Round Two - The Last Breath of St Kilda

[James]

St Kilda, a dot forty miles west from the Hebrides, had been inhabited for thousands of years. Its people farmed and bred, lived and prayed. And on the 29 August 1930, as its population was ravaged by famine, disease and poverty, the 36 remaining islanders boarded the Harebell and left St Kilda forever.

In every home that was evacuated, the families left an open Bible and a small bag of oats on the dining room table.

The official reason for St Kilda's evacuation was that a series of economic, military and social reasons had caused continued habitation impractical. The Last Breath of St Kilda, though, tells the unbelievable, true story of St Kilda's final days, and the real cause of its hurried evacuation.

[James]

ENTRY ONE

THE LAST BREATH OF ST. KILDA

John stood at the cliff’s edge, kicking his feet over the frothing sea below. The day itself was calm and sunny. Islands of white floated over the sea, small mountains in their own right. John wondered if Mary could see them, wherever she was now.

The sea itself was not calm. It is never calm. It frothed and weaved below him fretfully. Beware the sea, his father often warned him. It takes only a moment for it to grow angry and swallow you whole. Ships, people, nations, the sea had taken many lives into itself.

John had always felt, deep within him, a yearning for the sea. He often grew angry with his parents, with the townspeople, for their fear of it. He had admired his uncle for his ability to sail. He had hoped to learn before he had left. But his uncle had seen the turning of the tide. He felt it. They all did. Old rickety men whispered to each other of it all the time. This place was dying. Past it’s time. The people had sunk deep into the bones of the soil or left it entire. John felt as if the whole land was mourning.

He stood, moving away from the hungry waters, trudging the familiar path back to the village.

But something caught his eye.

Nothing caught on the island John’s eye anymore. His eyes felt ever turned outward towards the encroaching horizon, his feet struggling not to stumble on stray stones.

But, today, John noticed an odd stick thrust into the hillside.

He wasn’t needed back at the house for a little while longer, so John began to clamber up the stony hill, hands grasping for leverage here, feet slipping into proper footholds there. The wind picked up the farther he went, from a gentle caress to a steady push. And as he climbed the stick became clearer. It is made of some thick, dark wood, and looked fire-hardened. At the end of it, are a bundle of feathers, strung to it by a thick piece of leather. A basket it seems, woven of many different birds. John clearly saw gannet, fulmar, but also puffin and petrel, and other feathers that he could not place.

The staff, for it seemed a staff more and more as John neared it, was thrust deep in the stony soil. It is tall as he was, creaking and swaying just slightly in the breeze. The feather basket seemed almost alive, fluttering and weaving in the wind, but whatever bind held the quilt of feathers together was quite strong, for however it bobbed and weaved in the air, John was quite sure it was not in any danger of breaking.

John reached the staff and grasped at it. To his surprise, the wood is icy cold, biting far harder than the wind on such a sun-swept day. His hand jerked back, twitching wildly. He rubbed it against woolen vest, sucking air through his teeth. How curious.

John settled against the hillside, and looked out. The slope wasn’t absurdly steep, simply tall and rocky. Here offered an even nicer, if nippier, view of the sea. On a clear day like this he could see the islands closer to the mainland, or the outstretching arm of Dun past the village. Sometimes, when he was younger, he would rush up here and watch the ships come. There was an excitement to the outsiders, despite the cough that soon followed. He turned away back towards this staff.

The cold of it disturbed him. His hand still stung, and had turned scarlet. He reached down and covered his hands with his sleeves to form makeshift mittens. Reaching up, he tugged at the staff again.

Despite the thick wool, he could still feel his hands chill. But to his surprise the staff easily slid out of the soil. He held it in front of him, beginning to shiver.

Dark grooves and ash, a roughly hewn staff. At the end of it, still covered in dirt and few bits of grass, the wood is sharpened to a nasty point. The sight of it made John very uneasy. The feathers danced merrily on the other, occasionally batting against John.

He decided to head down the hill, where the wind was not so insistent, and he could lay the staff down without it rolling away.

It’s chill nipped at him through his woolen shield, stronger than the weather. It was intensely unnerving—John felt himself trembling at the strangeness of it all—but deep inside he felt a voice saying that this was an adventure, an adventure in his home, that he had craved, had hoped for, for so long.

At the bottom of the hill, John placed the staff into the ground. It sank into the grass like a knife in butter, easing it’s way thickly into the soil. The basket tumbled lightly against, seeming to enjoy the lighter breeze after it’s constant buffeting in the hilltop wind.

He lightly caressed the outside of the basket. The delicate piece can only be called art. There is hardly a space of air in the thing, the fiber of the feathers somehow woven, interlacing with each other. Whites and grays and browns and blacks permeate it, with flashes of red, spots popping up like marks on a map.

John wondered if it could hold anything. He reached down and picked up a small pebble, and dropped it in the basket.

It bounced lightly on the feathers, but they held firm. John frowned. This time, he reached down and grasped a larger pebble, about the size of his knuckle, and dropped it in.

John took an instinctive step back, but his eyes jerked forward, scanning the basket. Again, the feathers held firm. Though, as he looked harder, he realized he couldn’t see either stone. He blinked and looked, and looked, but for all he could see, the stones were gone.

He reached in to feel around with his fingers.

There was a sudden, shrieking hiss, and pain tore up his fingertips, shooting up his arms and into his skull like lightning. The pain was searing hot. It nestled in the front of his forehead and billowed out around his skull like a scalding fog.

And the sacrifice was accepted.

John’s eyes opened through the pain, through tears and gasps. Blood was oozing thickly, warmly, from the stump of his wrist. Vaguely he could hear the rustle of feathers, cheery.

As they should be, John. Can you feel the warmth of the blood in the wood now? I am here with you.

Look up, and out, John. Out at the world. It does not care. Your roots run deep, deeper than any of them could even hope to understand. Yours is the salt, and soil, and wind. The wool and the feather. The quiet, the call of wind and storm.

