LEY LINES
BRIANNA PAUSED BY the fish-viewing chamber. It wasn’t yet the breeding season, when—she’d been told—the great salmon swarmed through the chutes of the fish ladder that allowed them to climb the dam at Pitlochry, but now and then a silvery flash shot into view with heart-stopping suddenness, fighting strongly against the current for a moment before shooting up into the tube that led to the next stage of the ladder. The chamber itself was a small white housing let into the side of the fish ladder, with an algae-clouded window. She’d paused there to gather her thoughts—or, rather, to suppress some of them—before going in to the dam.
It was nonsense to worry about something that had already happened. And she did know that her parents were all right. Or at least, she amended, had made it out of Fort Ticonderoga; there were a good many letters left.
And she could at any moment read those letters, too, and find out. That was what made it so ridiculous. She supposed she wasn’t really worried. Just… preoccupied. The letters were wonderful. But at the same time, she was only too aware of how much even the most complete letter must leave out. And according to Roger’s book, General Burgoyne had left Canada in early June, his plan being to march south and join General Howe’s troops, cutting the Colonies essentially in half. And on July 6, 1777, he had paused to attack Fort Ticonderoga. What—
“Coimhead air sin!” said a voice behind her. She jerked round, startled, to find Rob Cameron standing there, gesturing excitedly at the fish-viewing window. She turned back just in time to see a tremendous silver fish, spotted dark over the back, give a great heave against the current before disappearing up the chute.
“Nach e sin an rud as brèagha a chunnaic thu riamh?”he said, the wonder of it still showing on his face. Is that not the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?
“Cha mhór!” she replied, wary, but unable not to smile in return. Almost.
His own smile remained but became more personal as he focused on her. “Ah, ye do have the Gàidhlig! My cousin said, but I didna quite believe it—you with your prah-pah Bah-ston accent,” he said, drawling the syllables in what he plainly thought was a Boston accent.
“Yeah, pahk yah cah in Hah-vahd Yahd,” she said, in a real—but exaggerated—one. He burst out laughing.
“How d’ye do that? Ye don’t speak Gàidhlig with that sort of accent. I mean—ye’ve got one, but it’s… different. More like ye’d hear on the Isles—Barra, maybe, or Uist.”
“My da was Scots,” she said. “I got it from him.”
That made him look at her afresh, as though she were a novel sort of fish he’d just pulled up on his hook.
“Yeah? From around here? What’s his name?”
“James Fraser,” she replied. Safe enough; there were dozens. “And was. He’s… gone.”
“Ach, too bad,” he said sympathetically, and briefly touched her arm. “Lost my dad last year. Tough, eh?”
“Yes,” she said briefly, and made to go past him. He turned at once and fell into step beside her.
“Ye’ve got wee ones, too, Roger said?” He felt her start of surprise, and smiled sideways at her. “Met him in lodge. Nice guy.”
“Yes, he is,” she said, guarded. Roger hadn’t mentioned meeting Rob, and she did wonder why not. Clearly he’d talked with Rob long enough for Rob to know that Roger was her husband and that they had children. Rob didn’t pursue the reference any further, though, instead stretching and throwing back his head.
“Gahhh… too nice a day to spend in a dam. Wish I could be on the water.” He nodded toward the tumbling river, where half a dozen be-wadered anglers stood among the waves with the predatory intentness of herons. “You or Roger fly-fish at all?”
“I have,” she said, and felt the memory of a casting rod whipping in her hands, sending a small thrill up the nerve endings. “You fish, then?”
“Aye, I’ve got a permission for Rothiemurchus.” He looked proud, as though this was something special, so she made approving noises. He glanced sideways at her, caramel-eyed and smiling. “If ever ye want to come out with your rod, just say the word. Boss.” He grinned suddenly at her, careless and charming, and went ahead of her into the dam office, whistling.
A ley line is an observed alignment between two geographical features of interest, usually an ancient monument or megalith. There are a number of theories about ley lines and considerable controversy as to whether they actually exist as a phenomenon, and not only as an artifact.
