“Likewise. Ye havenae seen my cat, have ye?”
Izzy started, taken aback at this sudden change in topic. “Your... cat?”
“Aye. My Baxter. He’s run off again and is refusing to come home. Likes to disappear into the moors whenever he can, the little tinker.”
“I...um...no, I’ve not seen any cat during my hike.” A cat? Seriously?
Irene sighed. “That’s a pity. Well, I’m sure he’ll turn up when he’s ready.”
Silence fell as Irene watched Snaffles chase a non-existent rabbit down the hill. Then she turned to face Izzy fully, studying her intently. Irene’s face was a creased map of wrinkles, her hair a slate gray pulled into a severe bun. She looked ancient, older than Izzy would expect any hiker to be, especially one out here on her own. But Irene’s eyes were young, dark as onyx, and sparkling with intelligence.
“Ye are not from around here, are ye, my dear?” she asked.
“No,” Izzy replied with a shake of her head. “I’m originally from London, but moved up here for work about two years ago.”
Irene nodded knowingly. “Ah, yes. A city girl at heart, trying to find peace in the vastness of the Highlands.”
Izzy raised an eyebrow at the ironic accuracy of Irene’s words. “Something like that.”
In truth, she didn’t really know why she’d accepted the job up here. Moving away from London and all its comforts was the most daring thing she’d ever done—and it had come right out of the blue. In fact, it was theonlydaring thing she’d ever done and her friends still thought she’d lost her mind. Sometimes Izzy agreed with them.
Irene chuckled softly, her gaze shifting back to the moors. “Sometimes, we do things we canna quite explain to ourselves immediately. It’s a bit like navigating through a foggy landscape: ye canna see too far ahead, but ye know ye have to keep moving if ye wish to find what ye are looking for.”
Izzy stared at the old woman. There was something about Irene MacAskill that was...unsettling. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why, although perhaps it was the way her onyx eyes seemed to hold a lifetime of stories waiting to be told.
“Um...I suppose I never really thought about it like that.”
“Perhaps not,” Irene replied, her eyes seeming to pin Izzy to the spot. “But every choice we make in this life is part of a much longer journey. We may not always understand why we make them at the time, but each one, each decision, brings us closer to where we’re meant to be.”
Before Izzy could respond to this cryptic statement, Snaffles bounded back up the hill, his tongue lolling out. He skidded to a halt, showering them with small clumps of damp earth. Irene laughed as she brushed off her coat, reaching out to pat Snaffles on his massive head.
“Such a good boy ye are!” she said with a laugh. “So full of love and life, yet misunderstood by many.”
Izzy latched onto this change in topic, grateful that Irene’s attention had been diverted away from herself. “He’s been returned to the shelter three times now,” she admitted. “People get scared of him because he’s so big and powerful.”
“But not ye,” Irene said, looking up at her. “Ye who believes herself so ordinary and unremarkable, yet sees the heart of such a beast, just as ye see the true hearts of people, no matter what they may show on the outside.”
She was doing it again, staring at Izzy in a way that suggested she could see right into Izzy’s soul. Izzy swallowed. “Um...I...I don’t know what you mean.”
Irene patted her hand. “Aye, I can see ye dinna. I can see ye think ye are ordinary. But ye are not, Isabelle. There will soon come a time when ye must decide who ye are and what ye wish to be. Whether ye will choose to be the ordinary person ye think ye are or the extraordinary one that lies within. A choice is coming, my dear, and it will lead ye to a path ye’d never thought to tread. Will ye be the woman who let fear hold her back, or will ye be the woman who saw through the fog and dared to journey to her destiny?”
Izzy backed up a step. Was that supposed to make any sense? Well, it didn’t. Irene was clearly a little...strange. Her words were just meaningless ramblings. And yet, despiteherself, they struck a chord inside Izzy that she couldn’t quite explain. She’d always been one to play it safe—avoiding risks and anything that might cause her hurt, but Irene’s words stirred up something inside her, that same longing that had caused her to leave everything behind and move up here in the first place. What would it be like to be carefree and adventurous? To take life as it came and not worry about the future?
A gust of wind suddenly swept across the moors, rustling the heather and carrying with it the scent of snow from the mountains further north. It whistled through the gaps in the stones, pulled some wisps free from Irene’s gray bun, and Izzy was struck by how at home Irene looked in this wild place, as though she was part of this wild landscape and it was part of her.
“I don’t understand—” Izzy began, only to be cut short by Irene’s sudden hearty laughter, which echoed across the barren landscape, startling a few birds into flight.
“I dinna expect ye to, Isabelle! Not yet. But ye will.”
The wind seemed to carry an echo of her laughter long after the sound had faded away. Izzy stared at the old woman, questions dancing on the tip of her tongue. But before she could ask any of them, the old woman climbed to her feet. She moved with an unexpected agility, showing none of the stiffness one would expect from a woman her age. Snaffles bounded around her feet, kicking up a tiny storm of dust and dried grass. With a small smile, Irene reached out to gently pat his large head once more.
“Well, I’d best be getting on,” she said, her gaze on the sun that was beginning its descent in the western sky. “If I’m to find that dratted cat of mine before it gets dark!”
“Do you need a lift?” Izzy said. “My car is not that far away. I can drop you off somewhere if you like.”
But Irene only laughed again. “That’s mighty kind of ye, my dear, but there’s no need. I enjoy the exercise. And besides,” she nodded into the distance. “Yer road lies in a different direction entirely.”
For some reason, Izzy got the impression she wasn’t talking about the hike back to the car.
