Author: Dinah Kolka

Listen to the audio version of the story here:

‘Ba, ba, mo leanabh beag

Tha eagal orm nach fhas thu.’

June 1972, Scottish Highlands

Night came on, bleak and erratic. Outside, while the storm was howling, the trees were dancing in every direction, and on the pale walls the candlelight flickered and trembled in concert with the very foundations of the house. Irena was looking out, unsettled, attempting to read. However, each time she looked down, trying to make sense of the letters on the page, a strange noise coming from the outside would startle her, again and again. Sitting in the bay window, she was squinting, trying to see through the dark glass. But there was nothing there, only the trees, the house looming far in the background, and the angry ocean. 

She started dozing off, but she knew she needed to stay awake. Each drowsy jerk of her body brought her back, and there it was again, the candle, the wind, and the rain furiously hitting the window. 

Something was wrong with the house; in fact, there was something rotten about the whole land. It came alive at night, whispering to her as she was asleep. Yet it wasn’t her choice to live here. All it took was her father’s decision to settle in Scotland after the war. She never understood why.

Growing up, she would spend her days looking outside, waiting for the weather to improve. But it never did. Hers was a childhood of basking in the Polish sun, which seemed to her to give the fresh fruit its taste, and in the winter that offered the respite of snow. . . it was all so different now. It felt like she was waiting for something, waiting for her life to begin. One more day and the weather will improve! One more day and she will be happy! One more day and she will return. But nothing ever came – and so Irena was twenty-five, unhappy, and drenched in the Scottish rain. 

Seldom going outside – the whole area was muddy and unsuitable for her shoes — the rare respite was in the sheep scattered amongst the mountains and the ocean softly crashing against the rocks on the coast. When she did go for walks, she found the area awfully quiet, which frustrated her, as it was such a juxtaposition to the daily bustle of the city she came from. Therefore, most of her day was spent on reading, baking, and yearning. 

All the while, despite the impossibility of reclaiming her former way of living, she became content with her mundane. Creating a protective shell around herself – never going outside — meant she never had to face the real world. But it was about a month previous when she began to notice strange little occurrences which dislodged her from her sense of comfort. At first, she couldn’t place them. It was the way the shadows moved around the house and snuck up on her. Whenever she entered the kitchen, it had an aura, as if someone had just left it. Sometimes, she could even smell odd scents, the aroma of herbs and vegetables. They would fill the whole house as if someone was cooking broth. Strange as this was it wasn’t exactly concerning, so she simply assumed it was her overactive imagination and discarded it from her mind. All the while contending with her father’s absent-mindedness. 

With his handsome veteran’s pension, which was just enough for the two of them, he paid for the house in the remote village of Scotland, far away from the grief and the aftermath of the war. 

He would spend whole days walking outside, exploring the heather-covered mountains and the coast. Dismayed by his daughter’s lack of interest in the outside, he would often say she took after her mother. But her mother was long gone now, buried in Poland. Yet another victim of a war she did not care for.

It was yet another one of those days with her father out wandering somewhere and Irena sitting indoors, scared of her own shadow, when going downstairs to make tea, she watched as the kettle spurt steam and droplets of boiling water out onto the kitchen tiles. She felt so sleepy, as if she were walking through a thick fog. 

Sitting at the kitchen table, slowly dozing off, her shoulders moved lower and lower on the table, before finally yielding to sleep.

‘Na tèid thu nad chadal¹’ a voice whispered in her ear. 

Irena woke up immediately, razor sharp. ‘Excuse me, is someone here?’ 

She looked around, startled. The kitchen was exactly as she had left it and the kettle was spilling water everywhere, whistling aggressively. She stood up and removed the kettle from the hob, burning herself in the process. 

‘Ouch!’ she said, biting the finger as if a different type of pain would make her feel better. She looked around again, confused. She could swear she heard someone whisper something in her ear but she couldn’t understand it and she didn’t even know if it was English. 

She made her tea and sat on the sofa readying herself to read her book. She felt deeply unsettled. Just as she was about to read, she heard a loud noise of the door shutting followed by the steps. She stood up. Her father stood in the doorway holding a bottle of whisky. 

‘Hi, Irena. Is there any food?’

‘I… I haven’t even started making it yet. It’s only after lunchtime, father.’ 

‘This goddamn house, I don’t know how you can stand sitting indoors all day. It’s driving me insane. It whispers in my ear, over and over. It drives me mad!’ 

Irena’s eyes opened wide. Could it be that she didn’t make it all up? Could it be that what she heard was true? And most importantly, could she use this as her bargaining card?

