Summer Of The Hand

By Ishbel Moore

Shona does not want to move to Winnipeg, Canada,but at 12 years-old she has little choice. Determined never to forget her home community of Moodiesburn near Glasgow, Scotland, she starts visiting all her favourite places—including Ballayn Castle with its hand in the stone.
Before she is fully aware of what is happening, she and her cousin Davey are drawn back in time to 1567 when Ballayn is being enlarged, political intrigue is rife, and a terrible murder is about to be committed.
Unable to return to 1967, Shona and Davey find themselves caught in the past. Will they make it back to the present in time for Shona to go to Canada? Or will they be trapped forever beneath the hand in the stone?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books for Pleasure
• Release date: Sep 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781553491200

Ishbel Moore

Ishbel Moore was born in Glasgow, Scotland and immigrated to Canada with her parents and siblings in 1967. A prolific writer, Ishbel has published more than a dozen novels through varying publishers and in several languages. The genres span time travel to medical issues to medieval fantasy romance. Her list of credits include multiple magazine articles and short stories. Ishbel has traveled across Canada hosting writing workshops and bringing writers together in rural communities. She has been the National President for the Canadian Authors Association in the past, as well as holding positions in other provincial and national writing associations. She is also a YW-YMCA Woman of Distinction and a three-time breast cancer survivor. Music is another passion. She is a trained singer, and plays the piano. Among her achievements in this area, she cites being the conductor for the Back Pew Boys Male Choir and the Octavia Ladies Choir among her greatest. A retired medical transcriptionist, she is married, with three grown children, a daughter-in-law and two grandsons. She lives on an acreage north of Winnipeg, Canada, with her beloved horses, dog, cats, chickens and sundry wildlife.For a list of Ishbel's published books, please notice this can be found below in the 'Interview', and on the end pages of her books.

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SUMMER

OF THE

HAND

Ishbel Moore

Copyright Ishbel Moore 2002

All rights reserved

ISBN 1-55349-053-3

Published by Books for Pleasure at Smashwords

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To John,

SUMMER OF THE HAND

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

1967

Shona flapped her arms and rocked back and forth. Beneath her flowed the treacherous waters of the Bothlyn burn. As she swayed, her soft-soled shoes formed around the top of the large green sewage pipe.

Slowly, Shona regained her balance and surveyed another small part of the world she would soon have to leave behind. All because Uncle Mac, who emigrated years ago, had finally convinced his only sister, Irene, Shona's mother, to join him in Winnipeg

Above her, crows cawed on their way to nest for the night. A murder of crows lived in a rookery, Grannie Harrison had informed Shona last year. Grandmother Drummond, also present at dinner, had angrily insisted that murder was a most unsuitable word for a twelve year-old girl's ears, not to mention those of the young brother, George, and the even younger twins, Ian and Willie. Couldn't another be used, for instance, a group or a gang of crows? Grannie Harrison shook her head and winked while Grandmother Drummond had passed the peas. Cautiously, Shona swivelled on her plimsolls, or runners as she would have to call them in Canada, and made for the far embankment.

Here lay the junction of three muddy paths. One followed the river. Shona knew it would lead to Bridgend, the now silent, empty, soon to be demolished village which had once been the home of coal mining families.

To the left, at a bit of an angle, the trail led in the other direction, deeper into the glen. Straight ahead, and on a steep incline, through moisture laden grass and bracken lay the way to Ballayn castle.

Shona took a deep breath and then let it out in a whistle. She considered retracing her steps back across the pipe and into the safety of the nearby playground that rang with the sounds of her friends having fun. Being alone in the glen at any time, never mind at sunset when darkness came upon you quickly, was strictly forbidden by the parents of Moodiesburn. Crossing the Bothlyn by the sewage pipe was in absolute disobedience of the rules.

Shona put her hands on her hips, wishing that she could feel bones like she could on her friends when they were roller-skate dancing together in the parking lot. Shona longed to be slim but Grandmother Drummond said she had big bones and would never be slim. Grannie Harrison, called her a regular Amazon of 5 feet, 6 inches, and told her the puppy fat would disappear in the late teens the same as it had for Shona's mother. Shona could almost feel her mother's hand on her backside if she got caught down here, or returned home late. She glanced at her Timex. Seven o'clock. She had one more hour. One more hour to capture this beautiful glen in the camera of her memory.

The decision to take photographs of everything and everybody had come to Shona as she stuffed the last home made chip into her mouth at dinner that evening. But her mother had refused to give her the camera, stating that there was no money to throw away and that Shona should eat up and get outside now the rain had stopped.

