Page 43 of The Clifftop Cottage

A gust of wind rushed up from the cliffs, rattling the trees and pressing the rain hard against her back. Drops dripped from her sleeves, darkening the paper she still held, the faint outline of the letters blurred but visible.

Isobel Grant had lived here.

So why was she remembered as a witch?

Who was C.G.?

The rain began to fall harder now, fat drops spotting the ground, soaking into her hair and collar. She lifted her phone and took a photo, the flash lighting the stone for a split second – white, harsh, revealing the marks as they really were: not decorative, not random, but deliberate.

Someone had wanted to be remembered.

Isobel Grant had carved her name here.

So had C. G.

But why?

And why was Isobel’s name twisted into something dark?

Who had accused her?

Who had decided her fate?

And what had really happened to her?

The questions crowded in, fast and urgent, until they felt like a pressure inside her chest. A pulse of energy ran through her, not fear, but something fierce and bright.

She wasn’t leaving it like this.

Erica didn’t bother changing out of her damp clothes. She hesitated only long enough to grab a flask of tea and her keys, and scoop up Lucky. The kitten barely stirred as she settled him into his box on the passenger seat, rain drumming steadily against the roof as she drove down the narrow road to town.

The wipers swept back and forth, smearing the dark. When she reached the bottom of the hill, her phone buzzed back to life, signal returning like a small jolt of relief. She pulled in beneath a lonely streetlamp, its pale light reflecting off the wet tarmac.

The heater hummed. Lucky climbed into her lap, warm and solid, grounding her as she balanced her phone in one hand and her tea in the other.

She typed quickly.

Isobel Grant, Rock Cove.

Nothing.

She scrolled, frowned, tried again. The only Isobel Grant she could find was a folk singer from the 1970s, all tartan skirts and bagpipes.

Not her.

She tried a different search.

Rock Cove witch trials.

The results were worse. Page after page of vague history. More than two thousand accused, mostly women. No details. No names. Just words like hysteria and fear and justice used far too lightly.

But nothing about Isobel.

Nothing about the woman who had carved her name into the stone.

She exhaled sharply and hit the steering wheel, making Lucky jump, and she immediately murmured an apology, stroking his fur. Outside, the trees leaned into the wind, their branches casting long, spidery shadows across the road.

Night had fully settled.