July - Chapter Seven

“Your cholesterol must be astronomical. Quadruple digits, at the very least.”

“Mhm,” Jeremy mumbled through a full mouth of ice cream. He crunched a chunk of cone, swallowed, and said, “Don’t worry, it all goes to my ass. Thank goodness.”

“Shake it, shake it, shake that healthy butt,” Aggie muttered, looking out across the sand. It was a hot day, the sun bright and blazing on the dark blue water, and it seemed like every resident of Dunsegall was at the beach.

So here they were. In Aggie’s dad’s ice cream truck. With only a small fan chugging away in the corner, they had spread out as much as they could in the cramped space. Aggie was on the floor behind the front seat, Jeremy between the freezers, working through ice cream after ice cream, and Mozart lay across the dashboard, dozing in the sun.

“I can’t believe my dad thought this was a good idea,” Aggie grumbled for probably the tenth time that day. “Fucking ice cream truck without air con. Jesus.”

“Name’s Jeremy, actually, but it’s an easy mistake to make.” He twisted to look at her. “We could always climb into the freezers.”

Aggie waved her hand in dismissal. “I’m not trying to become a sardine, thanks.”

He raised the end of his cone in a mock-toast. “Climate change. Gotta love it.”

Almost a week had passed since the cringeworthy Never Have I Ever incident, and life had pretty much gone back to normal.

Well. Sort of.

Jeremy had graduated from the inflatable wings on Wednesday, but not before Aggie and Colin took about a thousand pictures and Colin had nearly pissed himself laughing. True, Jeremy would admit, he did look like a grumpy, stretched-out toddler, but still. A little respect would have been appreciated. “Respect?” Colin had huffed, with a toss of his stupidly shaggy hair. “Since when, Yankee?”

“All right, you can lose the floaties now.”

Aggie declared this after making Jeremy swim in circles and dodge Colin’s splashes for over half an hour, ignoring his glaring at her because, hello, he could swim just fine by now, thank you. But Aggie, per her own amusement and Rochelle’s paranoia, had wanted to be as thorough as possible. “Just make sure he takes it slow,” Rochelle had fretted to Aggie, through Jeremy: “as slow as he needs.” Jeremy had rolled his eyes at that, even though two weeks before, he would’ve balked at the idea of even putting a foot in the water.

Colin, of course, noticed this as well, and as he watched Aggie try to pull off a floatie stuck on Jeremy’s arm, he said, “Bravery suits you, Yankee.”

“Fuck off,” Jeremy bit out, wincing as Aggie finally managed to yank the floatie loose, taking what felt like the top layer of his skin along with it.

“Cheer up!” Aggie said with a smile, throwing the floatie to Baggins. “As of now, you’ve got all the rights and privileges of a passable swimmer!”

“Meaning what?” Jeremy scowled at her, rubbing his arm.

“Meaning this!” she yelled, and gave him a huge push.

Jeremy briefly felt like he was flying, and then he hit the water with a splash. At first, he locked up, panic flashing through his body as he exhaled a volley of bubbles, but then he remembered to kick, move, find the surface, so he did, and he came up with a gasp.

Colin and Aggie were laughing, but there was something in Colin’s face, some brief flicker of worry, that made Jeremy’s head spin. He laughed all the same, splashing both of them and unintentionally starting a war.

It felt right, now, being in the water. Jeremy knew how to float, how to move without accidentally inhaling. The fear still lingered in the back of his mind, a cloud hovering at the base of his neck, but he could ignore it, because in the water, he was weightless, and he could hang above and below everything, he could be quiet.

“That’s a nice one,” Aggie said later, when they were lying out in the garden — Colin under the shade, of course — and Jeremy was playing an old Gershwin riff. He now carried his clarinet with him to Aggie’s house as a matter of habit, since the others loved getting him to play background music. “It’s like jazz, but not.”

“Sassy,” Colin cut in with a nod. He was working through a packet of Jammy Dodgers, the crumbs littering his bare chest. Jeremy had noticed — and Aggie had loudly pointed out — that Colin had put on some more muscle weight, which was helpful as far as the Highland Games were concerned, but very unhelpful for Jeremy’s sanity.

His crush, of course, had gone nowhere, just as he’d expected. He tried not to think about it too much, tried to tell himself that there were always worse things than falling for a straight boy. Jo was useless on this front, and if Jeremy didn’t know any better, he’d have thought that she was trying to Parent-Trap him and Colin from across the Atlantic. Aggie, for her part, had never said anything to Jeremy about any of it, though she would watch the moments when Colin got too flirty, or too handsy, with a raised eyebrow.

But still. There were better things to worry about.

