“He means its Internet history,” interjects Jamie. He’s certainly recovered his confidence. “Someone put a bad review on TripAdvisor, saying the place was really strange. Cold drafts, felt like they were being watched, like someone had been through their possessions—that sort of thing.” His dark eyes are on me as he speaks, a hint of a secret smile within them as he adds with faux innocence, “Anything going bump in the night, Ailsa?” I know he means to reference his own midnight visitation, but now I’m wondering if he was wrong about his Manse-obsessed sister: maybe she doesn’t only visit when the property is empty . . . I think of the figure that may or may not have been in the box room, of my own feeling of being observed, and an involuntary shiver runs through me.

Ben saves me from having to respond. “Rubbish,” he snorts robustly. “Probably one of your lot at the agency trying to get some business from ghost-hunting nutters or something.”

“I wouldnae put it past them,” Jamie concedes, “but it backfired if so.”

“I dinnae ken about the TripAdvisor thing,” Ali says. “I was actually talking about the proper history of the place. You ken what Manse means? Good. So then the question is . . . where’s the church?”

“In the village,” I say, puzzled. “Just down the road from here.”

“Nope. Well, aye, but that’s not the original church. That one was built in the late eighteen hundreds. Where’s the original kirk?” He glances around and a small smile touches his lips. He’s in his element now that he’s drawn his audience in.

“Go on,” says Ben. “You know you’re dying to tell us.”

Ali throws him a grin. There seems to be genuine affection there. “Aye, well, it’s actually a sad story. I would imagine Sassenachs such as yourselves”—he gestures at Carrie and me, and even that small motion is somehow patronizing—“dinnae ken much about the Jacobite rebellion—”

“1745!” calls out Carrie. “English oppression. Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, raised an army that was defeated at the Battle of Culloden.” She catches my eye with a smirk. I raise my glass to her, surprised and impressed in equal measure.

“Top of the class,” says Ali, inclining his head toward her, clearly rather impressed too. “So, after the battle, Charlie goes into hiding and eventually escapes—”

“To Skye, right? Hence ‘The Skye Boat Song’?” asks Ben. He begins to sing in a surprisingly good baritone. “Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing—” Fiona joins her voice to his, and Carrie, too, in her wondrous alto; Ben starts to conduct with enthusiastic theatricality and now half the table has joined in, including me. “—onward the sailors cry. Carry the lad that’s born to be king, over the sea to Skye.”

“Give it a rest; this isn’t The X Factor,” the beanpole bartender yells over.