Alysson deMerel's Fiction

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The Glen

I was due to arrive in Inverness tomorrow afternoon, but in the meantime I was a free agent. I had made good time on the road, and had crossed into Scotland before lunch. I had negotiated Glasgow, Stirling and Perth without problems. Now, I was lost.

A massive series of road-works had confused me in the early winter’s gloom, and I had ended up going along an unidentified and un-signposted road in the middle of the Grampian Mountains. I wasn’t worried, there are only so-many roads in Scotland, and most go somewhere, but it was getting dark and foggy, and I needed to find a place for the night.

I had stopped to ask the way, half thinking to offer a lift, but what I had taken for a pedestrian turned out to be a looming cairn beside the road.

After an eternity of following a narrow, winding road, I saw a light. I arrived to find myself confronting the Glen Sgritheall House Hotel - Bed & Breakfast (vacancies), and the end of the road. I pulled into the tiny car-park and sighed with relief. It was seven-twenty, and I had found somewhere to stay.

I knocked the door, and was answered by a pleasant young woman wearing sweat-shirt and jeans, a sharp contrast to my business suit.

"Good evening, Miss, what can we do for you?"

"I got lost in the road-works, and I need a bed for the night, if you have one. Just myself."

"We're empty, at the moment. Please come in."

I was shown to a room with a double bed, decorated in the plain, utilitarian, masculine style of guest-houses and hotels the world over. I said that it was fine, and went to get my case. I would have been happy with a wooden shack - or a cave, or a hole in the ground.

I took a shower and got changed into sweatshirt and jeans. I went downstairs.

"Would you like a drink before we eat, dear?" I was asked. I asked for a mineral water, since I don’t drink.

I sat in front of the big, log fire, drinking water from the Campsie Spring - good, honest spring water with a life of its own. I began drowsing a bit in the warmth, reflecting that this was a lovely place to live - miles from anywhere, a beautifully appointed house.

I was roused from my half-slumber by the landlady calling me to dinner. She served me a meal fit for a starving giant, rather than my merely hungry five-foot frame. She sat opposite me at the big dining table.

"It’s only we two, tonight, I’m afraid. I’m glad that you came, frankly." She said.

"You see, my late husband," she continued, "died these seven years past, on this very night. Anyway, enough of my troubles, What brings you to Glen Sgritheall, or at least, to Scotland?"

I could see that she was close to tears.

I explained that I was a computer systems designer, and that I was on my way to Inverness for a job interview, since I had a wish to move Northwards from the London rat race.

We carried on talking, and come ten o’clock, I made my excuses and went to bed. I discovered that I had forgotten to pack a proper nightdress, I slipped on a tee-shirt and climbed into bed. As I lay, waiting for sleep to overtake me, I began to feel most peculiar. Somehow, I felt heavier than before. Like I say, odd.

I must have slept, but I was woken by a tapping at the door. I looked at my watch. Midnight.

"Hmm?" I said.

A figure came in. "It’s only me. I’m sorry to intrude, but I was feeling scared and alone."

The woman climbed into my bed. I felt a slight revulsion, as I have never in my life had any tendencies whatsoever toward other women.

The woman snuggled into the crook of my arm, pillowing her head on my chest.

I replayed that thought. Where she had put her head would normally have caused significant protest from my crushed breast. And she had begun to play with my chest hair, too.

I put my other arm over, and felt the delicious softness of her skin, the rounded swelling of hip and buttock and thigh. I felt the narrowness of her waist. Her hand crept down . . .

Neither of us slept for what remained of the night.

The dawn spread, revealing a road under four feet of snow. My meeting was going to have to be postponed, not least because it would be rather difficult to retain my professional dignity wearing a skirt, especially with the beard I now sported.

The ‘phone was out, as was my mobile. Damn.

I remained at the house, trapped by the unseasonably early snow. For four days we were blissfully stranded together. The cold isolation had become a blessing for we two.

On the night of the fourth day, we had gone to sleep in my bed, having spent the day together. I was woken by the sensation of the woman slowly running her hands across my body. She was propped on one elbow, just staring at me, as if to fix my face in her mind. Tonight, there seemed to be something different. There was a sadness to my partner’s actions.

We lingered over our remaining moments of tenderness, as if each instant was to be our last. Finally as I was beginning to drift back to sleep as my lover kissed me tenderly on the lips and left our bed. I half noticed that the time by the glowing dial of my watch said midnight.

Morning dawned bright and golden. The sudden snow had disappeared as rapidly as it had appeared. I rose and dressed, noticing that I once again had assumed the shape of a woman. I put on my business suit, and went down for breakfast.

"You had better get along to your meeting, dear, better late than never. Good luck with it all," she said, after I had eaten a comfortable breakfast.

"I’ll be back," I said.

She shook her head sadly, tears beginning in her eyes. "That’s what he said the night he went out for help. He never came back."

I packed the car, and lingered over saying my goodbyes. The woman took her locket from around her neck, and placed it over my head. "That’s to remember us by, so that you don’t forget."

Saying that she kissed me, and I hugged her. I bundled into my car while I still had the resolve, and drove back down the road.

Epilogue:

I turned on the radio, and heard the announcer tell me that it was Thursday the twenty-third. That seemed off, since that was the day I was due to have my meeting in Inverness. I had arrived in Scotland on Wednesday.

I drove fifteen miles to the main road, passing the cairn I had taken for a walker in the night just before reaching the junction which had thrown me awry. I made my destination on time, having stopped at a newsagent to check the day and date. The mystery deepened.

The meeting was a huge success, and I got the contract.

As I was leaving, the boss asked me, "Where did you stop overnight. There’s precious little between here and Perth?"

I told her that I’d found a Guest House out at Glen Sgritheall.

She looked worried. "There’s nowhere out there since the tragedy seven years ago. There was a fire, and they had been cut off by snow. The young owner had tried to walk out from the Glen, to get to the main road, presumably to get help. He was found dead of hypothermia five days later, not a mile from the main road. The house had burned down, and his wife was found wrapped against the cold, burned and dead in the gateway. The ruins were pulled down for safety reasons long since. They built a cairn where he was found."

"I probably got the name wrong, then," I told her, uncertain, "it was dark, and I was tired."

When I headed south the next day, I made a detour to see the house again. It was as the boss-lady had said, just a pile of rubble being overtaken by heather and bracken. The sign was laying on the ground, barely readable.

As I sat looking at the pile of tumbled building stone, I remembered the pendant. A gold locket which I took out and opened. I gazed upon the woman’s face in one panel, and my own as a man in the other. I shed my tears and said my farewells.

"Goodbye to both of you. I love you both. You’re both home, now."

As I drove away for the final time, I looked in the mirror. There seemed to be a house stood at the head of the road, and a young couple, waving goodbye.