A Tale Suitable For The Mountains And For Halloween

I was a youth leader responsible for a group of young women, on a road trip, in Scotland. The idea was to build upon adventurous days out and the odd weekend away to Snowdonia. The bunch that signed up were a good mix of characters which, although containing a couple that wanted to get out into the hills, mostly comprised of your average teen who thought they were ravers. One of the nights spent with this group resonates with me still.

  We parked up near the picturesque memorial at Glenfinnan, a mini Nelsons Column type structure set at the head of a loch, which celebrates the uprising of 1745. We gathered our camp gear and walked off into the hills for a night in a bothy. Despite the complaints of non-existent blisters and the constant re-working of “are we there yet,” we finally arrived at the almost ruined cottage, a speck against it’s mountain backdrop. It was a longhouse, on one floor, with no internal partitions and wooden platforms for beds. This was roughing it, and an ideal safe shelter for the group to contemplate the beauty of the surroundings and perhaps their place in them.

   We snacked, brewed up a few cuppas and talked with to the only other resident, a lone male walker from New Zealand.  As darkness fell, thoughts turned to the spirit world and despite the fears and warnings, Emma and Charlie made a set of cards by writing out the alphabet on the reverse of a breakfast cereal box. Emma arranged these in a circle on the table and placed a plastic mug upside down in the middle. I observed the proceedings with my tongue firmly in my cheek as twelve index fingers found the mug. Emma asked ‘Is there anybody there?’ The mug began to move slowly across the table, towards the ‘Y’ card. Emma remained calm and speaking to the ether asked ‘What is your name?’ The mug started to track back to the middle of the table. At this index fingers were removed and the circle broke down. There was a fine display of hysterics. I was assured by all that none had been cup pushing, guiding it across the table. And then soon it was time for bed.

   We were laid out on the wooden slabs, tightly enclosed in our sleeping bags. Slowly the voices died away until there was silence. Then it began. The noise of metal being shifted, beaten, moving around the building. I was thinking that the wind had picked up when I, and a couple of the group, lying near to the door, heard a voice calling in from the outside. The voice was lifted from a b-rated horror movie, replete with the clichés that it conjured. Drawn out and frail it wailed “Let me in.”

   Banny screamed; Charlie had heard it too. Then all screamed, without knowing why. I sat up and tried to calm the raised voices. With the New Zealander in tow and torch in hand I stepped out into the night and made a short tour of the walls of the bothy. We stumbled over some corrugated iron and some old fence wire but we didn’t find a troubled ghoul. We both agreed that there was not enough wind to have created the metallic rattling heard just a short time earlier. A ouija board session, a wailing voice and the rattling of chains, c’mon. But we couldn’t work it out. Both remaining a little shaken we reported our findings to the girls and as we were doing this Sarah let out a piercing scream and leapt into the arms of her best friend, Emma. I was back into group leader and calming down mode.

   It was some time before we managed to get an explanation from Sarah. I knew her for many years following our Scottish adventure and she never changed her story, always affirmed that she was telling the truth. She had been sat on her bed and listening to me whilst gazing at the old stone fireplace. Sarah said that a girl had appeared wearing old- fashioned clothes, a long drab dress with a cardigan or shawl. She had long hair and the face of Amy, another member of our group. Amy was the most able, not part of the raver crowd, more intense, perhaps more intelligent. Sarah saw ‘the ghost’ move away from the fire and towards us and it was only with this movement that she screamed.

   A ghost with the face of the living? Was this teenage fancy, a vision with a deeper meaning? I had had enough and encouraged everyone to go to sleep. There was the usual chatter but sleep did come to all and there was no further disturbance that night.

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