Hear me, John, I am the voice of your people, of your land. Of your root. Deep in the urn of the world. You have reached me through this vessel. You have fed me your blood, and I will grant your wish.

John, I will protect the beauty of this land for you. I will make it yours. I will make it the true heaven that even God would envy at. Your perfect world, John, awaiting you. Your sister, your uncle, your mother, all returned to you.

John, John, I am the spirit of your ancestry, John. I am the breath of the island. More blood, more blood, John. They will leave soon, they will all leave. They will leave you and the places you love. They will take you away John, yes, away from the sea. John, I can give you the power to seize the world as you like it. Simply bring me the blood of the village. Offer them to the carriage.

I have waited so long.

They will leave soon, I know it. Your bleeding will stop. Stand. Hurry.

And John stood.

[James]

ENTRY TWO

The Last Breath of St Kilda

Ewan Macauley chewed absently at the end of his whalebone pipe as he always did when he worked. His thoughts were lost among the sounds of sea birds, the ocean waves crashing upon the rocks and the metallic slicing of the iron shears in his hand. He stuffed a handful of coarse wool into a burlap sack beside his stool and turned the sheep laid out before him, resuming the snick, snick, snick on the animal’s belly. Summer was upon St. Kilda and though it was rarely warm, the sheep would appreciate being free of the burden of their woolen coats.

Ewan stared glassy-eyed into the distance, beyond his flocks grazing on the young grass painting the rolling green hillocks below him. Beyond the cobblestone pathways and the few tendrils of smoke rising above the chimneys of stone and thatch homes on the ridge. Beyond the relentless tide, gnawing away eon after eon at the indominable stones of the shoreline. Ewan Macauley watched the horizon and stared into the space beyond; waiting.

He took a deep breath, the tobacco smoke and sea breeze mingling pleasantly in his nostrils. Movement played in the lower peripheral of his vision, there in the cloudy lens of the cataract. The formless blob he knew to be his flock parting to make way for a visitor. He could see the black and white splotch of his dog, Haggis, pull up alongside a human figure. The bright red ascot donning the man’s head made his identity clear.

“Oi! Finlay Cotter,” Ewan called out to the faceless form panting his way up the hill to the circle of ancient stones surrounding him, “That you?” He released the sheep at his feet to rejoin the flock, flexing his arthritic fingers against the cold.

“Aye, Macauley.” Finlay called back, his thick Scottish brogue punctuated with wheezing breaths, “Do ye have a minute?”

“I do.” A bemused smile crossed the old man’s face, watching the youth struggle to climb the hill. Finlay Cotter was a fine, bright lad, but not the most physically able in the village. Sixteen years on, the boy had been plagued by asthma all his life. It shouldn’t have brought Ewan Macauley so much joy to watch the boy pant and cough, but at his age, he’d earned the right to laugh at the youngsters for any reason.

“What are ye doing way up here?” Cotter panted, spine bent, hands on his knees gasping as though he were about to vomit. “Can’t ye have Haggis bring them down to ye?”

The aging border collie took a seat by Ewan’s side, looking up at him with greying muzzle. Ewan scratched Haggis behind his ears, “Nah, this old mutt’s near as blind as I am.” He looked back to Finlay who seemed to have regained his composure, “So what brings ye up here, today?”

Finlay seemed to be searching for words. He pulled his red cap from his head, wringing it in his hands and joining the elder is staring off to the horizon, “It’s a good day for sailing, eh?”

He wasn’t wrong. The sea beyond the break was an empty blue-green plane of gently rolling waves. The sun was out, though not hot, and the windy was gentle of steady. But the boy hadn’t climbed all the way up here to talk about the weather. There was something else he was dancing around, “Out with it, lad.” Ewan commanded, “Only so many hour’s o’ daylight an’ you’re wasting ‘em.”

“Yea,” Cotter muttered, “It’s jus’—I had a dream.”

The hair stood on the back of Ewan’s neck. Something about the boy’s tone, the insecurity in his voice and the fact that he’d felt it necessary to come to the old man with this gave Macauley a pretty good idea of what was to come. “Go on.”

“T’was the Messenger, sir.” The young man started, quietly, “The angel. It spoke t’ me.”

Macauley nodded silently. “An’ what did the Messenger say to ye?”

“It said the Departure is comin’.”

Ewan chin dropped to his chest and his eyes met the soil at his feet. He’d long suspected today would come. The day the Messenger would choose another. His failure hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Anythin’ else?” he asked.

“Yea, it said that I was t’ be the Steward of St. Kilda… I was t’ take your place.” His eyes looked panicked, “I don’ know what that means. “

Ewan was silent. The boy hadn’t even been born when the last Departure was supposed to have occurred.

“Well, then?” Finlay urged, “Do ye’ know what it’s on about?”

“Aye.” The old man muttered after a long, uncomfortable silence. “How old d’ya think I am, lad?”

Finlay was taken aback. He didn’t understand the relevance of the question. He wanted to avoid answering. To avoid another of MacCauley’s wild tales of days long passed; but something in the elder’s tone told him this was different. “I don’ know, sir. Seventy-five?”

Ewan smiled sadly to himself and gave one terse chuckle, “I’m nearly four hundred years old.” He looked the boy in the eye, watching his reaction. The Cotter boy’s face moved from incredulous amusement, to doubt, then careful examination, to epiphany and finally awe and amazement.

Everyone in the village, all thirty-eight of them, knew Ewan MacCauley as the old man who seemed just always be there. Few, if any, did the math. Age had a way of halting time in the eyes of others. A young man who never aged would stick out like a sore thumb. An old man, though. That was a different thing all together. Older than dirt is older than dirt, even if a man never aged a day. Surely Finlay was putting it together that man who was ancient when he was but a toddler should have been dead now that he was an adolescent.

“How can tha’ be?” Finlay asked.

“I am the Steward.” Ewan smiled and made a gesture indicating the village below, “It is my job t’ be here. To watch after you young un’s, to teach you how to live here. In this world.”

