The Hollow Mountain

CHAPTER 1

31st of January

She’s gone. Not in the farmhouse or the outhouses, nor the den she made by the ice-rimmed burn. The wind snatches my voice, raw from calling her name over and over. Iona has vanished. Panic hardens my throat so I can hardly breathe. I look up at the silhouette of the mountain, witnessing all that happens in its looming shadow, and I get the strangest feeling it knows where she is.

***

Ten Days Earlier

The day Will Donnachie came back to his mountain, I knew he was a liar, knew it before he’d said a word.

He turned up a fortnight after we’d fled Edinburgh to stay at my Granny Jeannie’s farmhouse. Iona was sitting on the rug by the primeval kitchen stove, swaying to “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King. Ironic she was singing about having no worries. I wished with a visceral ache she didn’t. Or only the kind of concerns you’d expect in an eight-year-old girl — some squabble with a friend, or indignation at not having her own mobile phone. But even with her happy music playing, her face was puckered with unease — that tell-tale crease at the bridge of her nose.

I bit my bottom lip. If I’d been braver, got out sooner, my girl wouldn’t be this shadow of herself, wide-eyed and wary. Although there’d been signs she was unfurling, coming back to life since we’d got here. Or that’s what I kept telling myself. But now her swaying looked more like the kind of rocking injured souls used to soothe themselves. I squatted next to Iona and rubbed circles on her back. She stilled herself.

‘Should we turn the music off, mummy?’ She squinted up at me, winter sun illuminating the flare of eczema under her eyes, which made her look as if she’d been crying.

I got to my feet, pulling her up with me. ‘Not yet, let’s finish this song. It’s one of your favourites.’

She quirked a smile, flashing the gap between her front teeth, just like my own. I swung her around, making myself sing along, wondering if I’d still be able to hear a car inching its way to the farmhouse, crunching over the unkept drive gnawed by years of ice and storms. If I could relax, it would make Iona settle better. But knowing it and willing my body to respond were two different things. I was a mess, my heart jolting in a tumble of too-quick beats, warning me the worst was to come — had to come — and I was only putting it off hiding here.

A movement caught my eye. I let go of Iona and lurched towards the window. Three red deer hinds ran across the field, hooves skimming the frosted grass that never emerged from the mountain’s shadow this time of year. What had spooked them?

‘Mummy?’

I spun to face Iona, her arms rigid at her sides.

‘Just some deer.’ I painted on a smile. ‘Maybe later we could put some apples out to tempt them closer to the house?’

Iona turned off the music and wrapped the end of her long black plait around her fingers, first one way and then the other. ‘That would be nice.’ She let out a breath that softened her shoulders. ‘I’m going to do some more reading.’

‘Okay, darling.’

I rolled my neck, loosening the grinding tightness. I should send Fraser that email I’d written and rewritten. This anticipation of what he might do was getting worse than just facing it. It wasn’t like he’d physically abused us, nothing like that. His approach was intellectual, insidious — pecking at the foundations of who you thought you were until dumb compliance was the easiest path. I’d needed this time to unearth the strength to face him, but the constant fear of him finding us before I was ready was sapping me.

Iona cradled the book she’d been studying, returning with it to her spot on the rug. It was some leather-bound tome of Jeannie’s about Schiehallion’s history that I’d probably struggle to read myself. Iona had Fraser’s brains alright, but none of her father’s manipulation or gall.

She traced her finger over the creamy page, following the outline of a sketch of the mountain. ‘I like it here.’

‘I knew you would.’ She was so young when she was here last, although she swore she remembered it. A remote farmhouse nestled on the flanks of a mountain sitting right at the heart of Scotland wouldn’t be every child’s dream. But Schiehallion was in our blood. Our family had lived here since the 1600s and probably longer. This would be the first place Fraser would have come looking for us if I hadn’t told him we’d gone to visit my friend Amy in Thailand.

And if I hadn’t lied about Jeannie being dead.

I couldn’t stand how Fraser went on about her ­— that old witch on the hill who raised me when my own mother couldn’t stand the sight of me, and my father was too busy to care. Jeannie and Fraser had always hated each other, and I’d cut her off as if she really was gone.

But there was nowhere else I could think of running, even though she’d have had every right to slam her door in my face. But the joy and pain written in the contortion of wrinkles when she saw us would stay with me forever. Her face was home to me, but it had aged in the years I hadn’t seen her — just like the dilapidated farmhouse, that seemed connected to the woman’s life force.

‘I’m going to have a go at filling that,’ I said. Iona didn’t look up as I pointed at a patch of exposed lath and plaster halfway up the wall. The place was falling apart. Literally. What still worked was held together by Jeannie’s sheer will.

‘Where’s Granny?’ Iona ran her hand along Burt’s back and up his tail as he arched to her touch. The mean old ginger tom had formed an instant bond with her. Maybe it was the cat that had woken her dormant skin condition, or maybe it was me sneaking her away from her father.

