Scots vocabulary
Dobber – yet another word for idiot; we have a lot of them.
Dreich – dull, gloomy, usually referring to the weather.
Tatties – potatoes
Bodach glas – a grey man figure that’s thought to be an omen of death in Scottish folklore.
Story
I didn’t bother going to the shop the next day, not my shop at least. I went to another one. I’m not really sure how I found it. I’ve seen it before through a jewellery box mirror, but never really known in what dark alleyway it’s been hiding all these years.
Turns out it’s not in a dark alleyway at all, but a normal part of the town. There’s no shop front, no window display. It’s just a doorway that people walk past and don’t notice. Not unless they need to. It doesn’t look like anything else around it, it’s not painted, there’s no glass that you can peek through, there’s no sign outside. There’s not even a handle. It only opens from the inside.
I’d been running on excitement since the festival, since I’d learned about Death’s greatest love, but now that I was here my confidence started to wither. What if I was wrong? Making connections between things that weren’t? Seeing patterns where there wasn’t any? I should walk away.
But I didn’t.
I ignored the doubts, the thoughts that made me stop, the fear, and I knocked on the door of Madam Anora’s shop. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that woman look surprised, but I was satisfied with the perplexed frown she threw me when she realised I wasn’t a customer.
There’s no one to make tea here so we sit at her small table across from one another. The room is as dark as it was in the mirror, whatever light came from the lampshades was smothered by the carpets and walls. I thought it’d be stuffy, no windows to leave open, no draft to filter through the gaps in the door frame, but it’s not. This place is quiet, almost peaceful. The shop, my shop, is cavernous, stuffed from floor to ceiling with items and objects and trinkets, but sometimes it feels vacant, almost lonely.
Madam Anora’s shop was the opposite and yet the same, familiar, yet alien. Everything was neat here; everything had an order. There was very little on display. Some items on a shelf, the one I’d been viewing the room through, and I wondered if whatever the jewellery box I’d found had been attached to was still here, or if Madam Anora had noticed. It was sparse, but the darkened walls and dull light lent it a more comfortable feel, the lack of clutter and mess meant you could see every corner, every nook, and knew there was nothing there.
I didn’t like that I wasn’t as disgusted by being there as I should’ve been. She was the enemy, wasn’t she? This was where curses were cast, bad people were helped, and lives were ruined. But what had I expected? A cauldron?
Madam Anora let my eyes wander, let the silence settle. The similarities between her and my boss were perhaps better left unmentioned. When I finally realised there had been a lengthy silence I got straight to the point. Had she ever heard the story about Death’s greatest love?
Her eyes narrowed, her mouth pursed, and I could tell she wanted to throw an insult. I surmised from this reaction that she did know the story, which she confirmed, before wondering why I’d asked her about it.
Was it true?
The distaste melted from her features and a shadow of smugness settled in its place. At least she felt superior now. According to popular myth it was true, she confirmed, but it’d happened so long ago, before even the Madams existed, that no one really knew the exact truth, or the finer details, only what had been passed down.
Maybe the depiction of a Chronos-like creature at the festival had been the version that had been passed down the generations of foxes, maybe it was artistic licence by the puppet makers, but I wasn’t about to let this go over some flimsy coincidences.
Now it was my turn to look smug. I told Madam Anora that I had a way to break us all free of our fates as Madams, but in order to do it we needed to summon Death.
My smugness didn’t last long as Anora sneered and snickered in derision. I was an idiot, she said, the only way Death can be summoned is by dying, and unless I was willing to die for this, we’d have to use another way.
Before I could petulantly throw something back at her, she said that the quickest way to find death was to go somewhere they frequented. A place of death.
A cemetery? I’m glad I never said that aloud because I did feel like a dobber when she told me where we were going.
A hospice.
I don’t know what’s worse. Why does every place that begins with “hosp” have to be so bad? Visiting Reid after his accident was bad, but now we were going somewhere equally as dreich. And I was going there with the anti-Madam.
