Page 25 of Bonetide

“Alasdair,” I whisper.

“Right. Alasdair. God, what a fucking name, huh?”

“What voice am I using?” I wonder, mildly curious.

“That same one you used when you said you were moving to Scotland, the one that tells me your reckless impulsiveness has burst forth and taken the wheel. Listen. I’m not your mother. No one is, thank god. I’m not going to tell you what to do, because you don’t take that well. In fact, your pathological avoidance thing or whatever makes you do the opposite—and frankly the only reason I survive you—is that I have stopped trying. But you called me, late your time, about a man—and not just any man, but a naked swimmer who lives in a castle, and that means I get one piece of advice. Are you ready?”

“No.” I sigh heavily.

“Tough tits. Here it is: get out of the house. Drive into a town. Go to a pub. Talk to humans whose names you know in full. Do not let yourself get laid by your only neighbor. Especially not this neighbor. Even if he is, and I’m quoting your voice here, unreasonably hot.”

“I never said that.”

“Oh, yes, you did. You said it three different times in three different ways.”

I sigh again and sink back further into the chair.

“He’s very tall,” I whine, miserable. She knows I love them tall.

“Of course he is.”

“His eyes are gorgeous.”

“Ted Bundy had nice eyes too.”

“His hair is⁠—”

“Stop talking. Listen to yourself. You called the police about him this afternoon. The police.”

“I called the police because I thought he was chasing me in the woods. I thought he was the serial killer.”

“Iris! You still don’t know that he isn’t!”

“I know.”

She lets out the loudest, most disgruntled sigh, so loud that I hear Andrew in the other room ask if she’s okay.

Her voice is now a vicious hush. “You called the police about him this afternoon, you think he might have murdered some women, and now you’re waxing poetic to me, cataloging his eyes.”

“I like cataloging things.”

She lets out a long breath on the other end. I hear my niece shriek, then laugh in the background, and then Andrew is laughing too. For a moment I feel a sharp pang of homesickness. I never felt at home at their house, but they were family and they loved me. Suddenly I feel very, very alone and very far away and I’m wondering if that reckless impulsiveness might have led me to yet another mistake.

“Okay,” she says eventually. “I’m glad you got to talk to me, but I want you to hear me in return. Three things: one, lock everything every night. Two, you go to the village or the hotel, and you talk to people who are not him. Go get yourself fucking laid—I don’t care who by, but it has to be anyone but a serial killer. Tonight, you do not let him in. Tomorrow, you do not let him in. I don’t care how many times he knocks at your door or waves his dick around from across the bay. He stays the fuck outside the cottage until you have a clearer head about whatever is going on out there.”

It’s almost as if Maddie knows about Effie’s warning. Perhaps Effie herself is speaking through her in one of those weird channeling ways.

“And three?” I prompt warily.

“This is the one I want you to actually hear: I want you to think about why your body wants you to open a door it shouldn’t open.”

I don’t say anything.

“You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“I’m serious, Iris. This is a very specific kind of stupid for you. This is post-Ryan stupid. This is a body that hasn’t been fucked, let alone touched, stupid. This is the stupid of a woman who has not been wanted properly in a long time and is being offered⁠—”