Jeremy’s mom had been putting in long hours at the castle, determined to get the catalog updated before the fall. On the nights that Jeremy was home, instead of fighting Aggie for the blanket, she talked his ear off about the work. He learned about tapestries, about the sword collection rusting under the chief’s main staircase, about the books and the way the library echoed when no one was in it. “The castle is spooky,” Rochelle said. “Even with people living in it. You can feel how old it is. It’s almost like the stones are tired.”

“Maybe they need a nap,” Jeremy said, grinning as he passed back the bar of chocolate. Dark chocolate is the only dessert worth having, his Grandma always said.

But his mom wasn’t listening. “I feel like there’s something hidden, Jeremy. Something secret. Something big.”

He snorted. “Okay, Creepypasta.”

Even if Rochelle was sensing some sort of disturbance in the Force, it didn’t keep her from working like an animal, or from telling Jeremy exactly how happy she was that he had a rag-tag group of friends to kick around the island with. “You guys remind me of the Brat Pack,” she said fondly on that Wednesday morning, a rare morning when Jeremy was up early enough to share breakfast with her.

“Mom,” he rasped over his third cup of coffee. “I’m nothing like Frank Sinatra.”

Rochelle rolled her eyes but chuckled all the same. “The Brat Pack, Jer. Not the Rat Pack. I think Colin’s the athlete, Aggie’s the princess, and you’re the brain.”

“Nonsense.” He let out a huge yawn and planted face-down on the table. “I’ve never had a brain, and I’m not about to start now.”

He couldn’t see it, but he could practically hear his mom shaking her head. “I’ll be working here most of the morning, don’t let that stop you practicing.”

“Sure,” he said, and it hadn’t, then a few hours later, he was in the middle of a concerto when his mom called him into the dining room.

She was sitting at the table, which was covered in her usual assortment of notes, highlighters, iPad, magnifying glasses, and she was wearing the special cloth gloves she used to handle old documents. The cabinets behind her were open, a few of the books missing from the shelves.

They hadn’t really gone into the dining room since moving in, choosing to eat their meals in the kitchen instead, and once again, Jeremy found himself struck by the sheer number and old age of the books lining the walls. His mom was staring down at a large leatherbound book — about a foot long and half a foot wide — that looked to be about three thousand years old. Jeremy said as much and she frowned, saying, “Try five hundred, Jeremy, Jesus.”

“All right.” He rubbed his eyes, then peered down at the yellowing parchment. The book itself was large and full of tidy, if small, writing. The ink still looked crisp and clean, almost like the author had put down their pen and walked away just minutes before.

Now it was Jeremy’s turn to frown. “What is that, Latin?”

“Yes. And, ah, no. Sort of.” His mom had that funny wrinkle between her eyes that she got whenever she was faced with a truly difficult problem, like a corrupted manuscript or a two-for-the-price-of-one sale at DSW. “Some of it is Latin. The rest of it is Gaelic.”

“Gaelic,” he repeated, before going around the table to get a better look at the text. Rochelle had perched one of her high-powered square magnifying glasses on the page, and it made the writing much easier to read.

He stared at the bastardized language, picking out the few Latin roots he was familiar with, and noticing where the Roman letters slid into Gaelic ones. He rubbed his eyes again, then went about cleaning his glasses with the edge of his shirt. “You don’t know Gaelic, do you?”

She shook her head and the wrinkle deepened. “I know some, enough to get by most of the time, but I definitely don’t know enough to make sense of this, when it’s all mixed with the Latin.” Rochelle sat back in her chair with a sigh, and Mozart, who had wandered into the room, took the opportunity to jump into her lap.

Jeremy looked at his mom and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why does this matter? This book is part of the cottage’s collection, not the castle’s.”

“About that,” said Rochelle, leaning forward and gently lifting the front cover, partially closing the book. The cover was blank, but she tapped the bottom of the spine. Jeremy didn’t notice anything at first, then he leaned closer, and saw a quarter-sized engraving in the leather.

His eyebrows flew up into his fringe. “Oh.” He knew that mark. It was a simplified form, sure, just the raven’s head and the ring around it, but the crest of the MacLewan clan flew on a dozen flags through the town, so it was pretty unmistakable.

“Yeah. Oh.” Rochelle lowered the spine with another sigh, then sat back in her chair. “Seems like the chief hasn’t been completely honest with me.”

Jeremy’s frown deepened. “What do you mean?”

“He said that all the books here were from a personal collection, not part of the clan’s collection, which, of course, is kept at the castle.” She shook her head. “And he won’t tell me who this cottage belonged to. He says it was someone in the family, but every time I ask, he gets super vague and changes the subject. Why?” she burst out, suddenly enough that Mozart’s ears twitched. “Why are they being so shady about this place? What’s the point?”

“Maybe whoever lived here turned out to be a murderer,” Jeremy supplied.

