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We finally get our chance in mid-December, sneaking out of the castle at separate times. I make a beeline through the woods, guided by the light of the bright full moon, and realize that Rory must have timed our reunion with the lunar cycle. I meet Danny, struggling through the forest, so lost he appears to be walking backward toward the entrance again, and we hug and hug for long, precious minutes. I breathe in the wholesome scent of his soft brown hair, as together we melt into each other’s arms.
“I’ve missed you,” he murmurs like an enchantment, his lips brushing my cheek. “My God,Jessa…” He dots kisses along my face, radiant and pure, and my toes curl in pleasure. It’s been amonth— maybe more — since I’ve experienced affection like this. We walk hand-in-hand through the forest and I know, somehow, where to go. It’s natural at this point, my feet leading me across old, well-trodden trails that Danny doesn’t seem to notice.
When we reach the clearing by the loch, moonlight shines like a spell onto the gray stones, turning them a brilliant, shimmering silver. The loch is a pane of thickened ice, reflecting a soft baby blue in the moonlight. And standing on the bank, with the little wooden rowboat crystallized behind them and claimed by the ice, are Rory and Finlay, kissing.
Danny and I observe them in the quiet for a long while, time slipping past in the tease of a warm tongue and the delve of impatient fingers. Arms encircle waists, fingers weave through hair. Lips and tongues clash with a yearning ache. This is the kiss of the long-time loved, and as the moonlight smiles down upon them on the stony bank, highlighting the silver mist of their breaths in the freezing air, I don’t think I’ve seen many things half as beautiful as the vision that is the two of them reunited together. Light dances in the metallic sheen of Rory’s fair hair. It slides down the ghostly pallor of Finlay’s pale skin. The pair are bonded by moonlight and love.
Danny’s foot inadvertently snaps a twig, and two sets of lust-glazed eyes turn in our direction.
“You made it,” Rory murmurs, his arms not leaving Finlay. He gestures for us to stand beside them, and while holding Finlay’s hand, Rory reaches over, grabs my chin, and claims my mouth in a burning, desperate kiss. I fall into him with a thready moan, letting sensations of pleasure zip through me. It’s been so long, too long, since I’ve been kissed — not just like this, but kissed atall.
Not since Luke. Never anything but heartbreak since Luke…
For whatever reason, the universe had deemed starvation essential after the growing familiarity and the abundance of our free love.
Now, kissing again, so rich and indulgent without Luke by our side… It feels more like obscene greed.
I break away from Rory, gazing across the flat, shining mass of ice, at the fingers of frost creeping up the hull of the boat, locking it in place. “We’ll never get across.” Benji’s radio and a selection of pastries are gathered on the little benches of the rowboat. It seems wildly optimistic.
“We will.” Rory strokes a gentle finger down my cheek, his tenderness almost academic, as if needing to remember the exact lines of my face by retracing. He nods over at Finlay, who, at Rory’s wordless command, grips the wooden stern and dislodges the rowboat with an immense force of strength. It seems impossible — but the ice cracks, splintering beneath the hull, until a small pool of water glistens beneath. Finlay’s face is flushed pink with happiness and I don’t think it’s entirely down to his success at breaking the boat free.
Danny gapes at him. “You just… Is that even possible?”
Finlay ignores him. “Climb aboard,” he announces instead, like a kindly captain, gesturing at the central beam of wood. “If we a’ squash in, we should be able tae make it. Me and Ro will dae the honors and steer her. You two squeeze intae the middle wi’ oor stuff.”
As Danny and I delicately arrange ourselves into the center of the boat, it becomes more obvious that the water is different here. The ice glimmers with lightning-blue streaks, like electric energy frozen in time, sizzling but trapped. Finlay unties the boat when Rory joins, and then leaps aboard himself, the length of brown rope wrapped securely around his fist. Danny, holding the camouflage-colored radio, gazes down at the wispy blue currents in fascination. The bow slices through the ice effortlessly, both oars capably breaking apart the dense sheet and freeing the strange blue streaks. We glide through the water with the help of the moon, landing on the island with a conclusive thud.
