Page 110 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

Callum’s assistant, Penny, had rented them a car, to be left at the dock. Jory’s hands shook with anticipation as Callum put their luggage in the boot and opened her door, handing her into the black sedan.

The island was dark as they drove, and Jory couldn’t get her bearings. She’d been gone for so long.

Too long, she thought.

Callum drove with an easy confidence, reaching over to squeeze her hands gently from time to time, but there was a tightness in his jaw. He was not as relaxed as he was pretending to be. As they travelled, Jory began to recognize the turn of a hill, the way the road hugged a landmark. And as Callum slowed, turning left down a long, winding lane, Jory’s breath caught in her chest.

“Callum,” she breathed in the warm darkness. “Is your house—” She couldn’t finish.

But he knew what she was going to ask. “Aye,” he said.

She felt the tears creeping as the car’s headlights sliced through the darkness like a knife rending fabric, revealing the world beyond the veil. And when a low, dark structure came into view, Jory found that she could hardly breathe at all.

He parked the car, and as soon as it was stopped, Jory hurled herself out of the door, racing forward to the little crest overlooking the vastness of the sea, the exact spot where their cottage had once stood.

Distantly, she registered a car door opening, the sound of steps on the frosted ground. And then he was there, big and comforting behind her. Not warm, never warm anymore, but solid and whole and here all the same.

“How long did you live here?” she heard herself ask, her voice sounding broken. “After…”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he wrapped both of his arms around her from behind, pressing his jaw against her temple. She leaned back.

He cleared his throat. “I left to avenge you. Right away, as ye ken. And once I’d done it, I wandered. Learned how to survive as what I am. Maybe a hundred years later, after Elspeth went, I came back. The house was nearly collapsed. But I dug out the cellar and slept in the dirt for weeks while I built the house again. I lived here alone for a time. Before moving on. But I always came back, every so often, to make repairs. To… rest.”

“This is not the house you built when you came back,” she said.

“Nay,” he said. “This is perhaps the… sixth house? I had this one built about ten years ago by a firm specializing in sustainable architecture and design.”

“When were you here last?”

He pressed his mouth against her temple, speaking into her hair. “A few months ago, just before Robbie found Esther.”

“How often do you come?”

She felt like she was interviewing him, but she had too many questions to stop.

He nuzzled his nose into her hair again, his arms clutching at her more tightly. “Whenever the loneliness felt too heavy or the longing too great. That’s when I would come here. Just to feel you.”

The tears were welling now, spilling over her lashes. “To feel me? I wasn’t here. I left as soon as I could. I?—”

“But this was the place I last held you in my arms.”

She sniffed, the cold wind blowing through her clothing at her front and her cold love at her back. Her heart broke all over again to realize that, while he hadn’t struggled the way he had, he’d also been so very alone.

“Come,” he said. “I want to show ye the house.”

She nodded, taking his hand and following as he led her to the front door. He flipped a switch, and the main living area of the house was brightly illuminated. Floor-to-ceiling windows looking over the sea, warm wood floors, dark walls. And directly ahead, hanging over a buffet behind a long dining table, was a sealskin—hersealskin—stretched taut across a green velvet background behind clear, polished glass.

Like a moth to a lantern, she found herself drifting ever closer, tripping clumsily over her own feet as she rushed toward it. She ran a finger over the glass, feeling the pounding of her own pulse in her hands.

“I kept it,” he said from behind her, and she startled. She hadn’t heard him approach. “When I left ye—” Callum swallowed thickly. “I went up to the house to grab provisions and I saw the trunk where you kept it. And I didnae believe that I would ever return there again. But I—I wanted to take something of yours with me, to keep you with me somehow, when I?—”

She was speechless, staring at the sealskin, which was impeccably framed.

“And the case,” she asked hoarsely.

“To keep it safe. It was all I had of you. Here,” he said, stepping around her.

Reluctantly, she allowed him to step in front of her. He gripped the frame in strong hands and gently lifted it off the wall, turning to lay it face down on the dining table. Her mouth felt dry.