They named me after my godfather, who is—or was, before he vanished a year ago—a famous detective. All I have to say is it’s a good thing I wasn’t a boy, or I would really have something to be pissed off with him about. Actually, he’s responsible for a lot of things I should be pissed off about, my godfather, not the least of which was me standing in a freezing Scottish kitchen, up to my elbows in fish guts.
My godfather has a history of vanishing, so it wasn’t a big deal in the beginning. But the months went by with no word, no calls, no dropping in unexpectedly for dinner, then Mum and Dad getting more and more stony-faced and changing the subject whenever I asked about him. It was my last year at school and I was expecting at least the encouraging text now and again. I know my godfather supposedly doesn’t like women, but he never treated me like one. Like a girl, I mean. He helped with my science projects, quizzed me on my history, corrected my grammar—even in my texts. (Very annoying, I can tell you.)
Then, nothing. No congratulations when I aced my exams. Not a whisper when I got accepted at Cambridge to read medicine. Mum and Dad took me out to dinner to celebrate that and my eighteenth birthday, at the Ivy. Dad must have booked months ahead, and they were both so fish-out-of-water, it was simply embarrassing. Daniel Craig was there and they actually nudged each other when they saw him. I could have died. But the worst thing was that he wasn’t there. He’d never missed a birthday. We all knew it and that thought was like the spectre at the feast, if you don’t mind me waxing poetic.
The next day, Dad called me into his study. He wore his most solemn, doctor-about-to-give-bad-news-in-the-consulting-room look. He sat down in his leather chair with a sigh and said, “Sherry, darling. I think we have to accept that this time he may really be gone. You know he does dangerous things.” He cleared his throat. “You have an exciting time ahead of you, your own life. We all have our own lives, good ones. We’ll be fine.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t believe it.” Meaning, a) I didn’t believe he was gone, and b) I certainly didn’t think we’d be fine. And I stomped out. Because there’d been something in my dad’s eyes I didn’t want to see, something more than sadness. Being pissed off was the only way I could not keep seeing it, over and over.
The next day there was a card in the post. Addressed to me, it had a photo of a gray stone house on the back. There was type as well, in a bright yellow that stood out against the purple heather in the photo’s background. Some stupid advert, I thought, and almost threw it in the bin. But something made me give it a closer look.
YOUR GAP YEAR DREAM JOB it read. CONTACT BURNS HOUSE NOW FOR THE OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME.
Really? I crumpled it. Then, a thought stopped me. I smoothed it out and reread it. The only contact information was an email address; burnsgapyear.co.uk. Weird. Seeing as how I was bound to be at the bottom of anyone’s mailing list, I texted some friends from my year. No one else had a card. Weirder.
A quick Internet search turned up a website for a Burns House in Aberdeenshire, Scotland—an upscale hunting lodge. So I shot off an email to the address on the card.
Two weeks later I was on the train to Scotland. My parents were happy enough that I was doing something useful before I started volunteering at a local hospital for my gap year experience. (Dad insisted that I find out whether I could cope with the sight of blood, even though I reminded him repeatedly of how cool I’d been the time my godfather had a little accident while testing various knife blades for incision patterns.) In fact, I think Mum and Dad were more than happy not to have me moping round the house for the entire summer.
I’d never been north of the Border, so as the train gathered speed out of Edinburgh’s Waverly Station I looked out the window with interest. I’d never seen so much green. We climbed, through hills and glens and bits of forest, until at last the train hissed to a stop in the little Highland town of Aviemore. The train station looked like a transplanted Swiss chalet, but the mud-splattered Land Rover in the station parking lot looked as Scottish as things come. So did the big, bearded man in oiled jacket and wellies leaning against it. He gave a nod when he saw me and strolled across the parking lot. For a moment, I wondered how he’d recognized me, but then I remembered I’d sent a photo with my application.
“Giles,” he said, lifting my pack as if it was filled with candy floss instead of work boots and Aran knit sweaters. “Giles Burns.” The glance he gave me was critical and he did not seem inclined to conversation.
We set off, first along a winding, green-cloaked river, then up and across the most desolate moorland I’d ever seen. It was fit for the Hound, I thought with a shiver.
I dared to interrupt Mr. Burns’s silence. “Um, what exactly will I be doing at the lodge?” My contract had read “domestic assistant.”
“A bit of cooking and scrubbing, and skinning, I should think,” he added. “Whatever the wife needs.”
“Skinning?” I said. It came out a squeak.