More wary glances shot his way. His accent betrayed him. It didn’t matter how young he was. Boys only a couple of years older were fighting on both sides in this ugly war. And even here, he might not be accepted for who and what he was.

“Nay,” said the man. “There be castles on the islands but na Rookskill. Na Craig.” He turned back to his companions.

“Thank you,” Isaac said. His spirits sank to a new low.

As he got up to leave his table, he felt eyes following him, and he wished he could shrink, or, like his parents had, up and disappear.

*   *   *

Isaac was given a small room—the only room—in the pub.

Before sleep he read a bit of Frankenstein, the part set in Orkney, as if that might give Isaac some clue about where he was. Hardly more than a rock, Isaac read, whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves. But when Victor began the detestable occupation of making a companion for his monster, Isaac closed the book and leaned back with a sigh into his first real bed in almost a month.

His mind drifted, and then he snapped awake.

The eternity knot.

Why hadn’t he seen it? Maybe because he’d been too distracted by the coming of night.

His mind’s eye went to the tall standing stone in the courtyard of the croft. He’d traced it with his finger—now he retraced it in his memory. A long, thin, incised line leading down, down, and at the bottom a depression, an etching covered by lichen, a symbol he’d seen but hadn’t registered.

He concentrated, eyes closed. It wasn’t exactly like the rings, but a bit more abstract like a twining vine, a winding loop that had no beginning and no end. He closed his eyes tight. There. He could picture it. It was the eternity knot. Yes!

He touched the pendant that hung around his neck, his heart pounding like a drum.

The symbol was carved into the standing stone that stood in the courtyard of the croft.

Isaac jumped out of bed, pulled the casket from his pack, and sat it on the bed. That hum he’d heard in the hut filled his head again.

The casket held answers. He wanted answers so badly. Since he’d left Prague, he hadn’t known what his parents had meant by all their strange references, and now the puzzle had grown. Yes, he knew he wasn’t supposed to open it.

They may sense it.

He fingered the seal. It was old and the lead seal was worn thin. He could likely break it with his fingers.

Which is what he did.

Wait. How did that happen?

Do not open it.

But he had. And now, okay, maybe, just a peek? Would just a tiny peek be a problem?