‘I’d better crack on, Mum. Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

She always took a minute at the end of a call to calm the syrupy loss that sloshed in her stomach. It was a strange thing: rather than make her feel closer to home, closer to those she loved, these calls with her parents or Bella, in fact any contact with home, had almost the opposite effect, like bringing a picture into focus, enabling her to see and feel all that she was missing, confirming how very far away she was.

But that was just how it had to be.

Merrin quickly got the hang of working on reception and more than liked her new position. And today it was a glorious morning. She sat at the French windows in her room and blinked, taking in the view from her bedroom, the beauty of which never failed to captivate her. The flat, manicured lawn beyond the patio was a constant wonder to her and she was thankful to those who worked hard to keep it looking just so. Having grown up on a wild and rocky outcrop, it amazed her that grass could be so neat, so vibrant, and not the spiky, untamed variety that sprouted between rocks, over the scrub land and on the cliff edge of Port Charles. This grass was entirely different, soft like nature’s carpet, and when time and circumstance allowed and after a quick look around to make sure no one was watching, she loved nothing more than to slip off her shoes and run across it barefoot, feeling the soft yield of the verdant blades under her feet, connecting her to the earth in the way that she so loved.

Here, everything was flatter, calmer: the weather, the land and her life. It was a pleasant even keel of an existence and she found it comforting. Waking up in a castle every day was an amazing thing and her surroundings never failed to fascinate her. The high stone walls had been renovated and the original structure added to since it had first been built in the late 1500s, but always sympathetically and with grand style, befitting a once baronial family home such as this. The cathedral-ceilinged hallways and wood-panelled dining room were beyond stunning, with the scent of history and stories lingering in the air. And the library had a vast inglenook fireplace where, rumour had it, the finest ancient oak had been burnt to keep King Henry VIII and his entourage warm one day and night while he courted Anne Boleyn. Merrin liked to admire the walls and carved wood, wondering who else had done the same during their brief presence on this earth. It certainly wasn’t a bad life, far from it, just not the one she had envisaged, and not the one she had wanted.