Cora turns towards the radio, which has been playing at a low volume, and suddenly claps her hands. ‘Oh, it’s our wedding song, Euan.’

‘I’m too long in the tooth to be dancing,’ he says, but he’s smiling as he stands up and starts to lead her into a waltz across the kitchen tiles.

The song is old, vaguely familiar. Will rolls his eyes, smiles at me. ‘Clannad. Always with the old Celtic folk music.’

Euan laughs. ‘Ask Maggie to dance.’

He gets up, holds out his hand. ‘Will you do me the honour of dancing to this terrible song with me, Maggie?’

And then that’s what I’m doing, dancing around this huge kitchen with a man I barely know and his family, and there’s no other place in the world I’d rather be.

‘I will find you, if it takes a thousand years.’ Will grins, his palm warm against my back, his eyes warmer. ‘Kinda screams stalker, right? What’s wrong with “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”?’

Euan’s eyes are shining as he looks over at us and then back at Cora, his hand leaving her waist to cup her cheek. ‘It’s about love.’

And the look that he shares with Will then is full of pain, bittersweet with that same dark anger at its roots. How hard it is to love who we’re going to lose. How hard, how strangely unexpected, the realisation that we were always going to lose them. I think of that hot, dark room. How impossible it is to accept that we have always been alone.

CHAPTER 18

In over three weeks, there have been no more dead birds. And, as far as I know, no night-time visitors.

But I haven’t lit another fire. And I’m wary of staying in the blackhouse at night, with its iffy front-door lock and collection of dead crows, now stuffed back behind the coat rack in the mudroom. Never mind the ghost of Robert dragging my hope around behind him. I still don’t like walking alone at night either, hearing sounds behind the wind and waves; seeing shapes in the absolute dark between the Coffin Road and the mountains, the Valley of Ghosts. Knowing and doubting that there is always someone there. Watching.

I’ve begun meditating every day, faithfully documenting my moods in Dr Abebe’s journal. I take long walks to Roeness and Lovely Place, or down to Long Stride to picnic with Kelly and Fraser. And in these three weeks there have been no dreams, no night terrors. Even awake, I feel calm.

This morning, I can hear the sound of Will’s ATV out in the west. At noon, I’ll go over to the farm and we’ll eat stovies or sweet porridge and drink strong black coffee. He’ll try to convince me to stay, and I’ll pretend that I need to be convinced. The sun is low in a cloudless sky; it warms my skin through the kitchen window. Frost sparkles on the short grass. I’m trying very hard to live in these moments. To resist the urge to look only forwards, to see only disaster.