4. The Thorns of Testimony

The voice came again, closer now, threading through the standing stones like a curl of wind. “Mummy? Where are you?”

Every elder in the circle froze. One of them, a woman whose hood had slipped back to reveal a face seamed with age, made a sign with her fingers—a quick, furtive gesture against evil. Fergus McTavish’s silver-capped staff trembled in his grip, and for the first time since Elara had met him, he looked not like a Brehon but like a man whose carefully constructed world had just cracked.

Morag moved first. She stepped toward the darkness beyond the stones, her own staff raised, her voice sharp. “Who is there? Show yourself.”

A small figure emerged from the shadows between two monoliths. She was perhaps five years old, barefoot despite the cold, wearing a white nightdress that glowed faintly in the starlight. Her hair was dark and tangled, and her face was smudged with dirt. But her eyes were bright and alert, and she looked around the circle of hooded elders with the frank curiosity of a child who had not yet learned to be afraid of the dark.

“I heard the voices,” she said. “I’m not supposed to be out of bed. But I heard the voices, and I wanted to see.”

Fergus lowered his staff. His face had gone from pale to grey, the colour of ashes. “Who are you?” he asked, and his voice was hoarse. “Who brought you here?”

“My mummy brought me. We live in the house by the stream. The one with the blue door.” The child looked around, suddenly uncertain. “Where is my mummy? I thought she would be here.”

Elara’s mind was racing. A child. In Glendornoch. A village where, according to every source she had encountered, the last child had died on an operating table in 2012. A village whose arrangement with St. Cillian’s had supposedly ended years ago. A village that had, by its own admission, consumed its young for decades.

“What is your name?” Elara asked, crouching to bring herself to the child’s level.

The girl looked at her with solemn eyes. “Isobel. But Mummy calls me Izzy.”

“And your mummy’s name?”

“Morag.”

The word dropped into the circle like a stone into still water. Elara straightened and turned. Morag—Caitriona Morag McTavish, keeper of the stones, executor of the Court of Bane, the woman who had driven thorns into the temples of seven people—was standing motionless, her staff planted in the earth, her face unreadable.

“You have a daughter,” Elara said. It was not a question.

Morag did not answer immediately. The elders were muttering among themselves, their hoods turning toward one another in agitation. Fergus had stepped back from the altar, his expression caught between fury and something that looked like terror. Only the child seemed unperturbed; she had spotted a moth fluttering near one of the candles and was watching it with absorbed attention.

“She was born six years ago,” Morag said finally. Her voice was flat, stripped of the warmth she had shown Elara on the hillside that morning. “Her father was a man from the village. He died before she was born. A fall on the moor, the inquest said. The official record does not mention his name.”

“And the village accepted this? A child, born to the keeper of the stones, and no one outside knew?”

“The village accepts what the Brehon tells it to accept. My father was Brehon when Izzy was born. He ensured her existence remained secret. He said it was for her protection.” Morag’s mouth twisted. “He said many things.”

Fergus spoke, his voice low and dangerous. “You told me the child died. You told me she was stillborn.”

“I lied.”

“You lied to your own brother. To the Brehon.”

“I lied to protect her from the Brehon.” Morag’s eyes met his, and there was no contrition in them. “You know what our father was. You know what he did to Ailis. Do you think I would have trusted him with another child? With my child?”

The elders had fallen silent. The moth had settled on one of the candles, its wings folding and unfolding in slow, hypnotic rhythm. Isobel—Izzy—had wandered to the edge of the circle and was tracing the lichen on one of the standing stones with her finger.

“The Bone Register,” Elara said, the realisation crystallising even as she spoke. “There are forty-eight names. But the arrangement with St. Cillian’s supposedly ended years ago. There shouldn’t have been any more children.”

“There were other arrangements,” Morag said. “Other hospitals. Other doctors who needed subjects and asked no questions. The village continued, Miss Voss. Not at the same scale, not with the same frequency, but it never truly stopped. My father ensured that the most vulnerable were still brought here, still treated as commodities. And when I became keeper of the stones, I was expected to participate in the silence.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I kept Izzy hidden. I falsified records. I told the village she was a niece from the mainland, visiting for the summers. When she was old enough to understand, I told her never to leave the cottage after dark, never to speak to strangers, never to draw attention to herself.” Morag’s voice cracked, the first sign of emotion she had shown. “I have raised my daughter in a cage of lies, and I did it because the alternative was worse.”

One of the elders—the same woman who had made the sign against evil—stepped forward. Her hood had fallen back completely now, revealing a face that was sharp and hawkish, her eyes the same pale green as Morag’s and Fergus’s. “You brought a child into the village without the Court’s knowledge,” she said. “That is a violation of the second law. The penalty is silence.”

