[Part 1] Six of us arrived at Loch Kaille.
[Part 2] First blood.
[Part 3] Was there a monster in the trees?
[Part 4] Heartbreak.
[Part 5] We found our camp ransacked.
*
Coll: “What the hell happened?”
Me: “Leon…”
Leon was missing and I was terrified that he had been in his tent when our camp was trashed. I rushed over and looked through a gash in his tent canvas.
Me: “It’s empty. What happened here?”
Coll and Max were walking through the camp, inspecting the mess.
Max: “Seems pretty obvious to me. Someone’s ransacked the place to try and freak us out.”
Me: “Coll, could this have been deer?”
Coll: “I’ve never heard of deer doing anything like this before.”
Max: “Maybe you did it.”
Coll: “Jesus. Surely I didn’t have time to do this and – how did you put it – hunt down Leon?”
Me: “I’m going back to look for him.”
Coll: “I’ll come with you.”
Me: “No, your limp will only slow me down.”
Max: “Then I’ll come.”
Me: “Once alone in the woods with you was enough for today, Max.”
Max glared back at me but I wouldn’t be argued with.
Me: “Both of you, stay here.”
I walked back into the pines on my own.
*
I started my search for Leon at the lochshore. When I didn’t find him there I entered the forest at the same point Coll had emerged from with his limp.
I wandered the pines yelling “Leon!” wherever I went. But there was no sign of him anywhere, or at least no sign that I could find.
It became increasingly obvious what I needed to do. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my Hag Stone.
I raised the Stone to my eyeline and looked through the hole. I turned in a slow circle, taking in every inch of the forest.
I drew a sharp breath as I spotted a ghostly-pale face in the middle distance.
I lowered my Stone and walked through the trees towards it. The face belonged to a deer skull and antlers sitting atop a person-sized cairn. The skull’s exposed teeth formed a wicked smile.
I reached out to touch the antlers, but then withdrew my hand, thinking better of it.
I pocketed my Hag Stone and examined the ground around the cairn. There was a flattened path through the carpet of needles that lead deeper into the pines. The deer skull was a trailhead marker then.
I followed the winding path for a few minutes before coming across a literal fork in the road. The trail split in two, with the left-hand fork descending a shallow gradient and the right-hand fork climbing the same gradient.
Further along the downhill path I could see boot prints in wet mud. On the uphill path, rough red handprints marked some of the trees. It looked like something out of the spooky Pick Your Own Pathway adventure stories I loved as a kid.
After a brief moment, I decided to follow the trail uphill. I can’t really remember why.
As I walked I tried not to think too much about the bloody handprints, tried not to imagine an injured person staggering along the trail, tree to tree.
Eventually, the path flattened out and I found myself in a grove of broad-leaves.
As I wandered through the grove the light took on a strange, otherworldly quality and the sky above turned a peachy orange-red. I looked around and realised that none of the trees had leaves here, despite it being the middle of summer. There was no birdsong and I had the sense of something being off with reality, like I might not be in my own realm anymore.
Then I noticed bark had been pulled away from some of the trees and patterns had been etched into the exposed softwood. There were spirals, symbols and bizarre glyphs I didn’t recognise from any language.
There were more intricate carvings as well. The first was a thorny rose wrapped around the handle of an axe.
Another showed a human eye, three jagged circles — or perhaps Stones — encircling it.
The largest carving was etched into the last broad-leaf in the grove. It depicted two people standing atop a mound, both of them staring up at a comet streaking across a starry sky. At the foot of the mound some kind of scaly, two-legged dragon gazed hungrily at the duo above.
I sped up and continued, back into the pines and along the trail.
The trees soon started to thin out and I wondered whether I was approaching another windy drop; possibly the east face.
But, before I got there, the trail led me to something completely unexpected; a brick dome overgrown with lichen and gnarled tree roots.
It was an icehouse. I’d seen one at a country estate I once visited. I was about to walk around to the other side of the dome so I could find the entrance and look inside when a voice stopped me in my tracks.
Leon: “Kate…”
Leon was lying against a mossy boulder not far from the trail. I forgot the icehouse and rushed to his side.
Me: “Leon, what happened?”
Leon was bleeding badly from the side of his head.
Me: “Did someone attack you? Who was it, Leon?”
Leon: “I heard Aaron…”
Me: “That’s impossible, Aaron’s gone. I need to get you back to camp.”
I changed my stance in order to raise Leon up but he seemed to resist.
Leon: “I think… Aaron and Coll… I think they might have… I…”
I interrupted Leon by trying to lift him once more, but he was too heavy.
Leon: “It’s too late… too late…”
Leon’s delirious words faded and his head lulled to one side.
Me: “No, wake up. Leon, wake up.”
But Leon had passed.
I slumped over my best friend and began to sob.
*
I arrived back at the campsite under a starry sky and with my arm throbbing. The moon’s ambient light coated the clearing in a luminous glow, but Max and Coll were nowhere to be seen and the mess throughout camp persisted.
I examined a smear across the canvas of my tent. It looked like blood and it hadn’t been there when I left to look for Leon.
That’s when I heard footsteps. Instinctively, I dropped to a low crouch. Then I risked a quick glance around the corner of my half-collapsed tent. From the trees skirting the other end of the campsite, Coll limped into view. He was carrying a bloody cutlery knife and he was heading for Aaron’s tent.
I ducked back down until I heard a zipper. Then I peeked again to see Coll looking into Aaron’s open tent with his knife poised.
Apparently satisfied that whatever he was looking for wasn’t inside he backed out, forcing me to duck back behind my tent so as not to be seen.
From my hiding place I heard Coll walk over to and then search another tent. I realised he was systematically checking each one and that made me panic. Coll would eventually reach my tent and find me.
