Little Bird Flies Read online

  I vow I shall fear no more ghosts of the past.

  Not when there have been everyday demons chasing my brother, under our noses, all this time.

  CHAPTER 18

  Always, always Father is gentle-spoken with us.

  But not today.

  “Stand straight!” he orders Lachlan, who is trembling so much he can barely remain upright.

  Ishbel goes to comfort our brother, and Father gives her such a glower she sits back in her chair, chastised. From my own chair on the other side of the room, I see Effie reach for her hand.

  “So let me be clear, son,” Father carries on, stroking his beard in agitation rather than thoughtfulness as he stands at the fireplace. “First, you learn from Alec how to steal apples and pies and suchlike from street vendors?”

  Though Lachlan stutters and tremors, the whole truth is unfolding. Not just of the awful event at Mrs Lennox’s house this afternoon, but of events that came before.

  “Y– yes, Father,” Lachlan answers nervously, tears and snot streaming down his face.

  “And then he encourages you to act like a pauper and beg from rich folk?” Father continues, his brown eyes so terribly dark.

  “Yes, though I had no talent for it!” Lachlan says, as if his lack of success will absolve him. “One gentleman even laughed at me, saying I was too hale and hearty to be a pauper. But then Alec told me I must make people pity me by––”

  Lachlan stops, his wet, pale face flushing with some shameful secret.

  “Pity you how?” Father says sharply. “Speak up!”

  Lachlan’s head drops, so that his chin hits his chest before he speaks again. “He told me I should act as if I were a cripple. He told me it would be easy; I only had to mimic my sister’s walk and weakness…”

  I take a sharp, gasping breath. I have become almost used to the stares and remarks of strangers in this city, and have made myself quite hardened to them. But for my own brother to do such a thing!

  “I tried just once, Bridie,” Lachlan bursts out, looking over at me pleadingly, “but I could not bring myself to––”

  “And yet,” Father interrupts him, “after that, after Alec introduced you to his ‘good friend’ Skinner, you next let him teach you the ways of pickpocketing?”

  Skinner. We have come to know the last name of this lout that broke into Mrs Lennox’s home, but not his first. It seems Lachlan has never known that either.

  “Y–yes,” stammers Lachlan. “Skinner would walk in a crowd, and I was expected to come up behind him unseen, and – and try to take something from his pocket. But I had no talent for that either. Even Bridie saw me fail at it.”

  Now Father fixes me with such a look as I have never seen him give me before.

  “You knew of this, Bridie, and you didn’t think to tell me?”

  His other hand rests on the mantle, fingers drumming a slow, heavy rhythm.

  “Lachlan kept assuring me I was mistaken,” I tell Father, feeling shaken myself at his quiet rage. “But I was stern with him, talking about the folly of such a thing, whether he was guilty of it or not. I thought that might be enough, and be a lesson learned…”

  “Well, it seems your guidance was for nothing, doesn’t it, Bridie?” says Father. “Because young Lachlan here did have a talent for something. He was good at helping a criminal rob the goods of a fine and noble lady like Mrs Lennox!”

  We have already heard how this Skinner had ambitions for his criminal apprentices. A housebreak it was to be, once Alec had alerted their keen tutor of the fine homes Lachlan had connection with.

  It made us all shudder to hear that Samuel and Caroline’s apartments were to have a similar visitation one day soon, if Skinner had not been apprehended as he was earlier.

  “A fine and noble lady who is also your sister’s employer, Lachlan,” Father roars, making Patch whimper in his pained sleep on the rug. “What have you to say for yourself, eh?”

  “I told you already, Skinner made me do it!” Lachlan splutters and cries.

  “And you had no conscience?” Father roars again. “This young man can direct you to do terrible things to people who have shown us only kindness? You did not find it possible to refuse this monster’s requests?”

