Two years have passed. With my demons exorcized, I felt free to marry my childhood sweetheart, Brandy MacDonald, a dark-haired beauty with sultry blue eyes and a body that could have landed her in any swimsuit catalog on the planet. Our son, William Wallace, named after our legendary ancestor, was born fifteen months ago. Last summer Nessie’s Retreat, bankrolled by Angus’s lover Theresa (Johnny C.’s widow), opened to great fanfare.

Ten months later the resort and Drumnadrochit were both on the verge of bankruptcy.

Don’t get me wrong, the hotel is first-class. Every one of its 336 rooms features a balcony view of Loch Ness, and each of its third-floor luxury suites is equipped with a fireplace, sauna, and Jacuzzi.

The problem: no monster.

Loch Ness, without its legendary creature, was just a peat-infested twenty-three-mile-long deepwater trough filled with water far too cold in which to swim. It wasn’t just Angus’s hotel that was hurting. Without Nessie, all of the Highland villages had become destitute, the vacation equivalent of Orlando without Disneyworld and its other local theme parks. Of course, Orlando is a modern city located in sunny Florida. The Scottish Highlands are an isolated cold-weather region with seasons more akin to Alaska’s. Centuries ago, our Highland ancestors worked the land to feed and clothe themselves; these days the villagers were committed to tourism. It was the feast of summer that got them through the famine of a long winter, and the sudden downturn to the Highlanders’ livelihood threatened an economic and cultural collapse.

Concerned over the state of its villages and the economic toll they were taking on the capital city of Inverness, the Highland Council had been holding monthly brainstorming sessions to figure out how to bolster tourism for the coming season. My father attended these meetings with Brandy’s father, Alban, and her big brother, Finlay “True” MacDonald, my boyhood friend. The imposing Highlander with the auburn ponytail and Viking aura served as master of arms. Although the meetings were open to the public, True’s Do Not Allow to Enter list had one name on it—mine.

In the span of two years, I had gone from local hero to persona non grata. With tourism down, hundreds of villagers faced the prospect of being unable to feed their families without government subsidies, and I soon felt their wrath. Why couldn’t Wallace have subdued the creature without vanquishing it in the public eye? Had he no respect for the legend?

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

By December, I had become a hated man and was forced to move my wife and son from our once-rent-free cottage into the near-vacant resort. I no longer visited Sniddles or Drumnadrochit’s other watering holes, preferring the hermit-like quiet of Nessie’s Lair, the resort’s closed restaurant and pub.