Playing for Sam

by Christine Roy

Matty stood at the edge of the campsite, longing churning like a rock in his gut. He looked to the sea below. His eyes stung.

     Memories, like ghosts, sprinted on the white sand. Summers of music and myth spent with Grandad. And Sam.

      In wild, wind-blown days of sun, Matty and his older brother, Sam, chased myths over the green, rocky, pink clockie flowered covered cliffs, searching for collapsed caves and blowholes.

     Shetland lore breathed for them. They became part of it, recording their mythology on a scroll of parchment and whittled driftwood from the beach.  

       In the water, the Drongs stood tall and strange. He scowled at the massive, granite sea stacks.     

Something moved in the outline of the dark, middle formation.

  Anger burned the tears from his eyes.

    The hunt was on.

      To his left, the frayed, colorful flags of the bunting waved against the side of the motorhome, calling for him to return their greeting. Made from fabric Grandad Fynn had collected in his travels, the string of triangle scraps was their beacon, their mind’s symbol of the island. When time was blue in the months before summer break, Sam would draw vivid little replicas of the bunting on bits of paper. He’d leave the drawings in odd places for Matty to find. Matty would trace the colorful etching with his finger, letting his mind float to the isle.

      “Hallo Matty. Welcome, lad. Ye’ve made it,” Grandad said, a catch in his deep, grand voice. His brogue was the thickest in the family.

    Matty turned to the only person who could possibly understand.  

     Tall as an oak and just as strong, his grandad, Fynn MacKay, strode toward him, wearing his usual faded jeans, a green T-shirt and brown sandals. His silver hammered coin glinted in the sun on its braided leather cord around his neck. His shoulder-length dark hair, gone mostly grey now, was pulled away from his sharp face in a haphazard ponytail.

     Grandad pulled him into his arms, holding tight. Releasing him, he stepped back and gave him a look over. Though his eyes crinkled with a smile, sadness rimmed the sea blue spheres. He stooped to pick up Matty’s duffle bag and fiddle case.

      Matty’s mam had gripped the handle of that case the whole of the trip from Glasgow. She’d grasped it as if her life was contained in the worn brown case. She’d had to.

     He wouldn’t touch the instrument. Not now. Maybe never.

    Grandad carried his gear inside, coming back with a cup of tea for Mam.

     Forcing patience, Matty scuffed at the ground, his hands tight on the black straps of his backpack. His mam set on the steps of Grandad Fynn’s old white and green Mercedes-Benz motorhome, drinking tea with her da.

    “The 1988 T1310 Auto Trail Apache Camper!” had been the chant he and Sam yelled as they ran down the sand of the Shetland beach. They’d repeat it over and over again until they dissolved in fits of laughter. He hadn’t a clue why it’d been so funny now.

     He glanced at his mam, eyeing the gray streaks in the red hair. They weren’t there before.

     Before the troll took Sam.

     Mam was speaking in hushed tones to Grandad. Surely it was about Matty’s troubles, his problem according to the well-meaning counselor the school had sent over to his house two times a week for the last five months. She weren’t fibbing. She just didn’t know the truth.

     He hadn’t told her.

     Mam wasn’t strong enough for false hope. Neither was Da, who just kept working in his shop as if he could somehow fix what had happened.

       Mam was drifting between pretending things were all right and islands of despair. Day after tomorrow, she was going back to work at the hospital in Glasgow. It was time, apparently.

     Sam’s ashes had flown in the wind six months ago. They weren’t Sam’s though. Only he knew that.

     He hadn’t cried because it wasn’t true. His brother was not dead at fifteen years of age. Sam weren’t killed as people said when they thought their voices were low enough. The bad thing that’d happened to Sam was that he’d been kidnapped coming back from orchestra practice. His violin was taken with him, proof that it was a troll from the island.

     He didn’t expect Glasgow police to know that trolls of the north sometimes left their trowie homes of earthen mounds and caves for music and tales. If a musician weren’t careful, they ran the risk of being carried off.

    The troll was being selfish. He needed to understand that while Sam’s music was special, it couldn’t be kept away from the world.

