Chapter 3
March
Isla
Please say this isn’t it.
I’d never believed in bad luck before. Never believed in the tooth fairy or wishes on birthday cakes.
I’d tried once, at fifteen years old, when I’d watched my parents scream at each other over my fully lit birthday cake and realised the number of times they’d split up and gotten back together tallied higher than the number of candles.
I’d made a single wish. May that kind of love never find me. Flicking off Daisy’s – my beloved VW Beetle – barely cooled engine, I realised fifteen-year-old Isla had been short-changed. And all by a man whose best chat-up line had been, You sort of look like Margot Robbie in the right light.
Daisy sputtered to a stop outside the cottage that looked better suited to a children’s cautionary tale, the witch within waiting to eat people alive.
I unlocked my phone, pausing on the open social media app I’d been torturing myself with all week.
My still-puffy eyes taking in the picture of Cameron, my ex, and Annabelle, the high school ex-girlfriend he’d vehemently sworn I didn’t need to worry about when we moved to his hometown, Kinleith, just over a year ago.
We split up for a reason, Lala. We outgrew each other. I actually think you guys would be great friends.
I guess that made me the idiot, because I’d accepted those words as truth. Allowing Annabelle to welcome me into her circle of friends. I’d joined their knitting group and the Kinleith Village Committee. Gone on coffee dates and to hot yoga, even a girls’ weekend to Inverness.
And yet there they were, exchanging saliva at the top of Ben Nevis, nowhere near as sweaty as two liars deserved to be after a four-hour hike. The words “True love always finds its way home” sat beneath two hundred likes.
Two hundred.
I’d made the mistake of scrolling through the comments yesterday, then cried in the shower.
The perfect couple . . . So happy for you . . . Always knew you guys were made for each other.
A little heads-up might have been nice.
Trying to suck down the tears for the sake of our seven-year-old daughter, Teddy, short for Theodora, I navigated to the email the barely-legal-drinking-age letting agent had sent over this morning.
Despite my best efforts, the text blurred together on the phone screen. I should have known the rent price was too good to be true.
The advert stated words like “quaint”, “traditional features”, “sea view”. There was a possibility the sea view would be revealed with tomorrow’s sunrise, but as for the rest . . .
Through the smattering rain, I squinted at the warped little cottage. The garden was an overgrown mess of brittle stalks and thistles, a wonderful distraction from the dirty windowpanes and yellowing lace curtains. One shutter hung crookedly, jerking violently in the wind.
This was the single place in the village I could afford on my meagre savings, most of which was the small inheritance I’d received from Granny Pat. She’d also bequeathed me the ancient car I now drove.
“It looks cosy,” I finally said aloud, feeling damn proud when my voice didn’t wobble.
I couldn’t go to my parents even if I wanted to. Thanks to my mum’s latest ten-minute voice note, I knew that they were currently on-again and getting ready to fritter away their retirement savings on a round-the-world cruise.
I’d have to do this alone.
I needed a job – well, first I needed a CV. The odd bit of money I made from baking birthday cakes for the mums at school wouldn’t cut this.
What was the going rate for feet pictures these days? When Cameron and I lived in Edinburgh, a man on the bus told me I had career prospects as a foot model. Of course, he’d asked if he could try on my shoe ten seconds later. Not the most reliable recommendation, perhaps, but that had to be a sign.
With the price of my new rental agreement, even my alluring feet might not be enough. The tourist industry in Skye was booming. Great for local business, but the island was becoming so overrun with short-term holiday rentals, house prices were skyrocketing.
“It looks haunted.” Teddy looked up, eyes so blue and sad behind her thick-framed glasses.
Hands squeezing the life out of the stuffed bunny in her lap.
Before this week, she hadn’t so much as glanced at the toy in years.
Then I’d rehashed almost word for word the most frequently told story of my own childhood – While Daddy and I won’t be living together anymore, we both still love you very much – and she’d barely let Bluebell bunny out of her sight ever since.
“It’s not haunted,” I said, nudging her with my elbow, trying my best to mask my uncertainty.
This place could definitely be haunted. “We’re going to have so much fun.
Just you and me, it’ll be like we’re on a girls’ holiday.
We can sing Fleetwood Mac at the top of our lungs and eat cookie dough for dinner whenever we want. ”
Her sigh was slow and far too heavy for a seven-year-old. “Daddy says sugar will rot my teeth.”
