Page 64 of Bonetide

I get to the flat rock, the pebbles ouchy on the bottoms of my feet, and put on my leggings and sweatshirt as quickly as I can, the fabric taking on some of the cold. Then I grab my boots and socks, not bothering to put them on—the chances of me falling over are high; I’m surprised I didn’t eat shit putting on my leggings. My hair is plastered to my neck and shoulders, and I’ll be cold the whole ouchy walk up to the cottage. I already know the bath is going to be the best bath of my life.

When I am dressed, I look back at him.

He has not moved. He is the same chest-deep silhouette in the water, his hair black against the slate of the loch, his eyes on me.

“Foxglove?”

“Yes?” Apparently that’s what I answer to now.

“Tomorrow, will you come to the castle? The afternoon is fine.”

My stomach swirls. “Sure.”

“I’ll be there. I’ll be waiting.”

Waiting for what? If he thinks I’m going all the way over there for nothing, he’s got another thing coming.

He looks at me one more time, nods, then turns and starts to swim away, gone within thirty seconds. Not just visually, but altogether, the way the rocks took him last time. One stroke and then nothing. No head breaking the surface. No long wake.

The bay is dark and empty.

I turn and climb the slope back to the cottage.

I let myself into the warmth, and lock the door. I peel off the damp clothes in the bathroom, wrapping my robe around me as I steal a glance at myself in the mirror. My reflection surprises me. My face is flushed like I’ve piled on copious amounts of blush, my lips wet and red, my eyes somehow darker, the whites whiter. I look healthy and fresh and younger, and though I know it’s probably because I just took a dip in a freezing loch, it might also be because being with Alasdair has made me feel incredibly alive. Yes, confused, afraid, worried, and horny, but all those things together really add to the “alive” experience.

When I’m done admiring myself, I turn on the bath, the pipes moaning loudly. Then, while it fills, I pour the last of the wine into the glass I left on the kitchen table earlier and bring it to the back window because I want to look at the bay one more time before I get in the tub.

That’s when I see her.

There’s a woman in the water.

She is maybe fifty meters out from my own rocks, in the deeper dark. Just her head and shoulders above the surface. Pale. Her hair is long, and grey, and wet against her face.

She’s looking directly at my cottage.

She is smiling.

I have a beat where I can’t make my body do anything at all, not even scream.

Then I blink and she is gone.

No splash. No ripple. The bay is the same flat dark it has been for the last twenty minutes.

There’s no one there.

There was never anyone there, I tell myself. It was something else. Your eyes are playing tricks on you at this hour.

In order to prove my point, I look around the bay and see a couple of gulls in the water closer to where the bay opens to the loch. Glancing at them quickly, I can see how, in this decaying light, one might think it’s someone’s head, the white of their chest being a face, the grey wings becoming someone’s hair.

It was a gull. That’s all it was.

I draw the curtain closed, blocking it all out.

But before I head to the bath, I pick up the jar from the shelf and refresh the salt at every window and door in the cottage. I do it carefully, the way Effie would have done it, and hope to god it holds.

Chapter

Fourteen