capercaillies strange friend

Company was hard to come by in the rolling hills of Glencoe. It’s what made it glow. True, I have rarely left it, rarely touched the tinted air of bustling cities, alive with smoke, light and noise. I belong with the foggy rain, crisp cut mountains, fields of Highland cows, smell of pine coffee in the wet mornings of winter. I know the thickness of silence just as much as I know the Hooded Crow, where the silence danced at night, and took hold of the walls. I know the warmth of the Hooded Crow more than myself these days. The Hooded Crow belongs to my father, Errol. Belonged to Errol. He opened the pub forty years ago. In the seventies it was a sleepy, wilting pub, like the willow tree behind it. Just as sleepy as it stood today. But Errol welcomed whoever found their way into his pub with such an affection, that he rarely saw it empty. It brought our small community together, so company was not that hard to come by in Glencoe after all. I rescind my statement.

But Errol disappeared one summer night. I was eighteen, just finishing my college exams. It had been biology; I remember the ink-stained revision cards I had come back to. I had stumbled through my bedroom and thought it looked much too normal. The policewoman had handed me my father’s hiking bag with a faraway look in her eyes and patted me on the shoulder. Missing. My father was missing somewhere. He had gone into the mountains and not come back. I was all alone in Glencoe. The Hooded Crow offered no warmth now. Only that sluggish, dancing silence in the echoes of the night. I don’t know if I ever passed the exam. I never went in to collect my results. The envelope was thrown away. I would not open it without my father there. The days grew on and the dust collected. The news had undoubtedly spread about my father’s disappearance, but I shunned away from the kindness of visitors. I started hearing things. The silence was no longer a blanket. The silence became something I revered. The thing came in the night. After sunset, I knew to look for it. The first time it came, I was running a bath. The bathroom had a faint smell of sick, and my bedsheets hadn’t been washed in months. We lived above the Hooded Crow. I lived above it. There were two bedrooms, a long hallway, and a narrow living room. There were pictures Errol had put up all over the greying walls, pictures of his proudest finds. Errol was a finder. There were not many people like my father up in the rolling hills of Glencoe, but then, there were not many people there at all. But one day, I was not so alone. The first night it came, I was shuddering and damp, as the heating didn’t work so well in the winter months. There were always creaks in the night, and I had never really been afraid of the dark. But when I found myself alone each night, the darkness felt full of something. Something I did not want to see. I had been in the bathroom, hot and cold water running on and off. I liked to save on heating bills, so I wouldn’t make it steam, more of a lukewarm temperature. The smell of sick was fading, as I’d lit my cherry and oak scented candles, allowing crispy cold air in through the window, which never fully locked properly. I had lain in the bath, and still not felt right. I quickly grew bored, and too cold, and thought it was a whole waste of time. But I was exhausted, so I stayed still. There was something else. Something felt off, my mind was creating stories again. If I closed my eyes for too long the Boogy man would be in front of me, or eyes would meet mine if I glanced at the foggy mirror. But you see, I felt watched. I felt something in the flat, and even the Hooded Crow had begun to unsettle me in the dark. I did not want to be in the cellar alone, and I always feared I’d forgotten to lock it. I was frozen in the bath. I wanted to become part of the moulding tiles on the wall. I had felt unease rest in my bones the night Errol never came back. And it never left. When the water got too uncomfortably cold to lie in, I towelled dry, rubbing my face, with a wistful memory of childhood bath time, when the door behind me had creaked. I stayed still, then grabbed the door and swung it open, almost to catch whatever ghoul that was playing tricks with me, but nothing was there. Obviously. The Hooded Crow had shut its doors three hours ago, and it being one in the morning was playing with my mind. But when I my eyes lifted to the end of the long hallway leading to my room, I saw the thing looking back at me. A figure, or shadow. Something tall. But it was a thing, it had the ability to look back at me.