Chapter Eight
The Inverness train station was not designed for six children, and the six children were certainly not designed for the Inverness train station.
"Hamish, get down from there. Isla, stop licking the window. Robbie, I can see you and I will count to three."
Glinna's voice carried the particular tone of a mother who had long ago accepted that she was herding cats and had simply decided to be louder than the chaos. Maeve stood beside her, clutching a rucksack and a guitar case and wondering, not for the first time, what the hell she was doing.
"You'll be fine," Glinna said, as if reading her mind. She shifted Charity to her other hip. The baby grabbed a fistful of her mother's hair and began chewing on it with the dedication of someone who had found their life's purpose.
"I didn't say anything."
"You didn't have to. You've got that look."
"What look?"
"The one that says you're about to bolt." Glinna extracted her hair from Charity's mouth with practiced ease. "Hamish, I said down. Now."
Hamish, who had climbed onto a luggage trolley and was pretending to be a pirate, ignored her completely.
Maeve watched the departure board flicker. Her train was on time. Mere minutes until it arrived. Mere minutes until she got on it and left Scotland for the first time in fifteen years. Mere minutes to change her mind. "This is a terrible idea," she said.
"You've said that."
"It bears repeating."
"It really doesn't." Glinna turned to face her properly, which was impressive given that she was also keeping one eye on the twins, who had discovered an abandoned coffee cup and were debating whether to drink from it. "Don't you dare. That's disgusting, and you know it."
The twins looked guilty and put the cup down.
"Look," Glinna said, turning back to Maeve. "You've been hiding in that cottage for years. And I love you, and it's been good for you, but at some point hiding stops being recovery and starts being just… hiding."
"I like hiding."
"I know you do. But maybe this is the test you need.
Go down there, see what it feels like, figure out what you actually want.
" Glinna's voice softened. "You might hate it.
You might get there and realize that you were right all along, that your life is in Scotland, and come straight back.
But at least you'll know. At least you'll have chosen it properly, instead of just…
defaulting to it because you were scared. "
Maeve didn't have an answer to that. She stared at the departure board instead, watching the minutes tick down.
"Besides," Glinna added, "Neil and I talked about it. Once the cottage renovation is done, if you want to buy it, it's yours. We'll work out a price that's fair. So think of this as earning your deposit."
Her own cottage. The light inside her burned a little more brightly. Not that she let it show. "I'm not doing this for the money."
"Are you not?" Glinna handed Charity a box of raisins, which the child promptly exploded over the platform.
Maeve hesitated. She thought about the cottage. Stone walls, slate roof, the view of the hills that she'd looked at every morning for fifteen years. The garden that Eejit kept destroying. The quiet that wrapped around her like armor.
Owning it would be different. Owning it would mean it was truly hers, not borrowed, not temporary. A place she'd chosen rather than a place she'd fled to.
"Maybe a bit for the money," she admitted. "If I decide to do it."
Glinna smiled. "There's nothing wrong with that. Money's useful. And you deserve to have something that's properly yours. And there’s nothing wrong with not doing it at all, as long as you’ve given it a try."
"Mummy, Robbie’s being weird again," one of the twins reported.
Glinna sighed. "Robbie is always being weird. That's his personality."
"He's making faces at that man."
They all looked. Robbie was standing in front of a businessman in a suit, pulling his nose up with one finger and sticking out his tongue. The businessman looked deeply uncomfortable.
"Robbie Campbell, get over here right now or I swear to God…"
Robbie trotted over, looking entirely unrepentant.
The platform announcement crackled overhead. The train to London was approaching. Maeve felt her stomach drop.
"Right," Glinna said. "This is it, then. Have you told Iona you're coming?"
Maeve concentrated very hard on adjusting her rucksack strap.
"Maeve."
"I'll call her from the train."
"You haven't told her." It wasn't a question.
"I was going to. I just… haven't yet."
Glinna's expression shifted into something more serious, the chaos of children fading into background noise. "That's not a good idea. You know that, right? Going somewhere new, somewhere with pressure and history and all of it, without anyone knowing you're coming? Without a support network?"
Maeve felt the familiar prickle of defensiveness. "I can handle it."
"I know you can handle it. You've handled worse. But handling it alone and handling it with support are two different things." Glinna put a hand on her arm, warm and grounding. "Call her. Before you get there. Let someone know you're coming. That's not weakness, Maeve. That's sense."
The train was pulling into the platform now, brakes squealing, windows flashing past in a blur of light.
"Fine," Maeve said. "I'll call her."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"Good. And make sure you phone me as well." Glinna pulled her into a hug, squashing Charity between them. The baby made an indignant noise but didn't cry. "Now go on. Before you talk yourself out of it."
