She stopped marching only when she got to Am Blaid, the cradle of the isle and the plateau from where she could look out over all points: north, south, east and west – but it was only the village to where her gaze fell, the solid, rooted grey stone cottages that lay low to the ground, spread in a fan.

It had been her plan to walk straight to the Amazon’s House, the souterrain where the girls were staying, but she had marched at a clip that was speedy even for her and she could feel her heart clattering like a stone in a box. She sank to the ground, her knees up and elbows resting, not yet wanting to commit to the steps that would take her down into the back glen and out of sight of the village. At least from this distance she might watch the islanders – and their guests – unobserved, for a while. No matter they would be indistinguishable from here, where the yacht was an inky shadow, the factor’s house just a bright dot; it was just something to know he was still down there for now.

Her heart squeezed like a fist in her chest every time she thought about his departure. It was imminent, she knew that. Yesterday’s grace had succumbed to today’s weather. Pressure building, clouds climbing . . . The skipper would be reading the skies and listening to his host – her Uncle Hamish – making ready to leave.

Colour was beginning to leach into the day, the sky growing brighter with every passing minute, a bleed of green spreading upon the westerly slopes and a single golden sunspot glowing upon the tip of the yacht’s masts. All around her, the ancient cleits sat silent like old friends, her hidey-holes of childhood. How many times had she crept into them as a little girl, playing hide and seek with Mhairi and Flora and their many brothers? Why couldn’t one of those boys have grown into a man who made the very edges of her world flutter and fray? Why had God sent a man she could never have, to own her heart?

It was utterly silent up here. The world slept at her feet, even the symphonic St Kilda wren quiet for once.

Only . . . she wasn’t fully alone. There was a pulse through the ground. A vibration of something travelling. Beside her, Poppit’s head lifted from between her paws, her ears up as she looked down the slope. They were perched on a blind summit, the land dropping away so sharply that she couldn’t see the hundred yards that fed to her feet – but she could hear something breathing. It was heavy and rapid and drawing closer quickly. Effie felt a rush of alarm, her palms pressed to the ground, ready to push up and run as Poppit gave a low growl that reverberated through her belly. ‘Who’s there?’ she asked fiercely.