‘She’s having a nap, darling.’ This was a new thing, but Jeannie was eighty-seven, and us turning up, like two ragged runaways, had thrown her routine right off.

‘I want to hear more of her stories, Mummy. Why won’t you let her tell me them?’

I pulled a chair next to the wall and stepped onto it. Jeannie’s stories, the ones I’d heard as a child, were the stuff of nightmares. Hags, spirits, and beasties that Iona didn’t need troubling her mind.

‘We’ll ask her for some nice stories.’ I puffed hair from my face, as I massaged some life back into an old tube of filler and smeared half-dried lumps into the disintegrating plaster with a butter knife.

Iona looked back down at her book, turning the page. ‘What’s the point in nice stories — they’re no story at all.’

I snorted at the words, recognisably Jeannie’s. Maybe she was right. I’d loved her ghoulish tales. They’d sent me charging up the mountain on wild monster hunts by day and cowering under my blankets at night for all of ten minutes before exhaustion swept me into the kind of dreamless sleep only mountain air could induce.

Iona scrambled to her feet, hugging her book like a shield. I teetered on the chair and shot out a hand to steady myself as the knife clattered to the floor.

‘There’s a man at the window!’ she said in a harsh whisper.

I got down from the chair, meeting eyes that looked like they were scanning for prey.

The man raised a hand and gave a tentative smile, not showing his teeth. I moved towards the window, Iona clutching at my jeans. A greenish sliver of rock swung from his fingers, suspended on a piece of leather like some stone-age calling card. My heart jolted at the sight of it.

Keeping Iona behind me, I half opened the door.

‘Sorry. I startled you,’ he said, his face too young for the silvered hair.

I glanced past him, couldn’t see a car. Had he walked up here?

He held out the stone on his palm like he was offering sugar to a skittish horse.

I opened the door wider, gathering the edges of my oversized cardigan against the wind slicing off the mountain.

Iona peered around me and raised herself on tiptoes. ‘That’s it! Just like ours, only the wrong way around.’

Indeed, it was. We had a mirror image triangle of white stone marbled with pea green. Like this one, it had a notch out of one side. Sometimes I let Iona put it under her pillow. She called it her “talisman”. And if she believed it kept her safe, that was fine by me.

‘You’ll be Georgie MacAlistair,’ the man said, making my name sound lyrical.

‘Aye, that’s right.’ I waited for something else, but he just stood there. There were flakes of snow on his curls, although the sky was clear. ‘You’ve got the other greenstone,’ I said, stating the obvious. ‘Did Mr Donnachie send you?’

A blackbird skittered across the yard, shouting her chink, chink alarm call as she abandoned the sultanas Iona had put out.

‘In a way.’ The man looked down, jaw tensing under a scant beard. Then his gaze was back, eyes like shattered glass. ‘I’m William Alexander Donnachie. I hope you’ll forgive me turning up like this.’

The tips of my fingers tingled. I rubbed them up and down my trouser legs. He must be some relation of the old man I’d written to. When we’d tracked down Douglas Donnachie in New Zealand, I’d thought he might be dead. The man could be in his nineties by now.

‘You’ll be Douglas’ son? Or his grandson?’ He had the same look as the man from that photograph ­— the straight, black eyebrows contrasting with the grey hair.

The clock in the kitchen chimed nine as we all stood awkwardly, waiting for it to stop.

‘It’s a little out.’ He flashed a smile.

I glanced at my watch. Quarter past three.

A wisp of hair floated across my face, carried on the warmth leaching from the house as the man stood silent, fixing on Iona. She reached for my hand, and I grasped it. The man breathed in; head tilted like he was scenting us. My scalp prickled. I held Iona’s hand tighter.

‘The wee lass,’ he nodded towards Iona. ‘She looks very much like my mother used to.’

Iona looked up at me. ‘Who is he, Mummy?’

Good question. And one he hadn’t really answered. ‘What was your name again?’

‘I’m Will.’ He hung the stone around his neck. ‘You wrote asking about our family greenstone, so I thought I’d call by and show it to you in person.’

Call by? We’d written to someone in New Zealand.

He cleared his throat. ‘You don’t look well, Georgie.’

The comment threw me even more. I pulled at the whipping strands of hair caught in my mouth, making a tiny nick. I tasted blood.

‘Just a cold.’ I hadn’t been able to shake it off. But he should be the one with a cold, the way he was dressed — no coat, only a Yoda T-shirt that read, “When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not”.

I blew my nose, but he just stood there — him looking at us and us looking at him in a curious deadlock. I took a step back. ‘Better keep your distance.’

He emerged from his trance. ‘No bother. I never catch anything.’

Iona put one hand on her hip, peering up at him. ‘What, nothing?’

