Rebirth of a Daughter
Sunshine peeped through the curtains into the dark room; this had always been an hour of great relief for her. The sun rose every morning as an antidote to the anxiety of the night, which manifested as horrifying nightmares and daunting thoughts. Its rays sifted through the barricading layers of the window. The window was the perfect representation of the tempest brewing within her mind, her soul, her being. There were four layers in its design. The first was the curtain, sewn in thick fabric adorned with art, but ironically, its suffocatingly opaque existence killed any room for creativity. Then, there was the metallic mesh embedded in a wooden frame, forming a perforated screen. Next was the robust bars of pure, raw metal, which smelled like incarceration, pushing back at all efforts for an escape. The solid yet fragile glass formed the final layer.
It was hard to question the ideas being fed to her in this room. It was difficult to question when she was raised in a severely patriarchal household, on bigoted ideas against her gender. It was difficult to pierce through the veil of abusive restrictions. It was difficult to not drown in self-doubt. ‘Girls shouldn’t,’ people would say. ‘Girls don’t, they are not meant to,’their voices echoed.
It was an act of resistance to break free of this mindset. She undertook this journey with tiny hesitant steps. One morning the sunlight peeking through the slits in the same window teased the courage into her. She gained the strength to question, to open the curtain. Years of discrimination distorted her judgement with self-doubt and underestimation of her abilities and worth like the latticed mesh distorted the vision of the outside world. The harsh backlash then tested her valour like the merciless metal bars, which reeked of incarceration and only offered the most resilient a chance at survival. She had fought through these levels of indoctrination and could now clearly see the other side through the glass. However, the glass was solid. It was solid like the comfort of familiarity. It was solid like the bonds of familial love, honour, and duty. It was solid like the fear of a child venturing into the unknown. There was a fierce grapple for dominance between the urge to break through the shackles and paying the cost of freedom. Despite second-guessing herself and challenging the conviction of her ideas repeatedly, she pushed this window open. A reformed, more powerful, and happier version of herself awaited on the other end like a draught of fresh air, finally entering the room.
If you were a person, you would be my best friend. You would be there with me, supporting me with every life choice, for the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows. You would be my first true love. Love. Nothing but unconditional love. You would be there to console me when I need it most. Even if I had done something wrong, your arms would embrace me anyway, and your presence would morph into being a place that I would call home.
If you had a face, I know that if I were to look at you, your eyes would glow with nothing but admiration, and your cheeks would blush the sweetest shade of crimson. Wherever in the world I was, I know that if I needed you, I could think of you, and my mind would fill with the most beautiful array of colours.
You and I, we are like a longdistance relationship, and I know they say that distance makes the heart grow fonder, but whenever I turn to
As I return to you after months of waiting, your heat hits my skin, and your sweet smell of cork feels like a “welcome home” for the senses. Your beaches are the most beautiful that I have
The Patient’s Patience
I woke to the sun dancing over my eyelids, I blinked hard before shuffling into a more comfortable position. Despite the cheery weather, something tickled the back of my mind, ‘Is this my mother’s intuition?’
I turned my head to where Charlie should be sitting on my left. He should be sitting there holding our beautiful baby boy. He should be holding our child whilst other family members fawn over how he has his father’s nose or his mother’s eyes or his uncle’s feet.
My gaze wandered across the whole room, to the bag haphazardly packed last night –and even more precariously abandoned in the far corner. My eyes shifted to look at the small balloon, “Congratulations! It’s a boy” decorating the side facing me. I glanced at the open door into the hallway, the empty hallway: The too quiet hallway.
My breath quickened, I could feel small tears forming in my eyes, my hands clutched my chest and throat. A lump formed too large for me to get any breath around,
“Where is my son?”
I glanced back at the door, still no one passed. I frantically looked around for the ‘call nurse’ button but couldn’t find it.
A darkness crept into my vision now, keeping to the fringes for now. I told myself to calm down, willed myself to take a deep breath; ‘It’s not been too long now. They must be doing the routine checkups.’
I laid back down, tears beginning to flow freely. I blinked once, twice. Praying, wishing, hoping.
A knock at the door.
Charlie walked in. His face, his once beautiful face.
A shadow engulfed his warmth, his bright eyes hollow and dull, his broad shoulders sagging forward.
His arms empty.
“I’m sorry Jenny.”
Three words. Earth shattering; Hope destroying. Our child, the physical embodiment of our love, our future family. All our dreams swept under the rug of death without a second thought.
We both stayed unmoving for a century. I looked to Charlie to find some small speck of strength; He couldn’t look me in the eye. A small, strangled sound escaped his throat, and with it the remaining power in his legs. He fell onto my feet, sobbing uncontrollably.
I laid back down, looking at the specks in the ceiling as if they were the constellations of fate. I tried to find the story in which this was all some bad dream, but I couldn’t find the connection. My small simple human brain could never comprehend the work of the fates, of God, of time.
Design: Anna
Words: Andy Martin
I was walking. My hospital gown was tightly fastened. I don’t know where I began, where I was going, or even why I was walking. Poppies surrounded me and the sun was setting ahead, almost resembling a tunnel full of light. Beyond the poppies on all sides but ahead was a dark forest, seemingly absorbing all the radiance of the sunset.
I was walking, despite my casual pace I covered a long distance in a short time. I could make out a band stand in the distance. My pace never wavered, and the band stand became ever closer.
The closer I got, the more details I could make out. Most notably, the person stood on the steps. I could vaguely register long hair as well as that they were holding something.
The vague silhouette became that of a woman, yet I couldn’t make out the bundle in her arms. My heart called out to both woman and bundle of its own freewill, my brain too slow to understand why.
I was walking. I came to the bottom step of the stairs, and I saw her face. My mother’s face. Lines of love and sorrow and her honey eyes filled a hole long torn into my being. She was the one who believed in me when others didn’t. Loved me when I felt hate towards myself. The one who always thought of me when no one noticed me. My mother. I could feel my heart yearning for her embrace. Just one more second with her.