  “When I first knew Alec, he would give me things: sweets, a penknife, a magnifying glass,” Lachlan says. “And then he said it was bad luck not to give him things in return. But I had nothing! So he said the luck would be changed if I did things for him. For Skinner. And if I did not…”

  “So you believed this – this threat, this idle superstition?” Father says, throwing a dark glance at Effie, as if her talk of fairies and sprites and broken Beltane cakes on the island had made Lachlan’s thinking weak.

  “Yes, at first I did, Father! And then, when I tried to say I had done enough, Skinner held his knife to me,” says Lachlan, his whole body quivering as he holds up his hands, as if to beg forgiveness. “He told me he would cut Patch’s throat if I did not do as he said. And he would not stop at that; for Alec told him I had three sisters…”

  Father’s rage is instantly stilled; Ishbel and Effie clasp their hands to their mouths in shock.

  But at this awful moment I have seen something quite clear, and in my rush to reach my brother my chair tumbles and clatters to the floor behind me.

  “Here!” I say to Lachlan, grabbing his outstretched hands.

  He was not begging, he was showing. Showing the malicious marks of a knife carefully and cruelly dragged across the skin, several times on each wrist.

  Oh, how did we not notice this before?

  We sisters, so busy about our days, worrying about ghosts that did not matter, none of us took the time to see the secret signs of the trouble our brother was in.

  But I bear the guilt most, as I am supposed to take care of him. Is that not my job? Is that not the promise I made to Mother too?

  Lachlan collapses gratefully into my arms.

  His despairing cries are so loud, it takes my sisters’ earnest shouts and the slam of the door to realise Father is gone.

  An hour passes.

  The room is so very quiet.

  The mantle clock ticks, the dog snuffles in its pained sleep by the fire, and sometimes a sob can be heard from the big bed in the corner where Lachlan retreated, curling himself in a ball while Ishbel sits minding him.

  Other than that, it is as if Ishbel, Effie and myself are holding our breath, coiled as cold metal springs as we await Father’s return.

  When he first left, we three did chatter like troubled starlings on a rooftop, wondering what Father was set on doing. Finding Alec, and berating him for dragging Lachlan into this dark world of thievery? Or doing worse to him?

  But our chatter slowed and shushed to this current, shared silent dismay.

  And silence is my enemy, for it gives voice to the whispers that I keep so deep hidden.

  Here comes one now, whirling its soft, urgent words into my mind: Oh, where are you, Will?

  My, how my secret self yearns yet for my best friend! How I would love to run away with him to the Glas Crags, to shake off this dark episode and laugh with him and let him tease me as we clamber. Then we two could gaze together at the twinned land and sea, at the gulls that dip and dive between them.

  And what of the other whisper? I think it also wants to be heard.

  I was never meant…

  But a long awaited sound disturbs the moment.

  “Listen – it is him!” says Effie, looking up at the door now that the thud and creak of the stairs announce Father’s return.

  Effie and I both rise as he walks in and shuts the door more quietly than he did when he left.

  The black-edged rage has left Father, I am relieved to see. Though his look – it is so very like that night a whole year ago, when he came back from his doomed meeting with the Laird.

  “Father, where have you been?” asks Ishbel.

  “To a pub,” he announces, making us all startle with surpr
ise.

  Father may have a bottle of whisky in the house for special occasions, or for medicinal use, but he does not frequent bawdy public houses.

  “I did not go to drink my sorrows away, though that was tempting,” he says ruefully, as he walks over to the dresser. “I went to ask around about this Skinner character. And sure enough, he is known – even by hardened types – to be a very bad lot. From what was said about him, and the sorts he associates with, Lachlan is in an unfortunate situation.”

  “In danger, you mean?” I ask, though I know my question will frighten my brother – who sure enough curls himself tighter, and whimpers to rival the pup.

  “Yes,” Father says simply. “I think it is very likely that Skinner will tell in court of his accomplices, in a bid to lighten his own guilt in the matter.”

  “Oh, Father! What is to be done?” says Effie, her eyes brimming with frightened tears. “What will happen to Lachlan? And what of my position with Mrs Lennox when this is known? And Ishbel’s when Samuel and Caroline find out they were to be victims? Are we ruined, all of us?”

