The Blackhouse Read Online Free PDF Page A

going back by Mealanais Farm,’ I told him. ‘It’s a shortcut.’
    ‘What?’ He looked at me as if I were mad. ‘That’ll take hours!’
    ‘No, it won’t. I can cut back by the Cross–Skigersta road.’ I had no idea where that was, but Marsaili had told me that was the quick way from Mealanais to Crobost.
    I didn’t even wait for him to object, but took off at a sprint up the road after Marsaili. By the time I caught up with her I was out of puff. She gave me a knowing smile. ‘I thought you would be walking home with Artair.’
    ‘I thought I’d walk with you up by Mealanais.’ I was dead casual. ‘It’s a shortcut.’
    She looked less than convinced. ‘It’s a long way for a shortcut.’ And she gave a little shrug. ‘But I can’t stop you walking with me, if that’s what you want.’
    I smiled to myself, and restrained an urge to punch the air. I looked back and saw Artair glaring after us.
    The road to the farm branched off the other side of the main road before the turnoff to Crobost. Punctuated by the occasional passing place, it wound its way south-east across acres of peatbog that stretched off to the far horizon. But the land was more elevated here, and if you looked back you could see the line of the road as far as Swainbost and Cross. Beyond that, the sea broke white along the west coast below a forest of gravestones standing bleak against the sky at Crobost cemetery. The northern part of Lewis was flat and unbroken by hills or mountains and the weather swept across it from the Atlantic to the Minch, always in a hurry. And so it was always changing. Light and dark in ever-shifting patterns, one set against the other, rain, sunshine, black sky, blue sky. And rainbows. My childhood seemed filled by them. Usually doublers. We watched one that day, forming fast over the peatbog, vivid against the blackest of blue-black skies. It took away the need for words.
    The road tipped down a gentle slope then, to a cluster of farm buildings in a slight hollow. The fences were in better repair here, and there were cattle and sheep grazing in pasture. There was a tall, red-roofed barn, and a big white farmhouse surrounded by a clutch of stone outbuildings. We stopped at a white-painted gate at the opening to a dirt track that ran down to the house.
    ‘Do you want to come in for some lemonade?’ Marsaili asked.
    But I was sick with worry by this time. I had no real idea where I was or how to get home. And I knew I was going to be very late. I could feel my mother’s anger already. ‘Better not.’ I looked at my watch trying not to seem concerned. ‘I’m going to be a bit late.’
    Marsaili nodded. ‘That’s what happens with shortcuts. They always make you late.’ She smiled brightly. ‘You can come and play on Saturday morning if you want.’
    I pushed at a clump of turf with the toe of my welly and shrugged, playing it cool. ‘I’ll think about it.’
    ‘Please yourself, then.’ And she turned and skipped off down the track towards the big white farmhouse.
    I’ve never really been sure how I managed to find my way home that first day, because after Mealanais the road petered out to a stony track. I had been walking along it for some time with a growing sense of despair when I saw the top of a car flashing past along the near horizon. I ran up the slope and found myself on what must have been the Cross–Skigersta road that Marsaili had talked about. Looking both ways along it, the road seemed to disappear into the peatbog. I didn’t know which way to turn. I was scared and close to tears. Some guiding hand must have prompted me to go left, because if I had turned right I would never have got home.
    Even so, it was more than twenty minutes before I came to a turnoff where a crooked black and white signpost pointed uncertainly towards Crobost. I was running now, the tears burning my cheeks, the rims of my wellies rubbing my calves raw. I smelled the sea, and heard it before I saw it. And then