A Gift From Shetland

By Chris Carr <carrcmh@yahoo.co.uk>

Rated: G

Submitted: January 2004

_____

INTRODUCTION:

Although the show makes it obvious that Clark travelled  extensively in the years before he settled in Metropolis, we  are told very little about the places he went to.  We know  even less about the people he met.  But Clark is a likeable  man.  Despite maintaining a cautious distance from those  around him, he nonetheless seems to have a gift for making  friends.  It's hard, therefore, to believe that he would have  forged no lasting relationships before he started work at the  Daily Planet.

That, then, was the starting point from which this story  grew.  The final result?  Well, you'll have to read on to  find out where my musings led me.

I apologise in advance for any mistakes I have made in  getting cultural and geographical nuances right.  While I've  tried to do my best here, I am by no means an expert.  The  Shetland Islands are beautiful, but, alas, I know them only  as a visitor, not as a resident.

With many, many thanks to Yvonne for beta-reading.  Thanks,  also, to Wendy for suggesting "Grannanna" as a term of  endearment and the kind people on IRC who found a few things  for me to alter. :)  Thanks also to the folks at the Lois and  Clark Fanfic message boards for saying such lovely things. :)

DISCLAIMER: This story has been written for fun, not profit.   No attempt is being made to infringe any existing copyrights  held by December 3rd Productions, Warner Bros, D C Comics, or  any other copyright holders.

A Gift From Shetland

by Chris Carr

Part 01

As Winnie Byrne, nee Eunson, grew older she found herself  remembering the old days more and more.  She remembered life  in the old croft house, which had long since been abandoned.   These days, gutted of its contents, its timbers, windows and  thatch, it was a ruin, barely more than a pile of stones  rising out of the long grass on the other side of the voe.   She remembered sleeping in a box bed - a cupboardlike  arrangement with sliding doors that had been set into the  wall of the bedroom.  She had shared it with one of her  sisters and some friendly fleas.

Winnie remembered the long summer days and the not-quite  darkness of the short summer nights that the Shetlanders call  the simmer dim.  In her memory they were times of endless  sun, the kind of perfect summers that only exist in an  adult's memory of childhood.

Winnie remembered the long, dark winter nights, and the  evenings spent huddled around the peat fires as she listened  to her father telling stories while he mended the fishing  nets and her mother taught her to knit.

Along with more recent ones of her own, Winnie had passed her  father's stories down to her children and her children's  children.  Now she was passing them on to her first great  grandchild, Jessi.

Winnie told Jessi how life had been when she was young.  She  told Jessi about the doomed love her sister had had for a  Norwegian fisherman, who had been a refugee on the islands  during World War II.  She told Jessi what life had been like  before oil wealth had come to Shetland.  But most of all, she  told Jessi about the old beliefs.

Of course, in more enlightened days, children no longer  believed in the selkie folk or the trows.  And Winnie Byrne,  nee Eunson, also knew better than to believe in such  nonsense.

And yet...

When Jessi pointed out a stranger on the beach, Winnie's  first thought was of the stories she had learned at her  father's knee.  She remembered the legends of the selkie and  of the Finn because who, or what, else could have emerged out  of the tempestuous sea in human guise?

*****

"Grannanna!  Grannanna!"

"What is it, Jess?" Winnie asked.  She lifted her eyes from  her knitting to look at the eight year old who was kneeling  on the window seat.  Jessi was pressing her nose against the  glass so that she could peer around the rivulets of water  that were streaming down the window pane.

Jessica turned her head slightly and replied, "There's a man  down on the beach!"

"People come down to visit the beach all the time, Jessi,"  Winnie said.  "There's no need to make a song and dance about  it."

"People don't come down here on a day like today," Jessica  argued in the patented manner of a child talking to a  particularly dense adult.  As if to reinforce her argument,  the wind chose that moment to howl particularly loudly around  the eaves.  "In any case, that's not the weirdest thing.  The  weirdest thing is that he wasn't there a moment ago.  He  just... appeared.  It was like magic."

Winnie shook her head.  "You must be mistaken," she said.   "He probably just walked down by the side of the house."

"Grannanna!" protested Jessi, as well she might.  It was,  even to Winnie's ears, a feeble suggestion.  For one thing,  there were no trees anywhere on the island, let alone around  the house, to hide a fully-grown man from view.  For another,  Jessi had spent the last half-hour staring out of the window,  watching the lashing rain and wishing petulantly and  vociferously that she could go outside.  Moreover, Jessi was  the most observant child Winnie had ever known.  If Jessi  said the man had just appeared from nowhere then, as  improbable as it sounded, Winnie was inclined to believe her.

Winnie carefully heaved her arthritic body upright and put  her knitting to one side.  "Let me see," she said.

Jessi shifted sideways so that Winnie could peer over her  shoulder.  Like Jessi, Winnie had to press her face close to  one of the window panes so that she could squint around the  glistening streaks of water that were streaming down the  glass.

They watched the stranger pace along the sand, getting wetter  and wetter, his dark hair plastering against his skull, his  jeans clinging wetly to his legs, and his jacket darkening by  the second with all the water it was absorbing.  His hands  were thrust deep into his pockets and his shoulders were  hunched against the wind.

Jessi looked up at Winnie and asked, "What's he doing?"

"Just walking, by the looks of it."

"Why?"

Winnie frowned and said, "I've no idea, Jessi."

Winnie Byrne's life had been a difficult one.  She'd known  hardship and sorrow, yet there was no bitterness in her  heart.  She knew the meaning of compassion and she shivered  in automatic sympathy with the stranger.  What kind of a fool  came out into a spring storm dressed only in a light summer  jacket and jeans?

The elderly clock on the mantelpiece ticked wheezily as they  watched, and the frown lines on Winnie's forehead carved  themselves deeper as her concern grew.  Finally, she could  stand it no more.  No matter who he was, he had to come in  out of the driving rain.

"Stay here," Winnie said.  "I'll only be a minute."  Then she  went into the porch, pulled on her boots and shrugged on her  oilskin coat.  She pulled the hood over her head and held it  tightly closed with her left hand as she opened the front  door with her right.

The wind was fierce, and Winnie could taste the salt spray  that was blowing off the sea when she licked her lips, where  it mingled with the rain.  There were whitecaps on the water,  and the waves pounded against the sand, foaming angrily.