I’d never heard of the hospice we ended up at, none of my family have ever been a patient in one, but it was an eerie place. Hospitals are noisy, ironically full of life, yet this place was stuffed with something else, an unsettling peace that acted more like a vacuum. It was as if no one wanted to make a sound, as though breaking the silence was an act of sacrilege, a taboo. There were less people here, less staff, more carpets, less beds, less everything.
The staff never really said anything to us, didn’t even give us a glance, and I wondered whether this was Anora’s doing, an extension of her powers as a Madam. There was a lot I didn’t know about her, and that had been why I hadn’t told her about Chronos and his possible connection with Death. I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.
Where I was affected by the atmosphere of the hospice, Anora was blissfully immune, and she told me we needed to find the patient who was most likely to die next. I threw her a glare that bounced off of her like rain off a window. And then we split up.
I had no idea what I was supposed to look for. It’s not like people have signs over their head with “Death take me next!”, and although the visitors and patients couldn’t really see me, it felt intrusive peering through doorways into rooms.
There was a mix of communal rooms and private ones. Most people in the single rooms weren’t conscious, the beeps of their machinery the only sound seeping out, the only sign of any life. I hurried past quicker than I should’ve, and I felt like Reid in a cemetery, as though walking quickly and avoiding eye contact would somehow spare me.
I became used to the beeps, to the exhale of a machine, the high-pitched tone of a counter or timer. So, when I heard the thunk of heavy plastic hit the linoleum floor in the room I’d just walked past, I reversed to look in.
An older looking woman, maybe fifties or sixties, was sitting up in her bed in a private room, staring down forlornly at the ground where she’d dropped a thick, navy blue brick shaped object. At first glance I thought it was a glasses case, and without thinking crossed the threshold and swooped down to pick it up.
It wasn’t anything to do with glasses, it was a fucking phone.
I’m not joking this thing weighed about as much as a bag of tatties. It even had buttons, proper buttons! I don’t remember these types of phone, but my Da had one in a drawer that he’d had before I was born. He’d called them invincible, and I think some are even in museums now. This one was testament to how well they were built if it was still working more than 20 years later. You even had to press buttons multiple times to get a single letter.
Why was this person still using this phone? Technology had come a long way, and surely it wasn’t even supported by the manufacturer anymore. I realise that I’m staring in amazement at this phone, and that it’s not mine, so I start to give it back to the woman when it nearly vibrates out of my hand and reads ‘1 new message’ on the screen. The sender is 1983.
I don’t know how these phones worked, but four digits is too few for a number, and what kind of nickname was 1983? Old person, unknown strange number; I started to think this might be a scam.
The patient, who later told me her name was Joan, noticed the look on my face and tried to reassure me that it was nothing sinister, that this phone was letting her communicate with her dead husband. This did nothing to reassure me like she was hoping.
I slowly sank down into the armchair left for visitors and acted interested, trying to hide the shrill lilt of surprise from my tone. Joan told me that when she was healthier, before her cancer diagnosis, she had run a small business that bought vintage items from estate sales and sold them online. One day she’d been at an auction and a box of random items had been one of the lots. She’d been more interested in the other things inside, but the phone was a part of the sale. Assuming she’d just hand it in somewhere, or throw it away, she’d thought nothing of it. Then it’d started vibrating.
It’d been a text message saying that it’d been a long time since they’d spoken and asked her if she was doing well. The text had been sent from the number 1983. The same year her first husband had died in a motorbike accident.
Out of morbid curiosity she’d replied, and over the proceeding text message exchange it’d become clear that the person on the other end was her first husband. He mentioned things about their marriage, he remembered her favourite restaurant, what house they’d been wanting to buy, how many guests they’d had at their wedding.
That’d been a few years ago, and they’d been talking ever since. It’d been a comfort, especially through her cancer, which she’d been diagnosed with shortly after getting the phone.
I tried not to stare at the phone, tried not to be concerned with the loving way she gazed at it. There was that familiar unease swarming in my stomach, that same sense that something wasn’t adding up here.
Before I could ask any more questions, Madam Anora appeared in the doorway, small frown drawing her eyebrows together as she noticed me sitting down talking. Curtly, she summoned me over to the door with a flick of her hand, and apologising to Joan I did as I was told.
