10.5 The Shetland Witch, or, Atropos Wants Her Shears Back

In whch Hazel does magic.

The screeching whine started up again, and Hazel again had the sensation that she was missing something. She moved back to the line of spectators and kept an eye on them while she watched the chains being raised and tighten.

The engine hadn’t changed its sound, but now she could feel pressure, like a vacuum about to blow.

With a cheer from the small crowd the first end of the stone began to rise up into the air. Its black bulk looked like the body of a whale slung between two cables, cradled in pink and white surgical padding.

Then the second chain took the weight, and the black body tilted, and hung in the air, suspended over the grey and green turf walling by two sets of cables. The wind began to pick up again. Crouching down and tightening the fastening of her hard hat, Hazel could see that the underside of the stone was just as black as its upper surface. The flattened tops of the supporting walls were black and moist.

The wind whipped past her face, tugging her jacket hood insistently. People behind her were hurriedly zipping up coats and pulling on hats, but no-one was bothering with umbrellas.

‘Thee’s picked a fine time to lift da steen,’ a man nearby said to her heartily, ‘da ree’s incomin.’ He sounded satisfied, as if he had expected this to happen.

Hazel had planned what to do. If a storm was coming, she had to protect the inside of the structure. And the other things under the stone, that only she knew about, would need urgent protection from the greedy hands of the trow.

‘Stay where you are!’ she called out warningly to the crowd. She wanted nobody swarming over the site and hoped that the size of the lorry and the massive weight it was lifting would keep them at a respectful distance.

Fintan gave a great shout of command and the cables tautened with the strain. The black stone swung freely above the structure’s interior. With a slight change of tone in the engine’s sound, the cradle began to move upward and backward towards the bed of the skip lorry. The stone swung free above the walls below, and over the void inside.

Fintan was at the lorry, waiting for the stone to land so that he could check its padding.

Hazel ran towards the equipment pile. Now the rain was beginning to fall in earnest. She hauled a fresh tarpaulin over to the structure with Martin helping her. Together they pulled it over the edge, draping it hastily to cover the interior that Hazel had barely glimpsed.

‘Pull it further over on your side!’ she yelled at Martin, who was at the far side. Now Theresa was with her, lifting the big blue plastic sheet over the newly exposed stones and soil.

‘Don’t drag it, keep lifting,’ Hazel gasped.

Martin lunged to hold more the tarpaulin’s edge and started to haul it over the stones on the far side.

‘Lift it!’ she yelled at Martin again.

He was raising his arms to support the tarpaulin. The rain was drumming hard on its shiny surface.

Out of nowhere a white-hot streak of fire blasted down between them, straight through the blue plastic. A long peal of thunder cracked through the thrumming rain.

The tarpaulin was burnt right through into the ground below.

Hazel landed on her back, hurled there by a fiery blast of air. Theresa had screamed. Isolated cries and exclamations came from the crowd.

Hazel was lying in the wet grass, looking up at the sky, trying to get up. But the falling rain stung like knives in her face. Someone was furious. Someone was very angry: she could feel intense frustration in the air. Another peal of thunder cracked the sky apart, and the sound reverberated through her brain. She couldn’t see.

She couldn’t get up. Where was Martin? She could hear Theresa shrieking, and Fintan yelling. The driver was bellowing as well, and there were more screams as if people were running towards her. She started to haul herself upright to stop them trampling in the trenches, and then Ishabel was speaking in her head.

<He’s over the cliff. Get the place clear. Wait for me.> 

Opening her eyes, Hazel saw the fulmar take off into the black eye of the storm that was looming massively overhead.

Hazel pulled herself up off the ground, a little shakily. There was an agitated crowd milling about between her and the cliff edge. All she could see was their backs. Without thinking any more about it, for the first time she performed the spell of moving out of time.

She didn’t think about the number of people she was shifting. She didn’t think about the size of the fulcrum she was operating, to get these living bodies into a different temporality. She had never done this before and she didn’t think of this either. It was already in her hands and in her head and she knew what to do. She simply did the thing.

She moved the people into the space between two seconds. They would no longer see what was happening around them in her time. Time would still pass for them, but it would take three or more of her days for them to reach their next second. She knew that they couldn’t stay there very long. They would get restive, their muscles would cramp and they would feel tired. She had perhaps fifteen minutes before she needed to release them and bring them back to their proper time.

The crowd stood poised in slowed-down motion, unseeing and quiet. She hoped that the rain would keep anyone else from arriving. With a jump she spotted Professor Craigmyle in his wheelchair, leaning forward as if to speak, as still as all the rest.

In the silence, the sea birds cried, and then Hazel heard it. A faint grunting yell, desperate and familiar, coming from the seaward side.

Episode 10.6 will follow.

The Shetland Witch © Kate Macdonald 2024.

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