Midsummer Glen - a supernatural adventure by Pam Kelt

A Summer Solstice story set in Argyllshire in the previous century

~

The first few days were hellish. His hands blistered and his back ached as if a lorry had ridden over him.

But he persevered. It was in his nature. ‘Alistair McCompton,’ his mother would say when he practised kicking a ball against the garage door or rearranged his rock collection. ‘Don’t you ever give up?’

He rarely did. Tenacity was simply his nature.

 

It was the same now. Every evening, after nearly twelve hours of cutting the hedgerows, he’d take a modest supper at the local pub, then crawl into his tent, wrap the scythe in an oil cloth and sleep like the dead.

It was honest work and the pay was fair. The laird wanted the estate verges tidied, without the expense of extra men and machinery, and Alistair knew the place well. He and his family were originally from the area, and even though they’d left to find work in the city, they still spent holidays in Midsummer Glen. Until the accident.

That day, the sun was even warmer, for it was nearing the end of June. No-one was around, so he slipped off his shirt and determined to reach the bend in the road before stopping for lunch. The scythe was comfortable in his hand now, and the blade swept rhythmically through the long stems of grass, interspersed with angelica, harebells and pink campion. Not the work his tutors at the university would have thought suitable for the brightest geology graduate that year, but it suited his mood.

His ears picked up on the unmistakeable sound of a throbbing Merlin engine. Looking up, he saw a small fighter plane above him, banking over the ocean. Shielding his eyes, he watched it head inland.

Silence returned and the air stilled. Indeed the whole world seemed to be holding its breath. June 1939. Everyone said war was inevitable. He would fight for his country, but he hadn’t decided how. A few weeks of manual labour would help him decide what to do with his life—however long it lasted.

‘What would you do, Petie?’ He wasn’t really talking to himself. It was just a quirky habit. Once you had a twin, even if they died, they were always there in your head.

‘Och, I’d never have studied geology, that’s for sure. Rocks and stones. Rubble and dust.’

‘What, then?’

He could picture his brother, aged ten, scratching his head, scrutinising him with his matching pair of hazel eyes. ‘Astronomy. Definitely.’

‘But that’s just rubble and dust, except further away.’

The echo of Petie’s laugh made him smile. ‘True enough. Perhaps we’re both a bit daft.’

After his brother’s accident, well, that’s what they always called it, Alistair shrank into himself and became serious. His parents never returned to the glen. He couldn’t rightly say why he was drawn there this summer, but maybe it was time to say goodbye.

He moved along the verge to a kink in the road that led to the laird’s estate and set about cutting back a shoulder-high patch of nettles. Behind was a tumbledown stone wall, part of a circular boundary built by some eccentric Victorian around the nearby set of standing stones. As he hacked, a gleam caught his eye and he started as a basking black and white adder uncoiled itself and slithered into the long grass. Smiling, he gave it time to escape and carried on.

Without warning, his blade clanged against something hidden in the prickly stems, jarring his wrist. He cursed, seeing the sharp tip had broken off and was now lost in the grass. He used the blunted end to claw away the foliage and found himself staring at a large, grey pockmarked stone encrusted with coloured lichens.

It was a slab of around six feet long and a foot wide, lying on its side like a coffin, half-submerged in the crumbling wall behind.

Odd, though. It had a bluish hue, unlike the grey local igneous rock. This rock, he knew, formed in layers, which meant it was easy to split and carve—the favoured material for all the grave slabs and standing stones that littered the glen. He glanced at grey stones on the other side. Yes, this was different and he didn’t know it all. Bending down, he peered at the surface which was incised with a convoluted series of swirling lines and spheres that reminded him of the churning patterns of van Gogh’s star-filled night skies.

As boys, Petie and he had been fascinated by the many carved stones in the glen, tracing their grubby fingers around the Pictish symbols, making up stories about giants and monsters that used to roam the ancient land... But these markings were unfamiliar and remarkably fresh, unlike the eroded symbols on other stone slabs and crosses in the area.

They weren’t runes, either. Not that he was an expert, but the serpentine patterns were quite unlike those stick-like letters.

Curious to see what was on the fourth side, he found a rusted bar from an old gate and tried to lever up the boulder.

Abruptly, a chill wind blew and his bare skin rose in goose bumps. The trees stirred, their leaves rustling. Alistair glanced up and saw a billowing line of clouds looming behind Cnoc Samhanach, the craggy hill covered in bullet-grey slate that dominated the valley. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion, then ducked as a pheasant shot out of nowhere and skimmed over his head, shrieking.

He released the metal bar and stepped back, taking a long breath. The clouds thinned as if being absorbed by the skyline and the branches quietened.

Alistair reached for a pencil and a sheet of paper.

 

***

 

‘Of course I remember you.’ Alistair risked a smile at the young dark-haired librarian in the nearby village of Muircraig. ‘Wee Fiona.’

‘Less of that,’ she said, but the stern look softened. ‘I wish Father were here to see these.’ She squinted at the pencil rubbings and sketches he’d handed her. ‘But he’s away in Avebury to give a talk on the summer solstice. Where did you say you found it?’

‘Only about twenty-five yards or so to the east of the Ivy Cross stone circle, in the boundary wall.’ He glanced at the neatly labelled shelves. ‘What about your reference section?’

‘Well I-. Hold on. If you’ll just excuse me for a moment.’ She turned as an elderly woman in a buttoned cardigan approached them, tapping her walking stick on the varnished parquet. Fiona smiled. ‘Hello, Mrs Robertson. The paper’s ready for you. Your horoscope this week is most favourable.’

‘Thank you, dear.’ Mrs Robertson settled at the long bench table, eagerly flicking over the pages.

Fiona turned back and whispered to Alistair. ‘Load of old tosh, if you ask me, but it keeps her happy. It’s quite a walk to the library from her house, so it’s good for her to make the effort.’ She grinned, reviving in him long-forgotten memories of those long summers, marauding the woods and burns with the village kids, Fiona among them. His mother had always fretted, fearing the worst but his father had always maintained that they ‘had to learn’. He sighed. His mother had been right—in Petie’s case.

Fiona made for the shelves marked ‘local history’. A tall dark-haired couple in smart tweeds were there, each scanning a shelf. ‘Now, let’s see... May I?’

‘Of course.’ The man’s voice was deep and well-modulated. He smiled, touched the woman’s shoulder and they moved off, glancing briefly at Alistair, before making for the exit.

Alistair eyed them curiously. ‘Not from around here?’

‘Up from England. Academics, I think. Very pish-posh... and keen on their prehistory.’

‘Hmm.’ For some reason, the couple’s presence unsettled him, probably because they looked so sophisticated and smart. Suddenly self-conscious in his worn corduroys, frayed shirt and patched jacket, he shoved his calloused hands into his pockets.

Fortunately, Fiona didn’t seem to notice as she ran a manicured nail along the reference numbers, frowning. ‘Oh.’

‘What is it?’

She shook her head. ‘The library copy of Kilmartin’s book on the all the local stones is gone. It should be here, but it simply isn’t. Drat. Others titles are missing, too.’

‘Would your father have taken them with him, perhaps?’

‘Hardly. He has most of them himself. It’s very odd. They’ve been more than usually popular these past months. Since the earth tremor.’

‘The one in March?’ He recalled reading about it in the newspaper. ‘Well, the Minor Glen Fault runs right across the valley.’

‘True enough. There are certainly new cracks in the rocks and a chimney pot only just missed the reverend. Quite a few walls fell down round and about.’

‘Of course.’ He nodded, thinking of the strange stone that had been recently exposed.

‘Father was most taken with our little tremor.’ She smiled. ‘He thinks there’s a connection between such fault lines and ley lines. He says the ancient inhabitants were much smarter than we thought.’

He shrugged, unconvinced, and watched as she scribbled a note in a diary on the desk before engaging his gaze, her grey eyes alight. ‘Whatever you believe, I have an alternative source. If you’re interested, that is.’

 

***

 

The cottage wasn’t quite as he’d remembered. It was much smaller, for one thing, and rather run-down and faded. A curl of smoke coiled out of the chimney. Even though the June evening was warm, the stove had to be lit to boil the water. Out to the west hunched the crags of Cnoc Samhanach, turning dark grey as the sun dipped low in the sky.

Alistair had to stoop to prevent hitting his forehead on the low doorway.

‘Tea, Fiona?’

‘Thank you, Gran.’

The elderly lady filled the kettle and turned to him. ‘You look well, Alistair. Even taller than your father.’ She scrutinised him in the soft evening light. ‘Finished university already? What are you thinking of doing with yourself now?’

‘Gran...’ Fiona protested.

‘Och, don’t mind me, young man.’ There was the familiar tinkling as she set out the teapot and cups on an old tray. She picked up a dark canister and spooned out a small sheaf of dark, green fronds into the pot. ‘The world will decide what it wants of you, in due course. I can’t see you joining the RAF, though.’ The kettle whistled and she doused the leaves in boiling water. A musty smell of ancient forest drifted across the room.

Alistair shifted on the fireside stool. ‘Army, probably, Mrs Largie. Prefer to keep my feet on terra firma.’

She nodded and handed him a cup of pale green liquid. ‘That makes sense.’ He thought of Petie, lying on his back on the flat rock, a black pool forming around his head and blinked away the image. ‘Drink up—just one of my herbal recipes. Nice for a summer’s evening.’

‘Gran, do these markings mean anything to you?’ Fiona handed over the pencil drawings. ‘Alistair found them on a rock at the edge of the laird’s estate. Near the Ivy Cross stones.’

‘Ah, yes. Ibhig Chruaidh.’ She adjusted her half-moon spectacles and planted herself on her favourite chair.

‘Gaelic?’

She nodded. ‘For the hardy fern that grows there. Polystichum aculeatum, to be precise. Before my time, some dour churchman must have been a’feared of Druidism and changed it to make it sound more respectable.’ She laughed. ‘They make a lovely tea. Well, I think so.’

Alistair managed not to pull a face.