Maeve picked up her guitar case and stepped toward the train. The doors opened with a hiss. She climbed aboard, found a seat by the window, shoved her rucksack into the overhead rack, and sat down heavily.
This was happening. She was actually doing this.
She looked out the window at Glinna, who was waving with one hand while trying to stop Isla from running onto the tracks with the other. Robbie was playing on the phone he’d taken out of Glinna’s back pocket. Charity was crying now, probably insulted by the hug. And Hamish…
Maeve's blood went cold.
Hamish was not on the platform.
In fact, Hamish was sitting in the seat directly opposite her, swinging his legs and grinning like a small, demonic cherub. "Hello, Auntie Maeve," he said cheerfully. "Are we going on an adventure?"
"Oh, sweet, sweet Jesus." Maeve lunged across the aisle, grabbed Hamish under the arms, and sprinted for the door.
The whistle was blowing. The doors were starting to close.
She thrust the child through the gap, directly into Glinna's startled arms, and stumbled backward as the doors slid shut an inch from her nose.
Through the glass, she could see Glinna's face, a mixture of horror and hysterical laughter. Hamish looked disappointed. The train began to move.
Maeve pressed her forehead against the window and let out a breath that felt like it had been trapped in her chest for approximately seven years.
"Goodbye, Hamish," she muttered. "Please never do that again."
She made her way back to her seat on unsteady legs and collapsed into it. Her heart was still pounding. She'd almost accidentally kidnapped her best friend's seven-year-old. That would have been a fantastic way to start this whole endeavor.
The countryside began to roll past outside. Green hills giving way to flatter land, sheep dotting the fields like scattered cotton. Maeve watched without really seeing, her mind churning.
She'd promised Glinna she'd call.
The phone felt heavy in her hand. She'd put off this conversation for days, telling herself there was no point calling until she was sure she was going. Well, she was on the train now. She was going. There were no more excuses.
Iona's number was still in her contacts. She'd never deleted it, all these years. Never quite been able to bring herself to erase that last thread of connection.
Her thumb hovered over the call button.
Just do it, she told herself. It's a phone call. You've done harder things than this.
She pressed call before she could talk herself out of it.
It rang once. Twice. Three times. Maybe Iona wouldn't answer.
Maybe she'd be busy, or her phone would be off, or she'd see Maeve's name and decide not to pick up, which would be entirely fair given how their last conversation had ended… Maybe she had a new phone number. Wouldn’t that just be perfect?
"Hello?" Iona's voice. Slightly breathless, like she'd been rushing to answer. Uncertain, like she couldn't quite believe her screen.
"It's me," Maeve said, and immediately felt like an idiot. Obviously it was her. Her name would have come up. "Maeve, I mean. Obviously."
"I know." A pause. "I can see your name."
"Right. Yes. Of course."
Another pause. The train rattled over a junction. Maeve stared out the window at a cow, which stared back with vacant indifference.
"Is everything alright?" Iona asked. Her voice had that careful quality to it, the one people used when they were bracing for bad news. "I mean, you said… you made it pretty clear…"
"I'm on a train."
"A train?"
"To London." The silence that followed was so complete that Maeve briefly wondered if the call had dropped. She pulled the phone away from her ear to check. Still connected. "Iona?"
"Sorry. I'm here. I just…" A shaky exhale. "You're coming to London?"
"Apparently."
"To… to join the band?"
"Dunno. To try. To see. No promises, no commitment, and if I hate it, I'm getting straight back on a train and going home."
"Of course. That's… that's completely reasonable." Iona's voice had lifted, just slightly. A note of something that sounded… happy, perhaps. "When do you arrive?"
"Tonight. Late. I'll find a hotel or something, I haven't really…"
"You could stay with me." The words came out in a rush, almost falling over each other.
Then another pause, as if Iona had surprised herself by saying them.
"You don't have to," Iona added quickly.
"I know you probably want your own space.
But I've got a spare room, and it seems silly to pay for a hotel when… "
"I'll get a hotel. Probably for the best."
"Okay. Right. Yes."
The train was speeding south now, Scotland falling away behind her. Maeve felt like she was standing on the edge of something, the ground crumbling under her feet. "I should go," she said. "Bad signal. I'll text you when I'm close."
"Alright. And Maeve?"
"Yes?"
There was a pause that stretched long enough that Maeve almost thought she might have jinxed her phone with the bad signal lie.
"I'm glad you called."
The line went dead before Maeve could respond.
She sat there for a long moment, phone still pressed to her ear, listening to nothing.
Then she let out a breath, closed her eyes, and tried very hard to convince herself that the warmth spreading through her chest was just nerves.