Edie of the Cairngorms

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

The heavy dusk sun set the sky ablaze, rich orange glowed behind the Scots Pine, silhouetted for miles over the horizon. The warm August air carried a light breeze, gently disturbing the first few leaves evident of an early autumn that scattered the forest floor. The air still and soft, slightly sweet with the scent of the pine sap excreted from the tall, ancient trees, and lush moss that carpeted the forest beneath the golden leaves.

"Look!" A woman exclaimed excitedly to her friend as they emerged from the bushes that outlined the outskirts of the land on which the cabin stood. "I told you we'd find it, and... there's a light on, do you think someone's in there?"

"Candles can't light themselves," Her friend remarked with a shrug.

"I thought this place was abandoned," The woman mumbled as she and her friend tentatively trudged through the overgrown path to the cabin.

They each silently wondered about the likelihood of another person exploring an abandoned cabin, deep in the Cairngorms of the Scottish Highlands. A wild, remote land where time distilled in each breath of every tree, favouring those peaceful with genuine care for the land, and to gorgonize the rueful, offering a sanctuary of natural bliss and isolation.

Neither of the women had spotted a single person since they left the nearest hamlet to venture the wilderness on foot not seven hours ago. Intrigued by the first sign of human presence, they inquisitively moved closer, marvelling at their surroundings; how the burnt golden sun flittered through branches of ancient pine, shadows of the overhanging branches danced in a sway on the cabin rooftop.

The old wooden cabin stood modest among mounds of lush green moss, enveloped in overgrowth, seemingly untouched for decades. The single lit candle contested this.

Each strand of ginger, auburn hair of the women blazed in the warm light of the setting sun, the pair of them easily mistaken for sisters with their matching vibrant copper locks.

They took in the humbling sight as they smiled to themselves as they'd made it after hours of gruelling, strenuous hiking through uncultivated terrain.

Curious about the single flame as a silent beacon to their destination, the first woman quickened her pace through the shrubbery, eager to get the first look at who may be sharing their space for the night.

"Slow down," her friend called out. "It's not going anywhere, just watch your step,"

The woman ignored her friend as she moved hurriedly through the overgrowth, weeds and thorns catching the lycra of her leggings.

"Freya," her friend called out again. "Just wait for me, you don't know who's in there,"

Freya continued lumbering towards the cabin, legs tearing through the verdant foliage. "We're almost there, come on!" She exclaimed as though she was about the reach the place she'd waited her whole life to see. "Aren't you excited? Don't you want to see what-"

Freya stopped dead in her tracks simultaneous to the noise of a grim, metallic snap. She jittered in a violent shudder and slowly looked down to her feet.

"What is it?" Her friend asked, briskly catching up to her.

Freya didn't answer her, instead she let out a shaky whimper followed by a low, wailing sob.

"Fre-" Her friend stopped suddenly a few feet behind her, cutting herself off at the realisation. She looked down at Freya's bloody foot, caught in the razor teeth of a rusted bear trap.

"Oh my- oh my god," She flailed backwards as the gravity of the situation set in. Her throat felt tight, thick and sticky with dread.

That was when Freya let out the most cripplingly horrific guttural scream, a scream loud enough to shake the birds out of their nests above as they flew suddenly out of the towering trees.

"Oh god what- I don't know what to-" Her friend panicked, battling all three responses of fight, flight and freeze.

"Edie," Freya cried out at her friend as she wavered backwards.

Edie caught Freya in her arms, slowly lowering her to the ground, leaves and twigs snapping and crunching beneath her weight. Edie removed her backpack, then her jacket to wrap it tightly above the wound.

"Keep pressure on that, keep it tight, okay, I'm-" Edie sniffled, her eyes welled up and her nose tingled as she saw her best friend's leg mutilated by the offensive teeth of the trap as deep crimson blood oozed from the wound. "I'm going to see if anyone can help us, just hang on, I'll be right back,"

"Edie wait," Freya sobbed, she desperately grabbed her friend's arm in a vice grip. "What if- what if they did this?"