‘Those old stones,’ murmured the woman, settling back into her wicker chair. ‘Some say they marked the place where Druids used to sacrifice the innocent. The cup marks in the stones were said to be filled with blood, but that’s just ghoulish nonsense. Your father, Fiona, prefers the theory that it was to honour the old gods, whilst measuring time and seasons... Maybe they were also a landmark, or even a sign of how powerful the old warriors here used to be.’

‘Or a burial place?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘They’re carved out of the local stone, aren’t they? But the one I found was an erratic of Nepheline syenite, typical of the Loch Borralan area, which is two hundred miles away.’ Alistair stopped himself. ‘I suppose they could have hauled it here on wooden wheels, I suppose... but-’

‘That could well be so, young man.’ She smiled. ‘But my knowledge of the stones is less scientific. Did you know that if a gate is built on the way to the stones it will never stay shut? It just keeps on opening, and as for what young girls used to believe would happen by the light of the midsummer moon, well.’

‘Oh, Gran!’

‘Sorry, Fiona, but fertility legends are part of history, whether you approve or not. Now.’ The old lady peered at the sheet of paper. ‘Those patterns... they’re familiar somehow.’ She cocked her head.

‘I didn’t manage to sketch them all. I’m assuming there are more on the underside, too.’

‘You didn’t try to move the rock, did you?’ Mrs Largie shot him a look of alarm.

‘As if,’ he said vaguely, seeing the roiling clouds in his mind’s eye.

She subsided in some relief. ‘Good. You must never move them, you see.’ She took a sip of tea. ‘You can laugh, but doom and destruction will follow, as surely as night follows day. And we can’t risk further doom. Not with Mr Hitler on the march.’ She turned the slip of paper by ninety degrees and squinted at the rough pencil rubbings and sketches. ‘It brings to mind a strange verse my great-granny used to recite. Something to do with the sun, moon and the stars.’

‘Oh?’ Alistair’s interest quickened. ‘Those circles with the radiating lines could be stars, couldn’t they?’

‘Glittering like precious gems?’ Fiona sat up.

‘Why yes, dear. That rings a bell. There’s the sun and moon, see? And then those marks could be tall figures—and isn’t that some sort of beast rearing up on its haunches? Dearie me. How did it go? Something about the dark night sky... ’

Fiona cleared her throat. ‘You told me, Gran, remember? It’s not a poem, as such, but there are four distinct lines.’ With a glance at Alistair, she reached for a sheet of paper and scribbled furiously, crossing out a word and replacing it with another, before handing it to her grandmother. ‘I think that’s right.’

The old lady’s watery gaze focused on it for a moment and her eyes widened in recognition. ‘That’s it. Read it out, dear.’

Fiona gave Alistair an odd look and cleared her throat:

‘ “The stars glitter above us, precious gems set in the black shield of the night sky.

They stir in the shifting rays of the Sun and the Moon and light our way in the dark.

Giants, monsters, masters and slaves all walk across the land, but they soon fade like shadows.

Earth is a speck of dust that will vanish when Eternity blinks it away at the end of days.”’

‘Aye, that’s it,’ said Mrs Largie with a soft sigh. ‘Strange, though. I don’t know why I find it soothing, for it has a hint of relentless destiny about it.’

‘How old is it?’

‘I’ve always assumed it was a translation from an old Gaelic saying. So, generations. Centuries. Who knows?’

‘It’s just that...’ Alistair hesitated. Religious history was not his forte. ‘Ancient man thought the earth was still and the sun moved around us. Yet this suggests the rays of the sun and moon are moving, “shifting,” in fact.’

Fiona nodded. ‘You’re saying whoever wrote this understood the universe and the how planets the moved around the sun?’

‘I think so, yes. But as for the rest... masters and slaves I can understand, and I agree, there’s an apocalyptic feel but what does the bit about giants and monsters mean? That’s just fantasy, surely? Like Finn MacCool and the Giant’s Causeway?’

‘Ah.’ Mrs Largie smiled. ‘Irish giants were one thing, but Scottish giants were considered a bad lot. Boastful, greedy and with a taste for human flesh.’

‘Good Lord.’

‘Some say there were turned to stone by the saints because they rejected Christian ways. But there is a tale of a traveller from a much earlier time. You recall the story, Fiona?’

‘Oh, yes. The mysterious wanderer from afar.’ Fiona turned to Alistair. ‘He came here from the east before the world we know. Is that right, Gran?’

The old lady nodded. ‘Long ago, the people lived peacefully until the giants invaded. According to legend, they were cruel and harsh, so the local people hid in caves in fear, but after a while, they started to rebel. The giants were angry and conjured up huge beasts from the belly of the earth to keep the people enslaved.’

‘But-’

‘Wait. That was when the traveller came. The story goes that he was a sad and solitary soul, deeply troubled and filled a strange yearning. It was said he arrived with nothing but the clothes on his back and a magic shield. He had mystic powers and soon vanquished the fierce giants and their ravening monsters, turning them to dust. The people wanted him to stay and be their leader, but although he lived among them for a while, he always refused. More tea?’

Alistair stirred, feeling dizzy in the suffocating heat. ‘No, thank you.’ He set down his cup and saucer but missed the table, nearly falling off his stool. ‘Sorry. A bit tired.’ He bent down to retrieve the crockery, which had fallen unharmed onto an old rag rug, leaving a dark stain. ‘Oh, dear.’ He glanced up, apologetically, and saw Fiona watching him in concern.

The old lady creaked hurriedly out of her chair and took the cup and saucer, set it down and patted his arm. ‘Och, not to worry, young man. We elderly ladies should know better than to serve tea in such precarious receptacles. No harm done.’

Alistair felt himself flush with embarrassment over his oafishness as Fiona hurried to the kitchen for a cloth to mop up the spill. The old lady sat down again and gave him a penetrating look. ‘What subject did you read at university, son?’

‘Geology, Mrs Largie.’

‘Aye, that makes sense. Rocks and stones. Rocks and stones. Through every generation of your family, if I recall. A gift of a few, of course.’ Her voice faded. ‘A gift of a few...’

‘Pardon me? A few who?’

Fiona returned and Mrs Largie began fussing with the crockery as if she hadn’t heard his question.

Feeling the need for fresh air, he rose abruptly. ‘Sorry for the mess, but I’d best be off. Back to work tomorrow. Good evening, ladies. Um. Thanks for the tea.’

He stumbled off into the early evening, feeling idiotic.

 

***

 

What on earth did Mrs Largie mean by a ‘gift of a few’? It sounded a bit mystic for his taste. Perhaps he’d just misheard.

‘Rocks and stones,’ he muttered, striding south, past the village and back to his tent. ‘Rocks and stones.’ Well, his father had been a surveyor, he supposed. Before that, his grandfather was a labourer. Come to think of it, his great-grandfather was a stonemason. Interesting that they all had a connection with rocks, but that was it. Many sons followed in their fathers’ footsteps. Maybe that’s all she meant.

His head pounded. What on earth had she used to make that tea—some weird ferns? He decided to enjoy the soft light of the gloaming and walk off his headache.

At first, he didn’t really know where he was going. But he was drawn magnetically to the old fort, despite his dark memories.

It had been a warm day in late July a decade ago when he and his brother had decided to climb to the top. Petie had charged up ahead, stirring up clouds of daddy-long-legs in the grass. He’d hurried afterwards, feeling hot and sticky, irritated by the pinpricks of midges on his skin. He’d clambered up a narrow gap between the rocks after his brother and stopped. Above, he spotted Petie on a high ledge, his back to him, but standing quite still, as if his body had frozen.

What happened next still made no sense. Petie had backed to the edge as if sleepwalking. Two, three steps, then he fell. A lifetime later, Alistair heard him land with a ghastly thump at the base.

Hardly breathing, Alistair tore back down the hill, stopping in his tracks at the sight of his brother’s small, lifeless body lying on a dusty, flat rock. He’d cried out, then sobbing, he’d run all the way home. He couldn’t remember much of what happened after that, but he was forever haunted by the memory of how his brother’s face looked so twisted and strange, the familiar hazel eyes still open and unblinking in the hot sun.

He’d never told anyone that he’d witnessed Petie simply stepping backwards off the ledge into the abyss. He had no idea why he had done it. It was if he’d seen some sort of ghost, but it made no sense even now.

So, heart full of conflicting emotions, he made the pilgrimage back to the same spot and found himself standing on the fatal rock, looking up at Dunadd Fort.

It was the stone citadel of the ancient kings of Scotland, set atop a hill with views that stretched for miles, across the Dunadd Marsh in one direction, and beyond to the coast in the other. The perfect defence.

To the north-east, the mountain was slate black against a turquoise sky. ‘Sorry, Petie,’ he said in a gruff voice. ‘You ran so fast, I couldn’t catch up.’

For a second, he thought he heard a rumble, but it was a clear evening. Not thunder, then, but what? He half-stumbled, feeling dizzy as the ground seemed to vibrate under his feet. He righted himself, then froze, realising he was right at the edge of a deep crack that had opened in the large, flat slabs that lay at the foot of the fort. Carefully, he took a step back, then another, until he was on firm ground.

Just another tremor, he told himself, uneasily. Time to head back. It was getting late, after all.

For some reason, Mrs Largie’s words popped back into his head. ‘The gift of a few...’ Perhaps he had a sixth sense about something, such as earth tremors. He’d read somewhere that animals were supposed to sense earthquakes. Shaking his head in consternation, he made for the path.

The evening was cooler now and the midges had dispersed, so it was a pleasant enough walk past the marsh, the ghostly white bog cotton flowers glowing in the twilight. A breeze wafted inland, bringing with it the saltiness of the ocean. He veered east, looking forward to his bed, however humble, but a distant clang made him slow.

Ahead, in the lengthening shadows, he could make out an old iron gate in the stone wall, swinging open as if an invisible person was passing through. Despite the warm night, he shivered and the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Fanciful nonsense. He approached the gate and went through, closing it after him. Refusing to look back, he continued past the wood that encircled the old stones of Ivy Cross.

A faint creaking sound reached his ears and despite himself, he turned back. The gate had swung open again.

There were no sheep or cattle in the fields nearby, so, no need to keep the gate shut. It was just set crookedly on it hinge, that was all. Perfectly logical.

