“Emily?” The bookseller looked over to see Emily’s face riddled with panic. He moved toward her, but she backed away, hands raised.

“No,” she said once more, turning to flee from the shop, not stopping to collect either legal document or her grandmother’s book. The spokes of her bike wheels blurred as she disappeared along the street, wind whipping back tears from her face, a magpie following in the sky.

Emily wanted to scream. She wanted to rip the thought from her mind and go back to before, to when all was as it should be. Too many memories. Too much she didn’t want to remember hidden within those walls. And yet it was exactly where her grandmother was trying to send her back to.

It felt so unfair, like a cruel, manipulative trick that Emily wanted no part of. Perhaps she could simply stay at home and refuse to give in to her grandmother’s demands? After all, it was not as if Catriona could force her to do anything anymore. But the curiosity in her had already been aroused. Emily understood this was exactly what her grandmother had wanted—had predicted would happen. She felt something in the pit of her stomach then—the strange idea that today had only just begun. There was something about the twitter of birds in all the trees she cycled past, as if they knew something she didn’t.

The scent of summer rain hung in the air, and church bells called out the hour as Emily came to a halt at the edge of the path that led to her home. Propped up against the garden gate was a young man wearing oxblood cowboy boots, a tan leather jacket, frayed jeans, with a guitar looped over one shoulder. The same man who, as a boy, had been too afraid to duck his head under the water on their shared holidays, the boy she had eventually teased and cajoled into jumping from the jetty into the icy blue.

“Tyler,” she whispered as she watched him lift his head and smile as she approached.

5

PELICAN

Pelecanus

He was in her kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, helping himself to some ham and cheese from the fridge as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to be there, with her.

Tyler was now perched on the end of the table, where her discarded breakfast and sketchbook still lay, chatting to her about how sorry he was not to have made the funeral, that he always loved how chaotic and free Aunt Cat was.

Was, thought Emily.

“So, are you all packed?”

Emily looked over to see Tyler wiping at the corner of his mouth with a linen napkin, the edge of which was embroidered with tiny stars. The last time she had seen him was at her twenty-first birthday. A mismatched gathering of lost souls who were connected to her somehow, yet none of them had seemed to know her at all. He had been out in the garden, over by one of the apple trees, smoking a cigarette and frowning at the vicar as he tried to explain the merits of cross-country skiing.