Frantically, I looked around for a means of escape. That’s when I saw the discarded vodka bottle Max had been drinking from the night before.
I picked it up and then, as Coll searched the next tent along from mine, I threw the bottle into the trees.
The bottle landed with a crack. There was a long, drawn out moment in which Coll seemed to consider the noise, but he eventually followed the sound into the forest like I’d hoped he would. Once he was gone I darted into the trees on the opposite side of the clearing.
I raced through the forest until I felt I had put enough distance between myself and the campsite.
As I leaned against a tree catching my breath, a thought came to me. I checked all of my pockets, soon pulling out the camping knife I’d taken from Leon. I opened up the switchblade and was met with short, sharp steel.
Then I heard a rustle.
I looked to my left and saw Max stepping around another tree, level with mine. He had one hand to a bloody wound on his side and a rock in his hand. There was an apprehensive moment, and then Max raised a single finger to his lip. He wanted me to be quiet.
Another noise told me why. Footsteps.
It was Coll, no doubt following the obvious trail I must have left as I rushed through mud and pine needles. I silently cursed myself for being so stupid.
The footsteps drew closer. Max took up a stance like he was ready to pounce on Coll as he passed between our trees.
I was utterly unsure of what to do. Was I about to witness a massacre?
A moment before Max could strike, I stepped out from behind my tree.
Me: “Stop!”
Coll and Max both froze.
Me: “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you both need to stop.”
Max was still using his tree to shield himself from Coll’s view.
Max: “That little shit stabbed me and I’m bleeding out. That’s what’s going on. He’s – he’s the killer.”
Coll was keen to refute Max’s claim.
Coll: “Max started ranting and raving about hurting me. I stabbed him in self-defence.”
Max: “Don’t believe a word he says, Kate. We – we need to take him out.”
Coll: “Think about it, Kate. We only have Max’s word that the river is even flooded. He’s kept us all up here, he’s the killer.”
Max: “He’s grasping at straws, you saw the rainstorm. We have to take him out.”
I took up a tone thick with disgust.
Me: “Listen to yourselves. Look at what you’re prepared to do to each other. I don’t know what’s happening up here, whether it’s murder, a vengeful witch, or plain hysteria. But one thing I do know is that we’re all supposed to be Aaron’s best friends. There’s no proof. Not a shred in any direction.”
Now I was practically shouting.
Me: “I refuse to believe that any one of us could have done all of this without proof. I refuse.”
Coll gestured towards my right hand.
Coll: “Then why are you holding that knife?”
Suddenly, the wind gusted and everyone looked around in grim anticipation. In the distance trees began to quiver, and then to shake violently.
Then branches closer to us began to thrash from side to side, like something huge was tearing through the canopy to get to us.
Coll: “Run!”
We scattered as the shaking trees let out a ferocious roar that seemed to surge towards me.
The knife still in my hand, I raced through the forest.
I was running faster than I ever had in my life, too scared to look back, too scared to worry about anyone or anything but myself.
The sound was penetrating; it became painful to hear and it seemed to be catching up with me.
Closer, louder, closer…
And then the noise stopped as quickly as it had started.
I slipped behind a tree and rested my back against the bark. My chest heaved as I closed my eyes and tried to catch my breath.
Coll: “Kate…”
Shocked by Coll’s sudden appearance I whirled around and buried my knife into his chest.
Coll stumbled backwards, the camping knife sticking out of him like a gory lever.
Horrified by what I’d done, I raised a hand to my mouth.
Coll: “You… this was all you. All along…”
I shook my head, denying Coll’s final accusation.
Me: “No, I didn’t mean…”
Coll: “Murderer… Witch…”
Coll crumpled to the ground.
I glanced around. Leaning against a nearby tree I saw Max watching on.
Our eyes locked through the gloom.
Max appeared to be unable to move or even express himself. He held my gaze for a long moment and then he collapsed as well. I took a step backwards, recoiling from the gore and horror before me.
Then, like a coward, I turned and fled.
*
That night I wandered the forest aimlessly. My arm was in agony as my third, fourth and fifth Marks bled but I scarcely noticed.
I was muttering to myself nonsensically, reliving all that had happened in my head. Five people dead, including my best friend. What had happened? And why was I alone still alive?
Eventually, I found myself standing outside the forest cave. In a sudden moment of clarity, I knew what I had to do.
I pulled out my Hag Stone and raised it to my eye, looking into the cavemouth. From deep within, a light slowly grew to fill the opening. An invitation.
I accepted.
Inside, the antler creature was waiting for me.
I pledged myself to the loch; a place where the Veil is at its most thin. There is much that can be done in such a place, and much that such a place can do to others.
My vow was one that demanded I reside at the lochside but a part of me, the part that used to call herself Kate, remained unsatisfied with what had come before. She wanted to know what had happened during those three days and thought the world needed to know as well.
And so I returned to civilization to share it all. It has been cathartic, yes, but I still don’t have all the answers. Maybe there was something else going on during those three days, agendas and ulterior motives I knew nothing about. The truth is probably hidden within all these words somewhere.
But more important than reliving old pain is recognising who I truly am.
It is said that if a witch looks at you through a Hag Stone she can inflict doom upon your soul. It might be that I sealed my friends’ fates as soon as I gazed upon them through a Stone on that first afternoon.
Regardless, the story is told and Kate has faded away. In response my sixth Mark has risen and it bleeds as I write this.
As they fall, your scars will rise. So too will you rise.
I am finally who I was always meant to be.
And now I must return to Loch Kaille. There is much to prepare for, you won’t believe what’s coming. You’d have to see it to believe it.
Maybe you should visit the loch sometime? We’ll be waiting.
Until then,
– Faux
*