Upon these shores by Lyra

Elf-struck

When they head out to a supposedly haunted island for a dare, the Douglas twins make an acquaintance that changes them forever.
A Victorian ghost story, without, as it were, a ghost.

Written for the "Around the Fire" challenge, for Independence1776's request: Maglor lives alone on the Isle of Himling. Someone visits the island, not knowing it’s inhabited. What happens?

Elf-struck

"There are no ghosts," Murron said. "Just perfectly natural phe-no-me-na. That's what Miss Williams says, and she should know. She went to university and all."
Her brother pulled his little dinghy further onto the rocky beach. The islet featured only a very narrow strip of shore, which would likely disappear entirely once the tide rose.
"Spare me the lecture, help me secure the boat," he huffed. It was going to be harder than he'd hoped. Not only was the island mainly made up of forbidding, rocky cliffs; there also were no convenient rock needles, trees or at least pieces of strong driftwood that could be used for a make-shift mooring. They would have to carry the boat along until they reached the first strip of grass. Barrie broke out in a sweat at the mere thought.
Murron, who had ignored his request in order to scout their surroundings, returned. "There's a sort of stairway over there," she pointed out. "We should probably use that." Without waiting for a reply, she went to the dinghy's rear.

It was a small and light boat, but it hadn't been designed to be carried far by two whispy youths. They had to pause and put it down frequently, and by the time they had reached the cleft in the rocks that Murron had called a stairway - if it had ever been a stairway, it was now badly worn out, steep and overgrown - they were sweating and out of breath. "It was a stupid idea to come here," Murron said angrily. "Only idiots go on dares to ghost islands. Besides, there are no ghosts."
"You didn't need to come along," Barrie shot back. "You don't have to go wherever I go."
"I know that. But I can hardly let you run into danger alone, can I?"
"I can look after myself. Besides, if there's no ghosts, you don't have to protect me."
"Not from ghosts! But from the tides and the currents and steep cliffs on unknown islands!" Murron heaved the rear up again. "Besides, how'd you secure the boat if you didn't have me to help lug it up?"
With an enormous effort, they managed to bring the boat into the relative safety of the gravel field that lay behind the first ring of cliffs. Short grasses and hardy coastal flowers that lifted their yellow and pink heads against the biting winds showed that it was above the normal tideline. Relieved, they set down the dinghy and slumped onto the rocky ground, catching their breath.
"I would've found a way," Barrie insisted. "But thanks."

They took their meagre provisions out of the boat: Murron had packed bread and a bottle of water, Barrie had brought carrots and cheese. "Why did you bring water?" he chided his sister. "People lived here. There must be a well somewhere."
"That could be blocked, or polluted," Murron said with a scowl, which deepened when she noticed the leather case her twin pulled out from underneath the thwart. "Is that your harp*? Did you bring your harp along? Is that why the bloody boat was so heavy, because it had your harp in it?"
"It's not that heavy," Barrie said, his face flushing a little. "And I might need it. To appease the ghosts."
"There are no ghosts," Murron said. "Just your imagination. Maybe you can appease that."
"That would be useful, too," Barrie said.
"Firewood would've been more useful," Murron retorted. "Though maybe we can burn your harp?"
"Over my dead body," said Barrie.

They followed the remains of the path upwards. A brief debate on whether or not they should hide the dinghy ended before it could grow heated, as there simply was nothing to use for cover. They passed old lobster traps, their wooden frames bleached by the weather, but the netting was still intact. The twins did not bother to stop for a closer look. The wind was already harsh in their faces, and they could see dark clouds gathering across the sea, where the weather was coming from.
"It's going to blow by," Barrie said, to reassure himself as much as his sister. "It's going to hit the main islands, not this little rock."
"Man proposes," Murron said sternly. "Well, maybe the old monastery will provide some shelter."

