Tide (2 page)

Every day I check our dead drop. Mike knows that if everything else fails, as a last resort I’ll have left them a message folded inside a plastic pocket, hidden in a fissure in Sarah’s garden wall – the north wall. The exact place is marked by a small symbol I’ve painted in such a way that it’s visible, but doesn’t attract too much attention.

Every day I pray that I’ll find the envelope gone, that they’ll come looking for me at Gorse Cottage. Losing hope is not an option.

I spend every night in Sarah’s garden, invisible. I can make myself unseen, unnoticed – nobody rests their eyes on me twice, nobody remembers my face. They see me, but their gaze slips away from me like rain trickling off glass. It works best when I’m still, but I can be invisible when I’m moving too, although occasionally my shadow is perceived like a flicker in the corner of somebody’s eye. From my hiding place I can see Anne Midnight’s herb patch, where Sarah found the diary her mother had kept for her. The image of Sarah kneeling in front of the thyme bush, clutching her precious discovery, her hair loose round her shoulders and the full moon above us, is burnt into my memory. She came into my arms, crying for joy; it was me she shared that moment with, me and nobody else. I remember how soft her hair felt under my lips, threaded between my fingers …

When dawn breaks and cold and hunger have the best of me, I walk home. The sky is grey over my head, and it’s so, so cold. Every step is agony on my frozen feet.

How long can I keep this up? I want to be with Sarah, I want to know what’s happening to her, what Nicholas is doing in her life. But what about the bigger picture? How many Gamekeepers are left, how many heirs? My promise to Harry was to protect Sarah – but my promise to the world is to fight the bigger fight. Can I spend all my time, all my energy, guarding Sarah and only Sarah, when the survival of everyone is at stake?

Gorse Cottage is a near-derelict building at the edge of the moorland, as far as possible from any other house, hidden and unkempt. Ivy climbs up the wall and nearly hides the windows, the grass is high and littered with weeds, uncut for what seems like forever. I want to keep it this way – the fewer people who know it’s inhabited, the safer it is for me. My stiff, frozen fingers struggle to turn the key in the lock. Immediately, I sense that something is wrong. I sniff the evening air; it smells of peat. There’s a peat fire, somewhere close – and suddenly I realize, it’s in
my house
.

I grip my
sgian-dubh
at once – James Midnight’s
sgian-dubh
, with its silver handle engraved with Celtic patterns. The red painted door creaks as I make my way in. The house is warm, and the smell of peat even stronger as I step into the entrance hall …

There’s a light coming from the living room.

There shouldn’t be.

My heart is in my throat. I stand for a second, listening, waiting for a sound, a breath, a whisper to reveal who – or what – has made its way into my cottage.

I don’t have to wait for long, because a girl with long golden hair steps out of the living room towards me. She’s a lot thinner than she used to be, and there’s a guarded, tired expression on her face that used to not be there, but it’s
her
.

“Elodie,” I whisper, and before I know it she’s in my arms and we’re holding onto each other as if we’re all that’s left to hold on to. Which might as well be the case.

To return and see

What went before me

The reasons for my heart

To beat the way it does

The last notes of the young man’s accordion seeped from the audition room. Sarah sat upright, her back rigid, her hands clutched together, her eyes lowered in concentration. Beside her, her cello in its purple case, and beside the cello, Aunt Juliet, tapping her foot,
tap
,
tap
,
tap
, in rhythm with the music coming from behind the closed door.

There was no way Sarah could have stopped Juliet coming – her aunt had her heart set on it. But if she was honest, she did want Aunt Juliet with her, for moral support. Nicholas had offered to accompany her too, of course, but Sarah couldn’t risk being distracted by him on the day of her audition for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the day where she was playing her most precious card: her music. When she was with Nicholas, her mind floated, her thoughts unravelled, and she couldn’t have that happening. Today was her day, and hers only. She didn’t want to be reminded of all that had happened since her parents were killed, she didn’t even want to be a Midnight – just a musician.

Sarah was determined to win a place at the Royal Conservatoire – she just had to. There was nowhere else she wanted to be, nothing else she wanted to do. Her rational mind told her over and over again how hard it would be to keep up with her music studies and be true to the Midnight mission at the same time, but she refused to acknowledge that set of thoughts. She wanted to be a musician too badly to ever be able to accept that it might not happen.