He continued on to the stone circle, remembering how he and Petie along with the other village children had played hide and seek one summer’s evening a lifetime ago. Of course, they’d been forbidden to go there, but they’d dared each other to run across the rickety bridge over the river to play there. One wee lad had crawled in the tiny stone chamber under a slab of rock and fallen asleep. When they couldn’t find him, there’d been hell to pay, although Fiona’s dad had finally found the boy, none the worse for his adventure. Kids.

A scraping noise sounded from ahead. It sounded like someone sawing, but that seemed unlikely at this time of night. Besides, there was no house or farm anywhere nearby. Locals kept their homes well away from the stones. He frowned, tilting his head as low voices murmured.

A warning seemed to go off in his brain so he stepped off the path, threading his way through the cool woods that lay all around the site and approached the stones from the west, out of sight.

By now, the sun was low in the sky, but being so close to midsummer, there was still enough light enough to see. It wouldn’t set until after eleven.

Ahead was the low wall that bordered the stone circle, so he bent down and walked stealthily towards it. With caution, he knelt down and peered over the top, breathing quietly.

Just a few yards away were two lithe figures, wearing casual but expensive-looking clothes, one male and one female, both dark-haired. He recognised them at once, with their fine silk shirts, good leather boots, well-cut trousers for the man and riding breeches for his female companion. The couple from the library.

The twelve stones seemed to be observing them silently, like a dozen disapproving apostles in grey robes.

The woman was standing, legs slightly apart, scrutinising a book. The man was sawing at a bough that was propped up unceremoniously against one of the stones until it fell away into two sections. He wiped his brow and dropped the saw into the grass. ‘Good. We can now tighten the rope.’

‘At last.’ The woman crunched across the pebbles and boulders that lay between the standing stones. ‘It is a noisy job.’ She came to a brown, canvas rucksack. ‘Thirty-metre lengths?’

‘Yes.’ He brushed sawdust off his clothes. ‘Do not worry about the noise, for our little sign will keep people away.’

‘I hope so, brother.’

Alistair frowned. What sign? And why did they need to keep people away?

The sister sounded anxious. ‘But what if people come from the opposite direction?’

‘Surely not. That path crosses the marsh and there are too many midges during the day.’ He laughed. ‘And at night, all the good people are tucked up in their little houses. Do not worry.’

Alistair’s knees were aching but he dared not move and forced himself to keep still, listening to the mysterious pair of siblings. He could not make out where were they from. The English was accurate enough, as if drilled into them at a fancy school, but the use of metric measures suggested they were not from the British Isles.

‘But what about the day of solstice?’ The woman glanced up at the sky, now darkening as the sun headed below the horizon. ‘Will they come then?’

‘Ignorant peasants. They are not interested.’

The woman scowled and then her face brightened. ‘I have a better idea, Károly.’

‘Call me Charles,’ he snapped. ‘And you are Polly. Not Piroska.’

‘Yes, yes.’ She batted his criticisms away.

So, thought Alistair. Not German, but perhaps Russian or Eastern European.

‘Polly’ was speaking again. ‘Our clever little sign says the bridge is unsafe, yes? It would be a simple thing to make it fall down in reality. By the time anyone saw it and tried to use the other path, we will be done. We do not want to upset our sponsors.’

The ruse began to make sense now. Alistair saw the man put his arm around the woman’s waist and she turned her face to his. ‘Clever Polly,’ he whispered and kissed her on the lips.

Alistair shifted, feeling uncomfortable. Brother and sister. Really?

‘Back to work.’ Charles released the woman. ‘I need the karabiners.’ He moved towards another rucksack and took out a set square and compass, a plumb line and a brass sextant. ‘You are ready, yes?’

The ‘sister’ pulled on a leather jacket, although the night was still and warm. She nodded and bound a silk scarf around her shoulder-length hair. ‘Yes.’

They knotted the lengths of rope together, then tied one around an oak tree close to the wall. The other end they looped around one of the stones, a rugged, pockmarked man-sized cusp of rock that projected out of the ground at a rakish angle. Charles brought the ropes together halfway between the rock and tree and tied them to the bough.

‘I get the shovel.’ Polly stalked off and returned with the tool, and began to dig around the base of the rock.

‘And?’

‘Just pebbles and stones, but they are loose enough to dig easily.’

Charles grunted, then with a glance at the sky, he began to tighten the rope, shoulders straining with effort as he turned the length of bough round and round. At one point, he let go and it span loose. He cursed in a language Alistair did not recognise, but bent back to his task.

The sun vanished behind Cnoc Samhanach and a cold waft of air blew across the site. It darkened quickly, as though someone had blown out a celestial candle, and black clouds swarmed up from behind the hill and across the sky like flocks of jet-black birds. The stone lurched with a hideous rasping sound. ‘Yes, yes! More! Do not stop.’ Polly began to dig, ramming pebbles and rocks at the base. Out of nowhere, a deep roll of thunder boomed across the glen. A crack of lightning lit the scene, horrific and menacing.

Alistair suppressed a gasp. The two figures seemed menacingly tall, seemingly growing in stature as they laboured in their profane mischief. Yet, they were still no higher than the stones, so it must be some trick of the light. Perhaps it was simply their strength that was growing. The brother’s muscles bulged in his neck and forearms as he twisted the bough faster and faster, tightening the ropes that writhed like brown snakes, as he hauled single-handedly at the massive standing stone. It must have weighed more than a couple of tons, but he was straightening it on his own, despite the gusting wind that whipped at his clothes.

His sister seemed equally powerful, shovelling rocks and pebbles around the base, securing the stone’s position. Then the heavens opened and a biblical deluge poured down. ‘Measure it!’ yelled Charles.

She flung away the shovel and reached for the sextant. ‘I cannot see the stars.’ She fought with the plumb line. ‘But it is nearly upright. One more twist, brother.’

The wind roared through the woods and it seemed to Alistair as if the very ground shook. Yet another earth tremor? He twisted round and felt as if he were about to fall. The dark outline of Cnoc Samhanach seemed to rear in front of him, a solid tsunami of solid rock...

Before he could move, a tree nearby shuddered as a huge branch began to wrench itself free, bark splitting with a ghastly tearing sound. He glanced up at the same second it broke loose and plummeted towards him.

He flung an arm over his head as a deep, silent blackness overwhelmed him.

 

***

 

‘Alistair. Get up!’

‘Aw, Petie. Just five more minutes.’ He tried to turn over in his bed but it was rock hard. Confused, he reached for his pillow, but his fingers touched on a cold, dank surface. Pain pulsed between his temples, draining his strength. So much for getting rid of that headache, he thought. Worse than ever. Stay in bed today.

‘No, no, Ali. Time for school. Mam’ll be mad if you don’t shake a leg.’

He sighed. ‘All right.’ Wincing, he managed to sit up. Lord, he ached all over and his clothes were sodden. He forced himself to open his eyes. Confused, he gazed at the quiet wood above, leaves shimmering in the suffused early light of morning. A few yards away lay the shattered pieces of the branch in a dislocated trail of bark.

A blue flash flared in his brain and his thoughts whirled. The tall trees reminded him of a strange dream he’d had. Tall giants, he remembered, lumbering in the darkness. Thick ropes, snaking round a tall stone. A violent storm. And something else... a moving mountain, bearing down upon him. Then blackness. He put it down to the experience of the noise of the earth tremor and then the tree branch landing on him. Just as well it was rotten, or he wouldn’t have woken up at all. No wonder his poor head hurt. Supporting himself on the stone wall, he sat up, feeling queasy.

There was no sign of the sinister siblings or their equipment. The stone they had been working on was still upright.

‘You all right, now?’

‘Thanks, Petie. I’ll be fine.’

A doubtful smile. ‘Only if you’re sure.’

Wiping dirt and dried blood from his brow, Alistair forced himself to think. He needed to clean up and change. Some aspirin wouldn’t go amiss, and he ought to try and get some breakfast.

As far as he knew, it was the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-first of June. The day before the official solstice which was on the twenty-second that year—and he wanted some answers.

Alistair made his way back to his tent, pitched in a small field near the burn, and washed in the burn. An hour later, in a fresh set of clothes, he felt sufficiently restored to head into the village café opposite the memorial. Pondering his strange experience, he ordered the morning special and was soon mopping up the egg with the last bit of fried bread.

‘Ah, there you are. Shouldn’t you be working?’ Fiona slid into the seat across the table.

‘Day off.’

She reached into her pocket and put a book on the table. ‘I found you this.’

He put down his cutlery, cleaned his fingers on a napkin and picked up a tome, bound in bottle-green leather, edges softened with use. ‘Midsummer Glen and the Secrets of its Stones, by James Kilmartin.’

‘A seminal work, if a little whimsical in its nineteenth-century fashion.’

‘Thanks.’ He flicked through the pages. ‘Would you look at that. A whole chapter on the Ivy Cross standing stones. With diagrams. I like diagrams. That’s great.’

‘Just don’t tell my father. It’s his personal copy.’

He pocketed the book with a grin. ‘Right you are.’ He regarded her levelly, making a decision. ‘Want to hear something weird?’

‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’ She folded her arms and leaned on the table. ‘You first.’

‘All right.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Guess who I saw last night, trying the move the standing stones?’

‘Not our fancy academics?’

‘Indeed. Charles and Polly. Although those aren’t their real names.’ He related the overheard conversation. ‘And Gran was right. The weather turned a tad apocalyptic when they did.’ She blinked as he described the eerie scene and how he’d been hit by the branch.

He lifted his fringe and she winced at the red gash. ‘Ouch.’

‘It’s all a bit odd, but it is true.’

‘I believe you. You’re not the fanciful sort.’

He couldn’t bring himself to describe his dream, which was still so clear in his mind, it felt more like a vision. ‘Was there another earth tremor last night?’

‘I don’t think so.’ She eyed him. ‘Not in the village, at any rate. So, what do you think they’re up to?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe they’re planning an experiment for the Summer Solstice, checking on a theory.’

Fiona grinned. ‘A Druidic orgy, perhaps? I don’t think the Reverend would approve.’