Edie considered it for a second before briefly analysing the corroded contraption. "Freya, that's been here for... years, look," Her voice trailed off into a whisper.

"How is it still working, it's just- oh god I'm gonna need a shot, It's so filthy," Freya blubbered, words barely coherent.

"I'll be right back," Edie reiterated, her chin trembling "They'll help us, someone will help us,"

"Your phone," Freya said through clenched teeth, speaking through the throbbing, burning pain in her leg. "Check your phone for signal, get- ah, call an ambula-" She screamed agonisingly as her leg twitched, sending a pulse of horrific pain through her leg to her open wound.

Edie nodded frantically as her shaking hands navigated her phone in one of her pockets. "Okay I have battery, thirty seven percent, but no signal. I can try an emergency call, just hang on," She dialled the numbers and waited for an operator to pick up.

The muffled crackle of the operator sent a hot, fiery spark through Edie's chest. The hope and relief of finding help welled her eyes, her voice cracked as she spoke her response to the kind lady with the thick Scottish accent on the other end.

"Hello! Hi, my friend and I are in Glenmore Forest Park, in the- in the Cairngorms, please, we need help my friend's leg is stuck in a bear trap, it's old and, and rusty- she's bleeding out, please you need to send someone," Edie rambled desperately. The operator's voice on the other end of the line soothed her. "We- we're just by a cabin, I don't know where exactly, a few miles north of Lochan na Beinne, I don't know, maybe six miles?" She calmingly placed her free hand on the nape of Freya's neck as she spoke with the operator. "Yes, there's a lot of blood she's losing it fast. I've not been into the cabin yet, but there's a light- yes, I'll go check now, just hang on,"

Edie passed her phone to her friend, face pale and sweaty from shock and loss of blood. "Okay, you stay on the phone with the operator and I'll check the cabin for someone who can help us, or a first aid kit, alcohol to sterilise the wound, anything. Just talk to her and tell her your name, just keep talking to her okay?" She pressed a kiss sweetly to Freya's forehead as she moved to stand. "You've got this, just hang on a couple minutes I'll find something, okay?"

Freya nodded heavily, her eyes fluttered closed momentarily as she brought the phone to her ear. "Hello," She whispered. "I-I'm Freya- No I don't feel so good, I... My leg, I need to sleep, I'm..." She trailed off sleepily, the loss of blood evident from her frail state and the pool of claret fluid staining the earth beneath her.

"Just hang on, I'll be back soon," Edie yelled one last time to her friend as she hurriedly ran to the cabin door, inspecting the ground for any more traps as she did so.

The rusted hinges creaked like a wail upon Edie's entrance, the musty, old smell of undisturbed air hit her nose like a punch. The cabin's interior dimly lit by the single candle in the window, her beacon, was a time capsule of an age that preceded her great-grandparents. The floorboards were rotten, some panels missing entirely, exposing old earth below. A wooden bench sat in front of an inactive cobblestone fireplace, the creepy atmosphere seriously unnerved Edie.

"Hello!" She yelled at the silence. "My friend needs help! Hello!" She yelled again, floorboards squeaking beneath each step she took further into the cabin.

Her concern grew with each passing moment as her pleas remained unanswered. She ran through the door into the only other room of the cabin, where a primitive bed stood in a centenarian state.

The realisation that she and her friend were alone struck Edie as a bolt of fear and panic jolted her into action. She rummaged under the bed for anything she could find better than her jacket as a makeshift tourniquet. She checked the main room again, still with no luck. The place looked completely untouched for decades, centuries, even. All except for the candle. Someone had lit it, maybe they had already left.

With no luck finding anything useful to aid her friend, she hurried back outside to check on her. She swung the door back open and froze momentarily.

The sky was dark.

Edie stood, bewildered and confused at the lack of light, despite the sun's position above the horizon just minutes ago.

