Page 142 of Bonetide

Unless I do something.

Mhairi had told me that there was something I could do, and that I would have to go back to her when I was ready.

Well, I’m fucking ready. I gather my things and get in the car, grateful I don’t have to explain where I’m going to Alasdair. Last night, he went back to the castle to spend the night there. Part of me wanted him to promise he wasn’t going to kill anyone, but I think I’d feel worse if he told me he couldn’t keep that promise. Anyway, I was still mad at him and I have an awful lot to think about, so I slept alone which was both a joy to fling my limbs everywhere, and kind of lonely. Monsters can make good company.

I decide to go to the Torridon Hotel before I go to Mhairi’s shop, because I have a feeling I might need to be a little less sober before I tackle whatever the hell she’s going to throw at me. And, after last night, I think I need to be around actual people, and not monsters and ghosts.

The pub’s the same as it always is—dark wood, and warm lamps, and that token fire going in the grate—except the fire’s much bigger now that it’s fall and we’re starting to genuinely need it. The smell of peat and whisky and something braised wraps around me when I come in. For a second it’s almost unbearable, how normal it is, how warm. John MacLeod glances up from behind the bar and gives me the nod of a man who’s decided I count as a regular, and I proudly take the corner stool I’ve started thinking of as mine.

“Galloway.” He’s already reaching for the amber ale I had last time. “Wondered when we’d see you. You’ve been keeping to yourself out there, aye?”

“Something like that,” I tell him with a wink. Apparently, I’m a person who winks at people now. I’m really surprising myself these days. “I’ll take the pint. And whatever’s cooking—that smells amazing.”

“Venison stew. Good choice.” He pulls the pint for me and sets it down, and the head settles amber and perfect. I drink a third of it before I’ve taken my coat off, which earns me a look I pretend not to see.

The locals are at their end, the same three as the first time I came here, settled in the way of people who’ve been at this bar longer than I’ve been alive and intend to outlast the building. The ginger-bearded man is in a fisherman’s jumper, grey this time, then there’s the older quiet one with glasses, and the woman, Mary, who told the story of the drowned wives to some curious hill-walkers my first week here and raised her glass to me when she learned I was Effie’s blood, whose own granny said this loch’s always had a tenant or two. Her granny was right.

The stew comes and it’s good, rich and dark with slicks of butter on toast. I eat it slowly and listen, because right now listening is all I’m good for.

It takes ten minutes for the talk to drift to the latest missing woman.

“—that lass, the one from the Shortbread Inn,” the ginger man’s saying, “still nothing. No word.”

“Becca,” Mary admonishes him. “Becca Rhys. She’s got a name, Donald.”

“Aye, Becca, then.” The man looks over at MacLeod. “She was last seen here, aye? Best be letting lone women know to keep their eyes open.”

And at that, everyone turns to look at me.

“Sage advice,” I say through a mouthful of stew.

Mary gives me a steady look, like she’s trying to figure me out. She knows I’m a Galloway, but does she think I’m aware of the bargain already? There’s a hint of respect in her gaze but it’s hesitant, as if she’s unsure I’ve earned it. I immediately finish the rest of my beer.

“They’ll say she wandered off,” Mary continues, and there’s an edge under it, as if she’s talking directly to me. “They always say the women wandered off. As if women are forever wandering off into the sea for the fun of it. No one knows their fate, and no one will bother to look into it, either.”

I have another bite of stew, keeping my eyes down, because I know exactly where Becca Rhys is. Her body is at the bottom of the loch, and I’m sure her liver has floated to shore somewhere—if it’s not been taken by a porpoise or a seal.

“Mary.” The older man, is gentle and final; the same way he shut her down the first time. “Enough.”

“I’ll not be enough,” Mary retorts, quieter. “My granny knew. This makes the fifth one this year. That’s not like it used to be. It’s getting worse.”

MacLeod sets a glass down a touch harder than he needs to, the publican’s signal, and the talk folds and moves off to the boats and the weather. I feel Mary staring at me through the rest of my meal.

I don’t know if she means to make me feel guilt with her probing stare, but I do feel guilty. I am guilty. I know the truth, and I’m going to let the world continue to think these women just went missing when I know exactly what took them: the man I’m sleeping with. I am as complicit with all of Alasdair’s crimes as he is because I’ve turned my face away with no consequences.

Which is exactly why I need to get to Mhairi and figure out what I can do to stop it. If I can figure out a way to tether Alasdair again—even if it means never being with him again, even if it means being relegated to talking through back windows and waving across the bay—I’m going to have to do it.

Even if it leaves both of us heartbroken.

I don’t think I’m ready for it. But life is nothing if not a bunch of hard things you’re never really ready for.

I finish the pint and leave MacLeod too much money. I take one last look at the warm dark room, the fire, the tourists and the locals and the whole ordinary human world of it, some part of me understanding this is a kind of goodbye. Not to the place, but to being a woman who can sit in it without a stone of guilt in her gut.

Then I drive to the village to find Mhairi.

Mhairi’s at the till when the bell goes, tapping on her phone—the sounds it makes make me think she’s playing something like Candy Crush, which I find amusing. She looks up at me as she always does and squints, pushing the phone away. She reads whatever’s on my face and doesn’t ask me if I want a cuppa, doesn’t ask if I want to try the fresh bread they just got in, or tell me she’s ordered me in more oat milk. Instead, she says, “You’re ready, then.”

“I’m ready.”