Chapter 26
The wind had changed direction overnight.
Erica could hear it scratching at the old sash windows like restless fingers.
The cottage groaned in reply, a tired old beast shifting in its bones.
She hadn’t drawn the curtains. The hills outside were black shapes pressed against the sky, ink spilled into deeper ink.
She hadn’t left the house since Halloween.
The dress she’d planned to wear that night – Maisie’s favourite, navy with the velvet collar – still hung over the chair. Her phone lay face-down on the rug where she’d dropped it after the fifth missed call from Leah.
And two from an unknown number.
There had been an email, too.
From Andrew Peters.
Subject line: Regarding Recent Enquiries.
She’d seen his name in her inbox and felt something inside her sink. She hadn’t opened it. But it felt like it was waiting.
She could already hear the tone – measured, reasonable, threaded with warning.
She would call Leah back. She meant to.
Eventually.
Lucky let out a small huff and pressed himself closer to her leg, warm and insistently loyal. Erica rested a hand on his head. His ears flicked beneath her fingers.
She had thought isolation would feel like relief. Like exhaling. Instead it was dense and airless, like the fog that clung to the edge of the glen and never quite lifted.
The only thing that cut through it was the research.
It had begun simply – an idle curiosity, an article half read on a slow night. But now the women had taken hold of her. Isobel Grant, especially. Her browser tabs crowded with archives and parish records; her notebook was thick with looping scrawls and question marks.
Can’t pinpoint date in 18th century. Woman accused of witchcraft in Rock Cove.
Laird T – connection?
Illegitimate daughter??
She turned the page.
There it was again – the line she’d written at two in the morning:
Some say she was the Laird’s mistress. Others say she was no more than a servant girl. The records are vague. All that’s certain is this: someone wanted her silence.
Erica stared at the final sentence.
She didn’t remember writing it.
The kettle clicked on. The room was dim but for the low fire and a single lamp pooling yellow light across the table. She moved as if her limbs were filled with ash.
When the kettle shrieked, she flinched.
She poured the water and carried the mug to the window. Beyond the glass, the dark lay heavy over the hills.
Somewhere, she imagined, houses were lit and loud and full of people. She tried to remember what that felt like.
Then, the memory came without warning.
The wine had been too warm.
Steven’s aunt had insisted on balloon goblets, and the taste clung medicinally to the back of her throat.
They’d stood in the garden at dusk, fairy lights strung overhead like imitation stars. She’d been smiling for hours. Her jaw ached.
Steven had glowed – easy among his cousins, his father, laughter rising from somewhere solid inside him.
“They all love you,” he’d murmured, slipping an arm around her waist. “You’re a hit.”
“It’s just so … loud,” she’d said, too quickly. “You’re all so – together.”
“Is that bad?”
“No.” And she’d meant it.
But she hadn’t known where to put her hands. Or herself. As if everything she offered had to be assembled first. As if she were performing a version of intimacy rather than inhabiting it. Like standing slightly outside the photograph.
Later, in a lull, she’d asked quietly, “What if you change your mind about me?”
He’d laughed in confusion. “Where is this coming from?”
“You’ve got so much. I just have … Leah. And she’s got a family now.”
“You’ve got me.” He’d gestured to the garden, the people, the mess and warmth and noise.
She had tried to believe him.
The cottage closed in again.
Her laptop screen glowed on the table, the archive she’d left open blinking patiently. Eighteenth-century land records, roughly translated.
One entry had caught her earlier:
Item: One Isobel, reputed woman of ill fame, said to have kept company with a gentleman—
… with child by him, as was whispered …
… thereafter called before the magistrates at the urging of the estate.
Erica leaned closer.
The language was careful.
Outside, the wind rose again, catching in the eaves. Lucky shifted but did not wake.
Erica leaned back and closed her eyes. There was something tight in her chest, a familiar itch she couldn’t quite name. As if she were brushing against an echo that didn’t belong to her, yet felt intimately known.
