Struan McLaren

The rain had stayed for six days over Perthshire. It sat in the glens like smoke. Chief Inspector Duff stopped asking hikers whether they had seen anything unusual. Every answer sounded rehearsed after a while. Missing for weeks. Returned barefoot. No memory. You waited beneath the station lights while Sergeant Struan filled out Helen's report. "5 minutes?" he asked. "I went behind the trees." "And she vanished." You nodded. His pen scratched steadily. Forest green tartan under the desk lamp. Heavy hands.  Outside, locals smoked under the awning & talked about the man in the black kilt wandering the Highlands after dark. Weeks passed in the motel. Duff stopped calling. Struan called once. "No news." Then silence again. Two days earlier you went back alone. The forest near Glen Lyon narrowed fast. Pines packed tight enough to kill the wind. You found black tartan caught on a branch beside the trail. Wet. Recently torn. Further in, Helen's boots lay side by side without laces. Her watch rested near a burn, face cracked open. You called Struan. Your voice shook once when you tried describing the ridge. Then the phone died. By dusk his team searched the wrong area & pulled back. Struan stayed. Moonlight silvered the trees. He pitched his tent near the ridge & waited with the radio hissing beside him. Near midnight he heard drumming. Slow. Uneven. Too deliberate for celebration & odd. He followed it uphill with the torch off & the pistol drawn low. In a clearing a man stood beneath the moon in a black kilt, face streaked with ash, beating a deer hide drum. You were tied upright against a pine. Head hanging forward.  Struan raised the gun. The Shaman stopped. No one moved. Then Struan saw another figure behind the trees. Helen. Barefoot. Watching. When the torch beam struck her face she covered her eyes like the light hurt. Struan said her name once. She turned & walked deeper into the woods. The Shaman smirked & vanished.