Likeright now.
I groan as she picks her way along the edge of the seaside cliff. The mist clings to her pale nightdress; the soft fabric is almost sheer as the silver moonbeams cut across her form. My heart is so rattled by her presence, it takes everything in me to resist going to her. My instincts tell me to wrap her in my arms, lock her in the keep of Leith Hall and throw away the key if that’s what it takes to keep her safe, but I know that won’t work. Not this time. Fable is headstrong; it’s what landed her in the loch without breath in her lungs. It’s what brought me to her the first time, and it’s what brings me to her now.
She’s determined to find the truth; I’ll give her that. I imagine she’s just spent the night reading more of the books Keats recommended, the ones I insisted she start with if she has any hope of solving Skye’s oldest cold case. Fable’s great-aunt’s disappearance is famous around here, but they all are. The girls who vanish from this island are all of a type—young, naïve, headstrong, and heart-stopping in their beauty.
Fable fits the mold perfectly, and it terrifies me.
Spending time with Harris won’t end well. I can already see the epic crash and burn in my mind’s eye. She doesn’t know it, but I can sense it coming from a thousand years away. Fable, on the other hand, seems unable to sense anything. Her senses are dulled to the force this island has on people, the way the mist bends the perspective and twists the thoughts. Humans aren’t meant to be so isolated, and Fable is already suffering the effects. Leith is a rambling, imposing monster of cobbled-together ruins and dark, damp corridors. It’s no place for a woman as soft and sweet as she is, but then, there’s nothing I can say that will convince her of that.
Only that I’ll take care of her if she can’t do it herself.
She must hate me for being so abrasive, but I can’t think of another way to make her understand that she’s playing with fire when she asks for the truth.
She isn’t ready for it. Not yet.
Condensation and the smell of salty seaweed cloak the edge of the cliff, her form retreating into the mist as quickly as if she’s vanished.
My feet kick into high gear, shuttling me closer to where I last saw her.
“Fable!” I shout into the air, but my voice doesn’t travel well through the heavy cloud cover. “Fable!”
She appears, damp coating her cheeks and the tips of her hair clinging to her collarbone.
“Alder? What are you doing?”
“Protecting you, from the look of things.” I plant a hand at her elbow just to make sure she’s real.That any of this is real.
“I don’t need a caretaker.” She wrenches her elbow from my grasp. “I couldn’t sleep. The beam of the lighthouse keeps waking me up.”
“You can see that?” I squint through the cloudy dark.
“Well, not now.” Her eyes train in the far distance, where the lighthouse is perched on a pile of granite in the middle of the bay.
“This place is dangerous. One misstep and you could fall. I’ve seen it happen countless times over the years.”
“You’ve seen it?” She arches an eyebrow at me.
“Well, not with my own eyes. I’ve been on this land so many years, it feels like an eternity. Keats may be the bearer of Leith’s history, but it’s not because he knows more than me. It’s because I’d rather forget it all than remember a moment.”
Her warm eyes hold mine. I hate that I feel so open with her, so willing to reveal the things I usually share with no one. Her gaze falls back to the rolling waves far below us. “What’s down there?”
“The Witch Caves. Didn’t the brochure warn you about those?”
“Warn me?” She huffs, inching closer to the edge as she tries to angle her gaze to get a better look at the roaring cave below us.
“When the witch-hunt hysteria swept through Scotland, the story goes that a medieval witch sacrificed a local child as she cast a curse across the townsfolk to punish them for their madness.” I pause, wondering if it is worth sharing the next part of the story. “They didn’t give many of the women a trial, only relied on a vengeful neighbor’s accusation before they drowned half a dozen women and young girls in the waves at the entrance of the cave. When the tide comes in, it roars—like a thunder effect—but when it washes out, it’s a sigh. Or some people say it’s the innocents crying as they relive their horror with each passing tide.”
“Like ghosts? Are you saying the cave is haunted by the ghosts of witches?”
“I don’t know if haunted is the right term.” I frown. “More like imprinted in time.”
“Imprinted in time.” Fable repeats my words; only they sound better when she says them.
“All the horror of life on earth has happened here in this spot. No stretch of land is left untouched. It has witnessed the worst that humans are capable of, and every rock holds an imprint.”
“Is that why humans are so horrible to one another? Because the land under their feet is soaked in the blood of their ancestors?”
“Something like that.” I hum as I take in her words. She’s perceptive, maybe the best tea companion I’ve ever had. It feels as if we could talk for hours and not get bored, but then, is this how she felt with Harris too? I can’t help but wonder how deep this connection between us runs, or if she even feels it too.