"Freya?" She called out into the darkness. "Freya?" She called louder.

No response.

Tentatively descending the small rickety steps back to where her friend would be, the area gradually lit, dimly, as a cloud parted to reveal a full moon, its light giving Edie a caliginous view of the forest floor. She spotted Freya's silhouette, slumped by the shrubbery she left her in.

She approached the slumped figure and crouched by her friend as the clouds covered the moon, shrouding the forest in almost complete darkness.

"Freya?" She whispered, bringing a hand to what she could only just make out to be her shoulder, worried that her friend had passed out. A burning stench hit Edie's nostrils, a pungent smell of rot and decay.

"What..." She muttered to herself, leaning in further to squint at her friend's face. She couldn't see detail, squinting as hard as she could, but she noticed no movement or sound coming from her friend.

A few moments passed until the moonlight shone again, breaking from the clouds above. Inches beneath Edie's face, Freya's rotted corpse lay visible in the chilling white light.

Her eyes were sunken and missing, skin discoloured and gaunt. Her jaw hung open, slack, as maggots and millipedes crawled in and out of their new home situated in the mouth of Freya's corpse.

Edie screamed as she threw herself back off of her friend's decaying body, horrified and confused. She was only gone for a few minutes at the most, in those brief moments of pure panic, she tried to wrap her mind around the situation, how her friend who had been left alive minutes ago looked like a two week old corpse. Cruor and grume coagulated at her ankle where the trap had seized her and sealed her devastating fate. She scrambled to her feet, nausea setting in as she fled back to the light of the cabin.

Edie launched herself into the doorway, clasping her hand over her mouth as her stomach lurched. She sprinted to the fireplace where an old iron pail sat beside it. She dropped onto her knees desperately, before vomiting into the bucket.

Her mouth felt sticky as she wiped it with her sleeve and sat against the cold, wooden walls, sobbing loudly, wailing inconsolably. Her cries echoed through the dead silence, falling deaf on any creature beyond the cabin.

After minutes of weeping descended into quiet sobs, she got back up to her feet and paced the cabin. She thought of her backpack, still out there, full of food, water and a torch. She needed light to navigate her way to her bag, so upon seeing the pitch blackness from the window, she lifted the candlestick from its holder on the ledge and approached the door.

As she pulled the door open, she almost dropped the candle at her feet.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Daylight.

The midday sun shone in the sky far above the trees. Birdsong graced Edie's ears as she was welcomed into a new day. She felt delirious as she questioned the possibility of the bizarre situation. Had she slept and not realised? She couldn't have, it was still only dusk from the window.

Still with the candle in hand, she stepped backwards slowly within the confines of the cabin, jaw slack in disbelief. She moved inside and towards the window, placing the candle back into its holder. She left the flame burning and lifted her head to the window. Still daylight.

Her body aquiver, she moved back into the doorway as she peered back outside.

Dusk.

"No," She whispered. She was losing her mind, she reasoned. She was traumatised and she was losing her mind. That was the only rational explanation she could conjure.

Slowly, she stepped back into the forest, the forest that now felt otherworldly to her. The sun was setting like it had been when she arrived there not ten minutes prior with Freya.

Freya, her best friend who was living, breathing, tangible. Edie approached her friend's remains as they sat beneath the shrubbery as putrid sludge, surrounded in a swarm of flies.

She gasped in a sob, head throbbing from dehydration, she couldn't cry, only wail. The stench of rot was so strong she had to cover her mouth with her sleeve. She knelt by her backpack just a few feet from her unrecognisable friend. As she unzipped her bag, she pulled out her water bottle, opening the cap and sipping the contents fervently. It tasted old, like plastic. Her appetite was killed further as she found what was a container of couscous, now a tub of blue mould, gagging as she placed the container back in her bag. Freya carried the majority of their hiking snacks, though Edie knew they'd be past their prime.

She looked around for the second backpack before realising it sat beneath her friend's remains, imbrued with rotten organic substance. The same discovery was made for her phone, covered in the decay of what was Freya's hand.