‘Daddy, daddy, let’s just leave! Let’s leave this muddy country behind and go back! I’m sick to death of being here and I can hear the whispers too! They keep me up at night.’ 

Her father’s face hardened as he heard this. 

‘Irena, we will never return. Stop having these flights of fancy. This is our home now. There is nothing to return to.’ 

His mind went back to his beautiful wife and her dirty, abandoned grave. He left, closing the door behind him. From the next room she could hear him pour the whisky into a glass.

Feeling restless and unsafe in the house, Irena put on a jacket and went outside. It was a cold day, as usual, but dry. She rarely walked around here, mostly going farther afield, over to the sea, but she was undecided. So she walked around the land that was supposedly theirs.

They owned a fair amount of land, which would be impossible in the narrow and suffocating city. It stretched ahead for miles, with soft inclines, mountain peaks looming in the background, and the ocean just a short walk ahead from the house. 

Walking aimlessly around, she saw a sheep with its horns stuck in a bush. It was pleading for help, baaing sadly and repeatedly. She ran over to it and untangled the animal from the trap of nature. Running her fingers through the rugged wool she sat there, looking around for a minute. 

Over by the house she noticed a pile of rocks, looking almost like house foundations. She was about to start exploring them when a Rough Collie ran across and started jumping up on her. She wasn’t exactly a dog person, but the dog was adorable and clearly very happy to see her, so she returned a little pet. She looked around for the owner and saw an elderly woman walk up to her slowly. 

‘My apologies, she loves people. You don’t get many of them here these days!’ 

‘It’s true, we are as remote as it gets!’

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking but I’ve noticed your accent, you’re not from around here, are you?’

‘No, I’m Polish. Moved here with my father around 10 years ago.’ 

‘Oh, yes, I remember now. I see your father in the Winged Serpent sometimes. How do you find living here then? I’m surprised I haven’t met you before. Oh, I do apologise, I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Eilidh, I live in that house over the hill.’

‘It is lovely to meet you. I’m Irena. I’m not surprised we haven’t met, as I don’t go outside too often. The weather doesn’t favour me.’

‘Yes, it’s quite rough out here. Though I’m surprised you lasted so long in the house. It stood empty for quite some time. Likely because of what happened with the former tenants.’

‘Previous tenants?’ 

But before Eilidh could finish, she noticed her dog digging around in the ruins. 

‘Bonald! Bonald! Stop rummaging around the croft house!’ Eilidh ran after the dog and moved him away from the ruins. 

‘I do apologise, he gets into everyone’s business. Well, it was lovely to meet you! I’m sure I’ll see you at some point.’

Irena was left standing where she was when the collie first jumped up at her. It was now clear that the ruins were the ruins of a croft house. There were plenty of these around, looming leftovers of a life once lived. 

Irena shivered and walked back towards the house. As she walked past the ruins, she noticed the spot where the dog was digging. Right in there, in the soil, she saw something poking out. She pulled it out and realised it was a bone. 

Curious, she brought the bone with her into the house and closed the door. 

‘Daddy, daddy, where are you?’  Irena opened the door to the kitchen and found her father sipping a glass of whisky. 

‘Hey, sorry about, you know, the before.’ 

‘No matter now, Dad. Oh, by the way, I met someone. You know the house over the hill? I met the lady who lives there. Eilidh, I believe her name was. She has a Collie, he was digging in the garden.’ 

Her father looked at her strangely. 

‘The house over the hill? That’s impossible.’ 

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s been standing empty for the last 70 years. I’m not too sure what was the name of the owner, but it’s a ruin now. As for the dog, you must have seen him before, silly. He herds all the sheep in the area.’ 

Irena was shocked. She could swear she didn’t make it up. It was as real as the fact that she was standing here in the kitchen looking at her father. 

‘I spoke to her, I promise, that’s the house she pointed at!’

‘Maybe you got confused. There are more houses over the hill, she could have meant any other. Saying that, you might have met Mrs Willis. She lives in one of them, I believe. Either way, you should really go outside more often; it would do you good. You should see Mrs Willis again. She works in the museum in the village. She likes reading too, you know!’ 

Irena didn’t enjoy this but she knew her father had a point. So she resolved that the very next day she would visit Mrs Willis at the museum. 

As she went to sleep that night the weather worsened. The storm started up again. Wind lashed against the windows, and Irena found herself struggling to go to sleep. Suddenly, she remembered the bone she brought into the house. Did she unknowingly bring evil inside? Ruminating over this, she finally fell asleep. 