An elderly lady at the table next to them tutted and they both straightened their faces.

‘It’s suspicious that they want to keep people away by pretending the bridge is out.’

‘And why straighten the stones?’

‘Authenticity?’

He hunched his shoulders, unconvinced.

‘Anyway, if you’ll forgive the expression, you’ve rather stolen my thunder.’ Fiona laughed. ‘I was rather proud of the little mystery I’d solved.’

‘Oh?’

She leaned towards him. ‘I’ve worked out where all the library books have gone.’

‘Smuggled into the pockets of our sinister pair of foreigners with seemingly perfect English?’

‘Yes. They came back this morning. I found a rather boring booklet on the old monastery—we have several duplicates—so I placed it in an obvious position. I kept my eye on them and he stood there, blocking his sister from view for a few minutes. When they’d gone, the booklet had vanished.’

‘Well, well. Listen. I’ve an idea. Can you take some time off?’

‘Of course. I only have to ask. I’m just helping out at the library for the summer for a bit of extra cash. I’m heading back to Glasgow in the autumn.’

‘To do what?’

‘Well, I’ve just finished my degree—like you. Except that I did German and French. They’ve offered me a scholarship to do a doctorate. In early medieval botanical manuscripts, before you ask.’

Alistair stared. ‘Gosh. Good for you. No, I mean it. I- I should have asked before.’

‘That seems to have surprised you more than everything else.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t know why. You were always smarter than the rest of us, and I can see the appeal of seeking solace from these uncertain times by delving into the past.’ He threw some coins on the table and stood up. ‘Shall we?’

 

***

 

‘The bridge is impassable.’ Fiona shielded her eyes and stared at the single remaining plank that hung loose above the sorry, damp debris among the rocks below.

He pointed at the freshly hacked timbers. ‘It is now. And what a nasty little bit of sabotage it is. Come on.’

‘Gran will be furious,’ said Fiona as they scrambled down the boulder-strewn bank towards the treacle-brown water to the sound of frenzied early summer birdsong. ‘She sees herself as a protector of the stones.’

‘An interesting lady.’ He began to clamber across the stream.

‘She’s a little forgetful about day-to-day things, but she’s an expert in local lore. That’s what got father interested. And me too, I suppose.’

They made it across without getting too wet and climbed back up the other side, hauling themselves up by grabbing at the tough ferns and tree roots.

‘Speaking of your Gran. She said something strange the other day at her cottage...’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, I was feeling a bit thick-headed with that strange tea, but I swore she said I had the “gift of a few”. Does that mean anything to you?’

Fiona paused and looked at him. ‘A few what?’

‘I don’t know. She was talking about rocks and stones, and I wondered if she was talking about my family’s past or something.’

‘Sounds peculiar. Gran doesn’t ramble. But, sorry. It doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ll ask her when I next see her.’

He felt cheered, realising the odd phrase had been gnawing away at his mind. ‘Thanks.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘So, let’s sneak up to the wall and listen in on our continental pals.’

‘What were their real names again?’

‘Károly and Piroska.’

‘Hmm. Hungarian, I reckon. I recall some chap called Károly something who wrote about Slavic herbals.’

‘If so, they’re no friends of Mr Churchill.’

‘Haven’t the leaders been consorting with some dubious Fascist bedfellows?’

‘Oh, aye. They’re just as territorial, too, quietly seizing lands near their own borders. Last year Slovakia... next it’ll be parts of Ukraine and Transylvania.’

She gave him a look.

‘Geologists can read, you know.’

She punched his shoulder.

Alistair heard something and raised his hand. Her expression switched and in silence, they edged up to the wall and peered over.

A stout woman in tweeds was standing in the centre of the stones, eyes dreamy. ‘Of course, Hermione, one can feel the spiritual energy simply surge through one’s very sinews.’

Hermione was a plain young girl of about twelve, too thin for the bunchy skirt and blouse. She scowled and sat on the ground cross-legged and scratched at her arms covered in red raw patches. ‘If you say so, mother.’

‘Oh, dear,’ whispered Fiona. ‘I do feel for her, but oh-oh. Here come “Charles” and “Polly”, all smiles, sweetness and light. Perfect twins.’

‘Twins?’

She nodded. ‘I overheard them talking to Mrs Robertson at the library about the horoscopes in the paper. They’re Gemini.’

Feeling uncomfortable, Alistair watched the siblings saunter past the stones, making polite comments and taking photographs of each other. Twins?

Eventually, mother and daughter headed off in the direction of Dunadd Marsh. ‘Do we have to?’ came the plaintive cry as they left. ‘The mosquitoes are almost as bad as they were in Cannes.’

‘They’re midges, dear. And you’re quite mistaken. They are much worse. Brace yourself.’ She marched off, with her daughter trailing behind.

The second the twins were on their own, their body language transformed. Instantly, they produced more of their measuring equipment and checked the distances between the stones and the perpendicular angles of each, making furious notes and nodding at each other.

Alistair turned to Fiona, thinking how her short hair smelt of spring flowers.

In his head, he heard Petie giggle.

‘Stop it. She’s nice, that’s all.’

‘Ali’s got a girlfriend. Ali’s got a girlfriend. ’

‘Hush.’

Alistair shook his head to clear his mind and mentally sent his brother off to play by the stream. ‘Where are they staying?’

‘Ardfern Cottage, about a five-minute walk from here. It belongs to Gran’s neighbour. Why?’

‘I need to get inside to see what they’re working on.’

‘And see how many of our library books they’ve snaffled. The fines should pay for a new tea urn in the staff kitchen. Ah-ha. That gives me an idea. Wait here.’

‘But-’

Fiona squeezed past him and scuttled behind the wall in the direction of the Dunadd path. He held his breath. Whatever was she up to? Smart but impetuous—a charming mix. He watched, and then there she was, in full view, seemingly approaching from the marsh, humming to herself. Her jacket was knotted around her waist as though she’d been walking for some time.

He saw that she allowed time for the siblings to slide their equipment into their backs, adjust their expressions and assume their roles as avid tourists of prehistory. All the while, still humming, she regarded the scenery and looked the picture of innocence. Fiona reached the stone circle, nodded in acknowledgement and began to walk around, peering at the rough lichen-encrusted surfaces. Quite the cool customer, Alistair thought.

‘Hellooo,’ she called out as she neared the siblings and soon the three were talking. He strained to listen but they were too far away to make it out.

After a few minutes, she called out ‘Thank you!’ and waved, heading back the way she had ostensibly come.

Alistair watched as brother and sister spoke in low voices, nodding to each other. Suddenly realising they might head back across the stream in his direction, he dived behind a tree, pressing himself against the rough bark of a large oak. A few minutes later, they passed by just a few steps from him then their brisk footsteps faded.

A moment later, Fiona plonked herself beside him, making him jump. ‘So?’

‘What did you say in your cheery voice?’

She put on a cool expression. ‘Only that I’m giving a talk on the mysteries of the Summer Solstice and they’d be more than welcome to attend.’

‘What! You’re mad.’

‘I can borrow father’s new overhead projector, so it’ll look convincing. I said it would be at four o’clock in the library, with tea and biscuits afterwards. We often do talks then. That should give you enough time. We’ll meet up afterwards. Say, ten o’clock tonight at your tent. You’re in Lammas Field, aren’t you? Near the stones?’

He burst out laughing. ‘Why do I feel like this is one of your dares?’

‘I suppose it is.’ She turned to him, kissed him on the cheek and sprinted off.

 

***

 

‘You’re smiling like an eejit.’

He lied cheerfully. ‘Am not.’ Whistling, he made his way back to his tent. He opened a tin of beans and heated them through, marvelling at how his life had changed in just a few short hours.

Wee Fiona. Fancy that.

Then the thought of war and politics dissolved his euphoria and his normal mood returned. What was the point? When Hitler tried to invade, that would be the end of that. Sometimes life was just too cruel. He should just pack up and leave.

He washed up, scraping at the pot. Still a couple of hours to go. Restless, he reached for the book Fiona had given him and settled down to read.

James Kilmartin Esquire was something of an enthusiast and wrote much purple prose on each of ancient monuments in the glen. The dedication appealed. “To the memory of my dear departed brother, without whom I would never have trod the path to prehistory.” Alistair wondered what had happened to him.

But there was wit to be had. “There might be some grounds for hesitation on obtruding on the public a work of this nature, but the fact that no other catalogue of the eight hundred remarkable stones in Midsummer Glen exists to my knowledge is excuse enough.”

Astonished, Alistair discovered they ranged from standing stones to burial cairns, by way of rock carvings and, of course, the Dunadd fortress, home of ancient Scottish kings. He flipped through to the chapter Ivy Cross stone circle.

Mr Kilmartin discussed the stones and their strange carved cup marks, and included hand-drawn diagrams of how each stone appeared to have one particular indentation that was noticeably deeper than all the others.

Some scholars seemed eager to suggest the stones had links to early Christianity, the number twelve linking them to the apostles and hinted that the cup marks were filled with ‘purifying’ water. Others reckoned the circular patterns were primitive attempts to explain the movements of stars in the heavens.

As for Mr Kilmartin, he theorised that the ancients placed the stones in certain positions to tap into the energy of the ley lines to assist in healing rituals. Alistair reckoned he’d made that up to counter the other macabre theories, which he violently pooh-poohed, which suggested that the cup marks were filled with fresh blood as part of a sacrifice.

But despite his scientific stance, Mr Kilmartin was a romantic through and through, with a rich biblical tone. He waxed lyrical on the story of the traveller from afar.

“The mystic, so the old folks will tell you when plied with sufficient liquor, using his powers, whatever they were, shielded the glen from harm, saving it from the ravages of the giants and their monsters. And so the danger was gone. But as men do, he fell in love with a local girl, a wild, dark-haired faun of the woods. She had the spirit of the hazel, a divining spirit, and he was lost to her charms.”

Hmph. Emotional extrapolation, thought Alistair, but read on, desperately trying not to equate his own journey with that of the so-called mystic from the east. It seemed unlikely, he grinned to himself, as he’d only come from Stirling.

