Love is Hell Read online

  “Just wait and see.”

  “Do you want some tea?” We didn’t have a stove yet, but the fireplace wasn’t smoking as much as it had. “It won’t take long.”

  Ma shook her head. “And why are you back in school?”

  “I like school.”

  “And he lets you go?”

  I realised Ma hadn’t said Robbie’s name. Not once.

  “Did you hear that the McKenzies’ cows have sickened?”

  I had. “And the Cowans’, too.”

  “Isn’t he working for the McKenzies? Fixing their fences?”

  “What of it?” I asked, enjoying my defiance. Facing her in my own house gave me strength. “Cows get sick sometimes.”

  “People are talking,” Ma said, smiling for the first time. It wasn’t hard to figure out who was talking. My family at the forefront.

  “That’s what people do.” And sometimes what they say isn’t vicious.

  “You’d better hope they don’t die.”

  “The people?” I asked.

  “No, the cows.”

  “Cows die all the time.”

  Ma sucked her teeth. “What if you have a baby?” she asked, pulling a package of herbs from her pocket and handing it to me. “This will keep you free.”

  After she left, I buried them next to the wild primroses in the vegetable garden I’d started. Two days later, the primroses were dead.

  The next time, my mother came with a loaf of barley bread. She looked tired. More tired than usual. I pushed my books aside so she could put the loaf on the table Robbie had just finished. She sighed as she collapsed into the chair. “Are you going to stay with him past the year?”

  I pulled up the other chair. “Of course,” I said. I was happy. There was Robbie and my studies—the day before I’d been moved forward a year. I was back sitting next to Fiona. Ma started crying.

  I had never seen my mother cry before. I patted her shoulder.

  “I love you,” she said. She’d never said that before, either. I’d seen television shows at Fiona’s place where parents told their children that they loved them, but I’d never seen it in real life. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say.

  “What’s wrong, Ma?”

  “Just promise me that at the end of the handfasting you won’t make it a proper marriage.”

  “I can’t promise you that. I love him.” It was true I realised, though I hadn’t told Robbie yet.

  “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  I shook my head, but I didn’t tell her there was no chance of that. I didn’t want her to know anything about what happened—or didn’t—between these walls.

  “Well, I tried,” she said, wiping her eyes, standing up.

  “What do you mean ‘you tried’?”

  “To tell you that you’d be better off without him.”

  “But I’m better off with him. I’m happy. I’ve never been happy before.”

  Ma stared at me, her eyes red from her tears. “He’s fairy folk, you know that, don’t you? He’s not right.”

  “Oh, Ma.” I sighed. How could she believe that? “Green eyes don’t mean anything. You’ve got green eyes.”

  “Not like his,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t believe, but you should. Look at this place. It even smells of fairy. Your father wants you home. He’ll wait till your handfasting’s done, but only if you promise.”

  “Promise what?”

  “That you won’t make it a proper marriage.”

  She still wouldn’t say Robbie’s name. “No, I won’t promise. At the end of the year, I’ll marry Robbie for real. That’s what I want.” And to leave this horrible village.

  “That’s a mistake.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’ll be off then,” Ma said, standing up.

  “So soon? Don’t you want a cup of tea? Scones? I made them myself,” I said, pointing to the oven Robbie had cobbled together.

  She shook her head. “No, no. I’ve got to get back to the bakery. It’s just Pa on his own. And four busloads of the gawkers on their way.”

  She raised her hand and touched my cheek. Something else she’d never done before. Later, I found out that Fiona had come to warn us, but she was too late. My family and a mob behind them got to our cottage first.

  We were kissing. My hands were under his shirt and his were on my waist. I was wishing there was some way to have babies but still finish school and go to university and become a doctor.

  Robbie murmured in my ear, his words blurring together so that all I could hear was want.

  “I love you,” I told him. Later, I was so glad of those words.

  “And I love you, Jeannie,” he answered, looking straight into my eyes, brushing his hand over my lips.

