Page 9 of The Midnight Secret

‘As if anyone is going to want our salted fulmars!’ he snorted.

She shrugged again, unable to admit that it suited her this way: Norman being kept busy made for a quieter life for her. She picked a long-stemmed dandelion from the grass and wove it between her fingers; in lieu of her knitting needles to occupy her hands, she needed something else with which to distract her body. She felt heavy and leaden, sure it must be visible in her clumsy movements. The golden shadows were flickering increasingly across her field of vision now, her own private aurora that no one could ever see or even know about. Not even her only true friend.

They were quiet for a few moments. ‘Well, we’ve nothing to hide if he does come here.’

‘...Norman?’

‘Aye. We’re doing nothing wrong. I asked you to join me tonight because we both loved Molly.’

‘Aye, we did. Wedo. And Norman does too, in his way.’

David’s eyes hardened. He would never forgive Norman for keeping him apart from Molly in her final months. They were different beasts, motivated by different values.

‘Not the same, though.’

‘No,’ she agreed.

‘You’re the only one who understands.’ David looked over at her, his elbows slung over his knees, and she felt that spring of panic again at the thought of losing him – this – tomorrow.They might end up living two miles apart or ten; they had no way of knowing till they got there. ‘Jayne, I want you to know that whatever happens—’

But he was stopped in his tracks by a sudden commotion. Someone was running...sprinting...their breath coming heavily as they flew down the slope, past the cleits and the burial ground. David looked back at Jayne with wide eyes and pressed his finger to his lips as the figure tore past in a whirlwind. From their seated position on the ground, below the curved stone wall, they couldn’t be seen; nor could they see who it was darting back through the dyke and into the safe-holding of the village confines again. But Jayne caught sight of a streak of corn-blonde hair above the stones, and she heard the lightness of the footsteps...

‘Effie,’ she whispered, seeing his apprehension. ‘She went up earlier to see Flora and Mhairi.’

‘Ah.’ He looked a little rueful. Had he thought it was Norman? She could have told him her husband would never run so fast, nor sound so desperate, looking for her.

They straightened their backs to peer down the slope towards the small village. They couldn’t see the dyke while still seated, it was too close to here, but from this distance the square amber pools of light from the cottages spilled onto the street in a crooked smile. The smile was becoming snaggle-toothed as, one by one, the doors were finally closed and the St Kildans’ last night in two thousand years finally yawned.

They watched together as their home was swallowed into darkness and silence. The moonlight shimmered on the mirrored bay, the grassy slope now stripped of its flocks. All around them birds were sleeping in crevices and ledges, whales and seals slipping through the water like inky shadows, but somehow they felt utterly alone. The vista was jet-blackand midnight-blue and silver – but the golden glimmers stole Jayne’s peace, robbing the scene of its beauty.

With a frustrated sigh she lay back, pulling the blanket around her. She wanted to be in this moment with David and Molly, but her mind felt untethered from her body, a balloon that kept pulling away.

‘What is it?’ David asked as she clutched the blanket beneath her chin.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered, staring up into the fathomless galaxy of stars and feeling the scale of her solitude. She was exhausted, her body physically spent from the effort it took to channel the energy of the visions.

Beside her, she heard David lie back too and do the same. They blinked in the darkness, the sky seeming to grow brighter with every breath, another world coming alive as their own subsided into slumber.

‘...You know, Jayne, I disagreed with the minister tonight.’

It was a controversial statement. No one ever disagreed with the minister. ‘Which part?’ she asked. ‘Avoid the evil and it will avoid thee?’

It had been the recurring theme in his polemic. David chuckled lightly.

‘I do worry about his worry for our souls. Why does he so terribly fear the worst for us?’ she asked.

‘Because temptation has never been within reach before.’

But that wasn’t wholly true. Jayne knew it had sat upon David and Molly’s shoulders when they hid, kissing, in her box room; she knew that it had danced around Flora as her fiancé once secretly landed his seaplane in the northern bay; and she had seen how Effie had thrilled in the earl’s son’s grip as he had taught her to swim. Other villagers would have had their temptations, too – some secrets were betterkept than others, but temptation was everywhere. Even on a rock in the Atlantic.

‘So what did you disagree with, then?’ she asked.

‘It was when he was speaking of the final judgement, saying our bodies, being united to Christ upon death, will rest in their graves till the Resurrection.’

‘You disagreed with that?’ It was a fundamental tenet of Presbyterianism.

‘Aye. I believe our spirit does separate from our bodies at the moment of our deaths – but not that it goes to God. It goes...somewhere out there.’ His gaze roamed the skies as if searching for Molly’s face. ‘Where else could a countless number of souls reside but in infinity?’

Jayne blinked, understanding in a flash. David had spent the past few months trying to stay with Molly here; it made the thought of leaving her here unbearable. Abandonment in its truest form. But if her spirit was up there, then it wouldn’t matter where he was in the world, he would always be able to look for her.

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