And now, the accordionist was finished. Out he walked, his young face flushed, hurrying towards his mother. The woman rose on her toes and ran a hand through the young man’s hair – it was a hesitant, self-conscious sort of gesture, but she couldn’t help herself: that tall young man used to be her little boy, after all. Sarah looked away, a stab of pain through her heart.

Mum, you should have been here with me.

“Sarah Midnight.”

It was her turn. No time to remember the past, no time to think of anything that hurt. It was time for her music to make its mark, at last.

Sarah picked up her cello and walked into the audition room, heart steady, eyes clear. All of a sudden, her nerves were gone.

All of a sudden, she believed.

“So, how do you think it went?” Aunt Juliet stirred her cappuccino. The Glasgow city centre was bustling with early Christmas shoppers. They had been lucky to find a seat in the John Lewis café.

Sarah shrugged, staring into her hazelnut latte. She was tired after the strain of the morning, but buzzing with the excitement of it. Her dream was so close she could almost touch it. “I don’t know. I can’t really say. It went well, I think. I just need to wait for the letter now.”

Sarah caught Juliet looking at her hands, red and rough. She curled them into fists, trying to hide them away. “My eczema is back,” she whispered. She had lied about her hands so many times it had become an alternative truth. Sarah’s obsessive cleaning rituals were an open secret, but one she had always refused to discuss.

Juliet nodded, stirring her cappuccino.

Sarah looked away and out of the window at the steps of the Royal Concert Hall. A small group of tourists reading a map, a few seagulls, and a bit further down, a little band of long-haired, kilted pipers and drummers. A sudden memory came back to her: Harry, or the man she used to know as Harry, rubbing cream tenderly into her chapped hands. The sadness of the reverie must have been visible on her face, because Juliet reached out to her and touched her hair gently. Aunt Juliet would never stop trying to do what Sarah’s mother should have done.

She cupped Sarah’s cheek briefly. “Listen, why don’t I treat you to something new to wear? It was a big day, you deserve it.”

“It’s OK, Aunt Juliet, really.”

The older woman pursed her lips. “All right. Maybe you and Bryony could come up to the house later? I’m sure your friend would love to know how your audition went. How is she?”

“I haven’t spoken to her in a while.”

Juliet was astonished. “You haven’t spoken to Bryony in a while?” Sarah and Bryony had been inseparable since they were in nursery. Still, since her best friend Leigh’s death … nothing had been the same.

A pause, with Sarah taking a sip of her latte, glad of the chance to hide her face behind her long black hair.

“Sarah …” Juliet continued. Sarah knew at once what was coming. “Any news of Harry?”

Harry is dead.

Sarah looked out of the window, her gaze resting on the Christmas lights hung across Buchanan Street. “He should come back soon,” she replied without missing a beat. “I spoke to him last night.” A lie, of course. Lying was something the Midnight family was exceptionally good at. “And he says he has more or less done all he needs to do in London.”

“That’s great news. So when is he coming back?” Juliet insisted.

“Like I said, soon.”

Juliet raised her eyebrows. “Before or after Christmas?”

“After, probably.”

Juliet sat back and sighed. “Sarah, that’s over two weeks away. You know you can’t stay in that house alone, it’s stated in your parents’ will.”

“Well, who’ll tell the solicitor? Nobody. Unless you do.”

“You know I agree with James’s and … Anne’s decision.” Juliet closed her eyes briefly. She still found it difficult to mention her dead sister’s name. “You can’t live alone. It’s not safe.”

“Two months is not long. And anyway, I’m going to Islay for Christmas.” Now was as good a time as any to tell her aunt that piece of news.

Juliet frowned. “What? On your own?”

“No, of course not. With Nicholas.” She made it sound as if she were surprised her aunt hadn’t worked that out for herself. She hadn’t asked Nicholas yet, but she was in no doubt that he would agree.

