oor open to let the smoke out of the kitchen, and the draft came down the passage with th

You are going to break

stairs bette

ard I had to put my free hand on the wall. The heat went up my arm like a lit fuse and settled somewhere under

go,"

til you

the one who has not sai

t thing in the house was the fire settling in the grate downstairs. Callum's hair was still dark with rain at the ends. There was a smear of peat ash

er round the estate," he said. "I have never once seen you

llowed to be

hand s

. It is a th

e, and that frightened me more than the ghost had. He was not a fool. He had been watching me all night the way he watched the deer,

t night," I said. "

oved over his face and his eyes went the color of

ady telling itself a story, and I would like

a story," he said, "and it

e me a be

can

llu

ame back into my arm where his hand had been. "My father asked me

her is th

es

u are h

es

down. I was angry now, properly angry, which was better than frightened. "That will not last long. Rabbie is

e that I did not have a name for. "Rabbie," he sai

oo busy being the

not gr

id. "I not

then stopped himself. "Isla. I need you to know that whatever else is said about me before the moon turns, I did n

r said

face. Giv

nd he had been crying, and he did not bother to wipe his face. The old Luna's son, the forester who kept the estate's woods and

y, about the rites. The cairn rites. She would have chos

aid it, the words going down smooth and easy and his face not matching t

ou." His eyes slid to

m said, not unkindly. "T

ed him go and thought about his mother saying go home before he a

time. He put his hand flat on the wall above my head, and his voice came out low, and if I

ight," he said. "Do not go

uld I g

and his breath smelled of the same rain as the bothy, and the warmth of him was a thing I could feel on my face. "Please.

asked him wh

"I will stay w

nk y

e. I am not doi

he stepped back and let me go up to my own rooms, and I shut the do

t down the back way, out through the laundry door and across the wet grass, wi

Douglas had put it, and the earth smelled of the dead woman and nothing else. I knelt down and put my palm flat o

moved of

and, and it was weeping again, and it was a

night. He was the one who sat beside me.