“The penalty is silence by thorns,” Morag said. “I know the law, Aunt Elspeth. I have enforced it often enough.”

“Then you know what must happen.”

“I know what you believe must happen. But the Court is convened tonight to decide whether the old laws still bind us.” Morag turned to Fergus. “That is what you told me, brother. That the vote would determine whether Glendornoch continued to be ruled by our father’s legacy. If the Court votes to dissolve itself, the laws die with it. My daughter is safe. I am safe. We are all safe.”

“And if the vote fails?” Elspeth demanded.

“Then I will submit to the law I have served. But Izzy will be spared. She is innocent of my crimes.”

“No child of Glendornoch is innocent,” Elspeth said. “That is the lesson our father taught us. That is the lesson his father taught him. The village is the child, and the child is the village, and neither can exist without the other.”

Elara had been listening in silence, but now she stepped forward, placing herself between Morag and the elders. “You’re talking about killing a five-year-old girl. For the crime of existing.”

“I am talking about the law, outsider. You have no voice here.”

“I was given a voice. The Brehon asked me to testify. This is my testimony.” Elara looked around the circle, meeting each pair of eyes in turn. “You brought me here to tell the truth about St. Cillian’s. About my sister. About the children in the Register. But the truth is bigger than the Register. The truth is that this village has been eating its own young for generations, and you have all allowed it. You have profited from it. You have built your homes and your pensions and your quiet, comfortable lives on the bodies of dead children. And now you’re debating whether to add one more.”

She pointed at Isobel, who had stopped tracing the lichen and was watching the adults with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

“This child is not a symbol. She is not a bargaining chip. She is not a sacrifice to your ancient laws. She is a little girl who wants her mother. And if you harm her, you will have proved that everything Fergus says about this village is true—that it is a machine for destroying children, and it cannot be reformed, only broken.”

The elders were silent. Elspeth’s face was a mask of cold fury, but others looked uncertain, their hoods turning toward one another in whispered consultation. Fergus had not moved from his position beside the altar. His expression was unreadable, but his knuckles were white on his staff.

“The witness has spoken,” he said at last. “The testimony is entered into the record. Now the Court must deliberate.” He struck his staff against the stone, and the sound rang through the circle like a bell. “Elders of Glendornoch, you have heard the charges. You have heard the evidence. The Bone Register lies before you. The child stands before you. The time has come to decide what kind of village we wish to be.”

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was heavy.

“We will vote at dawn. Until then, the witness and the child will be held in the chapel, under the protection of the Court. No harm will come to them while the vote is pending. This I swear on the staff of the Brehon.”

The elders murmured their assent. Elspeth’s lips were pressed into a thin line, but she did not object. Morag moved to take Isobel’s hand, but Elspeth raised a hand to stop her.

“The keeper of the stones will remain with the Court. She is not a witness. She is an accused.”

Morag hesitated. For a moment, something flickered in her eyes—fear, perhaps, or the calculation of a woman who had spent her life navigating the village’s brutal politics. Then she knelt and kissed her daughter’s forehead.

“Go with the lady,” she said. “I will come for you soon.”

Isobel looked at Elara with solemn eyes. “Are you the lady?”

“I suppose I am.”

“Do you know where my mummy is going?”

Elara hesitated. She looked at Morag, who gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head. “She’s going to talk to the elders,” Elara said. “She’ll be back before you know it.”

Isobel considered this, then nodded and took Elara’s hand. Her palm was small and warm and slightly sticky, the way children’s hands always are. Elara felt something shift in her chest—a protective instinct she had not felt since the day she had sat beside her sister’s bed in the paediatric intensive care unit, holding a hand that had already grown cold.

She led Isobel down the hill toward the chapel. Behind them, the elders had formed a tight circle around the altar, their voices rising and falling in a language Elara did not understand—Gaelic, perhaps, or something older. Morag stood at the centre, her staff planted in the earth, her face as still as the stones themselves.

The chapel was dark and cold, the candles from the previous night burned down to nothing. Elara found a lantern on a shelf and lit it, filling the small space with a flickering amber glow. Isobel sat in the front pew, her bare feet dangling, her nightdress pooled around her like a small ghost.

“Is my mummy in trouble?” she asked.

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because the elders only meet at night when someone is in trouble. Mummy told me. She said I must never go to the stones after dark, because that’s when the Court sits, and the Court is not for children.” Isobel paused. “But I went anyway. Because I was lonely.”

