Epilogue
C am Walker swung his motorbike into its usual space outside the Walker family cottage in Glencoe. He noted his aunt’s tiny Corsa also parked by the gate, and braced himself for an over-enthusiastic greeting as he walked through the front door.
‘Hello, Lachlan. Hey, Meredith,’ he called into the living room, ditching his leather jacket on a hook.
Lachlan emerged from the kitchen with the smell of warm ginger cake wafting behind him. He smiled broadly, an act which lit up his blue eyes with a happy sparkle. ‘Hello, love.’ Lachlan met Cam halfway across the room, leaning up to capture his lips in a kiss.
Cam grinned into it, running a hand through Lachlan’s golden hair. He’d never get tired of being welcomed home this way. His mind ran amuck with the things he’d do to this wonderful man if they didn’t have company.
Perhaps sensing his mood, Lachlan pulled away with a light flush of pink spreading over his cheeks. ‘Meredith’s in the back room. She’s found something she thinks you should see.’
‘Ah.’ That sounded like witching work, and therefore trouble. ‘Let’s see what it is, then.’
The back room of the Walker cottage was the hub of Cam’s witching operations. It contained a library’s worth of notes on the supernatural—creatures, curses, spells, and some dubious fragments of gossip—painstakingly compiled by his family over generations. Meredith sat at the desk in the middle of the room, sipping a cup of tea while scrolling through her phone.
She nearly spilled the tea as Cam entered. ‘Cam, honey!’
Meredith raced to him excitedly and swept him into a jangling hug. Cam remembered to turn his head at the last minute so that her bangles didn’t clout him round the ears.
He chuckled warmly and returned the embrace. ‘Hello, Meredith. How are things going at the Teapot?’
‘Brilliantly, hon. Though some people say they don’t like my coffee, but I say they can shove it, if that’s the case.’
Cam saw Lachlan wince behind her.
‘I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it,’ Lachlan said lightly, ever the optimist. He gently prompted her back on track. ‘You wanted to show Cam the article?’
Meredith whirled back to the desk to grab her phone and pushed it in Cam’s face. ‘This blog post, here. What do you think?’
It was a messy, rambling post on someone’s personal blog from the Shetland Islands. Cam skimmed it in doubt, his eyebrows rising in tandem with his incredulity. ‘Someone thinks they saw a green giant taking a stroll over the island?’
Meredith nodded earnestly. ‘It’s weird, right?’
‘Ye-es, but…’ Cam checked the date stamp. It was from three months ago. ‘… I’m pretty sure there would be more reports about this by now, if it was real. Have you got anything else?’
Meredith’s shoulders slumped. ‘No. I’ve been looking! But nothing in the local news for Shetland. This guy just seems so freaked out. It sounds real, you know?’
Cam scratched his head. ‘Dunno. Could be he’s on something. What do you reckon, Lachy?’
Lachlan’s expression was quiet and thoughtful. ‘I’d agree with you, Cam, except… You remember the text from Arran the other day? It was so out of the blue. I wonder if something’s happened.’
‘Oh, great point.’ Cam had totally forgotten they had an ally based in Shetland. Presumably the Wulver was home by now. ‘Let’s ring him and ask.’
Lachlan’s eyes widened as Cam pulled out his phone and swiped into Contacts.
‘What, right now? ’ Lachlan caught Cam’s wrist with a nervous laugh. ‘I think Arran might appreciate a little warning.’
Cam looked from Lachlan to the phone, confused. ‘It’s just a phone call.’
Lachlan’s expression scrunched in that patient, sympathetic way of his that suggested he was trying to work out how to explain something to Cam. ‘Arran is very old, and very used to being alone. It’s a… a real change of mindset, to suddenly be contactable at any hour, from anywhere in the world.’
It slowly dawned on Cam that Lachlan was confiding a shared experience. ‘I guess the development of telephones must have been kinda mind-blowing.’
‘Like magic,’ Lachlan replied brightly. ‘Almost as absurd as seeing planes in the sky.’
‘Okay, look. How’s this?’ Cam tapped out a quick message to the Wulver.
Are you free to chat?
Meredith leaned over his shoulder. ‘I hope he is. I’d love to know how our canine friend is doing.’
As a trio, they stared expectantly at the phone in Cam’s hand.
‘I feel like a tree, with you two hanging off me,’ Cam said dryly. ‘Come on, let’s grab a bite—’
The phone pinged.
Yes, I am. Arran
Meredith clapped her hands with delight. ‘Ring him now! Put him on speaker!’
‘Okay, but hush.’ Cam dialled Arran’s number. It rang… five times… six… ten…
‘Why isn’t he picking up?’ Meredith whispered.
On the twelfth ring, Arran finally answered, with a very hesitant tone to his gruff voice. ‘Hello?’
‘Hey,’ Cam said coolly. ‘I just need to ask you something. Is—’
‘ Hi, Arran! ’ Meredith cut in excitedly. ‘It’s Meredith! And Lachy’s here, too! How are you, hon? We’re all missing you, back here!’
Cam was sure he could feel the Wulver’s thousand-yard stare from the other end of the phone. It was a reasonable reaction, when faced with the standard Meredithian outpouring of love.
‘I’m… fine,’ Arran replied slowly.
In the background, another voice drifted over the speaker. ‘ Who’re you talking to, wolfie? ’
Cam shared a glance with the others. Meredith’s surprised expression spoke for all of them. She was the first to say it out loud, too. ‘Who’s your friend, Arran?’
