Page 7 of Bonetide

And that’s all.

What the actual fuck?

I read it over and over, then I finally have to put the nonsense down and get up and walk to the window. The bay is still quiet. The heather across the loch is doing the absurdly photogenic thing it does when light slants on it from the right angle, and the rowan tree by the front step is shifting in a wind I can’t feel through the wall. I come back to the table and read the letter a third time.

Don’t let him in.

Who is him? The neighbor? That’s obviously where my mind is going, I mean who else is there out here? If there were some other neighbors with a sheep farm, I wouldn’t just assume, but because it’s this skinny-dipping swimmer just across the bay in a castle that the shopkeeper said nobody lives in, I’m inclined to think he’s him.

Of course, I have no real reasoning for that, other than my imagination does what it wants.

Then there’s the next bit…

I knew when you were twelve.

Which was when I was here last. My memories of the trip with my father were more of the driving down one-land roads in the middle of nowhere that were clogged with sheep, gawking at old ruins, trying not to unconsciously mimic the strong accents—something I still struggle with, sorry to every Scottish person—not so much of this cottage or my aunt. We had talked—I still don’t remember the details—at the kitchen table, which must have been this kitchen table though everything looks so different from reality when you’re a kid

Anyway, she knew what when I was twelve? That I would inherit this place one day? Was she already making the plans back then, and why? At age twelve all I cared about was Paramore and Camp Rock and updating my travels on my MySpace.

I fold the letter back into the notebook and eye the salt on the shelf. There are two kinds: one in a shaker that I used profusely the other morning on my eggs while wishing I had hot sauce, and the other in a dark glass jar with a spoon, mixed with some herbs. I thought about using that one on my eggs too but since I couldn’t identify the dried greenery, I decided not to risk it.

Feeling like I’m being watched by Effie’s ghost, I do the kitchen window first. The salt makes a soft hiss as it goes onto the wood of the sill, and I draw a thin neat line of it along the inside edge on top of the old salt that was left there. The smell that comes off it is clean and mineral, like the inside of an oyster shell. The herbs, which I can now identify as thyme, add a sharp edge to the scent.

Then I do the rest of the windows in the cottage. By the time I’ve done them all, the cottage smells faintly like a beach—but what doesn’t around here—and the light coming through every window is broken into a faint white line at the bottom of the frame, thicker and fresher than the one laid before.

I know I should feel silly about all of this, but instead I feel faintly reverent and proud of myself, like I did something good. As a self-identified witch, I pull the occasional Tarot card, carry crystals with me, and, on the day I arrived, I may have lit a dried rosemary and mugwort bundle I brought from home to smudge the place. So, sprinkling some extra salt lines around the windows isn’t too far from my wheelhouse. At the very least I feel I honored her wishes, as vague and cryptic as they were.

With that done, I make a simple sandwich of cream cheese and cucumbers, one of my comfort foods when I’m lazy, then sit in the armchair by the front window with one of Effie’s botanical sketchbooks open on my lap. I let myself enjoy her work. I can’t help but marvel at how close our art is, and I wonder if she was able to make a living from it like I am—not that I can call it much of a living these days. If it wasn’t for some of the money I got from the divorce settlement, plus leftover inheritance from my father I had the good mind to keep in a separate account from Ryan’s, I would really be screwed. At least with this whole situation, I’ll be saving on rent for the next year.

And possibly forever.

The light through the window goes to a deeper gold as the afternoon stretches, and the storm I was promised by the weather app rolls in around four, the way it said it would. Rain hammers the slate roof for an hour, making everything epically dramatic outside, and warm and cozy inside. I don’t move from the chair, my fibro especially annoying when the barometric pressure drops. Instead, I fall asleep for a few hours, as my body loves to do when it has zero expectations placed on it. And for once in my life, I let myself just rest, guilt-free.

By the time the storm eases, the bay is steaming faintly, and the sky has gone the color of pewter. There’s a silver light over the water that any landscape painter would lie down in front of a truck for. I watch it; think about going outside with my paints and capturing it.

Instead I choose comfort and sit with the sketchbook on my knee until the light starts to fail, which, in late August, at this latitude, takes its time about it. The sun goes down somewhere behind the mountain at my back. The bay holds its glow for another hour. Around eight-thirty, the rowan tree at the step has turned to a black silhouette against the last of the western sky, and the heather across the loch has lost its purple to the shadow. I’m just about to get up and turn on the lights when a knock sounds at the door, making me cry out softly.

Jesus Cripes!

I go still and listen, waiting for more. I’m starting to think it was part of my imagination or maybe the climbing roses thudding against a pane, when it sounds again.

Knock, knock, knock.

It’s the kind of knock you’d give a stranger’s door at half past eight when you’re not entirely sure they’re home and you don’t want to startle them. Three knocks, evenly spaced, light.

Then a pause.

Then nothing.

I can hear the wind shifting, and, beyond that, the long slow shush of the loch against the rocks. The cottage holds its breath just as I do.

The knock comes again.

Three knocks, lighter this time, like they’re reconsidering.

Slowly I creep through the sitting room and into the small front hall, where the air is colder than the rest of the cottage and I stop a foot from the door.

I am wearing leggings and a flannel shirt I stole from my brother, and my hair is in a knot at the back of my head that I’m pretty sure has gone sideways, so it’s not like I don’t look acceptable, but at the same time I’m not sure I want to look acceptable for whoever is out there.