Chapter 9: 9 – A Mystery Trip

Dr. Pendle isn’t in his room, and he isn’t in the shared living area. Lin, the newest member of MFIT, is draped across one of the armchairs reading a book, and I ask if she’s seen him.

Without looking up from the page, she says, “He and Max drove off somewhere. They had overnight bags, so I don’t think you’ll see them until tomorrow. Or the next day, maybe.”

Ondine and I share a puzzled look. Dr. Pendle rarely goes away without telling us his plans, a trait I’ve always found endearing because it shows awareness of how close we all feel to him. I realize I’ve come to rely on knowing his whereabouts. This feels strange.

My legs carry me back to his room, as though I can’t believe he’s not here. I’m surprised when I realize that Ondine is right behind me.

“How are you feeling?” she asks me.

“I – I’m not sure how to put it into words. A little lightheaded, a bit dizzy, kind of like none of what’s happening is real. I mean, how can it be?”

Ondine’s looking at me kindly, her expression serious. “Do you want to go for a walk, get some fresh air?”

“I don’t think so. What I really want to do is go to bed, wake up, and find out this was all a dream. I’m too wired to sleep, to tell you the truth.”

She stares at me for a long moment, then says, “What about taking a drive?”

“Where to?” I ask, even though I don’t care. Being in a car, getting away from here – from what’s happened – suddenly seems perfect.

“Throw a few things in a bag – enough for a couple of days maybe – and let’s go.”

“Like a holiday?” My brain can’t compute the fact that Ondine is suggesting I go away with her for a few days, and it’s also flashing reminders about the massive amounts of work I still have to do on my dissertation. “I’ve got so much work to do.”

“Bring your laptop. Meet me at my car in five minutes.”

While I’m packing, I give myself a little pep talk. You’re going on a mystery trip with Ondine. She invited you. Get it together, and be charming.

Instead, I sit silently in the passenger seat for the first twenty minutes or so, like a big sulking child. I’m not sulking – not really – but I have no idea what to say, and to be honest I’m still a bit nervous in Ondine’s company. She’s smart, and more than a bit fierce.

“I love driving at night,” she says, softly. “The landscape is like a cocoon, billowing up around the car as it moves through the darkness.”

“That’s very poetic.”

“At the same time, the element of danger is all around – the possibility that anything could loom up out of the darkness.”

“Also poetic. And a bit terrifying, if I’m being honest. I’ve never thought about it that way.”

We’re driving south, past the Black Cuillin, the mountain range that dominates the landscape. It never gets completely dark this far north in the summer time, and the mountains appear as a thick, black smudge against the navy-blue sky.

“The natural world is terrifying,” she says. “And overwhelmingly wonderful. And, I find the deeper I get into my studies, likely forever unknowable.”

“Forever unknowable,” I echo. “Why are we bothering, then? Why are we working so hard, when we’re never going to understand it anyway?”

“Because we can understand pieces of it, and then we take those chunks of knowledge and fit them into some kind of shape or pattern we understand. And that pattern gets passed along, so that it helps someone else to understand.”

“For the common good.”

“Yes, for the common good. And just as we are contributing to the common good, we also benefit from the pieces of knowledge others have found before us.”

“Like Dr. Pendle.”

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“Like Pendle, and Silbis, and others who have made this their life. Their academic life. There are others, who’ve devoted their lives to understanding, but they’re less conspicuous.”

“Let me guess - you’re taking me to see one of these less conspicuous people?”

“I am. We’ve got hours of driving ahead of us, so if you want to close your eyes and get some rest, feel free.”

The gently hum of the car’s engine is soothing, but I don’t want to rest. I want to talk to Ondine.

“So, how do you know this person we’re going to see?”

She keeps her eyes fixed on the road ahead of us, silent for so long that I wonder if she is ignoring my question, and then she says, “She helped me when I was in a similar position.”

My lower back tingles as a thousand questions bubble up in my brain. “You discovered that you can do something surprising with your body?”

I don’t realize how terrible that sounds, until she bursts out laughing. My cheeks blaze with embarrassment, and I sink lower into the passenger seat. “I did make a discovery about myself, yes. Nothing like what you found out about yourself, but a bit of a shock nonetheless.”

“And this person we’re going to see, she helped you with it?”

“She did, yes. I really thought I was losing it, and she helped me through it.”

“How?”

“By believing me, first of all. Not making me feel like a fool. She had a few of the pieces that helped me understand what was happening to me. And I, as it turned out, had a few of the pieces that helped her.”

I’m so desperate to know specifics that a million questions are practically bursting out of me. But I don’t want to push her, so I say, “Well, I guess we’re both special then.”

She laughs again. “Yes, we’re both special. A proper little double act of specialness.” She shifts in her seat and I realize that the gentlemanly thing to do would be to offer to take a turn driving, but I can’t. I can’t because it’s not legal - I don’t have a licence – and I can’t because it’s not safe. I’m a terrible driver. I failed my driving test three times before I left Juniperville, and I’ve never seriously considered trying again here in Scotland.

“I’m sure you want me to say more about it, but I’m not quite ready yet.”

A wave of disappointment shudders through me. “I understand.”

“You could say I’m in repression mode at this stage in my life. But you didn’t exactly have a choice in letting me witness what happened today, so I owe you some of the truth. I’ll tell you how I met her.”

“Okay.”

The first part of her story lasts the breadth of our journey from the Isle of Skye, across the Skye Bridge, and down through the northern Highlands. She tells me the story of her childhood, swirls of darkness in the fists of her parents, pummelling each other regularly, and the shouts they hurled at each other and at her. She tells me all about her Nan, lovingly recounting the times they spent together, the absolute certainty of her grandmother’s unconditional love for her. Before her Nan died, she showed Ondine a small hessian bag that contained, she said, precious family treasures that were for her, and her alone.

After her Nan’s death, Ondine’s mother took the bag, told her it was hers by right, that she was going to hide it away where she’d never find it.

But Ondine did find it. And on the night when her mother came home drunk and attacked her in her sleep, dragged her out of bed, kicking and hitting every part of her exposed body, Ondine waited until her parents had passed out, crept into their bedroom, and took the hessian bag. She left home that night, never to return.

She walked, and hitch-hiked north, her journey curving to the west, towards the village her Nan had told her about, where her deepest family roots were. The closer she got to Ballaig, the village of her ancestors on a remote point in western Scotland, the more she knew something strange was happening to her. It frightened her much more than it thrilled her, so much so that she might have turned back for Glasgow, had she not hated her parents so much.

She arrived in Ballaig, often called by its other name – The Witches’ Village – with a strong feeling she was stepping into a story she could not control. It was like time was overlapping, the past and the present and another realm of time that only existed on another plane all merging together. It was real and not real, wonderful and monstrous at the same time.

“And that’s where you’re taking me? To that monstrous and wonderful place?”

She turns and looks at me, for the first time since she’s started her story. “That’s where I’m taking you. Brace yourself, Thom.”

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