By that I mean that if you choose any two points that have interest for humans, there’s very likely to be a path that leads between them, no matter what those points are. There is a major roadway between London and Edinburgh, for instance, because people frequently want to go from one to the other, but this is not normally called a ley line. What people usually have in mind when using this term is an ancient pathway that leads, say, from a standing stone to an ancient abbey, which is itself likely built on a spot of much older worship.
Since there isn’t much objective evidence beyond the obvious existence of such lines, there’s a lot of guff talked about them. Some people think the lines have a magical or mystical significance. I don’t see any grounds for this myself, and neither does your mother, who is a scientist. On the other hand, science changes its mind now and then, and what looks like magic may really have a scientific explanation (NB—put in footnote about Claire and the plant-harvesting).
However, among the theories regarding ley lines, there is one that appears to have at least a possible physical basis. Perhaps you will already know what dowsers are, by the time you come to read this; I will take you out with one as soon as the opportunity occurs. Just in case, though—a dowser is a person who can detect the presence of water or sometimes bodies of metal underground, like the ore in mines. Some of them use a Y-forked stick, a metal rod, or some other object with which to “divine” the water; some merely sense it. The actual basis of this skill is not known; your mother says that Occam’s razor would say that such people just recognize the type of geology that is most likely to harbor underground water. I’ve seen dowsers work, though, and am pretty sure there is more to it than that—especially in view of the theories I’m telling you here.
One theory of how dowsing works is that the water or metal has a magnetic current, to which the dowser is sensitive. Your mother says that the first part of this is true and that, furthermore, there are large bands of geomagnetic force in the earth’s crust, which run in opposing directions all round the globe. Further, she tells me that these bands are detectible by objective measures but are not necessarily permanent; indeed, the earth undergoes occasional (every umpty-million years, I think; she didn’t know the exact frequency) reversals of its geomagnetic force—nobody knows why, but the usual suspect is sunspots—with the poles exchanging places.
Another interesting bit of information is that homing pigeons (and quite possibly other sorts of birds) demonstrably do sense these geomagnetic lines, and use them to navigate by, though no one yet has figured out quite how they do it.
What we suspect—your mother and I—and I must emphasize that we may easily be wrong in this supposition—is that ley lines do exist, that they are (or correlate with) lines of geomagnetic force, and that where they cross or converge you get a spot where this magnetic force is… different, for lack of a better word. We think these convergences—or some of them—may be the places where it is possible for people who are sensitive to such forces (like pigeons, I suppose) to go from one time to another (that would be your mother and me, and you, Jem, and Mandy). If the person reading this is a child (or grandchildren) not yet born, then I don’t know whether you will have this sensitivity, ability, what-you-may-call-it, but I assure you that it is real. Your grandmother speculated that it is a genetic trait, much like the ability to roll one’s tongue; if you haven’t got it, the “how” of it is simply incomprehensible, even though you can observe it in someone who does have the trait. If that’s the case for you, I don’t know whether to apologize or congratulate you, though I suppose it’s no worse than the other things parents give their children, all unknowing, like crooked teeth or shortsightedness. We didn’t do it on purpose, either way, please believe that.
Sorry, I’ve got off the track here. The basic point is that the ability to time-travel may be dependent on a genetic sensitivity to these… convergences? vortices? … of ley lines.
Owing to the peculiar geological history of the British Isles, you find a lot of ley lines here and, likewise, a great number of archaeological sites that seem to be linked by those lines. Your mother and I intend to note, so far as can be done without danger—and make no mistake about this; it is very dangerous—the occurrence of such sites as might be portals. Obviously, there’s no way of knowing for sure whether a specific site is a portal or not.*
*Footnote: Your mother says—well, she said quite a bit, in which I picked out the words “Unified Field Theory,” which I gather is something that doesn’t yet exist, but if it did, it would explain a hell of a lot of things, and among these might be an answer to why a convergence of geomagnetic lines might affect time in the spot where the convergence occurs. All I personally got from this explanation is the notion that space and time are occasionally the same thing, and gravity is somehow involved. This makes as much sense to me as anything else regarding this phenomenon.