I presumed by her short attitude that she hadn’t found Death, and before she could berate me for sitting on my arse whilst she traipsed around, I asked her about the phone Joan had. Anora glanced at it, observed Joan, and said it was probably a transference phone, and that it was too late to help her now.
Although the shop may be filled with antiques with a long history, there was the occasional item from more recent times. With the rise of technology, someday they themselves were bound to become antiques, and it’d already started. Some people had begun to use older mobile phones to avoid the inevitable. They’d do something to the phone, enchant it in some way, so that whoever received it and began texting them back on it would swap places with them. If they had cancer, then the phone would transfer the cancer to its new owner. Whoever was texting Joan, pretending to be her husband, had been diagnosed with whatever cancer she had now, and over the years it’d slowly transferred to her.
I felt sick. Why the fuck were things like this allowed to happen?
Anora noticed my disgust and told me we had no time, and that Joan didn’t either. Before I could berate her for being so unhelpfully crass about the death of a stranger, I heard the phone drop to the ground again, but when I looked at Joan she was unconscious.
Not unconscious. Dead.
Madam Anora perked up and told me that I should’ve said if I’d found the person who was going to die next. I had no words. They had all disappeared.
It didn’t take long for the familiar black shadow of Death to colour the walls and smother the light. They hadn’t changed a bit since I’d seen them last, although why would they? It’s not like in the last few months I’d suddenly overcome my fear of the Bodach glas, or my fear of Death. I didn’t really think about it at the time, but I wonder now what Anora saw, what Death was to her.
The Bodach glas stopped on its way to the old woman, lying in her bed, phone having fallen on the floor, still not broken. Its cloaked figure glanced at Anora, then at me, and again greeted me as Fate’s apprentice before wondering why they’d seen so much of me lately.
I cleared my throat because I knew my voice would’ve cracked otherwise. I asked them about the story, the one I’d seen at the festival, about their greatest love. Was it true? Bodach’s don’t have faces, they have no expressions, yet there was a bitterness to the air, a sad ripple through the darkness Death was cloaked in.
I began to tell them about Chronos, about his preference for being a black cat, about his many tails and third eye, until finally I confess that I know where he is, and what he’s been doing for all of these millennia.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been stared at by Death, but it’s not pleasant, even without facial features.
The adrenaline was starting to make my hands shake and I balled them into fists to stop it from spreading to the rest of my body. I wasn’t done yet.
I told the Bodach glas that I would only reunite them with their love if they killed Fate.
Confidence doesn’t bloom in me when even Madam Anora stares at me like I’ve gone mad, and I suppose she’s not far off being right.
The bodach glas is silent, the shadow shifts, it’s cloak ripples like sand on a windy day, and after a few moments they propose their counteroffer. They’d just kill me and be done.
The shaking got worse, and the doubts began to ravage my mind. What if I was wrong and I’d just threatened one of the most powerful beings in existence? I had no doubt Death would kill me for being such a cheeky shite. But I’d been doing this for years, doubting, procrastinating, finding anything else to believe because I was too slow, too unaccepting of myself and everything I’d seen.
I knew I was right, and I knew could do this.
I replied that they couldn’t kill me. I was a future Madam, my fate had already been set. Currently, I was immune, and it was all because Death had put themselves beneath Fate, had given into their whims and fancies, let themselves become inferior. But I was offering a solution, a happy ending.
Anora looked as though she was about ready to walk out and refuse that she ever knew me. She wouldn’t have any faith in me, would she?
Death, after a few more moments of ominous silence, confirmed that I was right on all accounts, except one. Yes, they couldn’t kill me, but they also couldn’t kill Fate either. As long as there was life, there would be some semblance of Fate. You can’t kill a concept, an idea.
However, you can imprison it.
Scots-ish language version
I didnae bother going tae the shop the next day, no ma shop at least. I went tae another one. I’m no really sure how I found it. I’ve seen it before, through a jewellery box mirror, but never really known in whit dark alleyway it’s been hidin’ all these years.
Turns oot it’s no in a dark alleyway at all, but a normal part ae the town. There’s no shop front, no windae display. It’s just a doorway that people walk past and dinnae notice. No unless they need tae. It doesnae look like anything else aroond it, it’s no painted, there’s no glass that ye can peek through, there’s no sign ootside. There’s no even a handle. It only opens from the inside.
