ONE
Here are the rules of living with a murderer.
One: Do not draw attention to yourself.
It’s pretty self-explanatory – if they don’t notice you, they won’t get any ideas about killing you. Be a ghost in your own home, if that’s what it takes. After all, you can’t kill a ghost.
Of course, when you live with a murderer, sit opposite them at every meal, share a washroom, a kitchen, and sleep a mere twelve feet and two flimsy walls away from them, this is impossible. Even the subtlest of spectres is bound to be noticed. Which leads to the next rule.
Two: If you can’t be invisible, be useful.
Cook huge, hearty meals that make them too full and sleepy to feel like slaughtering you. I’m talking meaty stews, thick casseroles. Heaps of potatoes; no one ever ate three pounds of mash and then went on a killing spree. A bit of bread and hard cheese is not going to keep you alive.
You should also keep your home spotlessly clean: get those floors swept, pillows fluffed; shine that cutlery so bright you can see your face in it. Never let them run out of fresh laundry, always sew on loose buttons before they’re lost, and darn socks the moment they show any signs of wear. Be sure to collect the eggs and milk the goat each morning before sunrise, no matter the weather – better to be cold and damp than dead, my girl. In short, make it so your death would be very inconvenient. Murderers hate to be inconvenienced.
It’s still not enough, though. Not nearly enough.
On to rule three: If you can’t beat them, join them.
Not in murder, obviously; the last thing you want is to get into some kind of rivalry. Find some other way to become an apprentice and turn yourself into the thing they didn’t know they needed. Become their right hand, so cutting you would only make them bleed.
Build the stamina it takes to walk around the loch day after day, rain, snow or shine; do it with ease and speed. Learn to set and cast the nets around the loch edges to catch the fish that live there. Where to slit those fish to harvest what’s in their bellies, and how to sift through your findings, panning for information like the luckless pan for gold. Then train yourself not to be sick at the sight of fish guts strewn across a table you’d spent half an hour polishing to gleaming just the day before.
Clean the table again.
Study hard. Learn how to test the loch to make sure it’s clean. How to draw the tables that predict what the water level should be, so you know at a glance how much can be used and how much should be spared. Master these calculations, be sure you can do them in your head, and keep those numbers on your tongue, ready if they’re ever needed. Record the signs that mean rain is coming, or drought is likely. Prepare.
More than that. Familiarize yourself with spears, knives and guns, learn how to sharpen a blade on a whetstone so it sings when you slash it through the air, how clean a barrel, oil a trigger. Practise until you can assemble a long gun in under thirty seconds. Know where the bullets and gunpowder are kept and make sure there’s always plenty.
Four: Don’t make them angry.
In my experience, a murderer is much more likely to kill you if you make them angry.
Right now, my father is furious with me.
TWO
“Alva.”
It takes a lot of practice to keep your back turned when a murderer is standing behind you. But then, I’ve had a lot of practice.
“Alva.”
I know he’s angry from the way he says my name. It’s how he snaps the word: the sharpness of the v, the second a strangled to death almost before it passes his lips. The tiny hairs on my arms rise reflexively. Then there’s the dread swooping in my stomach, like an owl for a mouse. When he says my name like that, it’s a snarl in the dark, telling me to run, to hide. To be careful.
So what do I do?
I let out a long sigh. “Just a moment, Da.”
I write the last three words of the sentence I’m transcribing with a flourish, and calmly put my pen down. Then, and only then, do I turn away from my desk to face him.
Because there’s a fifth rule, and this one is the most important of all:
Don’t let them know what you know.
To survive, you have to be smarter than they are. If I listened to my instincts, if I fled whenever he came into a room, startled every time he picked up a knife, or a hammer, or a gun, he’d know something was wrong. He’d start asking questions, start getting anxious, and then I’d really have to worry. The last thing in the world you want is to make a murderer skittish. The trick is to hold your nerve and behave as though everything is fine. So, instead of cowering, I act like any other sixteen-year-old would if their father came into their room uninvited.
“What is it?” I try to sound bored, even a little annoyed. I’m pleased with myself, though the sense of achievement trickles away when I look at him. He is most definitely not pleased with me.
I attempt a smile. He doesn’t return it.
Oh hell.
My father fills the doorway, ducking his head so it doesn’t bump the frame, and I swallow the realization that he’s blocking the only way out. He’s a real giant of a man; when I was wee I’d sit on his clasped palms while he bent double and swung me back and forth between his legs, and my feet never even came close to touching the ground. I didn’t inherit his height, though I did get the Douglas bird’s nest of dark curls and their coal-chip eyes. Right now my father’s eyes are fathomless, cold and deep as the water outside, and I fight not to flinch as I meet them.
“Did you check the nets?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
I nod, even as my gaze moves to the bundle of rags gripped in his right hand.
No. Not rags. Net.
Oh holy hell.
Here’s the thing: I did not check all of the nets. For once, I decided to leave the furthest one up by the north mountain so I could get back and finish my transcribing work. In my defence, I’ve checked those nets twice a week for the past three years. There’s never anything in them – not even the smallest of fish for me to examine – and they’ve never needed more than the most basic repairs. Until today.
“Alva?”
There’s no point in lying. Again. Not that that stops me from trying. “I forgot. They were fine last week,” I say, standing, my pulse rising at the same time.
In reply, he unrolls the net in his hands, and I wince as I see the size of the rents that have been torn in it. After seven years, I’m good at repairing them, but there’s not enough twine in Ormscaula to get this one back into working order. I could fit inside one of the rips.
My father glares at me through the net, and for a moment it looks like he’s caught in it. Then I realize from where he stands, I would be the catch. My mouth dries.
I look away from him to the damage, forcing myself to step closer and peer at it. I’m surprised to see that the holes are neat, no fraying, like they’ve been cut, not chewed. Whatever did it must have teeth or claws like knives.
“What could have done this?” I ask, for a second forgetting to be wary of him, reaching to touch the clean edges as if they might answer me. The biggest predators in the loch are otters, but there’s no way they’re responsible. Nor any of the fish that live there. “A wolf? A bear?”
Da shakes his head immediately. “There’re no bears in these parts any more. And we’d have heard wolves if they were around.”