Almost identical to the carving in Glenoran’s kitchen stone.
Her heart stumbled.
“It’s the same… it’s the same mark,” she breathed.
Flynn lowered onto his haunches. “It certainly looks similar.”
Heather scraped gently at the stonework, and a hollow revealed itself behind a shifted block. Something inside glinted faintly.
She slid her hand into the dark gap and closed her fingers around something cold, metallic.
A thin, corroded clasp. Curved at one end. Edges green with age.
She turned it over.
Letters scratched in fading strokes:
H.M., 1747.
Her throat closed.
“Harris,” she whispered. “It has to be.”
Flynn’s expression shifted from curiosity to something heavier. “Your ancestor?”
Heather nodded, swallowing hard. “Mom wrote about variant thistle sigils she couldn’t place… but she never mentioned this buckle type. She must’ve meant to check Storr herself.”
Wind ripped across the ridge, whistling through the stones as if demanding quiet.
“Maybe she dropped it,” Flynn said gently.
Heather shook her head. “No. She didn’t drop things like this. And if someone was following her—”
Flynn took the clasp, thumb brushing the curve thoughtfully. “Then whoever followed her didn’t see this. Or didn’t understand its importance.”
Heather tucked the relic carefully into her pocket beside Eilidh’s notebook. Wind howled through the spires, a low, keening sound that felt like an exhale from the bones of the earth.
Flynn touched her sleeve, grounding her again. “Easy. Ye’re shakin’.”
“I’m not,” she lied, badly.
When they finally turned back toward the trail, Flynn slid his hand to the small of her back. The lightest touch. Solid and warm.
“You all right?” he asked quietly.
Heather nodded, but something inside her cracked open, raw and real.
Her voice came softer. “I just… this is big, Flynn. It’s a lot.”
“Aye,” he said. “And now you’re here. That means something.”
It did.
Too much.
Halfway down, Heather muttered under her breath, “Why is this trail suddenly so much longer?”
Flynn huffed. “Gravity, lass. Works different on the way up for wee Americans.”