I looked at what she was holding, my heart nearly burst. It was a baby, my baby? My mother nodded in response to the question, as if I had asked it aloud. I looked back to her face, tears running down my cheeks now, “No!” I croaked, “Don’t leave again!”
I left the warmth of my dreams, filled with love and hope. Awakening to this newly cold world, filled with nightmares and sadness. I could hear a faint pattering of rain in the distance.
Charlie was sleeping to my left, sitting awkwardly in one of the chairs. His gorgeous face was stained with tear marks. My Charlie. I smiled, for the briefest of moments all was calm, all was happy.
A small sob escaped my grasp. I wished my grip had been tighter for Charlie opened his eyes. He looked up out of his own grief. He crawled the distance between us, joining both our bodies together in a way I could feel his whole being against mine. “Jenny?”
I could see fresh tears forming.
“It’s ok, Charlie.” I took a breath. “She has him, she’ll look after him.”
Both of us wept at my words, “My mum will look after him until it’s our time too.”
The two of us sat on the bed hugging for eternity, or what I wished was eternity.
Never wanting to let go.
A Feud
A blackness spread through the clear blue waters of the Captain’s eyes, infecting him with fear.
“What… what did you say?”
“There’s water coming in, sir,” replied the boy in wet and dirty overalls, the bottoms of which were soaking the wooden floorboards. The crew exchanged glances in a mutual moment of shock. They looked to their Captain, a wise man of sixty, with fortyfive years at sea.
His lips quivered, and his face turned white, the first ghost on a lost ship.
“It cannot be,” he said to himself, and everyone else listened.
“It is true, sir,” said the Chief-Officer with grim certainty.
“No, it cannot be, it cannot be, no no no.”
“Sir, I assure you, the boy is right. We must send out a distress signal at once,”
He had seen the water from the ship’s engine room rising higher and higher, and though it had not yet reached the officer’s quarters,
it had entered and flowed within him, staining like a photograph on his wide eyes. “She will sink,” he declared.
The Captain paused, in deep thought: how do they know? How do they know? We hit nothing, I felt nothing… It’s lies, lies! His eyes darted to the boy in the dirty overalls; it’s that boy! From third class, he conjured this! He and the scum from the bottom of the ship… My ship!
“What are your orders, sir?” Said the ChiefOfficer. The Captain’s eyes darted from the boy to his second in command; and that man, that man! He is to undermine me, but he will not. This is my ship.
The Captain moved not an inch, and almost in a whisper, the words fell from his mouth:
“Maintain current course; to your stations,” he said, avoiding eye contact. The words reached few ears, and of those who heard, one spoke up:
“Beg your pardon, Captain,” began the Second-Officer, “are we to do nothing?”
The rest of the crew murmured in a sort of disbelief, one opened his mouth
at Sea
as if to say something in protest, but the weight of position was too much for the man, he had neither the authority nor the reputation to question orders.
This was not the case, however, for ChiefOfficer Coolidge, the man had all the reputation and stature as did the Captain, a man twenty-five years his elder; minus the title, of course. He broke the murmuring with a voice both professional and troubled,
“I believe the Captain asked us to prepare the life-boats, and wake up the passengers, is that correct, sir?”
There was another pause. The Captain looked once more to be deep in thought.
He was leaning over the table in the officer’s quarters, staring at the plans of the HMS Terminus, in which he had a detailed report of the damage retained during the collision, drawn up in impeccable timing. His hardened hands were flat on the table and his head was down. The beach of his rationality had been emptied of its shores; a tsunami was on the horizon, its impact would mean hysteria. The crew all stared at their Captain; they shared a solemn expression.
But for the creaking of the ship, the room was deathly silent, like still water.
The massive tsunami waves struck the crew with a single word.
“No.”
“Sir?” said Coolidge, as his heart stopped.
“No. My orders are to stay our course, now get to your stations.”
“Sir, please, I must insist-”
“No! For god’s sake, I will have no more of this nonsense! The next man to defy my orders will be at-once locked in the brig.”
“Sir, the ship is sinking!” Pleaded Coolidge. The Captain raised his head; his eyes were cold harpoons, and they bore into the scales of the Chief-Officer’s integrity.
“One more word,” he started, “and I’ll have you court-martialed.”
Coolidge stood paralysed, stunned by his Captain’s words. He had given the Captain a chance to redeem himself, having also heard his initial order. Coolidge now knew
in his heart that the once wise Captain had been swayed by his own selfishness. This was the Captain’s final voyage, after all, and it seemed too, that he was determined to make it his final resting place.
The crew looked between the two, the tension rising like the water gushing in seven decks below. It would be only a short time until the flood reached them; it would be even less until the mutiny began.
“I have made myself explicitly clear,” the Captain turned towards his cabin and waved a dismissive hand, “away with you all.”
“You’re a fool, Craven,” said the fearful but justified voice of Coolidge, “you condemn us all, and what for, your pride?” The last was said with much distressed anger, that the veins in his neck had bulged like a bulkhead under pressure. The Captain snapped his focus to Coolidge and the crew backed away.
“How dare you,” the Captain’s voice broke behind his stress, “know your place, sailor!”
“With respect, sir, it is you that should know yours.”
Tipping point had been reached, and not just for the seamen. The ship had started to list slightly starboard-side, but the crew were too enthralled by the situation to notice. The Captain pointed a shaking finger at Coolidge, shouting about the man’s insubordination
and spouting almost nonsensical sounds resembling something of a court-martial.
Coolidge had had enough. He beckoned to the crew, telling them of the Captain’s incompetence and ignorance, and that it had gone on far too long.
“Lives are at stake!” He said, “yours, and all souls aboard. He means to have us in the Atlantic!”
