Contents (57)
- 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
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Also by Sharon Gosling
‘Rachel—’
‘It took so much for me to get away,’ she said. ‘I was so afraid, for so long. I wanted to leave it behind, for ever. I didn’t want it to follow me here. Not here. Not to this place. I didn’t want anyone here to know.’
‘I understand,’ Toby said. ‘And I’m sorry. I am.’
‘I thought I could trust you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, again, because what else could he say?
She reached the end of the hallway and opened the door. Outside the new day was mild, though for some reason she had expected to find herself stepping out into a maelstrom.
‘Does he know where I am?’ she asked.
‘No, of course not. I didn’t even try to contact him. I would never do that. I—’
‘He’ll kill me,’ she said. ‘If he ever finds me. Do you understand that?’
‘He won’t,’ Toby said. ‘He won’t find you.’
‘How can you possibly say that?’ she asked him. ‘What the hell do you know?’
‘Rachel—’
‘Don’t come and see me before you go,’ she said. ‘This is enough of a goodbye.’
Toby said nothing, but from the corner of her eye she saw him give a single, slow nod, as if she was simply confirming something he’d expected to hear. Something he deserved to hear. He’d known this was coming. Even in this, he was ahead of her.
She left him standing in the doorway of his rented cottage and walked away without looking back. Ahead of her she could see the lighthouse, rising on the hill. She imagined Eveline MacDonald, two hundred years and several lifetimes away, up there in that tiny dome, hidden away from everyone down here, watching life at a safe remove, untouchable in her tower, and Rachel thought she could understand how that would be appealing to someone for whom life had dealt one terrible blow after another. Yes, she could understand that very well indeed.
Rachel didn’t want to go straight back to Ezra’s place. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, she didn’t want to have to explain. Instead she went up the hill to the lighthouse, hoping that the quiet emptiness of the place would allow her to gather her thoughts. It was still early, barely six o’clock. She could have time to herself before she had to open the bookshop. She might even go up into the camera obscura, stand there in the quiet and imagine herself untouchable, no more than a cloud drifting in the warming dawn air. Rachel made her way up the narrow road that cut beside the gatehouse, looking up at the tower, rising to pierce the sky.
A movement caught her eye as she reached the top of the hill. A small group of people were standing on the far side of the tower. They had their backs to her, facing the forest and the peaks beyond. As Rachel stopped to watch, one of them swung an arm towards the trees and then turned, arm swinging like a pendulum back the other way towards Rachel, as if indicating an invisible route that led straight from the forest to the lighthouse and on down to the gatehouse. Rachel saw that the figure was Dora McCreedy.