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 can’t even think about it.
“And so when Effie died…”
“The line went dormant. He has been losing the bargain in stages since the spring. The four this summer are what happens when there is no anchor.”
“Eighty years…” I can barely breathe.
“Effie was the longest keeper of the line. She refused him at the threshold when she was twenty-two, and she refused him every year of her life after that; the refusing held the bargain longer than it had ever been held.”
“And now I’m here.”
“Aye. That you are.”
“And I…have not refused him.”
She does not answer. She does not need to.
“I tried though,” I plead. “I didn’t know what Effie meant by keeping everything salted, but I did it anyway. I didn’t know she meant Alasdair—I feared she meant Alasdair—but…I didn’t invite him in. Yet…”
“Yes?”
“This morning, I woke up in my bed and he was there. He brought me there overnight from the castle. He came in through the front door. The wards did not hold. Shouldn’t they have held?”
“Hen,” she murmurs gently, placing a cool hand on top of mine. “You did let him in.”
“I didn’t. The door was locked. He unlocked it with the key but I know I didn’t…I was asleep but I know I wouldn’t have…”
“I do not mean the door, Iris,” she snaps sharply.
I frown. “Then what are you talking about?”
She gives me a pointed look.
“Your body, my dear.”
The shop tilts, and I suck in my breath to keep from going with it.
Don’t let him in.
“The bargain has not been about doors, at least not all of it,” she explains. “The salt at the windows and the rowan at the step have been the small theatre of a much older rule, and the older rule is that the Galloway women keep their thresholds closed.”
But if the threshold is also her body?
Effie kept hers closed for sixty years.
And I have decidedly not.
“Oh. Oh fuck.” I gasp.
“Aye, hen.”
“Oh my god.”
“Aye.”
“Mhairi—”
“I know.”
“But I didn’t know. Effie’s letter said—”
“I don’t know what Effie’s letter said, but I know she couldn’t have written it plainly. There are things one does not put on paper in this country, even now. She wrote what she could. She trusted you would understand the rest.”
“I didn’t though!” I cry out softly, feeling so utterly dense. “It’s taken weeks to figure it out.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have figured it out right away. You’re not from here. You didn’t grow up with this folklore, with these tales.”
I need a drink. I look around the shop and spy the local whiskies at the till. I need to drink like a million of those.
Mhairi sighs. “I suppose it’s not so early anymore.” Then she gets up, goes behind the counter, and brings out a half-drunk bottle of Scotch. The cork comes out with a loud pop. She comes back over, picks up my teacup, drinks it back even though I’m pretty sure it’s still hot, then pours the whisky in the empty cup. “There. This is a greater medicine than tea. You’re having a shock. This’ll set you right.”
I nod and shoot back the whisky. It burns going down, but it’s not enough to smack some sense into me, not enough to make any of this make sense. I gesture with my chin and she pours another. I shoot that back too and I feel just a little better.
I sink back in my chair and watch as she takes a swig herself from the bottle then slams the cork back in with the heel of her palm.
“I have known about him since I was eight years old.” She sighs, sitting back down. “My mother sat me down at the kitchen table and told me what lived across the bay from the Galloway cottage, the same way her mother had told her. The village has been keeping his secret for longer than any of us have been alive.”
“And the police?” I ask, thinking of MacRae and Sinclair. “What do they know? Do they know?”
“The police are not from here either. They know what people say, but they look down on us coastal folk, say it’s all tall tales. Because they don’t believe—or don’t want to believe, as is the case with Constable MacRae—they rule it out. But it doesn’t matter anyway. He cannot be stopped by the people of this village. He can’t be stopped by the police. He can’t be stopped by men with guns. He can only be stopped by the line. He can only be stopped by a Galloway woman willing to do what Effie tried for sixty years to do.”
“And…what is that? How do I stop him?”
“That’s for another conversation. Come back when you’re ready to ask it. You’ll need to get used to the truth first.”
I stare at her. She is exactly the same woman I’ve been buying bread from for weeks now. She has been holding this knowledge for me since she was first evasive about who lived in the castle.