Elara sat down beside her. The pew was cold and hard, the wood worn smooth by generations of worshippers. “Do you know what the Court does, Izzy?”

“It judges people. Mummy says it has been judging people for a thousand years. She says it’s the oldest law in the world, and that when she was a little girl, her daddy made her watch so she would understand.” Isobel’s voice was matter-of-fact, as though she were reciting a lesson learned by rote. “She says the law is older than Scotland. Older than the church. Older than the Romans. She says it comes from the time when the stones could walk.”

“Do you believe that?”

Isobel thought about this for a moment. “I don’t know. But Mummy does. And Mummy is never wrong.”

Elara looked at the child—at her dark, tangled hair, her dirt-smudged face, her bright, curious eyes. She thought about the Bone Register, about the forty-eight names inscribed in fading ink. She thought about Morag, who had killed seven people to protect a village that would happily have killed her daughter. She thought about Fergus, whose own daughter had died on an operating table, and who had spent years planning a reckoning that was now spiralling beyond his control.

And she thought about the Polaroid in her holdall, the hospital bracelet, the letter signed by C. The breadcrumb trail that had led her across a locked gate and into a village that did not exist. Morag had sent the letter. Morag had set the trap. But was it a trap designed to ensnare her, or to free them all?

“Your mummy,” Elara said carefully, “did something very brave. She wrote to me and asked me to come here. She wanted me to help her tell the truth about what happened in this village.”

“What happened?”

“Bad things. To children like you.”

Isobel was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Mummy says bad things happen everywhere. She says the trick is not letting them happen to you.”

“That’s one trick. Another trick is stopping them from happening to anyone else.”

The chapel door creaked. Elara looked up, her hand instinctively reaching for the holdall that contained the digital recorder. But it was not an elder who stood in the doorway. It was Lassiter.

He looked worse than he had that morning. His face was drawn, his eyes hollow, and his hands were trembling so badly that he had to press them against his sides to still them. “Miss Voss,” he said. “I need to speak with you. Now.”

Elara glanced at Isobel, who was watching Lassiter with the same frank curiosity she had shown the standing stones. “Will you be all right here for a moment?”

“I’ll be all right. Mummy says I’m safe in the chapel. The stones can’t see me here.”

Elara followed Lassiter outside. The sky had clouded over, obscuring the stars, and the air was heavy with the promise of rain. From the hill above them, faint voices could be heard—the elders, still arguing in their ancient tongue.

“What is it?” Elara asked.

“I’ve been thinking about the vote,” Lassiter said. “About the elders. About what it will take to achieve unanimity.” He paused, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. “There are twelve elders. Five are loyal to the old guard. Elspeth McTavish is their leader. They will never vote to dissolve the Court. Never.”

“Then the vote fails.”

“Not necessarily. The Brehon can break a deadlock, if he is willing to take the burden onto himself. It requires a ritual, an old one, older than the Court itself.” Lassiter’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It requires a sacrifice.”

“What kind of sacrifice?”

“The Brehon must offer something of equal value to the lives the Court has taken. Something that represents the village’s guilt and the village’s hope. A life, Miss Voss. An innocent life.”

Elara stared at him. “You’re telling me Fergus would have to—”

“I’m telling you what the law permits. Not what Fergus will do. He is not his father. But he is also not a saint. He has spent years planning this moment. He wants the Court dissolved. He wants the Register released. He wants justice for Ailis. And now, with Isobel’s existence revealed, he has leverage he did not expect.” Lassiter gripped her arm. “Morag lied to him. She kept a child secret from the Brehon. Under the old law, that is a capital crime. But under the ritual of deadlock-breaking, an innocent child can be offered to the stones in exchange for the Court’s dissolution. The elders who oppose reform would accept that. They would see it as a victory—the old ways honoured one last time, and then put to rest.”

“You’re saying Fergus might sacrifice his own niece.”

“I’m saying he might be tempted. And I’m saying that Morag knows this. She has known it from the moment she brought Isobel out of hiding. She gambled that the child’s presence would force the elders to confront their own hypocrisy. But she also knows that if the vote deadlocks, Fergus may see Isobel not as a niece but as a solution.” Lassiter’s grip tightened. “You need to get the child out of the village. Before dawn. Before the vote concludes.”

“And go where? I don’t even know where we are.”

“The drovers’ road. The way you came. It will lead you to the gate. Morag has a key to the padlock—she keeps it in the chapel, under the altar. Take the key. Take the child. Take the Register. And do not stop walking until you reach the main road.”

Elara looked back at the chapel, where a faint glow of lantern light was visible through the window. Inside was a five-year-old girl who believed the stones could walk, who had never left the village, who had no idea that her existence was being weighed and measured by people who saw her not as a child but as a piece on a board.