Finlay looked confused.

“Listen, lad,” Ewan MacCauley continued, “All of us here; me, you, everyone on St. Kilda… We are descended from the angels.” He began, “Well, what you call angels.”

“What do ye’ mean? If not angels, then what?” the boy asked.

“Beings.” Ewan answered. There was a relief in his voice, as though finally after a long hike carrying a pack full of firewood, he was unshouldering his burden, “Beings from another place. A place among the stars.”

“Ewan,” Finlay looked skeptical, “I mean ye’ no disrespect, but I came up ‘ere to ye’ because I thought ye’ might be able to help. Because the angel spoke of ye’ specifically…”

“Why come t’ me at all, lad?” Ewan interrupted, “It was but a dream. Why come to me with your fantasy?”

Finlay looked puzzled, as though only now asking the question of himself, “Because…”

“Because you knew it t’ be something more, right? You felt in your bones.”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” the old man repeated, his eyes drifting out to the waves and horizon once more, “There are special places in this world, Finlay, and St. Kilda is one o’ them. The angels, our kind, have been coming here for thousands of years t’ live among the men of this world. St. Kilda is where they come t’ learn the ways of men. It is the Stewards job, it is your job, to guide them.”

Finlay Cotter sat on a nearby boulder, taking it in. He looked overwhelmed and said as much, “This is a lot, Ewan.”

“Aye.” MacCauley agreed.

“Didja come from the heavens, Ewan? Like the angels?”

“No.” He answered, “I was born here, at St. Kilda. I inherited to job, like you.”

“There was another Steward, then?” Finlay asked.

“Aye,” Ewan nodded, “A woman named Maighread. Pleasant enough. I was about your age when the Messenger came t’ me.”

“Why? Do you know why you were chosen?”

“No. Only that Maighread had failed in her task.” Ewan stopped for a moment to reload his pipe, tamping the tobacco down with a nearby stick and lighting it, “See, every eighty years or so, a boat comes to St. Kilda and it picks up about a third of the people here; men, women, children… An’ it takes them somewhere else. Takes them to live among the men and women of far away lands.”

“The Departure?” Finlay reasoned.

“Jus’ so.” The elder confirmed, “But you see, in the year I was born, a sickness came to St. Kilda. Killed almost everyone. When the boat arrived at the next Departure, there were too few for just a fraction to leave. It was all or nothin’. The Messenger saw this and, came to me…”

“The famine.” Finlay interjected, “Tha’s why the Messenger said I have t’ replace ye’.” Cotter stared at his boots, thoughts rampaging through his head. “What did you do?”

“I did what you will do. I went to Maighread, as you came to t’ me. She explained it all, as I have t’ you.” Ewan chewed his pipe and grinned, as though recalling a fond memory, “We went house t’ house letting everyone know the boat was coming. Coming to rescue us from the plague, we’d said. We helped people pack their things and in each home we left behind a Bible and a bag of oats.”

“A Bible? Why? And why a bag of oats?”

“For the newcomers, of course. To get them started.” Ewan replied, matter-of-factly, “Aye, it hasn’t always been a Bible. Maighread explained that. Think of it like a guide book. A set of rules for getting on among the natives, eh?” He winked, “Long, long ago before the Christians came to Scotland, it would have been something else. But it’s a Christian world now, so we leave a Bible. And oats to eat until they adjust to other foods. Nice and bland; easy on the stomach.”

“That’s it, then?” Finlay asked. “We jus’ round everyone up, leave oats and Bibles on the tables an go?”

“No.” Ewan corrected, “When the boats came, everyone loaded on and sailed away. Except Maighread and I. We stayed behind, readying the place, feeding the animals, minding the crops as best we could, until the new comers arrived. It was hard work; back breaking work. Made harder still when Maighread finally passed on.”

“Maighread died?”

“Oh, aye. She was older then then I am now. Almost twice over,” Ewan said, “But what doesn’t St. Kilda need with two Stewards? No. She had to die.”

Finlay looked at the old man. His slender withered frame upon an aged wooden stool which might be as old he was. He looked as though a strong wind could blow him of and yet, there he sat, absently gnawing his pipe in his near toothless gums. Undaunted by time and tide. He’d been a permanent fixture to St. Kilda, as far the boy knew. Nearly four hundred years, come to an end because he couldn’t prevent a crop shortage and famine which killed nearly half the half the island.

“I expect you’ll bury me next to Maighread, here.” Ewan suddenly said, indicating the boulder Finlay was sitting on.

Finlay shot to his feet, “That’s a grave?”

“They’re all graves, lad” MacCauley said, waving his pipe in a lateral arc before him, indicating the circle of mossy boulders. “Stewards. Every one o’ ‘em.”

Finlay remained standing, awkwardly wiping his hands on the rear of his pants, unsure what to say.

Ewan saved him from the seemingly eternal uncomfortable silence, “C’mon then,” he said, offering his ancient hand, “Help me up, we’ve got work t’ do.”

[James]

ENTRY THREE

The Last Breath of St. Kilda

I.

The prisoner sat on the lonely isle, far from the stately manors she knew so well, as her eyes scanned the waters to the south-east. Home lay in that direction, yet she had not seen her home in years. She had been able to walk around, free on the island, but it was a prison that required no bars as long as the sea remained. God had no mercy on the prisoner. No divine providence would shine down upon her. The infinite expanse of murky blackness served as well as any blacksmith's metal.

The simple wooden table, and little illumination from the animal fat oil-lamp let the woman see the papers in front of her. It was a letter about an impending doom, but she wouldn't let it stop her. She would have revenge on her bastard of a husband. Ten long years had she lived, if one can call the life of eating, sleeping, and reading a life, on the small rock in the northern expanse of sea. It was all his fault.

A guard entered the doorless shack made of cobblestone and announced, "Mil'lady, the man, that upstart of the MacLeods is here."

