Harris shook his head. “Most come to Skye following their forebearers’ footsteps through the threads of time, but there’s a reason people leave this place and never return. Revisiting the past is a foolhardy venture. Stories like the ones that come out of Leith will do well to remind ye of that. Most of us are born of vicious blokes forced to live together on a cold rock in the middle of the ocean. People want sunshine and roses, when the reality of the past is more cloudy skies and rain. Throw in a famine or two for good measure, and you’ll see what it takes to grow up in a place like this. It’s hardly the romantic isle the poets would have ye believin’.”
With that, he stood, greeting another tourist with some of his Scottish brogue and a steaming cup of drip coffee. I watched as he worked, enjoying the charm that seemed to seep from his pores. He was truthy, far more direct than any of the other locals I’d met, and near enough to my own age that I vowed to stop at the Hazelwood to visit Harris more often.
Fable
Ispent the next thirty minutes at the Hazelwood pub forcing myself to focus on the story of the ghost of Annie Lee, starting with her simple medieval childhood and leading up to the moment of her final breath of air. The story left a chill on my skin that not even the pale Scottish sun could warm. Wetness hovered at my eyelids when I turned the last page on the short story, and I was eager to start the following tale when I realizedThe Plague Doctorwas next.
I read quickly then, so quickly that I finished the story of poor Annie’s doctor in Edinburgh in under fifteen minutes. I read of how he’d been the one to find her abandoned body, wrapping her up tenderly and then bringing her with him to his Highland getaway where she could have a proper kirkyard burial.
He perished just a month after burying her in the graveyard at Leith Hall, coming down with the real plague—unlike Annie, whom the doctor found had only been stricken with a severe case of pneumonia. She’d never had the plague; the only viral illness afflicting her was the hysteria that had festered in her mother’s mind, leading her to sentence her only daughter to die alone in a dark alleyway. Fear and madness had sealed Annie’s coffin, and she’d persisted only two cold nights before the doctor had found her gravely ill and gasping for air.
I scanned the last page of the doctor’s story. I had the urge to read it again, glean more from the fact that he’d stayed at Leith, that maybe little Annie had too. I thought then of the way the shadows played tricks on me, how I’d been drawn to the loch yesterday after seeing what looked like a figure darting in and out of the gravestones. If I took the time to clean and wash the headstones, was it their names I would find?
I flipped the page, eager for the next story,The Salt Witch.
I scanned the short description, wondering how the tale of a witch might play into the story of Leith. Was I staying in a not-just-haunted but cursed manor house for the summer too?
“Read anything dark and dreary lately?” Harris was back, picking up my empty coffee mug with a smile.
“As it happens, I just finishedThe Plague Doctor, and I’m still shook.”
His grin widened. “It’s crazy, right? I love that he brought her all the way up here, only to die himself. Poetic irony is my favorite theme in both his and Annie’s stories.”
“Annie’s mother feared her own death so much that she inadvertently murdered her child. That’s messed up.”
Harris’s eyes sparkled. “Crazy old witch. She should have locked herself in Mary’s Close.”
“Maybe living was hell enough after she’d lost her little girl,” I offered.
“Nah, the old witch shoulda burned at the stake.”
“Is she the Salt Witch from the next story?”
Harris’s eyes rounded. “She isn’t, but that’s a great story too. I’m shaming you right now for not having read it yet. What are you doing with your life?”
I laughed. “Trying to focus while a Scottish bartender distracts me.”
“I think you meanthandsomeScottish pubkeep.”
I didn’t reply, but my smile deepened. Was he flirting? I’d been so focused on researching the last few months, I’d forgotten what flirting with a stranger at a bar even felt like.
“So, Annie and the plague doctor are buried at Leith. Next, you’re going to tell me the entire hall and the land it’s on are cursed by a witch, right?”
“Aye, quite a few of them, I’d say. The men of Leith are known for being hell-raisers, and revenge is best served with a curse or two, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Well, I’d better get my hex book ready,” I joked.
“Aye, lass. And don’t forget the wooden cross. You’ll find more than just pixies and fae in the hills and valleys of Skye. There’s a battle between angels and demons happening right at the doorstep. Most never stop to see past the rain clouds, though.”
“Angels and demons? Witches and vampires? Pixies and fae? Do you really believe this stuff?”
“Couldn’t bear to live here if I didn’t. Didn’t you say you came to solve a mystery? The truth is between the pages.”
“Betweenthe pages?”
“Aye, lass. It’s thein-betweenwhere interesting things happen.”
I sat still for a moment, eyes casting out to the rain-streaked window to the quiet one-lane main street and sea beyond.