Rochelle put her forearm in front of her mouth, clearly swallowing a laugh. “Don’t joke about that,” she said, muffled. “With our luck, it’ll turn out to be true. No,” she continued, “I think this needs to fly under the radar. But that begs the question, who on this island knows enough Gaelic to be able to read this, and would help me translate it for basically no compensation, and would promise to not tell the chief about it?” She shook her head again. “Impossible.”

Jeremy had an idea, but he also had a question. “Would the chief really be so mad about you working on it?” he said. “If it’s just some boring history book?”

His mom shot him a glance, and something about it gave him goosebumps. “It’s not a history book. Which is why I think we should tread carefully.”

Before Jeremy could say anything, she reached out and again tilted the cover forward, turning to the very beginning of the book. The first two pages were blank, which Jeremy knew was odd for old manuscripts, since good parchment could be scarce, but then—

“Shit,” he whispered, staring at the brilliant illumination in front of him. It took up the entire page, and it wasn’t exactly colorful, but the lines were bold, dark, and they throbbed into his mind, echoing with age.

The image was of a gigantic cross, which, fine, totally normal for a country that had been Christian for centuries, but the cross was surrounded by repeating concentric loops in spiralling Celtic designs, and was encircled by a large green dragon. The dragon twisted into and around itself, its massive eyes staring out at its observer.

In comparison to his mom, Jeremy knew only a bit about this sort of stuff, only the things she had shown him and told him about, but he did know that he was looking at something very out of the ordinary, something new.

Only one word came to his mind, and he looked up at his mom. She looked back at him, and he said, “Heresy?”

“I think so,” Rochelle said, turning to the next page, where the writing began. “Maybe it’s too soon to tell, but from what I can make out of the opening lines, they seem to be a botched version of the Trinitarian declaration. Whoever these people were, I think they believed in the Father and the Son, but the third part of the Trinity appears to have been replaced by something else.”

“A dragon?” Jeremy supplied.

“Maybe.” Rochelle shrugged and Mozart chirped in reply. “The other weird thing about this book is the fact that the binding and the parchment are mismatched.”

“What do you mean?”

“According to the chief, and to the records I’ve found in the castle library, the clan didn’t start stamping book spines until the eighteenth century. This text—” she tapped the page for emphasis “—is at least three or four hundred years older than that, and originally, it wasn’t bound.” Rochelle began turning through the book, pointing to the margins as she spoke. “Whoever did the binding was painstaking, but if you look closely, the margins are inconsistent, and there isn’t any rhyme or reason to the page breaks. I think,” she continued, “that this text, or this collection of texts, was preserved for a long time, then later cut apart and bound into one contiguous volume. That could’ve been as early as the sixteenth century, or as late as the eighteenth, because the spine could’ve been stamped a long time after it was initially bound. Either way, someone cared enough about this text to keep it very well preserved for a very long time.”

Jeremy stared at her. “So it’s possible that there were heretics in the clan MacLewan?”

“You sound like an Inquisitor.” Rochelle smiled. “Yes, Jeremy, it is possible.”

“And that’s why you don’t want to ask him. The chief.”

“Well, I’m new to this place, and this culture. I don’t want to offend anyone, so I’ve got to tread very carefully. I definitely can’t tell anyone connected to the clan, not until I know more.” Rochelle took off her gloves and began petting Mozart. “And who knows when that’ll be, since I haven’t got a lab, or a decent database of the clan’s archives, or someone who could help me translate.”

“You found this book before today, didn’t you?” Jeremy said, and his mom’s sheepish expression confirmed it. “How did you get out of work?”

“It’s carpet-cleaning day at the castle, so the museum’s closed,” said Rochelle, not making eye contact with him. “And it’s too loud to get any work done.”

As if on cue, Jeremy’s phone buzzed loudly where it sat on the dining room table.

“Plans today?” Rochelle asked with a smile.

“Yeah,” said Jeremy, typing out a reply to his group chat with Aggie and Colin. “And I think I might be able to solve one of your problems.”

“This is mental,” Colin said a half hour later. He was sitting across from Rochelle at the dining room table, staring at the book and shaking his head. Rochelle wore this funny sort of half-pleading expression, completely at odds with the massive sandwich she was stuffing into her mouth. Colin looked at her, then to Jeremy, who shrugged. “This is completely mental.”

“But are you willing to help?” said Jeremy.

Colin huffed a long sigh, rubbing his hands on his utilikilt. Once again, he looked from the book, to Rochelle, to Jeremy, then he shook his head. “Sure. I’ll help.”

