My first Scottish week was relaxing. The place was as beautiful as it was isolated. I took long walks around the bay, hiking through heather covered moors. I found hidden ponds in the valleys, my boots sank in bogs, and I learned to identify the peculiar scent of peat. Midges feasted on me and Eoghan taught me how to avoid them.
Wherever I went, Storm followed.
The tall stallion had made it his mission to escort me whenever I stepped outside the walls. I wondered whether he felt the need to protect me, watched me as a potential menace for his herd, or simply considered me good entertainment. I assumed it was the latter; I'd swear I saw him laugh when my boot was sucked off my foot by sticky mud.
Mary visited me daily, bringing me food under the pretense of needing my opinion on a new recipe. When I mentioned it to Eoghan, he shrugged.
"Indulge her," he said, "she loves having another human here who appreciates her culinary skills. She claims her talent is wasted on me, as I would eat just about anything."
I certainly didn't mind that, or my daily delivery of fresh pastries. Yet I worried it placed one burden too many on her shoulders.
The castle was rather small, a medieval fortified tower with a Renaissance house attached to the south side. Stables, pens, barns, workshops, and the antique version of a laundry room snuggled the base of the rampart, and that was it.
Still, this was the largest place I ever lived in, and the maintenance had to be a full-time job. Or several. I bet the past lairds had an army of servants. I expected to run into cobwebs and layers of dust in unused rooms or outer buildings.
Nope. All surfaces were squeaky clean. I couldn't fathom how Mary, or her husband, managed to maintain it so meticulously. Perhaps they had robot vacuums and mops, and they just did the dusting and bathrooms? When asked, they refuted it.
"The brownies," they quipped.
Right. I nodded and smiled, pretending to be in on the joke.
As I explored further, I began to notice plenty more things. Small things. Details really.
First was the aversion of the owner for steel. Aside from the rusted door said to defend access to the basement of the tower, I could find no sign of iron anywhere. Not a single nail to hold the furniture together. All visible metal was copper or silver, door hinges were made of leather, stoves were ceramic with glass inserts. I thought I had lucked out with the range top, until Eoghan revealed it was cast aluminum. His boss allegedly had an allergy to iron. Did that even exist? I was quite sure they were making this up.
Second were the electrics. No power sockets but in the kitchen and my room. Lights and fireplaces lit up on their own. I guessed there were sensors; I had yet to spot one. And how do you automatize a peat fire? Unless they were kept burning low and the air flux was increased by some machinery? But then, who was restocking them?
Third was the plumbing. I counted a dozen bedrooms, three dry toilets and one en-suite bathroom: mine. I assumed they had modernized the place for my comfort, which led me to wonder, why so little? If money wasn't an issue, bringing all accommodations up to modern standards would have raised property value.
Clearly Eoghan's boss fancied his house medieval style. Which was his right, after all.
I however, begged to differ. I've always been fond of my creature comforts, and I'm glad I was born in a century blessed with A/C and central heating, which this place was sorely lacking.
And it got worse. No insulation. Single glazed windows.
I was so going to freeze, come winter.
I didn't get it; aren't all woke geeks raving about energy efficiency and saving the planet? Not that I ever paid attention to such issues before; we have oil in Texas. Now I might have to move in with Eoghan and Mary to avoid turning into a snow-woman. I hoped they had a guest room.
As much as I enjoyed roaming the magnificent countryside and playing fairy tale princess on the castle grounds, it soon became lonely. Eoghan was as busy as he was friendly, and despite his best efforts, Storm lacked conversational skills. Mary was chained to her kitchen and garden. None of the infamous Scottish ghosts had taken residence here, and the creaking and cracking of old floors and beams failed to impress after the first couple of nights.
I began to spend more and more time on the first floor of the tower, where the original Hall had been turned into a spacious library. Some afternoons, and most evenings, I curled in a deep armchair between a high and narrow window and an antique fireplace, wide enough to roast a beef whole. I chatted with my father on the dial phone, or perused one of the thousands of ancient books lining the walls.
Most of these I couldn't understand, because the language was foreign or too old, or, in one particular series, because the writing itself didn't resemble anything I knew. Some form of hieroglyphs, cuneiform, or maybe Sanskrit? The paper was unusual, so thin it was translucent, and yet it didn't crease or tear. The covers displayed superb craftsmanship, respectively picturing a dark forest, a roaring sea, a frothy river, a stormy sky, a raging fire, a sinister cave and an icy blizzard in finely carved strokes, so lifelike I could swear I saw them move. I stared at the alien volumes quizzically for a while, before shrugging and placing them back on their shelf.
Further digging unearthed English literature classics from the past three centuries, and, tucked inside a chest, a box of paperbacks clearly intended for my viewing pleasure. There was a good fiction variety, from romance to mystery, purchased three weeks ago, as I cleverly deducted from the expedition tag. My secretive breeder wouldn't let me die of boredom.
Speaking of whom, a week after my arrival, an envelope waited for me on the side table, in the spot reserved for my mug of coffee.
"Dear Moira,
Please wait for me tomorrow night in the room above this one. Make the bed with red silk sheets and light the candles.
You'll find a small vial on the bedside table, eye drops, the kind used by ophthalmologists to dilate your pupils. They are harmless but will blur your vision for a few hours. Put one drop in each eye at nightfall and get into bed naked. I'll join you soon after.
I expect you to follow these instructions exactly. Failure to do so will void our contract.
D."
Not exactly the most enticing letter. Not the most reassuring either. I spent the ensuing twenty-four hours a nervous wreck, pacing and mumbling to myself, trying to gather the fortitude to do what was needed, what I had signed for, back when it was still theoretical; when I could still bury my head in the sand and pretend it was just a bad dream.
Too late for that. I cried and nearly bolted, and then I called my dad and remembered why I had to stay. Better rip off the band aid.
I marched to the spiral stairs and climbed to my doom.
***
