Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 731(@200wpm)___ 585(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
“I think you’re going to love living here, just as she did,” he adds. “The loch goes phosphorescent some evenings, in late summer, any day now. When the plankton bloom. A hand trailed through the water comes back blue.”
As blue as your eyes?
“Sounds magical.”
“It’s nature, not magic.” He gives me a stern look, as if he thinks I might be as superstitious as Effie.
The breeze drops. The kitchen behind me has gone fully dim. I’ll have to turn on a lamp soon, but I don’t want to let him out of my sight. The doors are locked and I can’t imagine this very still, seemingly polite if not strange man, breaking in and doing me any harm, even though there is a small knot of dread in my stomach that does say, in a quiet voice, he could very well do me harm, and might even like it.
“It’s late,” he suddenly announces.
He doesn’t follow it up. He doesn’t say I should go or I should let you get some sleep. He lets the statement sit between us like a hand laid on the table, palm up. The wait is the thing he’s offering.
I almost say you don’t have to go.
I feel the words rise in my throat, distinct, fully formed, you don’t have to go, and I close my mouth around them and swallow them back. I can feel him watching me not say them.
He doesn’t look away.
“Goodnight, Iris.”
“Goodnight.” Alasdair, I think, but for some reason I don’t want to say his name.
He nods, once, very slightly, and steps back from the window.
He doesn’t walk away in the direction of the road.
He walks toward the bay.
I watch him go, seeing for real now that he is indeed wearing a pair of black pants and wasn’t naked after all. He moves down the slope behind the cottage, past the gardens, all the way to the rocks at the waterline. He pauses there for a second.
Then he’s gone.
Not into the water exactly, I don’t think I see him go, he’s just no longer there, the rocks dark and empty against the failing sky.
I blink and stand at the kitchen window for a long time after, watching the place where he was.
Then he surfaces halfway across the bay, turns in the water to face me, raising his hand in gesture, then does a quick and easy crawl the rest of the way.
I close the curtain. Double check all the doors are locked.
Then I pick up the phone.
Chapter
Six
The phone rings four times before Maddie picks up.
“You’re alive!” she exclaims.
“Barely,” I grumble, adjusting myself in the armchair, my legs still hurting from the panicked sprint this morning.
“Hang on,” Maddie says. There’s a clatter of dishes in the background, a thump of small feet, my niece’s voice raised in operatic injury. “Rosey, go ask Daddy. Aunt Iris is on the phone and Aunt Iris has been missing for six days. Six. Days. Go bother him.” The thump of small feet gets quieter as they run off.
“So, how are the kids?” I ask lightly.
“Don’t do that. Don’t open with the kids. You only ask about the kids when you’re about to bury something. What is it? Why haven’t you called?”
“I’ve texted,” I protest. “Several times. I’ve sent you pics.”
“Yes, but I know you and you said you would call and you didn’t and now you are, which means something propelled you to talk to me and I need to know what it is.”
“Nothing.”
“Iris. I can hear it in your voice.”
“I’m fine.”
“Iris.”
I close my eyes. My head goes back against the chair. The conversation through the window plays itself behind my eyelids on a loop that won’t turn off.
I would mind if you were afraid of me.
“You see, there’s this guy,” I begin carefully, wondering how on earth I’m going to explain any of this. “A man.”
“A man, not a guy? Is there a difference?”
I chuckle. “If you saw him, you’d say yes. There is a difference.”
A pause. “Oh. I see. You’re calling about a man then…well, fuck, it’s about time, Iris.”
I sigh, running my hand over my face. “No, no. It’s not like that. I don’t really know him. He’s just…”
“A man you’re interested in? A man you’ve already fucked?”
“No!” I exclaim. “I haven’t fucked him.”
“Then you’re just interested in him.”
“Maybe? More like this man is interesting.”
And that’s putting it mildly.
“Hmmm. Well, I guess that’s a start since you rarely find anyone interesting. So, where is this interesting man-not-guy, then?”
“In a castle across the bay, probably,” I reply flippantly, and the second the sentence is out of my mouth, I hear how it sounds.
“…I’m sorry. What? A castle?”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“I’m not sure what it sounds like. What do you mean a castle? Like…he’s a prince? Or a king? Braveheart?”
I let out a slightly hysterical laugh. I have to admit, it feels good, even if I do sound unhinged.