The auction went well and everything is arranged. Your possessions have been sent on, to arrive in the morning, and your father will be on the four o’clock train tomorrow. Please meet him at the station.

Write with your news when you can. We’d be glad of some adventure.

Your loving friend,

Jayne

Tomorrow? It was several days sooner than expected. She’d need to get down to the cottage in the morning to give it a good clean before their possessions were delivered.

She went to refold the slip of paper, her gaze falling to something written in the bottom corner that had been obscured by her thumb.

I dreamt of the factor again.

Again? Effie dropped her head at the confirmation, come too late. When had the first dream come? If Effie had still been in Lochaline, living beside her, Jayne might have told her and a couple of days could have been saved; Effie might then have balled up her courage and done the right thing, told people what she’d done and insisted on a trawler going out. Or the navy. Anyone who could get over there to save him.

But the truth was that even with foresight and hindsight combined, Frank Mathieson was never going to be saved, for one simple reason: Effie had wanted him dead. She was glad he was dead. She had just never known she had it in her to be the one to kill him.

The moon was full, bathing the room in a silvered light as Effie slept in a soft bed that might well have been feathered by St Kildan fulmars. Feathers she herself might have plucked, from birds she herself might have caught. Feathers that had lain in sacks and kept secret gifts she never should have been given. Nor accepted.

Everything seemed to connect somehow, drawing her back to her past and home, yet also leading her here, away from it. She didn’t know if she was lost or found. Could she hide here? Or should she run? She was not a servant, but still staff. She was a friend, but still staff. She lived in the margins, as she always had. Indefinable. Unpredictable. Impossible to catch. Wild.

She lay in a sea of silky cotton, spreading herself over more space than her sleeping body had ever known. Embroidered silk drapes fell in waterfalls beside the pillows and a bouquet of pink and yellow roses scented the night air. This was luxury unimaginable only two weeks ago, but she couldn’t find rest in the comfort. Her dreams were vivid and she was fitful, tossing and moaning as images tore through her fevered mind like racing demons: Frank Mathieson lying on the ground. Poppit pawing the air. Carcasses swinging on hooks. A cheetah on a lead. A gilded book on the floor. A pale face and red lips. A man in her room.

A man in her room.