“She bore him two sons. Twins. Both had the same hazel-flecked eyes. Even total strangers would look into the boys’ eyes and gaze in awe, for the flecks were like dazzling constellations... glowing from far, far away in a nebula-like miniature universe of green, brown and infinite grey.”

‘Damned nonsense,’ he muttered, and he was about to cast down the book but a passage caught his eye. It was the same verse that Fiona had written out. He reread it:

“The glittering stars above are but precious gems set in the dark shield of the night sky.

They stir in the shifting rays of the Sun and the Moon and light our way in the dark.

Giants, monsters, masters and slaves all walk across the land, but in the end of days, they all fade as shadows.

Earth itself is a mere speck of dust that will vanish when eternity turns and blinks it away at the close of time.”

It seemed that a priest had found the words carved into a wooden post at St Margaret’s, an ancient monastery just a few miles away. The man confided in the abbot, but in those early days when the church was eager to win over the populace to the new religion, the abbot disapproved, claiming the text was ungodly and instructed the priest to throw the wood onto a fire and burn it to ashes.

Kilmartin continued: “Having spoken to an elderly great-grandmother with the prodigious memory of a life frugally spent in the village of Muircraig, I elicited this tale of how the text had been saved for posterity. The priest, nervous of disobeying the abbot, but fascinated by the words, memorised the lines and taught them to his Common Law wife. It might come as a shock, dear reader, to hear that priests in the early Scottish church were not necessarily celibate, and she passed it down to their children, and they to theirs and so forth, through the generations. For all I know, it will still be passed on by the wise women in that vicinity to ‘the close of time’.”

Alistair glanced at his watch. Half-past three. If the twins were going to Fiona’s talk, they would be leaving now.

Time to go.

 

***

 

Four o’clock. He decided to take another look at the stone circle on his way to the cottage. The warmth of the afternoon sun was intense. He touched the nearest standing stone and it warmed his fingers, as if heated from within.

Alistair stood and considered, remembering his father’s conversation about surveying. ‘Measure all you like, son, but trust your eyes. They are always the first to give a clue to something being, well, just “off”’.’

The twelve stones stood silently in their unseeing state, blending into the scenery. He went closer, marvelling at the mysterious spherical indentations and grooves that ancient craftsmen had carved with their primitive tools.

He shook his head. Something was off, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Was it that the stones were all now neatly perpendicular? Not just that. He thought he could hear whispering, but it was probably just the trees in the encircling woods, stirring in the breeze.

There was definitely a sense of something strange about the place, not sinister as such, but otherworldly. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He had the sense he was being watched.

Beyond, the outline of Cnoc Samhanach glowered, purple and slate grey against the china blue sky. He thought he heard a cuckoo call. It was a beautiful, idyllic setting, so why did he sense there was evil afoot?

It was time to head out towards the cottage and five minutes later, he spotted it, a stone gabled affair set into a rocky outcrop in splendid isolation. He spotted a half-open window in the back and scrambled into the cool interior. His pulse thumped at the risk he was taking. Even as a summer tearaway, he’d never done anything illegal.

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he let out a long breath. The larder was full of ropes, lamps, torches, chains, an axe, knives and hacksaws. All gleaming, German-made and of high quality. He moved on, vindicated.

A quick check of the upper storey revealed that it had two bedrooms. The first was full of leather suitcases in untidy piles. He pushed open a second door and found himself staring at the large unmade bed, while shoes, trousers, shirts and items of silk underwear were strewn on the floor.

Trying not to let his imagination run away with him, he went back downstairs and into the study. It was a room that harked back to the nineteenth-century, with flocked wallpaper, oil lamps, two large mahogany desks and two leather chairs tilted towards the fireplace. Books and papers were stacked high on both.

He felt more comfortable with evidence of this kind and began to sift through the notes. They weren’t in English, of course. Nor German or French, with which he was familiar, or Russian, as far as he could tell. A small well-thumbed dictionary caught his eye. An English/Hungarian dictionary. Fiona was right.

A paperweight caught his gaze. A fine sample of coarse-grained pink granite... Lewisian Gneiss Complex, he reckoned, weighing it in his hand. Underneath it was a wad of charts. He rustled through them. There appeared to be a dozen—one for each sign of the zodiac.

So, astrology enthusiasts into the bargain. He found himself staring at the last one. Gemini. Celestial twins. Castor and Pollux. Great Scott. As he gazed at the drawing of the constellation, his mind jolted. Károly and Piroska. Charles and Polly. Of course. Their names were inspired by the twins of Greek mythology.

He glanced through the charts again. Wait, he’d miscounted. There were thirteen, not twelve. How odd. A second later, he had found the extra one. The picture was compelling. A young well-muscled man strained with the effort of containing a serpent, one hand on its head, the other on its tail, as it writhed around him in a never-ending struggle against the force of evil. Alistair was rather vague about Greek mythology and was unable to recognise man or beast.

A clock chimed five. Deciding he could risk a little longer, he turned his attention to the desk drawer. It contained a folder, full of sketches and a map. He scanned the latter, tracing a line from southern Greece, across Eastern Europe, to northern France, then through England, heading northeast to Aberdeenshire, then wending its way to the west coast—ending in Midsummer Glen.

He leafed through the sketches. The first was the most complex: a diagram of the positioning of the twelve standing stones, but it was overlaid with a complex matrix of lines, drawn in different-coloured inks, zigzagging from one stone to the next, then radiating out in a starburst pattern across the fields beyond. Underneath the drawing were earlier attempts, some of the lines crossed out so violently that the paper had ripped. Glancing over his shoulder, Alistair chose the latest version and slipped it into his pocket along with the thirteenth zodiac chart for good measure. Perhaps Fiona could make sense of it.

He closed the drawer, but something caught at the back. He groped inside, his fingers touching on a single sheet of paper that had got wedged at the back. Using a slide rule, he teased it out. It was in German, handwritten in a clear yet spikily aggressive style with an accentuated forward slope, as if the author were in a hurry to be ahead of himself.

After some general comments, the next paragraph caught his eye. “Ich habe Ihre Notizen auf einem mystischen Reiseswallfahrt in ganz Europa aus dem alten Griechenland als...”

Alistair’s German was sound enough to get the gist of the letter. “I have considered your notes on a mystic traveller’s pilgrimage across Europe from Ancient Greece and they are most interesting. Such stories are powerful and I was particularly intrigued by the references to giants and the monsters they conjured up from the Earth. Indeed, I agree with you that such power is not merely allegorical. If, as you suggest, there is a some ancient artefact with military potential, I am willing to supply further funding for you to conduct your experiments in Scotland, although you must keep your activities secret as before. Make a full report to me after the ‘Sommersonnenwende’ and if you are successful and can provide incontrovertible proofs, I shall arrange an audience with the Führer.”

It was signed ‘H. Himmler’.

Despite the warmth of the room, Alistair’s blood seemed to turn to ice. He reread the words to make sure he had understood them correctly.

Sommersonnenwende. The Summer Solstice, he assumed.

So, the Hungarian couple had sought finance from Hitler’s sinister chief of police about a potentially powerful weapon. He pocketed the letter to be used as evidence (in case anyone thought he had completely lost his marbles) and continued to search the room.

A large, wooden box stood on the coffee table. He slid off the lid. Inside lay a dozen spherical glass spheres, set in neat rows by a series of inked symbols on paper labels. He recognised them as the twelve astrological signs. So, it seemed that the twins were of the opinion that the twelve stones were linked to the twelve signs of the zodiac.

One sphere for each sign—and by extension, perhaps one for each key cup mark, he guessed. He wondered where the Hungarians had sourced the spheres. If one were missing, that might stop them in their tracks for now, whatever they were up to...

A blackbird squawked in the garden, shooting in a feathery flap across the lawn into the shrubbery.

The Gemini sphere glittered enticingly and he couldn’t resist the temptation to put it into his pocket. Then, pulse racing at such unaccustomed impetuousness, he slipped out of the cottage the way he had come.

 

***

 

Despite the heat, he more or less sprinted back to his tent and threw himself on his sleeping bag. But the air was torrid and perspiration soon coated his skin. He needed to get somewhere cooler or he’d pass out.

And then he began to worry, cursing his stupidity. He shouldn’t have taken anything, especially not the sphere, for the Hungarian pair would realise someone had been searching the cottage. Fiona might be in danger, for they might connect her with him, given that the twins had seen them together at the library. Damn. Too late now.

Furious with himself, he decided to pack up and stow his tent out of sight behind a thick bramble. It would be cooler in the woods by the standing stones. He’d wait until nearly ten then head back to Lammas Field so Fiona wouldn’t worry.

Feeling slightly better, he picked up the Kilmartin book that Fiona had given him and stuffed it into a rucksack with the other items he’d lifted from the cottage, adding a torch, spare battery, a bar of chocolate and a bottle of water before heading off. A quarter of an hour later, he was ensconced in the base of a hollow tree in the woods just a few yards to the east of the wall that surrounded the stone circle. It was well out of sight, for the entrance was obscured by a thick crop of cool, green ferns. His good intentions faded within minutes for his head still hurt, so he curled up and sank into a grateful sleep.

Hours later, something ran over his ankle and made him jump. He hoped it wasn’t a spider. Most things he could abide, but spiders—no. He shivered, recalling when as schoolboys they were told the famous story of Robert the Bruce in the cave, seeing a spider persevere with spinning his web, which inspired him to rise up again to thwart the English. Well, it wouldn’t have worked for Alistair. He would have just frozen in fear. It was the only thing Petie and he disagreed about. Petie’s pet hate was snakes, but Alistair found them fascinating.

He sat up. The air was cooler now, and pleasant. Rubbing his eyes, he checked his watch, tilting it to the fading light. Nearly ten o’clock. Fiona would be arriving soon. He switched on his torch and peered at the diagram of the twelve stones and the coloured geometrical lines.

The pattern seemed overly complicated, with different colours going in different directions for no apparent reason and then doubling back on themselves. Some distance away, another batch of lines splayed outwards across the countryside—ley lines, he guessed—but they didn’t seem to connect with the stone circle pattern.

