“With dead folks? Livin’ have more to say. Why not try the Hazelwood?”
“The Hazelwood?”
“The pub in Kylemore.”
“The pub? At this time of morning?”
“Spike ya coffee with some whisky and tip well, and Harris’ll tell ya anything you want to know.”
“All right, then. I guess I’m going to the pub before noon.”
“Never a dull moment ’round here.” He’d already turned away, his limp particularly pronounced this morning. I wondered if he’d had an accident.
“Have a good day, Keats.” I waved as I turned back to Leith.
“You start readin’ that book I told you about?”
“I read the foreword and chapter one. I’ve been focusing on old newspaper headlines and the history of Kylemore village and Leith Hall, though.”
Keats huffed. “Aye, cockswaddle, all of it. The greatest truths lie in fiction, lass. No one tells the stories worth telling and owns up to it, at least not while they’re alive.”
I laughed at his strange turn of words, waving again before I headed for the old wooden doors of Leith.
Fable
“So, you’re the new lass brave enough to stay at Leith?”
I sputtered and spat out my lukewarm coffee. “Pardon?”
“I’m Harris Geldof, owner of this fine establishment.” The man in front of me had tousled sandy-blond hair and a roguish grin. He held out one hand, waiting for me to take it.
I finally smiled, shaking his hand. “You can call me Fable. Fable Prescott.”
“Well, Fable, Fable Prescott, it’s nice to finally meet you. Keats and the locals have been talkin’ a blue streak about the new lass at Leith. Glad to finally make your acquaintance.”
“Aye,” I replied in his mother tongue.
He winked once, leaning on the old wooden bar and rattling out, “So what brought ya to this chilly corner of hell?”
“Hell, huh?” I shrugged. “I didn’t expect so many books in hell.”
“Ah.” His sparkling emerald eyes landed on the book in my hand. “Legends and Lovers. Interesting choice. Keats assign you that gem?”
“How did you know?”
“He’s obsessed with Leith, lost his mind up at that place decades ago, I think. Doesn’t stop me from takin’ his money, though.”
“Wait, the historical society operates a program where they place single college students up at Leith Hall with a deranged lunatic? That wasn’t in the paperwork.”
Harris laughed. “I didn’t say anything about a deranged lunatic.” He arched one eyebrow. “But I trust you’re smart enough to lock the doors at night, Fable.”
Awareness that I hadn’t, in fact, locked the doors any of my nights there bubbled through me.
“What’s with all the warnings around this place? It’s as if you’re trying to discourage people from spending time here.”
“Doesn’t seem to be working.” Harris hummed, eyes hovering on the front door when another customer walked in, this one an obvious tourist with a map of Skye held at arm’s length. He nodded once, then began to pour a cup of coffee in a fresh mug. “Seems you fancy yourself some sort of history detective. Mystery enveloped Leith Hall since the first stone was set in mortar. Tragedy seeped through the generations of landowners who lived there, right down to Keats and Alder. They still can’t escape that place. Everyone thinks being born with a noble title is something to strive for, but only the foolish cherish titles. Nothing but notoriety ever came for the Macleans, a family with blood on their hands through every century. They play an important role in this town—without the blood of their ancestors, Kylemore wouldn’t be here, at least not as you see it now.” Harris pondered his words for a moment. “But then again, maybe we’d all be better for it. And a few more of those girls might still be alive.”
He left, coffee in hand, to deliver it to the new customer. He chatted easily for a few minutes as his last words replayed in my mind.
Those girls might still be alive.
What did that mean? Was Harris implicating the Maclean family in some of the wrongdoing that had occurred in this village? Was he pointing the finger at Keats or Alder, or both of them?
My mind whirred with the strange possibilities as I realized how naïve I’d been, sleeping at Leith without a care for safety or locked doors. My false sense of security had been rocked only when I’d fallen into the whirlpool in the loch, and if it weren’t for Alder’s solid embrace, I might have been lost to the waves forever. I’d fallen like Alice down the rabbit hole, and Alder was the very Mad Hatter who’d shown up to rescue me. Did that make Harris my Cheshire cat, wrapped in riddles and whisky and wisdom?
I turned to the opening pages of my book, rereading the first sentence of a story called Annie Lee. I’d discovered from the summary that she’d grown up in Edinburgh but had been abandoned in Mary’s Close when she became ill and her mother assumed she’d caught the plague. With the doctors overwhelmed, Annie’s mother had abandoned her six-year-old daughter in the dark tunnels of the undercity, which poor Annie was said to haunt to this day.
It was hard to focus on a ghost story when I had my own real-life mystery to research, but something told me legend played a bigger role in the culture of Skye than I’d first realized. Maybe buried in these legends was the answer I was looking for.
“So, what’s your favorite story so far?” Harris was back, this time at the barstool at my side.
“I haven’t started it yet. It’s been hard to focus on actual reading since I arrived.”
“I wouldn’t be able to read with the crypt keeper hovering over my shoulder either.”
I shot him a curious look.
“Keats. Come on, you never thought of that? He looks exactly like the crypt keeper from those old horror stories. Did you have those back-from-the-dead stories in America?”
“Yes.” I laughed, realizing he was right on with his comparison.
“Well, get to reading and then report back on your favorite. I’m partial to The Plague Doctor too, but different strokes for different folks.”
“So, you’ve read this book?” I held up the leather-bound volume.
“Oh, sure. Every kid in Kylemore does. The Isle of Skye breeds a special sort of people. Talk for too long to any of the old-timers around here, and you’ll find they’re still blaming pixies, sprites, and fae for anything from bad weather to bad luck. Skye is steeped in the supernatural, and your Leith Hall has touched many generations of the folks around here. Sometimes for the better, more often for the worse.”
“The worse?”
Harris shook his head. “Most come to Skye following their forebearers’ footsteps through the threads of time, but there’s a reason people leave this place and never return. Revisiting the past is a foolhardy venture. Stories like the ones that come out of Leith will do well to remind ye of that. Most of us are born of vicious blokes forced to live together on a cold rock in the middle of the ocean. People want sunshine and roses, when the reality of the past is more cloudy skies and rain. Throw in a famine or two for good measure, and you’ll see what it takes to grow up in a place like this. It’s hardly the romantic isle the poets would have ye believin’.”