The Groaning Gate

We’d chosen the Bothy of Brackenbrae for a long weekend, a remote cabin on the far side of the Island of Callander, which was itself a speck of green and grey off the west coast of the mainland. The name sounded quaint, and the pictures showed a whitewashed stone cottage with a heather-thatched roof, overlooking a stretch of black water. My partner, Elena, and I had been driving for two days, our route a meandering line through the highlands, and we were eager for stillness.

We found the island via a narrow causeway that appeared only at low tide, a band of slick stones and seaweed that our rented car crawled over. The village was a scattering of houses around a gnarled jetty, and the approach to our cabin wound up through a wood of old oaks, their branches interlaced like a cathedral’s vault. At the top of a rise, the track split: a white sign pointed left to the ‘Bothy’, and right to the ‘Mains of Brackenbrae’, with a smaller board reading ‘By appointment’. The main house was a dark, turreted Victorian pile, half-hidden by yew trees, and we saw no other cars.

The bothy itself was perfection: thick stone walls, a wood-burning stove, and a window that framed the slate-grey sea. The landlady, a Mrs. Ogilvy, had left a note on the scrubbed pine table: ‘Welcome. The gate at the bottom of the garden is stiff. Mind it does not slam. Firewood in the shed. If you need anything, the number to the big house is on the fridge. Enjoy your peace.’

We spent the first day walking the headland, picking up smooth stones and watching seals. That evening, as the sun dropped, a curious thing. The garden gate—a green-painted ironwork affair on rusted hinges—began to swing slowly, as if an unseen hand had pushed it. There was no wind. We watched it from the kitchen window as we made tea. It creaked once, twice, then settled. Elena shrugged. ‘Settling.’

That night, I woke to a sound like a heavy sack being dragged across gravel. I sat up, listening. The cabin was quiet, save for the occasional settling tick of the woodstove. The sound came again, from the direction of the garden. I peered through the curtain, but the moon was behind a cloud, and I could only make out the silhouette of the gate. It was standing open, and something dark and indistinct was moving just beyond it, low to the ground, like a dog, but too large. I waited, heartbeat in my throat, and after a long minute, the shape resolved into nothing. I put it down to tiredness.

Morning brought a thin, clammy fog. The gate was closed, but the latch was hanging loose, as if someone had pulled it hard from the outside. We had planned to visit the village, but as we reached the end of the track, the same white sign seemed to have changed. Where it had read ‘Bothy’, now the paint was chipped, and underneath was a crude scratch: ‘BOTHY’ crossed out, and the word ‘BOTHIE’ written in black tar. We laughed nervously. Vandals.

That afternoon, Elena went to use the utility cabin at the entrance, which housed a washing machine and a phone, since the bothy had none. She came back pale. ‘There’s a ledger in there,’ she said. ‘A visitors’ book, from the estate. People have been writing in it for a century. And the last entry, from the 1920s, it says: ‘The Bothie’s gate is groaning again. Turned our backs, and it took another one.’ I dismissed it as an old joke. But when I went to look, the ledger was gone. The utility cabin was empty, except for a dead wasp on the sill.

On the second night, the wind picked up, and the gate became a living thing. It clanged and rattled, and in the gusts, we could hear a low, drawn-out moan, almost human, rising and falling like a distant siren. I went out to secure it, but the moment I put my hand on the cold iron, I felt a resistance, as if something was pushing from the other side. I pulled, and the moan turned into a distinct word, a growl that carried no breath: ‘Mine.’

We decided to leave the next morning. But when we tried to start the car, the engine turned over and died. The battery was fine. It was as if the air itself was too thick. We had no choice but to walk to the big house. We followed the overgrown avenue, the trees closing in, and found the mansion slumbering, its windows dark. We knocked, and the door creaked open on its own. Inside, the dust was thick, and a corridor stretched before us, lined with portraits. All the faces had been scratched out.

At the end of the corridor, a door led to a study. On the desk lay a journal, open. It was the same ledger from the utility cabin. The last handwritten entry, in a spidery script, dated 1924, read: ‘The gate took the gardener’s boy. We stopped using it. We buried the gate’s key in the Bothy’s foundation, so it could not be reopened. But the Bothy sleeps on its root. The gate is still hungry.’

We turned to leave, and the door slammed, and the sound was the groaning gate made flesh. We ran down the corridor, through the mansion’s mouth, and out into the fog. The gate at the bottom of the garden was open, and standing just beyond it, in the mist, was a figure. Tall, thin, with arms ending in scythe-like fingers. It did not move, but it spoke without lips, the voice in our heads: ‘You opened the gate. You opened me.’

We fled to the village, and they took us in, a kindly fisherman and his wife. They did not ask questions. They just nodded, and said, ‘The Bothy’s been empty for years. Ever since the Ogilvy boy went missing. You saw the gate, didn’t you? It’s the old croft’s way. It only opens for those who stay. You’ll be fine. Just don’t look back.’

As we drove off the island at low tide, Elena found a small iron key in her jacket pocket. It was cold, even in the sun. The key to the gate, we knew, was never meant to leave the bothy’s foundation. We threw it into the water, but as it sank, we heard a faint, satisfied groan from beneath the waves, and the water stilled around the spot, as if a mouth had closed. We have not spoken of it since, but I know one thing: on calm nights, far from that place, I sometimes hear a gate creaking. And it is always opening.