Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
AGNES
Ten Years Earlier
Gran’s hand was cold in mine, her skin papery and thin, the bones beneath fragile as a bird’s. I hated this. It was just too soon.
“Agnes.” Her voice was a rasp, barely audible above the hum of the hospital equipment, machines that beeped their steady rhythm, marking time we both knew was running out. “Come closer, my dear.”
I leaned in, my chair scraping against the linoleum. The room smelled of antiseptic and that unwelcome clinical smell of hospitals that made you ache for your own bed.
“I’m here, Gran.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and for a moment they were sharp—sharper than they’d been in days—cutting through the fog of medication and illness with an intensity that made my breath catch.
“We need to talk,” she said. “About Graham.”
My heart stumbled.
I’d spent the summer falling in love with my childhood friend.
I’d only been home from uni for a day when I’d walked into The Tipsy Thistle, ready to give Graham grief over his newly acquired pub, and he’d looked up and locked eyes with me across the room.
He’d grown up while I had been gone. Filled out.
The lanky boy I remembered had been replaced by a man with broad shoulders and tattoos peeking from under rolled sleeves and a jaw that could cut glass.
But it was his eyes that stopped me—the same warm soulful eyes they’d always been, crinkling at the corners when he saw me.
“Well, well,” he’d said, that familiar voice now a low rasp that did something uncomfortable to my stomach. “Look what the cat dragged back from the big city.”
“Graham Kincaid.” I’d crossed to the bar, trying to ignore the way my heart was suddenly pounding. “You’ve got muscles now. When did that happen?”
“Somewhere between you leaving and coming back, apparently.” He’d grinned and slid a glass of wine across the bar without me having to ask. “Missed you, Agnes.”
And that was it.
Three words, spoken casually, like they didn’t matter. But the way he’d looked at me when he said them—like I was someone he’d been waiting for without knowing it—had cracked something open inside me and I hadn’t been the same since.
Of course, I’d thought, the realization settling into my bones like coming home. Of course. There you are.
The next few months had been the best of my life.
The first time he kissed me was on the rocky shores of Loch Mirren, the sunset gilding the water with a soft golden light. He’d been mid-sentence—something about the pub and a failed attempt at cooking—when he’d stopped, looked at me, and said, “I’m going to kiss you now, if that’s all right.”
“It’s all right,” I’d whispered, and then his mouth was on mine and the world had fallen away.
We spent the rest of the summer tangled up in each other. Long walks that turned into longer conversations. Late nights at his flat above the pub, learning each other’s bodies with that joyful laziness you have when you think the mornings will never come.
I’d never been so happy.
“Gran, you need to rest—”
“I’ll rest soon enough.” A ghost of her old wry humor flickered across her face before fading into something grimmer. “I’ll rest forever soon enough. But first, you need to listen to me, child. Really listen.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“I’ve watched you this summer.” Her grip on my hand tightened with surprising strength. “I’ve seen the way you look at him and the way he looks back. Like you’ve finally found the thing you’ve been searching for your whole life.”
Tears pricked at my eyes. That was exactly how it felt. After years of fumbling through brief relationships that had never quite fit, of kissing boys who read big books but never made my heart race, I’d come home and found Graham waiting. Graham, who’d been there all along.
“I wore that look once,” Gran continued, her voice softening into memory. “With your grandfather. The day I met him, I knew. Just knew, in my bones, that he was the one. We had two years together, Agnes. Two perfect years. And then the loch took him.”
“Gran—”
“A storm that came out of nowhere. That’s what they said. The water was calm when he set out, and then—” She broke off, coughing, and I reached for the water on her bedside table.
She waved it away.
“My father died two and a half years after I was born. Did you know that? Drowned in the shallows, water barely up to his waist. No one could explain it. Just like no one could explain my husband, found floating in the loch on a day so calm you could see your reflection in it. Just like your father—”
“Don’t.” The word came out sharper than I intended. “Please don’t talk about my father.”
My mum, standing by the door, made a soft mewl of distress, pulling her hand to her face.
“I have to.” Gran’s eyes were wet now, tears tracking down the deep lines of her face. “Because you need to understand, Agnes. There’s … it’s not coincidence, lass. There’s a curse.”
I wanted to pull away, to tell her she was confused, that the medication was making her say things that didn’t make sense. But there was something in her voice—a terrible certainty—that held me frozen.
