And then, for the rest of the long night, he knew no more.
Three
“You can be letting me out here, lassie.”
Lindy glanced at the tiny black-garbed woman she’d picked up along the roadside shortly after driving out of Talmine village.
Grizzled and ancient-looking yet surprisingly spry, the old woman was leaning forwards to peer through the car’s rain-splattered windscreen.
“That be the turn-off I need, up yonder.” The woman sat back and rubbed her hands in glee.
Or so the gesture struck Lindy, flashing another glance at her strange passenger.
In fact, if she’d taken a better look before slowing the rentalcar that morning, she might not have offered the woman a ride. But she’d appeared harmless enough, hobbling along the edge of the road with a woven-wicker shopping basket on her arm. It was just too weird that on such a wet and windy day, the crone’s heavy waxed jacket hadn’t shown even a few speckles of rain.
And – Lindy really couldn’t explain this – the woman’s small black boots, jauntil y tied with red plaid laces, weren’t at all muddied or damp-stained.
But she did have kindly eyes.
Bright blue eyes that twinkled with merriment as Lindy drove past Sutherland’s great mist-hung hills and through the dismal morning. And each time Lindy assured her that such wild weather and rugged landscape were the reasons she’d wanted to come to Scotland, her odd companion nodded enthusiastically.
“Och, I know.” She trilled agreement, sounding as if she did. “There be some folk what belong here, they do. These hills are in their blood, no matter where they’re born. And when that happens, there’s naught what can keep them away. No’ time nor the span o’ the ocean.” She bobbed her head again, sagely. “They always return.”
They always return.
The old woman’s words echoed in Lindy’s mind as she scanned the winding road ahead, looking for the turn-off. But all she saw were miles of bleak moorland and the dark, choppy water of Loch Eriboll. Untilher passenger grabbed her arm and pointed, indicating a narrow, heather track which could or couldn’t be a path leading to a croft house.
“That’s it!” The crone’s insistence convinced Lindy.
And indeed, as soon as Lindy stopped the car and the old woman clambered out, Lindy spotted a low white croft in the distance. Half-hidden by the shoulder of a hill, the little house was thatchedwith heather in the old way and appeared to stand very close to the loch.
“I’d be for asking you in for a cup o’ tea, but –” the crone turned up her jacket collar against the wind, her eyes bright in the watery sunlight “ – you’ll be a-wanting to get on to Smoo afore the day gets too long!”
She leaned close, saying something else, but great buffets of wind were rocking the car and the shrieking gale snatched her words away. Lindy only saw the old woman’s lips moving. But she caught the almost mischievous wink she gave Lindy just before she stepped back and, turning into the wind, hobbled off down the path to the cottage.
A cottage where – Lindy only registered after starting to drive away – the two deep-set windows shone with flickering candlelight.
Lindy frowned and hit reverse, just to be sure.
Scotland did seem like a land where time stood still , but the last she’d checked, electricity was in use. Even in wild and remote Sutherland.
But when Lindy slowed the car and came to a halt where she’d let out the old woman, the narrow heathery track leading to the croft house was gone.
Lindy blinked.
Then she looked again, even getting out of the car and shading her eyes against the sun that was just beginning to break valiantly through the clouds.
But the track really wasn’t there.
Nor was the low-lying croft house, though – the fine hairs on her nape lifted – the shoulder of the hill that had kept part of the cottage from view still ranged distinctively against the backdrop of the loch.
Lindy’s heart began to pound and she whirled around, scanning the empty moorland for the old woman. But, of course, she, too, was nowhere to be seen.
Nothing stirred anywhere except a few clumps of scrubby, wind-tossed gorse and several wheeling seabirds, determined to take advantage of the howling gale whistling along the loch shore.
Then the sun dimmed again, once more slipping behind the clouds, and – for one startling moment – Lindy was sure she saw a man standing in the distance, watching her. Tall and broad-shouldered, he stood, unmoving, on a narrow curve of the dark, pebbly strand.
He looked as powerfuland forbidding as the wild landscape surrounding him. In fact, Lindy swall owed, everything about him screamed that this was where he belonged. He was as much a part of the big, brooding sky, the sea and the dark, rolling moors as the cold, racing wind that seemed to quicken and chill the longer she watched him.