The storm pushed at Winnie; she pushed back, determined to  defy it.  Maybe, had she not been struggling so hard, she  would have realised that the stranger was not fighting the  storm.  Instead, he seemed immune to its fury, walking around  in it as if it were nothing more severe that a light July  shower.  However, it would only be later - much later - that  Winnie would think about that.

As it was, Winnie concentrated on putting one foot in front  of the other, taking a route down to the shore that avoided  all the cotton-grass and moss-covered bog.  The grass,  normally ankle-deep, was almost flattened by the wind, and  the few sheep she could see were huddling miserably in the  lee of the house.

Winnie made it onto the beach and called out, but her words  were ripped away by the storm.  She couldn't hear them  herself, so there was no way that the stranger should have  been able to.  Yet, he turned around to look at her, his  whole face a question.

He mouthed something, but Winnie had no hope of deciphering  the words.  Her "I can't hear you!" should have been futile,  too, so she reinforced it by pantomiming a cupping of her  ears and then beckoning him towards her.

He came, and when he drew level with her, she yelled in his  ear, "You should come along inside, before this weather is  the death of you!"

Winnie surely imagined his response: a wry laugh and the  words, "The wind and rain can't hurt me!"

"Don't be a fool, man!" she shouted brusquely.  "You need  warmth.  And, I dare say, some tea wouldn't hurt, either!"

He smiled at her, either amused by her manner or grateful for  her care.  Winnie wasn't sure which.  All she knew for sure  was that his was a gleaming white smile.

It was a movie-star kind of smile, Winnie thought.  It made  her ageing heart skip beats and remember how it felt to be  young.  If she had been fifty years younger, she might have  been attracted to him.  Even now, in her seventies, she could  appreciate the beauty of his smile.  She was old, not dead!

Then again, Winnie Byrne, nee Eunson, had always been a one- man kind of woman.  Arthur had stolen her heart the moment  she had first set eyes on him, back when she was only  fifteen.  She'd had to wait impatiently for three years  before he'd got a clue, then another four before they'd  finally married.

This young man would never have stood a chance with her.

It was easier going back to the house, with the wind at their  backs and their arms intertwined together to give them added  balance.  Indeed, so strong were some of the gusts that once  or twice Winnie was sure that she would have been swept off  her feet were it not for the stranger's firm grip.

Winnie opened the front door and ushered the stranger in  before her.  It took the two of them to push it shut again.   Then she called out, "Jessi!  Fetch me some towels and  blankets!" as she began to peel off her waterproofs.

The stranger and she stood in the enclosed porch and looked  at each other.  Even though Winnie had lived on the islands  all her life, she could not be described as na‹ve.  She knew  exotic when she saw it, and this young man was certainly  that.  She'd never seen a face quite like his, not even  amongst the tourists who sometimes passed through.  His wet  hair gleamed like onyx, his cheekbones were chiselled high,  and his eyes were of the gentlest, deepest brown that she'd  ever seen in a man.  They were seal's eyes, Winnie thought,  and she shivered.

Seal eyes... and he'd come from the sea.  And she remembered  all the stories she had learned at her father's knee some  seventy years before.

But Winnie was a wise and practical woman.  She was too  sensible to entertain the mad thoughts that had just come to  her, so she pushed them away and busied herself with more  practical matters.

Jessi bustled in self-importantly with a huge pile of towels  and blankets.  It looked as though she had the entire  contents of the linen cupboard gathered precariously in her  little arms.

Winnie passed a bath sheet over to the stranger - now their  guest - and bade him to dry his hair.  Then she led him  through the house to the bathroom.  She told him to go  inside, take off his wet things and pass them to her so that  she could hang them up.  "I'm sorry," Winnie said, "but it's  been a few years since there has been a man in the house, and  I've nothing to offer you to wear except blankets until your  own things are dry.  Now, take a good, hot shower and get the  chill out of your bones!"

He smiled again, and again Winnie saw a flash of perfect  white.

*****

Part 02

By the time she heard the plumbing give the tell-tale clank  that told her the stranger had switched off the water, Winnie  had put his clothes on a clothes horse in front of the fire  in the living room, had made a pot of tea and had set some  bannocks and jam out on the kitchen table.

Winnie felt, rather than heard, his arrival, and she turned  to find him hovering self-consciously in the doorway.  He'd  wrapped one of the blankets around his midriff as though it  were a generous bath towel and he'd draped another around his  shoulders in the manner of a cape.  Tanned forearms, hands  and feet poked out from beneath the voluminous material.

"Come in, come in and sit down," Winnie said.  She managed,  with an effort, not to stare.  Then she called, "Jessi!  Come  and have a drink with us!"

The clatter of what Winnie guessed to be pens and paper being  dumped unceremoniously onto the coffee table in the living  room and the thud-thud of small feet told Winnie that Jessi  was doing as she had been told.

"How do you like your tea...?"  Winnie let an unspoken  question hover behind the verbal one.

Her perceptive visitor answered both.  "Without milk, please,  Ma'am.  And... I guess I should introduce myself properly.   My name is Clark Kent."  He took a couple of steps forward  and held out his hand.

His palm felt warm against hers, and her hand was very small  in his.  For some reason, his touch made her want to blush,  so she withdrew as quickly as she could without seeming rude.   Then she busied herself with the tea-pot.

"I'm Winnie Byrne," she said.  "And this-" she paused to  gesture at Jessi, who had just arrived, "-is my great  granddaughter, Jessica."

"Jessi," corrected the child with a slight whine and a scowl.

"Sorry.  This is *Jessi*."   Winnie looked at Clark, letting  their gazes lock over the child's head.  "She's only Jessica  when her mother is really cross with her.  Isn't that right,  Jessi?"

Jessi, still scowling, nodded and scrambled into a chair.   Perhaps she didn't like the reminder that her parents could  ever be angry, or perhaps she didn't like the fact that her  great grandmother would reveal that she could be naughty to a  visitor.

Clark laughed.  It was a rich sound that filled and warmed  the kitchen.  "Oh, I know just how that works!  Most of the  time I'm just plain old Clark, but when my folks get mad, I  become 'Clark Jerome Kent'!"

Jessi looked up at Clark and her scowl shifted into a shy  smile.  Winnie was tempted to smile, too, but before she did  she wanted some answers from the young man.  After making  sure that all three of them had everything they needed,  Winnie sat down, took a sip of her own tea, and asked, "So,  where are you from, Clark?"

