He looked better than he had six years ago. He stood up straighter, his white beard and hair were neatly trimmed, and no glaze of alcohol covered his eyes. And there was no drunken thickness in his speech when he whispered exactly what she was thinking:

“I don’t fucking believe it.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Hæra could rip out Jonathan’s throat. He hadn’t gotten anything useful from Sister Madeleine. As they cleaned the house, he said he’d been too shocked to ask any relevant questions, so overwhelmed was he by seeing her again.

“I was in Annie’s Crafts,” he’d said, looking around the living room as if he’d never seen it before. “Checking in on the wool order, not that wool’s worth anything these days, and having a natter with old Annie. We’re having tea in the back while Ellie’s at the front—not Jean, she’s working at the kirk today⁠—”

“Jonathan,” Hæra said hoarsely. She was supposed to be hoovering, but the vacuum handle sat uselessly in her hand.

“Right, sorry! So we’re just talking. And all of a sudden, as if it’s naught, Annie tells me Harry Duggan rang her not half an hour ago to say the nun’s back. The one who fell in the sea. I thought I was dreaming, as if I fell asleep after you and I talked about her just this morning. Couldn’t be real, could it? But Annie was serious. Asked me, ‘Weren’t you the one who found her?’ And I just left my tea and ran out. She’ll let me have it for that one. Never forgets that shite.”

Jonathan enjoyed telling long stories. Hæra usually enjoyed hearing them. “Jonathan.”

He looked remorseful. “Ah yes. I ran out, thinking…not thinking, really. Just that I’d find her, see if it was true. And then I ran straight into her.”

Had Hæra collided with something too? Not Sister Madeleine, but something even bigger and less visible? That would explain her breathlessness. “Tell me!”

Jonathan took the vacuum from her hands and turned it on. He didn’t have to raise his voice for her to hear him. “Starting where? We didn’t know what to say! I said I was looking for her, and she said she was looking for me too, and we had to talk. She wanted to talk to me right away. But I couldn’t. Not…”

“Why not?” Hæra nearly screamed it. How could Jonathan not get all the information he could manage?

Jonathan glared at her while he pushed the vacuum about. “Not without you.”

Oh. Her indignation receded like the tide.

“So I told her, come for dinner, and we’d talk all she liked. Then I went to the provisions shop. I dunno what she likes to eat, but it’s not what you do. Can you do with cooked meat tonight?”