Footnote 2:
The observation that sites seem to be “open” on the dates that correspond to the sun feasts and fire feasts of the ancient world (or at least more open than at other times) may—if this hypothesis is right—have something to do with the gravitational pull of the sun and moon. This seems reasonable, given that those bodies really do affect the behavior of the earth with respect to tides, weather, and the like—why not time vortices, too, after all?
“Does that make sense?” Roger asked. “So far, at least?”
“Insofar as anything about it makes sense, yes.” Despite the uneasiness that came over her whenever they discussed it, she couldn’t help smiling at him; he looked so earnest. There was a blotch of ink on his cheek, and his black hair was ruffled up on one side.
“Professoring must be in the blood,” she said, pulling a tissue out of her pocket, licking it in mother-cat fashion, and applying it to his face. “You know, there’s this wonderful modern invention called a ballpoint…”
“Hate them,” he said, closing his eyes and suffering himself to be tidied. “Besides, a fountain pen is a great luxury, compared to a quill.”
“Well, that’s true. Da always looked like an explosion in an ink factory when he’d been writing letters.” Her eyes returned to the page, and she snorted briefly at the first footnote, making Roger smile.
“Is that a decent explanation?”
“Considering that this is meant for the kids, more than adequate,” she assured him, lowering the page. “What goes in Footnote Two?”
“Ah.” He leaned back in his chair, hands linked, looking uneasy. “That.”
“Yes, that,” she said, instantly alerted. “Is there something like an Exhibit A that’s meant to go there?”
“Well, yes,” he said reluctantly, and met her eyes. “Geillis Duncan’s notebooks. Mrs. Graham’s book would be Exhibit B. Your mother’s explanation of planting superstitions is Footnote Four.”
Brianna could feel the blood draining from her head and sat down, just in case.
“You’re sure that’s a good idea?” she asked, tentative. She didn’t herself know where Geillis Duncan’s notebooks were—and didn’t want to. The little book that Fiona Graham, Mrs. Graham’s granddaughter, had given them was safely tucked away in a safe-deposit box in the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Roger blew out his breath and shook his head.
“No, I’m not,” he said frankly. “But look. We don’t know how old the kids will be when they read this. Which reminds me—we need to make some kind of provision about it. Just in case something happens to us before they’re old enough to be told … everything.”
She felt as though a melting ice cube were sliding slowly down her back. He was right, though. They might both be killed in a car crash, like her mother’s parents. Or the house might burn—
“Well, no,” she said aloud, looking at the window behind Roger, which was set into a stone wall some eighteen inches thick. “I don’t suppose this house will burn down.”
That made him smile.
“No, not too worried about that. But the notebooks—aye, I know what ye mean. And I did think of maybe just going through them myself and sort of straining out the information—she did have quite a bit about which stone circles seemed to be active, and that’s useful. Because reading the rest of it is…” He waved a hand in search of the right word.
“Creepy,” she supplied.
“I was going to say like watching someone go slowly mad in front of you, but ‘creepy’ will do.” He took the pages from her and tapped them together. “It’s just an academic tic, I suppose. I don’t feel right in suppressing an original source.”
She gave a different snort, one indicating what she thought of Geillis Duncan as an original source of anything bar trouble. Still…
“I suppose you’re right,” she said reluctantly. “Maybe you could do a summary, though, and just mention where the notebooks are, in case someone down the line is really curious.”
“Not a bad thought.” He put the papers inside the notebook and rose, closing it as he did so. “I’ll go down and get them, then, maybe when school’s out. I could take Jem and show him the city; he’s old enough to walk the Royal Mile, and he’d love the castle.”
“Do not take him to the Edinburgh Dungeon!” she said at once, and he broke into a broad grin.
“What, ye don’t think wax figures of people being tortured are educational? It’s all historical, aye?”
“It would be a lot less horrible if it wasn’t,” she said, and, turning, caught sight of the wall clock. “Roger! Aren’t you supposed to be doing your Gaelic class at the school at two o’clock?”
He glanced at the clock in disbelief, snatched up the pile of books and papers on his desk, and shot out of the room in a flurry of very eloquent Gaelic.
