Page 11 of A Scot in the Storm
Fishing boats rocked at their moorings, their lines creaking. Abigail noticed there were more boats tied up than she’d seen the day before.
Arthur followed her gaze.
“Most won’t go out.”
“Because of the weather?”
“Because of Samhain.” He handed her a paper cup that smelled strongly of whisky, honey, lemon, and something herbal. “And the weather. The two tend to gossip together.”
Abigail took a cautious sip and immediately felt warmth bloom through her chest.
“Oh, that’s delicious.”
Sandra laughed softly. “Drink slowly. Arthur’s family recipe has felled stronger people than visiting academics.”
“I’m not visiting,” Abigail said before she thought better of it. “I’m exiled.”
Arthur’s expression gentled for a moment in the firelight. Not pity. Worse. Understanding.
“Well then,” he said. “Exiles especially need whisky.”
A group of children shrieked as an older man in a long black coat leapt from behind a stack of lobster creels and waved a carved turnip over his head. Someone started clapping in time to the fiddle. A woman with a red wool shawl began singing, her voice rough and strong enough to carry over the wind.
Abigail stood between Arthur and Sandra with her hands wrapped around the cup, watching strangers celebrate an old night in a cold town at the edge of the sea, and felt the ache of loneliness shift inside her.
For the first time since she’d arrived, she didn’t feel entirely like a woman standing outside a window looking in.
Sandra nudged her gently. “Come on. Isobel’s telling stories.”
“Isobel?”
“Local institution,” Arthur said. “Part historian, part menace. Knows every ghost between here and Peterhead, and at least three of them owe her money.”
They crossed toward a cluster gathered near the harbor wall. An elderly woman sat on an overturned crate with a plaid blanket over her knees and a carved walking stick across her lap. Her hair was white, braided beneath a knitted cap, and her face had the weathered softness of someone who had spent a lifetime squinting into the wind.
She was already speaking when Abigail arrived.
“—and mind ye, the Cailleach is no’ a ghost, whatever foolishness folk tell bairns. She is older than ghosts. Older than kirk bells. Older than the stones themselves.”
One of the children edged closer to his mother.
“What does she do?” a girl whispered.
The old woman smiled, and the bonfire caught the lines around her eyes.
“What needs doing.”
Arthur leaned close to Abigail. “Cheerful, isn’t it?”
“Hush,” Sandra murmured.
“The Cailleach walks when the year turns,” Isobel continued. “When summer gives up its hold and winter takes the hills in her hands. Some say she washes her plaid in the Corryvreckan. Some say she strikes the ground with her staff and brings frost. But here...” She tapped the end of her walking stick once against the stone quay. “Here we ken her by the sea.”
Abigail went still.
The old woman’s gaze moved over the listeners and paused, just for a breath, on Abigail.
“She stands where the waves take what they’re owed,” Isobel said. “She minds the doors between one world and another. And on Samhain, when the veil wears thin as worn linen, best keep to the roads ye know.”