     Sam was the best. He shone at football too. All the girls at school were mad in love with him, crazy for his longish dark hair, mossy green eyes and smirky, dimpled smile.

      When he looked in the mirror, he wished for Sam’s face. But it was just himself, brackish haired and brown-eyed. Ten years of age, with a job to do.

    Get Sam back.

    “Bye, Matty,” Mam said, hugging him. “I’ve got to catch the ferry back. Text me every day. Have…” Her tears were falling on his face. “Just be with Grandad Fynn. It’ll feel better, luv.”

    “Bye, Mam.” He hugged her back, not wanting to let go.

     He stood staring at the taillights of the taxi until they disappeared onto the main road.

    “All right then,” Fynn said taking him by the shoulder. “It’s just us lads now.” It was what was always said. Tears streamed down his face. “We’re MacKays, nomads. The world can’t-” he broke off.

     “Fence us in,” he whispered to the cliffs standing east.

     Inside the caravan, he sat down on the gaudy floral u-shaped couch in the back. His and Sam’s bunk was straight ahead, above the cab. Grandad could have it. He’d just sleep on the couch.

     “We’ll have chips from the café for tea?” Grandad asked as he fussed around the kitchenette with cups and spoons. The little restaurant in the park made the best fish and chips—light, flaky with the right amount of grease.

     “Aye, sure, thanks,” he mumbled. He fiddled with the zipper on his backpack, his eyes darting around, trying not to see, to feel.

     Grandad look worried, trapped in his beloved vintage vehicle. He’d purchased the once luxe vehicle for naught when Nana passed, five years ago. The mobile and self-sufficient caravan was his home now, fitting in with the restlessness of his life.  

      Music had given Fynn MacKay an escape route from the the soot and squalor of the Gorbals tenements. A self-taught musician, he’d had a taste of success in rock band. Although old videos of him on stage wearing spandex and lipstick made Matty and Sam split their sides with laughter, they were very proud of him.

      Grandad’s acoustic guitar, on a stand to his right, caught his gaze. Phantom notes brought memories.

“We’ll play Matty?” Grandad’s voice, echoed through time accompanied by strands of Sam’s violin.

    “Sorry, no.” He shook his head. “Not yet.”

    “All right. That’s no problem, lad.” His concerned face belied his words.

     “I know what everybody’s sayin,’” he stated. He unzipped his backpack and reached in, his fingers gripping round the precious item. “That I’m not well. That I need rest. But I don’t need rest.” He placed the scroll on the Formica table before him. “I need Sam.”

     Grandad nodded and sat on the sofa, facing him, his giant frame, awkward on the floral settee. He picked up the round, parchment tube, untied the leather string and unrolled it, revealing the pictures, codes and phrases Sam inscribed on it years ago.

    “This is all we need Grandad,” he tapped the parchment. “All we need to get Sam back from the troll of the stones. He’s here, the troll, hiding in the bay by the Drongs. He’s been lurking about the streets of Glasgow for months, probably guilty and all out of sorts. Trolls are not city things. They belong in the wild, like you.”

    “Aye, like me,” his grandfather smiled.

     “He followed me.”

     “Did he now?”

      “Aye, I caught glimpses of him in the hills and such, as I travelled on the train to the airport. He’s got magic, though. He arrived before me.”

     “So, we find the troll…”

     “Aye.”

     “And we get your brother back?”

     “That’s the plan.” He breathed easy for the first time in months. It’d been a big secret to keep.

     “Ok, Matty.” Grandad looked him square in the eye. “We’ll get you settled. Get those chips, and then you’ll catch me up to speed.”

     Grandad believed him. He’d help.

     “All right,” he nodded, his attention on the black volcanic cliffs visible out the back window. A grey mass moved in a craggy opening about halfway down.  

     Closer and closer.

     The next day, after a breakfast of eggs, sausage, beans and toast, they set out in kayaks from the park’s beach. After scrutinizing the standing stacks, they glided in the cold, dark depths before slicing into the teal shallows closer to shore.  