“Arrest that man!” The Captain bellowed. It was at this moment when choices were made. Some of the officers under Coolidge betrayed him, and strode forward at the Captain’s command, whilst others stood in their way, shielding Coolidge from capture. The boy from the ship’s engine roomwas knocked down in crashing waves of mutineers and loyalists, all doing what they thought was right. The Captain himself had backed away in cowardice, before sealing himself in his cabin. The scuffle did not last long, however, as the Master-at-Arms had entered the officer’s quarters, in search of the Captain. Disgraced at the sight of the commotion, he withdrew his revolver from its holster, and fired once into the ceiling. The shot rang out to the surprise of all present, and they stopped at once whilst clutching their ears.
“What in God’s name are you all doing?” Shouted the Master-at-Arms, enraged.
“The ship is listing from the collison, and you
are
all behaving like press-gang! Compose yourselves!”
The men got to their feet, ashamed of their own actions. The Master-at-Arms asked for the Captain, who the men now noticed to be missing. The boy, looking distressed from being so suddenly trampled, told them of the Captain’s retreat into his cabin. The Officers who had obeyed their Captain seemed filled with regret, as they realised he had abandoned them, as well as his duty to all aboard. Just then, a pencil, used to draw up the damage report of the HMS Terminus, rolled from the bolted-down table and to the starboard-side wall. The cracks and creaks of the hull seemed elevated in the ensuing silence, before everything gave way to the increasing list. Coolidge stabilised himself and grew into an authoritative stance; with a newfound confidence in the Captain’s absence, he addressed his officers: “get everyone off this ship, now!”
From the last lifeboat, the officers of the HMS Terminus watched with sorrow, as the silhouette of their ship sank deeper and deeper into the depths below. The distress signal had been sent by order of the Master-at-Arms before storming the officer’s quarters, and the evacuation was already well under way.
All souls had been saved; except the Captain. He had denied the possibility of
his ship sinking and would not evacuate his passengers and crew. When Coolidge and the Master-at-Arms tried to convince him to leave from outside his quarters, he refused. There was no time to spare, and Captain Craven was left behind.
The lifeboat had drifted quite a distance away now, and the ship had become less and less visible. But then, one of the men gasped and pointed to the bow of the ship, the last part to go under.
A figure had emerged as a dark shadow against the pale-blue morning sky. It stuck out like an iron growth of the ship; as if it were reaching out. The crew all knew it was their Captain: the last man aboard. The more they looked, the more the line blurred between ship and man; for he did not jump, he did not cry out, but just stood motionless as the sea at last claimed its victim.
The first and final ghost on the lost ship.
Words: Iselinn Ramleth Knudsen
The Garden
The forest is old and dark. Maps and compasses rarely work like they should here. The woman, tired and not dressed for this adventure, realised this too late. Now she runs past tree trunks too wide and too high, hunted by creatures with too many eyes and hollowed bodies. She has no choice but to keep going, past ever-growing trees and laughing ferns. She cannot remember the last time sunrays reached the forest floor.
The garden is vast and dead. It has been dead for some time now. The cat, the undisputed ruler of the house, surveys the desolation from a second story windowsill. She has been here longer than any of the other residents and will be here long after they have left. She looks from the barren flowerbeds to the cracked stone path to the burned fruit trees. The waterways have dried up and the grass with it. The cat takes it all in, like she did yesterday, and the days and months before that.
The house is old and inhabited. It has two storeys and an attic. There have been three families living out their lives here. The walls carry echoes of laughter. Now it is only the cat and the lost woman who lives here. The woman’s friends, who does not live here, have moved in her absence, using the house as base as they look for their missing friend. They are not giving up, even as the seasons change. The garden is still dead.
The woman has found a place to hide, deep within a cracked tree where the hollow beasts cannot reach her. Her shoes are falling apart at the seams, and her legs are unable to bear her weight anymore. She has pressed herself as far in as she can, listening to the scratching and ruffling of feathers of the creatures at the entrance, sometimes she can see their bright green eyes looking back at her. Confirming that their prey is still trapped. There is a surprising amount of light in here. The woman wonders and daring to take her eyes off the beasts, she tips her head backwards. The tree is cracked all the way up, and light can be seen as a pinprick some untold metres up. She keeps looking at that point of distant hope for a while, simply breathing, gathering courage. Then she stands up and starts to climb.
The man watches and hopes his home can return to the deep silence. The trees with their vast trunks and tall canopy are wanting rest, they tire of the hunt. The woman who wandered in should have fallen long ago. Instead, she is making her way towards a door she can only hope exists. The man found the hunt amusing at first, the woman walking from familiar woods to a forest too quiet and too dark. Its guardians awaking, sending their beasts after her.
Words: Iselinn Ramleth Knudsen
Chasing her into the deep where inhabitants grow without stop. The woman is too lost to find her way back, and her presence brings chaos, and the man is no longer amused by this game. He knows the type of her and her ilk. He and his trees will not rest for a long time. If she dies here, they will not stop looking, carrying flickers of hope with them for years.
The friends all carry with them the air of carefully controlled panic. The garden is still dead. The cat sleeps in the second storey window. The friends have not given up hope to find the woman. Not yet. The wishbone gave them clues, but green marbles and worn through shoes were too vague even for them. The woman’s diary told nothing of strangers seeking shelter or circles of mushrooms. The garden was thriving. The neighbours refuse any knowledge of her disappearance. The friends are getting desperate. There is nothing to hint that something was wrong. Her presence simply disappears one day. Her shoes and jacket are missing, but that is also all.
Five seasons after the woman’s disappearance, the man knocks on the door of the house.
The man is tall and willowy and short and stocky and. His eyes are all green, no pupil no white. The friends do not invite him in, the cat would not allow it. The man appears amused by this but does not push forward again. Instead he stands dry in the pouring rain and talks of a forest and a hunt. The friends listen and asks in careful words why he tells them and why now. The man tells them that it is simply the correct time, and hands them a doorhandle of bone and wood. Then he takes his leave, slipping through the worlds as he steps off the path.