  “Always.”

  That’s when they started hammering on the door.

  We leapt up. Robbie pulled me close.

  My father, Angus, and Fergus came through the door.

  Behind them, I could see my mother, Sheila and Maggie, more than half the village. A few carried torches. My father carried an axe.

  “What?” Robbie and I said together. I squeezed closer against him, held on to his arms across my chest.

  “There’s a meeting,” my pa said. “We’d like you to come.” He was looking at Robbie, not me.

  “Thank you kindly for the invitation,” Robbie said, holding me tighter. “But tonight I have other plans.”

  I nodded, knowing that if I spoke, my voice would shake too much to get the words out.

  “You’ll come with us,” Pa said.

  “Pa-a-a?” I stammered. “I want him to stay.” My voice squeaked.

  “Come on, Jeannie,” Angus said, all holier than thou.

  “Let him go. We’re doing this for you.”

  “Doing what exactly?” Robbie asked, his voice steady.

  “I see no need to leave my home.”

  “Just take him,” Fergus said.

  The three of them stepped forward. We stepped back.

  Held on to each other tighter.

  “No,” I said. I’d meant to yell, but my throat was too tight. Angus grabbed at me. I let go of Robbie and started flailing my arms. I tried to form fists, but my panic went against me. I think I landed a kick or two to Angus’s shins. I wished I was wearing shoes.

  There were more men in the room now. I saw Sholto McPherson and his father, the Macilduy boys, the McAndrewses, Cavendishes, and McKenzies, too. They were pulling Robbie away from me and me from him.

  He punched and kicked, but there were too many of them.

  “Let him go!” I yelled, but I couldn’t hear my words.

  There were so many people yelling, grabbing, swearing.

  Plates smashed. Wood broke.

  They dragged him outside, spitting at him, kicking.

  He gave back as good as he got. I saw blood on his face.

  “Robbie!”

  My arms were pinned behind me. Sholto McPherson and Fergus were struggling to grab my legs. I got Sholto square in the face. My toes hurt like hell, but it was worth it. I hoped I’d broken his nose.

  “Robbie!” I couldn’t see him now.

  “Hush, girl,” my ma said. Sheila and Maggie beside her. “You go now, Angus, Fergus, Sholto. We’ve got her.”

  As soon as they let go, I bolted for the door, but Ma was right, she had me. She and the in-laws knocked me flat to the floor and held me there.

  “Let me go, Ma. Let me go to him.”

  I tried to push up, but Maggie was sitting on my legs.

  She was grinning. “Shouldn’t have ’fasted with a demon, should you?”

  “He’s not a demon.”

  “Take the smile off your lips, Maggie,” Ma said. “It’s not a laughing matter.”

  Maggie said nothing, but her eyes were smiling. If Sheila and Ma weren’t holding my shoulders down I’d have scratched those eyes out.


  “What are they doing to him?” I asked, slowly. It was hard to get the words out without tears escaping, too. I would not cry in front of them.

  “Judging,” Ma said. “It will be done fair.”

  I doubted that. I closed my eyes and bit the inside of my cheeks. “What will happen to him?”

  “What he deserves.”

  “And what will that be?” He deserves to be with me far away from this place, but that was not what they’d give him.

  “Can you keep her down, girls? I think I’ll make us tea.”

  I don’t know how long it was before Fergus came and talked to Ma in whispers. Hours it felt like. Months.

  They’d let me up. I was curled into a ball on the mattress, staring at the cabinet full of broken plates, listening to the whispering, but failing to pick out any of the words. I was trying hard not to think, not to imagine. I couldn’t bear the thought of what they’d done.

  “There’s something we have to show you,” Ma said at last, turning to me. I stood up, feeling every bruise they’d given me. I pulled my shawl around my shoulders, but it did nothing to keep me warm.

  They walked me down to the river: my ma, Sheila, and Maggie and Fergus, hand in hand, as if we were out on an excursion to find night-flowering catchfly. I half expected them to start skipping. If I could have killed them, I would have.

