Flynn smirked without looking away, dropping into his theatrically ridiculous accent, “Aye. Makes a man consider takin’ up poetry. Or whisky. Mebbe both.”
She huffed, but her gaze drifted upward as the Old Man of Storr appeared through the mist—dark, ancient, a spine of stone rising like the world’s first monument.
“He looks older than the world,” she whispered.
“They say he is,” Flynn continued his fireside brogue. “A braw giant, turned tae stone so he could keep watch o’er the island.”
Heather smiled faintly. “A man who doesn’t leave. Sounds familiar.”
He only squeezed the wheel once, quiet.
Flynn pulled into a gravel lay-by and killed the engine. Wind rocked the truck slightly.
Heather unbuckled, then paused.
Her coat shifted, revealing the slim leather-bound notebook she had slipped into her pocket intentionally before they left Portree.
Eilidh’s notebook.
The one Flynn had found behind her mom’s vanity during renovations, its spine warped, its pages crinkled from heat and time. She opened it now, her fingers already knowing the page she wanted.
A sketch of a thistle, her thistle, faded but unmistakable.
Under it, written in her mother’s handwriting, looping and slanted:
Storr ridge — unusual stonework reported.
Possible Mackenzie connection?
Variant thistle carving.
Check on next trip.
Heather sucked in a quiet breath.
“She meant to come here,” she whispered. “She wrote about it months before she died. But… she never came back to follow up.”
Flynn leaned over her shoulder. “She left it unverified?”
Heather nodded. “Which means either she never made it… or something stopped her.”
The words felt heavy in the air.
Heather closed the notebook gently, as though it might bruise. “She wanted this clue to matter. She wanted someone to see what she suspected.”
“Then let’s have a look,” Flynn said softly.
And together, they stepped into the wind.
The trail wasn’t a stroll. It was a trek—the kind that made locals shrug and tourists reconsider their life choices. Rain-slick stone, patches of mud, a slope that felt steeper with every step. Heather adjusted her scarf for the thirtieth time and blew a stray curl out of her face, already winded.
“How,” she gasped, “is this considered a popular hike?”
Flynn snorted the thermos tucked effortlessly under one arm as if he were on a brisk walk to the postbox. “This is the easy path, lass.”
Heather stopped dead. “The what?”
He grinned over his shoulder. “Easy. Beginner-friendly. Perfect for folks who’ve never climbed a meaningful hill in their life.”