"James," the prisoner addressed, "how many times have I told you, call me Rachel. Lady Grange is missing and will be in the arms of The Lord soon."

"Aye, but you earned my respect Lady Grange. To me, you'll always be Mil'lady."

A tear dribbled slowly down Rachel's face as she turned to look at the young, glowing Scotsman James. He had so much life ahead of him. Rachel pitied the five years the man had wasted away with her on this rock. The fitness and attitude of his youth served to momentarily remind Rachel of her own fate. She was not young anymore, and she felt Death coming. Her once smooth skin was wrinkled and wind-damaged, her litheness of her younger days melted into the plumpness of atrophied muscle combined with a diet of animal fat, her onyx hair had turned a shimmering silver, but her eyes burned with hatred that supplanted her hopeful youth. Like a falling hammer striking the smith's anvil, she made her decision with a curt nod and the three words, "Send him in."

James left the shack, and a muscular gentleman, clad in fine tartan with a plush hat, replaced him. Still, he acted respectfully to the old woman in rags. A short bow concluded the introduction before he grinned as he held up a scroll with a golden seal and a wooden totem. "I brought you all we'll need. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"How long will it take?"

"A fortnight, but you do not need to be nearby during the event. They're moving you, aren't they? I'll just need some blood."

"Bloodletting is supposed to be healthy, right MacLeod?" Rachel produced a small bottle from one of the shelves along the walls. The fancy, Parisian glass once held sweet perfume given by a charming noble. She kept it out of spite, and now she was going to give it out of hatred. Rachel held her hand out as she stood to approach the newcomer. "Lend me your dirk, MacLeod."

The gentleman complied. An odd and totally unexpected sickened feeling came over his stomach as he watched the woman slowly slit her left palm from thumb to pinky and funnel her crimson life-blood into the bottle. A man who had seen countless men slain in squabbles in the New World and closer to home felt the situation was abnormal, but it was he who suggested the witchcraft. A phrase came to mind as he was handed his dirk and the warm vial of blood. It was Biblical. Proverbs 6:17 reads, "A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood."

All of those were present in the room.

Rachel suggested, "You should keep it cold, cork it, and seal it with wax. I want my anger to be fresh as it flowed from my veins."

"Aye, Lady Grange."

"I'm leaving here in a week. As you stated, you heard."

"Aye."

"I am counting on you," she said as she turned back to her stool, walked to it, and collapsed in it.

MacLeod turned on his heel and vanished into the darkness. James re-entered and explained, "They'll be here when the sun comes up. Mil'lady."

From her small porthole in the wall, Rachel nodded as she watched the lantern of the young MacLeod bob to the bay, slip into the water, and fade from view. She asked James, "Do you think all of this is worth it, James?"

"Aye," he replied as he took a step forward. "Would you like me to keep you entertained until dawn?"

"No," Rachel said with a clog in her throat. "I'll read some. Please make sure no one disturbs me. You're a loyal friend, James."

"Aye, I'm honored... Rachel." James disappeared out the passageway to leave his prisoner, and his friend, alone.

As Rachel waited, she did not read. Her eyes examined the ever-changing surface of the sea in the fading moonlight. Then, slowly, her eyes noticed the gentle change of night into a purple, then red, orange, and finally yellow sky. Tears fell as she stared at the sea with the sun rising above it to make an ocean of Golden Fleece. One thought kept the noblewoman from plugging her tear-ducts. She thought I will never see home again.

II.

In all of world religion, there is no St. Kilda. No Catholic has her as a patron, no Mormon sings their praises, nor do any eastern religion recognize the name of the Saint who never was. The same enigmatic existential issue affects the St. Kilda archipelago of the Outer Hebrides. Sometimes it appears on maps, but the small group of islands is largely forgotten. A piece of rock juts up from the sea like a tree in a field, and routine fog obscures the quiet island. It has been that way for thousands of years.

On August 27, 1930, the foggy ether above the sea broke to reveal Hirta's eastern coast. The main island in the archipelago was the only inhabited island, and had been that way since the Paleolithic age. Only recently was the island in daily contact with the British Isles. It was a relic of the previous century that drew the curious Doctor Kessler from Norway. He'd been on holiday with his wife when she found a small, corked bottle on the beach.

Messages in a bottle were common, almost cliche trapping of desperation or research. Kessler recalled how the many currents of the North Atlantic were mapped with the help of thousands of messages in bottles. Perhaps, he'd thought, this bottle was part of that same endeavor. Mrs. Kessler retrieved the bottle from the sand, but she let the doctor open it for fear of the sharp glass at the broken base.

The letter haunted Kessler for a week until his return to his home in Wales. It was an old note from 1885, and it had read simply, "SHE'S KILLING US. SEND HELP TO HIRTA. - A. GILLIES MAY 11, 1885." He'd shown the note to a friend who worked for Scotland Yard, but he shrugged and wrote it off as a foul practical joke. He explained to Kessler that the descendant of Arthur Gillies, the last Gillies, had died of appendicitis a week before. It was a bunch of pranksters attempting to get someone to over-react.

Over-react Kessler did. The message seemed too well constructed for a childish prank. The uneducated hand-writing from the town with only a small school and 200, at the time, residents. Forgotten, it was unknown exactly how many remained on the rock until Kessler landed at Village Bay.

Of the two mile Long Island, the Village Bay was the only permanently inhabited area with the only village on the island. Excavations on the spit of land revealed that there were other settlements, but life had not changed in thousands of years. Kessler had looked the island up in newspapers and encyclopedias before leaving for Scotland. He knew of those finds.

Something about that bothered him more. If someone killed people back then, why was there no mention of it in the press? Who was it? How many had died? Those questions would have to wait. The tug had just gotten into the natural harbor made by Village Bay, and the captain was prying into Kessler's business. He'd asked, "Are you a reporter?"

"No. I'm a doctor," Kessler had answered.

"Ye hear about the medical problems they been having?"