The woman is tired. Her hands have splinters, and her shoes finally gave out, but stopping now is not an option. The light has waxed and waned, but it is never so dark that she cannot see. Something creaks and breaks far beneath her, followed by the half-forgotten sound of rustling feather. The woman climbs faster. She does not want to know if they can climb too.
They have a handle, now all they need is a door. A door built of memories with a frame of intent and sturdy stone. The friends make it in the dead garden, nestled under a charred cherry tree. The cat watches on from the second storey window, she wonders what the price for a miracle will be. The door is shimmery like oil spill and just as flimsy. It needs time to settle, time the friends might not have but have no choice but to give.
The woman drags her body through the hole at the top of the tree. Outside is bright and loud with wind. The sky blue as far as the horizon, there is no sun. The ground. The ground is a mirror, the woman looking into her own exhausted eyes. Stumbling to her feet she looks back at the hole, the only feature she can see. Green eyes look back at her. The mirror tinkles as cracks from the beasts pressing upwards. The woman takes off running again, her feet leaving bloody footprints behind.
The friends wait. The door is almost solid, its oil spill colours slowing, then darkening. When colours are all gone and the void is all that remains, they attach the doorhandle of bone and
wood. It floats there in the darkness. The friends regain some of their hope.
The woman is still running, the hollow beasts are still hunting. There is nothing on the horizon, the wind has died. The only sounds come from the beasts’ claws scratching the mirror, her feet running, and her own panicked breath. The beasts are gaining ground.
The cat makes her way down to the front door, demands to be let out, and walks into the dead garden. She stops by the door, sits down, waits.
Something breaks through the worlds with the sound of shattering glass. The horizon gains a landmark. The woman runs for it, hoping for an escape. An ending.
In the dead garden the cat stares at the door, attentive.
The friend twists the doorhandle.
The door opens.
Laerd’s Land by
Amanda Shiel
I am the Laerd, this is my land, When sun wick marks the pines with day, I walk, hand in rotting hand.
Across the clear of yellow strands, I skip and jump the stoney grey, I am the Laerd, this is my land.
My groves that bend amongst red sand, My ambered shelves above the brae, Night falls, hand in rotting hand.
I am unsighted, stumbling, and, Find none in dark but tangled fray, I am the Laerd, this is my land.
Do hidden beasties see my shand? Come make mirth in crimson spray, Make kin, hand in rotting hand.
My flesh will seed thy honeyed bands, And make tall trees where bones do lay, I am the Laerd, this is my land, No more, hand in rotting hand.
The Author
To: shiel.bryce@dundee.ac.uk
Cc:docherty1328@outlook.com, HSF. AFinnan@btinternet.com, RossCoe1982@ outlook.com
From: C.Strathglass@gmail.com
Subject: Saltire Anthology, Chapter 5
Hi Bryce
Left some suggestions for changes on the draft, can I have the final on Friday?
Thanks
Corey
I remember seeing hills amongst the pinewoods, stretching out of the earth to breach the clouds. I would fantasise about standing across the sprawl, a head’s length beneath the sky. But still, all it remained was ten minutes of a tedious two-hour journey.
It was when I was twelve that I first made footfall on my father’s muse. He set up his easel, Reeve’s box and stained beach chair. He stood for a moment staring at the sky, then he grunted at me and my brother to stay where he could see us.
So we made play in the landscape, the sprawl of bracken, sedge and stone becoming our football pitch. When our father’s hacking cough signalled it was time to walk back, we half expected to see two tiny figures painted in the foreground. So fixated on our own presence in the space, we were unaware that being trampled beneath our studs was some of the rarest and most diverse flora in Scotland.
Is there not more you can say about your father?
Records dating back as far as the 15th century speak of women using the plants that grew here to heal ailments that would only see widespread treatment well into the age of modern medicine. Writing from this period - which is scarce - emphasises one such plant as an alleged ‘miracle cure.’
As of the early 20th century, the flower seemingly no longer exists. This could be for a number of reasons. Overhunting of Norbuck has annihilated their presence this end of the Grampian Mountains, their excrement presence perhaps once playing a key role in the circulation of night bell seeds. That and the drastic change in climate since the Industrial Revolution could explain why they have disappeared from the valley, and thus our world. I hope the last night drop didn’t meet its end under me or my brother’s careless boot.
After my first visit to the wilds of Glen Rionn, I began to gather stories. The words had been unlocked in my mind, and though I rarely asked, my eyes and ears were now privy to the tendrils of folklore that reached from the valley all the way over to Nhurhaven. The few children that lived in the village gawked at the fact I had been so close to the edge of the forest. “There’s a witch that lives there” one particularly pale child spoke to me. “She eats people who go too far in.” Of course, the perennially stoic child I was, I did not believe in witches or spirits. What I was drawn to was tangible things. Like the story of a flower that could cure any ailment.
Develop the flower, what did it mean to you?
While much of Glen Rionn consists of open moors, it remains one of the largest areas of Caledonian pinewoods in the country. Tucked away in the forests are many signs of the ancient peoples who lived there, to the point it is considered a historic site by the National Trust. Even as a child I could sense the importance of this place and knew it contained old things, things people may have forgotten about.
I was only in the forest for a couple of hours. My brother had stayed behind. I remember his tear-stricken face, his feeble threats that he would tell father. I was determined in my goal, steadfast that the forest would yield, yawning open to reveal its secrets to me. But the soil was shut tight, bare of any signs of vibrancy. Only veins of roots, patchy greens and oranges laid the way for me. There was no silver blue bell in sight. The tall pines and their hollow whispers spoke no comfort to me.