I’d been runnin on excitement since the festival, since I’d learned aboot Death’s greatest love, but noo that I was here ma confidence started tae wither. Whit if I was wrong? Makin’ connections between things that werenae? Seeing patterns where there wasnae any? I should walk away.
But I didnae.
I ignored the doubts, the thoughts that made me stop, the fear, and I knocked on the door ae Madam Anora’s shop. I dinnae think I’ve ever seen that woman look surprised, but I was satisfied with the perplexed frown she threw me when she realised I wasnae a customer.
There’s no one tae make tea here so we sit at her small table across fae one another. The room is as dark as it was in the mirror, whitever light came fae the lampshades was smothered by the carpets and walls. I thought it’d be stuffy, no windaes tae leave open, no draft tae filter through the gaps in the door frame, but it’s not. This place is quiet, almost peaceful. The shop, ma shop, is cavernous, stuffed fae floor tae ceiling wi’ items and objects and trinkets, but sometimes it feels vacant, almost lonely.
Madam Anora’s shop was the opposite and yet the same, familiar, yet alien. Everything was neat here, everything had an order. There was very little on display. Some items on a shelf, the one I’d been viewing the room through, and I wondered if whatever the jewellery box I’d found had been attached to was still here, or if Madam Anora had noticed. It was sparse, but the darkened walls and dull light lent it a more comfortable feel, the lack ae clutter and mess meant ye could see every corner, every nook, and knew there was nothin’ there.
I didnae like that I wasnae as disgusted by bein’ there as I shouldae been. She was the enemy, wasn’t she? This was where curses were cast, bad people were helped, and lives were ruined. But whit had I expected? A cauldron?
Madam Anora let ma eyes wander, let the silence settle. The similarities between her and ma boss were perhaps better left unmentioned. When I finally realised there had been a lengthy silence I got straight tae the point. Had she ever heard ae the story aboot Death’s greatest love?
Her eyes narrowed, her mouth pursed, and I could tell she wanted tae throw an insult. I surmised fae this reaction that she did know the story, which she confirmed, before wondering why I’d asked her aboot it.
Was it true?
The distaste melted fae her features and a shadow ae smugness settled in its place. At least she felt superior noo. Accordin’ tae popular myth it was true, she confirmed, but it’d happened so long ago, before even the Madams existed, that no one really knew the exact truth, or the finer details, only whit had been passed doon.
Maybe the depiction ae a Chronos-like creature at the festival had been the version that had been passed doon the generations ae foxes, maybe it was artistic licence by the puppet makers, but I wasnae aboot tae let this go over some flimsy coincidences.
Noo it was ma turn tae look smug. I told Madam Anora that I had a way tae break us all free ae our fates as Madams, but in order tae do it we needed tae summon Death.
Ma smugness didnae last long as Anora sneered and snickered in derision. I was an idiot, she said, the only way Death can be summoned is by dying, and unless I was willing tae die fae this, we’d have tae use another way.
Before I could petulantly throw somethin’ back at her, she said that the quickest way tae find death was tae go somewhere they frequented. A place ae death.
A cemetery? I’m glad I never said that aloud because I did feel like a dobber when she told me where we were goin.
A hospice.
I dinnae know whit’s worse. Why does every place that begins with “hosp” have tae be so bad? Visitin’ Reid after his accident was bad, but noo we were goin somewhere equally as dreich. And I was goin’ there wi’ the anti-Madam.
I’d never heard ae the hospice we ended up at, none ae ma family have ever been a patient in one, but it was an eerie place. Hospitals are noisy, ironically full ae life, yet this place was stuffed wi’ somethin’ else, an unsettling peace that acted more like a vacuum. It was as if no one wanted tae make a sound, as though breaking the silence was an act ae sacrilege, a taboo. There were less people here, less staff, more carpets, less beds, less everything.
The staff never really said anythin’ tae us, didnae even give us a glance, and I wondered whether this was Anora’s doing, an extension ae her powers as a Madam. There was a lot I didnae know aboot her, and that had been why I hadnae told her aboot Chronos and his possible connection wi’ Death. I didnae trust her as far as I could throw her.