***

Walking outside in the stormy weather, she saw a small house with huddled figures inside. She was trying to call out to them, but no one paid heed. She got closer, confused as to how she found herself there and how she missed a whole house on the property. 

‘Hello! Hello, excuse me, it’s stormy. Are you all okay?’ 

She wandered into a tight, small house and saw a rugged man, a woman, and two children all trying to warm themselves up next to the fire.

The man started speaking in Scottish Gaelic ‘Tha a’ bho air bàsachadh!’ The cow is dead! How are we going to survive the winter? I can’t stand it anymore.’ 

The man stood up as his family watched him, still huddled. 

‘We don’t even have anything to look forward to anymore. There isn’t enough shellfish to feed the four of us. What are we going to eat? Kelp? What about the chickens? If we don’t feed the chickens, they won’t see through the winter either!’ 

‘Ian, I’m sure we’ll be okay, we’ve survived worse before. We still have the oats and a few tatties, I can stretch it out.’ 

‘The cow is dead, woman! The cow is dead! What use is it for us to survive through the winter if we won’t even survive the summer without the cow!’ 

The man ran through the door, outside. As he left, she could swear he looked at her. Irena wasn’t sure if she was supposed to follow him. She decided to do it, against her own better judgement. 

‘Mister, mister! We have a full fridge of food! Please come in!’ 

But the man paid no heed. He marched straight across to the edge of the cliffs. There she saw his silhouette looming, hesitant at first, then stiffening into hard resolution. Then, without a sound, he jumped.

Irena started weeping and ran after him but she couldn’t see anything. It was dark and raining and she was soaked to the bone. She figured she should check in on the rest of the family, but the house was gone. Instead, she saw a dead cow, splattered right in front of the house. 

‘Na tèid thu nad chadal’

Suddenly, she woke up. She was warm, lying in bed, nowhere near the wind from the outside. This was an unusual experience; it all felt so real. But she didn’t have much time to dissect it. She fell back asleep almost immediately. 

She woke up to rays of sunshine. She felt ready to commit to walking for 30 minutes to get to the village. Lifting the duvet cover, she stepped onto the carpet and realised that her feet were dirty and covered in soil. This took her aback. Did the events of yesterday actually happen? She rushed downstairs in horror. 

She opened the front door and saw her father, smoking a cigarette and looking at something in the garden. 

‘Daddy, what is it?’ 

‘The cow is dead!’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Look, the cow — it’s dead’ 

Irena looked obediently and there it was — the very same cow as in her dream, dead on the ground. She shivered with fear and a sudden realisation that her dream was significant in some way.

‘I need to go,’ she said sharply. She then got dressed hurriedly and walked out, leaving her father exactly where he was standing before. 

The weather held as she made her way to the village. The museum itself was small but well-equipped. They had archives too, which Irena was particularly interested in consulting. When she entered she approached the front desk and asked the woman for help. 

‘Excuse me, I am looking for Mrs Willis, could I please speak to her?’ 

‘Well, you are speaking with her. What can I help you with, my dear?’ 

Irena was confused. This woman was not the woman she spoke to outside the house. 

‘Oh, well.. it is lovely to meet you. I’m the daughter of Zbigniew, you know, the Polish man. Dad suggested I should come to see the museum. I was particularly interested in the archives.’ 

‘Well, it is lovely to meet you too. Your father is a good man. It’s good to finally see you out of that house. It’s not healthy to stay there for a long time!’ 

‘Well, I’m here now!’ Irena chuckled uncomfortably. 

‘Anyway, our archives are upstairs, feel free to help yourself to anything. We have a wealth of history relating to this area but if you’re looking for anything specific, please let me know.’ 

‘Will do!’ 

Irena rushed upstairs and looked for any files that pertained to the land they lived on. Plot 13. Croft house ruins. ‘Ian Mackintosh, died aged 28. Eilidh Mackintosh, died aged 76. Peter Mackintosh, unclear. Sarah Mackintosh, unclear’ A shiver ran down Irena’s spine. Her dream was real. There was a sketch attached and Eilidh Mackintosh looked just like the mysterious lady from across the hill. But something didn’t track. Why did she say she lived across the hill? Did she lie? 

Once again, Irena had too many questions. She decided that it was time to find out about the bone. She said her goodbyes to Mrs Willis and ran back to the house. The cow was still there, although rotting already, and although she didn’t know much about the body decomposition rate she was surprised that it took so little time. Before she headed inside, she looked around the ruins again. She realised they were the exact same size as the house she had seen in her dream.