What if... He found a pencil stub and drew one line, starting at the most westerly stone, zigzagging across the circle to the next stone, across again, without overlapping, as if he were darning a hole in a sock.

He drew a line from the last stone and then paused... if he continued in the same fashion, it would go right through the stone wall about twenty-five yards away.

Twenty-five yards.

Aware of his heart beating, he added a cross where he had found the strange stone in the wall. The pattern suddenly became coherent. The sunlight from the east would strike the first stone, then its reflection would bounce off each of the other stones before hitting the separate boulder, positioned a little further away, like some sort of marker. A thirteenth stone. Then what? Perhaps the light would shatter, exploding into a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree starburst.

For a few seconds, he stared at the paper, wondering what it could mean, but at the same time feeling almost afraid to contemplate it.

Get a grip, Alistair, he chided himself and turned to the thirteenth astrological chart which featured the man and the snake. He turned it over and saw a name written in neat capitals. Ophiuchus. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the Kilmartin text and browsed the index. There it was.

“A carving on a small slab on the edge of the St Margaret’s monastery has caused much conjecture. This author is of the opinion that the depiction of the strong man staring at a coiled serpent under a dazzling sun represents Ophiuchus, the so-called thirteenth constellation, and an astrological anomaly.”

Mr Kilmartin noted that the Greeks identified him as Asclepius, the son of Apollo and the god of medicine. In fact, he became so skilled that not only could he save lives, he could also raise the dead, using concoctions of herbs and snake venom.

Intrigued, Alistair read on. There was a depiction of Hades, god of the Underworld. It seemed he finally became worried that the flow of dead souls into his domain would soon dry up. He complained to Zeus, who struck down Asclepius with a thunderbolt. There was a murky drawing of a large Greek pot, showing two, black figures, one with an arm raised and the other falling at his feet. Apollo was outraged, and finally Zeus immortalised Asclepius and set him among the stars as the constellation Ophiuchus, in an eternal struggle with a serpent.

Alistair stared at the outline of Ophiuchus intertwined with the constellation Serpens, a writhing snake. The caption added rather pithily that some experts could not resist a moral interpretation, believing the story was an allegory of the unending battle of good against evil.

The final paragraph made him sit up. “At the risk of befuddling readers with another legend, for myths themselves are like the very heads of hydra that keep on growing if one attempts to remove them, yet another story originates from a series of carvings in a Scythian cave. They depict Asclepius and an almost identical figure, said to be a twin brother. One scene shows the two young men grappling at the edge of a cliff in mortal rivalry. In the next, Asclepius is alone, a nomad in a snake-filled desert, presumably condemned by guilt to roam the world. This is the only reference to the fact that Asclepius had an identical sibling. As one who has lost a twin oneself, it is a powerful, tragic and poignant scene.”

A footnote caught his eye. “There is some dissent over the pronunciation of Ophiuchus, given that it is Latin based on the Greek Ὀφιοῦχος, meaning ‘serpent-bearer’. This author subscribes to ‘O-few-kuss’, with a stress on the ‘few’, despite what certain less traditional scholars will tell you, for knowledge of classical pronunciation in the New World can be erratic, to say the least.”

He chuckled at Mr Kilmartin’s pedagogic tone and continued. “A fragment of text in the University of Glasgow’s Historia Virorum Fabularumque describes that the gods took pity on the accursed wanderer, and gave the world-weary traveller a magic shield, its power deriving from a mystic carving of a serpent at its centre...”

Mr Kilmartin had attempted a modest sketch of the armour in question. As Alistair peered at the pattern, something stirred in his mind, life a leaf in a breeze. Mrs Largie and her odd statement. ‘You have the gift of a few, of course.’

Except that he had misheard. What she had actually said was: ‘You have the Gift of Ophiuchus...’

Thoughts roiled in his head as he contemplated the possibilities. The mystic traveller of Mrs Largie’s story was the young Asclepius himself, later immortalised as Ophiuchus. But how was he, Alistair McCompton, connected? He certainly did not possess a shield, powerful or otherwise.

He stared at the drawing and wondered what power it had. Putting two and together, this must be the ancient artefact that had captured the attention of the Hungarians and their Teutonic sponsors. Perhaps they thought it had ended up in Midsummer Glen. That would explain why they had been so eager to dig around the base of the standing stones.

Fascinated, he read on. “It is not hard to imagine the solitary traveller, racked with guilt, striding across our rugged hills, resolved to do battle with any monsters that he might find. Standing atop a rocky outcrop, like some Old Testament prophet, his shield gripped in his hand, he would gaze upon them, his eyes bright as if reflecting all the stars in the firmament.”

Alistair leant back, beginning to make some sense of it all. Of course, it was just a tale, but it was easy to imagine how an earlier civilisation had come up with it to explain the clear fault line that ran across the glen.

‘Ophiuchus’ had shielded the village from harm. Literally. But how exactly?

The shield was a gift to Ophiuchus, but what if Mrs Largie had meant something different. Perhaps it was all about the gift of Ophiuchus... some skill, possessed by the wanderer.

According to legend, Ophiuchus had fathered two sons, according to legend. What if he had passed on this ‘gift’?

For some reason, Alistair rummaged in his pocket and brought out the Gemini sphere in his fingers. He turned it over in his fingers. Outside, the ferns rustled in a light breeze and his head spun, just as it did when he was at Mrs Largie’s cottage, and he felt as if he were about to faint. Ferns again... Once again, he could sense the strange tea numbing his tongue.

Turning back to the sphere, he saw glittering lights sparkling in the glass and he peered inside, wondering if he were seeing things. As he shifted his gaze, the patterns moved at the same time and turned from green to an iridescent blue. Horrified, he dropped the sphere onto the mossy ground. The lights weren’t inside the sphere—they were a reflection of his own eyes.

He fought the urge to panic and tried to think things through.

Had Mrs Largie seen the same effect in his eyes? Alistair’s family was from the area, so could it be possible that he might actually be a descendant of the traveller? Mrs Largie evidently thought so, but the idea that he’d inherited supernatural powers from an ancient super-being seemed fantastic.

But what if it were true? And what kind of power was it? He forced himself to stare at the sphere and a spiral of lights coiled and uncoiled in the glassy orb.

Feeling odd, he put the sphere back in his pocket, but found himself staring once again at the picture of the snake. It was so realistic, Petie wouldn’t have been able to look at it.

Something shifted in his brain. He’d once seen Petie faced with a small grass snake. He’d gone stock still, then backed away numbly. ‘Stop or you’ll trip,’ he’d shouted, but Petie was so overcome with terror, he hadn’t even heard, and fallen backwards over a rock.

Alistair pictured the old fort. It had been a stiflingly hot day. What if a snake had been on the top, basking in the sun? Petie had nearly stepped on it... and backed away in mortal dread. Two twin brothers, the only thing separating them was a primitive fear. Spiders and snakes... Blood rushed in his ears. His brother’s death was just a ghastly accident. Not his fault. A fluke...

Suddenly, the guilt he’d carried with him for years simply dissolved and his mind was clear.

Outside, it was deathly silent.

Where was Fiona?

He tucked the Himmler letter and other papers into Kilmartin’s book and hid it under a rock. The map of the stones he kept, thinking to show it to Fiona, and slipped it into his pocket before pushing his way through the ferns.

 

***

 

‘Alistair! Watch out.’

He halted in surprise. It was Fiona’s voice, coming from the other side of the wall. He scrambled over and jumped to the ground. Something caught him in the back of the knee and he fell flat.

Fiona lay on her side in the centre of the stone circle, a few yards away, hog-tied and helpless. She sounded angry but tired. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t bother with him, Polly,’ she continued with some bravado. ‘If that is your real name. He’s just a hedge-cutter. Bit of tramp. Sleeping rough, for all I know. He’s nobody.’

‘Be quiet.’ In the glow of a torch, he saw Polly kick Fiona’s feet.

Alistair tried to push himself upwards but the sole of a boot ground into the middle of his back. He struggled, but Charles spoke. ‘We’ve had enough of you and your little friend.’ He removed his belt and secured Alistair’s wrists behind his back. ‘All we had to do was follow her and now here you are. Excellent. So easy. Just as it was easy to get rid of that nosy little father of hers.’

‘Father? My God, what did you do?’ Fiona whispered, suddenly sounded frightened.

‘Oh, do not worry. He is still alive. We are not monsters.’ He laughed. ‘Avebury is a long way from here. It will take him days to make his way back on your inefficient British trains. Now.’ He turned to Alistair. ‘We know you stole some things from us. Sister, will you oblige?’

Polly stepped over Fiona and approached him. ‘Most valuable things,’ she breathed in his ear. Her breath smelt of whisky. ‘Let us see what the naughty boy has in pockets.’ He squirmed, but it only took her a few seconds to locate the Gemini orb and the map. ‘Tut tut.’ She waggled a finger and handed them to her brother. ‘But there should be more papers.’

‘You find them, then.’

He felt the sting of Polly’s palm on his cheek.

‘Wait.’ Charles approached and seized the diagram of the stone circle that Alistair had amended. His eyes glittered and Alistair cursed his stupidity as brother and sister peered and nodded, devouring the information that he had unwittingly given them. ‘The pattern, sister. Ez fantasztikus. And so beautiful.’

‘But I do not understand.’ His sister tapped a thumbnail on the paper. ‘He has added something. What is that “x” symbol?’ They both turned to stare at him, expressions cold. ‘Tell us.’

He almost laughed. ‘No. I don’t think so.’ Let them work out that there was a thirteenth stone.

Charles let out a long sigh and pulled a gun out of his pocket. ‘Tell us, or we kill her.’ He pointed the barrel at Fiona.

Fiona struggled against the ropes. ‘Alistair, don’t!’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Don’t tell them anything. I-’ She stopped, for Alistair was struggling to his feet. He nodded almost imperceptibly, for he had come up with a desperate plan.

Clearing his throat, he asked: ‘If I do, how will I know you won’t kill her, or indeed both of us, anyway?’

‘You don’t.’ Charles sounded bored.