"Yes, but that is not why I'm here."

The captain asked, "Family from here?"

"No. My family was from Germany, but that's been two full generations. I'm Welsh."

"Can't untainted the blood. What's your business at St. Kilda?"

"An old letter, and a couple of questions to ask the old-timers around the town."

"They aren't many old timers left. There aren't more than 50 people on the rock nowadays. War took the young ones. Some died, some left, and the famine killed more. Spanish Flu killed some. Only a few souls left there."

"Sounds miserable," Kessler commented. "Why don't they just leave?"

"Stubborn to the core," the captain answered. "It's their home. It's been their home. They are an isolated people here. They never seen much of the outside world aside from what we have on our ships, what they see in some books, and hearsay from visiting friends and family."

Kessler nodded as the tug pulled up alongside the little wharf in the bay. The captain yelled to one of the three crewmen on deck, "Don't worry about tying up boys. The only delivery today is the mail and Dr. Kessler here!"

"Aye Cap," came the response from the deck. The gang-plank swung out, the bell rung, and the townspeople turned to stare. All of them were within earshot and eyeshot of the bay. There were children sticking their heads out of the small, only school window attached to the church, old women looking from their spinning from doorless huts, and men, few young and many old, looked from where they were slaughtering sheep, shearing them, or trying to plant seed.

It looked like, yet again, The spirit of the St. Kildans would not be broken, and they would remain willing prisoners on the islands surrounded by a hundred miles of sea. Yet, Kessler just threw in his lot with them. It made him think in a muttered breath, "I must be the maddest one of all."

III.

As Kessler walked up the small dock to the town, he carried the mailbag and his own ruck-sack. Attention returned to their varied works until the old tug steamed away. Attention shifted back to the stranger on the dock with mail and a bag. Usually, no one stays on Hirta. A young boy turned to his father, an old man, and asked, "Dad, who is he? Is he going to stay like the scientist?"

Connor MacIntire turned to his son and looked out the window where he was watching the stranger. A minute later, he joined his son and recalled how the government that supposedly governed these people, who wouldn't even provide a ferry or protection until the war, sent a group of men to test the ground. Connor didn't know much about chemistry, but he understood the verdict the educated men delivered. The ground was poisoned.

As hard as they would try, they would be doomed. Connor knew that. That's why he had packed up what he found precious and pulled his son, Solomon, from school. They would be leaving as soon as the next boat arrived. The other forty or so people were adamant in their defiance in the face of destruction.

Curiosity took Connor out of his hut, down the hill-side, and to the base of the dock. The scientists wouldn't come back, and the government wouldn't send someone like this. The man didn't have an air of authority around him, and the clothes he wore weren't too well made. He seemed to be better off than the town and a lot of people in the depression swept world.

"Hello," the stranger called out as he stepped onto land. His voice seemed tainted with a southerner's accent. Connor frowned as he recognized the tell-tale inflections of Wales spew forth, "I'm just here to ask a few questions. I'm Kessler."

"Mail," Connor said.

"What?"

"Drop the mail over by the Church. Are you some kind of writer?"

"Oh, no." Kessler walked to the recognizable church, about which the town was centered along the crescent of the bay, as he explained, "I'm actually a doctor, but I'm here because I found something interesting."

"Doctor, we're wise enough not to buy your potions." Connor growled, already questioning the intent of the stranger. The main-land typically brought liars and thieves.

Kessler turned as he dropped the mail-bag at the church door with a confused, troubled look of insult upon his face. He explained, "I'm not here to take advantage of anyone. Look," he stopped and pulled the broken bottle, now glued together, from his rucksack. An odd look of familiarity already broke over Connor's face as the stranger unfurled the scrap of paper.

"That's old Arthur's hand," Connor gasped as he looked around the town. He looked back to the stranger and directed, "follow me to my home. Quickly."

Connor didn't bother to check if the stranger was following him, but he did check to make sure Solomon was inside the house before he shut the crude wooden door. Kessler had made it inside right behind him, so he could bar the door quickly. The hut had a little light streaming in from the window, but it was still dark inside the stone walls. Musky odors emanated from the thatch roof, the wood supports, and dirt floor.

"Who's he?" Solomon asked quietly. "What's your name?"

"Kessler," the stranger answered. "You were saying? What's your name mister...?"

"Call me Connor, and I don't know how you found that, but I remember what happened that night."

"What are yo-" Solomon started, but he was cut off by his father as he sat down on the crude stool next to the hearth.

"Son, I'm going to tell you a story from when I was a little older than you are. Forty-five years ago. Do you want to hear it?"

"Yes!"

Kessler, whose name Connor could finally remember, nodded silently as Connor waved him to another stool, and the story began. He started "Arthur and I were cousins. Most of everyone here is. We were out walking during the evening back then. He was showing me how to skip shells on the water. I'd just gotten the first one to skip when we heard a scream from behind us. The sun was still up, so we could see the thing as we turned.

"Imagine a woman in a long, black dress made of smoke, and it devoured all living things in its path. That's what it was. It was rolling smoke. It was on the hill above the bay, just eaten Isaac and two sheep, and Arthur knew there was trouble. He run with me all the way to the little gap at Dun, pull a bottle, that bottle, and threw it with the note into the sea.

"What happened next haunts me in my dreams. Arthur turned to me, and he told me that I should hide in the little crags down by the water. I said that I would stay with him, but he ordered me to to, so I did. Arthur lit a fire at the top of Dun that the thing could see in the night. It moved inky black until I heard Arthur scream, saw the fire go out, and felt the ground quake to seal me in the cave. I dug myself out the next morning expecting to find a lot of dead relatives."

"What happened?" Kessler inquired. He'd grabbed his side like the story made him sick.

"They just disappeared. There were no bodies of any of them. There was no blood. The grass from the ground was gone, but the ground was there. They hadn't been plucked up. They were gone. The holes were there in the ground. Half our town was gone, just gone. Those who slept through it thought people just left, but the others didn't ever speak about it. It brings back memories of the old tales of Lady Grange."