Monks had inhabited the island, long ago. Some said that they had been holy men who sought to attain sainthood in life by being as miserable as possible on their windswept rock in the inclement sea; others said that they had chosen the islet because it was fabled to have been the castle of an Elf-king, and the monks had sought to stamp out such heathen superstitions. Whatever the truth, the monastery had been built upon the fundaments of an older structure, though whether it had been a castle or merely a farmstead, nobody knew. An Elf-king would hardly have built his castle on a lonely, windswept rock far out in the Western sea, Murron thought. Not that she believed in Elves. It just went to show how silly the whole story was. Almost as silly as their visit to the island, which was now uninhabited except for sea birds, and the sheep that the monks had brought with them. Nobody had bothered to carry them back across the sea. Maybe nobody had dared, because of the ghost stories. It was said that the ghosts of the last monks, who had died in a storm flood centuries ago, still haunted the ruins. When the wind was right, fishermen claimed that they could hear the music of the Holy Mass the ghosts still celebrated in the remains of their cathedral. The young folk who spent a night on the island as a rite of passage never spoke of hearing the Holy Mass, but they all agreed that the place was haunted.

"I see why people say there used to be a Elf-castle here," Barrie said thoughtfully as they passed another forbidding ring of rock that sheltered a meadow, quite densely covered in shortly-cropped grass and stunted bushes. Sheep were grazing near the path, but ran off and disappeared around a corner as the twins came closer, alarmed by the unfamiliar humans.
Barrie pointed at the cliffs ahead. "These do look like the walls of a castle, don't they."
"They're probably volcanic in origin," Murron said sagely.
"Volcanos don't happen in the middle of the sea," Barrie protested.
"They do, too. Miss Williams says that volcanos can create islands, or destroy them, too."
"Well, if Miss Williams says so," Barrie said, although he still sounded doubtful. "But I never heard about this being a volcano. Just a ghost place."
Murron shrugged. "Maybe it's sleeping. Maybe it was a volcano very long ago. Makes more sense than ghosts or fairies, anyway."

The path lead through another opening in another rock wall to another meadow, better protected from the wind. Further ahead, they could see the proper, man-made walls of the ancient monastery. Someone had gone to the effort of restoring parts of it at some point; a farmer or somebody else who had been interested in the wool, most likely. "Is somebody shearing these sheep?" Murron wondered aloud. The sheep they had seen had been rather short-fleeced.
"Nobody goes here, except for the big boys," Barrie pointed out. "They probably shed their wool by themselves. Lots of opportunities to shed, with all these rocks."
"But shouldn't we be seeing bits of wool everywhere, then?" Murron asked, and then answered her own question. "I suppose the birds use it for nesting, or the wind blows it away." She looked up at the sky, which continued to darken. "I don't think it'll blow these clouds away, though. I think we'll be stuck in the middle of the storm, if we don't leave at once."
"Better stuck here than on the sea," Barrie pointed out. "Besides, I have to stay the whole night."
"To impress people you don't even like."
"Don't rub it in. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."
Murron snorted. "And a woman's gotta clean up the mess, as usual."
"You didn't have to come along!" Barrie protested again. "I could have managed on my own."
"I would have died worrying. This way, at least I know what's going on."
"Yes," Barrie conceded. And because there was nobody there to listen, he admitted, "I'm glad I'm not alone here."

They stopped walking then, having reached the outer walls of the old chapel and hall. Even if you didn't believe in ghosts, it was an awe-inspiring place: Not because of its size, which wasn't that impressive, but because it seemed to exude age and authority from every worn stone. Much of the roofing was still intact, the twins realised, probably because it hadn't been thatched but covered with proper roof tiles. The central hall had partially collapsed, but both the chapel to the east and a smaller building to the west looked much like the monks might have intended them. There was no more glass in the windows, but the empty frames had been covered in roughly woven cloth, and the wooden doors were still in place, safely closed. Even if they had been open, Murron and Barrie agreed, they wouldn't have gone inside. Maybe they would try if the storm got really bad and they found no other shelter; maybe not even then. Dead silence seemed to reign about the place. Even the wind, kept off by the warding walls, seemed to hold its breath.
"It's so quiet," Barrie whispered and immediately felt silly about pointing out the obvious. The words had simply come out before he'd had time to think.
Murron didn't make a scathing reply. "Yes," she whispered in return, "my heartbeat seems to be the loudest noise around." Then she added, somewhat unceremonially, "I need to pee."
"I won't look," Barrie promised.
"I'll walk off a little, anyway," Murron said.
"Don't go too far!" Barrie said, and just in case she might think that he was afraid of being alone, he added, "you know, steep cliffs on unknown islands, and all that."
Murron stuck out her tongue at him.