She realised she must speak to her father. Maybe he could help uncover the story, maybe this was the explanation behind the house feeling so wrong. But as she entered the house, her father was gone. She checked every room. He must have gone on his usual wanderings! She went back outside and started searching for him. She looked everywhere, going near the mountains and was almost going to abandon the search when she saw the cliff from which Ian threw himself. She looked down, knowing she wouldn’t find him, but her curiosity won over. 

Unfortunately, instead of Ian, she saw her father lying there in the pool of his own blood. 

She screamed and wept and ran down the cliffside to find him. He was dead. She wept for hours near his body, pondering over her life without him. 

Something had changed in her that day, as if the remnants of innocence vanished. As she went back to the house after the funeral, it felt haunted and filled with great evil, and with each passing day it came to feel more and more alien. It was as if it came alive after being drenched in blood.

Irena didn’t sleep well. Night terrors kept tormenting her as her brain replayed her father’s death over and over. 

The disconnect between the dream and reality bothered her, and she kept wondering why Eilidh managed to survive when her children died. She resolved to go to the house on the hill and see if she could find any answers.

The door was open and the house was in ruin. She walked through empty corridors, thinking of all the souls that passed through them before she was even born. She checked the drawers but they were all empty. As she sat down on the steps, she noticed the paintings on the wall. 

She saw Eilidh right there, next to a man who was well-dressed and clearly well-fed. It didn’t track — he did not look like a poor starving crofter. He also looked older than her husband, who died at 28. She kept looking at the painting and noticed the inscription on the frame: ‘“Laird Duncan MacAlastair of Glenmuir and his wife, Eilidh, relict of Ian Mackintosh.”

She was flabbergasted. The answer was right there, on the wall, staring back at her. This explained why she lived so long but it didn’t explain the circumstances or what happened to the children. She spent some more time rummaging around the house but everything was empty and the house offered no more answers. 

Irena proceeded home and, just as she entered the hallway, she remembered the bone. She resolved to take it to the museum to have it analysed the very next day. Tired from the events of the day, she fell asleep. 

***

‘Ba, ba, mo leanabh beag

Tha eagal orm nach fhas thu.’

Irena found herself outside, once again. The birds were flying low as if the storm was coming. The huddled figures were back. Eilidh was holding one of her children in her arms, singing softly to it, shedding tears over it. 

‘My wee bairn, I have been defiled. My wee bairn, maybe he can take us in and offer us life. Maybe things can still look up. I love you, I love you so much. But this life. . .’ Suddenly the woman looked up directly at Irena. Her face contorted, and started wailing. But then, she stopped abruptly and shouted ‘Dùisg!³’ 

Irena once again found herself in her bed. She looked outside and she noticed the black birds flying low. Did the dream seep into her reality once more? 

She walked over to the museum and handed the bone to Mrs Willis. 

‘I found this in the garden the other day. I’d like to know if it’s an animal bone or. . . something else.’ 

Mrs Willis’ eyes widened. 

‘Where did you get this from?’ she asked sharply

‘Well, as I said, a dog was digging near the ruins and I found this.’ 

‘We have a problem. This is a human bone.’ 

‘What does this mean?’ 

‘I’ll need to call the police and the archaeologists. They’ll have to excavate the rest.’ 

While the bones were excavated and analysed, Irena was sick with worry. Finally, she got the short and clear answer. They found one body at the property, the small skeleton of a little girl.

Irena was uncomfortable with this answer — what really happened to them and where was the other body? It wasn’t just a figment of her imagination; there were two children recorded in the croft record.

 It felt like all of her routes were closed and she was stuck there, with the gaping hole in the narrative. Then she did something extraordinary to herself — she went for a walk. She needed her head cleared and it seemed that the house was becoming more suffocating day by day. 

As she walked down the path, she walked past the patches of heather illuminated in the sun. She felt a strong sensation that something was off, but she couldn’t place it. There was something about this patch of heather, something eerie, evil. She shuddered but as if against her own will she became drowsy again. 

She woke up in thick fog, still at the moorland. She saw a small silhouette of a boy.

 ‘Ba, ba, mo leanabh beag/ Tha eagal orm nach fhas thu.’

He sang the old lullaby. He was watching her, his hollow eyes inviting but eerie. Irena stood up and called out to him. But he just turned and kept walking. He walked up towards a patch of heather with rocks placed in the shape of a cross. 

“Bidh cuimhne gu bràth air na mairbh.”⁴ And the boy vanished. 