With difficulty, Alistair now stood. ‘Very well. It seems I have no choice.’ He tried to look as though he were struggling with a decision. ‘But, it is probably quicker to show you. It’s not far.’

Charles glanced at his sister and she nodded. Checking Fiona was still securely tied, Polly pushed Alistair forward. ‘Go.’ Charles moved to one side, his gun trained on Alistair. ‘Slowly.’

‘All right.’ Stumbling a little, Alistair headed towards the section of the boundary wall into which the mysterious marker stone had been built. He struggled over the broken down wall and jerked his head towards the recumbent piece of carved of rock on the other side.

Polly followed and dropped to her knees, fingering the carvings. ‘Yes. Look. It is wonderful, quite different from the others. But we’ll need to raise it.’

‘Do we have time?’

‘Yes, yes. Dawn is not for a few hours. It will be enough, brother.’

‘But wait.’ Charles swore. ‘There is a problem.’

Polly looked up, worried. ‘What?’

Charles ran his hand through his hair, now lank. ‘We only have twelve spheres. What if we need a thirteenth orb for this new stone to make our plan work?’

‘But there is no indentation, at least on this side.’

Charles joined her and they both peered at the carvings.

Alistair slid to a sitting position on the freshly cut grass.

‘What are you doing?’ snapped Charles, whipping round.

‘What does it look like?’ Alistair made his voice sound resigned.

‘Tchah.’ Charles’ expression was full of disdain. ‘Sister? Let us assume you are right. Go back to the circle and insert the twelve spheres. I shall deal with the thirteenth stone.’ He bent down and ran his dirt-engrained palm over the serpentine markings.

‘Good. Yes.’ She removed her rucksack and pulled out a small tub. ‘Hazel resin,’ she explained to Alistair and a smile crossed her lips. ‘Very adhesive. A traditional recipe we found in a Breton document last year. Oh, yes. We are well-informed.’ She strode back to the stone circle.

Alistair leaned back and strained his fingers to start probing in the grass behind him. The tip of the scythe had to be there somewhere.

While Charles began assembling his equipment, Alistair watched, all the while feeling for the tip of the scythe. Suddenly, he felt the edge of a blade. Although he thought he’d kept his expression impassive, Charles seemed to sense something and stared at him. ‘Tell me. If you are a mere hedge-cutter, how did you work out the pattern of light?’

Alistair shrugged. ‘I liked maths at school.’ Well, that was true enough. 

‘Like many illiterates.’

So, Charles really was an intellectual snob, thought Alistair. He wondered how much more he could find out. ‘Just how long have you both been on the track of the mystic traveller?’

‘How do you know about that?’

Alistair wondered if he had revealed too much. ‘Oh,’ he bluffed. ‘Everyone knows the old stories. Some chap who had a way with giants and monsters. All a bit daft, if you ask me.’ As he talked, he slid the sharp tip of the scythe gently to and fro across the leather belt.

‘Ignorant fool,’ muttered Charles and looped a length of rope around the fallen stone. He paused. ‘Only a few people realise the full potential of the standing stones.’ He smirked and, as Alistair had hoped, failed to resist the urge to show off his knowledge. ‘Standing stones, even dull little ones like these, can produce a great power. But only at certain times, when the planets align.’

‘Right.’

His sceptical tone had the right effect. Charles sounded annoyed. ‘Even someone you like must have heard of the Summer Solstice?’

‘This is Midsummer Glen, I suppose.’ He needed to sound dull and uneducated.

‘Quite. When the sun rises, there will be quite a spectacle. We have witnessed something of the sort before, but the stones in Brittany were ancient, crumbling... A disappointment. Now, enough of this. I need to concentrate.’

He moved towards Alistair and hit him on the back of the head with the butt of his gun.

Alistair felt his senses dull from the force of the blow and his chin sank to his chest. For a second, he was aware of a nervous wind whistling through the trees that rose to a roar. There was a familiar clanking of rope and scrape of a shovel, then he must have passed out.

 

***

 

A cry woke him.

It was Charles, his voice urgent. ‘Sister! I have found it.’

Alistair blinked in the eerie pre-dawn light, realising he was still half slumped on the ground, wrists still bound. A chill wind blew from the east. The first thing he saw was a familiar mass of ropes, chains, karabiners in a heap, with a shovel resting on the top. All had been deployed and now the stately marker stone was obscenely upright, soil clinging to the fourth side where it had lain for years. At its foot was a mound of debris. Next to it squatted Charles and Polly, caressing a flat object on the ground. They were both unkempt, clothes spattered with mud, hair wild, but their expressions were triumphant.

‘After all this time...’

‘Finally, to touch the shield of Asclepius...’

‘But it is damaged. See, it is bent.’

‘Never mind that. I can still sense its power.’

‘Look, there is the serpent in profile, with the stone representing the eye.’

‘We have the shield! All our work has been vindicated,’ breathed Charles. ‘And thanks to Himmler, we shall soon be the darlings of the Reich.’

‘Well, until we complete the final stage of our plan.’

They laughed and embraced.

Alistair shivered, thinking it felt more like winter than summer. Confused, he looked about and saw the ground was littered with huge, jagged hailstones. Above, tattered navy blue clouds charged across the sky like wild horses, manes streaming, almost blotting out the translucent sliver of moon.

‘So.’ Polly glanced up at her sibling. ‘What do we do with it? I hope it will still work.’

Charles rose and began to inspect the thirteenth stone. ‘Perhaps the carvings will tell us.’

‘Of course!’ Polly began to brush off the soil from the fourth. ‘Look. There is a circular indentation in the centre.’

‘Show me.’

Seemingly immune to the cold, Polly shone a torch over the surface. ‘There!’

Together, they lifted the shield and secured it into position with a twisting movement.

Charles checked his wristwatch. ‘Sunrise is only a few minutes away. I shall set up the camera.’ He walked off. ‘And move the girl. The body will spoil the scene. Then meet me at the centre of the circle, just as we did in Brittany. We must be in position to absorb as much of the reflected light as possible.’

Left behind next to the boundary wall, Alistair tugged his wrists apart and felt the belt give a little. Where was the scythe tip? Fumbling in the grass, he retrieved the blade and hacked as fiercely as he dared, wincing as he nicked the skin on his wrists. He could hear Charles setting up the cine camera. Suddenly, the leather loosened and he was free.

Flexing his wrists, he scrambled to the wall and peered over, in time to see Polly dump Fiona’s limp body out of camera shot. A foot twitched. Thank God, he breathed. Fiona was still alive. He tightened his grip on the scythe tip and edged around the wall until he was close.

‘Psst,’ he whispered as loud as he dared. ‘Fiona.’ He peeped over the top, dropped the metal blade on her foot. She stirred.

At that second, the first pale golden ray of sun shone from the east and bathed the glen in an ethereal green light. Abruptly, the wind stopped and the clouds melted away. The twins stood in the dead centre of the circle and turned to face the thirteenth stone, rapt expressions on their faces. Their eyes glowed with expectation.

Suddenly, he recalled Kilmartin’s description of Asclepius as he imagined him, with “his eyes bright as if reflecting all the stars in the firmament”.

He recalled the passage about the carving at the monastery of a man in the dazzling sun, staring at the snake, and then he understood. The twins sought to gaze into the reflected rays of the solstice sun, in the belief it would they could absorb the powers of Asclepius himself. He was the son of Apollo, after all. The shield was not powerful in itself, but it would act to safeguard the eyes of whoever gazed at the light.

Of course, the shield was not the weapon they had promised the Fascists. It was a means to an end, enabling them to oust Hitler, Himmler and their Fascist cronies. The twins themselves planned to become super powerful—and then what? Rule the world?

Throwing caution to the wind, Alistair flung himself over the wall, his only idea being to stop them. The air seemed to throb as an intense beam of light from the east struck the first sphere.

‘Brother!’ cried Polly. ‘It is working.’

The first orb glowed pale blue, then purple, jettisoning an even more dazzling ray across to a second stone. A second later, the pattern repeated itself, as the ray became stronger and brighter as it passed from orb to orb, until Alistair’s vision was seared with blinding streaks. Crick, crack.

The final ray completed its crazy zigzagging manoeuvre and shot like a bullet towards the marker stone and made contact with the shield. ‘No!’ cried Alistair. Was he too late?

But something strange happened. The serpent’s eye turned scarlet and the ray of light ricocheted off at a seemingly random angle over the top of the stone circle.

Beyond, Cnoc Samhanach brooded, still oddly dark, like some beast in the depths of a forest, the shaggy head formed out of boulders and scree. The blood red beam struck out towards it, arcing downwards before piercing the lower slope, like an arrow hitting its prey. There was a distant rumble. Alistair froze. Was it his imagination, or was it stirring, as if shaking off loosened chains?

The twins screamed in frustration and anger. Sobbing, Polly dropped to her knees and Charles tried to pull her up, but she beat at his hands, screaming. ‘Idiot,’ she shrieked. ‘It’s not working. We have failed.’

‘No. You have failed.’ He raised his arm and delivered a vicious blow to her cheek.

It was getting lighter by the second as the sun rose above the horizon. Alistair turned, his gaze drawn to the thirteenth stone and the ancient shield, the stone of the serpent’s eye now fading to grey. But there was something ‘off’. He started. The shield was decorated with elaborate serpentine patterns, and he looked, he could see a similar swirling pattern carved into the stone. They did not align. He knew that they should.

A primitive drive arose in him and he found himself running full tilt towards the marker stone. The twins stopped fighting and screamed at him, but he ignored them. He knew what he had to do. It might kill him, but it would stop their obscene ritual.

In one movement, he wound the shield to the left, matching up the pattern. In a flash, the snake’s eye brightened and shimmered anew. The iridescent ray crackled once more, surged brightly and struck Alistair full on.

He felt its fiery intensity as it blasted him in the face, bathing his eyes in a burst of light. Energy surged through him and he seemed to grow in stature, soaring over the scene below.

Amazingly, he was not blinded: in fact, his vision was enhanced. Looking down, he could see the now tiny ring of twelve tiny stones arranged on the ground below, with the marker stone nearby.