This was one of the few times my father struck me. He was afraid more than angry, and he needed me to be afraid too, to feel fear that would uncloud sense. On the return to the house my father - his demeanour still stern but softened - told me that a long time ago, the lord who had ruled over the valley had gotten lost in the forest as well, except he had been gobbled up by the beasties of the wood. Of course, the bears and wolves that once posed a danger centuries ago now no longer exist anywhere near Glen Rionn. But the threat of jagged beast teeth in my soft flesh struck a deeper chord than a cackling hag stirring a cauldron.
In subsequent years I came to dub Nhurhaven to be “a bit of shithole” I became disillusioned with my stays up in Nhurhaven, a fact I now lament. I would spend the summer waiting to return to Glasgow, where good friends and good drink awaited me. And I only accompanied my father on his trips when my mother asked me to. It was only a few years later that my father became too sick to travel, and we moved to Dundee so he could receive better care. Now in the days of aeroplanes and offices and the ache in my lower back, I curse the young man - not the boy - who could have afforded to wander.
I returned to Nhurhaven ten years after my father passed away. I wanted to show my wife and daughter a place that had been important to him. Nowadays, the village is primarily a holiday spot unfortunately popular with English tourists. The National Trust has paved over the railway track to make a cycle path, with walking trails snaking off into the pine forest. As I walked these new red sandy roads, I told my daughter stories of this place. I spoke of the lord and the little boy who had gotten lost here, the magical ways of the women who lived amongst the trees, and of a man who would sit and paint those hills we could see just barely over the tree line. The way she gazed at the woods beyond the path made me smile. Through her eyes, I rediscovered Glen Rionn.
Sent from my iPhone
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DUNDEE RIPPER
BY TOM CHRISTISON
BASED ON CHARACTERS CREATED BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
VERY LOOSELY BASED ON TRUE EVENTS
When my good friend Sherlock Holmes insisted upon a trip to Scotland, I graciously accepted his invitation, believing the Highland air and a dram of fine Scotch whisky would serve as a much-needed tonic after the oppressive grime of London, which had, in recent months, been particularly abysmal. What I had not anticipated, however, was that our sojourn would not take us to picturesque Munros or the rural serenity of the north, but rather to the city of Dundee.
We disembarked from the Cambria, and Holmes immediately fell into a brooding silence, his keen mind clearly already at work. When I inquired as to the nature of our visit to this dour and windswept city, he merely reiterated what he had told me on many previous occasions:
“When embarking upon an investigation, I prefer to hear from those involved before drawing any conclusions or deliberating upon the facts.”
Unilluminating though this was, it implied the purpose of our visit – we were in Dundee on a case of the utmost secrecy.
“My apologies, Watson, for dragging you from Baker Street to Dundee with little discussion as to the purpose of the journey, but I am grateful
to undertake this enterprise with my Boswell,” Holmes remarked, beholding the Royal Arch, beyond which the sun cast golden hues over the silken expanse of the River Tay. “Now, to Bell Street and Dundee Central Police Station—there exists a lieutenant in need.”
Observing the labyrinthine sprawl of tracks that hemmed the riverside, I jested that we might be better served by tramway. Holmes, however, with a sharp whistle, hailed a passing hansom.
Our carriage arrived within minutes. Nestled amidst a slew of public houses, we located the station. We stepped inside and were enveloped in a miasma of tobacco and dampness. Behind a scarred wooden desk, a uniformed constable regarded us with wary curiosity.
His Scottish baritone graced us: “Evening, gentlemen. How may I assist you in this crepuscular hour?”
“Good evening, Constable,” greeted Holmes coolly. “We have business with Lieutenant James Parr. He is expecting us.”
The constable consulted his ledger. “Your names, sirs?”
I introduced us, “I am Doctor John Watson and this is Mister Sherlock Holmes.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Good heavens! Well, sirs, I think you’ve had a wasted journey. Openand-shut domestic murder.”
“I wish it were that simple,” Holmes murmured. “But we are not here concerning the murder you reference.”
The constable hesitated. “No, sir?”
Holmes steeled himself. “We are here regarding the other five murders.”
We were shown upstairs to the office of Lieutenant James Parr, a lean young man offive-and-twenty with mutton chops, a moustache, and the pallor of one afflicted with consumption. He greeted us pleasantly, then gestured for us to sit.
Holmes produced his briar pipe and inquired if he might smoke. The lieutenant assented, cordially offering a match. “Good of you both to come all this way, gentlemen. I shall attempt to illuminate the situation. It all began, from my perspective, on February seventh, when a man— distraught, nine-and-twenty years of age, bald and bearded, and of gaunt appearance—entered this very station in a state of near hysteria. He relayed his account to me, and I sought a colleague to bear witness. As I told my fellow officer, I tell you now: ‘This man has a most curious tale to tell.’”
I withdrew my notebook and began taking down the salient details, a habit that often proved beneficial to Holmes. “The man’s name, if you please?”
“William Henry Bury.”
“Bury,” Holmes murmured. “I speculated how long it would take for this particular thread to fray.” With a knock on his briar, he compressed the dottle. “Pray continue, Lieutenant.”
Parr resumed: “Bury, inebriated after an evening at the Star and Garter, staggered into the station to report the suicide of his wife, Ellen Bury, under the most suspicious circumstances. He claimed that she had hanged herself in the front room of their lodgings on Princes Street, where the couple had resided for the past month while seeking employment. Mr. Bury, a known heavy drinker, had returned home in a stupor and passed out. Upon waking, he discovered his wife’s lifeless body hanging from a rafter. Overcome with horror and, by his self-admission, in a fit of rage and dreadful compulsion, he dismembered the corpse before concealing the remains in a packing crate from their recent move.”
“A gruesome business,” I interjected. “Seemingly self-evident – the man’s guilt is damning enough; it’s clear he got insensibly drunk and murdered his wife.”
Parr cleared his throat. “Bury turned himself in, sir, tormented by his conscience. He feared being suspected of his wife’s murder, and,more disturbingly...” The lieutenant hesitated. “He was terrified that he would be accused of being Jack the Ripper.”
