“Yes. He often mentioned how distrusting the Midnights are. I think he felt it was the only way.”
“It was. But when Sarah found out … You see, the woman who told her, Cathy Duggan” – her name is so odious to me – “was the head of the Scottish Valaya. She’s dead now. She told Sarah that I killed Harry to take his place.”
“Oh no …”
“I don’t know if Sarah really believes that. But she knows I’ve been lying. She threw me out of her house, she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I’m still guarding her, of course.”
“Is that where you’ve been all night?” Elodie crosses the room to stand beside me. She takes my still icy hands in hers. “That’s why you’re freezing.”
“Yes. I was keeping watch.”
“We need to tell Sarah everything. No more lies.”
“I know. I know. You see, someone is … with her.”
“Someone? Another heir?”
“He says he is. I don’t know if it’s true. His name is Nicholas Donal.”
Elodie frowns. “I’ve heard of the Donal family, yes, but I never knew any of them, and I don’t think Harry did either.”
“The thing is … There’s something strange going on. Nicholas and Sarah are together now. It happened so quickly.”
Elodie looks at me as if to say what’s so strange about that?
“You don’t know Sarah. She is … she was … It’s just that I think this Nicholas has some kind of a weird hold on her. I don’t know. I …” I stop myself from saying any more. I just can’t tell Elodie about my feelings for Sarah.
“I’ll come with you. I’ll speak to her.”
“No. I’ve got to do it. You can come with me, but I need to speak to her alone. I need to convince her to let me back into her life. ”
“Fine.” She shrugs in a very French way. “I need to show you something. Wait.” Elodie takes hold of the brown canvas rucksack she had left beside the fireplace, and takes out something wrapped in a linen cloth. “I took this from Harry’s desk.” She unwraps the book, carefully holding the linen cloth. I notice it’s embroidered in red thread with the letters MF, intertwined in a delicate pattern. I take it gently from her hands and examine it. On the cover there’s a grim illustration: a girl in a long dress, wandering in a wood at night. The girl holds a stick with a skull perched on top of it, and blue rays of light are streaming out of the skull’s eyes.
“I went through Harry’s things, looking for a hint, a clue about what’s happening. I found this. And now I think he wanted me to find it. It was in a box on his desk, under lock and key. I took it, together with some letters he sent me. I wanted to keep a part of him with me.”
I nod.
“I read it over and over again, but I just couldn’t understand why this book was precious enough to be kept in a locked box. And then, on the way here, I saw something. Look—” She takes the book from my hand and opens it a few pages in. “Look at this word. There’s a little dot under the S. It’s so tiny, I didn’t see it for ages. And look, there too.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And there are others throughout the book. When I made a list of all the letters that had been marked, I didn’t recognize them as anything English or French. I can’t even pronounce them. So I began to think it could be Gaelic. You see, Harry’s family spoke Gaelic, and Harry had a few Gaelic books around. I’d seen the language before. Harry has used asterisks here and there, and I think they mark the different words.” Elodie takes the book from me and opens to the last page. She’s scribbled a few words on the back cover.
Sann*an*Ile*a*tha*n*fhreagairt*cum*faire*air
Morag*airson*gur*ise*an*iuchair.
I recognize it as Gaelic, but I can’t pronounce it either, and I have no idea what it means.
“The only word I understand is …” I begin.
But Elodie is quick. “… Morag,” she says. “Could it be Morag Midnight, Harry’s grandmother?”
“Yes. I’m certain that it is. Sarah told me that Morag used to speak Gaelic with her dad, and she can speak it a bit herself. She’ll know what it means. But why did Harry leave you a message in Gaelic, knowing you wouldn’t understand?”