As Murron went out of sight behind the old chapel, Barrie looked around uneasily. Whenever sunlight made it through a crack in the clouds, the place looked friendly enough, just lonely; but whenever the sun was obscured behind the looming grey cloud-towers, the ruins and the rock walls took on a very hostile aspect. But it wasn't as silent as he had earlier thought. The wind had quieted down, yes, but it could still be heard behind the protective rocks, where it continued to blow with unmitigated strength. Sometimes, the whistling and howling was pierced by the cries of gulls and gannets. And above the beating of his heart, he could hear the humming sound of... bees?
"Surely we are too far from the shore for bees?" he said out loud, before he remembered that nobody was next to him to listen. He took a closer look, and sure enough, the golden clover and tiny pink and white carnations were, every now and then, visited by bees.
"The monks must have brought them, just like the sheep," he said to himself. "Monks always keep bees, because they need so many candles." Mystery solved, he felt calmer.
Until the music started.

It didn't at all sound like monks chanting the Holy Mass. It didn't sound like a natural phenomenon, like something that might be caused by the wind or the birds or bees, either. It sounded like a harp being played by a highly skilled harpist, an incredibly fast arpeggio plucked by incredibly nimble fingers. It was not a melody that Barrie recognised, certainly nothing like the reels that he commonly heard or learned to play himself. It was more like sophisticated continental music, he thought, the sort that Miss Williams, the island teacher, sometimes played on her pianoforte. But while he enjoyed that music, it had never captured him in the way this ethereal music did now; it almost felt as though it was played on his very heartstrings, as if the melody was filling his entire body and mind, sweeping him across vast oceans and into lands where the trees were not stunted by salt and sea winds, but grew high, high up into brilliant skies, with flowers like enormous golden goblets or like strings of silver pearls.
Thunder rolled, and the mood changed. The music was no longer jubilant, but harsh and threatening. The sky had gone black, except when it was torn by flashes of lightning that briefly lit up a rolling, frenzied sea. Waves mounted high, crowned with pink froth; swans desperately tried to stay afloat among grinding shelves of ice, and tall ships went up in flame --

His sister tore him from his vision, frantically pulling on his arm. "Barrie! Barrie!" she cried.
He had not even realised that she had come back, nor had he noticed that it had begun to rain in earnest, that the thunder and lightning weren't just part of the music but part of the very real storm that had not at all blown by, instead discharging itself right above the small islet.
"Barrie," Murron cried, "we have to leave!"
"But the storm --" he protested, refusing to move. Above the thunder and the renewed howling of the wind, above the crashing of the waves, he could still hear the music, beautiful despite its merciless force. I need to learn to play like that, Barrie knew with every fibre of his being. I shall not be happy before my own fingers can produce such music. "Can you hear what I hear?" he asked.
"The music? Yes! That's why we have to leave! Barrie, someone is living here--"
Despite the pain that had gripped his heart - for he feared that he would never be able to make music like that, not if he lived to be a hundred years old - and in spite of the drenching rain, Barrie found himself smiling.
"I thought there were no ghosts?" he couldn't help teasing.
"Not a ghost!" Murron shouted angrily. "Someone living! Barrie, someone is keeping a garden in the old cloister, and it's not overgrown, it's a proper tidy garden! And someone has been collecting driftwood, there's a whole pile of it! I'm not joking! Someone's hiding out here, God knows why, and we're trespassing on his grounds! We have to go!"
The music had stopped, making Barrie's heart ache with longing. He clutched his harp case to his chest and didn't budge.
"We can't go now," he pointed out, "my dinghy isn't built for this kind of weather. We'd be smashed on the rocks, or blown right out onto the open Atlantic, to drown or starve."
"Then we have to hide somewhere further down!" Murron tried to push Barrie towards the incision in the rock wall, but she found no foothold on the slippery ground. Her brother, meanwhile, still stood as if transfixed, as if he had grown roots.
Exasperated by his obstinacy, Murron cried, "We can't stay here! Who knows what kind of person this is, probably some sort of deserter or a pirate or a murderer---" She was shivering with the wet and with fright.
Slowly, her words registered. "Dear God," Barrie said, paling. "We're going to die!"
"Please calm yourselves," said a grown-up and pleasant and not-at-all-ghostly voice, clearly audible even over the thunderstorm. "It's been centuries since I murdered anyone."
The source of the voice was wearing the long, undyed woollen robe of a monk, but his hair, darker than the thunderclouds, was unshorn and flapped freely in the wind.