She went out into the hall to see him hastily kiss Mandy and charge for the door. Mandy stood in the open doorway, waving enthusiastically.
“Bye-bye, Daddy!” she cried. “Bwing me ice cweam!”
“If he forgets, we’ll go into the village after supper and get some,” Brianna promised, bending down to pick her daughter up. She stood there holding Mandy, watching Roger’s ancient orange Morris cough, choke, shudder, and start up with a brief belch of blue smoke. She frowned slightly at the sight, thinking she must get him a set of new spark plugs, but waved as he leaned out at the corner of the drive, smiling back at them.
Mandy snuggled close, murmuring one of Roger’s more picturesque Gaelic phrases, which she was obviously committing to memory, and Bree bent her head, inhaling the sweet scent of Johnson’s baby shampoo and grubby child. No doubt it was the mention of Geillis Duncan that was making her feel still uneasy. The woman was well and truly dead, but after all… she was Roger’s multiple great-grandmother. And perhaps the ability to travel through stone circles was not the only thing to be passed down through the blood.
Though surely some things were diluted by time. Roger, for instance, had nothing in common with William Buccleigh MacKenzie, Geillis’s son by Dougal MacKenzie—and the man responsible for Roger’s being hanged.
“Son of a witch,” she said, under her breath. “I hope you rot in hell.”
“’At’s a bad word, Mummy,” Mandy said reprovingly.
IT WENT BETTER than he could have hoped. The schoolroom was crowded, with lots of kids, a number of parents, and even a few grandparents crammed in round the walls. He had that moment of light-headedness—not quite panic or stage fright, but a sense of looking into some vast canyon that he couldn’t see the bottom of—that he was used to from his days as a performer. He took a deep breath, put down his stack of books and papers, smiled at them, and said, “Feasgar math!”
That’s all it ever took; the first words spoken—or sung—and it was like taking hold of a live wire. A current sprang up between him and the audience, and the next words seemed to come from nowhere, flowing through him like the crash of water through one of Bree’s giant turbines.
After a word or two of introduction, he started with the notion of Gaelic cursing, knowing why most of the kids had come. A few parents’ brows shot up, but small, knowing smiles appeared on the faces of the grandparents.
“We haven’t got bad words in the Gàidhlig, like there are in the English,” he said, and grinned at the feisty-looking towhead in the second row, who had to be the wee Glasscock bugger who’d told Jemmy he was going to hell. “Sorry, Jimmy.
“Which is not to say ye can’t give a good, strong opinion of someone,” he went on, as soon as the laughter subsided. “But Gàidhlig cursing is a matter of art, not crudeness.” That got a ripple of laughter from the old people, too, and several of the kids’ heads turned toward their grandparents, amazed.
“For example, I once heard a farmer whose pig got into the mash tell her that he hoped her intestines would burst through her belly and be eaten by crows.”
An impressed “Oo!” from the kids, and he smiled and went on, giving carefully edited versions of some of the more creative things he’d heard his father-in-law say on occasion. No need to add that, lack of bad words notwithstanding, it is indeed possible to call someone a “daughter of a bitch” when wishing to be seriously nasty. If the kids wanted to know what Jem had really said to Miss Glendenning, they’d have to ask him. If they hadn’t already.
From there, he went to a more serious—but quick—description of the Gaeltacht, that area of Scotland where Gaelic was traditionally spoken, and told a few anecdotes of learning the Gaelic on herring boats in the Minch as a teenager—including the entire speech given by a particular Captain Taylor when a storm scoured out his favorite lobster hole and made away with all his pots (this piece of eloquence having been addressed, with shaken fist, to the sea, the heavens, the crew, and the lobsters). That one had them rolling again, and a couple of the old buggers in the back were grinning and muttering to one another, they having obviously encountered similar situations.
“But the Gàidhlig is a language,” he said, when the laughter had died down once more. “And that means its primary use is for communication—people talking to one another. How many of you have ever heard line singing? Waulking songs?”