Where I was affected by the atmosphere ae the hospice, Anora was blissfully immune, and she told me we needed tae find the patient who was most likely tae die next. I threw her a glare that bounced aff ae her like rain aff a windae. And then we split up.
I had no idea whit I was supposed tae look for. It’s no like people have signs over their heid wi “Death take me next!”, and although the visitors and patients couldnae really see me, it felt intrusive peering through doorways intae rooms.
There was a mix ae communal rooms and private ones. Most people in the single rooms werenae conscious, the beeps ae their machinery the only sound seeping oot, the only sign ae any life. I hurried past quicker than I shouldae, and I felt like Reid in a cemetery, as though walking quickly and avoiding eye contact would somehow spare me.
I became used tae the beeps, tae the exhale ae a machine, the high-pitched tone ae a counter or timer. So when I heard the thunk ae heavy plastic hit the linoleum floor in the room I’d just walked past, I reversed tae look in.
An older lookin’ woman, maybe fifties or sixties, was sittin’ up in her bed in a private room, starin’ doon forlornly at the ground where she’d dropped a thick, navy blue brick shaped object. At first glance I thought it was a glasses case, and withoot thinkin’ crossed the threshold and swooped doon tae pick it up.
It wasnae anythin’ tae do wi’ glasses, it was a fuckin’ phone.
I’m no jokin’ this thing weighed aboot as much as a bag ae tatties. It even had buttons, proper buttons! I dinnae remember these types ae phones, but ma Da had one in a drawer that he’d had before I was born. He’d called them invincible, and I think some are even in museums noo. This one was testament tae how well they were built if it was still working more than 20 years later. Ye even had tae press buttons multiple times tae get a single letter.
Why was this person still usin’ this phone? Technology had come a long way, and surely it wasnae even supported by the manufacturer anymore. I realise that I’m starin’ in amazement at this phone, and that it’s no mine, so I start tae give it back tae the woman when it nearly vibrates oot ae ma hand, and reads 1 new message on the screen. The sender is 1983.
I dinnae know how these phones worked, but four digits is too few fae a number, and whit kind ae nickname was 1983? Old person, unknown strange number; I started tae think this might be a scam.
The patient, who later told me her name was Joan, noticed the look on ma face and tried tae reassure me that it was nothin’ sinister, that this phone was lettin’ her communicate wi’ her deid husband. This did nothin’ tae reassure me, like she was hopin’.
I slowly sank doon intae the armchair left fae visitors and acted interested, tryin’ tae hide the shrill lilt ae surprise fae ma tone. Joan told me that when she was healthier, before her cancer diagnosis, she had run a small business that bought vintage items fae estate sales and sold them online. One day she’d been at an auction and a box ae random items had been one ae the lots. She’d been more interested in the other things inside, but the phone was a part ae the sale. Assumin’ she’d just hand it in somewhere, or throw it away, she’d thought nothin’ of it. Then it’d started vibratin’.
It’d been a text message sayin’ that it’d been a long time since they’d spoken, and asked her if she was doin well. The text had been sent fae the number 1983. The same year her first husband had died in a motorbike accident.
Oot ae morbid curiosity she’d replied back, and over the proceeding text message exchange it’d become clear that the person on the other end was her first husband. He mentioned things aboot their marriage, he remembered her favourite restaurant, whit hoose they’d been wantin’ tae buy, how many guests they’d had at their wedding.
That’d been a few years ago, and they’d been talkin’ ever since. It’d been a comfort especially through her cancer, which she’d been diagnosed wi’ shortly after getting’ the phone.
I tried no tae stare at the phone, tried no tae be concerned wi’ the loving way she gazed at it. There was that familiar unease swarmin’ in ma stomach, that same sense that somethin’ wasnae addin’ up here.
Before I could ask anymore questions, Madam Anora appeared in the doorway, small frown drawin’ her eyebrows together as she noticed me sittin’ doon talkin’. Curtly, she summoned me over tae the door wi’ a flick ae her hand, and apologisin’ tae Joan I did as I was told.
