“Sure,” Terry says. “His folks were a little strange. His da, Thomas, was American, no offense, and always gone. Lily, his ma, usually had her nose stuck in a book, though sometimes she’d smoke pot out on the patio. But it meant we got away with anything, really. Little Sammy, bless his soul, would follow us around everywhere. He wanted to be like the big kids.”
“You knew Sam, too?”
Terry sighs. “Devastating stuff. Sammy and their mother buried not even a year apart. Though Sammy’s grave is more for memory’s sake, innit. They never did find his body, even after the ice cleared.”
“We’d like to see where Wallace grew up. We think it’ll help us feel more connected to him as we write.”
Terry sips his coffee. “Naturally.”
Nelle’s heart screams with anticipation.Tell us where it is!Her face feels hot, but she keeps her cool, glued to her pad as she writes every word Terry says.
“But ...” Terry lets out a long, wistful sigh before he drops the bomb. “You can’t. Just before I moved to Edinburgh, the house burned down.”
Nelle’s heart falls through her rib cage, hits every bony rung, and splatters in her stomach.
“It ... burned down?” She can’t feel her face or her hands or her feet. “Completely?”
“The chimney’s still standing.” Another sip, then Terry wipes his red mustache on a cloth napkin.
“Oh.” James stares in shock.
Nelle can’t stand it. She needs to excuse herself to cry, to remind herself that it’s okay, that she doesn’tneedto go to the cottage. That this pressing compulsion is an illusion she conjured in her head.
But it isn’t. It’s as real as she is.
She swallows and taps James’s leg under the table, trying to get his attention. She needs to leave, and he needs to write for her to do that. If she stays here another minute, she is going to burst into rage tears. Her pokes turn frustrated. If she goes any harder, Terry will notice her odd convulsions under the table.
But James is still staring at Terry, ignoring her. He pulls out his map of Edinburgh, flips it over, and flattens it out. On the back is a map of Scotland.
“Show me how to get to Scourie,” he says, ever the man on a mission. “Nelle, your pen?”
She passes it over—not the one filled with her ink—and Terry draws a jagged line northwest into the highlands, following a major road. Then he veers off toward the coast, where he sketches a small star.
In the corner of the map, he writes out a phone number. “If you have any other questions, I’m always happy to answer.” He slides themap across the table. “Good luck to you both. I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” James says as Terry walks away, tying his apron back on.
Nelle feels her tears subside as she stares at that little star.
Scourie.
Chapter 22
The road to Scourie is winding and grassy, the hours of driving punctuated only by an occasional highland cow. Finally, when the sun is nothing but an orange smear behind the hills, James sees the road sign for the village.Scourie: 5 Kilometers. Driving on the left side of the road is utterly foreign, but with the windows down, he barely notices the abnormality of it, his attention stolen by the beautiful highlands. The brown and green hills, chalky cliffs, and fields of wind-rustled flowers all plucked out of a fantasy world. He catches himself distractedly veering more than once, grateful that traffic this far north is next to nonexistent.
Nelle stares out the window, silent.
James doesn’t have to ask what’s bothering her. They are nearing the village, and she is scared to face the burned ruins of the cottage she has so desperately sought.
“It doesn’t seem right,” she says at last.
James goes left down a narrower road, dropping his speed to thirty-five kph. The air swells with salt. Between the hills ahead, a black ocean sits underneath pink skies.
“When I close my eyes, Iseethe cottage,” she says. “I’ve never been there, but I can see it.Intact.Like a memory.”
“You might have a vivid imagination.”
She cuts him a look. “I am a walking, breathing, literalproductof someone’s vivid imagination, am I not?” Her voice takes a frustratededge. “It was more than that. You know when you’re dreaming about someone you know in real life? Like your mom or a friend?”
