Jack was humbled. All his life, he had convinced himself that no one had ever seen anything worthy in him. But Lorna had. Even in her death, she was granting him a rare opportunity.

“Now then,” Alastair said, reaching for the whiskey decanter, “I’ve kept you long enough.”

Jack rose and left the laird in the library with a second knuckle’s worth of whiskey, having promised not to tell Sidra.

He emerged into the courtyard, where a breeze was blowing in from the sea, and came to a stop on the mossy flagstones to steady his heart. He didn’t know how long he stood there, but he soon remembered the book in his hand. Curious, he opened it to skim Lorna’s composition, “The Ballad for the Earth.”

She had written page after page of music far more complex than the ballad for the tides. Jack noticed her instruction at the bottom of the very last page. A warning that gave him pause.

Play with the utmost caution.

Chapter 12

Sidra didn’t want to deceive Graeme, but neither could she remain in his house another minute. At midday, she convinced him to let her return home to change her clothes and gather herbs and materials so she could at least work while she waited for Torin to bring news.

She avoided the hill, choosing to walk by road to her front door.

Covered dishes were piled on the cottage’s stoop. Pies, loaves of bannocks, creamy parritch, stews, cakes, pickled vegetables and fruits. Sidra stared at the jumbled assortment a full three breaths before she realized they were for her, because Maisie was missing.

The food only made it more visceral, and she wiped tears from her face as she struggled to carry everything inside to the kitchen. At Graeme’s, she had sipped whiskey and eaten one oatcake, all that her stomach would permit. Everything within her was wound tight, and she wished Torin would understand that she needed to walk the hills. To sit and wait was agony. She needed to search for Maisie.

By the time she had all the food inside and had shut the front door, it was midday. Sidra stared into the silent chamber. At the patches of light on the floor. At the dust motes that spun in the air.

It was quiet without Maisie. It felt as if the croft had lost its heart, and Sidra sat at the kitchen table, overcome.

She rested her face in her hands, reliving the events, wondering what she could have done differently. She remembered Donella’s warning. The ghost had seen the perpetrator’s path. She had known he was coming for Maisie.

Sidra lifted her head and whispered, “Donella? Can you meet with me?”

She waited.

The ghost rarely visited twice a season, and she never materialized upon command. But Sidra believed Donella might find a way, given what had happened to her daughter.