Love by the Stroke of Midnight by Raven McAllan (best historical biographies .txt) 📗

She swore as yet another sheep decided it would try to outrun her down the narrow track that led to the landing stage where, God willing, the boat would be waiting to take her across the loch. If not they might have more lamb than they bargained for when she turned around and drove back up the track.

The sheep meandered to the verge and turned to stare at her, as if to ask how she dare travel down that track at that time, when it wanted to use it.

“I’m going home, mate, you got a beef with that?” Marcail said. “Or should it be a lamb? Anyhow…I’m off home and this is the way.”

If sheep could grin, that one did. And strangely its eyes glowed briefly, and she would swear it winked.

I’m losing it. I need a holiday. Or one of Mum’s casseroles. I need to go home. Chill and not think about stuff that can’t be possible. Voices I accept, winking sheep not so much.

Home. Castle Bearradh—Hill Castle. A bit of a misnomer as the so-called hill was no more than a slight incline on the middle of a craggy, cliff-edged island that was less than two miles from tip to toe and around half that across, midway between two shores of a loch. The place her family had lived for years. Where she and her two siblings had been born. And where, with a bit of luck, they and their parents would get together to celebrate her birthday, and All Hallows’ Eve. Samhain. When the veil between the living and those who had passed was at its thinnest.

How long was it, Marcail mused, as the errant sheep swerved off into a field and she was able to drive without fear of depleting the local flock, since they’d all been together at home?

Too long.

“I’m going home,” she said out loud. “To Scotland, where I want to be for a while.” Just to admit it was a relief. “Not in England, managing a flower shop where Bloody Roddy wanted to be.” Nor slowly, unhappily discovering Roddy—her not so long before live-in boyfriend—was using her as a convenient way to save money.

A few weeks before, Marcail had left the house and realised she’d forgotten her phone. She’d gone back inside and not bothered to shout hello or anything. Before she’d even closed the door or taken any steps along the corridor to the kitchen, where she remembered putting her phone on the worktop, she’d heard him laugh.

“I tell you, mate, I’ve never had it so good,” he’d boomed in the voice he used for phone calls. “I’m saving half of each month’s salary and even though the sex is only so-so, it’s worth it. I close my eyes and think of my bank balance.”

That had opened her eyes. She’d gone back to her car, driven out of sight and rung her colleague to say she was sick.

Five minutes later she’d watched Roddy drive past on his way to work. By the time he’d come back that evening, all his belongings had been on the path outside the house. The fact he didn’t even try to bluster his way through an explanation had told her everything. She should have burned the stuff and left him the ashes.

Marcail had decided it had been a wake-up call. She’d handed in her notice, put her house on the market, sold it within a week and booked a ticket to New Zealand. She’d promised herself a trip there for years, now she was going to take herself up on her promise. All Hallows’ Eve and her birthday at home, a month to get everything sorted and she was off.

Christmas in the sun might take a bit of getting used to, but she’d roll with it.

For a while, Marcail had been conscious something was missing from her life, and she didn’t mean the late, not lamented, Roddy. Much as she knew it wasn’t all her fault, Marcail felt she’d failed somehow. She was loved—by her family if not Roddy—solvent and healthy, and she had, in her mind, no right to feel a loser.

“Stop that now, lassie. Remember who you are… I’m waiting. Remember, Pearl…”

“Get out of my head,” she muttered as she turned the corner to the tiny parking area next to where she saw the boat was thankfully moored. “Give me a break for a while, eh?”

“I’m always there for you.”

“I wish you weren’t.” She got out of the car and opened the boot. The laughter she swore she could hear made her scowl. It didn’t matter the voice had been with her all her life—changing as she, and presumably it or he did as well—sometimes she’d like a break.

“Makes no difference, fate is preordained. Our fate. What will be will be…” She was certain she heard a sigh. “As long as you are willing of course.”

She was not going to answer that or ask willing to do what. She had enough going on in her life without any more complications.

Nevertheless, the tone of the…the what, unwanted thought maybe, unnerved her.

Marcail sighed as she surveyed the contents of the car boot. What did she really need with her and what could stay put for now?

When she’d filled the car, she’d put what she thought of as the essentials for her everyday life in it, plus the necessities for her trip. The rest, including her furniture, was in storage until such time as she decided what to do with it all, but really? What was necessary? After all, she was going to be home with the family, no need to stand on ceremony. Just one special dress for her birthday dinner and that was it. The rest of the time she’d dress for warmth, not elegance. Then of course, it would be summer down under, and as Roddy had disapproved of her ‘showing too much skin’ as he put it, she had few skimpies. Those she would buy when she got to New Zealand.

“Or Skye.”

“I am