NB: This chapter has also been edited to at least make a poor attempt to deal with Rahne's faith and religious beliefs.
A week went by, without any further disturbance of the rather unorthodox routine of life at Muir Island. However, in the wake of Edward Carson's public announcement a leaden cloud seemed to have descended onto the Research Centre. Rahne was left to her own devices more often than not; the three other permanent residents withdrew into their respective all-absorbing pursuits – Moira segregated herself in the lab, Sean returned to his Interpol business and Teresa was once again submerged under a mountain of books. It was a situation which normally Rahne would have welcomed, but now as she had no similar obsession to devote herself to she was unable to keep from brooding.
Whether it was memories of her parents, worries about the mutant witch-hunt, or her new inability to control her powers that occupied her mind the result was the same - it was working overtime, and not in a productive way. Caught in a spiral of negative thoughts and recurrent black moods, her fragile peace of mind was gone. She felt as thought an unseen vice had gripped her and was now applying pressure from every direction at once – or maybe it was just that the walls were creeping in toward her, every wall growing smaller and smaller, trapping her.
Ordinarily she would have transformed to relieve these claustrophobic feelings, which sprang at least in part from her wolf-side's natural response to being confined for too long – both inside the building and inside a human body. Coupled with the incessant recurrence of her anxieties, these instincts were enough to drive her to distraction. As Wolfsbane, not only would the insistent lupine instincts be fulfilled, but she would be free from the pointless, endless negative thoughts – free just to be. But it was not only her parents and her childhood that she had lost in that one night – they had taken away her trust in herself and the control over her powers and, and with it, Rahne reflected bitterly, they had taken the one thing had made her truly happy. She longed for the freedom and simplicity of the wolf, but at the same time she was still afraid of what she might do, and whether she would be able to come back.
Trapped in her unrelieved obsessions and with an increasingly negative and angry mindset, Rahne swore that she would repay the people who had done this to her parents and to her. And so when Sean found her one afternoon and informed her that someone from the mainland had come to see her, her first reaction was a point-blank refusal to have anything to do with them. Eventually Sean managed to prevail upon her to at least see meet with the visitor, but as she followed him grudgingly through the corridors she was already inventing ways to get rid of this unwelcome intruder.
Still occupied in her schemes, she was somewhat surprised by the person who was waiting for her – it was Tony, looking more or less the same as he ever had, longish brown hair as tangled as ever, but his normally open face was creased in a slight frown and a decided hint of nervousness was wafting from him. Despite her vow of revenge, Rahne was still hurt that someone who had been her friend was now scared of being near her. But Tony's nervousness evaporated on seeing her, replaced by a scent of relief. "Rahne! Thank god ye're okay!" he exclaimed.
Rahne froze him with a glare. How dare he pretend he was worried about her! "Somehow I don't think God had anything to do with it," she retorted coldly. "I'm a demon remember? Someone that needs to be destroyed by the cleansing flames?" She watched with a sort of sadistic pleasure as her friend's face crumpled into an expression of hurt confusion, but her satisfaction was unaccountably mixed with a tinge of regret.
"Rahne… he's – he isna like that," Tony protested. "God, I mean. You've just got ta have faith, and trust in him. He has a…"
"A plan?" Rahne snarled, cutting him off in mid-sentence as her anger – at the people who did this, at God, at everything boiled over. "What sort of plan involves letting people burn to death?" Years of faith had been destroyed for her, in one single night. God had done nothing, if indeed he was anything more than the Reverend's great stooge. "I have nothing to say to you," she declared, struggling to keep her voice impersonal, and turned to walk out of the room.
"Rahne, wait…," he pleaded, but she walked toward the door without a backward glance. She was a few metres down the hall before Sean caught up with her.
"Wait a minute there, Rahne," he said, grabbing hold of her wrist and spinning her around to face him. "Where do y' think y're going?"
"I told you – I don't have anything to say to him, or anyone else from Ullapool for that matter," she replied. "I don't want to see any of them after what they did."
"That's fine, lass," the Irishman replied. "But y' need t' talk t' that boy in there – I think y' might find it'll be worth your time."
"I don't see how," Rahne said, fighting back the urge to yell at him. It was a battle which she lost very quickly. "What's he going to say? Sorry, we killed your parents and ruined your life? It wasn't just Reverend Craig burning me, ye know! They were all there, all taking part – even if they didn't want to they were just too cowardly to tell him where to go! They…." But then in the middle of her rant she remembered that there had been one person who had stood up for her apart from her parents that night, risking calling down the wrath of the Reverend upon himself. Tony had argued for her in front of the gathering mob – she owed him a chance to explain himself at the least.
……
She re-entered the room somewhat sheepishly. The anger and resentment was still there, but her upbringing had been strict enough to make her feel ashamed of her earlier rudeness. "I'm sorry," she told Tony stiffly, trying to keep herself removed from all the emotions that seeing her old friend had engendered. "What did you want to say?"
The distant, unfriendly tone of her voice seemed to hit him physically – Rahne could smell the sudden stab of pain that radiated from him. She watched silently as he made an obvious effort to control himself, taking a deep breath. Finally, in a voice that sounded smaller and quieter than she remembered, he spoke: "Why did ye never tell me, Rahne?"
