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Finlay moves to stand beside me, placing a tentative hand on my shoulder. “Are ye okay?” he asks, searching me over.
I pick myself up and dust myself down. My dress is impossibly creased and large red lines cross my palms. “Apart from latent penis envy,” I mutter, still trying to catch my breath.
“Dinnae blame ye one bit, sassenach. He’s a fine boy doon there.”
“Don’t.”
When we make it to the main road, there’s no one about. The only place jumping in this small town is the hotel, whose music we can still faintly hear in the distance. It’s darker, too, than I expected. The sun’s long gone, swallowed completely by the horizon, and only dim moonlight filters down from above, barely illuminating our next steps.
We stand at an empty intersection, with few places to go. With a concerned glance at each other, we decide to walk. In a small place like this, it doesn’t take much energy to explore the main streets, and naturally, our search comes up bare. For a long time, we’re quiet, wondering if we’ve made a massive mistake coming here, wondering if we even hallucinated the figure slipping through darkness.
Finlay breaks the silence with a hesitant murmur, looking around. “There’s naebody here. Naebody even tae ask. Whit d’ye think’s happened tae her?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, biting my lip nervously. “But I hope she’s all right.”
The closer we come to the coast, listening to the crash of the waves, the more my breathing levels out. After clearing the main streets of Dunhaven, we end up returning a short distance from the hotel, gazing out at the spectacular scenery of the ruins. And that’s when I see it: the flicker of darkness running across the strait toward Dunhaven Castle. My shoulders stiffen involuntarily. She’s so far away that, from our perspective, the scene resembles a marble bead rolling down the cross-section of a pipe.
“Whit the fuck?” Finlay murmurs, his eyes locked on the small figure. “The place isshut. Whit’s she daein’ runnin’ away oot doon there?”
I don’t bother questioning. It’s not in me to hang around, querying other people’s motives. As a first responder, as my father’s daughter, I always learned that the correct action was to analyze the situation for safety and then jump in to assist.
“Do you have your phone?” I ask him tightly, and he nods.
The hair on the back of my neck is standing up, prickling my skin. I have a bad, bad feeling about this.
“Aye. Whit are ye thinkin’?”
It’s a toss-up. I don’t know whether it’ll be police or ambulance, but I think either way tonight won’t end without blue flashing lights. I pause, and go for the option required for the worst outcome: “Call the police. Wait here till they arrive.”
I know Finlay will be raging at that instruction, so, like a coward, I take off down the strait before he can respond. I step over the rope barrier warning of potential hazards. The wind whistles past me, stinging my cheeks as I run. Beneath me, the waves pound loudly against the rocks and I feel the vibration of the impact, reverberating throughout my whole body as I race across the narrow, uneven ribbon of land. An occasional thrill-seeking gull caws, its direction determined solely by the wind. Above, the stars gleam brightly but unevenly. My pace increases. My lungs are burning now.
The figure in front of me doesn’t stop as she sprints toward the castle on the hillside, unaware she’s being followed. It’s getting dangerous now, the further into the sea we run. The wind is wild, desperate to claim. It howls as the sea crashes against the rocks, and I’m forced to taste the salt in the air. It turns out I may not be the best at hauling myself over a gate, but I’m a fair runner, even under these worsening conditions. I follow as close behind her as I can, using every particle of strength left in my complaining legs.
It feels painful to breathe, my throat hurting as I suck down oxygen. My burning lungs fill with the crisp sea air, and my blood is pumping furiously beneath my skin. The figure ahead stops — and with a groan of despair, I see in front of her the locked iron gate that leads directly into the castle grounds.
I observe her for a moment, wondering if she’ll regain her senses and turn back. This is enough adventure for one night, surely? But no. Her hands reach out and she begins to struggle up the metal gate, in much the same way as I did earlier. I curse her, preparing my body to make the same painful journey — and this time without Finlay to assist.
The sea churns beneath us as she scrambles over the top of the security gate, her dress catching on one of the metal bars. I’m close enough that I hear the rip of fabric. I’m close enough that I see her face as she begins her descent to the other side.
Arabella.
Our eyes lock, widen. My breath hitches. I’d suspected, but I neverthoughtshe’d actually go through with something like this. And that was stupid of me — stupid, because of all the people in our school, it’s me who should have known how little effort it takes to shatter a frightened, cornered girl.
Arabella drops from the other side, landing heavily on her knees. She looks up at me, her lips parted and her brows furrowed. And under the soft glow of the moon, I see the glisten of tears running down her flushed cheeks. She’s crying. Arabella is crying. And suddenly the realization shocks me to my core, the universe tilting so far that the cold water from the sea floods my body. That Arabella, who’d prided herself on her maturity, who’d scoffed at my messy, disastrous self, should be in such disarray that I’m the one trying to care for her. Our roles have flipped completely.
She dashes away, her beautiful dress torn and ragged but still glittering beneath the stars. A piece of it flutters, trapped, in the metal gate. My heart begins to hammer. There’s no alternative but to continue onward. There’s no time left to catch up to her.
I leap forward, grabbing the gate with both hands and propelling myself upward. I’m fatigued but I keep pushing. I keep a careful eye on her, watching as Arabella weaves into the shadowed ruins of the castle. My palms blaze in agony, because this time, unlike with the hotel gate, rust shreds my skin like fragments of glass. I grit my teeth and pull, lifting myself up the rusty metal gate with a sick groan. My entire upper arm muscles are throbbing now and there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m going to regret it in the morning. But I push past my discomfort because time now is at a premium.
I need to find Arabella and bring her home. That thought alone fuels me up and over the gate.
My feet stumble onto the grass. The air is frigidly cold, the temperature dropping several notches with every step further from the shoreline I get. I clutch my opposite arms, shivering. A low fog creeps into the space between the rocks, making everything look gray and indistinct. I shiver again, rubbing away the gooseflesh on my bare arms. I’m exhausted, my limbs heavy and my head pounding. I want nothing more than to curl up somewhere warm and sleep for a thousand years. But I can’t afford to waste any time. I have to get to Arabella.
There are too many questions that need answers, and too many worries I might never be able to put to rest. So I keep walking across the eerie, silent grounds, searching the shadows for her, examining the ruins for signs of her existence. I force myself to endure the pain screaming through my body, ignoring the ice-cold breeze whipping my stiff cheeks. My eyelashes glitter with frozen gems. It’s January. I’m surprised the sea beneath us hasn’t frozen over, too. When I think my body’s about to give out, that’s when I finally see her.
She stands motionless at the furthest point of the land, staring at the dark outline of the sea. Her silhouette is shrouded in the misty night, lit only by the stars and the moon. Her posture is straight, unmoving, but tense, as though waiting for me to creep up on her. She looks unreal in her beautiful beaded dress, like some kind of ghost haunting the castle ruins. At some point, her long plait must have come loose, her dark hair flowing freely in the wind.
I stop walking, my body as tense as a spring. And suddenly I’m not freezing anymore — not really. It’s like every sensation has been cut off from me, and all I can do is stare at her in amazement. I’m not dreaming. I’ve found her.