  “It’s just ahead,” Fergus said.

  “You can’t make a fuss,” my mother said, turning to me. “Or they’ll do the same to you.”

  I saw a pile of rags. Half in the river, half out.

  It wasn’t rags. The tightness in my throat grew and spread. I knelt beside him. His head and shoulders were in the water. He didn’t move.

  “But Robbie didn’t hurt anyone,” I said softly. I untied his hands, wrenched up high behind his back. The bonds were wet and hard to shift. His fingers were swollen and broken. His arms, too. I pushed at his body, trying to turn it over. I was panting now, and wet.

  He did not look like Robbie. His nose was beaten so bad it was smeared across his face. His eyes were dull. No green at all. And his skin was pale as it had never been; as if there was no blood circulating below. He didn’t smell like Robbie, either. They’d driven my Robbie away.

  “He was a devil,” Ma said. “A witch.”

  “He was my husband. My love.”

  “Only a handfasting,” she said. “Nothing real. He bewitched you is all.” She slid her arm through mine and pulled me up from the water. I was too numb to shake her off. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t scream. It was all frozen inside me.

  “He had green eyes,” Ma continued. “And the way he played. Well, it wasn’t right. No one knows who his father is. Or his mother. You know the McKenzies’ cows died? Right after he built those fences.”

  This wasn’t real. Nothing like it ever happened on any of the television I’d seen with Fiona, nor in the books and magazines we’d read together. Not now. Not in this world. This country.

  They were all mad.

  Why had I been born in this village? Fewer than a hundred miles from the city, but more than a hundred years away.

  They took me to the church and dunked me in holy water. I think some were sad to see no hiss of steam, no water bubbling from the heat of my skin that had been so close to his.

  “Poor pet to be fastened hand in hand to a demon.

  Lucky lass to be freed and untainted.”

  If I’d been strong enough, I would have spat at them, kicked and punched and screamed. I had no strength left. All I could do was beg them to let me bury my Robbie. My ma intervened, so they allowed it, but not in the churchyard, and no marker on top. Fiona, her mother, and her father wielded the shovels with me. Fiona was crying. Her mother, too. I wished they’d stop. It made my eyes sting. They kept telling me things, and I was listening, but I couldn’t take any of it in. Their words floated over me.

  My eyes were mostly down, watching the dirt hit Robbie’s chest, his legs, his arms, his bloodless ruined face.

  But worst of all was when he was covered over: There was no him left, only dirt. Afterward, Fiona and her parents dragged me farther into the woods and then out to the paddock. I didn’t ask where we were going. I could barely see. My mind was stuck on Robbie facedown in the river. Robbie with the ground on top of him. I tried to remember him laughing and his smile, when his eyes were still green, but all I could see was his crushed nose, broken fingers, the rope burns around his wrists.

  “Damn it!” Fiona’s father was yelling.

  I was in their car. Fiona beside me. Her mother in the front turning the key, but nothing was happening. Outside, the sun was rising. I could see fields on either side.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The car’s broken,” Fiona said, getting out. I followed.

  Her father was crouched over the front, swearing.

  “Try it again!” he called.

  “I’m so sorry,” Fiona told me. I wasn’t sure what she was sorry about. Robbie? The car? The village?

  “Me, too,” I said.

  Her father slammed the hood shut. He nodded at me.

  “I’m sorry, Jeannie, we’re going to have to turn it around, wheel it back to town. Dougie can take a look. He’s a wizard with engines. We’ll get you out of here when it’s fixed,”

  he told me. “I promise. We’re not going to forget you.”

  “I wish you could stay with us,” Fiona said. “You know, until the car is fixed.”

  I nodded. That was impossible. There was already too much bad blood between her people and my parents.

  “I’ll stay in the cottage,” I said, trying not to think of what had happened there. “I think there’s enough money to see me through the end of the school year.” I had never lived alone, but the cottage was mine. Every plank of wood had been touched by Robbie. I needed to be there.