Edie wavered as she stood, dizzy and nauseated. She knew she had to backtrack through the woods. The seven hour walk back to civilisation was infinitely favourable than staying in the hell she was experiencing. She lifted her backpack onto her shoulders with the bottle of water in hand.

After a long five hours of walking, Edie figured she couldn't be far off now. She hadn't seen anyone on her way, or heard a distant car, but she knew, only a few more hours and she should be at the little hamlet she left earlier that day. Or in the bizarre situation she couldn't comprehend, weeks ago.

The sun had set and darkness had descended upon the woods once again. This time, Edie had her torch to light her way and compass to take her in the right direction.

The wind picked up and the cold, winter air chilled Edie to her bones. Her teeth chattered as her body felt close to exhaustion. She observed the first signs of snow in the light of her torch as delicate snowflakes drifted in the breeze, waltzing a slow, floating dance. In minutes, the delicate snow enveloped Edie in a blizzard, howling, freezing wind paired with the heavy downfall gave her little visibility with the light of her torch.

The snow storm had seemingly come out of nowhere, Edie felt numb from the cold, hunger and fatigue, the only thought driving her was that of seeing another person, her family. She wanted to call her mother, hug her little brother. Each gruelling step she took as she trudged through two-feet deep snow was one step closer to getting back. That's what she repeated to herself as she felt close to collapsing.

The cold air bit her skin, her face entirely numb, she couldn't feel her nose, ears or lips.

Then, there it was.

A light in the distance.

Edie wanted to cry in relief, though she feared her tears would freeze over her face.

She pushed faster and faster, the warm glow casting a beacon through the thick blizzard. She came closer and closer, the building still shrouded in the intense white winds.

Thud.

She steadied herself as she shone her light on the object that nearly tripped her.

Protruding from the deep snow stood a wooden cross.

Freya Campbell.

"Please," Edie choked. "Please, don't be-" She moved closer to the flickering light.

Edie collapsed at the wooden steps at the foot of the cabin, screaming in anguish. How could she be back here? She followed South West on her compass for hours through darkness and freezing blizzards. She couldn't be. It wasn't possible.

She screamed until her lungs gave out and her eyelashes froze together. Visually impaired and energy critically depleted, she dragged herself to the cabin door, elbowing through the heavy frost atop the rotted wood of the narrow porch.

Inside the cabin was warmer, though not by much. There was a fireplace, but no fuel. Her breathing was heavy and laboured as she lowered her face to the ground, barely making out the detail of the wooden floorboards through her frosted eyelashes.

Edie fell into a deep slumber on the aged wood, her final thoughts before sleep were of Freya, how long she might've waited in agony, on call to the operator, the last voice she'd ever hear. A stranger. Who found her body and placed her wooden gravestone? Would they have entered the cabin? Surely. She wondered if anyone would search for her. Her family would know where she would be by now, now that Freya's body had been discovered.

She didn't know how long it had been, there was no way to tell. Weeks? Months? That night as she slept, she dreamt of home, her cat, her garden, her family. She was welcomed with warm embraces of those she loved.

She never wanted to wake from her dream, but eventually, she would.

Misery is all Edie felt when she opened her eyes to the interior of the cabin. It took her a few moments to realise where she was, once she did, she sobbed dryly.

After willing herself to stand, she watched the candle flicker by the window. The wax hadn't melted an inch since she first time she saw it. She'd stopped questioning reality and possibilities at this point, she was truly beaten. She couldn't cry anymore, only wail.

Outside stood the wooden cross in the summer sun.

Summer.

The temperature felt far above twenty five Celcius, the brilliant sunlight scorched the ground, not a drop of moisture would grace the cracked earth.

With heavy, defeated steps, Edie silently walked to the cross on the hot ground and knelt there for what felt like hours.