"Who?"
"Lady Grange was a prisoner here when my great great granddad was alive. She angered her husband, who had her held here for ten years. She died after she left, but apparently she wanted revenge. We always thought we kept seeing things every now and then. Lady Grange and the Lady in Black were the same. That's what we thought. That's got to be true."

IV.

Kessler frowned as he left Connor's shack. He handed the letter over to Connor as a memento. Life could be strange, but there was logic and reason behind it. Kessler tried to figure out what happened in Connor's youth. Was it the deranged thoughts of a madman? Was it the child trying to cope with the pain of his family leaving him behind? His thoughts led him around the island.

Connor marked Kessler's map with the locations mentioned in his fantastic tale; that would be a good place to start. The bay was quickly explored and discounted. Nothing could have survived the daily activities on the beach. That fact was painfully true of the ridge above the village. If the grass had been plucked up through some demonic power, it was grown back. Even the path to Dun, the spit of land next to the main-land of Hirta, was changed.

The only proof of the story that Kessler could find lay at the base of Dun among the nooks, crannies, and crags in the rocky shore. Smaller than the story made it out, a hole marked on the map was where Connor apparently hid decades before. A child could fit in the hole, but maybe Connor knew about it from living here for so long. Kessler concluded that the story was fabricated, but there had to be some truth to it. The note was thrown to the sea, and half the population did disappear over time. Daylight was quickly fading. Kessler read that there were no predators on the island, so it would be possible to sleep safely under the stars, but the story Connor just told him still made him nervous.

A talk with the friar in the church was all Kessler needed to get a roof over his head for the night. The dreams that night would bring only worry to the already troubled mind.

V.

The journal entry Kessler made that morning was a recounting of the days events with an added line. He noted a personal observation: "Nightmares about inky blackness and the abyss. Read less Nietzsche."

Someone else, on the opposite side of the island, was thinking the opposite. They wanted to read more Nietzsche. The German and his team of scholars, if they could be called that, were approached by the islanders. No, it wasn't those wanting to leave who spoke to them, and the Germans didn't have any boat, but they did carry a little chest of horrors from their berth on the south-west side of Soay. The small island was hidden by the mass of Hirta, and the boat was hidden by the bulk of Soay.

Frederick Luger waved at his guide and asked in a perfectly fake English accent, "How far is it to the bloody altar?"

"Half a mile," answered the middle-aged man leading the group around the west side of Soay. His desire to save his island, to reset the whole thing, was what drove him to ask for help from the people who had shelled the island during the war. They'd killed one of his sheep, but what was a sheep to saving his way of life?

Luger silently ridiculed the simpleton as he led them up the slope. For the love of God, if it weren't for the stupid ritual, and the blood it required, Luger would have left him behind. It would only be a matter of time. Until he rid himself of the annoyance.

The Altar appeared over the rim of the hill, and that was when Luger struck.

VI.

The last day passed lazily for Kessler, but the rest of the town was hard at work. People scurried to their sheep, or tilled the land, just as they did the day before. Then, at dinner time, the screaming started.

Kessler started walking, then jogging toward the screams before he realized it was chanting instead of screaming. Connor met him at the edge of Hirta. Kessler pulled out a pair of folding binoculars from his pocket. A horrified look appeared on his face as he saw the fire, altar, and blood across the channel. Connor took the glasses from him and looked, but his reaction was worse.

The disgust he felt, and the horror, was what led him to drop the glasses before the fog appeared. He turned and ran, Kessler followed, and the chanting suddenly stopped. Neither one of them turned to see the cloud of smoke rising.

"Hell," Kessler growled, "We have to leave, we have to leave."

"Get to the Church. Pack everyone in," Connor said. "Get as many as you can."

Kessler did what he was told. He told everyone, and he helped those he could into the church. The old, the infirm, and the young shambled into the building. Solomon, Connor's son tried to get in, and Kessler knew he had to make a choice. He opened the door and let Solomon take his place as he shut the door on the few packed into the room. He felt pity as he looked at the twenty people in front of him that he had blocked entry. Behind them all swept the fog.

The sun finally set, and Kessler watched as everything faded from existence. It hurt, but it was over quickly.

VI.

The morning after, the calm seas could not reveal the terror of the night before. As the tug steamed into the port, thirty-six living souls stood waiting. Connor and Solomon stood among them. None of them would speak of what happened for the rest of their lives. Connor turned as the boat drifted away. A breeze blew from the west as the last souls from St. Kilda left the cursed island. That last breath seemed heavy, for it cost too much.

[James]

REVIEWS

ENTRY ONE
There’s a lot of present tense sneaking into this past tense story, a noticeable amount, and for a second I thought you might be doing a ‘thing’ and maybe you were (are?) doing a thing. But I can’t say I caught it, so it feels like a really odd error here and got pretty distracting as the narrative progressed.

But, fuck John? Why are you stinking your hands in fucking stone eating baskets? It’s a moment of blinding stupidity and perhaps John’s a stupid character, and that can be oaky. But we need some character development on John. What we get is something about Mary as well as a spiteful attitude towards those with a superstition of the sea, which sounds kind of the exact opposite of stupid.

I just need something more. Not just why John would willing stick his hand in ‘basket dentata’ but also why he’s going to suddenly listen to Culty McPagansan. The entirety of the final paragraph are this thing speaking to him and we get removed completely from John’s inner psyche. How’s he interpreting this? Because I’m not buying this. My name’s not ‘John’ and you sure as shit don’t sound like the spirit of my ancestry nor your friendly local deity.

I will say, it’s written well. But a sense of horror can’t flourish in a vacuum, and this story lacks the context necessary to make it truly chilling.