I presumed by her short attitude that she hadnae found Death, and before she could berate me fae sittin’ on ma arse whilst she traipsed aroond, I asked her aboot the phone Joan had. Anora glanced at it, observed Joan, and said it was probably a transference phone, and that it was too late tae help her noo.
Although the shop may be filled wi’ antiques wi a long history, there was the occasional item fae more recent times. Wi’ the rise ae technology, someday they themselves were bound tae become antiques, and it’d already started. Some people had begun tae use older mobile phones tae avoid the inevitable. They’d do somethin’ tae the phone, enchant it in some way, so that whoever received it and began texting them back on it would swap places wi’ them. If they had cancer, then the phone would transfer the cancer tae its new owner. Whoever was texting Joan, pretendin’ tae be her husband, had been diagnosed wi’ whitever cancer she had noo, and over the years it’d slowly transferred tae her.
I felt sick. Why the fuck were things like this allowed tae happen?
Anora noticed ma disgust, and told me we had no time, and that Joan didnae either. Before I could berate her fae bein’ so unhelpfully crass aboot the death ae a stranger, I heard the phone drop tae the ground again, but when I looked at Joan she was unconscious.
Not unconscious. Deid.
Madam Anora perked up, and told me that I shouldae said if I’d found the person who was gonnae die next. I had no words. They had all disappeared.
It didnae take long fae the familiar black shadow ae Death tae colour the walls and smother the light. They hadnae changed a bit since I’d seen them last, although why would they? It’s no like in the last few months I’d suddenly overcome ma fear ae the Bodach glas, or ma fear ae Death. I didnae really think aboot it at the time, but I wonder noo whit Anora saw, whit Death was tae her.
The Bodach glas stopped on its way tae the old woman, lyin in her bed, phone havin fallen on the floor, still no broken. Its cloaked figure glanced at Anora, then at me, and again greeted me as Fate’s apprentice before wondering why they’d seen so much ae me lately.
I cleared ma throat because I knew ma voice wouldae cracked otherwise. I asked them aboot the story, the one I’d seen at the festival, aboot their greatest love. Was it true? Bodach’s dinnae have faces, they have no expressions, yet there was a bitterness tae the air, a sad ripple through the darkness Death was cloaked in.
I began tae tell them aboot Chronos, aboot his preference fae bein a black cat, aboot his many tails and third eye, until finally I confess that I know where he is, and whit he’s been doing fae all ae these millennia.
I dinnae know if you’ve ever been stared at by Death, but it’s no pleasant, even withoot facial features.
The adrenaline was startin’ tae make ma hands shake and I balled them intae fists tae stop it fae spreadin’ tae the rest ae ma body. I wasnae done yet.
I told the bodach that I would only reunite them with their love if they killed Fate.
Confidence doesnae bloom in me when even Madam Anora stares at me like I’ve gone mad, and I suppose she’s not far aff ae bein right.
The bodach is silent, the shadow shifts, it’s cloak ripples like sand on a windy day, and after a few moments they propose their counter offer. They’d just kill me and be done.
The shakin got worse and the doubts began tae ravage ma mind. Whit if I was wrong and I’d just threatened one ae the most powerful beings in existence? I had no doubt Death would kill me fae bein such a cheeky shite. But I’d been doin this fae years, doubtin, procrastinatin’, findin’ anything else tae believe because I was too slow, too unaccepting ae maself and everythin’ I’d seen.
I knew I was right, and I knew could do this.
I replied that they couldnae kill me. I was a future Madam, ma fate had already been set. Currently, I was immune, and it was all because Death had put themselves beneath Fate, had given intae their whims and fancies, let themselves become inferior. But I was offerin’ a solution, a happy ending.
Anora looked as though she was aboot ready tae walk oot and refuse that she ever knew me. She wouldnae have any faith in me, would she?
Death, after a few more moments ae ominous silence, confirmed that I was right on all accounts, except one. Yes, they couldnae kill me, but they also couldnae kill Fate either. As long as there was life, there would be some semblance ae Fate. Ye cannae kill a concept, an idea.
However, you can imprison it.