Huddled into the woolen blankets the stranger had given them, the twins took surreptitious looks at their surroundings. The stranger had led them to what he said had been the kitchen of the monastery, a small room east of the ruined hall. Although there was very little furniture, the stranger had managed to make himself at home. There was a long, heavy table but no seats, so they had sat down on the ground in front of the fireplace. As there were eelgrass mattresses and pillows on the floor, it was less uncomfortable than Barrie would have thought, and the embers in the fireplace warmed them nicely. The room was gloomy, but in a cozy way. The heavy curtains kept out the storm surprisingly well, being fixed to the wall all around the windows, not just above. The thunder was muffled by the walls, but the drumming of the rain seemed to be magnified by the roof tiles, with no thatch or second floor to swallow the noise. Although the roof must have withstood many such downpours across the centuries, Barrie couldn't help glancing upwards anxiously every now and then. At the same time, he was very much relieved to be inside and no longer drenched.
By the light of several strategically placed chandeliers - with real beeswax candles, no tallow lights! - Barrie could make out a heap of eelgrass mattresses and woollen blankets: this, presumably, was the bed. In the opposite corner, there was what looked like a loom fashioned from driftwood. There was a small enamel tub and a couple of buckets, and upon the worktable, Barrie noticed a couple of earthenware bowls and some cooking implements, a fishing net and other bits and bobs. Underneath the table, he thought he could discern an old-fashioned travelling trunk.

"I did not tidy up," the stranger said, observing the way in which the twins took stock of his residence. "I was not expecting visitors." He poured the boiling water from the kettle into a teapot of red clay, and then began to braid his hair. Barrie tried again to reconcile the raven-dark tresses with the man's monkish apparel, and couldn't.
"We didn't mean to importune you," Murron said, tight-lipped. Barrie shot her an anxious glance; was she frightened, or still cold? She had refused to take off her soaked clothing, so underneath the warming blankets, she must still be dripping wet.
The stranger gave a lopsided smile. "No, of course not. You never do." He filled two bowls from the teapot, and set them down on the stone frame before them. "Here. A hot drink is indicated now, I believe."

Barrie put his hands around he hot bowl at once, inhaling the inviting peppermint smell, but was stopped by his sister's words. "How do we know you don't want to poison us?" she said, and added, "The whole village knows we're here. As soon as the storm is over, they'll be coming to look for us." Her voice pretended to a confidence that Barrie knew Murron didn't feel.
The man's smile turned wistful. "My dear children, if I wanted you to come to harm, I could simply have left you to tumble down the cliffs, or to drown in the storm."
"Maybe you need our bodies for some kind of wicked magic," Barrie pointed out, remembering old fairytales. Murron gave him an exasperated look. "Maybe you want to sell us as prostitutes, or-" she shuddered - "for vivi-section," she suggested instead.
The stranger's brow creased. "I am not that kind of elf," he told Barrie, "and none of that is my trade," he said to Murron. He nodded at the teapot. "It's a peppermint infusion. Not the right choice in this sort of weather, I suppose, but I have no proper tea. Drink it, or leave it be; it's your choice."
Barrie sniffed, and couldn't discern anything untoward. He decided to cast caution aside, and took a sip. It was delicious, intense and refreshing and liberally sweetened. Their mother never allowed them to put honey or sugar in their tea, herbal or otherwise; so he closed his eyes and enjoyed the unfamiliar luxury.
Murron still hadn't touched her bowl. "What is your trade, then?" she asked.
"Music," the stranger said.

