It was a Friday night, the summer following my eighteenth birthday. After the winter that had taken my mother's life, I was determined to change courses.
My focus had been medicine, yes, but there was another part of me; another side that had always been drawn to the darker side of the arts. Specifically, I'd had a fascination with the occult, and with the writings of H. P. Lovecraft since I was a kid.
And so, I was left with a choice. I'd always been an only child; I still am; so I had no family around me to support me. If I wanted to learn about this other world, I would have to do it on my own, or at least as best as I could.
On that Friday evening, around five, a knock came at my door. My father was off, by himself, on business. I opened the door, and surprised to see my great aunt, Beatrice MacGregor, standing there. She was a short woman with a dark mop of auburn hair, a small round face, and a delicate chin. She was reaching the end of her life, and in her final months, I had gotten to know my aunt.
Hello aunt Beatrice, I said to her. What brings you here?
Hello nephew Allan. I've come to see you, before I leave this world. After your mother's death, I've been waiting until you reached an age where you might be able to understand, and to forgive.
My mother had died just a month before, back after Christmas, and now I was in my first summer in the house all by myself. The empty, spacious mansion had been left to me. Before, we'd always said it was my father's, as he was the eldest son and male in line for the title. But now, that title was mine, so I'd spoken to my father about it in since the news of my mother's death.
I looked at my aunt, and she to me, and it hit me like a stab. My mother had passed away from cancer, only nine months earlier. I forgive you, I told her. I'm truly sorry, but I'm alright with it. You must have loved my mother very much for two people, both of whom you loved dearly, to be willing to forgive each other. That's nice.
"I loved her very much, she replied she was a good woman. And then, I loved your father too. I loved each of you, both of you, very much.
"I'm glad to hear that, aunt Beatrice. Of course, I love you too.
I invited her in, and we sat in my living room. She had never visited my home, but now I realized she might.
"How have you been, Aunt Beatrice? I asked.
"I am worn down and weary. I take a few walks daily now to keep me moving and active. I was in the library that day, looking for any information on my clan, she said.
"I came across the idea of your clan, I said. It's called MacGregor's, is it not? Wasn't it something to do with betraying someone, or someone betraying you, in some case? It's been awhile since I studied Scottish history but I don't recall reading that you were welcoming of your own.
"I don't recall any good history. I'm more interested in the current incarnations of the people my ancestor had to deal with.
"The ones that are still here? I asked. Or are there also ones that are hiding, out there in the dark? Is that why you are so curious?
"I am curious, she said. I have been through a great deal. It is my curse. You see, I am the last of the MacGregor's. My clan never bothered with living on through the generations; we didn't make a habit of it like the other clans did, though there were few beyond a handful who could claim to be direct blood.
I managed to find out my lineage a few years ago, and my father had me write up some papers on my history, including my own. As you would have read, I was the last of a long line of women who had fought and killed to protect the castle and those within. The stories went back a few hundred years. There were more tales to tell before that, but the bulk of that clan's history has been lost to time.
"So what happened to your clan? I had to ask.
"My father and mother were two sons, loyal to the crown and to our country, but without some strange foresight and dreams, he might not have been selected for the mission. It was strange, but my father told me he remembered something when my mother went into labor.
It was a recurring dream in which a strange man appeared, looking like something out of the other side, out of the shadows. He tried to convince him not to go, and they only made it through the birthing chamber because he held on to his beliefs. Of everything he remembered, that dream was one of the most vivid.
"Our line has had strange encounters in our history, some of which never really made sense. There were a few that might have been genetic anomalies, and a few that took place before I was born. However, the most outstanding of these had me as the central figure. When I was only four, I had an encounter with what I would later come to call 'the shadow-man.
The man I knew as my Uncle Jeffrey introduced me to him when I was six. The shadow-man gave him a name; I don't know what it was, but it was disturbing and an evil name. They both wore blue robes and had long dark hair, but that's all I remember.
What happened next? I asked.
When I was ten, he returned to me, for the third and last time. He subjected me to his powers and made me do things to a friend of mine, whose name is insignificant, though I have clear memories of it.
I don't remember the other two times, but I remember that moment. I cannot forget the fact that I should have been the one who was killed by the school bus, and my best friend, the one who barely survived, was the one I held onto, refusing to let go when I'd survived the fatal accident.
My mother, who thankfully had looked after me when she could, told me there was a man in the shadows, that he would always be there. That he was in my nightmares, and had been a long time before the day I'd ever discovered the truth. I had never seen anything like that, but I knew there was something wrong with my father. He would look lost and confused after that.
One day he asked me to help him find some of his things, that he hadn't seen in a very long time. There was a locker where he kept his medals, and some items pertaining to his work.