was in no doubt that he would agree.
“Oh, Sarah. You’re not spending the first Christmas after …” Juliet took a deep breath. “We want you to spend Christmas with us. We’re your family …”
“I know, I know …” Sarah felt a pang of guilt. But the first Christmas without her parents, in the company of Juliet and Trevor and her giggly cousins was too much to bear. She wrung her fingers.
“Sarah, please. Do it for me, at least.” Hurt and disappointment were painted all over Juliet’s face, and Sarah’s determination wavered for a second. But no. She had to do this. She had to go back to Islay and try and unravel the mysteries that surrounded the Midnight family. She needed to know the truth about Mairead Midnight, the aunt Sarah didn’t know she had until Sean told her. Before that, nobody had mentioned Mairead. Sean didn’t know anything about the circumstances of Mairead’s death, aged only thirteen, because Harry himself didn’t know. Why had it all been kept secret? Why had any memory of her aunt been erased, as if she’d never existed?
Sarah hoped that on Islay, in their ancestral home, she could unravel Mairead’s story, and her own story too. Maybe she would begin to understand herself better. She had been a sheltered little girl, and all of a sudden she was a young woman, alone to face a world full of secrets. She was a huntress, bearer of powers she had to learn to control and use to save her own life, and the lives of others. The changes in Sarah’s life, in her perception of herself, had been too fast to allow her to grasp and fully own her new identity. She needed to stop and look back, to get her bearings before taking the next steps. Islay was the place to do it.
How could she convey all that to Aunt Juliet, who knew and understood nothing about the world of the Midnights?
She couldn’t.
Sarah gathered their empty cups and put them on a tray. She had to stop the compulsion to wipe the table, clearing the crumbs away. “Aunt Juliet, I need to go back to Islay. I need to be … near them. I hope you understand.”
Juliet sighed. “I don’t. We might not be Midnights, but we still love you. We want you to be with us. And we do our best, you know.”
A touch of resentment had seeped into Juliet’s tone. When James Midnight had appeared on the scene all those years ago, her sister’s life had immediately shifted to focus on him and his charismatic family. Juliet and her parents, who had died one after the other not long after Anne’s wedding, had felt side-lined, forgotten. As if they couldn’t quite match up to the golden clan, the charmed Midnights. James never paid much attention to Anne’s family. To him, they simply didn’t exist. They were a blur at the edge of his perception.
Sarah turned her head away. A woman with a fiddle case strapped across her back was walking up the steps of the Royal Concert Hall. One day, that would be her.
“Is your heart set on this?” asked Juliet.
Sarah nodded.
“Right.” A moment of silence while Juliet absorbed her defeat. “I just wish we could come with you. To Islay. But Trevor and the girls, spending Christmas up there …”
“No, no. That just wouldn’t work,” Sarah hurried to reply. No way. She wouldn’t be able to do what she had set out to do with the McKettricks there too.
After a moment, Juliet tried again. “But going alone with Nicholas … are you sure it’s a good idea? He seems like a nice lad, but … You’ve been with him what – only a matter of weeks? Do you know anything about him?”
He saved my life.
“He comes from a good family, Aunt Juliet, I told you. His parents are both lawyers. They’re based in Aberdeen, but they’re abroad all the time. He’s alone for Christmas.”
“Oh. Oh well. I suppose it’s a bit early for us to meet his family …?”
“I haven’t met them either,” Sarah said quickly, adding, “but I will, soon.” Another lie.
She was surprised herself at how quickly her relationship with Nicholas was moving. Sometimes it felt as if someone else was making all her decisions. It was almost puzzling.
“That house is in the middle of nowhere. How will you manage?”
“We’ll be fine, Aunt Juliet!” Sarah pulled her jacket from the back of the chair and swivelled her cello case so