Angry and determined to capture her surroundings forever, Shona had marched straight for the glen, climbed the fence and crossed the pipe. Picture number one would be of a gentle breeze caressing the bluebell carpet, the setting sun hanging like yellow gold curtains of light between towering tree trunks. She pressed the image onto the film and headed up the path to the castle. Now her legs and socks were getting wet from the sodden undergrowth.

I don't know why we have to go to Canada anyway, she muttered brushing away a low hanging branch and getting showered by ambushing raindrops. Did anybody ask me if I wanted to go? No, they didn't! And now things are disappearing from the house, like the sideboard and the mirror in the hall, George's bed. He's sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag.

Shona climbed another fence, avoiding the barbed wire between the wooden shafts. Her feet crunched on the gravel. Railway tracks sped off in either direction. No trains were coming but she still knelt on a damp wooden tie and put her ear to the iron before proceeding.

Whenever she came here with a group of boys and girls, one of the boys tested the track for approaching trains, just like the bad guy robbers did in the Westerns. Shona seriously wondered if a populated, heavy traffic area like Moodiesburn, would produce as accurate a train track reading as the open spaces of Montana, U.S.A., or Manitoba, Canada.

As if crossing a main road she looked right, left and then right again before stepping to the other side. Crikey, she thought, in Canada she would have to remember to look left, right and then left again. Surely, she would get run over by a car because she'd be checking the wrong way.

A steep embankment challenged her but the footholds and exposed root handgrasps were already there thanks to the many children who defied their parents in order to expand the horizons of play. Not that there were many boundaries, Shona reflected as she hoisted herself up, mud pressing into her fingernails, knees and the toes of her shoes. Moodiesburn lay seven miles northeast-ish from Glasgow with rolling countryside in all directions. She and her friends cycled regularly to the villages nestled always just over the next hill. But her bike, her silver and red trusted companion called Stormcloud, had been sold.

Gritting her teeth, Shona made it to the top of the slope and paused to catch her breath. Without looking back she strode to where, after one more fence hop, the trail ran into Well Brae and the walls of Ballayn.

Well Brae always seemed darker and more quiet than anywhere else as the huge trees loomed their ancient branches against the sky. Now the sounds of the children's voices could not be heard. There was no noise here, not even the wind.

Shona felt terribly alone. Why had she come here so late in the day when she should have waited until tomorrow? To take photos, of course she reminded herself, and the way her life had been going recently, who knew what tomorrow would bring. She steeled herself against her fears and focused her camera down the half-cobbled, half-dirt pathway that had once been according to Grandmother Drummond, a main thoroughfare. Picture number two captured the brae with the very high, moss covered wall that surrounded the castle grounds on one side and the glen on the other.

She snapped her fingers as another suitable subject sprang to mind. She must have a memory of the hand in the stone. However, first she needed to find it. The well, the hand stone would be above the well.

She placed her palm on the dank, furry granite and trailed her hand along the wall. Suddenly, she stopped. What was that sound? A bird? Yes, it had to be a bird, an owl perhaps. Boy, she was getting jumpy. Better find the hand stone and get back home.

Shona carefully scanned the lower bricks in the section of the wall looking for the hand imprint. She also scuffed around in the weeds for the flat stone that covered the well. There!

The outline of a hand lay pressed into the stone. How it came to be, no-one could say for certain, not even Grandmother Drummond who claimed to know all there was to know about Ballayn.

Shona crouched down for a better look. She could hear and feel the water rushing below. She reached out but before her fingers could touch the slab, a mist began rising from the well.

Cold air circled her ankles.

Help me, came a voice. Please help me.

Shona shook her head to stop the tears of fright from clouding her eyes. She felt dizzy and strange, like when she'd been sick with the flu. She sank to the ground and to steady herself she leant onto the handstone.

The stone screamed. Indeed the whole wall screamed. The entire length of Well Brae screamed.

And Shona screamed before pulling her hand away and scrambling to her feet.

Her legs pumped furiously in an attempt to run away but everything seemed in slow motion until she was free of the mist. Then she bolted down the brae.

She looked behind her as she turned the corner and the mist seemed to be retreating into the wall but she wasn't hanging around to find out. She ran as fast as her trembling legs and soggy shoes would carry her, remembering just in time to close her eyes as she passed under the gargoyle bridge like Grannie Harrison always told her.

Shona chose the recognized route from Ballayn Castle to get home. She sprinted alongside the very busy Cumbernauld Road, stumbled across the Bothlyn at a more acceptable spot of stepping stones and walked very quickly down Bridgeburn Drive. Only as she turned into her garden did she realize she had not taken an image of the handstone.

She was busy trying to control her ragged breathing when her father arrived. Shona's father did not own a car but preferred to test