Chapters (43)
- Pronunciation
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Acknowledgments
“That’s where the car ferry used to come in.” An old man with a quilted jacket and cloth cap stopped at his side, his wire-haired fox terrier pulling and twisting at the end of a long lead. “The old passenger boat used to come in at the other quay.” He chuckled. “There was no call for a car ferry till they built the roads. And they didn’t do that till the fifties. Even then, there wasn’t many folk had cars.”
“I take it you’re a local, then,” Fin said.
“Born and bred. But I can tell from your Gaelic you’re not from around here yourself.”
“I’m a Leodhasach,” Fin said. “From Crobost in Ness.”
“Never been that far north myself,” the old man said. “What brings you all the way down here?”
“I’m looking for the old O’Henley croft.”
“Oh, well, you’re not far off the mark. Come with me.”
And he turned and headed back over the rise towards the old jetty, his dog running on ahead, leaping and barking at the wind. Fin followed him until he stopped by the quayside, the little bay stretched out ahead of them.
“That yellow building over there on the left, the one without a roof—that used to be the village store and post office. Run by a chap called Nicholson, I think it was. The only Protestant on the island.” He grinned. “Can you imagine?”
Fin couldn’t.
“Just up beyond that, to the right, you’ll see the remains of an old stone cottage. Not much left of it now. That’s the O’Henley place. But she’s long dead. Widowed quite young, too. She had a wee lassie that stayed with her. Ceit, if my memory serves me well. But I’m not sure that she was her daughter.”
“What happened to her?”
“Oh, heaven knows. Gone long before the old lady died. Like all the young ones. They just couldn’t wait to get off the island in those days.” His smile was touched by sadness. “Then and now.”
Fin’s eyes strayed beyond the ruin towards a large white house built on the rocks above it. What looked like a brand-new driveway snaked up the hill to a levelled garden area at the front, and a wooden deck accessed by French windows from the house. Above it, a balcony was glassed in against the elements, and on the wall above that a neon star. “Who lives in the big white house?” he said.
The old man grinned. “Oh, that’s Morag MacEwan’s house. Retired to the island of her birth nigh on sixty years after she left it. I don’t remember her at all, but she’s a character, that one. You’ll maybe know her yourself.”
“Me?” Fin was taken aback.