Shadow In Hawthorn Bay

ACT 1 – PROMISES AND PARTINGS
Year: 1812. In the rugged Scottish Highlands, on Beltane night, the glen comes alive. Bonfires blaze on the hills, music and laughter spill through the night as the villagers are carried along by the promise of summer. Two young sweethearts slip away to enjoy a private moment. Mary Urquhart (15) is a restless young teen, endowed with the extraordinary gifts of “an da shealladh” (second sight) and healing hands. Apprenticed to the glen’s wise old healer and seer, Mrs. Grant, she studies her craft to support the local community and her family. But she sees her gifts as more of a curse than a blessing, for they also bring uncontrollable, foreboding visions of the past, the future, and the otherworld. Mary yearns instead for adventure with Duncan Cameron, known in the glen as “Duncan dubh” (Duncan the black) for his dark moods and predisposition for trouble. While he drives her mad, he never fears Mary’s gifts or asks for her to change. Since childhood, they have been inseparable and sworn to each other: “We two are never to be parted. Not in life. Not in death.”

Amidst the celebrations, Mary performs an ancient rite to seek the faeries’ protection and blessing, but a chilling vision overcomes her, foretelling Duncan’s fate: his family is evicted from their home and forced to emigrate to the wilderness of Upper Canada. Her vision comes to pass only a few days later. The couple endure a heartbreaking farewell, and Duncan vows to write every day until he returns to her as a Man of Station. Mary is left with only a lock of Duncan’s hair in exchange for her tartan ribbon; symbols of the eternal promise that binds them.

Three years pass without a single letter from Duncan.

Mary (now 18) climbs a misty hillside with her younger sister, Heather, anticipating the return of her own love from the Napoleonic battlefield. Heather teases Mary that she will be married and settled with a family before her sister, and berates her for waiting for Duncan. As they approach an ancient well, Heather asks Mary to use her gifts to predict her betrothed’s safe return. Mary's mood darkens when Duncan’s image rises instead, and his ghostly voice carries across the ocean: “Come, Mary. Come you to me!” Defying her family’s insistence to stay behind, and Mrs. Grant’s warning to “Beware the dark!”, Mary decides to set out across the sea to find her lost love and bring him safely home.

ACT II – BEWARE THE DARK
Mary's journey is fraught with peril. She battles a storm-tossed night in a haunted castle followed by a deathly coffin-ship crossing of the Atlantic. Finally disembarking in Canada, she sets out on an impossible journey through an alien land inhabited by strange people and dark forests; so dark they could only be what wise woman Mrs. Grant warned her of. After days of travelling, she meets Luke Anderson (20), a friendly, handsome settler. When he reveals he is heading to Collivers’ Corners, her final destination, she gladly accepts his offer to travel together. Luke immediately warms to Mary, finding her curious and attractive, but their connection is swiftly extinguished when he accidentally delivers the tragic truth Mary has feared all along: Duncan is dead. His family has already sailed back to Scotland.

Mary awakens in a strange bed in ‘The Corners,’ weary, heartsick, and penniless. But gently urged on by a kind family, she agrees to stay and work to save enough money for her passage home. As Mary settles into homestead life, the villagers immediately warm to her, despite her “curious ways”. She is offered a teaching post at the local school and enjoys a lively community Christmas. Mary finds herself growing ever more attracted to Luke- much to the chagrin of another local girl, Patty, who has long had her heart set on him. Mary spends more time with Luke’s family, supporting his depressed, alcoholic mother, who recently lost another baby, and begins caring for his younger brother, Henry. Although Mary begins to feel a sense of belonging, she remains driven to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding Duncan’s death, which few folks are willing to talk about. Meanwhile, she fears the ever-present darkness of the forest, refusing to enter it, believing this is truly ‘the dark’ that Mrs. Grant warned her about.

One day, a haunting call draws Mary to the Camerons’ abandoned cottage on Hawthorn Bay. Ignoring warnings from the locals about the water’s dark secret, she resolves to claim the cottage as her own and move in. With Luke’s mother still failing, and Luke’s abusive brother at home, she invites young Henry to live with her. As Mary finds her feet in her new home, she strikes up a friendship with Alsoomse, an Indigenous woman who once traded with the Camerons. She freely shares knowledge of how to live off the land, while encouraging Mary to accept and trust her gifts.

After sharing several tender, intimate moments together, Luke confesses his love for Mary, and his desire to build a life with her. Mary is clearly falling for him too, but cannot help but feel the pull towards Duncan. His spirit still lingers, and his voice grows more insistent, calling to her from the shadowy depths of the bay. While Luke does his best to understand Mary’s gifts, he is not of the old ways. He becomes increasingly frustrated at her refusal to fully let go, telling her she cannot love a ghost.

Mary continues to have unfortunate visions, foretelling of fires, deaths in the community, and an uncanny summer frost that strikes the settlement, pitting her increasingly against the villagers. Fear spreads. Suspicion hardens. When Luke’s mother dies, after a portentous vision and a clear warning from Mary about her chilling death, it places further strain on their relationship. Luke begins to spend more time with Patty. One by one, Mary is stripped of the few comforts she has found — including her teaching job. Her adopted child, Henry, moves back in with Luke’s family. When she is led to believe Luke is the father of Patty’s forthcoming child, Mary is left alone with no clear way home.

ACT III – FREE FROM THE SHADOWS
Abandoned and isolated on Hawthorn Bay, Duncan’s cries from the bay grow increasingly seductive in Mary’s moment of weakness. Her despair comes to a head upon discovering Duncan’s unsent letters in the cottage, which describe the new frontier for what it truly is: harsh, unforgiving, and unbearably lonely. Duncan describes how the suffocating weight of his own unfulfilled vow to return to her was too much to bear. Mary has a dark vision of Duncan’s suffering and witnesses the final moments leading to his death - his fateful choice to plunge himself into the bay.

Inconsolable, this ignites a desperate resolve in her to honour their promise: never to be separated, in life or in death. Mary climbs the rock and plunges into the bay, committing to following her love into the watery depths. The shadow welcomes her down...

But beneath the surface, she finds a new vision of clarity: the darkness Mrs. Grant warned of was never the forest; it was Duncan and his grasp from the otherworld. Kicking with all her might, Mary claws upward, her fingers grasping towards life, even as Duncan’s relentless pull drags her deeper. She fights until she breaks free and rises from the depths to claim her own destiny, shouting at Duncan to let go and let her be at peace. Finally freed from the shadows of her past, Mary opens her heart to the forest’s quiet mystery and goes to seek out Luke in the fields.

Realizing there has been a misunderstanding and that Luke is not the father of Patty’s child, Mary confesses her love. In a vulnerable, passionate moment, she promises to commit herself to him and this new land. Luke returns her feelings and vows to accept Mary wholly, gifts and all. As they embrace, Mary looks toward a new life shaped by love, belonging, and the promise of Hawthorn Bay.