Chapter 16
Rory
Rory had a list of things he needed from the market in Fraserburgh. Everything from nails, to lamp oil to new files for the metalwork, because Elrick had somehow managed to break three in a single week, which was impressive even for him.
He also wanted, for reasons he was choosing not to examine too closely, to bring Abigail with him.
It’d been days of daylight-only burns, testing and recalculating, refusing to allow himself even the smallest shred of hope until the mechanism proved itself one careful hour at a time.
The daylight had grown short now.
By midafternoon the shadows stretched long over the cliffs, and the sea turned iron-grey beneath the winter sky. Yesterday the bearing had held six full hours at running temperature.
Rory had rested his hand against the metal and closed his eyes for one brief moment before stepping away.
Saturday next. The first of December, if the weather held, he would light the lamp.
Once the beam was burning across the water, then and only then would he officially tell everyone. Aye, they’d see it, but he wasn’t promising that light to anyone until the match was struck.
It would be good for Abigail to get away for a few hours. The lass had been working day and night with nary a complaint.
“She can help carry provisions,” he told Mrs. Gable.
That was a lie. Ewan could carry more provisions in one hand than Abigail likely could with both arms and a mule.
Mrs. Gable was at the basin breaking the thin skin of ice that had formed over the water overnight. She didn’t look up when he spoke, but her shoulders did something suspiciously close to laughter.
“Hmm,” she said in the tone that meant she saw directly through him. “She’ll need a proper cloak then. Frost on the gorse this morning, and the wind off the firth sharp enough to skin a man alive. Can’t have her catching her death on the road.”
An hour later Abigail came downstairs wearing a wool cloak the color of dark moss. Her hair was pinned up beneath the hood, loose curls escaping around her temples from the damp air, and for one disorienting moment she looked as though she belonged here.
Rory found himself abruptly unable to remember why bringing her had seemed like a sensible idea.
They set out after breakfast along the coastal path into Fraserburgh.
The morning was clear. Rare enough this time of year to feel almost extravagant.
The sea lay flat and glass-grey beneath a sky scrubbed clean by the night wind.
Frost still clung stubbornly to the shaded places along the path, and grass crunched beneath their boots where the low winter sun had not yet reached.
When Rory stepped through the frozen ruts left by carts, the thin ice snapped clean beneath his heel like broken glass.
Abigail walked beside him, her face tilted toward the sunlight like someone starved for it. The cold had painted her cheeks pink already. The tip of her nose had gone pink too.
“I forgot what blue sky looked like,” she said.
“It does that. Disappears for weeks, then turns up pretending it never left.”
“Sounds like someone I know.”
He glanced sideways at her.
She was smiling.
He still wasn’t accustomed to being teased. It’d been a long time since anyone had felt comfortable enough to try.
“I’m not disappearing,” he said.
“Disappearing? No. Emotionally withdrawing? That’s basically your whole personality.”
He frowned slightly. “I dinna know what that means.”
“It means every time you have a feeling you go stare at the sea instead of talking.”
“That’s because the sea generally doesna argue with me.”
“That’s probably because it’s trying to drown you.” A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
Abigail looked absurdly pleased with herself.
A flock of fieldfare burst from the gorse ahead of them in a clatter of wings. First he’d seen this season. Snow soon, then, probably within the fortnight. The mortar would need covering, the lantern room sealing, and the stores brought fully inside.
Smoke from Fraserburgh appeared first, rising into the cold morning air, then the town itself unfolded below them.
Stone houses clustered around the harbor.
Fishing boats crowded shoulder to shoulder at the docks while gulls wheeled overhead screaming at one another.
The whole town smelled of fish and peat smoke and salt.
Market day brought the streets alive. Stalls lined the lanes beneath canvas awnings stiff with frost. Women sold eggs, butter, onions, knitted stockings, and coarse wool mittens. Men argued over rope, nails, barrel staves, and timber. Children darted between carts while dogs barked underfoot.
Braziers burned at the corners of the larger pitches, smoke carrying the scent of roasting chestnuts and mulled ale through the crowd.
Abigail stopped walking as Rory watched her. She was doing it again, looking at everything as though she’d never seen the world before.
She paused at a blacksmith’s stall to examine hand-forged nails one by one, turning them carefully between gloved fingers. At the fishmonger she asked questions about the morning catch with such earnest fascination the man looked half-convinced she might secretly be royalty.