Isobel had been betrayed. By whom, the records refused to say. But the tone carried it. A woman used. Disbelieved. Discarded.
Was that what had happened to her?
No torches. No trial. But something must have happened. Accusations did not rise from nothing.
Her phone buzzed against the floor.
She didn’t move.
It buzzed again. Then stopped.
The silence afterward felt deliberate.
She stood abruptly and crossed to the window again.
She thought of Leah. Of her face at the door on Halloween night – hurt carefully contained. She had remained in the shadows, she couldn’t step out into the light, not even for Maisie.
But she didn’t want her sadness becoming theirs.
I always let her down, Erica thought. And she’s the only one I have left.
She turned back to the fire.
A knock.
Soft. Measured. As if whoever stood outside wasn’t certain they should be there.
She froze.
Leah?
Her stomach tightened. She couldn’t face her. Not yet. Not while everything inside her still felt scrambled and unfinished.
Another knock. Two taps.
Lucky’s ears twitched.
Heart thudding, Erica crossed the cold floorboards and opened the door.
Gabriel stood in the wind, a flask tucked under one arm, a paper bag in the other. His cheeks were pink from the cold. His eyes searched her face at once.
“I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”
“I didn’t expect anyone.”
“I nearly didn’t come.” A small shrug. “But I had soup. And … some news.”
She stepped back to let him in.
The cottage felt smaller with him inside. Warmer, somehow. He moved carefully, as if aware he was stepping into something fragile.
Lucky darted beneath the sofa.
Gabriel held out the bag. “Lentil. Heavy on the garlic. I make no apologies.”
A faint smile flickered across her mouth. “I wouldn’t dream of judging.”
They sat at the table near the hearth, steam rising between them. Gabriel pulled a folded sheet from his jacket.
“My pal at the museum’s been digging,” he said. “Turns out there were whispers about Isobel long before the accusations. A child born out of wedlock. A lover who vanished once things got complicated.”
“They buried her story,” Erica murmured.
“Most of the stories were. But this one … I don’t know. It feels unfinished. Like she’s slipping through the cracks even now.”
“Or maybe because it’s familiar,” she said softly, before she could stop herself.
He looked at her properly then.
“What happened to the child?” she asked.
“No record.”
Of course.
Gabriel leaned forward. “Is everything okay, Erica? You seem … I don’t know. Like something’s slipping.”
She could have smiled. Lied. Reassured him.
Instead she said, “I’m not used to people showing up when things are messy.”
“Maybe that’s when it matters.”
Silence settled between them. Not heavy. Just close.
He reached out, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. Warm. Careful.
She leaned in first.
The kiss was soft, tentative. He deepened it slightly, his hand settling at the nape of her neck. There was warmth in it. Want, held carefully in check.
And then something inside her recoiled.
She pulled back.
“Wait.” Her voice trembled. “I thought I could. I wanted to. But this isn’t right. Not now.”
He stilled instantly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“It’s not you.” She was already standing. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”
She winced the moment she'd said them.
He stepped back, colour rising faintly in his face. “Of course.”
She saw it then. The flicker of embarrassment. Hope folding in on itself.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he said quietly.
She said nothing.
He crossed to the door, slower this time, as if giving her space to stop him. His hand rested on the handle but he didn’t turn it straight away.
For a moment she thought she might speak. Apologise. Ask him to stay. Something hovered at the back of her throat – fragile, unformed.
She let it die there.
He drew in a steady breath and opened the door. Wind rushed in at once, sharp and cold, tugging at his coat as if impatient to claim him back.
The soup sat untouched on the table, garlic thick in the air.
Then he stepped outside.
The door closed with a muted click.
Erica stood there, listening to his footsteps fade along the gravel path.
The cottage settled around her again.
She wrapped her arms around herself.
The stillness pressed in, different this time.
Like a quiet ache of having sent something away before she knew whether she needed it.
Before her mind could catch up, her gaze drifted to the laptop.
Andrew Peters’ email still sat unopened.
Waiting.