  “My loves, I think we must consider our future – and I fear it is not here,” Father announces plainly. “Perhaps it never was. We’re folk of the land, after all, not the city…”

  As he talks, Father reaches up for Mother’s tin box, which is hidden on top of the dresser, pressed far back against the wall so as not to be seen. “… and I think now is the time to use our money to—”

  “NO!” comes a sudden yell, and Lachlan hurls himself off the bed in one bound, launching himself at Father and pulling frantically at the arm that is tugging open the lid of the box.

  For a heartbeat there, I presume my brother so bound up in his remorse and regret that he is not thinking clearly. That the true, sweet boy that he is cannot bear another desperate dash and difficult new start.

  And then I see – we all see – what is in the box…

  Nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  Effie is right; the MacKerrie family are truly, truly ruined.

  Unless, unless…

  CHAPTER 19

  Flutter and flap, flutter and flap…

  The flag on top of the pole jigs around, mirroring the skittish bundles of cloud in today’s blue July sky.

  “Oh … ohhhh…” comes a groan.

  I turn away from viewing the flag, and the giant black funnel that looms above, alongside the masts from this steamship’s former sailing past.

  “There now,” I say gently, as I rub Lachlan’s back with my good hand. With my other I wave to whoever can make me out on the quayside, if they can make me out at all among the other departing passengers here on the deck.

  Poor lamb. Lachlan leans over the polished wood rail, holding tight to it as if that will save him from the treacherous sway beneath his feet. We have been on board the Ailsa Craig for no time at all; we have barely begun our journey along the Clyde. How will he manage a fortnight’s travel if he is sick already?

  “Can you – can you see him?” I hear Lachlan mutter.

  “He is close by,” I assure my brother, glancing along the deck to where Father talks now to some official of the Anchor Line, trying to fix on the exact whereabouts of the berths promised to families, in the cheap steerage accommodation where most folk of our class will spend the two-week voyage.

  “No, I meant Patch!” says Lachlan, lifting his head, though the effort of it appears to make his head – or his stomach – spin all the more.

  I peer at the receding quayside and the large gathering of folk there – and can still make out our little party of leave-takers among them; it is quite easy to spot Caroline’s pretty pink hat and matching gloves as she waves, and of course Patch is the light shape cradled carefully against Samuel’s wine-coloured velvet coat.

  For Patch is not to come with us: he is too poorly to make much of a journey. We hope his little body heals soon, and he will have the best chance of that now. Being such a hero, saving Mrs Lennox’s precious things as he did, Patch’s reward is to spend the rest of his days – however many he may have left – lying on expensive Persian rugs by any of Mrs Lennox’s fireplaces that he chooses.

  “I can see him; he looks just grand,” I lie to Lachlan, whose head dips down again as he is caught in a wave of illness.

  “Oh, no! Look, Bridie … Ishbel will be cross at the mess I have made!” my brother suddenly wails, and I see the sick on his new-polished boots.

  “She will not!” I say cheerfully. “And how ever will she see the state of them?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lachlan answers with a frown, then risks lifting his head enough to look in the direction of Caroline and Samuel, since Ishbel stands between them, her cheerful, sky-blue dress quite clear there, among the dark suits and jackets in the crowd. We are too far away to fix on her lovely face, but I can imagine her chin held high, her grey eyes watching, watching, till the ship is quite gone from view.

  It is true; my elder sister is not to travel with us.

  She is to make an escape of sorts herself, heading to London after all with Caroline and Samuel. And how could Father try to persuade her otherwise, when her heart is set on it? For Ishbel is quite the city girl now, and the thought of living on some little farm again in some unknown landscape in the vast expanse of America is not to her liking.

  Also, Father could hardly protest, since it was Caroline who came to our rescue, when my family thought no rescue was possible.

  “Just as your girls came to mine,” Caroline told him, when she and Samuel followed me back to our door, after I ran to tell them of our troubles.