     Drifting in the bay, Matty glanced at their camp site up on the grassy knoll. There was a mass by the bunting.

     It moved forward.

    His breath caught in his chest.

     “What ye see, Matty?” Grandad asked, gliding to a stop next to him.

     “The troll’s at our camper. He’s watching us.”

     Fynn turned raised his hand to shield his eyes as he looked up in the direction of their vehicle.

    “Do you see him?” he whispered, his heart pounding.

    “I dinna ken.” Grandad shook his head. “Suns in me old eyes.”

    “Surely the neighbors will be able to report something, aye?” he asked, thinking of the family he’d met yesterday. Grandad had invited the kids over for roasted marshmallows. “Jean and Davie?”

    “Aye, maybe,” Fynn lowered his head. “Only, their mam’s sick, with cancer. So, they might be resting or grabbing a bit of sun and not have seen. I thought we might bring them some of our famous oatcakes later. What do ye think?”

     “Aye.” He was quiet for a moment, thinking of his new friends. “Is their mam going to be all right?”

     “I hope so, laddie,” his grandfather remarked as he began to paddle in the direction of a small inlet by cliff ahead.

    “It’s not fair, Grandad.” He moved swiftly, next to the great man.

    “What’s that, Matty?”

     “That their mam might not be okay.” He stopped, feeling his face redden. He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Nana was sick, and then she were gone.”

    “Aye.” Grandad stopped his boat in the inlet and stared up at the red stone face of the cliff. “I’ll not lie.” He turned to him, his hard face softened by the reflective light of the water. “When Nana Greer passed, I had a hard time of it. I could nae be in one place anymore, even it were beautiful and green. I think part of me was looking for her in skies and flowers all over the world. Then I realized I dinna need to look for Greer. She were always with me. She’s with me now. And you as well.”

     “It hurts though, aye.” He lowered his head. “It hurts so much you think you’ll die.”

    “Aye,” Fynn reached across and rested his big hand on his shoulder. “It does, Matty.”

     Quiet, each in their own thoughts, they explored the coastline of the red rock cliffs. They scuttled around dark stones that looked like they were walking out to sea, before heading back.

     Later, Jean and Davie were keen on running across the sandbar in the bay. He didn’t want to add to their troubles, so he didn’t ask them about the troll.

     “My da says your grandad was a rockstar of sorts,” eight-year-old Davie, tow-headed and freckled, asked, climbing the hill after exploring. “Will he play for us later?”

    “Erm, sometime sure,” he answered, his gaze searching. Did the gray rock on the shore to the right just move? “Maybe not tonight though.”

    Days passed, blending. Every morn, he and Grandad would sit at the breakfast table and study Sam’s drawings on the scroll. They’d read the words aloud to each other before setting off to climb and scour.

    It was like a poem now.

    The craggy troll will abandon the cave for music and story. Tell a tale, There he’ll be. If caught, stare into his eyes. He’ll let you free.  

    He explored with Jean and Davey, giving them a summer like ones he and Sam had. The vivid blue of the sky crept down, touching cliffs and stones, water, and flowers. He was grateful of the beauty, for them.

     Every night he sat awake, wrapped in a blanket, searching out the back window for the troll until his traitorous eyes closed. No longer hiding in craggy cliffs, or out in the bay, the rocky giant crept near.

    Grandad said it wanted the music.

     But it wasn’t time yet.

    One night, as he slumped in the moonlight waiting, Grandad came to sit next to him. “Awk, I could nae sleep either,” he said quietly.

    He nodded, his gaze locked on the glass.

    The truth was coming closer.

“I’ve told you of the Gorbals Vampire, aye?” Fynn asked, yawning. “How when I was but four years of age, I joined hundreds of other kids from the tenement. We went with sharpened sticks, knives, and homemade tomahawks to find and kill a seven-foot, iron-toothed vampire that had killed two boys.”

    “Aye, Grandad,” he said, closing his eyes. The story was Sam’s favorite.