He chewed and swallowed his mouthful of bannock, taking  slightly longer about it than Winnie thought was strictly  necessary.  It was as though he was delaying having to  answer, though why such a question should be difficult was  beyond her... unless, of course, he had something to hide.

Finally he said, "Kansas."

"In the USA?" asked Winnie.  She couldn't help being  surprised at his answer, even though she had already noted  his accent.  They rarely got visitors from America on the  island.  She couldn't remember ever having met one so early  in the season.  Nor would she have expected to because  neither of the bed and breakfasts took bookings before  Easter.  Yet his answer seemed to be too improbable to be a  casual lie.

He nodded.  "My parents have a farm there, near the town of  Smallville."

What an odd name! Winnie thought.  It seemed almost too  mundane to be true, but if it was a lie, it wasn't a very  good one.  She had never heard of Smallville.  Then again,  there were many places she had never heard of, so that proved  nothing either one way or the other.

She tried again.  "And what brought you out here on a day  like today?"

"I..."  Clark definitely seemed at a loss this time.  "I was  upset about... something.  And I needed time to think, so I  got out of the house and started... walking.  And before I  knew it, I was on your beach."

Winnie eyed him sceptically.  She'd raised enough children to  recognise an evasion when she heard one.  "One thing you  should know, young man, is that everyone on this island knows  everything about everyone else.  And I know that you could no  more have walked here than you could have flown!"

The strangest expression flitted across the young man's face.   It was a blend of embarrassment and unease, both of which  Winnie put down to his being caught in the lie.  It crossed  her mind, then, to wonder how sensible it had been to invite  this man - little more than a boy, really - into her house.   It was an uncomfortable feeling; distrust didn't come  naturally to Winnie Byrne.

"How *did* you get here, mister?" asked Jessi.  Winnie was  grateful to her great grandchild for asking the question.   She, herself, would have found it difficult to ask for  information in quite so direct a fashion.  However, coming  from a child, the words could never be seen as rude.  Jessi  didn't sound wary, just openly curious.  "I know!  You came  on the boat, didn't you?"

Winnie shook her head.  "He can't have done.  The ferry  doesn't run on a Sunday.  You know that, Jessi."  She flicked  her eyes at Clark, wanting to see his reaction to that bit of  information.  However, he was looking down at his hands, so  she couldn't see his expression.

"So, how *did* you get here, mister?" demanded Jessi.

He looked up again, and across at the child.  There was a  strange kind of dismay lingering around his eyes, even as he  forced himself to smile.  He flicked a glance at Winnie, then  began to speak.  "I'm a poor shipwrecked sailor, the sole  survivor of a ship lost far out to sea."

Not true, thought Winnie, and she wondered at the way the  lies flowed with ease from his mouth.  She was certain he was  lying, not only because of the teasing note he had injected  into his tone, but also because his clothes were all wrong  for a sailor, just as they had been wrong for taking a stroll  in a Shetland storm.  What she wasn't certain about, however,  was his motive for telling the lies; was he trying to evade,  to deceive, to beguile or to entertain?  Did he mean them any  harm?  She wished she could know for sure.

Meanwhile, she saw Jessi's eyes light up at the promise of a  story, and she decided to let Clark weave his tissue of lies  for a little longer.  Maybe she would figure something of the  mystery out if she observed him for a while.

*****

Clark had just concluded his story when a grizzled mongrel  tottered into the kitchen.  The dog moved stiffly and  uneasily, and his paws scratched and slid against the vinyl  floor.

"Well, look who has woken up at last!" said Winnie fondly.   She reached out from her chair and scratched the top of the  dog's head.

The dog sniffed the air, then turned curious eyes towards the  stranger.  He gave a vague wag of his tail and tottered over  to investigate Clark more closely.

"Don't mind Haggis.  He's as friendly as they come, just a  little old and arthritic.  He's rather like me, really,"  chuckled Winnie.

"Hi, there, old fella," said Clark, leaning over, and  offering a hand to the dog for him to smell.  "Haggis, is  it?"

Haggis woofed in lethargic agreement, sniffed Clark's skin,  and decided that he approved.  Then he rested his chin on  Clark's lap and raised soulful eyes at his new acquaintance.

"My grandson - Jessi's uncle, that is - named him," Winnie  said.

Clark scratched Haggis behind the ears, prompting the dog to  push his greying head even further across Clark's lap in  appreciation.  Then the dog lifted his chin a little, tilted  his head to one side and whined, his eyes flicking from the  remains of Clark's bannock, which lay abandoned on his plate,  to Clark's face and back again.

"Now, don't go believing any of that dog's nonsense," warned  Winnie.  "He's no more starving than I am!"

Winnie and Jessi watched Clark pet the dog.  After a while,  Jessi slid off her chair and moved to crouch next to the pair  and wrapped her arms possessively around Haggis's chest.   Clearly she had reached the limits of her eight-year-old  ability to share.  If Winnie were not careful, Jessi's famous  temper might begin to fray.

"If we're all done," she suggested, "perhaps we might move  into the living room.  The chairs in here are a little hard,  don't you think?"  It wasn't entirely an excuse, made to  defuse any tantrums that might be coming her way, either.  If  Winnie stayed in one place for too long, she could feel her  joints begin to stiffen in protest.  She would feel more  comfortable if she moved around a little bit.

She braced her right hand on the table to increase her  leverage as she tried to stand.  She could have managed  perfectly adequately on her own, but she didn't need to.  She  felt a warm hand brace her elbow and heard Clark murmur,  "Here, let me help you, ma'am."

"Thank you," she said, and she meant it.  His was a tiny act  of kindness, but it showed an unusual degree of empathy, she  thought.  Not many strangers would have thought to help her  in that way.  Indeed, only the closest of her family knew to  do it.

She felt herself soften towards the stranger just a little  bit more, then struggled to resurrect her guard.  She didn't  want to let it slip just yet.

*****

As Clark looked around, Winnie saw her living room anew.  It  was a small room as befitted such a small house.  The walls  were covered with a pink floral wallpaper, the pattern faded  with age.  Two framed prints of landscapes faced each other  from opposite walls.