Barrie's set down his bowl with a pang. "Yes. We heard you playing earlier." His hands had suddenly begun to tremble, and he couldn't quiet them no matter how hard he tried to hold still.
A wistful smile. When he smiled, Barrie thought, the stranger looked beautiful, surprisingly young, and eminently admirable. Having grown up among people of stocky build, bent forwards against the wind, where tall people continually had to duck their heads to fit into small houses, it was unusual to see a tall man with a straight back. Barrie was also unused to people having such fair skin without looking sickly. In their home village, everybody was tanned or ruddy, except for the bedridden and the newly born. The stranger's wrists, visible underneath the open hem of his robe's sleees, were sinewy and suggested strength; and the man moved with grace and efficiency.
Barrie noticed that he was staring, and quickly looked down at his hands. They were still moving without his volution.

"Indeed," the stranger said. "I had not realised that I had company, or I wouldn't have been so careless. You were more quiet than they usually are - no boisterous songs for courage, no stones thrown at the sheep, no attempts to climb the roof."
Barrie felt his face flush, imagining the misbehaviour of other young men who had come to the island. "Well, we're told the island's been abandoned," he said defensively. "We're told there's only ghosts around."
"It is unwise to upset the ghosts," the stranger replied earnestly, "not that I've ever met any, in this place. And, of course, I want you to believe that the island is abandoned."
"Why?" Murron asked sharply. "If you're a musician, shouldn't you be wanting an audience?"
"Sometimes I do," the man said. "But when I get too entangled in the business of Men, I need to withdraw to places like this - especially to this place."
"Why here?" Murron inquired. "Nobody comes here. I wouldn't be staying here if I had a chance."
The stranger spread his hands. "You, child, are young and full of potential. I am old - though not too old to make mistakes. This is a good place to hide and recover. It used to be my brother's stronghold, long ago, and now it has become my refuge."
Murron narrowed her eyes. "There never was a stronghold here, only a monastery."
"Built upon the ruins of an Elf-castle," Barrie pointed out. "Or that's what they say," he added when his sister rolled her eyes at him.
"Stronghold, not castle," said the stranger, "but yes."
"There are no Elves," Murron said in her most scathing tones, "any more than there are ghosts."

"I assure you we exist, although we have become rare," said the stranger. "As do ghosts."
Barrie bit his lips. "How old are you, then?"
The stranger shrugged his shoulders, giving another disarming smile. "Would you believe me that I have lost count?"
"Then who was king when you came here?" Murron asked, folding her arms across her chest. "Not your brother. I mean, of Britain, when you made your refuge here." Derision dripped from her every syllable; she clearly didn't believe a single word.
"My brother was no longer king when he built his stronghold here," the stranger said, unperturbed. "And when I last came here, Britain did not have a king, but a ruling queen."
"Elizabeth?" Barrie asked excitedly.
The stranger smirked, looking more youthful than ever. "Elizabeth was queen of England and Ireland, not of Britain. And no; I mean Victoria."
"Victoria's still queen," Murron said triumphantly. "Can't have been that long ago, then."
"I just thought, because I saw burning ships, earlier," Barrie mumbled, "that maybe you had seen the burning of the Spanish Armada."
The stranger raised an eyebrow. "You saw...?"
"Yes," said Barrie, shifting uncomfortably, "during the music, when the storm began."
The stranger studied him, and the raw pain flared up in Barrie's heart again. He suddenly found it hard to meet the man's eyes, which reminded him of the sea on an overcast day, when the sun suddenly shone between the clouds and turned the ocean into a blinding mirror.
"You were not supposed to see that," the stranger said at some length. "I apologise. It is not a pleasant memory, and certainly not one that should burden you. So you have a bard's heart, young one?"
"I hope so!" Barrie said proudly. "I learn to play the harp, too." But immediately, his spirits sank again. "Not like you, of course; nothing like that. I wish I could play like that. Can you teach me?" Murron clucked her tongue in disapproval. For the first time in his life, Barrie did not care. He was far more interested in the stranger's answer, but it was not what he had hoped to hear.
"No," the stranger said. The simple word seemed to crush all his aspirations, leaving Barrie drained and ready to cry. Perhaps the stranger noticed the effect he'd had on Barrie, because he added, not unkindly, "Not here. Not today. But who knows? Our paths may cross again."
Barrie nodded dully.

