see Anne Midnight’s herb patch, where Sarah found the diary her mother had kept for her. The image of Sarah kneeling in front of the thyme bush, clutching her precious discovery, her hair loose round her shoulders and the full moon above us, is burnt into my memory. She came into my arms, crying for joy; it was me she shared that moment with, me and nobody else. I remember how soft her hair felt under my lips, threaded between my fingers …
When dawn breaks and cold and hunger have the best of me, I walk home. The sky is grey over my head, and it’s so, so cold. Every step is agony on my frozen feet.
How long can I keep this up? I want to be with Sarah, I want to know what’s happening to her, what Nicholas is doing in her life. But what about the bigger picture? How many Gamekeepers are left, how many heirs? My promise to Harry was to protect Sarah – but my promise to the world is to fight the bigger fight. Can I spend all my time, all my energy, guarding Sarah and only Sarah, when the survival of everyone is at stake?
Gorse Cottage is a near-derelict building at the edge of the moorland, as far as possible from any other house, hidden and unkempt. Ivy climbs up the wall and nearly hides the windows, the grass is high and littered with weeds, uncut for what seems like forever. I want to keep it this way – the fewer people who know it’s inhabited, the safer it is for me. My stiff, frozen fingers struggle to turn the key in the lock. Immediately, I sense that something is wrong. I sniff the evening air; it smells of peat. There’s a peat fire, somewhere close – and suddenly I realize, it’s in my house.
I grip my sgian-dubh at once – James Midnight’s sgian-dubh, with its silver handle engraved with Celtic patterns. The red painted door creaks as I make my way in. The house is warm, and the smell of peat even stronger as I step into the entrance hall …
There’s a light coming from the living room.
There shouldn’t be.
My heart is in my throat. I stand for a second, listening, waiting for a sound, a breath, a whisper to reveal who – or what – has made its way into my cottage.
I don’t have to wait for long, because a girl with long golden hair steps out of the living room towards me. She’s a lot thinner than she used to be, and there’s a guarded, tired expression on her face that used to not be there, but it’s her.
“Elodie,” I whisper, and before I know it she’s in my arms and we’re holding onto each other as if we’re all that’s left to hold on to. Which might as well be the case.
From Within
To return and see
What went before me
The reasons for my heart
To beat the way it does
The last notes of the young man’s accordion seeped from the audition room. Sarah sat upright, her back rigid, her hands clutched together, her eyes lowered in concentration. Beside her, her cello in its purple case, and beside the cello, Aunt Juliet, tapping her foot, tap, tap, tap, in rhythm with the music coming from behind the closed door.
There was no way Sarah could have stopped Juliet coming – her aunt had her heart set on it. But if she was honest, she did want Aunt Juliet with her, for moral support. Nicholas had offered to accompany her too, of course, but Sarah couldn’t risk being distracted by him on the day of her audition for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the day where she was playing her most precious card: her music. When she was with Nicholas, her mind floated, her thoughts unravelled, and she couldn’t have that happening. Today was her day, and hers only. She didn’t want to be reminded of all that had happened since her parents were killed, she didn’t even want to be a Midnight – just a musician.
Sarah was determined to win a place at the Royal Conservatoire – she just had to. There was nowhere else she wanted to be, nothing else she wanted to do. Her rational mind told her over and over again how hard it would be to keep up with her music studies and be true to the Midnight mission at the same time, but she refused to acknowledge that set