“What about Morag?” she asked.

“Morag made her choices long ago. She will face the consequences. But Isobel does not have to.” Lassiter released her arm. “I have spent eighteen years being a coward. Let me do one good thing before the end. I will stay here. I will delay the vote for as long as I can. I will tell the elders that the witness has fled, that the Court cannot proceed without her testimony. It will buy you time.”

“And when they find out you lied?”

Lassiter smiled, the same sad, bitter smile she had seen on the hillside that morning. “Then I will finally face the Court of Bane as I should have faced it eighteen years ago. It will be a relief, Miss Voss. You cannot imagine what a relief it will be.”

Elara looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank Siobhan Keane. She was the one who told me, before she fled to New Zealand, that a detective in Birmingham was asking questions about a child named L.S. She said the detective had eyes like a winter storm and would not stop until she found the truth. I have been waiting for you ever since.”

He turned and walked toward the hill, his stooped figure disappearing into the darkness. Elara went back into the chapel. Isobel was exactly where she had left her, sitting in the front pew, her bare feet still dangling. She had found a hymnal and was tracing the letters on the cover with her finger.

“Izzy,” Elara said. “We’re going to play a game. It’s called ‘walking to the stars.’ Do you want to play?”

“Is it a good game?”

“It’s the best game. But we have to be very quiet, and very fast, and you have to hold my hand the whole time. Can you do that?”

Isobel considered this with the gravity of a five-year-old philosopher. Then she nodded and slipped off the pew, her bare feet making no sound on the stone floor.

Elara found the key under the altar, exactly where Lassiter had said it would be—a heavy iron thing, cold to the touch. She tucked it into her pocket, took Isobel’s hand, and stepped out into the night.

The village was silent. The cottages were dark. The only light came from the lantern in the chapel behind them and the faint glow of the candles up on the hill, where the elders were still arguing over the fate of a child who was slipping through their fingers.

They walked quickly, Elara’s boots loud on the cobbles, Isobel’s bare feet making no sound at all. The drovers’ road opened before them, a pale ribbon in the darkness. The standing stones loomed on the hill above, their silhouettes stark against the clouded sky.

They had almost reached the rise when Isobel stopped.

“I forgot something,” she said.

“What?”

“My stone. Mummy gave me a stone from the circle. She said it would protect me. I left it under my pillow.”

Elara hesitated. Every instinct screamed at her to keep walking, to get the child over the gate and down to the main road and as far from Glendornoch as possible. But Isobel’s eyes were wide and pleading, and her grip on Elara’s hand had tightened.

“Please,” Isobel said. “It’s my special stone. Mummy said I must never lose it.”

Elara looked at the cottage with the blue door, just visible at the edge of the village. It would take two minutes. Three at most.

“All right,” she said. “But we have to be quick.”

They ran. The door was unlocked. Inside, the cottage was small and neat, a peat fire still smouldering in the grate. A child’s bed stood in the corner, covered with a patchwork quilt. Isobel darted to it and thrust her hand under the pillow.

“Got it,” she said, and held up a small, smooth pebble.

They turned to leave—and stopped. In the doorway stood Elspeth McTavish, her hawkish face illuminated by the dying fire. Behind her, half-hidden in the darkness, stood two of the elders, their hoods drawn up, their hands clasped in front of them.

“The witness,” Elspeth said, “is attempting to flee. With the child of an accused.” She smiled, and it was not a pleasant expression. “The old laws are very clear about what happens to those who attempt to flee the Court’s jurisdiction.”

Isobel pressed herself against Elara’s leg. Elara could feel the child trembling.

“The Court hasn’t voted yet,” Elara said. “The old laws still apply, which means the Brehon’s word binds you. Fergus said no harm would come to us while the vote is pending. Are you willing to defy the Brehon?”

Elspeth’s smile did not waver. “The Brehon’s word binds the village. But I am not acting for the village. I am acting for myself.” She stepped into the room. “Give me the child, Miss Voss. Do it now, and I will ensure your testimony is heard before the vote is cast. Refuse, and you will not live to see the dawn.”

Elara pulled Isobel behind her. The digital recorder was in her holdall, still loaded with Siobhan Keane’s testimony. But there was no one to play it for. No one who would care.

Then, from somewhere beyond the cottage, came a sound that made even Elspeth turn.

It was a horn. A deep, resonant note that echoed across the glen and reverberated through the stones. Elspeth’s face went pale.

“The Brehon’s horn,” she whispered. “The vote is concluded.”

And in the silence that followed, no one moved.