"At any rate," the stranger said, maybe trying to distract him, "no, I did not see the burning of the Armada."
"What a surprise," Murron said.
"I was in Japan at the time," the stranger continued.
Murron's eyes widened. "Nobody gets into Japan," she protested, "and the Japanese don't get out. I've read about that."
"Things were different back then," the stranger said. "But you are well-informed, young lady. I am surprised."
Murron grimaced, trying to figure out whether he was poking fun at her. "I'm no young lady," she said, coming to a decision. "My name's Murron, Murron Douglas. And he's Barrie."
"Finbar," Barrie protested angrily. He didn't normally mind his nickname, but he didn't want to be introduced like that to someone whose respect he desperately longed for.
The stranger tilted his head. "Of course. Nice to meet you, Murron and Finbar Douglas."
"Shouldn't you be telling us your name now?" Murron asked.
"My name has long been lost," the stranger said. "But I suppose you may as well call me Maclaurin."
Murron was frowning again. "So that's not your real name?"
"No. It's an approximation."
"What is your real name?"
"Cánafinwë Macalaurë."
Murron wrinkled her nose. "That does sound Japanese."
"Not really. And it is not a Japanese name."
"But you've been to Japan?" That detail seemed to fascinate Murron so much that she had let go of her mistrust, Barrie thought. The rejection rankled in his heart, and he couldn't have cared less about distant countries.
"Indeed," said Maclaurin, "and to many other places." He flashed an actual grin. "I cannot stay in any one place for too long a time, of course, and I cannot always stay out here, either. I do a lot of travelling."
"I want to do a lot of travelling," Murron said, with feeling.

Barrie gave her a surprised stare. This ambition of his sister was new to him, and felt completely alien. He could not imagine leaving home for any extended period of time. He felt rooted to the coast, their island village, the barren ground, the salty winds. If only he could play the harp in the way the stranger had, he thought, he would be completely happy. Never would he have thought that his twin might feel so differently.
"Really?" he couldn't help asking. "I've never heard that before."
Murron gave him a scornful look. "Do you think I'd be happy as a fisherman's wife, or a meek little weaver? I want to see the world!"
"Well, I don't," Barrie said, "so how should I know that you do?"
A smile was playing on Maclaurin's lips. "If you want to become a good harpist, you will need to travel," he told Barrie. "You must broaden your horizons. You need to expose yourself to different influences, learn from different masters, and experience life - and music - in its many different shapes and sizes."
"Oh," Barrie said, abashed. It did not sound at all enticing to him.

