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)
The stones are mostly old, some going back to the 1700s, the lettering on them worn down to ghosts. The newer ones are at the back, near the wall. I walk through them slowly, looking at the names. There are Mackenzies and MaCraes and MacLeods and Rosses, the same surnames recurring for two hundred years, families staying in the same place.
No MacCoinnich, though. Not on any of the new stones, not on any of the old ones.
I find that interesting. Could he have lied about his name? Why? I try to make a mental note to google it later.
Eventually I find Effie.
Her stone is grey and plain. Eufemia Galloway. 1927–2025. No epitaph. No flowers, at least none that have been brought here recently, which I register with a pang of guilt because I should have been by here sooner. I suppose since I’ve been living in her cottage, sleeping in her bed, wearing her clothes, reading her letters, and befriending her neighbor, I haven’t felt much of a separation from her.
But though there are no bought flowers, something is growing at the base of the stone.
A foxglove.
A single foxglove. Tall, in full bloom, the deep pink with the dark spots inside the throats of the bells. It is rooted at the foot of the stone as if it has been there for years.
Effie’s grave grew its own flower. A deadly flower, but a flower nonetheless.
I kneel.
I’m not the praying kind. My family didn’t go to church much outside of Christmas. I just sit cross-legged on the grass with my hand flat on the cold top of the stone, and I talk to her.
“Hi, Effie.”
The wind moves through the grass.
“I’m sorry I haven’t come.”
The foxglove at the base of the stone tilts slightly in the same wind, as if listening.
“I’ve been a little busy, as it turns out. I’m sure you know.”
I look at the stone for a long moment. I look at the carved letters. I look at the dash between the two dates.
The dash that is a person’s whole life.
Tears immediately prickle behind my eyes, and I take a breath.
“I slept with him last night, Effie. The man at the castle. Alasdair. The man…I think you knew him. I think he is some…I don’t know…younger version of the Eachann you wrote to. I can’t quite tell. He’s being careful with me about his own history, which is annoying as hell. But I slept with him. Last night. In his bed, in the castle. Okay, maybe we didn’t go all the way, but you know…times were had.”
The wind dies down as if it also doesn’t want to hear this TMI.
“He was… so careful with me. He’s been careful with me from the start. He warned me. He warned me this morning. He told me that when we go further than we’ve gone, when I let him have all of me, that things will change. That he won’t be the version of him I’ve been falling asleep next to. Not that I’ve done that often. It was only last night, I promise.”
I press my hand flatter to the stone. The stone is cold under my palm.
I look at the foxglove, as if daring it to bow its head.
“I’m going back to him, though.”
The foxglove doesn’t move.
“I’m going to give him what he’s asking for, and I don’t care if he breaks my heart. I’m going to do the thing you spent your whole life not doing. I’m going to open the door you kept closed with Eachann.”
I sit with that for a beat.
“And I came here because I’m scared, Effie. But not the way you would think, not in the way I should be, because he’s a person of interest when it comes to the missing women and the last thing I should be doing is engaging with him, let alone sleeping with him. It’s funny because I’m not scared of him. I am scared of not having him.”
I sigh and feel a tear tickle my face. I wipe it away with the heel of my palm.
“I don’t want to be you, Effie. I’m sorry. I know that sounds bad to someone who’s dead and can’t answer, although maybe you can answer and have been trying to. Anyway, I mean it the way a woman means it when she is looking at her own future in another woman’s gravestone. You lived alone here for sixty odd years. You wrote him letters you didn’t send. You kept your wards. You died in that cottage and there is one foxglove on your grave and no one has brought you any flowers.”
The wind picks up again, bringing a chill off the bay and smelling of rain. I sniffle.
“I don’t want that for myself. I’ve lived my life trying to do the right thing, trying to be normal and responsible, and, I don’t know, behave, and it never felt right, never felt like I was living for myself. I mean, I was already married and I lost that fairy tale. Now you, this land, it’s presented me with a new one. With Alasdair. I want him. I want that chance to start over. And yeah, maybe this is exactly what he was warning me about, maybe he knew I’d start to get in my feelings, maybe I’d think of him as more than a rebound. Maybe any guy in his right mind would worry that I would do something like sit here and tell you that the two of us are a fairy tale. But at the same time, I have to risk it.”