“Well, people say things . . . I don’t pay much attention,” she said.
“You don’t, huh?” he said, looking displeased. “You haven’t heard I’m restoring the Rock.”
The Rock was a tumbledown old croft on the very northern tip of the island, with an extraordinary, unparalleled setting. There had been rumors that conglomerates and moguls were coming in to transform it since Flora had been a little girl.
“Are you really?”
“Sure am! It’s nearly finished!” Colton Rogers said proudly. “You haven’t seen it?”
Flora hadn’t been home for three years. And she’d vowed then never to go back.
“No,” she said. “I’ve heard about it.”
“Well, I need your help,” said Colton.
“Shouldn’t you have a Scottish lawyer? Or Norwegian?”
“Norwegian?” said Joel. “How far away is this place?”
They both turned to look at him.
“Three hundred miles north of Aberdeen,” said Colton. “You don’t get out much, do you? Still doing eighty billable hours a week?”
“Minimum,” said Joel.
“It’s no way to live, man.”
“Yes, well, you’ve made your billions,” said Joel, half smiling.
“Right, listen,” said Colton, turning back to Flora. “I need you to go up there. Do some work for me. Speak to your friends and neighbors.”
“I need to tell you, Mr. Rogers, I’m not a lawyer,” said Flora. “I’m a paralegal.”
“Colton, please. And so much the better,” said Colton. “Cheaper. And I need local knowledge. I know how you lot all stick together. Hvarleees hever du dae?”
Flora looked at him in shock.
“Eg hev dae gott, takk, og du?” she stuttered out. Joel looked at them in astonishment.
Flora suddenly felt the need to lean on something. She grabbed the back of a chair. She wasn’t sure she could speak. She felt her throat constrict and she was worried that, although she had never had a panic attack before, she might be having one now.
Memories, crashing in from everywhere. All at once, like the huge rolling waves that attacked the shore, like the crystal winds that swept down from the Arctic and flattened the crabgrass, reshaping the dunes over and over, like a giant’s fist playing in a sandpit.
And there was a huge hole at the center of it, and she didn’t want to look at it.
No. No. She was arranging a night out with Kai. She was typing up minutes and thinking of getting a cat.
She felt everyone’s eyes on her, and wished she could simply vanish, disappear into nothingness. Her cheeks were burning up. How could she say no? No, I don’t want to go home. No, I don’t. Never again.
“So,” said Colton.
“What’s the job?” said Joel.
“Well,” said Colton. “You really need to come and see it.”
“Oh, she will,” said Joel, without asking Flora.
“Can I stay in the Rock? Is it done?” said Flora timidly.
Colton turned his gray eyes on her and she saw why, despite his apparently mild nature, he was such a feared businessman.
“I thought you were a Mure girl. Don’t you have family there at all?”
Flora breathed a long sigh.
“Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, I do.”
Chapter Five
There is a legend in the islands Flora comes from, about selkies.
Technically, “selkie” means seal, or seal person, although in its original language, Gaelic, it’s the same word you would use for mermaid. Selkies lose their ocean shape for as long as they are on land.
If you’re a woman and want a selkie as a lover (they are notoriously handsome), you stand by the sea and weep seven tears.
If you’re a man and take a selkie lover and you want to keep her, you hide her sealskin and she can never go back to the seas again.
Flora often thought this was just a roundabout way of saying, man, it’s so hard to meet people up north, you have to steal a boyfriend from the wild. But it hadn’t stopped lots of people from saying her mother was one.
And after Flora had left, lots of people had said it about her too.
Once upon a time . . . once upon a time . . .
Flora had assumed she would never get to sleep that night. She’d sleepwalked through the rest of the day, even managing to join in with someone’s birthday song, nibble a horrible store-bought cake, and gulp a couple of glasses of warm prosecco, but she’d skipped the after-work drinks and headed home by herself, hoping her flatmates would be out. They all seemed to be freelancers who worked in start-ups, were in and out at odd hours of the day, and viewed her as unimaginably square. Flora liked being unimaginably square. It was better than being the strange girl from the strange island any day.
As always, she considered cooking, looked at the filthy, borderline dangerous gas stove in the kitchen, and decided against it. She ate a chopped salad on her bed watching Netflix and followed it with half a packet of Hobnobs, which was more or less a balanced meal, she considered. As she ate, she stared at her phone in fear. She should call home and tell them she was coming. She should. Oh God. She was going to have to see everyone. And everyone would be staring and judging.
She swallowed hard and, like the world’s worst coward, sent a text. Then, like an even worse coward, she hid her phone under her duvet so she didn’t have to read the reply.
Maybe she shouldn’t stay at home?
But she couldn’t stay at the Harbor’s Rest, the only other hotel on the island. For one, it was horrible; for two, it was awful; for three, the firm wasn’t expecting to cover her hotel costs; and for four . . . well. It would shame her dad, and the farm.
So. She was going home. Oh God.
Some people, she knew, loved to go home. Kai ate at his mum’s about three times a week. That wasn’t an option she had, though. She lay there, wide awake, wondering what on earth she was going to do.
She blinked. And then she realized somehow that she was asleep, and somebody was trying to tell her a story. Once upon a time, they were saying, and then again, Once upon a time. And she was begging them to carry on, it was important, she needed to know what was happening, but it was too late, the voice faded out and, bang, she was awake again; and it was another morning in noisy London, where even the birds sounded like mobile phones ringing. And the traffic rumbled and rumbled past her window, and she was already running late if she wanted to get into the shower before any of her flatmates and at least get a shot at the hot water.
She glanced at her phone. Aye was the return message. Not great or welcome or we can’t wait to see you. Just: Aye.
Chapter Six
Geneva. Paris. Vienna. New York. Barbados. Istanbul.