“I’mnotfucking with you.”
He gritted his teeth before pushing a hand over his stubbled chin. “Just…watch yourself. You could disappear in a blink with anyone.”
“Anyone, hmm?” My anger began to slow simmer. “Anyone? Like maybe you? Or maybe your brother? Harris is the first person who’s actually made me feel at home in this country, tea or not. That’s more than I can say for you.” I turned, throwing over my shoulder, “You know, for a small community, you all are ridiculously suspicious of one another.”
I heard a wild grunt, turning to find him hot on my trail with a dark glint in his eye. When I didn’t stop moving as we passed the gate to the graveyard, his bootsteps quickened until he caught my elbow in his grip. It wasn’t firm like it’d been when he’d dragged me out of Dunvegan, but it zapped me with enough energy to stop me in my tracks. I glared at him, pursing my lipsandbiting my tongue to keep from telling him to throw himself off the nearest cliff. His look turned empathetic, something warm swimming in the dark orbs that made me think in some twisted way that he only wanted what was best for me. My safety.
“Look, thanks for your concern, but I really don’t need it. I can take care of myself. I’ve done well enough before now.”
His eyebrow twitched and his lip lifted at one corner before he shook his head and muttered a warning. “There are some places that exist where nothing is as it seems. So steeped in bloody history, it’s imprinted on the land like a tattoo on the fabric of time. It plays on a loop, the current generation of its citizens part of a cycle they rarely see.”
I narrowed my eyes, more confused by his riddles than before. “What does that mean?”
“It means watch yourself, Fable Prescott. And if you don’t, I will.”
Fable
Later that night, with my head perched against two of the world’s hardest pillows and Alder’s warning in my mind, I flipped through the pages of theLegends and Lovershardback. I’d come to think of the little book of legends as a series of disconnected tales woven through the dirt and peat of Scottish land. Blood, sweat, and tears lingered between the faded lines of text. My mind kept running off with Harris’s and Alder’s words.Watch yourself. Watch yourself. Watch yourself.
Was I just an amusing distraction for them? Another foreign girl to rattle with their tales of women vanishing in the night?
I finally settled on one of the last stories of the book, vowing to return to the others when the time felt right.
The Fairy Lover.
The story began on an unnamed Scottish isle peppered with limestone and peat. A twelve-year-old peasant girl named Olympia played with two brothers while her mother worked within the castle walls. Day after day, she played, and summer after summer, the threesome became intertwined in more ways than usual. They played hide-and-seek in the caves that dotted the seacoast, daring one another in challenges with varying degrees of difficulty. The youngest of the brothers began to pay extra attention to the peasant girl, seeking her out from morning to evening, even though her sights were more regularly trained on the eldest of the brothers.
Their innocence crumbled one day when the eldest brother dared the youngest and Olympia to confront the forest children that were said to manipulate the minds of the locals. The two youngest kids went into the woods, only to get lost for hours. When the nobleman of the house’s men found the children later that evening, they were huddled together in a heather meadow, trembling and terrified of the darkness that lingered at wood’s edge.
The nobleman and father of the two boys shook with anger as the three children were brought before him. Without a second’s hesitation, he forbade the childhood friends from ever seeing one another again. And if they broke his rule, he would be forced to fire the poor peasant girl’s mother. It wasn’t many years later that one of them would be dead due to the actions of the other.
My heart hammered wildly as I read the last line of text.
It wasn’t many years later that one of them would be dead at the hands of the other.
I couldn’t bring myself to continue reading. It was too sad; the bud of young love between the peasant girl and the youngest son was crushed before it could bloom.
Silver moonbeams cut across the windowpanes of my bedroom perched at the highest point of Leith Hall. I felt like a princess or a captive, depending on which story I read about this manor’s supposedly checkered history. I swallowed a bundle of anxiety in my throat, wondering why it’d been this book that Keats had insisted I read. Did it hold the key to unlocking the mystery of the disappearance of my great-aunt? Or was it all a matter of mind games, meant to muddle my thoughts and drive me into madness? Maybe that was the dark charm of Leith that Alder had hinted at. He seemed both enamored and hateful of these stone walls, but maybe his history was only as complicated as any other person’s sentiments about their childhood home.
What had Alder’s upbringing looked like at Leith? I’d been so curious about my own family’s connection to this place that I’d failed to wonder what Keats and Alder’s connection looked like. Had their childhood been a happy one? While Keats looked as if he’d had a hard life by any standard—his skin weathered and wrinkled from too much time in the harsh elements, Alder’s was the opposite. His skin was smooth and soft, his physique strong with taut muscle and broad shoulders, and he carried himself in an imposing manner. The confident way he moved, like a jungle cat stalking his prey, entranced me, but it always made me resent my own interest. The slow growl that curled around his words when he spoke made me think he chose each word with precision and care. He was a man of few words like his brother, but of far greater articulation. He spoke like he’d been around the world, his thoughts his gift when he chose to share them.
And why was he sharing his thoughts with me?
I couldn’t figure outwhyI was so drawn to him exactly, only that I’d never met anyone quite like him.
I folded down the corner of my page to bookmark my place before sliding the book onto the nightstand and turning off the lamp. Curling into one of the hard pillows, I snuggled deeper into the cotton quilt and let my eyes fall closed. Visions of Alder lurking lochside pulled at my thoughts.
Alder Maclean had vowed to protect me tonight.Why?And what exactly did I need protecting from?
Alder
Ifeel her before I see her.
I can’t explain this thing between us, why I keep showing up when she needs it most, but it’s real and I’m a slave to follow the instinct.
The instinct that always leads me to her.
I’ve been trying my best to keep our unusual connection low-key, but she never makes it easy. She seems to find herself in the most unlikely places at the most unfavorable times.