“Oh, Sarah. You’re not spending the first Christmas after …” Juliet took a deep breath. “We want you to spend Christmas with us. We’re your family …”

“I know, I know …” Sarah felt a pang of guilt. But the first Christmas without her parents, in the company of Juliet and Trevor and her giggly cousins was too much to bear. She wrung her fingers.

“Sarah, please. Do it for me, at least.” Hurt and disappointment were painted all over Juliet’s face, and Sarah’s determination wavered for a second. But no. She had to do this. She had to go back to Islay and try and unravel the mysteries that surrounded the Midnight family. She needed to know the truth about Mairead Midnight, the aunt Sarah didn’t know she had until Sean told her. Before that, nobody had mentioned Mairead. Sean didn’t know anything about the circumstances of Mairead’s death, aged only thirteen, because Harry himself didn’t know. Why had it all been kept secret? Why had any memory of her aunt been erased, as if she’d never existed?

Sarah hoped that on Islay, in their ancestral home, she could unravel Mairead’s story, and her own story too. Maybe she would begin to understand herself better. She had been a sheltered little girl, and all of a sudden she was a young woman, alone to face a world full of secrets. She was a huntress, bearer of powers she had to learn to control and use to save her own life, and the lives of others. The changes in Sarah’s life, in her perception of herself, had been too fast to allow her to grasp and fully own her new identity. She needed to stop and look back, to get her bearings before taking the next steps. Islay was the place to do it.

How could she convey all that to Aunt Juliet, who knew and understood nothing about the world of the Midnights?

She couldn’t.

Sarah gathered their empty cups and put them on a tray. She had to stop the compulsion to wipe the table, clearing the crumbs away. “Aunt Juliet, I need to go back to Islay. I need to be … near them. I hope you understand.”

Juliet sighed. “I
don’t
. We might not be Midnights, but we still love you. We want you to be with us. And we do our best, you know.”

A touch of resentment had seeped into Juliet’s tone. When James Midnight had appeared on the scene all those years ago, her sister’s life had immediately shifted to focus on him and his charismatic family. Juliet and her parents, who had died one after the other not long after Anne’s wedding, had felt side-lined, forgotten. As if they couldn’t quite match up to the golden clan, the charmed Midnights. James never paid much attention to Anne’s family. To him, they simply didn’t exist. They were a blur at the edge of his perception.

Sarah turned her head away. A woman with a fiddle case strapped across her back was walking up the steps of the Royal Concert Hall. One day, that would be her.

“Is your heart set on this?” asked Juliet.

Sarah nodded.

“Right.” A moment of silence while Juliet absorbed her defeat. “I just wish we could come with you. To Islay. But Trevor and the girls, spending Christmas up there …”

“No, no. That just wouldn’t work,” Sarah hurried to reply. No way. She wouldn’t be able to do what she had set out to do with the McKettricks there too.

After a moment, Juliet tried again. “But going alone with Nicholas … are you sure it’s a good idea? He seems like a nice lad, but … You’ve been with him what – only a matter of weeks? Do you know anything about him?”

He saved my life.

“He comes from a good family, Aunt Juliet, I told you. His parents are both lawyers. They’re based in Aberdeen, but they’re abroad all the time. He’s alone for Christmas.”

“Oh. Oh well. I suppose it’s a bit early for us to meet his family …?”

“I haven’t met them either,” Sarah said quickly, adding, “but I will, soon.” Another lie.

She was surprised herself at how quickly her relationship with Nicholas was moving. Sometimes it felt as if someone else was making all her decisions. It was almost puzzling.

“That house is in the middle of nowhere. How will you manage?”

“We’ll be fine, Aunt Juliet!” Sarah pulled her jacket from the back of the chair and swivelled her cello case so that she could shrug the straps over her shoulders. “Better go. Nicholas will be waiting for me. He’ll want to know how the audition went. There’s no need for you to take me home, I’ll just take the train.”

“Sarah …” Juliet put a hand on Sarah’s sleeve as they got up. Her eyes were warm, but her voice was steely. “Harry must be back by Christmas or just after, or you’re moving in with us. It’d only be until you’re eighteen. But that’s the way it must be.”

The thought of being removed from her home made Sarah’s stomach churn. “You’ll report me to the solicitor?” Her voice trembled with hurt.