  When Father opened Mother’s tin box two nights ago, we found out that Lachlan had not yet told us all of the terrible crimes Alec and Skinner had forced upon him. After once innocently – foolishly – boasting of the money we had stored, the two lads were quite fiercely determined that my brother should bring it to them. And Lachlan had lived with the ugly guilt of that deed many weeks now, always dreading discovery…

  “This is just a loan, now, Caroline,” Father had insisted, taking the money that would be enough to purchase our fares to New York, as well as start us off in our new life in some quieter territory beyond, wherever that may be. Father was not yet sure of our final destination; only knowing vaguely from his newspaper of the Homestead Act recently passed in America, and the chance for hardworking farming folk to have land of their own with no lairds and no masters to answer to.

  New York.

  West, at last.

  Can you believe it?

  It all felt like a dream, a muddled imagining of mine, till just a few minutes ago, as the ropes were untied and the ship began to creak and move off, its engine growling.

  “We’ll miss the Glasgow Fair, won’t we, Bridie?” Lachlan mutters sorrowfully as I dab at his mouth with a handkerchief. He sounds like any shallow-minded child who is not allowed some great treat, or perhaps like a young boy who wants to think of silly things, and not linger on sadness that might hurt too sorely.

  “Indeed,” I agree, wishing I could more clearly make out the hazy figures of our darling Ishbel, and Caroline and Samuel.

  “All of the city will be gathering tomorrow, to see the entertainments,” my brother says wistfully, turning his head away from the harbour crowds and toward the Green, upcoming on the riverbank, where the fair is always held.

  “Well, it was the same with Queen Victoria, was it not?” I remind him, straining hopelessly for one last glance of Ishbel as the crowd blurs. “We missed Her Majesty coming to the island, and we will miss the fair. But think of the wonders to come … a whole new land of them!”

  A sudden whispering comes to me, blown on the breeze, or called by the seagulls that drift upriver; but I have too much on my mind to listen to them.

  “Look – the Necropolis,” Lachlan says suddenly, nodding his head weakly in the direction of the rising land that is just visible beyond the packed rooftops of the city. “Can you see Mother’s angel from here, B
ridie?”

  “No, but it is there,” I say softly, my eyes fixed to the faraway jumbled glint of white marble and grey granite headstones.

  Yes, it is a regret that there was not time enough to visit Eliza Garnett’s grave before we left, just as I could not take my leave of Mother’s true resting place in the churchyard on Tornish. But Mother is always where we are, wherever that may be. And wherever I am bound for, there will always be a hill or tree or some beautiful place where I can talk to her.

  “Do you think she is very sad that we are parted from one another?” asks Lachlan, most forlornly.

  “Remember what Mother would say: ‘It is what it is’…” I remind my brother, with as bright a smile as I can muster.

  Lachlan blinks back at me and says, “I did not mean Mother; I meant Effie.”

  Effie.

  Oh, darling Effie… I do my best to keep my smile strong, and look back at the quayside for her. Not that I have much hope of seeing her; she vanished from the others a while back. Perhaps it was all too sad for her. Perhaps at the last minute, she regretted her decision to stay with Mrs Lennox, who so wonderfully forgave my brother, even though Effie chose to go and tell her all that had happened in the most clear and brutally honest way she could.

  But I know in my heart that Effie will not have changed her mind. For the city suits our middle sister as much as – no, even more than – Ishbel. The bossy, strait-laced girl so wrapped up in superstition … she was left behind on Tornish, leaving way for this softer, happier girl who blossomed in Mrs Lennox’s bright, bustling household.

  And I must not dwell on my strange nightmare here, the one that came to me when I fell into a slumber at the harbour, for my sisters are not lost to me. We may be gone from each other, but Ishbel and Effie are happy, and searching for their own dreams.

  Good dreams.

  And we have promised to send each other letters often. Father, Lachlan and I will pass through New York quickly, and as soon as we are settled – wherever that might be – I will write to them both to let them know where we are. Where our new home is. Ha!