The Cailleach

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Calista Malone

111111111111Clouds circle Edinburgh. On some corner in Leith, he and his mate post up against the pawn shop. Red joggers bunched at the ankles, red zip-up dashed with oil from the chippy. A cigarette flipping from finger to finger, unlit, watching women as they make their way home just before the city street lights flicker on. They whistle when one gets too close, walks a little faster, looks up at them with eyes in a needle. A woman, with skin that’s never seen the sun, pulls her cart behind her, full of granite, cooled and collected somewhere around Ben Nevis, or so the sign on her wagon says. Maybe to make a new countertop in the kitchen of some posher’s flat. Maybe to make a sculpture of some Celtic deity in on the Georgian side of the city. One of the mates, finally lights up, flicking ashes at her feet, sighs, can you believe this old crow, hauling rocks across town? Watch this, he says. Louder he says, Hey hen, gimme a smile. She looks up, eyes like ash and grins, blood lining her teeth, yellowing the sharpening canines beneath her lips. The Cailleach

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