Jessi's colouring pad and felt-tip pens lay scattered across  the coffee table and floor, and Winnie's abandoned knitting  was resting in a bundle in the old wing chair closest to the  fire.  The fire, itself, was currently blocked from view by  the clothes horse upon which Clark's clothes had been set out  to dry.

Beyond that day's disorganised mess was the more ordered  clutter of a lifetime's accumulated knickknacks.  There were  delicate china boxes and figurines along the window sills and  framed photographs aplenty atop every available surface.   There were pictures of weddings, christenings and parties,  and there were portraits of smiling gap-toothed children in  school uniforms and self-conscious looking adults in their  Sunday best.  There was at least one picture for every member  of Winnie's large family.

Most prominent of all, on the mantelpiece, stood two black  and white photographs, one on each side of the wheezing  clock.  The one on the left was a wedding photograph.  By  modern standards, it was of poor quality, grainy, poorly  focused and sepia with age.  The couple within appeared stiff  as they stared sternly into the camera's lens.

Winnie had still been slim when that picture had been taken  and, according to Arthur, she had been beautiful.  Winnie  didn't know about that; all she knew was that Arthur had been  the most handsome of men and that no picture could ever have  done him justice.

The photograph on the right came close, however. It was a  head and shoulders portrait that one of Winnie's children had  taken on Arthur's fiftieth birthday.  Whereas she had widened  and lost her looks as she had aged, Arthur had merely become  more distinguished.  His hair had greyed and the lines on his  face had become more deeply carved as the years had passed,  but he had never gained weight or lost his hair.  And,  somehow, the picture had managed to capture the twinkle in  his bright blue eyes and the hint of his trademark smile that  was playing around his lips.

For some reason, Clark seemed drawn to the photograph.  He  walked over, stopping a couple of paces short of the mantel,  and gestured towards it.  "Is this your husband?"

Winnie nodded.  "Yes.  That's my Arthur.  He's dead now,  though."

"Oh.  I'm sorry."

It was nice of him to say so, Winnie thought grudgingly.  She  still had her concerns about him, but she had to admit that  he had good manners.  Someone, somewhere, had taught him  well.

Since he was next to the fire, he fingered his clothes and  said, "I think they're dry now."

Winnie did not believe him - how could they have dried  already? - so she checked for herself.  Her eyebrows rose a  fraction.  Surprised, she said, "And so they are.  But you  can't leave until the storm eases.  Otherwise you'll be right  back where you started."

Clark nodded, then turned to look at the window.  He seemed  to stare out into the impenetrable darkness.  Then he said,  "I think the rain's stopped.  I should be fine."  He glanced  sheepishly down at the blankets he was wearing.  "In any  case, I think I'd like to get changed."

Winnie thought his discomforted embarrassment was rather  endearing.  "Very well.  You know where the bathroom is."

While he changed, Winnie took a look out of the front door.   Clark was right: the rain *had* stopped.  How had he known  that?  She shook her head, perplexed.

*****

The wind had veered around to the north and had dropped down  to a stiff breeze.  There was a noticeable bite to the air  that had not been there earlier.  Above them, broken clouds  scudded past, revealing glimpses of the glittering stars and  crescent moon beyond.

"Good-bye, Mrs Byrne.  Thank you for everything."

Winnie didn't say "You're welcome."  She wasn't entirely sure  that he was.  Certainly, he was a likeable boy, but...  She  stopped herself from shaking her head.  She still had so many  unanswered questions!

Clark held out his hand, just as he had done earlier in the  kitchen.

Winnie took his hand and shook, and was pleased that the  darkness hid her blush.

Then Clark turned away and began to walk.  Winnie watched for  a minute before retreating inside.  When she looked out  through the living room window, he was nowhere to be seen.

She pondered for a moment on his disappearance, then turned  her attention back towards a more immediate problem.  Jessi's  parents would be coming by soon to collect her, and the  child's belongings had somehow managed to scatter themselves  throughout the house.  She stiffly bent over and began to  gather the various bits and pieces together even as she  called Jessi to come and help.

Winnie's thoughts lingered on Clark as she and Jessi tidied.   She was sure that she would never see him again.

She was wrong.

*****

Part 03

It was a cold, clear day in early January, during that dead  time following the turn of the year.  A thin smattering of  snow covered the ground, but the sky was clear and serene.   The feeble sun hung low in the midday sky, casting long  shadows across the ground.  All too soon it would pass below  the horizon again, and another long winter's night would  begin.  Winnie had to make the most of the precious hours of  daylight while she could.

Winnie was dressed in coat, hat, scarf and gloves.  Her  cheeks were pink where they had been pinched by the cold and  her footsteps were as brisk as she could make them.  Haggis  was having a hard time keeping up with her.  Winnie suspected  that he meandered off as often as he did to investigate a  myriad of exciting smells so that he could hide his age and  decrepitude.

Suddenly Haggis barked happily and scampered with  uncharacteristic energy past her.  Winnie looked around to  find the cause of the commotion.

It took a moment for her to recognise and remember the young  man who was now crouching down, making a fuss of the dog.  It  had been almost a year since they had met, after all.

"Clark!" she exclaimed.  "This *is* a surprise!"  She  wondered whether it was a welcome one.

"Hi, Mrs Byrne."  Clark smiled readily and warmly as he stood  up.  His smile was just as dazzling as she remembered.  "I  was passing by, and I decided to take another look at the  beach.  I wondered what it looked like when there wasn't a  gale blowing!"

"And what do you think of it?"

Clark inhaled deeply and said, "It's beautiful."

Winnie nodded, pleased with his approval.  Of course, it was  no less than the beach deserved.

"I never saw a real beach when I was growing up," Clark said.   "Except on television, of course.  But that never prepares  you for the real thing.  This" - he waved a hand to encompass  the sea and the sand - "is wonderful."

"So what was it like, where you grew up?"

"Oh..."  Clark shrugged.  Winnie watched him as he searched  for the words he needed to describe...  Where was it he had  said he was from again?  Ah, yes.  Kansas.  "Mostly flat," he  said eventually.  "A few trees.  Some hills.  Acres and acres  of farmland, of course.  Lots of corn, although my parents  keep cattle, too."

"It sounds nice," said Winnie, more out of politeness than  with any real conviction.  She couldn't imagine anywhere  without the sea.

"It is nice," agreed Clark.

They fell into step and walked silently a little way down the  strand.  Then Clark asked, "How's Jessi?"

