I shut my bedroom door and put my tea and candle on the little stool beside the bed before lying down. My da’s right about one thing – Giles Stewart’s greed is the reason the levels are dropping so fast. He’s the one who’s been increasing the mill’s output all winter, and he’s the one looking to expand and build another pulping tower. There’s no denying it’s because of Giles that too much water is being used, faster than it can be replaced. Surely he can understand that? He must know the loch isn’t infinite.
I stop myself; I shouldn’t care about this. I’ll be long gone by the time it matters. It’s not my business, and it’s not my problem. My problems lie miles away, in Thurso. That should be taking up every spare bit of space in my mind. Building my new life.
Pulling a pillow under my head, I try to imagine it. New town, new me. A place of my own. Work. Friends.
Maybe even—
The sound of a woman screaming outside tears my fantasies apart.
I almost knock my tea over in my haste to stand, the switchblade in my hand before I’m on my feet. It’ll be the lugh, I realize. Not a woman. They almost sound the same.
As I reach my bedroom door my father strides past, a long gun in his hands, the barrel open as he shoves shells into it, snapping it closed with a flick of his wrist.
He turns to me as he pulls the safety back. “Stay here.”
Then he’s gone, out into the night.
I rush to the window but the reflection of the room blinds me to the outside. I pinch the candle out but even so I can’t see more than a few feet ahead, thanks to the mist. There’s no sign of my father, or any cat. I hold my breath, keep myself still, waiting.
The scream comes again, from the back, by the henhouse.
Still clutching my knife, I dart from my room, staying close to the walls as I move through the hall to the kitchen. I pull the shutters back and listen.
It’s silent, but the skin on the back of my neck prickles. Like I’m being watched.
Something crashes into the front door and I cry out. Then I run towards it, arm raised, knife gripped tightly…
It flies open and I manage to stop myself just before I stab my father.
His face is blank, eyes unseeing, apparently unaware how close he came to being the sheath of my knife. I lower it, my heart thundering like a thousand horses racing, but still he says nothing, staring at me – through me. He doesn’t seem to notice the blade in my hand at all.
My blood runs cold.
“Papa?” I haven’t said “Papa” since I was a child. My voice is high like a child’s too.
At last he looks at me.
“Put that away,” he says, glaring at the knife. I close it and shove it back into my pocket.
“Did you get it?” I ask, realizing I already know the answer, because I didn’t hear the gun go off. “Do you want to go back out and look?” I offer. “I could come—”
“No!” he snaps, his eyes blazing. “You’re to stay in the house, do you hear me? And you keep away from the windows. Do you understand me, Alva?”
I stare at him, fright rooting me to the spot, deadening my tongue.
“Do you hear me?” he says, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me until my teeth rattle. “You do not leave these walls without my permission.”
I manage to nod and he releases me.
Without another word he storms away, back into his study, closing the door.
I stay where I am, my bowels turned to liquid, too scared to move. I don’t know if I’m going to faint, or be sick, or cry, or worse. So I do nothing, until I’m sure I can move without losing control. Then I go back to my bedroom, closing the door, pausing in the middle of the room, counting my heartbeats. So much for being ready for it. I wasn’t ready at all. I didn’t even try to defend myself.
I pull the shutters over my window, and when I’m sure my father isn’t coming back, I drop to my knees and push aside the raggedy rug my mother made for me. Digging the knife into the wooden floorboards, I prise one of them up.
Hidden beneath my bedroom floor is a sturdy canvas bag, a brand-new earasaid – plain, not plaid; a pair of thick-soled boots; two impossibly pretty, lace-trimmed dresses that I could never wear in Ormscaula; a set of carved calligraphy pens, brown, black, red and blue ink; a sheaf of gold leaf; almost two hundred crowns in gold, silver and bronze pieces.
And the gun my father used to kill my mother, seven years ago.
FIVE
I wake early the next morning to find my father has already left the cottage. At first I’m relieved, until I discover he’s taken all the milk with him, the rest of yesterday’s bread, half a block of cheese and some of the dried sausages from the store.
I break my fast with watery porridge and tea as black as my mood. I could milk the goat – I can hear her bleating outside – but knowing my luck he’d return while I was in the yard and there’d be hell to pay for disobeying him. Better to wait for him to get back.
It’s when I head to his room to straighten it and I find his bed neatly made, the blankets still tucked with my sharp corners, that I realize he hasn’t slept in it. And when I check his study, I find one of the long guns gone, the box of shells half-empty. He must have left the cottage last night, after I fell asleep, to hunt the lugh. He’s been out all night.
Back in my room, my own gun hums beneath the floorboards and once again I prise the board up and free it, holding the now-familiar weight in my hand.
I don’t know why I took it. I don’t know why I still keep it. It’s pretty, if a gun can be such a thing. The flintlock pistols I’m allowed to use belonged to my father’s grandmother. The wood is scratched, the metal dulled, even though they’ve been well cared for; they’re old, and it shows. But the gun that killed my mother is a real beauty.
The handle is pale wood, inlaid with iridescent abalone shell, and rounded, designed to be cradled in a palm. The barrel is long, elegant really. It takes different bullets to the flintlocks, shiny, silver-pointed things that look nothing like the lead balls the flintlocks use. Most importantly, you can load more than one at a time. Six will fit snugly in the chamber, and it revolves to line them up. And there’s no need to mess around with gunpowder; the whole mechanism is clockwork smooth. I know, because I’ve tried it, though not while it’s loaded. It must be devastating when it is. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Faster than a heartbeat.
It used to be too big for my hands, but now it fits just fine.
Sometimes I think about throwing it in the loch, and letting water and time make it into nothing. Other times I fantasize about putting it on the table between me and my father while we’re eating, just gently setting it down, finally there, out in the open. Or handing it to the sheriff, when he next comes through. Telling him what I should have said seven years ago.
Darker times I imagine using it for retribution, and finding the natural home for those last two bullets.
If I’m honest with myself, I expect I’ll take it with me and hide it under some different floorboards for seven more years. But at least I’ll have bullets for it. I’ve wanted them for so long; just four, to fill the chamber. I can’t shake the feeling the gun wants to be full. Complete.
Of course, to do that, I have to get down to Ormscaula and find Ren, which is a lot trickier now that I’m forbidden to leave the house.