William Henry Bury or Jack the Ripper?
“The Ripper! In Dundee?” I expostulated. That blaggard who slaughtered quintuple women in London—here, in this obscure corner of Scotland? I had my suspicions this is what Holmes had alluded to when he had mentioned five other murders, but to hear it outright - preposterous.
“Watson,” Holmes interrupted, “you have yet to learn the most damning aspect of this case. The packing crate, the recent usurpation, the attempt to reestablish in pastures new. Bury arrived here a month ago—having migrated from London.”
This instigated a revelation. “Holmes, there has been no Ripper murder since—”
Ellen Bury
“Bury left London.” Holmes took a drag. “When Scotland Yard found themselves flummoxed by the Ripper case, they consulted me. Regrettably, I was of little assistance, though I did compile a list of individuals of interest. Bury was amongst them. His sudden decision to relocate to Dundee, having previously claimed he was bound for Australia, is telling. His wife, whom he met in a brothel, had been the victim of many of his violent episodes. As the press erroneously recounts, it’s suggested that the Whitechapel victims shared an occupation, the very same as Bury’s wife. Does this not suggest an ingrained abhorrence for women of this station?
His London landlady described him as a brutal drunk and suspected he suffered from a venereal disease. All evidence of a man attempting to flee his own notoriety. I have been tracking his movements, awaiting this egg to hatch and nowI have my goose.”
“A bad egg indeed,” I muttered, absorbing the fiend’s biography. “Then Jack is in Dundee.”
“When we learned of the connection to the Ripper Case, we informed the Metropolitan Police in London: they said they were to send two officers immediately,” told the Lieutenant.
“And here we are,” declared Holmes. “The Metropolitan Police, beleaguered by their efforts in London, could ill afford to dispatch
officers on what may prove to be a fruitless lead. Thus,they employed the consulting detective.” This was the occupation Holmes had devised for himself, the first and only of his kind. “We must request,” he resumed, “that no record of our visit exists – if it were known that two private individuals were engaged in this matter, it could bring undue scrutiny and discredit upon our associates in London.”
“Understood,” replied the lieutenant, tearing a page from his notebook and crushing it in his palm. “Now, shall I continue with my recollections?” We nodded. “Upon arrival at Bury’s lodgings—a squalid basement dwelling—our officers discovered unsettling graffiti: Jack Ripper is in this cellar. This chalk scrawl was hurriedly expunged to prevent public alarm. Among Bury’s possessions, we uncovered a receipt for a length of rope and a bloodstained penknife. His wife’s belongings had been consigned to the hearth, and given the paucity of furnishings, it is likely they too were incinerated. Five eminent physicians examined the remains of Mrs. Bury. Their findings were as follows…” He consulted a document. “Her right leg was broken in two places, perhaps mangled to force her into the packing crate. She had been strangled…” He struggled over the next word. “Asphyxiated—not by ligature, but by human hands. The abdomen had been subjected to violent lacerations.”
As a physician myself, I pondered this assessment. “While there are similarities, the sexual savagery of the Whitechapel murders is absent. There is an inconsistency in the modus operandi which would imply to me different perpetrators.”
“Circumstances dictate action, Watson. Bury may possess a delicate and disordered mind, prone to these violent paroxysms. Having had a hiatus from his bloodlust, a man of such temperament cannot suppress his nature indefinitely. Delayed indulgence may alter the method. There is no artistry in the Ripper’s atrocities, no cunning design—only opportunity ruthlessly exploited. Bury, should he be the Ripper, may finally have given into his temptations. I wondered how long it would be before the guise lost its opaqueness.”
“Gentlemen,” Parr interjected, “the hour grows late, but before we adjourn, I must ask that you accompany me. The suspect awaits your interrogation.”
Holmes’s grey eyes gleamed. “Excellent. There is much yet to be gleaned from Mr. Bury and his game…”
Dear reader, I am afraid this is where the tale must end, for the details of our interview with William Henry Bury cannot be disclosed within these pages. To do so would imperil the very fabric of our nation. Whether Bury was, in truth, the villain known as Jack the Ripper, or merely a man whose crimes bore an uncanny resemblance, I shall leave for you to surmise.
Holmes commonly reflects that, in cases such as this, coincidence is unnatural; yet, sadly, a true conclusion to these matters escapes our knowledge.
What is known is this—Bury is dead, executed by the Crown. They say it shall be the last hanging in Dundee and that his destroyed vertebrae are to be displayed at Dundee’s fledgling University. And we can but hope, with all our souls, that with him, Jack the Ripper was laid to rest.
The last hanging in Dundee
Words: Mandy Rose Campbell
I have an invisible companion from my childhood I’m still trying to evict. It sits on my shoulder, unbelievably heavy, whispering in my ear, pricking at my lobe, breathing down my neck. No one else can see it and if I’m careful, I keep its effects on my health hidden, and therefore keep its existence hidden.
I have tried many times over the years to rid myself of this companion, but I can’t seem to make it permanent. Why not? Because deep down I believe I need it.
I even, in a way, want it.
You see, despite breathing down my neck, it’s also filled with promises. Whispered delectable shimmers just beyond my grasp. It will elevate my work, drive my studies, enable my career to reach higher heights than I ever could’ve believed possible. Like an athlete doping to shave off those last few milliseconds preventing their ascension to greatness, it swears I will have the world and beyond if I just listen to it…and obey.
We can’t forget the obedience part.
But it seems like no matter how much I obey it, and no matter to what degree, there’s still more veiled greatness possible beyond. My companion is never satisfied. There’s always the next.
If you’re wondering about my companion’s origin story, you may be disappointed to find it quite mundane. I was five, introverted, painfully shy, and not particularly happy about going to school.
