Chapter 42 #2
I was so sorry to hear of the incident at your family property.
Please accept my concern and my offer of support.
If the museum can be of any assistance in securing Glenoran or assessing any potential damage to historically relevant fixtures or documents, do let me know.
If you have uncovered any further personal effects belonging to past occupants, we would be glad to help evaluate and conserve them.
With best wishes,
Dr. Flora Henderson
Highland Heritage the kind that broke tension more effectively than any wayward comment.
Heather continued, “—Besides, it’s my house. Can’t be a thief if you own everything in it, right?” Like she was trying to convince herself of it, too.
They made tea and sat at the table with their cups and Fiona’s diary between them.
Heather copied the margin line into her notebook— beneath the hearts that guard our flame —then sketched the entwined heart thistle exactly as it appeared on the stone.
The act of drawing was steadying, like threading a needle in good light.
“Fiona left more than a map,” she said after a while, still shading the petals. “She left a way to think. Not just the where, but the how.”
“Aye.” Flynn’s thumb rubbed thoughtfully along his mug’s handle. “She reckoned on betrayal. On fear. On time. And she made somethin’ that could outlast the worst of all three.”
Heather closed the diary and laid both hands on it as if to bless it. “We’ll open it tonight,” she said quietly. “No fanfare. No phones. We see what’s there and decide our steps after.”
He reached, laced their fingers. “Tonight.”
They locked Glenoran behind them in the late afternoon, leaving the rooms as carefully plain as they could.
The sky had lowered by the time they reached the lane, a blue-gray sheet pulled tight.
As Flynn turned the truck toward the village, a lone rook rose from the hedgerow and crossed their path, black against the light.
“An omen?” Heather asked, half-joking, half-not.
“Just a bird headin’ home,” he said.
Back at the cottage, Byrdie greeted them by flopping onto her back in theatrical relief, demanding her belly be admired. Flynn obliged first; Heather followed, laughing when the cat caught her thumb between soft paws and pretended—poorly—to bite.
They ate simple: tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. The radio murmured low. Heather sat cross-legged on the rug with Fiona’s diary open on her lap, copying one last page by the light of the fire.
“We’re close, Mom,” she said, softly. “I can feel it.”