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

In which Professor Craigmyle may not be what he seems.

Ishabel flashed Hazel an image of Martin clinging tightly to a slanting crevice in the rock face below the edge of the cliff. His boots were jammed into a crack, and one arm was flung over a ledge.

Hazel flung herself past the silent crowd and under the whipping safety tape towards the edge of the cliff. She shoved herself forward to the edge on her front. When she peered over she could only see the top of Martin’s head. She called to him to make him look up. His expression was frantic, desperate eyes in a white face. She held his stare, shouting reassuring things so he would focus on her, and not see the fulmar approaching.

Grit was tumbling out from underneath his upper boot, and he jammed it further in, but the movement made his grip on the ledge slip, and his weight jerked him downwards a little further. His hands were bleeding, and his face was terrified. The rain was pelting over his hands and his face. The earth of the cliff that he was clinging to was slowly turning into mud.

Then his struggle to stay close-gripped to the cliff stopped. His head tipped back, and his eyes closed. His neck, hands, arms, legs and feet all relaxed at once. He toppled backward towards the waters chopping on the vicious black rocks below. His body went head-first into the spume being whipped up from the sea. He crumpled into the embrace of the air.

The fulmar floated beside him, its wings beating to contain and support the space he was in. Martin was floated up the cliff, and was placed, quite gently, on the grass where Hazel was waiting, in front of the silent crowd.

Hazel rolled him over on the wet grass and peered at him. He lay unconscious, with rain on his white face, and his hands covered in mud.

The fulmar hovered on the edge of Hazel’s vision, and then Ishabel appeared. She knelt on the grass in her shiny red waterproof and immediately began the work of smoothing out Martin’s memory.

‘Very good work, Hazel,’ she smiled, but didn’t stop the movements of her hands. ‘What’s happening at the stone?’

Hazel had completely forgotten that she had an urgent archaeological job to do. She scranbled up from her knees and lunged around the silent, stock-still crowd to get to the mound. She peered over the edge of the newly burnt hole in the tarpaulin, and saw rainwater pooling on the dry ground.

‘Oh no,’ she groaned. ‘Contaminated already.’

What was there inside, on the ground? She pulled out her phone and flicked on the torch. Now she could see huddled shapes in the sand, a long matted lump, and something that she recognised as blackened pottery.

‘I can see carbonised remains in the sand,’ she called over to Ishabel. ‘Burnt objects. Pot sherds, and the shadows of burnt bodies in the sand, I think.’

‘Is the spindle there?’ Ishabel’s voice was urgent.

Hazel looked again. There was a big lump towards the end. She had thought that it was a huddled body, but now she could see something long. It might be a femur, but it was bent at a twisted angle that did not look like a bone.

‘Yes! It’s there. It’s covered in, well, I don’t want to know what it’s covered in. We’ll find out when we excavate properly. But it’s there.’

She trotted back to Ishabel.

Ishael sighed. ‘Thank the heavens and the earth for that.’

She finished smoothing out Martin’s memory. ‘Right. That’s this boy back where he should be. I’ve sorted his bleeding hands too. Let me get back to where I was standing before, and then you can release these folk back into our time.’

Hazel waited for her, standing beside Martin’s prone body. When Ishabel was far enough away, Hazel went back into the spell, and reversed it, drawing its components back out into the air. When the people began moving again she was talking to a dazed Martin.

‘That was a mighty crash that made you jump. Did you see the lightning?’ she asked him. ‘Oh hello Professor Craigmyle. I didn’t see you there.’

The professor’s big white bushy eyebrows wagged as he congratulated Hazel and Martin on a successful operation.

‘I would like,’ he said, pulling out a folding periscope, ‘to see inside the cavity, before any leakage occurs. Would you mind?’

Obediently Martin held up the tarp so that the periscope gave a good view of the interior of the hut, and the professor peered through the viewer.

‘Oh jolly good, very good indeed,’ he said enthusiastically, ‘Very promising. I think you’re right about carbonised remains, Hazel. And a lot of organic material too. We need to excavate this as soon as we can once the rain stops. Now, I need to see Fintan, and then I will try that excellent temporary track to the car park again. Splendid army work there, don’t you think?’

He wheeled himself smartly away, and headed for Fintan at the lorry.

Martin was waiting to ask her something. ‘Did I black out?’ he asked. ‘I da’ mind onything after that lightning strike.’

‘I don’t think so. Perhaps it was the shock? Look, can you usher those folk off the site? They’re walking over the trenches.’

When he had turned away to herd the visitors away, Hazel sent a message to Ishabel alone.

<The professor heard what I said to you, and he was supposed to be magicked. Did my spell miss him?>.

<Possibly. But he not quite like the others. I’ll away home now and let Tornost out of my shed.>

As the crowd dispersed they were talking excitedly about the astonishing storm, and the lightning strike, and how wet they were and how about a cup of tea? No-one mentioned a clifftop rescue, or anyone being flung over towards the rocks. Professor Craigmyle was talking to Fintan, both looking satisfied.

Martin talked a lot about having survived a lightning strike. He was very proud of not being able to remember anything. Hazel and Theresa were weighting down the tarpaulin with stones, and wondering about getting a tent for the excavation.

The lorry driver climbed back into his cab out of the rain. ‘Weel, efter dat stramash, whaar’s de wantin dis steen?’

Fintan gave him the delivery instructions. ‘The Museum finds store is three buildings up from the Textile Museum, down past the ferry terminal, but it’s still covered with signs from the previous tenant, some offshore rig supplies company. It’s got “Shetland Museum”’ on the front door.’

‘Oh aye, I ken. I’ll be dere da moarn.  Dey’ll lippen hit? Do dey hae folk dere Saturday?’

‘Oh they have,’ Fintan assured him. ‘We’ve got experts lined up to look at it.’

‘Dats göd. Dats no aaday du sees summat lik yon. Hit’ll be göd tae read whit’s figgered oot.’

The lorry drove carefully down the old army track to the temporary road and was received with raucous cheers and applause by the waiting soldiers. It drove off up the lane with a honk of its horn.

Professor Craigmyle drove his wheelchair back down the temporary road, and had his photo taken with the soldiers, all looking pleased with each other. He drove off in his car after a jovial conversation with some people who had come up from the Museum. They were all looking cheerful.

‘An armchair petrologist is new to me,’ Fintan said to Hazel.

‘It’s great that there’s so much archaeology on the telly these days,’ Hazel said.

‘And another thing,’ he said, pausing on the track, ‘what are the chances of two lightning strikes in the same place, in the same week?’

‘I have no idea,’ she said.

Episode 11.1 will follow.

The Shetland Witch © Kate Macdonald 2024.

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