I’ve brought the heaviness of Ardshader with me. It sits on my shoulders, making the road seem darker, even more oppressive. I take out my phone, and sure enough there’s no signal of any kind. It’s already four o’clock. Six miles of this now seems like a ludicrous undertaking, and I’ve no idea how many I still have to go. I try to pick up my pace; my boots disturb loose stones and gravel, making too much noise in the airless space. I don’t like that I’m unsettled – afraid – for reasons that I can’t explain, can’t rationalise. And I don’t like that I’ve suddenly started thinking of Mum again – the Mum with a wild light in her eyes. I don’t like that I can almost feel her panicked breath against my clammy skin. Do you ever get a bad feeling, Maggie?

More than once, I stop to look behind myself. Pretending that it’s only because I’m disconcerted that I can’t see the road’s beginning or end. But the hairs on the back of my neck are making me shudder. And the echoes of my own steps have begun to sound like someone else’s.

As the day grows darker still, I let out a startled yelp when loose scree rattles suddenly down the mountain inches away from me. I look up at the grey sky above, at the towering dark summits of the cliffs. My heart thunders hard enough inside my ears that I struggle to hear anything beyond it. There are no bones here, animal, bird, or otherwise, but that doesn’t stop me thinking of Cast a bone in the devil’s mouth, and it will save you. It doesn’t stop me imagining dark silhouettes standing on top of those mountains and throwing bones down like vándr-varði, to protect against evil, against the bòcain that live in these shadows.

But, strangely, the worst thing is neither the claustrophobic dark nor the sense that I might never reach the end of it. It’s the almost silent silence. I’m too used now to wind, to waves, to wild. This dark, close pass punctuated by nothing other than falling scree – not even birdsong – is more than unnerving. It makes me flinch every time I hear anything at all.

And then I do hear something worse than silence. A scuffling rush like shoes or boots surfing a slide of loose stones. Followed by a curse. Loud enough to echo around the grey wet walls.

This time, I don’t stop. I don’t look back. I run. So fast and so hard that I immediately start sliding against the ground too, my ankles turning over rocks. My breath is too loud. I keep my head down, force my eyes onto the dimming path, so that I can see nothing else but the obstacles in my way.

I don’t know how long it takes to reach the end of the Old Glen Road. When I finally see grey light up ahead, my breath has become little more than ragged sobs, my running sprint a shambling fast-walk. I can feel someone so close behind, it seems impossible that they haven’t yet caught me. Haven’t yet reached out to touch me. I scramble up onto a sparse patch of grass, stumble towards the sudden sound of waves, any moment expecting to be yanked back into the dark. I slow only once I see the wide loch ahead of me, swerving instead onto a sheep track between it and the sloping edge of the western mountain range.