Arran took a minute to reply. ‘His name is Moss.’
No further explanation was forthcoming, and the Wulver appeared content to sit in silence on the phone if he wasn’t being asked a direct question.
‘Okay, cool,’ Cam said. He held up a hand to stop Meredith from blurting out anything else. ‘Look, Arran, we just need to get a quick opinion from you. Meredith’s found a report of some giant green man walking around the Shetland Mainland. You’d have seen it, right?’
Arran gave a stuttering growl, like a splutter. ‘Seen what?’
‘A green giant,’ Cam repeated evenly.
‘I—it—No. No, I have not seen that.’
Cam locked eyes with Lachlan. Lachy’s mouth twitched into a brief frown. They’d both heard the woodenness in Arran’s reply.
Lachlan took the lead, gently probing with his next question. ‘Hey, Arran. Is Moss a friend of yours?’ He added a doubtful inflection to the word friend , offering Arran the opportunity to hint back if he was being held under duress.
There was an audible, hoarse gulp from the Wulver. ‘He’s my… We are…’
‘ Just tell ’em we’re shagging, wolfie. They’ll get it. ’
Meredith squealed a gasp—she slapped a hand over her mouth, too late and to little effect. The statement had rather sucked the air out of the room. Cam held the phone at arm’s length, hit by the fact that he didn’t want to contemplate the mechanics of the Wulver shagging anyone.
Lachlan, however, seemed unperturbed, if a little surprised. ‘Oh, that’s nice. So everything’s well with you at the moment, Arran?’
‘No giants?’ Cam added gruffly.
The Wulver cleared his throat. ‘There are no giants you need to worry about here, Walker. Moss and I will continue to keep the islands safe.’
Moss and I, Cam noted. Someone else to keep track of, potentially. He wanted to press for more details, but suspected Lachy would have words if he did.
‘Cool,’ he said. ‘Well, if you need anything, you know where we are.’
‘Yes.’ The Wulver’s stony voice softened, just a little. ‘Thank you.’
‘ Tell them bye from me, wolfie! Your friends sound like a hoot. ’
‘Moss says bye.’
Cam, Lachlan, and Meredith responded with an awkward chorus of goodbyes, and Cam hung up the phone.
‘That was weird, right?’ Cam demanded, still glaring at the screen.
‘The Moss thing?’ Lachlan raised a sly eyebrow. ‘Only about as weird as sleeping with the Loch Ness Monster.’
‘Sure, but who is he? Why didn’t Arran ever mention him before?’ Cam couldn’t put his finger on it, but something about Moss’s voice was nigglingly familiar, and he had a bad feeling about it in the pit of his stomach. He’d learned not to ignore his intuition.
‘Maybe we’ll find out,’ said Lachlan, voice of reason. ‘We could invite them to visit. Maybe for Christmas.’
Meredith clapped her hands, practically bouncing. ‘Oh, that’s a stunning idea!’
‘Not this Christmas,’ Lachlan added hurriedly, for which Cam was grateful. They were both looking forward to spending their first proper Christmas together in the same house. ‘But, you know. Maybe in the future.’
Meredith deflated, but only a little. ‘A big family Christmas would be lovely, that’s all I’m saying.’
Meanwhile, Cam riffled through notecards from a drawer in the massive cabinet that lined one wall. He found the Wulver’s card, which had an additional one paperclipped to it with new information they’d learned since becoming his friend.
Cam selected a blank notecard and wrote on it, Moss . After some thought, he added a question mark after the name. That would do for now. He’d put a metaphorical pin in it, so to speak.
Cam added the new card to the others under Arran’s paperclip and carefully replaced it in the drawer.
Lachlan looped his arms round Cam’s waist. ‘Fancy some cake?’
‘Only if I get to eat you, first,’ Cam answered, still half-lost in thought.
Meredith interjected with a wry clash of bangles as she folded her arms. ‘I’ll see myself out, shall I?’
Lachlan’s face was a treat, flushing red in a heartbeat. ‘No! Stay for dinner. We’ve missed you.’
Meredith happily unwound. She slung an arm round Lachlan’s shoulder and tugged him away from Cam with a pointed look. ‘This one knows what’s up. You could learn a thing or two about treating your auntie right, Cameron Walker. Now, where’s this cake you mentioned?’
Cam followed them into the kitchen with a quiet smile. Lachlan was enthusiastically explaining his ginger cake recipe to Meredith—a hopeful and yet futile attempt to teach her how to replicate it for The Lucky Teapot , Cam suspected.
Rumours of Shetland giants aside, life was pretty good.
Cam spared a thought for Arran, apparently no longer alone on his island. The Wulver had been a friend to Cam’s parents, and an ally to more or less every Walker witch before them, even if only from a distance. He was a loyal friend. Cam felt some guilt for doubting Arran’s choice of company in Moss.
Surely, if Arran trusted him, then Cam should too, and the rest was none of his business.
But maybe they would extend an invitation one day. Just to be sure.
As Cam stepped into the warmth of his kitchen, filled with the chatter and mirth of his family, he hoped Arran’s life was also going well.
* * *
In the subdued silence of a grove settling into winter, a solitary flowering honeysuckle vine crept stealthily along the inner wall of a comfortable cave.
It found the shape of a furry throat. The vine tickled the fur—then snapped tight around it in a snug collar, followed by the lashing of a muzzle around a long snout.
‘ Mmph! ’
Animal growls echoed out of the cave, followed by a gleeful cackle.
Life was going very well, indeed.
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