Cnoc Samhanach loomed in the distance, but the mountain was no longer a solid mass of rock. It was now a real beast, a gigantic boar, with a spiny back, tusks, long snout, dark mouth. A dark patch of boulders on the upper slopes became a cavernous black maw, bristling with tusks. It roared and the air throbbed. The trailing edge of the eastern slope was a wiry tail, whipping left and right, smashing the trees in the valley to firewood.

Alistair became aware of a limpid black eye staring at him, almost through him. At first, he thought the expression was rage, but as he stared back, he realised it was surprise, which rapidly changed to something else. Pleading, perhaps? It was willing him to understand.

His mind opened, as if someone had drawn back shutters, and he could suddenly picture the ancient scene in his mind’s eye, as if he were now the creature itself, reaching back into its memory...

It is a flat, quiet land, dotted with blue deltas, green meadows and brown marshes. Above us, small groups of people, tiny as ants, fish and hunt in the silvery streams and pluck a meagre living from the soil. But the ground starts to shudder and we quake in fear, for we can sense an army of giants pouring in from the north. The people flee to hide in caves, but it is no use. The giants capture them, chain them, force them to work as slaves. Some fight back but the rebellion is over almost before it begins. Enraged, the giants draw strength from the sun and split open the ground, stirring up volcanoes, landslides and earthquakes. We are ripped out, thrown upwards into the light and find we have become vast beasts, driven half-mad with ravening appetites. The giants laugh and use us to terrify the people and keep them enslaved... But then a single man appears from the east. He talks to the people and helps them to fight back. They create a strange circle of stones, pulling them from afar in the summer heat. Then, one day, in a flash of blue light from his shield, the ground opens up and the giants fall. But one has a last act of revenge, and as he plummets into the chasm, lashes out at the stones. They tilt and topple. One falls, injuring the man, his shield broken beneath the rock. He staggers up and the earth closes at his feet. His work done, he gazes upon us and turns back into peaceful mountains. Finally, we can rest...

Alistair blinked, now understanding the ancient conflict.

‘“Giants, monsters, masters and slaves all walk across the land, but in the end of days, they all fade as shadows,”’ he said to himself. ‘“Earth itself is a mere speck of dust that will vanish when eternity turns and blinks it away at the close of time.”’ The sound of human voices dragged his gaze back to the stone circle.

The twins were fighting.

Alistair turned to the beast and felt its force. An old anger, but a desire for peace... The beast roared again, stamped its front feet and a crack opened in the ground, snaking across the valley towards the stone circle. An avalanche of slate stirred and began to slide in a thin, deadly torrent inexorably down towards the two figures in the centre.

The twins watched in horror, mouths open, as the stream of slate gathered speed. The crack became a shadowy gulf, brown dust rising from the edges as the surface of the earth tore itself apart.

Now, they were on the edge, clinging to one another, then a second later, the river of stone overwhelmed them and swept them into the abyss. Brother and sister flung up their arms and were gone.

The opening juddered and closed, like an animal clamping its jaws around its prey, leaving a purple smear across the glen. A mauve haze rose in silence above the debris, dancing particles of dust glittering in the sunlight.

‘Alistair?’ It was Fiona’s voice.

He stirred and the scene shifted its perspective once again and he had returned to his normal size, standing beside the marker stone that stood, peacefully, glowing an unearthly blue in the early morning rays, tilted to one side.

A small, dusty figure clambered over the boundary wall and stumbled forwards.

‘Fiona.’

She approached him, coughing and blinking, an ugly gash on her forehead. ‘What happened? I managed to free myself, then all hell broke loose and I fell.’

He ran towards her and swept her up in a tight embrace. ‘I think we won.’

 

***

 

‘So. A geologist.’ A middle-aged man in a pinstriped suit fixed his steel-grey eyes upon Alistair and drew on a cigarette. ‘How apt. Now, you can call me Mr Hague. It isn’t my real name, of course. You shall be Mr Guest.’

‘Yes, sir, I mean, Mr Hague.’ Alistair scanned his surroundings. The interview was taking place in a long, quiet room which had the feel of a library, with dozens of shelves, stuffed with dusty books. ‘Wait,’ he said, recalling something he’d read. ‘Isn’t Ras Alhague the brightest star in the constellation of Ophiuchus?’

‘Well, yes it is. I see you’ve been busy.’

Alistair just nodded and waited. Through grimy windows, he could make out the long neck of a crane and a Clydeside tugboat hooted in the distance. Inside, the furniture was distinctly utilitarian. Veneered desk with a wobbly leg, ripped canvas chair, bare light bulbs. A squadron of Spitfires flew low overhead, making the glass rattle in the panes.

‘Ah, yes. Still a few issues with the budget,’ said the man, a faint smile on his lips. A smoke ring hovered and curled like a cobra. ‘They’re still a bit uncomfortable with the “paranormal” label, those Whitehall pen-pushers. Of course, on the record, we’re just chartered surveyors on minor government contract work. Quite innocuous. Nothing cloak and dagger at all. No, no, no.’ The eyes gleamed.

‘Sorry, I-’ Alistair cleared his throat and tried again. ‘What exactly am I doing here?’

‘Your evidence, including the cine film, was passed on to us. Himmler, eh? Dangerous little bugger. But at least that’s one device he and his nasty little private army of police can’t get their hands on. We’ve had our eye on the Hungarian pair for some time, but we didn’t realise how ambitious they were. Fancy concocting a plan to outwit the Fascists at their own occult schemes! Yes, you did a good job, my boy. Especially for a novice. Locals barely noticed a thing, although I suspect the local historian smelt a rat when he got back. Good man, though. Discreet. Understands the family dynamic. Ah. Behold the fragrant Miss Barnard, another nom de plume.’

Alistair whipped round and stared in surprise as Fiona entered the room, bearing a large manila folder. ‘The latest incident reports, sir.’

‘Good.’ Mr Hague nodded and flipped through the sheets. ‘Keep on it.’

‘Sir.’ Fiona left the folder, smiled at Alistair and was gone.

Alistair was dumbstruck. ‘I, we...’ Strewth. He sounded like an imbecile.

‘Yes, we know. Miss Barnard is our most recent admin recruit—and quite extraordinarily competent and intuitive. As you have already discovered. It was she who made the botanical connection between the ferns and the artefact. Shield ferns, of course. Sometimes the old stories are truer than we imagine. And before you ask, the shield itself is in a safe place. It’ll come in handy to, shall we say, confirm candidates’ credentials.’

Silence fell for a moment and Alistair became aware of Mr Hague scrutinising his face. Then, Mr Hague glanced at the lengthening ash on his cigarette and seemed to make a decision. With a raised eyebrow, he turned to gaze at a chipped marble ashtray that stood at the far end of the table. Alistair’s pulse fluttered as he saw the man’s eyes glitter in a familiar pattern—distant stars in a far-off constellation... The ashtray stirred and scraped along the table, coming to rest by the man’s elbow. ‘Asclepius was a busy fellow,’ he said with an amused smile and tapped the cigarette. ‘You’ll find quite a few kindred spirits amongst us. Being a surviving twin, like myself, you’ll find your, ah, skills are even more sought-after, although you might have to practise a bit. We offer gruelling training, lousy pay, extraordinary risks and a chance to do something for your country that you’ll never be able to brag about to anyone outside the unit. Understand?’

Alistair swallowed and nodded.

Mr Hague beamed and shook his hand. ‘Good man. We’re going to need all the help we can get. Now.’ He tossed a sheet of paper across the table. ‘Time to grab your kit and head out, for I’ve a wee job to start you off. There was a recent landslip in the Dollar Valley that is highly suggestive. The locals think it was a natural phenomenon, but we believe otherwise. You’ll be our “surveyor”. Spout all the official mumbo jumbo and what not, but keep your wits about you and your eyes open.’ He stubbed out the cigarette. ‘Mr Hitler is amassing his armies. By the time the autumnal equinox comes around, he’ll be on the march and I, for one, intend to be ready.’

 

THE END

 

***

 

Author’s note

Summer Solstice is a well-honoured tradition in many cultures and the quintessential image for most is Stonehenge.

Many summers ago, I had the good fortune to take a trip to see the ancient stones and monuments of Argyll with my daughter, Lauren, a History of Art graduate, who has developed an interest in all things medieval. Our favourite site was Temple Wood, an intriguing stone circle in a magical place even if your name doesn’t have Celtic origins. It simply begged to be written about, and I hope I’m forgiven for changing the name to Ivy Cross.

The stones and setting are similar to the ones in the story, but I have tweaked a few details. There is no real Midsummer Glen, but it is based on Kilmartin Glen, an area simply littered with prehistoric monuments. I retained the name in the form of the pedagogic prehistory expert, James Kilmartin Esquire, whose style is reminiscent of many nineteenth-century scholars.

Asclepius, his medical skills and his fate as Ophiuchus amongst the stars is the stuff of legends familiar to many, but as far as I know, he never had a twin. As for Scottish giants, there is many a tale, often associated with standing stones the length and breadth of the country. Of course, the orbs, shield and ‘Gift of Ophiuchus’ are pure fantasy. Sadly.

Heinrich Himmler, we are told, was a follower of the occult, and there are extraordinary accounts on shady websites of exhibitions all over the globe in search of powerful weapons, although I’m not sure how many I believe. Our Hungarian twins, and their delusions of grandeur, are pure fiction, and I like to think they got what they deserved.

Finally, the hero, Alistair McCompton, is a tribute to my late father, Peter A. W. Kelt, who really did work as a hedge-cutter one vacation as a student in Dumfriesshire in the early 1950s. He, too, lost a brother when he was very young, and no-one in our family ever talked about the incident. He studied geography and psychology at the University of Edinburgh (rather than geology as in the story) and was a keen student. After graduating, he ended up doing National Service, which he loathed, but I always suspected he would not have been averse to being recruited for intelligence work. Or perhaps he was!

In his later years, he began to write. I inherited his manuscripts and I’m proud to say that his first book, Not With A Whimper, a Cold War thriller, was finally published in 2015.

 

***

 

This is part three of a quarter entitled Seasonal Disorders. Some available on Pam Kelt's blog.