Inary
Logan’s shop was getting busier and busier as the weather got warmer, and hillwalkers from down south and from the cities started flocking in. Every once in a while, Logan disappeared. Hillwalking, apparently. Often I heard him talking on the phone at night. I was worried, but the thing was, he looked pretty cheerful. I caught him one night in the living room, watching TV with a glass in his hand. Nothing strange about that – he’d always had a glass in his hand since Emily died. But that night it was a glass of orange juice, and I’d noticed quite a few cartons of it in the fridge . . .
So there I was, in the Welly, trying to concentrate, but my head was floating somewhere else. I kept forgetting what I was doing and staring into space instead.
Three nights now. Three nights of drowning nightmares. I was worn out. It was as if seeing the girl’s face had unlocked some line of communication between us; the dreams of water had become stronger, and even more distressing. And relentless.
She was talking to me, she was telling me what had happened to her, showing it to me, making me feel every moment of her terrible fate. She was giving me her memories, the memories of her death and of her ghostly existence. The girl in the loch was an elemental force, with all the intensity of a child abandoned. She was draining the life from me. I dreaded falling asleep in case she came – and she always did. She would not let me be.
“Hey! Hello!” Eilidh had just come in with Maisie.
“What can I help you with?” Logan appeared from the stock room.
“This girl needs a new bike helmet. She lost hers.”
“Right. Shall we try on a few?” said Logan with a smile. He was just back from one of his expeditions and in a strangely chirpy mood. Maisie went with him happily – she loved my brother, like a lot of children did. There was something warm, something unmistakably kind under his abruptness, and children seemed to pick up on it better than adults. I often thought he’d make a great dad, one day.
“Inary . . .” Eilidh called me to one side. “Listen. I saw Lewis. You know, Lewis McLelland.”
I swallowed and nodded. I didn’t need the second name. I knew which Lewis she was talking about.
“He asked me for your mobile number . . . I didn’t give it to him, of course. But just to let you know, he’s looking for you. He says he needs to speak to you.”
I felt ill. Just what I needed.
Eilidh and Maisie were sent on their way with a new helmet, and I was left in even more of a daze than before.
“Wake up, Inary . . .” Logan called to me gently.
Sorry, I mouthed.
“Go home, come on,” said Logan.
I shook my head and eagerly started refolding some tartan scarves.
“It’s not that busy. On you go home. Honestly.”
As I walked out of the shop, I briefly turned around to wave goodbye and I saw Logan looking at me. He had a worried expression on his face, and I felt vaguely guilty for giving him even more worry than he already had, with my voice not returning and all that. Still, if I’d told him about the girl in the loch and the real reason why I fell in the water when I’d gone out on Taylor’s boat, he would have been even more worried. And if I told him about Lewis looking for me, I knew that it’d be Logan looking for Lewis next. And probably not just for a chat.
I set out to walk home, but it was a beautiful early spring evening, and my feet didn’t seem to obey. They took me to the main street, and all the way to the loch. I stood on the shore in the soft light of dusk. The call of a tawny owl broke the silence once, twice.
Take me home, she had begged me. Twice. Once when I was a child barely older than her, and then a few weeks ago. Twice she’d looked for me – she’d waited thirteen years for me to go back on the loch, she’d waited thirteen years to speak to anyone, probably. Hoping I would listen. And her sister had come to me too – I’d always known that there was a reason for Mary’s visits. No other spirit had ever come to me so often, or so intensely.
But I didn’t know how to get her there. Helpless tears started flowing out of me, and before I realised what I was doing I found myself on the shore, sobbing. I didn’t know what I was crying for any more: Mary’s sister, or my own, or maybe for the love Mary and I no longer had. All of those things, probably. Two lost girls, and me in the middle, at a loss.