"I'm so sorry," She finally spoke just above a whisper. "I came back for you, right away, I did," Her sore skin basked in the delight of the sun, she shut her tired eyes and sighed. "I don't know what to do, I don't know how to get out. I think I've given up," Her voice cracked. "I want to give up, I'm so, so tired,"

After a few moments, Edie heard it. Laughter and chatter, from inside the cabin. Her yell was trapped in her throat as her stomach lurched. Hope. For the first time in a while, she felt hopeful.

She ran back inside as fast as her legs could carry her and flung the door open.

Four faces stared back at her. Strangers. Eyes wide and jaws slack.

One of the girls of the group screamed as though she'd seen something truly nightmarish. It pierced Edie's ears, she winced, but she smiled.

"Please," She croaked, stepping closer. "I need help,"

"Oh my god," A man spoke. "Are you shitting me? Are you- are you a ghost?"

"No, no I'm-" Edie stopped herself as she heard a second man whisper her name to his friend.

"Man, this is freaky, there's no way," The man laughed.

"I need to get home, my friend is- is-"

"Freya Campbell? Your friend?" The hysterical woman asked. "You're Edie Cameron, right?"

Edie nodded desperately. "I need to go, please, I need you to help-"

"This is so creepy, are we being messed with?" Another man asked through a sly smile.

"It's just a kid screwing with us, it has to be," The first man spoke.

"No I'm Edie, I'm-"

"See, it's a ghost," The woman whispered to her friends.

"I'm not-"

"Edie and Freya went missing over forty years ago," The woman spoke sympathetically.

The words rang in Edie's ears like a bell. Forty years. If they were telling the truth, her parents were likely gone by now.

"That's not possible," She whimpered. Though, none of this was.

"Exactly, this is sick. Pretending to be a dead girl? You're just some freak trying to scare people," The third man spoke. He'd been silent the whole time, staring at Edie with distain.

"I'm Edie, please believe m-"

"No you're not," He argued back. "That's impossible, now please leave," Hie raised his voice to a yell.

Edie flinched at his words, her pleas rendered useless.

The woman took out her phone and snapped a picture of Edie. The flash startled her as she backed into the doorway.

The four people just stared as she stood by the door, the candle light flickering on the side of her face.

"My mum," She whispered, her chin trembling. "Was she okay?"

"That's enough," The cynical man yelled as he stood, striding towards her. "Get out, now. This isn't funny, go home."

She fled outside as the man approached indignantly, the door slamming shut behind her.

"I'm trying," She sobbed.

Snow.

The air freezing again, she turned to face the the cabin. Only this time, there was no lit candle in the window. A large gaping hole in the ancient wooden walls. The roof was caved in. Snow carpeted the inside as winds howled around her.

Across the door, faded graffiti read,

Edie

Witch!

She wailed once more, violently shivering in the glacial gale.

Freya's grave was barely standing, snapped and completely rotten.

This time, Edie didn't try to get home. She knew her efforts would be futile.

She walked for hours, eventually leading back to the derelict cabin.

The blistering winds blew ferociously against her stinging skin.

Finally, she collapsed in the thick snow, face up to the sky where fluffy, white clouds would soar above her through intermittent gusts of snow.

Her eyes slipped shut as she accepted her final goodbye to the world she'd grown to fear and despise. There was nothing left for her anymore, only the memories of her past.

As consciousness faded, she thought again of her mother.

Her father.

Her brother.

Freya.

Her cat.

Her garden.

Her home.

Her final thought was that of her favourite memory.

Sat around the dinner table with her family and her best friend on a spring Sunday evening. Laughter at stories told between them, fond glances from those she loved. Delicious, warm food served at the table. Her cat purring at her feet. They were all there, and that's where Edie was, too.

The ruins of the old wooden cabin stood, forgotten. Edie of the Cairngorms was remembered until the last person would tell her story, one that would be convoluted over the years.

No one would know of her true fate, of how eventually she would succumb to the cold, her heart, broken from ache and anguish. Her memories faded just as she did, and then...