***

Oh no is probably the first feeling I get as soon as the staff is written into the story. That's always a good sign in a story. Unfortunately it is hampered by the fact that I can't get a good visual of the staff or the surroundings. Yes, there are plenty of descriptors used, but they just give you a general idea of what the staff is. That can also be a good thing in a story, but with the story as short as it is I can't help but feel that it needed to be made more mysterious, more foreboding. At least it was creepy from the onset.

A step back and I can't help but feel that John's motivations are somewhat weak. He yearns for the sea, but then he yearns for his family to stay. Perhaps he could have both desires, but it doesn't seem well translated to his actions and reactions to what the staff gives him or speaks to him about. Why did he grab at the staff after it hurt him anyways?

Another problem is that I can't get a visual of his age. Is he a young adult? A child? I'm not sure. Perhaps the ambiguity helps the story in an atmospheric sense, but I think a big problem with this piece is that the "Visuals" aren't defined well enough. It doesn't address why St. Kilda becomes abandoned at all in the prompt or why bibles are in every home though. It alludes, but that isn't enough.

That doesn't mean its a bad story by any margin. The creepy factor that was necessary for the prompt is definitely there in spades. John is enraptured with the staff and what it could possibly do. That's good. You translated the oncoming horror perfectly. Everything was just a little blurry, descriptive-wise. That might be something to work on.

***

'm sort of lost with this story. Technically, the writing is enjoyable. The descriptions do a nice job of painting what a desolate island in the North Atlantic looks like. The visuals of the sacrifice are nicely done. But we're given next to no context on who John is, what he is doing, or why he is doing it. Overall, it feels like this one lost the thread of the story a bit. Paragraph 3 of the synopsis goes almost entirely unused.

***

Ah...what? I don't really know what I just read, or how it's supposed to work as an answer to the blurb. I guess he went around feeding people to his feather basket? So why did they leave oats and a bible on their tables? How did a stick with a feather basket that eats stuff make everyone leave? The way the...the stick talks about it makes it sound as though they left for unrelated reasons anyways. Why did this story happen at all? What is it trying to communicate to me? I don't know. I don't get the point of anything I just read. Did it go over my head?

The descriptions were nice enough. John seemed to have a distinct enough personality. It had an interesting and intriguing enough mood to it. But nothing happened. The end...

***

The beginning of this story really offers a lot of promise. I think its well written and the internal exposition promises good characterization. But unfortunately once we get to the staff, which is far too quickly, I lost interest. The writing becomes simpler, the structure simpler and just far less interesting. I think if you're going to go in a fantastical direction, you should have spent more time with the staff and the power, instead of what we got which is a whole lot of nothing and a basket-demon. It feels like you started with one story, then hurriedly wrote another.

***

The story is told in the past tense, but you use the present tense probably ten times in quite a short piece. I’m not one to comment on one or two slips of tense – like a typo, they happen to anyone. But there’s a destiny of them here that’s enough to actually detract a bit from the writing and it’s worth mentioning.

It’s difficult to find too much to say about the story itself. The prompt, the “Last Breath of St. Kilda” being the true story of what happens, doesn’t seem to jive very well with what you’ve written here. I could see one writing a very autobiographical or historical account, or I could see one writing a folk tale, but what you’ve written is neither such things. And so I’m not sure how well it fulfills the prompt. It’s also very short, and in being so short, doesn’t really take the time to have much of beginning, middle, or end. It’s sort of just: A happens, B happens, C happens. We don’t spend enough time getting to know the character, their background, their motivations, etc. for any of the events to carry any weight. If the story had been just one sentence, “It was a magical staff,” that would’ve told us about as much about what happened and why as this story has done.

That’s not to say it’s bad writing – the actual language is quite good and I think you’ve got some really pretty sentences and fine word choice. But the plot is really lacking for me.

***

Time is a flat circle!

ENTRY TWO
I liked this. Kind of. It was simple and nice, a comfy little tale. But by the end I was more than a bit unsatisfied. Without the blurb, would this story have a purpose? It only exists to answer the questions of that blurb, which it does very matter-of-factly, without much fuss or colorful description. Two people talk and one of them explains everything to the other, and then they're on their way. There's no tension, or drama, or anything of the sort. I'd like to say that this would be a nice first chapter to a longer story, but where would that longer story even go? You'd surprise me if you said anything other than "nowhere." Still though, if it did keep going, I would probably keep reading, and not be too bothered, at least for a while. Which I suppose is a compliment to your ability.

***

So I have one criticism for this piece: you incorporated too many elements of the prompt. Overall this story is amazing. I loved it and think it is extremely well written. Therefore what I have to offer are more suggestions. I think the dialogue worked great, I think the characterization works in a fantastic way. I think you provided an extremely satisfying response to the prompt. What I would like to have seen different is 1) less forced accent notes and 2) more mystery. Let the reader create their own accent. I don't think what you did was really distracting, but I don't think it was particularly well done either. Also, and this ties into my original criticism, I wish you had tied less to the prompt. Do we really need to know the Old Man's name? Do I need to know how old he is? There's a mystery to the prompt that you lost because you went a little too much into the why of things. While not overall a detriment, I think explaining less could really elevate this work.

***

This feels like a chapter twelve. Or a chapter twenty. Or any chapter other than a chapter one. A penultimate entity, the climax of a long running story in which our beloved hero climbs up the hero, thinking he has answers, but…surprise, it was angels!!

It’s way, way too exposition filled to be a standalone. The whole story is a conversation in which one character tells another character some Very Important Things, almost a story within a story, which just adds another level of abstraction. That can be okay at points, but here we just have to interpret that story through the lens of the two characters given before us, and we don’t know enough about the characters or lean enough to get any real read on that. They feel far too passive as well, for what is supposed to be treated as a big revelation of sorts and everyone just goes through the motions…which I think is ultimately the biggest problem with the narrative. There’s no rising action, there’s no climax, it’s just sort of flat line, things are explained and that’s…that.

***

I love this. It’s not perfect, but I love it. The tone and the aesthetic of this story are gorgeous. Your attempt to create a distinct flavor of dialogue, the subtle Scottish accent, isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good and it’s far, far preferable to if you’d left it out. It’s a simple, humble kind of story. It’s a folk tale with just a few drops of fantasy added in, and it works beautifully for me.