At another stall she ran her fingertips lightly over carved wooden spoons polished smooth by use.
“First time at market?” the fishmonger asked.
“Yes,” Abigail said. “It’s beautiful.”
The fishmonger blinked, then looked slowly around at the muddy street full of fish guts and shouting men.
“It’s the weekly market,” he said cautiously.
“I know, but look at all of it.” She gestured broadly. “The handmade parts of daily life, everyone coming together, it’s fascinating.”
She caught Rory watching her.
“I just think it’s neat,” she finished.
“Neat,” Rory repeated as they moved on.
“Don’t start.”
“I’m nae starting anything. Ye think fish guts are neat.”
“It’s anthropologically interesting.”
“Aye, and ye’re anthropologically interesting. Which is what I’ve been trying to tell ye for weeks.”
She laughed softly, then stopped beside a stall selling kitchen tools.
“Ye do that,” Rory said.
“Do what?”
“Look at things as though ye’ve never seen them before.”
Abigail picked up a wooden bowl, her fingertips lingering over the smooth edge.
“Maybe I haven’t,” she said quietly. She looked at him when she said it.
Questions crowded behind his teeth about where she came from, the impossible things she knew, and the sadness that sometimes crossed her face when she thought nobody noticed, but he had the good sense not to ask them in the middle of the market.
The insult came on Broad Street. They’d just finished at the nail merchant and were heading toward the oilman through the thickest part of the market. The smell of fried herring and wet wool hung heavy in the air.
Abigail walked beside him with the hood of the cloak pushed back from her face, her cheeks bright from the wind.
Three women stood beside the oat merchant’s stall. One older than the others. Widowed, by the look of her black shawl and severe cap. The sort of woman who had spent her life surviving hard winters and burying the dead.
She caught sight of Abigail, staring at the lass with the kind of attention that had nothing to do with curiosity. Without breaking eye contact, she turned her head slightly and spat onto the cobbles three feet from Abigail’s boots.
The spit darkened the frost-covered stone.
The younger women beside her dropped their eyes immediately. And somewhere behind them a little girl’s voice rang out clear as a bell.
“Mam,” the child whispered loudly, pointing. “Is that her? The one the sea put out?”
Her mother grabbed her hand sharply. “Wheesht, child.”
“Is she a faerie?”
The mother dragged the girl quickly into the crowd.
The widow turned back to the oats as though nothing at all had happened. The market noise continued around them. The fishmongers were suddenly busy studying their stalls, others finding tremendous interest in rope as conversations lowered. Everyone nearby had seen and heard.
For one hard moment Rory stood perfectly still. Anger rose hot and immediate beneath his ribs.
He could say something to the widow, remind her exactly who kept ships off the reef, make her apologize. But in doing so, he would turn one ugly moment into a public spectacle Abigail could never escape.
“Rory.”
Abigail’s voice was low. “Don’t.”
“I—”
“I mean it.” She met his gaze, the gold flecks in her brown eyes bright. “Keep walking.”
The lass wasn’t frightened or even angry. She simply looked tired. Like someone who’d decided this humiliation was easier to ignore.
“Keep walking,” she repeated.
With a nod, he placed one hand lightly at her elbow as they moved through the crowd.
They walked in silence to the oilman’s stall where Rory bought two extra quarts of lamp oil because he was rattled enough he could no longer remember what remained in storage. The oilman kept his eyes firmly on the coins.
Three stalls farther on, beneath the partial shelter of a canvas awning, Abigail finally spoke.
“I’m okay.”
“Ye’re not.”
“No,” she admitted. “But I’m not going to fall apart in a public market, and you’re not going to make a scene in the middle of Broad Street. So we’re going to finish the list and go home.”
“I’m sorry, lass. She was wrong to do it.”
“I know.” Abigail gave him a small crooked smile that hurt to look at. “Still sucked though.”
Rory made a rough sound low in his throat that might’ve been agreement.
Then, because he couldn’t bear the look in her eyes another second, he reached for the nearest distraction he could find.
“There’s a baker two streets over who makes honey oat cakes. The good kind. With currants.”
“Are you bribing me with baked goods?”
“Aye.”
She took his arm, as warmth spread through him.
“That’s actually extremely effective.”
“Thought it might be.” Rory found himself willing to buy every honey cake in Fraserburgh if it meant keeping her hand there a little longer.