Why? You’d think it was all the social interaction, but that was a different ailment. At the time, I couldn’t put it into words, but looking back it was school itself. The atmosphere of strict expectations, deadlines, tests, behaviour modification, pop quizzes, and giant adults who often felt terrifying on the verge of dangerous. And thus, my companion, whom I shall now name—Perfectionism—was born.
Well, in all reality it was born perhaps thousands of years ago. Rather, for me, it moved in. Out it emerged from generations past, after haunting my home and my parents, to now roost on my own shoulder where it still vies for space and makes its case for its usefulness.
Now as an adult, I can see Perfectionism much more clearly than I could then, despite all the greys that come with growing up. You see, I’ve learned about the bite, the sting, the bitter aftertaste to all those promises, and believe me, I’ve learned it the hard way. Tendonitis and jaw disease after years of practicing four hours a day on my viola. Dissatisfaction and then anxiety at every good grade because there was always the next test to overcome. Close friends betraying and excluding me because I didn’t live up to their expectations (dictated by Perfectionism rather than my own personality, of course).
“There’s a hunger in me that can never be satisfied by Perfectionism”
That’s the main problem with Perfectionism. Because it’s my companion, it ends up affecting every part of my life. Beginning University has once again resurrected it, but I have been working steadily to evict it once again. The trouble is there’s such a tremulous line between doing well and being responsible, versus doing it well at the expense of my health, or rather, at the bidding of Perfectionism.
To evict Perfectionism (because I know it may be on your shoulder, too), you must first analyse what provides its nest — that place on your shoulder it calls home. Think of it as a landing pad for a helicopter, a port for a ship. For me, I’ve discovered over the years that the primary foundation for its nest on my shoulder is fear. But what exactly do I fear?
Rejection. That’s the root of it. I could say things like failure or ridicule, but really at the heart of it lies my desire for love and acceptance despite my failures and flaws.
The only way to heal that wound for me has been a spiritual journey. My body will age. My mind will dim. My life on this earth will end. But if there’s something beyond my body, is it eternal?
Have I been obsessed with elevating the wrong things, things that are temporal?
There’s a proverb that says, ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick’ 1. In other words, what happens when what we hoped for isn’t realised? It literally makes us sick. My hope was for contentment through accomplishments; acceptance through my work; validation through my gifts. But even when that hope is fulfilled, its fleeting. Like smoke, it dissipates into the all-consuming air around it. There’s a hunger in me that can never be satisfied by Perfectionism. And then even if you hope for something to be perfect, and it actually reaches its pinnacle, there’s nothing left but decline. In my culture we are driven by hope. You can be anyone, do anything, achieve whatever you put your mind to. But as an unfortunate byproduct, we then become a people perpetually dissatisfied because there’s always a better job, a better partner, a better sum of money…
I am not sure who said it first, but there’s a saying: ‘Art is reflection, not perfection.’ What if this truth goes beyond creativity? What if it speaks to identity?
1 Pro 13:12, NIV
Art is like the moon. It simply reflects the light given to it. Are we not the same? Reflecting that spark of life from the womb, like the CMB glow at the edges of the universe, still humming from the moment when light first burst onto the scene in one glorious moment of wonder eons ago.
Friends, my hope cannot be in my grades or the favour of my professors or the good rapport with my fellow students. It must be in the wider view that I am here for a purpose. I may not know exactly what that purpose is, but I know that just being myself and sharing what I have when I can to those around me, reflecting that spark of inception, will fulfil whatever that purpose is. Otherwise, I believe someone else would’ve been sent to fulfil it.
I love what Rocket the Raccoon so brilliantly said in The Guardians of the Galaxy: ‘Ain’t nobody me but me.’
So maybe it’s not about Perfectionism at all, but in being me with as much excellence and authenticity as I can bring, eyes set on that spark of my own creation all those years ago. Because there’s only one me.
A Mouse, Falling
Words: Hannah Hamilton
There I was, writing the mouse as the mouse was falling.
A Mouse, Falling.
The mouse had been satisfactorily scraping in crevices for food, without even vaguely a notion that there were things of more enormity than that what existed directly before him- which, I’m sure the reader will agree, is a very well and comfortable place to be.
Now, this is a surprise.
Thought the mouse, falling.
My grey and fragrant world
Had moments before been pulled away
Like a tablecloth, and all the world, like lunch, had fallen to the floor.
the grey, good ground, gone and the pavement cliff, and lengths and lengths of window and brick
- those city monolithsbecoming like pebbles, and all the green and mottled grey and glinting yellow like mould
from which I had been pulled, All of it nothing against the new
Above, below me, beside, tooa sky all around.
My paws search for something to be found and through their stretched form
The great big below does adorn
Like a jewelled blanket under the palms
Like a murmur, given like alms,
Like a, like a, like a nothing else!
Such were the nexus of the vermin’s qualms.
No, this is not my world.
I have no use for it.
Yet, something true- so much and so far
I never knew
Existed here, beyond my gaze
That there was such excess of space
Containing delights, danger anew
That, a second before, grew and grew.
Upon this flight I did not request
When heavens claw did enclose my chest
Revealed this splendour,
And there below, so small,
Everything I have ever known- it all
Fitting neatly inside a toenail
Falling away like the end of a tail.
Quite spontaneously, this fate manifested
Something enormous to be arrested
This clutch has come to test if
My life and world from inside can be squeezed
And somehow tighter it seems to be
Now I have seen this world, unknown to me.
More’s the pity, more’s the fool,
What woe, Thought the mouse glumly, To have an empty mouth never again to be full.
the silver birch trees in the Green below where there are dogs being walked whilst the owners check their phones, and the breeze gently shakes Winter from the grass.
Arranging my stories has left discarded plots and poems like a pile of leaves, it’s getting hard to shut the drawer on all these worlds being built and discarded, built and discarded. I am sifting foliage at my desk watching the day happen, forgetting that life extends beyond the periphery
The coffee is already cold, having left its shadow on the first draft- now nothing more than a coaster. It’s Spring and the light is getting kinder, hitting the veneer of this desk in a way that almost makes it charming. The landscape of my space is known like my own face, a thought private to myself, before me even when it is not before me.