"She's fine.  Doing well in school."

"That's good."

"And yourself?"

"Pretty much the same," said Clark.

Haggis, Winnie noticed, as they wandered along the beach,  appeared to have wandered off again.  She was beginning to  wonder where he had got to, when he suddenly broke into a  full-throated frenzy of barks.  Something had to be very  wrong, thought Winnie, to make him react like that!

She broke into as much of a run as her tired, old legs could  manage, and she mentally cursed the way the years had aged  her.  Oh, to be able to run as she had done, back when she  was young!

The way Clark was running now.

The young man tore along the beach, guided only by the sound  of the dog's alarm call.  Then he disappeared from view, into  a small gully that channelled water down from the hills  behind the house.

When Winnie, out of breath, caught up with him, he was  kneeling down, crooning at a sheep that lay in the bottom of  the gully, tangled in what remained of a barbed-wire fence.   She scrambled as best she could over a few scattered boulders  to join him.

"Oh!" she breathed in horror.  "That's my ram!  He must have  fallen down from the field up there, and pulled the fence  along with him!  Is he all right?"

"I think so, yes.  Just a bit panicky.  He'll be fine, once  we get him out of this mess."

She crouched down, her joints protesting vehemently as she  did so, and added her soothing voice to Clark's.  Between  them, they persuaded the ram to stop struggling, then they  carefully worked together to release him from the wire.

Finally the ram was free.  As if to reassure Winnie that he  was fine, he immediately scrambled to his feet, bleated  loudly, and scrabbled his way up a steep slope and out of  sight.

"Well, there's gratitude for you," laughed Clark.  "He didn't  even stick around to say thank you!"

"Then I'll just have to say it for him, won't I?" said  Winnie.  Then, to reinforce her point, she added, "Thank  you."

"You're welcome, Mrs Byrne.  Now, if you can lend me some  tools, I'll fix the fence for you before anything else can  fall down here."

"I don't want you to go to any trouble..." Winnie said  doubtfully.

"It'd be no trouble, really."

"Well, if you're absolutely sure...  To be honest, that fence  has been worrying me for a while.  My grandson, Doug,  promised me a couple of weeks ago that he'd take a look at it  just as soon as he had a moment.  But he doesn't have much  spare time these days, not now he's started working full time  at the oil terminal."

"Well, I'll fix it now," said Clark.  "Then you won't have to  worry about it any more."

"Well, then...  Thank you!  I'd appreciate it.  And when  you're done, you must come in and have a bite to eat.  You'll  have earned it."

*****

"You're a good worker," Winnie said a little while later.   They were once again sitting at her kitchen table, this time  with tea and fruitcake in front of them.  "Thank you."

"It was nothing, really, Mrs Byrne.  I'd have done the same  for any of the neighbours back home."

Winnie considered him for a few seconds, then said, "Maybe  you would, but that doesn't mean that I appreciate your  efforts any less.  That ram's a good breeder and I'd hate to  see anything happen to him."  She remembered the way Clark  had calmed the sheep down, and she added, "You'll make a good  farmer, one of these days."

She glimpsed a flicker of something in Clark's expression.   Then, tentatively, he said, "I don't think I'm going to be a  farmer."

"Why not?  You're obviously a natural with stock."

"I..."  He shook his head.  "I just don't think it's for me,  you know?"

Winnie didn't know, so she said nothing.  Instead, she waited  patiently for him to say something more.

"I...  I don't seem to fit in around Smallville any more.   Back when I was a little kid, everything was fine.  But  then...  I guess I started to grow up.  I began to change.   And last year when I found out that I could-"  He stopped  abruptly and shook his head.  "No, farming's not for me."

"What will you do instead?"

"I'm not sure, but right now I'm in school - what you'd call  university, I guess - and I think I'm going to major in  journalism."

"Journalism?" Winnie asked.  "Like for a newspaper?"

Clark nodded.

"You'll need a lot of learning for that, I would imagine."

"I guess so," Clark said.  He didn't sound unduly worried,  though.

"Your parents must be proud of you."

Clark nodded.  "I *think* they are.  But my dad never says  much and I think he's also a little disappointed with the way  things are turning out.  He always wanted a son to pass the  farm on to, but since I'm an only child, that's not going to  happen.  My mom, though...  She's great.  I think she might  have gone to university, if she hadn't married my dad."

They sat in silence for a few more minutes and sipped  companionably on their tea.  Winnie thought about what he had  just said, and the way he'd said it, then cut Clark another  piece of cake.  Finally, she said, "Having more children  wouldn't guarantee that there would be someone for your dad  to pass the farm on to, you know.  Take my children, for  example.  Three of them have moved away from these islands  altogether and, of the two that stayed, only one is a  crofter.  The other works as an estate agent in Lerwick."

"So what will happen to this place when you..."  Clark  trailed off uncomfortably.

"When I die, do you mean?"

Clark nodded.

"Don't be embarrassed to say it, boy!  It'll come to us all,  you know!"  Then more soberly, Winnie said, "I don't know  what will happen.  But I gave up worrying about it a long  time ago."

That wasn't strictly true, of course.  Although she tried not  to think about it, she never really succeeded in banishing  her worries altogether.  She couldn't imagine this land  without a Byrne to work it.  However, unless one of her  descendants had a change of heart...

"Anyway, that's not the point.  The point is that all a  parent really wants is for his or her child to be happy.  If  you would rather do something other than take over your  father's farm, you shouldn't feel guilty about it.  No right  thinking parent would want to stop you from being happy, and  I bet that's just as true about your father as it is for  anyone else.  And if he doesn't say that he wants you to stay  on the farm, then all that means is that he's leaving the  decision of what you do up to you.  His silence is a gift,  Clark.  You should treasure it."

Winnie watched as Clark let her words sink in.  She could see  tension she hadn't even realised was there leave his  shoulders.  It was obvious to her that Clark had been  wrestling with the issue of his future for a long time, and  finally he was making peace with the decision he had made.   Eventually he said, "Hearing that... It helps more than you  can possibly imagine.  Thank you, Mrs Byrne.  Thank you so  much!"

*****

From then on, theirs was an odd kind of friendship.  It  hovered somewhere beyond casual acquaintance but it was less  than intimate.  Years passed, and their distant affection for  one another was punctuated by occasional visits by Clark,  who, after earning his degree, had decided to travel around  the world.  He seemed to take odd jobs where and when he  could, but he never stayed long in any of them.