The island is warm. The heat hits as if from an opened oven door. The trees are as perfectly green and lush as the last time, which seems an odd contrast with those covering the rest of the Lochkelvin grounds, a significant portion of which have shed their leaves for winter. Our shoes meet sand, and it could be anywhere other than Scotland — an island paradise, tropical and hot. The moon, right now, feels very much like the sun.
A frown still creases Danny’s brow. He almost looks perturbed as Finlay tosses down his oar. “So have you been, like, in training or something…?”
“D-boy, ye’re woundin’ me. Why d’ye keep doubtin’ my physical prowess?”
“Because I don’t think, physically, it was possible.”
Despite the warmth of the island, shivers that have very little to do with temperature prick at the hairs on my arms. There’s a moment of stifling silence where it feels as though none of us breathe. Rory tilts his head in their direction as he silently gathers the unraveled rope, listening intently and pretending not to.
I wonder.
“Nae fear, wee yin. A coupla bodyweight exercises and then ye’ll be suckin’ diesel.”
The island, as a collective, seems to exhale with relief. Rory organizes the rope in neat loops around his arm like a cowboy, his expression neutral.
I shake it off for now. Because having endured a month of restrictions, I find myself itching to explore. As the chiefs secure the boat to the stake, I take off in the direction of the island’s westernmost side, hoping to investigate the standing stones I’d only glimpsed last time. In the humid air, nature thrives. Damp grassy moss clings to time-hewn boulders, which I grab to ascend to ever-higher levels of the island. Eventually, I scramble onto solid ground, landing among tall, untamed grassland and prettily colored wildflowers. Standing before me is a ring of tilted ancient stones, each roughened and arranged upright like old gray dominoes.
The energy here — it’s incredible. It sizzles and shrieks through the air like the cry of angels. Not the holy sanctified type, all white wings and peaceful facades, guarding humankind with benevolent grace and love. No. These angels are from the realm of the true biblical sense, with multiple limbs and flaming swords and giant roaring mouths, their voices harmonizing discordantly into the unearthly ensemble of a war cry. As I stand in the center of the ring, awed, the epicness overwhelms me. The music in my head vibrates with them, but it’s not a type of music I’ve heard before. It’s not something I could sing or dance to. It’s energy — something to endure instead, as though all the world’s pains and joys had been thrust into these standing stones, and are now blasting outward to each other, radiating messages both good and bad like spokes on a wheel. Me, caught in the middle, and all I can do isfeel. All I can do is feel my soul fill and crowd with the pain of it all.
I’m trembling. I stagger across to one of the standing stones, clutching it between my arms. The music, if anything, grows louder. It’s like whisky. It’s like being hungover after a night of whisky after whisky, top-ups after top-ups,one for the roadturning intowe don’t need roads where we’re going, a necessary fragility from within as the system pieces a ruined self back together. Everything inside me quivers as I’m battered by ethereal dreamlike song, my knees weakening as I grip tighter to the stone protrusion. I stroke my fingers down the standing stone I’m connected to, noting carvings in the face of the rock. I trace the indents in awe and realize with a start that I’m drawing a rough outline of a unicorn.
Somehow, it gets harder to follow the etched lines, my vision darkening and clipping around the edges. All I want to do is drop to the ground, overwhelmed by magical energy. Before I can surrender, I’m yanked away by strong arms and hauled from the stones.
“You’re okay,” Rory whispers to me, as I shiver despite the odd heat of this island. “You just wandered too far. You’re fine now.”
My strange loss of consciousness slowly reverses outside the stone circle, until I’m gazing up at the bright intense moon again with an unusually sharp clarity. I see its craters. I see its pale yellow aura. The moon looks different tonight. “What was that?” I whisper through glued lips to Rory, who holds me as though I were his standing stone.
“You walked straight into the heart of the island.” He shakes his head and kisses the tip of my nose, wrapping his fingers around my hand. “I’m amazed you lasted so long. Only a lord of the land can do that.”
The world crackles with magic. My bones and blood zing with it. I don’t understand. Maybe I never will. But Rory does, and he watches me closely, as though it were me who was the mystery and not the stones behind him.
