Chapter 30
Gabriel had spent the morning with Chep, walking the long field edges and checking the fences, though he knew damn well they hadn’t moved. He couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t stop thinking.
That kiss.
It haunted him. Not because it had happened, but because it hadn’t gone anywhere. Just a silence that followed. The way Erica had pulled back. She hadn’t recoiled, exactly, but … she hadn’t leaned in either.
And now it worked at him.
It wasn’t just rejection. It was the fact he’d hoped, that he’d let himself believe that maybe this connection – this quiet thread between them – was mutual. That he wasn’t just fabricating meaning out of loneliness.
But maybe that’s all it was.
Loneliness.
A hollow ache. One that stretched back too far – past the long nights and the empty kitchen table, all the way to when he was a teenager and his parents’ deaths left the house echoing.
He was nearing the age they’d been when they died. Still some years off but close enough to feel the shadow of it. A line in the distance he couldn’t quite see beyond.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. He needed to clear his head.
A swim, maybe the fairy pool in the woods. Cold enough to shock his body out of its spiral.
But the thought stalled.
This time of year. Days after Halloween. A bad idea during Samhain.
Old stories stirred whether he liked it or not. The pool might be just water – but not now. Not at this turn in the year, when the veil was said to thin. When mischief wasn’t always harmless.
He knew it was daft, he was a grown man.
Still, superstition was stitched into him. He didn’t laugh it off the way others did. It lived under the skin.
So instead, he walked.
Down the cobbled street, cap pulled low, he nodded to a neighbour carrying shopping and didn’t stop.
He passed the harbour edge and cut through the tight, twisting veins of Fisher Town – stone houses pressed close, chimneys sharp against the pale sky.
Doors painted in worn blues and greens. Pots of lavender on ledges, washing lines strung overhead like tired bunting.
Chep padded beside him, alert.
Gabriel slipped through one of the passageways between two squat cottages, where the lane narrowed into little more than a single footpath, slick with fallen leaves.
And then the town fell away.
The sea lay ahead.
Or rather, the suggestion of it.
A thick mist had rolled in, swallowing the horizon. What should have been open expanse was now a wall of grey. It clung to the rocks and dunes, shifting like breath over the bay.
Gabriel stopped.
He knew the sea was there. Knew its sound. That low, constant roar of it, steady as something sleeping, even if he couldn’t see it.
That unsettled him more than he expected.
The wind picked up, cool and indecisive. It was one of those November days that couldn’t decide whether to rain or simply haunt you.
He stepped closer despite himself, boots scraping stone.
It felt like something. An omen?
No. Just weather.
Still, the hairs along his forearms lifted.
The Sluagh.
Restless souls borne on the wind. The unquiet dead, riding the air, searching for the living.
He shifted his weight and rubbed his hands together, as if the cold was the only thing getting under his skin.
Old stories, perhaps, but not stories told lightly. Not here. Not in this season.
A few boats bobbed somewhere beyond the mist, their lights faint and blurred. Stubborn men, or foolish ones? Hard to tell the difference.
He remembered being told, as a boy, not to stare too long at the sea when it wore its ghost face. Not during Samhain or the full moon.
He frowned.
Was it a full moon tonight?
He couldn’t remember. But the thought lingered.
The moon tugged at tides. At blood. At tempers. Every firefighter and paramedic in the Highlands would swear full moons meant more calls, more madness, more fire.
He exhaled slowly. He was on call tonight.
There would be something. There usually was when the air felt like this – charged and thin. A chimney gone wrong. A car wrapped round a bend. A flare of temper. Always something needing put right.
A low bark snapped him back.
Chep stood rigid, ears forward.
Gabriel blinked and crouched, resting a hand on the dog’s head. Solid. Warm. Real.
“No swimming today, boy,” he muttered.
He straightened, turning away from the hidden sea. He’d check the sheep instead. With the weather shifting, he might bring them down to the lower field, bring them closer to the house, where he could see them from the window.
Control what you can.
His phone buzzed.
He pulled it out.
A message from Sorcha.
You know a woman called Erica?
His stomach tightened.
Why?
The dots appeared almost immediately.
She’s the one in your cottage! Bloody hell, Gabe. I knew that kitchen looked familiar. That kettle is the same one I got you for Christmas. It’s Erica Hayes. You’ve got a minor celebrity in your spare house!
He stared at the screen.
Celebrity?
The dots blinked again.
I’ve followed her for years. How did you not tell me?
His phone rang.
He hesitated before answering. “Hi.”
“Well, hello!” Sorcha burst out. “I cannot believe it. This is the woman you’ve been all coy about?”
He winced and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I haven’t been coy about anyone.”
“Oh, come off it. Every time I ask who’s staying there, you clam up. Your whole body does that tight wee shutdown thing – like I wouldn’t notice. And your cheeks! I’ve never seen a man blush that pink.”
He stared out into the mist and said nothing.
“There’s nothing going on,” he said finally. “She’s renting. Paid in advance. Generously. After the last girl disappeared, it was a relief.”
Sorcha made a noise of disbelief. “Well, she can afford it. She’s loaded. Though technically it’s her husband’s money too. He’s still around, you know. Been trying to reach her. Apparently she’s done a runner and won’t answer him. He’s worried. That’s what he’s telling his followers.”
Gabriel went very still.
Husband.
Of course.
The thought settled, whether he liked it or not. That’s why she’d pulled away. Not out of confusion or shyness.
But because she was married.
He’d built a story out of glances and shared silences. Out of loneliness.
“And there’s more,” Sorcha continued. “People are saying she’s gone a bit off-piste.
Talking about witches and conspiracies. I watched her last video – there’s something strange about it.
Like she’s … drifting. Her husband says he’s worried, but he’s still pushing the channel.
Trying to get the President of the United States on next, apparently, or was it the prime minister? Anyway, it’s all a bit mad.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Gabe,” she added quietly, the baby gurgling faintly behind her, “just be careful. I want you happy. But this sounds messy.”
For a moment he felt like a child again. Being cautioned. Being managed.
He took a breath.
“Thanks for telling me,” he said evenly. “Everything’s fine.” A pause. “Maybe focus on your own life, aye?” He ended the call before she could reply.
Chep leaned against his leg.
He felt foolish.
Gabriel stood in the thinning light, mist curling and uncurling around him. The world felt … wrong. Tilted. Like something had shifted off-axis and no one had noticed but him.
He turned in the direction of the fields.
Tonight would bring something. He could feel it.
And this time, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to outrun it. Whatever it was.