Clark would drop by and tell her stories of exotic places she  had barely heard of.  He would bring small gifts at Christmas  and Winnie would tell him that he should not waste his money  on her.  He would do little jobs as and when they needed  doing on the croft, and Winnie would make him tea and tell  him about her ever-expanding family.

And then she would ask him when he was going to marry, settle  down, and raise a family of his own, because that was the  kind of life she understood best.

Although Winnie still wondered where Clark came from, her  wariness eased.  He gradually won her trust and regard, and  that was all that mattered.

*****

Part 04

Winnie reached up stiffly and placed the star on the top of  her Christmas tree.  Then she stepped back to survey her  handiwork.  She nodded, satisfied.

At eighty-three years old, she had long since ceased to be  overly bothered about Christmas.  However, her children, her  grandchildren and, most of all, her great-grandchildren  expected her to make an effort.  Her children and  grandchildren saw such efforts as reassuring evidence that  the passing years were only slowly taking their toll on the  family matriarch.  For the youngest of her great  grandchildren the fact that it was Christmas was reason  enough for them to think that Winnie ought to make a fuss  over the season.

So, for all their sakes, Winnie had carefully hung Christmas  cards across the chimney breast and tinsel around the door  frames.  She'd taken most trouble, however, over the  Christmas tree she'd positioned on an occasional table in a  corner.  That she had decorated with love.

And memories.

Each glass ball carried a memory with it.  And, when the  children, grandchildren and great grandchildren came around,  she would tell them about those memories, and they would  listen, never tiring of Winnie's stories.  Or, rather, if  they did tire of the stories she told, they hid it well.

Winnie and Arthur had bought the first few baubles together,  soon after they were married.  They'd thought the baubles  were a wicked extravagance, back when times were lean.  For  years they had made do without a tree; they'd hung the glass  balls in the windows of the house instead.  Other decorations  had been added to the collection later, most as little tokens  of affection from each other.  And slowly, over the years,  the collection had grown.

Some of the baubles had been made by her children,  grandchildren and great grandchildren.  These were the  handmade ones, mostly rough, ready and cheap in materials,  but infinitely precious in every way that counted.

Winnie missed Arthur.  After nearly fifteen years alone, she  knew that she always would.  They'd loved each other all  through their forty-six years of marriage.

She turned away from the tree and walked over to the  fireplace.  She picked up the photograph off the mantel and  smiled down at her husband's face.  She ran her fingers  lightly across the glass, caressing it as gently as she had  once caressed his cheeks.  "The house looks good this year,  Arthur," she whispered.  "Even if I do say so myself."

Her reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door.  "Come  in!" she cried.  "The door is open!"  She carefully replaced  the photograph on the mantel and turned around just in time  to see her visitor pause on the threshold.

"Hi, Mrs Byrne. I was... in the neighbourhood, and I just  wanted to drop in to wish you a merry Christmas.  Also, I  wanted to give you this."  He held out a small gift.

She eyed him and tried to chastise him.  "You shouldn't  have!"  Unfortunately, she knew that the severity in her  words was at odds with her tone and the twinkle in her eyes.   Her pleasure shone through as she reached out and carefully  took the gift from him.  She placed it under the tree and  said, "There.  It looks just right, don't you think?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sit down, sit down, and I'll make you tea!"

"Tea would be great, Mrs Byrne, but let me make it.  I don't  want to be a bother."

"You're no bother, lad.  You know that."

Clark smiled at her use of the endearment, probably thinking  it incongruous that she would call an adult in his twenties a  lad.  However, these days, everyone under the age of seventy  was a lad to Winnie.  Clark, although he didn't know it, had  a lot more growing to do before Winnie would even think to  call him a man.

*****

More years passed.  The croft became too much for Winnie to  manage, so she rented out the land and sold her stock.  Now  the sheep that grazed her grass belonged to someone else.   She became more and more house-bound.  Increasingly she  relied on the visits of others to keep her links with the  outside world alive.

Jessi's parents moved off the island, moving to Aberdeen.   Jessi, herself, went to college, then met a banker and  settled down in Dundee.  Winnie's family continued to grow as  more great grandchildren came along, but they dispersed,  moving across Shetland and then across Scotland.  Jessi's  uncle - the grandchild who, so long ago, had named her dog -  had taken his family even further afield.  Now every birthday  and Christmas Winnie would receive several parcels with  Vancouver postmarks.  She had an ever-increasing collection  of photographs of Canadian great grandchildren who she had  never seen.

And through all the changes, Clark remained a constant.  He  never forgot her.  She never quite knew how he managed it,  given all the travelling he seemed to do, but he remained a  more regular visitor than many of her own family.

*****

"Now, tell me, have you met that special someone yet?"

They were sitting in Winnie's kitchen, a fresh pot of tea and  a plate of digestive biscuits in front of them.  At Winnie's  question, Clark looked up from the plug he was rewiring.

To her surprise, instead of the automatic no she had become  accustomed to over the years, this time some colour crept  into Clark's cheeks.  He sucked on his lower lip for a moment  or two, then shyly said, "I think so, yes."

"Go on," prompted Winnie.

"You know I moved to Metropolis a couple of years ago?"

Winnie nodded.  Clark had told her that much before.  She  thought he worked for a newspaper there, but he had been  sparing of the details.  Besides, the name would have meant  nothing to her, given that they were lucky to get the British  dailies on her island, let alone anything more exotic.

"Well, I have a colleague.  Her name is Lois, and she's  beautiful and brilliant.  I think I fell in love with her the  minute I saw her, but it took me a while to admit it to  myself, let alone confess how I was feeling to my folks."  He  laughed.  "Of course, it turned out that *they'd* figured  things out months before!"

Winnie nodded and smiled.  She liked hearing about his  parents.  They sounded like a lovely couple.

"The only problem was that Lois didn't feel the same way.   But...  I think she might be..."

"Coming round to your way of thinking?"

"Yeah.  There have been a few times in the last few months  when there has been something about the way she's looked at  me.  It's not the same as how she used to.  It's like..."   The colour in his cheeks heightened.

"Like?"

"Like she knows something has changed, and she's trying to  figure out what it is."

"She doesn't know?"

He shook his head.  "I don't think so."