Murmurs of interest; some had, some hadn’t. So he explained what waulking was: “The women all working together, pushing and pulling and kneading the wet wool cloth to make it tight and waterproof—because they didn’t have macs or wellies in the auld days, and folk would need to be out of doors day and night, in all kinds of weather, tending their animals or their crofts.” His voice was well warmed by now; he thought he could make it through a brief waulking song and, flipping open the folder, sang them the first verse and refrain, then got them to do it, as well. They got four verses, and then he could feel the strain starting to tell and brought it to a close.
“My gran used to sing that one,” one of the mothers blurted impulsively, then blushed red as a beet as everyone looked at her.
“Is your gran still alive?” Roger asked, and at her abashed nod, said, “Well, then, have her teach it to you, and you can teach it to your kids. That kind of thing shouldn’t be lost, aye?”
A small murmur of half-surprised agreement, and he smiled again and lifted the battered hymnbook he’d brought.
“Right. I mentioned the line singing, too. Ye’ll still hear this of a Sunday in kirk out on the Isles. Go to Stornaway, for instance, and ye’ll hear it. It’s a way of singing the psalms that goes back to when folk hadn’t many books—or maybe not so many of the congregation could read. So there’d be a precentor, whose job it was to sing the psalm, one line at a time, and then the congregation would sing it back to him. This book”—and he raised the hymnal—“belonged to my own father, the Reverend Wakefield; some of you might recall him. But originally it belonged to another clergyman, the Reverend Alexander Carmichael. Now he…” And he went on to tell them about the Reverend Carmichael, who had combed the Highlands and the Isles in the nineteenth century, talking with people, urging them to sing him their songs and tell him their ways, collecting “hymns, charms, and incantations” from the oral tradition wherever he could find them, and had published this great work of scholarship in several volumes, called the Carmina Gadelica.
He’d brought one volume of the Gadelica with him, and while he passed the ancient hymnal round the room, along with a booklet of waulking songs he’d put together, he read them one of the charms of the new moon, the Cud Chewing Charm, the Indigestion Spell, the Poem of the Beetle, and some bits from “The Speech of Birds.”
Columba went out
An early mild morning;
He saw a white swan,
“Guile, guile,”
Down on the strand,
“Guile, guile,”
With a dirge of death,
“Guile, guile.”
A white swan and she wounded, wounded,
A white swan and she bruised, bruised,
The white swan of the two visions,
“Guile, guile,”
The white swan of the two omens,
“Guile, guile,”
Life and death,
“Guile, guile,”
“Guile, guile.”
When thy journey,
Swan of mourning?
Said Columba of love,
“Guile, guile,”
From Erin my swimming,
“Guile, guile,”
From the Fiann my wounding,
“Guile, guile,”
The sharp wound of my death,
“Guile, guile,”
“Guile, guile.”
White swan of Erin,
A friend am I to the needy;
The eye of Christ be on thy wound,
“Guile, guile,”
The eye of affection and of mercy,
“Guile, guile,”
The eye of kindness and of love,
“Guile, guile,”
Making thee whole,
“Guile, guile,”
“Guile, guile.”
Swan of Erin,
“Guile, guile,”
No harm shall touch thee,
“Guile, guile,”
Whole be thy wounds,
“Guile, guile.”
Lady of the wave,
“Guile, guile,”
Lady of the dirge,
“Guile, guile,”
Lady of the melody,
“Guile, guile.”
To Christ the glory,
“Guile, guile,”
To the Son of the Virgin,
“Guile, guile,”
To the great High-King,
“Guile, guile,”
To Him be thy song,
“Guile, guile,”
To Him be thy song,
“Guile, guile,”
“Guile guile!”
His throat hurt almost unbearably from doing the swan calls, from the soft moan of the wounded swan to the triumphant cry of the final words, and his voice cracked with it at the last, but triumphant it was, nonetheless, and the room erupted in applause.
Between soreness and emotion, he couldn’t actually speak for a few moments, and instead bowed and smiled and bowed again, mutely handing the stack of books and folders to Jimmy Glasscock to be passed round, while the audience swarmed up to congratulate him.
