That’s true. You always know when wolves are close. “A lugh, then? Maybe a deer was trapped inside the net, and it went after it?”
I have found deer in the nets before. Deer are pretty stupid. And lughs – mountain cats – do hunt by the loch, although usually during winter.
My father stares at the net, as if expecting it to tell him how it got in this state.
“Is it likely to be a lugh, do you think?” I ask.
“A lugh would have to be starving to come down the mountain in spring,” he says finally. “Starving or rabid. I’d better set some of the cages.” Then his tone turns pointed. “Either way, the net will need replacing today.”
My heart sinks. It’s bad enough that I skipped checking it, worse that he found it in this state. Any other day I’d already be halfway to the sheds to fetch a new one, muttering prayers and apologies as I went. But today I need to go down into the village to meet Murren Ross and get my things from him. Finding, inspecting and hauling a replacement net almost ten miles around the north mountain shore will take the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon, and then I’ll have to rig it up too. I’ll lose the whole day. I can’t afford to lose a whole day.
The timing couldn’t be worse.
A nasty thought occurs to me. The north nets have been fine for years, and yet today, the sole time I didn’t check, one is damaged. Not just damaged but ravaged, by cuts that look like they were made with a blade. And he just so happens to have found it…
The skin along my shoulders tightens and prickles. Could he have done this? Does he know what I’m planning? Because if he knows, then that means—
“Alva? The net. Today, if it’s convenient.”
The irritation in his voice yanks me from my thoughts.
“Sorry.” I shake my suspicions away. Now I’m being stupid. If he knew what I was planning he wouldn’t bother to sabotage his own nets to keep me here. He’d probably just kill me.
I cover the transcribing with a calfskin cloth to keep it clean and hastily roll up the old scroll I’ve been copying, disturbing a few tiny flakes of gold leaf that drift on to the desk. I have a jar of scraps I’ve harvested over the years, collecting the leftover fragments the monks forget, or can’t be bothered, to remove properly. The bottle they’re in is probably worth more than the contents, but I like the thought of my little pot of gold.
“I’ll go now, then,” I say, still hoping for a reprieve.
A normal father would hesitate to send his only child ten miles around the loch shore to fix up a new net, with a potentially rabid lugh lurking nearby. He’d take pity on his daughter and allow her to go down into the village, to collect the paper she told him she needs to finish her work. But not mine.
“Take a gun and mind yourself,” he says, turning away. “And be back before nightfall.”
Aye, Da. I love you too.
The sheds, where we keep the spare nets, our boats, and a whole mess of other things, are a mile west of the cottage, huddled together like gossips on the south shore of the loch. I’m warm by the time I reach them, hands damp inside my woollen gloves, my earasaid heavy on my shoulders.
When I was a wean, the sheds were my playground: I’d ride there on my father’s back and spend the day with him. I’d sit in one of the boats and play at being a pirate, or get inside one of the cages and howl like a wolf until he threatened to toss me into the water. Sometimes I’d thrash in the nets, pretending to be a mermaid, trapped, able to grant wishes in exchange for the cake I knew my mam had packed for us.
Then there were the times I’d sit quietly beside him, practising knots on old scraps of net while he sorted through the real ones, pausing occasionally to ruffle my hair.
I don’t remember the sheds being creepy back then, but today, even in the bright spring sunlight, they’re undeniably sinister: tall and thin, the wood black and warped so they lean together, crowding me. Goosebumps rise the moment I move out of the sun into the shade they cast, owing less to the cold than my own unease.
The ominous feeling worsens when a fat magpie lands on top of one of the boathouses, watching me as I pass, cruel beak parted like it’s silently laughing at me. They’re supposed to have a bit of the devil caught under their tongue. Lore says if you give them human blood to drink it feeds the devil in them, and they’ll speak like a person.
It had better bloody not.
I take my earasaid off and wave it at the bird, but all it does is eyeball me, dipping its head like it’s getting my measure. I have the sudden, irrational feeling it’s about to speak anyway, drink of blood or not.
“Away with you,” I say, before it can. “I don’t have time for devils today.”
I’m both embarrassed and relieved when it simply cocks its head at me, then begins to preen, combing through feathers that glint inky blue and emerald green in the sun. Obviously dismissed, I leave it behind and head for the storage sheds at the back.
Inside, I light a lamp and watch the shadows play against the wood, pausing to give the rats time to get out of my sight. I listen to the sound of tiny feet scurrying deep in the recesses, and the creak of the wood as it contracts in the rising heat of the day; winter has finally loosened her grip on the mountain. The place smells musty, dank from the droppings and the nets strung from the ceiling to dry before they’re mended and rolled up for reuse.
It’s the rolled nets I’ll need, and the lamp isn’t bright enough to check them properly. I spend a couple of sweaty, sweary hours dragging them outside, unrolling, examining, then rolling them back up, disappointed. At last I find one long enough to replace the ruined one, only to see something has been nibbling on it, leaving a mess of frayed edges and loose threads that will need reinforcing before it can be used. I groan aloud at the thought of coming back here to repair it.
With a start, I realize I might not have to. This could be the last time I ever come to the sheds. If all goes to plan, I’ll be gone in a few days. And I won’t ever return. I’ll never sit here again, sorting through nets. This place will be nothing but a memory.
Stunned, I sit back on my heels, crushing the net in my fist until my palm hurts, bringing me back to the present.
I roll the net up no less carefully than before, and try another, and another, until finally I find one that’s right.
By the time I’ve hauled it ten miles around the shore in one of the wooden carts, I’m roasting alive; my hair is stuck to my forehead, I’m panting with every breath, and thirst has seen me empty and refill my water canteen four times from the loch. Though I’ve kept my gloves on to protect my hands, my earasaid is flung over the nets, and I’m seriously considering shucking my vest off too and fixing the net in just my blouse and skirts, propriety be damned.
My arms and legs are killing me, and I think dark thoughts about mountains, earthquakes, secret underground lochs, and how they’ve all ruined my life. Why couldn’t I have lived three hundred years ago, when the loch was a third of the size it is now? Why did a stupid earthquake have to shift this particular mountain and release an underground reservoir no one even knew about? If it hadn’t, I’d be done and on my merry way to the village by now. But instead I’m still here, still dragging the bloody net, sweaty, tired, and cross.