Irena understood immediately. She started digging with her fingers, the soil getting beneath of her nails. She ripped out the heather from the ground and didn’t stop until she found another bone. She wept, as she instinctively knew. 

She looked up and saw Peter’s little silhouette again. This time, his eyes didn’t look as hollow. He waved at her and walked away slowly. 

A soft lullaby filled the air with the words:

‘Ba, ba, mo leanabh beag / Tha am pàiste air a shaoradh a-rithist.’ 

‘Hush, my little one… the child is free again’

***

The excavated bones belonged to Peter. The case was closed for the police and for everyone else. But still Irena needed to know the truth. She walked a lot in those days. On one of those walks, she saw an old parish church, one that had seen better days. 

Something prompted her to go in as if to protect herself against the evils she’d been fighting. She sat in one of the naves, looking at the large crucifix in front. 

‘It’s a really gorgeous church, isn’t it?’ a priest suddenly came up to her. He was a chubby man, in his 60s, plain but with placid features. ‘Did you know that this church has seen through the clearances and used to feed crofters during the famine?’ 

‘Really? I was actually investigating some crofter history recently, we have ruins of a croft house on our property.’ 

‘Oh? It’s quite a project of mine. I led a rural history project years ago, and I still have tons of documentation. Would you like to see it?’

‘Of course!’ The priest then led her to a little office. 

‘Which plot is it? I have it all categorised.’ 

‘Well, it’s plot 13, but I was also interested in the house over the hill.’ 

The priest stopped sharply. 

‘There is evil buried there, Irena’ 

‘Evil? Are you talking about the husband committing suicide and those poor children dying, perhaps of starvation?’ 

‘Starvation, if you want to call it that.’ He rummaged through the papers. ‘Here, plots 13 and 14. I actually found something curious. You might find it useful. You see, Father Alban kept a sort of journal, a chronicle. We managed to recover a lot from it. Look, here it is.’

Irena picked up the documents and read the entries. 

“The Widow Mackintosh did call upon me once more. I perceive in her a most unspeakable wickedness. She did weep for hours over her departed younglings, and yet thereafter did entreat most fervently for permission to wed the laird. The matter strikes me as most unseemly in its haste. Her poor bairns were taken but last week, and already she pursues a felicitous conclusion.”

Irena exclaimed — ‘that’s about her! I’ve been to her house, I saw it, I saw the painting with the laird. It was all true. But what happened with the children?’ 

The shadow came over the priest’s face and he handed her another document. ‘Read this, please’. 

“I am well aware I ought not to commit this to writing, yet as God is my solemn witness, I must set it down, for a great wickedness hath been disclosed unto me. The Widow Mackintosh did come unto me for confession. At the first, her speech was most incoherent, choked as it was with violent sobbing. But soon, the dreadful words became clear to mine ears: ‘My babes, my wee bairns, I was compelled to do what I did. It was the only course. I should have perished else, and I have clung to life too long to cast it away as though it were naught. They would not have withstood the winter in any case. God must pardon me this grievous sin. I knew the laird had marked me – from the very moment we did let the land, I felt his gaze. And so I did slay them both. I buried Sarah alive. But Peter! Peter fled – I pursued him into the moorland and seized him. I did strangle Peter, for he would not suffer me to lay him in the earth beside her. None shall ever know.’

I am sorely shaken. My conscience bids me go to the authorities, and yet I deem this a matter betwixt her soul and the Almighty. The burden she now bears in her heart shall, I fear, be her most enduring punishment.”

Irena walked back home, paying no heed to the misty rain falling softly on her hair. She was still clutching a copy of the document. For the first time, the rain and the rugged landscape didn’t feel like punishment — it felt like anticipation. As she stepped her foot on the land, it was as if a fog had cleared. The old house felt airy now, no longer any fear dwelling in its nooks and crannies. Closing the door, she sighed before proceeding to pack up. It was time for her to return. 

Dinah is the founder of Decadent Serpent and a graduate of Edinburgh Napier University with a BA(Hons) in English Literature. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Salisbury Review and The Mallard. She was also published in the Scottish Book Trust’s 2018 anthology Rebel. In 2023, Dinah self-published her own collection of short stories, The Search and Other Stories.

1. ‘Don’t fall asleep’, Scottish Gaelic ↩︎
2. ‘Hush, hush, my little baby / I am afraid you will not grow.’ ↩︎
3. ‘Wake up!’ ↩︎
4. “The dead will be remembered forever.” ↩︎