark and vibrant.
The harsh white of the snow. Three shapes, silhouetted. Ravens.
In her painting they would be angular shapes, cubist almost. Birds roughly carved from hard black wood. And then that splash of colour. Red, reflecting the scarlet ball of the sun.
She left the sledge at the side of the track and crossed the field to see the scene more closely. There was a gate from the road.
The snow stopped her pushing it open so she climbed it. A stone wall split the field in two, but in places it had collapsed and there was a gap big enough for a tractor to get through. As she grew nearer the perspective shifted, but that didn't bother her. She had the painting fixed firmly in her mind. She expected the ravens to fly off!
had even been hoping to see them in flight. The sight of them aloft, the wedge-shaped tail tilted to hold each steady, would inform her image of them on the ground.
Her concentration was so fierce, and everything seemed unreal here, surrounded by the reflected light which made her head swim, that she walked right up to the sight before realizing exactly what she was seeing. Until then everything was just form and colour. Then the vivid red turned into a scarf. The grey coat and the white flesh merged into the background of the snow which wasn't so clean here. The ravens were pecking at a girl's face. One of the eyes had disappeared.
Fran recognized the young woman, even in this altered, degraded state. The birds had fluttered away briefly as she approached but now, as she stood motionless, watching, they returned. Suddenly she screamed, so loudly that she could feel the strain in the back of her throat and clapped her hands to send the birds circling into the sky. But she couldn't move from the spot.
It was Catherine Ross. There was a red scarf tight round her neck, the fringe spread out like blood on the snow.
Chapter Five
Magnus watched from his window. He had been there since first light, before that even. He hadn't been able to sleep.
He saw the woman go past, dragging the little girl on the sledge behind her and felt the stirrings of envy. He had grown up in a different time, he thought. Mothers had not behaved that way with their children when he was a boy.
There had been little time for play.
He had noticed the little girl before, had followed the two of them up the road on one occasion to see where they were staying. It had been in October because he'd been thinking of the old days, when they used to go guising for Hallowe'en in masks, carrying neepy lanterns. He thought a lot about the old days. The memories clouded his thoughts and confused him.
The woman and the girl lived in that house where the tourists came in the summer, where the minister and his wife once stayed. He had watched for a while, though they hadn't seen him looking through the window. He had been too clever to get caught and besides, he hadn't wanted to frighten them. That was never his intention. The child had sat at the table drawing on big sheets of coloured paper with fat crayons. The woman had been drawing too, in charcoal with quick fierce strokes, standing next to her daughter, leaning across her to reach the paper. He'd wished he'd been close enough to see the picture. Once she'd pushed her hair away from her face and left a mark like soot on her cheek.
He thought now how pretty the little girl was. She had round cheeks, red from the cold, and golden curls. He wished the mother would dress her differently though. He would like to see her in a skirt, a pink skirt made of satin and lace, little white socks and buckled shoes. He would like to see her dance. But even in trousers and boots, there was no mistaking her for a boy.
He couldn't see down the brow of the hill to where Catherine Ross lay in the snow. He turned away from the window to brew tea, then took his cup back with him and waited. He had nothing to get on with. Nothing urgent. He had been out the night before with hay for the croft sheep. He had few animals on the hill now. On these freezing days when the ground was hard and covered with snow, there was little else for him to do outside.
The devil makes work for idle hands. The memory of his mother saying those words was so sharp that he almost turned round, expecting to see her sitting in the chair by the fire, the belt filled with horsehair round her waist, one needle stuck into it, held firm, while the other flew. She could knit a pair of stockings in an afternoon, a plain jersey in a week. She was known as the best knitter in the south, though she'd never enjoyed doing the fancy Fair Isle patterns. What point is there in that? she'd say, putting the stress on the last word so she'd almost spit it out. Will it keep dee any warmer?
He wondered what other work the devil might find for him.
The mother came back from the school, pulling the empty sledge behind her. He watched her from right at the bottom of the hill, leaning forward, trudging like a man. She stopped just below his house and looked back across the voe. He could tell that something had caught her attention. He wondered if he should go out and call her in. If she was cold she might be distracted by the thought of tea. She might be tempted by the fire and the biscuits. He still had some left and there was a slice of ginger cake in the tin.
He wondered briefly if she baked for her daughter. Probably not, he decided. That would be another thing to have changed. Why would anyone go to all that trouble now? The beating of sugar and marge in the big bowl, turning the spoon as it came out of the tin of black treacle. Why would you bother with that, when there was Safeway's in Lerwick, selling pastries with apricot and almond and ginger cake every bit as good as the one his mother had baked?
Because he'd been preoccupied with thoughts about baking, he missed the moment when he could have invited the woman into the house. She'd already wandered away from the road. There was nothing he could do now. He could just see her head - she was wearing a hat, a strange knitted bonnet - as she slid down the dip in the field, then she was lost to view altogether. He saw the three ravens, scattering as if they'd been shot at, but he was too far away to hear the woman screaming.