The patch of mould in the corner of the ceiling looked almost artfully painted on. Spreading. The steam rolled from me, my own mist-skin, and I closed my eyes.

Mist, slipping like shoulder-straps. Mist like earmuffs. Mist and mist and snow and clouds and skin and—

Feathers. Feathers on me.

I jerked awake, the fan as loud as rioting football hordes in my ears. For a second I could have sworn that I was in a bath of wet, white feathers. I shot out and turned round in front of the steamed-up bathroom mirror, more than once, checking that none were stuck to my back.

I am the wind and the white. Bones and feathers.

Why will she not tell you? I feel her story and mine, the twinned crystal, a different light on the stone depending on how you turn it.

Stories. There are so many stories here, others I never knew before.

Can you imagine a time when wolves still lived in these hills? The last wolf killed Maggie Cameron as she walked from her mother’s over the pass, its jaws on her neck, a growl of heat and blood.

Brandon McDuffie was carried off by an eagle. He sat in a nest and cried until the eagle came back and tore his skin, his sinews snapping. The little girl Morag Leitch, having fallen, drowned in a burn no higher than her calves. Flora Cameron, dragged to the edge of a cave and her knees lifted next to her ears, cheek against gorse.

Some had places named after them, after their deaths. Clac Alasdair Oig. Allt mo Nionag. An Geata Lady. Glac Uamh Nigh’n Alasdair.

I don’t know if anyone has named my place. Where the loch laps at the stones like a cat at milk.

The place where the bullet hit.

It was only the second time I’d actually been inside his house. I pottered around while he did things to the generator outside. It wasn’t any tidier, that was for sure.

I was a lot more sober this time, though, and took more in. Mugs hung on thick, smoothed twigs under one of the cupboard shelves. Knives were in a jar next to a hand-carved wooden spoon. Old loose-tea tins were stacked along one side of the sink, the metal dull and dented. He obviously liked lining things up – jars, plates, books, a row of short nails sticking upwards above the fire. Like Benji. Except Benji would do it his own way, arranging our shoes in the hallway, or placing tomatoes in order of size on top of the fridge, going mental at me if I took one from the middle.

Clothes, in resolutely workmanlike colours, were kept in a couple of plastic boxes under the mezzanine. There was a musty smell, thick and antique. Everything seemed to have a very fine layer of dust on it.

Jim was leaning against the doorway, hands in his back pockets, seeming mildly discomfited. ‘Wanted you to see something.’