"But you think she's falling for you?"

"I...  I'm not sure, but I'm hopeful.  Plus, there's  something else."

"Oh?"

He nodded.  "Something happened at Christmas.  I knew that  Lois was going to be alone, you see, so I made an excuse to  stay in Metropolis with her.  We held hands, watched the snow  fall and listened to carollers together.  And, for a moment  there I thought we might even kiss."

"You didn't?"

"No."

"And then, last week, I was kidnapped-"

"Kidnapped!  Clark!  What kind of a life do you lead?"

"It was nothing.  Just a couple of mad scientists with a  cyborg."

Sometimes Winnie wondered how many of Clark's stories were  true and how many were figments of his imagination.  She  could tell that he was still evasive at times, but, unlike  during their memorable first meeting, his evasions tended to  manifest themselves in omissions rather than outright  untruths.  So, were his stories of kidnappings, near death  encounters with gangsters and the like actually true?  Or  were they tall tales, like his fabrication of a shipwreck had  once been?  In many ways, she hoped the latter was the case  because, if his stories were true, she could only be scared  for him, even if he seemed to take all these things in his  stride.

"Anyway, Lois came to rescue me.  It was an incredibly  reckless thing for her to do, but really brave, and I figure  that has to mean something.  Plus she told a mutual friend  that there wasn't anything she wouldn't do for me."  He said  the last with a mixture of bashfulness, pride and awe in his  voice.

"So what's stopping you getting together, if she feels that  way about you?" asked Winnie.

"I don't know.  I guess... the timing never seems right or  something.  And I don't want to pressure her into doing  something before she's ready.  She's been hurt so many times  before and..."  He shrugged.  "It's complicated."

"But you like her, this Lois?"

"Oh, yes!  I think...  No.  I know that I love her.  And I'll  wait for her for as long as it takes her to realise that she  feels the same way about me.  But the waiting is just so  frustrating sometimes!"

"I waited years for my Arthur," said Winnie.  "The waiting  was frustrating for me, too, Clark.  But patience is a  virtue.  Just you remember that.  And your patience will be  rewarded, I'm sure."

"Thanks, Mrs Byrne.  That makes me feel a lot better.  Here,  do you want to see her picture?  I have one in my wallet."

*****

Part 05

Several more years passed.  Winnie found her little house  harder to manage and she became increasingly reliant on the  kindness of her neighbours and the strangers social services  sent around.  When she had visitors, she tended to sit back  and let them do the talking.  She spoke less and listened  more, and she was content.

Still Clark visited.

Somewhere along the line, Clark's patience had been rewarded,  just as Winnie had predicted it would be, and he and Lois  managed to get together.  There had obviously been more than  a few bumps in the road along the way, but Clark never went  into details, and Winnie, now used to his occasional fits of  secrecy, didn't bother to ask for them.  He was, however, far  more forthcoming about his wedding ceremony, a wonderfully  charming affair that took place in the middle of nowhere,  with only immediate family and intimate friends present.  It  sounded terribly romantic to Winnie, and Winnie liked nothing  better than a good romance.

More time passed.

Lois and Clark adopted a child, a little girl they called  Rose.

Clark proudly brought photos of both Lois and Rose for Winnie  to see and Winnie laboriously knitted a pair of pale yellow  booties.

*****

The last time Winnie Byrne saw Clark was the summer before  her ninety-fifth birthday - the summer before she died.  She  was sitting in the conservatory her children had built on the  back of her house for her eighty-fifth birthday,  painstakingly knitting a sweater for her second youngest  great grandchild.  There had been a time when her fingers  danced nimbly, wrapping the wool around the needles and  manipulating the pins with ease.  Nowadays, though, the once  automatic task required effort.  As with so many other  things, she found her ease at knitting slipping away.  She  had grown slow with the passing years.

Still, she wasn't going to give up, just because she was  slowing down.  Not a bit of it!  So, she resigned herself to  taking her time, working on the basis that managing a little,  while worse than a lot, was far better than none at all.

It had been a perfect summer.  It had been like the endless  summers she remembered from her childhood, she thought, a  smile gracing her wizened face.  The sun, which was now  easing down towards the western horizon, had shone every day  since the beginning of July, the temperature had been a  couple of degrees warmer than was usual, and the wind had  seldom been more than a light breeze.

Winnie lowered her knitting and turned her incurious watery  eyes towards the fields that her neighbour, Tom, farmed these  days.  The good weather had brought the crops on well.  The  harvest was going to be early this year.  Then she turned her  gaze back towards the beach.

The water was a vivid shade of turquoise and the sand a pale  stripe of creamy-white.  From time to time she could hear the  eerie, strident cries of the oystercatchers.  If she chose  not to seek them out, it was not because her eyes now lacked  the power to do so.  In fact, her eyes were almost as acute  as they had ever been.  Rather, it was because she did not  have the inclination to take the time to look.  So attuned  was she to her home that she didn't need to see the  oystercatchers to know they were there.  Nor did she need to  look for the dunlin or the ringed plovers to know that they  were also probing the beach for food, or that the shags and  eider ducks were bobbing in the water, a little way from the  shore.  That they were there was a given, and that, for  Winnie Byrne was enough.

She let her arthritic fingers rest, laying them, still  wrapped around the knitting needles, in her lap.  She closed  her eyes, letting her imagination alone paint for her the  burnished oranges and reds of the setting sun.  As with  everything else, she didn't need her eyes to see it.

It was night when she awoke, and she realised that she had  dozed for far longer than she'd intended.  The hills were  black silhouettes against the navy sky, and the moon had  risen, one of the biggest, creamiest moons that she could  remember having ever seen.  It reflected on the water as a  stripe of white, a bright band of dappled light across the  sea.

It was a night for lovers, she thought, remembering the times  she had spent watching the moon with her husband, back in the  days when their marriage was new... and in the days when it  was not so new, too.  All that was needed, Winnie thought,  was a couple of lovers to make the moment perfect.

And then she saw them.

Like the gently rolling hills that framed the voe, they were  black silhouettes, but she didn't need to see his features to  recognise the man.

As she watched, Clark came to a halt, turned his back to her,  and put his arm around his companion.  Winnie had never met  Lois, but Clark had spoken about her often enough for Winnie  to guess that this was she.  Winnie knew how to read body  language, and who else would Clark lean so close to as they  strolled along the sand?