  “Oh,” Fiona said, looking down. We were sitting in her kitchen. Her parents had gone to open up their shop.

  We still had another hour before school started.

  “Oh?”

  “The cottage. They—”

  “What did they do?”

  “It’s gone, Jeannie. They tore it down. Smashed it.”

  This time, I cried, seeing Robbie as broken as the cottage. My ma came for me in the middle of the first class of the day. Sheila and Angus’s little Tommy was down with colic and there wasn’t anyone to tend to him. I was excused.

  I walked by her side and said not a word. I didn’t touch her, either. I vowed I wouldn’t touch or speak to any of them.

  My ma didn’t say anything about my moving back into the bakery, but there was a sack of my things on my old bed. No books, no money, nothing Robbie had given me in it, just clothes.

  They woke me at midnight to help with the baking.

  And when it was time for school, I had to mind Tommy again. I worked hard at the dough, shaping and kneading and fighting it into bread. At the end of the week, I walked over to Fiona’s. The car was still broken. Dougie didn’t know what to make of it. He’d ordered some new parts, so maybe next week. I couldn’t wait till then. Fiona gave me money, her aunt’s address in the city, food and water, and her bicycle.

  It blew a tire not a mile out. I put it beside the road and unhooked the pack to carry over my shoulder. I took two steps and collapsed with the most awful pain in my side. My father found me and carried me back to the bakery.

  The midwife came, said I was wrung dry and thirsty (exhausted and dehydrated, a real doctor would have said). I was in bed the rest of the day drinking water, peeing in a pot, and hating my family and the village.

  Fiona’s parents bought another car. This time, my father, Angus, and Fergus found me before we’d left the paddock.

  They didn’t ask where we were going. They just stood in front of the car like oak trees. Their faces didn’t move. They didn’t respond to anything Fiona’s father said to them. I followed them home in silence.

  Then it was summer aga
in, and Lammas Day once more. There was me, almost seventeen, already a widow, no closer to leaving this place than I’d ever been. A year from now, Fiona would know if she’d gotten into university. She might be living in the city already. And I’d still be here. I agreed to handfast with Charlie McPherson because I could not stand another night in my parents’ house.

  Besides, he didn’t want to touch me any more than I wanted to touch him. He didn’t like girls; I didn’t like anyone who wasn’t Robbie.

  Charlie was a good, kind man. Handfasting with me kept us both safe. Though we lived close to his family, we didn’t live with them. His father was so thrilled to see Charlie with a girl, he helped him build a cottage. It wasn’t like the old cottage. There were four rooms, not one, and there was no grace to its walls or windows. Still, it was better than the bakery and I was spared having to break bread with his vain, murderous idiot brother Sholto each morning.

  Life smoothed itself down and moved on. Charlie and I saved all the money we earned tending to the tourists.

  Turned out he was as keen to leave as me. When we got to the city, we’d work whatever jobs we could find and go back to school. Charlie was quick with numbers and wanted to do something—anything—that would keep him surrounded by them every day. A mathematics teacher, maybe. He didn’t care. He wasn’t Robbie, or even Fiona, but I liked him. And I knew he’d had no part in Robbie’s death. Not like his brother or father or half the men in the village.

  The sadness round my heart began to ease. Just a little.

  Somewhere that easing was marked, and on the next Lammas Day, when I was seventeen, two years removed from that fine summer’s day when Robbie had sat beside me and asked that I go hand in hand with him, on that day, my Robbie, he walked back into the village.

  I was coming back from the well, jug in one hand, Maggie and Fergus’s firstborn, Bonnie, resting on my hip, when I saw him. He walked toward me, taller than I remembered, his clothes far finer. I gasped. My mouth opened. It closed. The image was there of him on my retinas, but my brain could make no sense of it.

  “Robbie?”

  His nose was straight. The scar on his cheek gone.

  Bonnie squirmed against my side, trying to pull my hair with her sticky fingers. How could it be Robbie?