“The loch takes the men we love,” she continued, tears seeping.
“Every generation. Every time one of us is foolish enough to truly love a man, the water claims him. My grandmother lost two husbands, Agnes. Two. After the first one drowned, she thought she was safe. Thought lightning couldn’t strike twice.
So she let herself love again.” Gran’s voice cracked. “He lasted three months.”
“No. No,” I said, repeating it to myself, needing to believe she was wrong. “That’s just ... that’s just a pattern. A horrible pattern, but—”
“It’s not.” My mum’s voice from across the room was dull, but firm.
“Your mother thought the same thing. She was so determined to break the cycle.”
Silence fell. Nobody needed to speak to understand how that had turned out.
I’d grown up fatherless with a mum who watched the clock count down until she could leave Loren Brae.
I’d heard her murmur about a curse for years now. But when pressed, she’d clammed up, her eyes welling with tears.
I’d always thought it was just her grief. Could it be something more?
The room spun. I gripped the arms of my chair, trying to anchor myself.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “You can’t be serious?”
“I wish I wasn’t. And I wish that I knew more. That I knew how to break it. My time here is almost done, Agnes. I have to make you understand how important this is. Graham … well, I love him too, don’t I? We all raised him as much as we did you.”
I knew she wasn’t lying. Graham had always been a favorite of hers.
“But you need to know. Now that you’re in love.”
“I’m not…” I broke off, my cheeks flaming.
Gran coughed, the sound shaking her entire body, and this time she accepted water from her cup.
“There are stories—old stories—about a debt. Something one of our ancestors did, long ago, some bargain or betrayal. But the records are lost, if they ever existed. The Wrights scattered, you ken? At some point. We don’t know why. All I have is this.”
Gran leaned forward and pressed something cold and smooth into my hand. I looked down to find a ring, with small etches in an odd chalice-like design, and I instinctively curled my fingers around it.
“Gran. Your ring.”
“Yours now.”
“I can’t—” I glanced over to my mum who just nodded at me to take it. Swallowing down my sadness, I slipped the ring on my finger.
Gran pulled me closer, her breath warm against my ear.
“The loch finds a way, Agnes. If you never believe another thing I say, know this. The loch … it always finds a way. And it does not forget.”
I was crying now, tears streaming down my face unchecked. Because I believed her. Goddess, help me, but I believed every word. All those drownings, all those accidents, stretching back through generations—it couldn’t just be coincidence. It was too consistent.
“I do love him,” I choked out. “Gran, I love him so much—”
“I know you do, sweetheart.” Her own tears fell freely now. “That’s why you have to let him go.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.” Her voice turned fierce. “You must. If you truly love him, Agnes, you’ll protect him from this. From us.”
“There has to be another way. There has to be something—”
“There might be, but I haven’t found it yet.” The words were heavy with decades of loss. “Don’t you think I looked? But it’s not worth it, is it?”
I shook my head, barely able to breathe. The summer flashed through my mind in fragments—Graham’s laugh, his touch, his mouth worshipping my body.
Our love was a death sentence for him.
“Promise me, Agnes.”
I looked up, meeting Gran’s eyes. They were fading now, the sharpness dimming as exhaustion pulled her back under. But her grip on my hand was like iron.
“Promise me you’ll protect him. Promise me you won’t let the loch take another man we love.”
“Gran—”
“On my life.” Her voice was barely a whisper now. “On my death. Promise me.”
Graham. He was everything to me and I craved his warmth, his steadiness, the way he made me feel like I was standing on solid ground. I thought of never touching him again, never waking up beside him, never hearing him say my name in that way that made my whole body light up.
An image flashed in my mind before I could stop it. It was of Graham, floating face-down in the loch, his eyes empty, his strong hands still. I would carry that loss for the rest of my life.
“I promise,” I whispered. Because what else could I do?
Gran’s eyes closed, a tear sliding down her temple into her silver hair.
“That’s a good lass,” she breathed. “My brave, brave lass.”
Her grip loosened on my hand as sleep claimed her. I sat in the dim hospital room, listening to the beep of machines and the rattle of her breathing, and felt my heart turn to stone.
Three weeks later, she died.
And so had any future I’d hoped for with Graham.
And years later, I was still keeping my promise—still holding the line between us, still watching him from a distance, still pretending that the ache in my heart wasn’t slowly killing me.