Whatever she had been expecting, that wasn't it. She stared open-mouthed for a few seconds before managing a bitter reply. "What was I supposed to say? Yoe know those demons everyone's scared of? Well, I'm one of them. You saw what happened when… when they found out…," voice breaking, she trailed off.
"And ye thought I'd be just like all the others in the village?" There was a definite note of accusation in the question. "I thought ye knew me better than that, Rahne. I thought I was your friend."
"And I thought Claire was mine." She'd meant that to be a sarcastic rejoinder, to maintain her stony, aloof manner. But her voice betrayed her, the words coming out barely above a whisper. Before she knew it, tears were rolling down her face again. She made a half-hearted effort to wipe them away, but Tony crossed the room and somewhat awkwardly put an arm around her. Rahne accepted it silently, relieved at that moment to have someone whose friendship was given unreservedly.
Neither said anything until her tears finally dried. Rahne apologised again, sincerely this time. "I'm sorry for being so rude to you."
Tony shrugged, smiling at her. "It's nae problem. I'm just glad ye're alright."
"Mostly alright, anyway," she replied wryly, with more nonchalance than she actually felt. She knew she was not even close to being alright – but she could also accept now that it wasn't Tony's fault. "So what happened to you that night?" she asked, changing the subject. "After…." She couldn't bring herself to say it. After they started hunting me.
"Well, um…," he began, as hesitant in talking about the events as she was. "After… after I shouted at the Reverend, my family got me out of there. They could see where it was all headin', the mob and all that, and they wanted nae part of it." Rahne felt a surge of anger – they hadn't taken part, but they'd done nothing to help her, had they? But she forced herself to remember about the spell the Minister had cast over the rest of the village. Her parents had fought back, and look what happened to them – it took some courage even to resist taking part in the mob. "When we got back home, Jamie called the police," he continued. "They said they'd put their mutant relations team on it, or something." So that was how Sean and Moira knew. Rahne mentally apologised for being angry at the MacLeods – that phone call had saved her life. "And then we just sat up and waited." Tony said, sounding rather unhappy. "I'm sorry I didna do anythin', ye know. Truly. But, I… I just… there wasna…," he trailed off on that somewhat lame note of apology.
"It's okay," she reassured him, truthfully. "Ye did more than anyone else."
"Aye, but…." His scent was heavy with remorse and self-disgust.
"Look, it's done now Ton – ye can't do anything about it anymore." Even if she couldn't follow it herself, some of the wolf world view was still there. "What happened next – after I was gone?"
"Aye, well that Irish guy who lives here – Sean is it? – came back ta the village the next day and had a wee chat with us. Said he knew it was the Reverend who was behind it all, but that didna excuse what happened."
"Did he arrest them?" Rahne asked – she'd heard next to nothing about the events that had occurred during her period as a wolf.
"Nae – but I'm not sure why," said Tony. "Maybe it was too hard ta tell who did what. Or maybe there was no one ready to testify to say that it was arson, because they were all in on it. He was looking for the Reverend, but that snake had disappeared completely – must have escaped in all the confusion after they took ye away."
Rahne's anger resurfaced. "He can try running, but I'm going to kill him," she said, her voice tight with the desire for revenge. "I'm going to repay what he did to my parents. What they all did." Even she was surprised at the steadiness of her tone – she wasn't calm, but rather controlled, her anger channelling into a directed purpose as she uttered the resolution. "They all need to be punished."
"They already are," Tony replied. "Everything that happened – it's ripped the guts out of the town, Rahne. People dinna talk ta each other – they canna even look each other in the eye. The community's torn ta pieces – it just doesna exist anymore. There's nothing ta connect them now, except guilt."
Tony had always been the peacemaker among the young people of Ullapool – trying to smoothe frayed tempers and keep everyone talking to each other. The situation now must have been a nightmare for him and Rahne thought she could see the strain in his face. She almost wished she could do something about it, to help him. Almost. "Aye, well, they deserve it," she retorted angrily, the desire to punish the villagers winning out over wanting to help her friend. "You know what they did – do you think they're paying enough? Do you think the Reverend's paying enough? Do you think…." She couldn't bring herself to say Claire's name. "I'm going to kill him," she repeated instead.
"Ye dinna want ta do that. Ye're better than that," he pleaded with her, almost desperately.
"Nay, I'm not. You weren't there – you didn't see what I did, what I tried to do." She felt the beginnings of hysteria within her as she continued, riding right over her friend's attempts at placation. "And now I can't control the wolf – I can't even transform because if I do, I can't come back. I'm stuck here, Ton. I'm stuck…." She burst into tears once more.
"Hush now," he told her, hugging her again, still a little awkward. "Ye can control it. Ye're better than that." He repeated it, over and over, until she calmed down again.
But after he left Rahne still wasn't sure that she was, that she could control it. She went and sat outside on the moors, trying to will the transformation – but nothing happened. She knew inside that she was still too scared to let herself go.