‘I love it!’ I said, clutching it tightly as I kissed him again. ‘When did you manage to buy it without me seeing?’
‘Remember when you were browsing the stall full of semiprecious stones at the market, and I went to grab us some cold drinks? I may have found this then.’
He took the necklace from me and made me turn round so he could hang it around my neck and fasten the catch. I turned back to face him. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘that bees travel miles and miles away from their homes, but they always find their way back?’ He leaned in and kissed me softly. ‘It means you’ll find your way back to me, Lili.’
‘Actually, that’s just what my family call me. I’m actually called …’
But I realised he was only half listening. His gaze had been snagged by the departures board. ‘My gate number has just popped up. I’m going to have to run!’ He kissed me quickly.
‘But—’
‘Send me a message once your phone’s charged! Tell me then!’ He jogged away and disappeared into the security hall before I could argue.
I stared at the empty space between the doors where I’d last seen him, and I stayed there until the departures board showed his flight had departed,then I turned – my body suddenly heavy and complaining about the lack of sleep – and headed towards home. However, I knew I wouldn’t sleep until the message he’d promised had arrived.
Part II
Chapter Five
Now.
SHE WASN’T SURE if she’d roused from slumber or if her surroundings had come slowly into focus. Her eyes might have been closed, lids having just fluttered open, or they could have been open already. She really couldn’t say for certain. All she knew was that it felt as if she’d been wandering around in a dense, pearly fog, and now the sky had cleared.
This place was beautiful. A gauzy mist hovered above the unruffled surface of a lake surrounded by low mountains, their weathered tops rising above the treeline. The curving beach was covered with dark stones of different sizes, some just pebbles, some full-grown rocks, slick with seaweed. Beyond the arc of the shoreline, there was a hump-backed bridge made of ancient stone, and, behind that, the turrets of a castle poked above a row of evergreens. It was as if she’d been dumped down in the middle of a fairy tale.
A noise penetrated the thick blanket of her thoughts. Seagulls. She could hear seagulls. Usually, she found their cries irritating – a horrible, greedy nagging – but as they echoed through the cold morning air, they sounded exquisitely forlorn.
Other sounds began to filter in: the lap of the gentle waves against the rocky beach, the rumble of a car pulling away and getting quieter as it climbed over the hump of the bridge and disappeared from view.
She seemed to be on the edge of a small town, but like no town she’d ever visited before. It was a couple of centuries old at least. The main street was probably only a hundred metres long, flanked on both sides with uniform, white-rendered buildings, all with contrasting black window and door frames.
She stood up, eager to explore, then paused to look down at her legs and feet. She’d been sitting down. On a bench. Beside a bus stop. For some reason, that seemed like new information.
How long? How long had she been sitting here on this bench? Furrows appeared above her eyebrows as she tried to concentrate but it was no good. She had no idea how long she’d been sitting there or even how she’d ended up in this place.
Something in the back of her brain, something sensible and machine-like, rubber-stamped this revelation as important, but for the life of her she couldn’t work out why. It hurt to think about it, actually. Really hurt, like a band tightening around her temples, so she let the thought go, let it soar up into the sky with the seagulls, and then she turned and walked up a slight incline towards the large Georgian church standing guard at the top end of the High Street.
The smell of frying bacon hit her nostrils as she passed the open door to a bed and breakfast with a café on the ground floor. She gravitated towards it, crossing the threshold. There was an empty table just inside the door, and she eased herself into a chair and soothed her grumbling belly with a rub of her palm.
A guy in an apron appeared beside her. He nodded at the menu propped up between the salt and pepper pots in the centre of the table. ‘What’ll you have?’ he asked in a soft Scottish accent, finishing his question off with a smile.
‘Tea,’ she said hoarsely, even though she had made no such decision in her conscious brain. ‘And bacon.’
The guy was still smiling at her. She was starting to find it unnerving. ‘Roll or buttie?’
‘Roll,’ she replied, marvelling at the sound of her own voice, familiar and strange all at once. And not Scottish, she noticed. Her accent was crisper, less rolling. Definitely English.
She pondered the significance of this as the guy in the apron vanished again and, what seemed like only seconds later, a lovely soft roll with thick bacon poking out the sides appeared in front of her. She ate every last scrap, punctuating bites with gulps of hot tea. When she finished, she sighed, letting the sights, sounds and smells of this quaint little town wash over her.
A short while later, she blinked. The plate from her bacon roll was gone. She took a sip from her half-finished mug of tea and shuddered. Stone cold. She placed it back on the table and stood up, heading for the open door onto the street.
‘Hey!’
She stopped in her tracks and turned to find the man in the apron with his hands on his hips. ‘That’ll be five pounds fifty, please.’ He wasn’t smiling any more.
‘Oh. Sorry.’ She patted the pockets of the thin jacket she was wearing. The only problem was that they seemed to be empty. Where was her handbag? Her purse? Her phone?
Her heart began to race uncomfortably under her ribcage,and her head, which had been blissfully empty of clutter up until that point, was suddenly jam-packed with thoughts and sensory information, all clamouring for her attention. She looked up again to find the man scowling at her. ‘I … I …’ she stammered. The grease from the bacon began to congeal in her stomach.