Winnie watched as they stopped and turned to face the sea.   She watched the way Clark wrapped his arm around Lois's  shoulders, the way Lois allowed herself to be drawn into his  embrace, the way she moulded herself against his side and  leaned her head against his chest.  Clark rested his cheek  against her hair, and together they looked at the sky.

Winnie knew it was her imagination - there was no way she  could hear them from this distance - but she fancied that she  could hear them whisper sweet nothings to each other in the  quiet of the night.  Or maybe what she was hearing was the  sound of her own memories, the words that her husband had  spoken to her when they had strolled along the beach, looking  at the moon, some seventy, sixty, fifty, forty or even thirty  years before.

Then she saw the couple move in the intimate dance of lovers.   Lois moved into Clark's arms, her face turned up towards his.   He lowered his head and they kissed.

And then they floated, spiralling lazily in the still night,  the lightness of their spirits making them lighter than air.

Winnie wondered why she wasn't surprised by the way the two  lovers were drifting above the ground.  Surely she should  have been.  Maybe it was because of her age.  Maybe she was  dreaming.  Or maybe it was because she had always known that  Clark was different.  It was just that she had long since  learned not to care about those differences.  Whatever the  reason, she felt neither shock nor alarm at what they were  doing.

Instead, Winnie thought about Arthur.  She had never floated  in his arms, but she didn't need to have done it to know how  it felt.  She remembered the way his arms had held her safe,  the way his fingers had felt against her skin as he'd  caressed her cheek in a prelude to their kisses, and the way  his lips had felt against hers.

Down on the beach, Lois and Clark drifted slowly back down to  earth.  Clark took six steps backwards, looking as though he  was being torn reluctantly out of Lois's arms.

Then he began to spin.

When he came to a stop seconds later, it took Winnie a moment  or two to work out what precisely it was that she was seeing.

The way the cape fluttered behind him as he walked... the outline of his body where the costume hugged close to his  flesh...  There was only one man that this could be:  Superman.

She watched, fascinated, as he walked towards Lois and then effortlessly swept her up into his arms.  Lois wrapped her  arms around Clark's neck and tucked her head under his chin.

He levitated a few feet off the ground for a few seconds,  allowing them one last look at the moon, before he rocketed  upwards, vanishing from Winnie's field of view.

Twenty years after they had first met, and long after all  Winnie's questions had ceased to matter to her, Winnie Byrne  finally had her answers.

Clark had no more come from the sea than she had.  He had come from the sky.

*****

A stranger came to the funeral of Winnie Byrne, nee Eunson,  although it seemed to the rest of the family that he had been  no stranger to her, nor she to him.

He stood quietly towards the back of the mourners, trying -  and failing - not to draw attention to himself.  He drew  attention through the mere fact of his presence.

He was a good-looking man, possessed of the kind of features  that Jessi had swooned over as a teenager, back before she'd  met blonde-haired, blue-eyed William and had fallen in love  for real.  The stranger had dark hair, dark eyes that were  half-hidden behind wire-framed glasses, skin the colour of  pale honey and straight white teeth that flashed brightly  when he smiled.  He didn't smile often, though, because to do  so would not have been appropriate at a funeral.

After the service was over and the mourners began to  disperse, the stranger edged forward diffidently and held out  his hand to Jessi.  "I'm Clark," he said.  "We met once  before.  I think you were about eight at the time.  Maybe you  remember me?"

Jessi, momentarily distracted by her new daughter, Winifred,  who chose that moment to begin to fret, shook her head  automatically.

"Oh..." said Clark.  Then he flashed a quick smile before  ruthlessly suppressing it.  "I'm sorry for your loss.  She  was a lovely person."

"Yes, she was."

Jessi plucked the baby out of her buggy and cuddled her into  silence.  Then she looked more carefully at Clark.  Suddenly  she remembered an afternoon long ago, back when she was a  child.  She remembered rain and wind and the man on the  beach.  She remembered sitting at the kitchen table in her  great grandmother's house, entranced by the fabulous story he  had spun about being shipwrecked and swimming for days across  the storm-tossed North Sea.

Her mouth opened in a small "o" of belated recognition.

He was about to turn away when Jessi said, "Wait!  I... I do  remember you!"

After he had left, her great grandmother had advised Jessi  not to believe a word of Clark's story; it had been just one  more tall tale, like the tales of the selkie folk and the  trows that Winnie herself told.  Jessi, Winnie had warned her  severely, was never to believe the glib lies that flowed from  the mouth of a man from the sea.

Looking at him now, Jessi was sure her great grandmother had  been right.  His story of shipwreck and adventure had been  nothing more than a nonsense created by his imagination.   Except for the expensive suit, designer glasses and American  accent, he was, Jessi decided, just an ordinary man.

But it didn't matter what he was.  All that mattered was that  he had cared enough to come, and that made Jessi think warmly  of him.  So, prompted by something more than politeness,  Jessi invited him to join the rest of the mourners back at  Winnie's house.

No.  It was Grannanna's house no longer.  It was Jessi's  house now.

Jessi had missed the islands terribly once she'd moved away  and her husband had never much liked his office job.  So,  after much discussion, they had decided, with the blessing of  the rest of the family, to take over the croft.  Their new  life would be a struggle, Jessi knew, but they would manage  somehow, just as Grannanna had done for all those years.

Jessi looked down at little Winifred, who was now sleeping  contentedly in her arms, and she knew with a certainty that  she could never have explained that their decision to move  was the right one.  Little Winnie would be happier here than  she could ever have been in Dundee.

Clark shook his head, murmured something about Jessi's  kindness, and declined her invitation.  "I have to be getting  back," he said.

Jessi didn't think his excuse odd until later, when she  realised that Clark hadn't had a car and that there were no  buses running on a Sunday.  It was as though the American had  appeared out of nowhere and had vanished back the way he'd  come.

Just as he had done, all those years before.

Clark was to remain a mystery, however, a mystery equalled  only by an odd bequest Jessi's great grandmother had made in  her will.

With one exception, Winnie Byrne, nee Eunson, had left what little she owned to be divided up among her remaining family.   The exception was a sum of one hundred pounds, payable to the Superman Foundation.

The End.

Table of Contents

A Gift From Shetland

Part 01

Part 02

Part 03

Part 04

Part 05