    “I had naught for weapons, but my wee scrappy dog, Malcolm,” Grandad went on. “The police came, expecting vandals. But there we all were, in the Southern Necropolis, a massive cemetery with a red glowing, smoking ironworks at the back, just kids, looking to get the head of this supposed vampire. They did their best to disperse us. But we came back two more nights. I was just following the lads I knew. I dinna ken how the whole thing started. But the feeling was the thing for me, ye see.”

    Matty opened his eyes.

     It was there, just on the other side of the glass, looking down with his rock troll face and mossy green eyes.

    “We lived in dirt squalor, Matty,” Grandad said, reaching to pat his hand. “Rats everywhere, thirty to a bathroom, hungry all the time. But the feeling of those three nights, the freedom in that greenspace, that scrap of control, of power, it stayed with me all my life. It lead me out of the slums to heathered hills. It saved me, I think.”

     “I think it did,” he whispered, his gaze locked with that of the troll’s. “Do you see, Grandad?’

     “Aye, lad.”

     “Why does he look sad? Why are there moonlit tears like diamonds slipping from his eyes?”

     “He’s sorry for your loss, Matty.”

     “But he can undue it.” He was crying now, terrifying tears escaped down the planes of his face. “Can’t he?”

    “I think he wants to, Matty. For you.” Grandad wrapped his arm around him, pulling him close. His heart thumped like a drum beneath the soft cloth of his shirt.

     “I miss my brother,” he said to the emptiness, remembrances shooting through his mind like falling stars. “Sam was everything.”

    “I know, Matty.” He kissed his head.

    They sat together in the watchful presence of the troll until sleep washed away night.

     They awoke to the warm rays of the sun on their faces. He remained still when Grandad rose and shuffled about the camper. He was unable to move, like one of the black stones standing in the bay. His bleary eyes stayed on the scroll.

     The troll was staring at it too, from the other side of the table. His big stone body took up all the space to the ceiling.

     “C’mon,” Grandad said as he brought mugs of tea over. “Go have a wash up. After breakfast, we’ll start work.”

    “I can’t,” he whispered. “He knows.” Truth was in him, bare and ragged.

    “It’s okay, Matty.” Fynn placed the mugs down on the table. “It’s all right if he knows.”

    “Nothing will ever be all right. He knows about the bad things.”

    “But he knows about the good things too, aye? He knows about friends wanting to help. He knows about family and music.”

    The troll, passed through the glass, lumbering in his clumsy troll gait down to the sea.

     “I didn’t say goodbye, Grandad,” he wept. “I was a stone at the memorial. I had no memories, no love to share. Nothing for Sam to take with him. He’s dead.” He was shaking violently. “A man killed him. He killed my brother,” he gasped. “and I didn’t think of his feelings and say goodbye.”

     “Look at me, Matty.” Grandad took his face in his hands. “Your love for Sam is so great it reaches the stars. Sam knew then and he sees it now. He does. And we’ll say goodbye proper. I swear.”

     That night they stood on the shore. The small raft they’d spent the day building was before them. It’s linen sheet was raised, ready to sail into the night. Matty bent over, placing the scroll onto the driftwood piled raft.

     “This is for you, Sam.” He picked up his fiddle and began to play. “Always.”

     Grandad walked the raft out into bay, a lit torch in his hand. He looked back as he lowered the flames to the sticks and released the boat.

    Matty played louder and louder, as the ocean sprayed his face, joining his salty tears.

    Grandad was beside him, holding the light high to the heavens.   

    The fire burned on the water, music notes falling into reaching flames.  

     Matty’s fingers trembled on the strings as the troll walked past him, into the shallows. The notes shook as the troll’s body fell away and Sam stepped out from the pile of stones.

     Sam turned to him, smiling. His spirit glowed, blending with the moonlight. With a small wave he dove into the water, disappearing beneath the burning raft.

     “The troll kept Sam safe.” He dropped his fiddle down upon the sand. “Kept him away from pain.”

“Aye, Matty,” Grandad said, his warm hand upon his shoulder. The raft slipped into the gentle waves. “The troll kept him safe in the stones of island. But you, Matty… you set Sam free.”