“I’ll make the sugar-free stuff.” And it would taste like shit, but I’d choke it down for her.
Teddy’s nod was small. Placating. Like it was her job to be the strong one.
I felt my spine collapse back against the seat; the vertebrae no longer capable of holding the weight of my failure. Even the time I’d accidentally rubbed nipple cream on her gums instead of teething gel in a sleep-deprived daze couldn’t compare to this.
In silence, we stared at the cottage like it might shape-shift before our eyes. Or like a tornado would blow through and whisk us away.
My gaze drifted over to the property attached. It looked empty. Equally as small. A little barren, but neat and tidy. No peeling paint.
Probably another holiday rental.
“Shall we go and check it out?” I urged Teddy.
She sighed again, but got out the car, clutching Bluebell bunny closely.
I went to open the shared gate between the properties, which gave way under a single push.
Literally gave way, clattering onto the mossy stone path.
Her shoulders drooped. “We can fix that,” I promised, wringing out the ends of my hair from the earlier downpour.
The perfect metaphor for my life lately.
The front door hadn’t fared much better, the white paint chipping to reveal rotten wood beneath, but the key slid easily inside the lock, and it swung inwards with only the smallest of creaks. My heart thundered, then swelled in relief. The inside was better than the outside, at least.
Sure, it smelled a little musty from disuse.
The agency that ran out of Fort William, on the mainland, had informed me in our emails that it had been shut up throughout the winter season.
And sure, the entire cottage would have fit inside our old porch.
But that meant less cleaning. And it was a bonus that it came fully furnished.
Teddy hesitated in the doorway, pushing her glasses back up her nose.
“Cool, right?” My boots made a low squelching noise as I spun in a slow circle in the tiny open-plan living space. “Now we can be in the same room while I’m baking and you’re watching TV.”
“I guess,” she said. I’d never heard anyone sound less convinced. “Why are the walls brown?”
Good question.
“Well . . . some people like that colour. But we’re allowed to paint, I already checked. How about yellow? Or blue? You love blue.”
She shrugged, finally stepping inside. I bit my lip, giving her space to feel her feelings. She’d always been a serious wee girl, even as a toddler. Whereas my feelings bubbled so close to the surface, they often leaked from my eyes in water form. Good or bad.
Teddy took after Cameron. Well – the old Cameron. The man I’d thought he was when I’d fallen in love with him. He’d always been steady, calm and practical. The kind of person everyone trusted, including me. And I rarely trusted anyone.
Moving further into the kitchen, I smoothed my hand over the cheap pine cabinets then toed the linoleum floor that was starting to peel in the corner.
I closed my eyes, trying to picture how this place might be in the summer, windows open to the salty sea air.
Flowers in the garden. Baking in the kitchen, the smell of sugar and cinnamon filling up the cracks in the walls.
Apple pie, just the way Granny Pat used to make it.
Helping Teddy with her homework at the kitchen table, both of our hearts a little more healed.
The image wasn’t perfect. There were still so many unanswered questions: how we’d get by; how Cameron and I would co-parent in this mess. But for Teddy, I would damn sure make it work.
Teddy, clearly unimpressed, perched on the very edge of the sagging sofa. “Why is there a door in the middle of the room?”
“What?”
“The door?” She pointed and I turned, spotting the out-of-place wooden frame. “Is that my bedroom?”
It couldn’t be. The bedrooms were at the back of the property. A cupboard most likely. “Maybe it’s the Narnia door. Think I’ll find Mr Tumnus behind here?” I waggled my eyebrows, hoping to make her laugh. “Or maybe it’s where all the ghosties live.”
She didn’t even crack a smile. Same, kid, same.
Testing the brass handle, it swung open easily.
At best, I’d expected to find old cleaning supplies.
Maybe a random selection of Tupperware lids.
At worst, a dead body stuffed inside a suitcase.
I mean, it was already the shittiest week on record, I may as well round it out with a stint on the ten o’clock news.
What I found on the other side was so much worse.
I’d always liked to imagine I’d be calm in the face of danger. The seventy-fourth winner of the Hunger Games. The good Samaritan giving up my space on a life raft. But when masculine blue eyes behind round-framed glasses met mine, I screamed like the devil was chasing me.