I sucked in a breath of the salty air as the road dipped and then climbed a gentle hill after passing the last white thatched cottage. I smiled as I realized that cottage had probably been there when my grandma was a girl. I could just imagine her sweet Scottish lilt as she dreamed in the same shades of heather purple that lined Heathermoor Lane.
I reached the top of the slope. A chill hung over my shoulders as I realized that the fabled crag that had stolen so many lives in this village was just out of my eyesight. It was right there, my feet standing at the apex of the small path that led to its edge, but there was no indication of its presence in front of me now. How easy it would be to wander on any one of the cloud-filled days in this area, one or two missteps spelling disaster so quickly.
A dizzying sense of vertigo came over me. The pictures I’d seen of this cliff and crag before had made it look as if they rose three-hundred feet out of the Atlantic. I vowed to myself then that I would never find myself outside Leith Hall when the clouds hung this heavy.
I moved across Heathermoor Lane, careful that my feet remained on the dark asphalt and away from the graveled edge, when Leith Hall finally came into my view.
Mist shrouded a central Gothic spire that pierced the clouds.
A chill sank down to my toes as I made my way beneath a sagging iron gate. Matching medieval stone pillars flanked the entryway of Leith Hall. It stood tall on a rocky bluff every bit as haunting as a postcard from hell. The moor stretched around the rocky outcropping, angry waves churning in the distance on one side and the other extending to a wooded loch gouged into the mountains. I knew beyond the other side existed legends of enchanted fairy pools and wooded nymphs and kelpie that could lure you in to your death.
I was engrossed in Leith and the moor, anxious to unpack my things and then set out to discover all the history and lore this land could offer. For the next three months, this creepy old castle would be my home. A shudder traced my spine again as I slipped under the old moss-ridden stone archway and up the steps. The wood was chipped and graying, the banister broken and hanging from its support. I reached the threshold of the house. The door stood open, the only sliver of light into the house’s interior from the dark sky outside.
My grandmother didn’t exactly grow up at Leith Hall, but most of her memories were here. She’d run these halls as she trailed her mother through each room, a broom in one hand and a soapy bucket in the other. My great-grandma had spent the daylight hours of her adult life taking care of Leith Hall and its inhabitants. She was a servant to the family who lived here, and she raised her children alongside theirs. Grandma claimed not to remember much, only that not a day passed when she didn’t miss Scotland down to her bones.
“Welcome to eight-hundred-year-old Leith Hall and Heathermoor Abbey, oldest spot in all of the Hebrides!” a man boomed as he appeared out of nowhere. His toothy grin was contagious despite the dirty overalls and boot toes perforated with holes. His salt-and-pepper hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, his face wrought with wrinkles and sun as he took me in.
“Are you the caretaker?” I finally grew courageous enough to speak.
“Indeed, I am. Are you Ms. Prescott?”
“Call me Fable.” I held my hand out to shake his.
“Welcome, Fable. We’re so glad you’re here.” He gripped it firmly, pulling me deeper into the darkness of Leith Hall.
Fable
“We?”I hummed.
“On behalf of all of us lonely inhabitants of the Isle of Skye, it’s good to have a guest. Let me show you upt’tha keep.”
“Tha-keep?”
“Your room. S’pose it’ll take a minute to get used to that American accent you’ve got there.”
A grin lifted my cheeks. “I guess there is a bit of a language barrier between us.”
“Aye, I’m a helluva lot older. Most people my age ’round here speak the old ways.”
“I can’t wait to soak it all up.” I followed him up a narrow stairwell, a landing, and then another even narrower set of stone steps. The shuffle of his footsteps was melodic, the way his old, wrinkled hands clutched the banister each step told of all the lives he’d lived walking around Leith.
“This’ll be yourhome sweet home next ten weeks.”
I smiled warmly, trying to shake the damp chill eating at the marrow of my bones already. The walls were cool granite, cracks washed with a mix of white plaster and the medieval version of cement. I ran my fingertips along the crafted stones, imagining my grandmother’s fingertips running along the same cracks as she followed her mother through the rooms of this house.
“It will be good to escape the noise of America for a while.”
“Aye.”His eyes wandered the room with me, the single bed in the corner beneath the only vertical window that allowed the natural light in. “I’ll leave ya ta get settled. I’ll be at the workshop back o’tha woods if you need anything.”
“You don’t stay with me? I mean, under the same roof? Here at Leith?”
“Only a yell away, lass. These old ears don’t sleep as well as theyused’ta.You have free access to Leith this summer. The library downstairs holds all the local village history to date, from dinosaur fossils to kelpies, clans, and Culloden—a battle where my own ancestors perished—it’s all in there.”
He waved awkwardly as he backed out of the room, the soft rustle of his worn boots interrupting the silence he left. He had a way about him that I was coming to think of as unique to this place. This land was famous for storytellers, weavers of tales and legends, and I could feel the spirit alive in the caretaker of Leith Hall.
“Wait, what should I call you?” I hung at the top of the stairwell.
He turned when he reached the bottom, dark eyes sparkling up at me. “I’ll answer to anything, but most call me Keats.”