Rather, as the genesis, the progenitor, of this space and these words, I am before it, always.
It seems that I have had either too much or too little caffeine.
So, in my mind the little thing writhes, its coat is brown at a distance but speckled on closer inspection. The lightest trace of dust on its back and belly, some grey from the street and perhaps also some pollen from
and the mouse is still falling on a warmer Spring day, seeing for the first time the full silver tail of the Tay and the boats are fragments atop it, in one such fragment a sailor watches seagulls and worries over lunch, he will have a sandwich of the same sort he had yesterday- egg salad- though he is beginning to feel nauseous at the thought of it, when he was ashore and a husband (not a husband and ) , his wife packed him only two and it will be two months before he sees her again for another, he looks to the seagulls and prays that in two months’ time he will crave an egg sandwich but, for now, the land slips on silently in the other direction and his house and wife are far, getting farther, away; he is a sailor (.) and no matter what his eyes find, he sees only the sea.
See it like you see the sunlight, or the air. There and not there, the little brown thing falls and the force of it pins its fur sleek like it might be an arrow or a rock or a bullet falling but no, it’s a mouse. I made it so. With eyes wider than they have ever been, those little black holes taking it all in, and inside them is me looking out of them writing the lines and looking outside of them and writing the mouse and the knowing the
table and myself and that it’s daytime in a Spring that is one of many I have seen and YOU SEE IT TOO (?). I hope, and the mouse still falls.
Hanging our thoughts in garlands or nooses, I strain to see the other by the image given, forced, by the shape of the words. The dominance of poetry over the mind, I have always been looking for the reader here, in the interplay. Placement is paramount to the writer, whose chosen task is to give significance and make the signs: ‘If I use excess here instead of immensity, will they understand me?’
The mouse is falling, and I write it down like it’s important.
The reader is a free creature, no less creative. Avoiding or misinterpreting, if they likeas they like- the forceful image.
I am a person wielding a blunt, blunt thing and I am also a mouse with a tale and I am drowning in coffee from yesterday.
You see the mouse, maybe, and the sky it falls out of. The mouse sees it in forget-me-not blue, but I erase it. The erasure is significant, and the shade is significant, of course; the scientific name for a forget-me-not is Myosotis meaning ‘mouse ear’. How little and large metaphors are.
Let’s not dictate the shade. Let’s leave an excess of space, this is important to the mouse, you see? It is important to me.
The mouse falls endlessly, into who knows what?
Nothing, really. There isn’t much point in finding out, the mouse never gets there. I don’t let it.
In my mind, this desk is connected directly to the horizon. That slip of space where the illusion wavers and the flattery of the ocean cannot succeed in becoming the sky. Sometimes, if we are careful and clever and none too quiet, we slide right off it and float through the Up for a while. See?
A Bird, Flying.
All the air is mine today
Tomorrow, perhaps not the same,
But now is endless, there is freedom and blue and, in my clutches, food,
All the air is mine
And the day is good.
Here I am, writing the bird as the bird is flying.
THE JUTE JOURNAL SUBSCRIBE TODAY
The Jute Journal is a weekly newsletter and a new initiative within The Magdalen family. The magnitude of online content and news is often overwhelming, The Jute Journal informs subscribers with the important stuff by condensing the news into what is vital and relevant to members of the university.
month night
a monthly queer spoken word
6:30pm @ blend, dock st studios
Meet the team!
Senior Team
Editor-in-Chief
Hannah Hamilton
Dep. Editor-in-Chief
Arianna De Prosperis
Creative Directors
Ayla Ahmed
Heidi Le
Publishing
The Magdalen is published by Dundee University Student Association (DUSA).
Creative Team
Illustrators
Mia Duffy
Ariane Legradi
Ron Jargielo
Emma Vind
Fleur Pirie
Wen Xi Kong
Photographers
Katherine Donaghy
Alexander Stewart
Mary Musa
Yousif Saleem
Cover Artist
The gorgeous Cover Art for Issue 112 was done by one of our incredible
Illustrators Ariane Legradi!
Section Editors & Publishing
Culture
Tom Christison
Kaitlyn Mann
Creative
Mona Lin Eckle
Emma Thomson
Lifestyle
Eva Milne
Olivia Runciman
Opinions
Angus Coleman
Ayanna Cullen
Social Media
Elinor Whyte
Join our team!
We are entirely student-led, from writing and editing the articles to deisgning them ecvryone is a student! If you’re interestedd in a career in publishing/ journnalism, this is a great cv builder and a great way to get your thoughts and visions out to the campus create new friends. DM The Magdalen Magazine on facebook for more details
The Magdalen Mag az ine
@t hema gdalenma g
@t hema gdalenma g
The Magdalen Mag az ine
ww w.themagda len.co.uk
Browse our entire collection of issues online— free and always available. Just visit issuu.com/ themagdalen to stay in the loop!
Scan the QR code!
What's on?
5th July
19th July
Uniting thousands for a high-energy celebration of trance, techno, and hard house, doof In The Park promises heavy beats, epic basslines, and an atmosphere only a Scottish crowd can create. doof In The Park
Maggie’s Dundee Coastal Trail 2025
Whether you’re walking to remember a loved one or walking to support people affected by cancer, the Coastal Trail will be a great day out for family, friends and colleagues. (Well behaved dogs are welcome too but must be kept on leads at all times. There will be complimentary doggy bandanas for our canine supporters to wear on the day too).
Discovery Festival
A three day music festival in Slessor Gardens, including acts like The Fratellis, White Lies and Cammy Barnes. 27th July Until 25th
17th August
Summer In Nashville
Time to don the Cowboy boots and Stetson as Nashville arrives in Dundee with a huge line up of music, games and food!