"As for you, Murron -" Barrie expected Maclaurin to talk sense into his sister, as adults were supposed to do. But Maclaurin was no ordinary adult. "If it is your desire to travel the world, then that is what you must do."
"But how?" Murron said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Nobody will let me travel. They'll keep me here forever, just like the other girls."
"Well, that's the way things are--" Barrie tried to calm her, but Maclaurin was speaking again.
"You will find a way," he said, in his calm, melodious voice. "Maybe you will accompany your brother to London when he attends the Royal Academy of Music..."
"The Royal Academy of Music?" Barrie interrupted. "Who says I'll go there?"
"I do - or a similar institution. The Conservatoire National in Paris, perhaps? If you are serious about your music, that would be a reasonable step."
"Oh dear," Barrie said, while Maclaurin turned back to Murron.
"Or you will find some other way of journeying South," he said. "Merchants travel. Weavers travel, too, if they want to expand their business."
"But I don't want to be a merchant's or weaver's wife," Murron said. "I want to go to university, like Miss Williams."
"And end up as an old spinster teaching at a village school, like Miss Williams," Barrie snapped. Frustration and confusion made him angry. How could his sister have such wild dreams? And why did Maclaurin reject him, but encourage his sister? It was unfair!
"Miss Louisa Williams?" Maclaurin's voice was still calm. His eyes seemed to have widened, but that might as well have been a trick of the light.
"She's our teacher," Murron confirmed, "and she's not an old spinster, she's only forty or so. Anyway, she's living out here now, but she's studied and seen the world before that! I don't mind coming back here. I just want to leave, first."
Maclaurin appeared to have recovered from his shock. "Then you will find a way," he affirmed.
"Hah! Don't expect it to be easy," Barrie said, still annoyed.

"Of course not," Maclaurin agreed. "The worthwhile things in life very rarely come easy. You will have to prove your dedication to your dream, again and again and again. But just because it isn't easy, that doesn't mean it's impossible." He sighed, and seemed to stare off into the distance. The rain, which had gradually grown less forceful during their conversation, was now reduced to a mere dripping. The violent darkness of the storm was replaced by the peaceful darkness of dusk. Barrie was beginning to feel tired.
"If nothing is impossible," he said, breaking the sudden quiet, "will you really not teach me? Just the basics, maybe, just this summer? I promise I'll travel and broaden my horizons afterwards. I'll even go to London if that's what I need to do, if only you show me how you play the harp first."
Maclaurin smiled, gently. "That is not how it works," he said. "And I will not be around to teach you. I will have to leave this place soon; my refuge has become compromised, and it is time to move on. But as I said, our paths may cross again; and maybe then, we will both be ready." As Barrie lowered his head, despair washing over him, Maclaurin continued, "You have a bard's heart, Barrie Douglas. Expose it to the world, and you will find the music inside yourself."
"How much more useful it would be," Murron mused, "if I were happy to stay, since it's what's expected of me, and you were happy to travel, since it's what you must do."
"You complement each other," Maclaurin said. "Make good use of it."
"If you won't teach me to play," Barrie spoke up, "will you at least play for us again?"
Maclaurin smiled. "That is a good idea." He rose in a graceful, fluid motion. "I think we can risk going into the chapel without getting too wet. Some music, and then, to bed."

Wrapped in their blankets, the twins followed him through the ruins of the old hall, navigating past the rubble and deep puddles. The chapel was in better repair, but no less stark; even after Maclaurin had lit the candles, it remained grey and bare. The walls were neither plastered nor painted, and undecorated aside from the massive wooden cross above the old altar. There were no choir stalls, only a few benches. A precious harp, far grander than Barrie's small instrument, stood before one of them, where Maclaurin sat down. Murron and Barrie seated themselves across the room, to be able to see as well as hear - what little there was to see.
At first, Maclaurin played pieces that Barrie thought he had heard before, the piano kind written by foreign composers, perhaps. For Murron's sake, Maclaurin also played music from the many countries he had visited. Barrie did not particularly care for most of it, but Murron claimed to adore it.
Later, the music turned yet more adventurous, captivating Barrie's heart, although he did not again experience as vivid a vision as he had before the storm. And at last, Maclaurin began to sing, in a tongue that felt familiar and alien, timeless and ancient at once.