‘Nothing. Not ever. It’s one of my superpowers.’ He grinned and she smiled back.

I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. ‘Sorry, but I’m still not sure who—’

‘It’s complicated,’ he said, eyes closing for a beat. ‘Could I possibly come in?’

Jeannie would have had him inside with a mug in his hand, filleting his life story by now. I wasn’t feeling so welcoming, my gut firing alarm messages. Although granted, that wasn’t unusual these days. Iona pulled her hand from my tightening grip. I let it go, feeling the touch of frigid air where her skin had been.

‘We weren’t expecting anyone. We just got in touch with Mr Donnachie to see if he had any information about that stone.’ I nodded towards the thing hanging between Yoda’s ears. ‘Its original owner was an ancestor of ours. We thought Mr Donnachie may have been related to him too?’

Will rubbed a finger across his forehead. ‘I’ve made a pig’s arse of this already.’

Iona giggled at the arse reference and said, ‘You should ask him in Mummy, it’s freezing with the door open.’

At the point I’d finally summoned the courage to leave Fraser, Iona barely spoke in front of her father, in fear, like I was, of saying the wrong thing. Safer not to speak at all. He’d made her nervous of men, so it surprised me to see her relaxed around this Will.

‘If he was going to murder us, he’d have done it by now.’ She gave me her best kooky smile.

Will sucked air through his teeth. ‘She has a point.’

This was weird, he was weird, but I was more than a little curious to find out about the stone and why he’d come. I stepped aside to let him in, heart thrumming in my ears. He closed the door behind himself, scanning the kitchen as he stooped under the beam.

‘You can sit here if you like,’ Iona said, showing him to the saggy tartan armchair. It had always been Jeannie’s chair, but Iona had taken it over since we arrived. Jeannie said she found it too chilly these days, anyway. The window behind fired cold air at the back of your neck no matter how you stuffed it with newspaper, but Iona never felt it, curling her whole body into the chair like a cat. Usually with the cat.

Will took the seat, sinking low as I stepped over the filler that had thunked to the floor, like the wall had spat it out.

‘My name’s Iona.’ She put her hand on her heart, a strange gesture.

‘Your mother named you for a beautiful island.’ Will repositioned in the chair but didn’t seem comfortable. ‘You’ll know our stones came from the island of Iona?’

‘I didn’t know that. Mummy, did you know?’

I remained standing, rubbing warmth into my arms. ‘No actually, I didn’t.’

Will’s eyebrows arched. ‘You didn’t? It’s a very special place.’

My stomach kinked. The island was special to me once. It was my mother’s childhood home and Fraser and I had part of our Hebridean honeymoon there. But I hadn’t spoken to my mother in years, and any good recollections of my marriage were buried under the debris of emotional abuse that I’d refused to acknowledge. Until Fraser started on Iona.

Will laid the stone on the arm of the chair and ran his finger down a seam in the rock. ‘See the green in the white?’

Iona bent to inspect it; her mouth drawn in a serious line.

‘The colour comes from serpentine, which has blended with white marble. It’s a healing stone that protects you.’

Iona darted me a look. ‘Like a talisman?’

‘Aye, that’s right.’

At the window behind him, horns appeared. Then a face.

Heat rushed to my cheeks. Oh, not now…

My faun pointed at Will, mouthing, “Who’s that?” And yes, I did mean a faun as in the mythical sense. She’d been my imaginary friend when I was a kid. Now she was back, as much as I tried to ignore her and not overanalyse what her reappearance meant for my mental health.

‘Could I see your stone?’ he asked as I looked past him, distracted as the faun’s head weaved.

Behind her, turbulent clouds were crowding in, bringing a premature darkness to the afternoon sky. I got up and closed the curtains.

While I was diverted, Iona had taken our stone from its box. ‘Here it is.’

Will took our heirloom and laid it alongside his own stone. The two triangular parts made a larger pyramid shape with a circular hole in the middle.

‘Oh,’ Iona said at the same instant I saw it. ‘It’s Schiehallion. The two bits make the shape of our mountain.’

From the right angle, Schiehallion was like a child’s drawing, exactly what a mountain should look like.

I folded my arms. ‘So, you’ve been here before then Will?’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I grew up here.’

‘Oh? What school did you go to?’

‘Before your time.’

‘Jeannie will remember you, then. She knows everyone.’

He rubbed his chin, the scrape of bristles on hard skin. ‘I very much doubt that.’

I frowned. This wasn’t stacking up.

‘I’m doing a terrible job,’ he said, lowering his head towards steepled fingers. ‘The thing is, I’ve told so many lies I’m choking on the truth.’

I’d known it, of course, the dancing light in his eyes, a quicksilver that dared to be caught. But the liars I’d known — my mother, my husband — hadn’t so openly admitted it.

‘I promised myself I’d tell you everything, just come out with it. But you’ll not believe me.’