This Q&A session wasn’t what she’d ever expected, but at least Connor, Jim, and Isla didn’t need convincing of Hæra’s supernatural nature. Apparently, nobody would. Still, Jonathan’s relationship with Asgall…whatever it had been…wasn’t Madeleine’s secret to tell.

“No,” she said. “Hæra tried to save him, but it was too late. By the time I got there, he and her brother were already dead, and she was…”

How did you finish that sentence? With a witch, becoming human? Madeleine couldn’t explain something when she had no idea how it worked. She groaned. Her head felt heavy as lead. “I know it doesn’t make any sense.”

“That it doesn’t,” Jim agreed.

“But you believe me?” She glanced at Connor. “I know you said you already suspected, but even so this has to seem insane.”

“Oh it does,” Connor replied. “But I saw those hooves. And everything else I told you about. And we don’t laugh off fairy-tale creatures and such.”

“We always knew she was something like that,” Jim added. “Didn’t suspect a kelpie, or whatever they’re called. Ech-thing. That’s scary shite.” He glanced at Hæra’s bedroom door. “I thought she’d be a bonnie selkie lass.”

Isla snorted. “You would.”

Connor scoffed. “She’s too hard to be a selkie. She was always going to be something that could kill you.” He sighed. “At least I knew she wouldn’t.”

Good for Connor, but that was still a bet Madeleine wouldn’t have taken in his place.

“I saw a tangie when I was a peedie girl on Shapinsay,” Isla said. She was tall and fair with an Orcadian accent, a lifelong native of the islands. “That’s a bit like what Hæra is. Was. Told my mum, and she said to keep my mouth shut and stay away from that place.”

Isla’s mother had been sensible. Madeleine asked, “Does everyone know the truth?”

“Of course not,” Jim said. “Not newcomers to the place, like the lads with the café. But the old-timers, those of us who’ve been on the islands all our lives, we talk. You should have heard Harry Duggan bitch and moan about all the hints he dropped that Jonathan refused to pick up.”

“Harry Duggan’s a numpty,” Isla said. “Was Jonathan supposed to tell him the truth? Christ. Some things you can’t say.”

“Until you have to,” Madeleine said quietly. “And Hæra’s human now.”

Silence fell for a moment.

“So what’s that mean?” Jim asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Is it something to do with why the farm’s damaged?” Isla said. “Jim’s always told me nothing ever happens to it, somehow.”

“Um. Possibly,” Madeleine said. “I think something happened to the trow.”

After a brief silence, Connor sighed and went for his own beer.