The twins awoke when the sun shone through the empty window frames. They had apparently found refuge from the storm in the old chapel, where they had spent the night huddled in old woollen blankets that they had found who knew where. There was no other soul on the islet, although they found surprising traces of relatively recent habitation: The old cloister had been turned into a vegetable garden that was only just turning to seed, and a make-shift loom, some eelweed mattresses and some cutlery in the old kitchen suggested that the monks hadn't been the last to inhabit the old structure. Barrie could have sworn that they'd had company the previous evening, and reported some details to Murron, though his memory was fuzzy and seemed to dissolve the more he tried to remember. Murron was uncommonly taciturn, and did not even berate him for finding it hard to shake off his vivid dream. They could not, however, find any trace of the harp that Barrie claimed to have seen, nor was there the slightest trace of a teapot.
They could see marks of the storm all over the island - seaweed and shells had been blown onto the cliffs by the wind or cast upon the grassy patches by the waves. Those must have reached far higher than the twins had thought, high enough to sweep off their dinghy, along with the lobster traps that they found smashed into pieces on the rocky strip of shore below.

As Murron had predicted, it did not take long for the villagers to come looking for them. Although no grown-up would ever have said so, it was a commonly approved rite of passage for the village boys to spend a night on the haunted islet; although the dignity of Barrie's newly-gained adulthood was spoiled somewhat by the fact that he had lost his boat and needed to be rescued. The dinghy was later found intact on a neighbouring island, where the storm had apparently wandered after unloading its worst over the small rocky islet.
To Barrie's and Murron's fortune, their parents were so relieved to have them back after the night's storm that their punishment was relatively mild. Nonetheless, something had come between the twins during that night on the island. They drifted further apart as the year progressed. Murron returned to school with renewed fervour, begging Miss Williams for tutoring and further reading every weekend. Barrie had lost whatever interest in bookish learning he'd ever had, and he had also lost his flavour for the reels and jigs that he had played so well on his harp. He did play the harp often, but now he picked out fancy tunes: sometimes they were variations of the classical music Miss Williams played on her piano, and sometimes he seemed to try and recreate music that he could only have heard in dreams. Once he had his dinghy back, and was at liberty to roam again, he often went on trips to the surrounding islands and even to the haunted islet, as if searching for something.

Murron finished school as the best student of her class. This earned her a handsome letter of recommendation and a position as junior assistant to the island's leading wool merchant, Mr. Campbell, who soon called her an asset to his company, and began to suggest that she should marry his Jamie. But during a trade fair in Glasgow, Murron disappeared and could not be found. It was years before Barrie began to receive postcards from places like Persia, Singapore or Brazil. In time, their parents' anger turned into pride.
Barrie stayed behind in the island village of their childhood. He made a living as a fisherman, and continued sailing to the small islet to the northwest, where he looked after the beasts that the monks had left there. He brought home honey and wax and wool, and sometimes, puffin eggs; in return, he played his harp to the birds and bees and sheep. He also repaired part of the old monastery, and through the summer, he tended the vegetable patch that seemed to benefit from the protected climate in the cloister, or maybe from the blessing provided by the former residents. Either way, it yielded more produce than the gardens in the village did.

He was an oddity, to be sure, but a harmless one; and so the villagers accepted him as an incomprehensible but normal part of their community. Some reckoned that he had run afoul of the ghosts in his youth, and was now trying to make amends; although Barrie denied these stories, stating that he had never met a single ghost on the island. He did insist that he had once met an Elf. Even when his children no longer cared for fairytales, Barrie kept on telling them that Elves had indeed lived on that island, which had not then been an island but a mountain overlooking marshes and woodlands and fields. His wife sometimes joked that he was more in love with the island than he was with her, but even the island could never compete with the strange music that he forever pursued, and that forever seemed to lie beyond his grasp.
Miss Williams, who taught the village children for many years to come, and who - for all her learning - figured that there were more things between Heaven and earth than were taught in schools or university, said that Barrie must be elf-struck. Eventually, that was the explanation that was most widely accepted.

Chapter End Notes

* Although the invention of the Highland tradition must already have been in full swing at this point, I am assuming that in remote areas like the Outer Hebrides, the harp – not the bagpipe – would still be the Scottish staple instrument.

² Presumably, there are no orchestras where the twins grew up, so their only access to classical music would be the homemade kind, probably on the piano. It's still a couple of years until phonograph or grammophone are invented.

³ It probably does if you only know a Japanese name or two from history, and nothing about the language.