“Man, that was great!” said a half-familiar voice, and he looked up to find that it was Rob Cameron wringing his hand, shining-eyed with enthusiasm. Roger’s surprise must have shown on his face, for Rob bobbed his head toward the little boy at his side: Bobby Hurragh, whom Roger knew well from the choir. A heartbreakingly pure soprano, and a wee fiend if not carefully watched.
“I brought wee Bobby,” Rob said, keeping—Roger noticed—a tight grip on the kid’s hand. “My sister’s had to work today and couldn’t get off. She’s a widow,” he added, by way of explanation, both of the mother’s absence and his own stepping in.
“Thanks,” Roger managed to croak, but Cameron just wrung his hand again, and then gave way to the next well-wisher.
Among the mob was a middle-aged woman whom he didn’t know but who recognized him.
“My husband and I saw you sing once, at the Inverness Games,” she said, in an educated accent, “though you went by your late father’s name then, did you not?”
“I did,” he said, in the bullfrog croak that was as far as his voice was prepared to go just now. “Your—you have—a grandchild?” He waved vaguely at the buzzing swarm of kids milling round an elderly lady who, pink with pleasure, was explaining the pronunciation of some of the odd-looking Gaelic words in the storybook.
“Yes,” the woman said, but wouldn’t be distracted from her focus, which was the scar across his throat. “What happened?” she asked sympathetically. “Is it permanent?”
“Accident,” he said. “ ’Fraid so.”
Distress creased the corners of her eyes and she shook her head.
“Oh, such a loss,” she said. “Your voice was beautiful. I am so sorry.”
“Thanks,” he said, because it was all he could say, and she let him go then, to receive the praise of people who’d never heard him sing. Before.
Afterward, he thanked Lionel Menzies, who stood by the door to see people out, beaming like the ringmaster of a successful circus.
“It was wonderful,” Menzies said, clasping him warmly by the hand. “Even better than I’d hoped. Tell me, would ye think of doing it again?”
“Again?” He laughed, but broke off coughing in the middle. “I barely made it through this one.”
“Ach.” Menzies waved that off. “A dram’ll see your throat right. Come down the pub with me, why don’t you?”
Roger was about to refuse, but Menzies’s face shone with such pleasure that he changed his mind. The fact that he was wringing with sweat—performing always raised his body temperature by several degrees—and had a thirst fit for the Gobi Desert had nothing to do with it, of course.
“Just the one, then,” he said, and smiled.
As they crossed the parking lot, a battered small blue panel truck pulled up and Rob Cameron leaned out of the window, calling to them.
“Like it, did ye, Rob?” Menzies asked, still beaming.
“Loved it,” Cameron said, with every evidence of sincerity. “Two things, Rog—I wanted to ask, maybe, if ye’d let me see some of the old songs ye have; Siegfried MacLeod showed me the ones you did for him.”
Roger was a little taken aback, but pleased.
“Aye, sure,” he said. “Didn’t know you were a fan,” he joked.
“I love all the old stuff,” Cameron said, serious for once. “Really, I’d appreciate it.”
“Okay, then. Come on out to the house, maybe, next weekend?”
Rob grinned and saluted briefly.
“Wait—two things, ye said?” Menzies asked.
“Oh, aye.” Cameron reached over and picked up something from the seat between Bobby and him. “This was in with the Gaelic bits ye were handing round. It looked as though it was in there by mistake, though, so I took it out. Writing a novel, are ye?”
He handed out the black notebook, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide,” and Roger’s throat clenched as though he’d been garroted. He took the notebook, nodding speechlessly.
“Maybe ye’ll let me read it when it’s done,” Cameron said casually, putting his truck in gear. “I’m a great one for the science fiction.”
The truck pulled away, then stopped suddenly and reversed. Roger took a firmer grip on the notebook, but Rob didn’t look at it.
“Hey,” he said. “Forgot. Brianna said ye’ve got an old stone fort or some such on your place?”
Roger nodded, clearing his throat.
“I’ve got a friend, an archaeologist. Would ye mind, maybe, if he was to come and have a look at it sometime?”
“No,” Roger croaked, then cleared his throat again and said more firmly, “No, that’d be fine. Thanks.”
Rob grinned cheerfully at him and revved the engine.
“Nay bother, mate,” he said.