Unfortunately, that means I don’t have a lot of constructive criticism to provide you. The dialogue could use a little work. Not a lot, but a little. A few lines – like oats being bland and good for the stomach or the boy asking And why a bag of oats? – could’ve been reworded in a way that felt more natural. But I’m just talking about ways you could’ve polished things. Ways you could’ve added an extra shine and started perfecting things. The story, exactly as it stands, is a nice, short, sweet, excellent one.

***

This is pretty perfect. Lovely descriptions, good use of dialog, probably best use of the synopsis. Beautiful.

***

I was expecting a horror story. Color me happily surprised. I just love the visuals and just how simple the scene plays out. The story illustrates a simple life of a shepherd, at least it seems to until the bombshell hits. The story is just long enough to build up the world that it talks of and teases that there are more questions to be answered. Yet at the same time, I feel that it might've served a little better to describe what the Steward does with a little more detail. Personal quibble, though.

That isn't to say that there aren't any problems. A tiny bit of overuse of colloquial language among the two characters, to the point where I was guffawing at times, was a bit much.

That's really the only problem I have with the story though. Possibly one of my favorite entries in the competition.

ENTRY THREE
A bold move, naming your first two protagonists James and Rachel.

This story mostly confused me. I don’t understand who Luger is or why he’s there. He’s repeating the ritual that happened in 1885? Why?

I dunno. I barely have anything to say about this story, and I’m sorry about that. I just fail to understand exactly what happened and why it happened. The Nietzsche line kind of bugs me, as someone who has actually read a lot of Nietzsche. The dialogue is a little expository. The structure is clunky.

I’m just kind of confused by this whole thing. Wish you’d outlined it beforehand. I feel like the structure arose spontaneously as you were writing and some stuff that should’ve been made explicit just remained in your head.

***

To be honest, I probably enjoyed this one the most, but that has a lot to do with the subject material. There are some things holding it back. Plot-wise, the timeline doesn't exactly work, and characters enter into the story without any real context. I do like the world-building around it, but a lot of it relies on understanding of the context it's set in, especially time period wise.

Rachel and James was a bit too on the nose.

***

Out of the three stories, I think this one hits the horror vibe that the blurb was likely trying to go for on the head the most. I really liked the build up to Dr. Kessler's introduction, and why he was on the island. I think that the discussion he has with Connor was appropriate considering the activities on the island and that the entire story played well to the strengths of conversation as a way of building a story up.

That, however, covered up the weakness that was the "English" Scientists. I feel that there needed to be something more to build them up as a threat to the island other than them being on the other side and the bit about them starting the ritual. No mention of them looking up stuff in town archives, just that they are there and that is a weakness that the story barely manages to overcome. At least, they aren't present enough in the story to be a threat. They never meet Dr. Kessler before the event happens and I feel a chance meeting, even a brief one, might've beefed up the story appropriately.

I really like this story, though. It has mystique, an eerie quality to some of the scenes, and just a pretty damn good way of explaining itself.

***

I'm having a hard time coming up with things to say about this work. Nothing about it is really remarkable. Its decently written, I see no egregious flaws. But I do think the pacing is horribly off, you world build in the wrong parts and advance the story in really hurried bursts that make me go back and reread where I was at. I think that if the separate chapters had been fleshed out a bit better then I might have liked it more, but then we run into the trouble that you're now writing a huge text for a pretty brief competition.

***

"Mil'lady." How do you pronounce this? Why didn't you just write m'lady? Weird.
What happened here? I feel like this started off with so much potential to be a great story. I really enjoyed the break from part I to part II, where the story goes from this very standard style of foreboding fiction to an, um, almost journalistic pseudo-article kind of format. But then that just kind of vanishes and we're back to the original style and it stays there for the rest of the story. But that's fine, I suppose, even if as it goes on I start to notice more and more grammatical errors and clunky sentences, i.e. "The grass from the ground was gone, but the ground was there. They hadn't been plucked up. They were gone. The holes were there in the ground." The grass was gone, but the ground was there, but the holes were there? Very confusing and contradictory way of writing that.

Then I guess you ran out of time or ideas because Luger shows up, a character who has never before been mentioned even once. You tell us he likes Nietzsche, which I guess is supposed to make him sound evil. He then does some kind of ritual we know nothing about. Somehow it links back to part I, but I don't really know how. Then everyone leaves. Why? I guess because of this weird ghost-summoning-ritual thing Luger did. But it's happened before, and nobody left before, so why are they leaving now? One ghost massacre wasn't enough, but two is just right? I don't know. What was going on with Lady Grange? I dunno. She's mad at her husband, so she's a spooky ghost and she kills everyone on an island where her husband never was. Why does the church protect anybody? I guess ghosts don't have to make sense. Oh yeah, what about the oats and bibles?

So many things just happen, and you really make it SEEM like you're going to connect them, but they never connect. I think there's an example that perfectly sums up how I feel about this story. Lady Grange corks up her blood in a bottle and has it sealed in wax to keep her anger fresh. Cool, that's a cool witchy thing to do. Then Kessler finds a corked bottle in the water...woah...and they're completely unrelated, entirely different corked bottles, and the original bottle of blood never returns. Yeah. Alright.

***

This is really well written and well paced throughout its opening. The mini-chapter works well here, notably the prologue. The mood is also set well, out of all the stories you make the town feel like an entity itself, there’s an unsettling vibe present. Unfortunately, taking the form of miniature chapters also helps to make the main flaws more noticeable, that being that parts of the story are extremely rushed. So, when it comes time to twist the knife, with what should be a horrifying event, it falls flat and is far too fleeting. There’s no sense of growing dread, no emphasis on the sacrifice of Kessler, and the gut-churning terror that is anticipate is more of a flash in the pan.

You have to let it linger.