Rochelle squealed, punching the air. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“One last thing,” said Jeremy, grabbing a much smaller and newer book that they had found in the sitting room the week before. He held it out in front of Colin. “Do you solemnly swear not to tell a single soul, except Aggie, about this sneaky, super-weird translation project, on pain of receiving multiple Indian burns should you break your oath?”

Colin was frowning. “Is that a book of The Guardian’s best political cartoons from 1976?”

Jeremy waved the book in front of Colin’s nose. “Do you swear?”

Colin rolled his eyes, but he grinned just the same, and slapped his hand down onto the cover. “I swear.”

So that was how they ended up lying out in the sun, fresh from Jeremy’s floatie graduation, wrist-deep in bags of crisps (or in Colin’s case, Jammy Dodgers), telling Aggie everything.

“Wild,” she said. “Trust your mum to find a mysterious, potentially incriminating book in your goddamn dining room.”

Jeremy played a short diddy on his clarinet, then nodded. “My grandma always called her a trouble-finder, and I think that’s about as accurate as you can get.”

“It’s very gallant of you,” said Aggie, turning to Colin. “Offering to help her translate. Are you sure you have enough time?”

Colin shrugged. “Time enough to help. She said she would start making me some scans to take home, so I can work on them by myself, then bring her what I’ve got whenever I finish.”

“Sounds nerdy enough.” Aggie stood up and cracked her neck. “Right, I’m gonna go take a piss, and when I get back, football?”

Both boys nodded and she jogged back into the house. Things were quiet for a moment, save for Baggins’s soft panting and the birdsong. It was warm, but not too hot, and clouds were drifting lazily across the sky, throwing shadows onto the fields around them. Jeremy put his clarinet back in its case and closed his eyes, relishing the light breeze that skirted across his legs.

Then, with his eyes still closed, Jeremy said, “Does Aggie play every sport known to man?”

“She keeps busy,” Colin replied, followed by a vague rustling that probably meant he was standing up.

“I’ll say.” Jeremy heard a weird sort of slapping sound, and he opened one eye to find Colin not two feet away, enthusiastically slathering himself in sunscreen. The liquid stuff, not the spray kind like Aggie, Jeremy, and other normal humans used, because Colin swore that it didn’t work as well. Jeremy squinted at him. “Is it absolutely necessary to put me in the splashzone?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Colin, but he stepped right up to the side of Jeremy’s lounger and picked up speed. Sunscreen was flying thick and heavy, and sure enough, a large glob of it fell onto Jeremy’s leg.

He stared at it. “This is probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Big baby,” said Colin, all sing-song. Then he did something even worse, and flung himself down onto Jeremy’s legs.

Jeremy let out a yell and began to kick, trying to throw him off, but it didn’t work, and Colin just held on tighter, laughing in triumph.

“What are you doing?!” Jeremy spluttered, trying not to blush, because good God Colin was heavy, and slippery, and warm from the sunlight. He felt like a gigantic fish.

“Helping you put on some sunscreen, Yankee, what does it look like?” Colin’s grip tightened and he twisted to throw Jeremy a ridiculous grin.

Fuck this. Jeremy gritted his teeth and sat up. “Get off!” He gave Colin a huge shove, which backfired, because he had forgotten that Colin was covered in sunscreen.

“Nice try, Yankee!” Colin bellowed, half-laughing, and shoved him back.

“Get off!” Jeremy yelled again, and this time, when he pushed Colin, he sent both of them sliding off the lounger entirely.

The next thing he knew, he was flat on the ground, breathless, his glasses lopsided, with Colin half on top of him.

“Jesus!” Colin pushed himself up off the grass to stare at Jeremy, his eyes pinched. There was a streak of dirt across his cheek where his face had hit the ground, and his weight was heavy on Jeremy’s body. “You are so jumpy!”

“You attacked me!” Jeremy scowled up at him, his heart thumping. This was violating pretty much every single one of his boundaries, and at this angle, he could see all of Colin’s freckles in sharp detail, even with his glasses half-off. Unhelpful.

Colin huffed, but he stayed where he was, staring down at Jeremy, his expression somewhere between frustration and amusement. Around them, the birds screamed.

Jeremy’s heart was pounding in his throat, and he forced himself to breathe. He felt it, all of it, the sky, bright and light blue, high above, the grass and mud squishing into his back, the cool breeze trickling through the garden. He looked up at Colin, because there was nowhere else to look, and felt heat, a stupid fucking blush, sweep down his neck. And then, inexplicably, Colin’s gaze followed it.

Colin’s eyes. On his throat. And his chest.

The air around them seemed to swell, thick and quiet, and Jeremy swallowed with a click.

Colin’s gaze snapped to his face, and Jeremy’s stomach swooped because there was something there in his eyes, something raw, and suddenly, he became aware of every point of contact between them, every place that he could feel Colin’s skin against his own, and he thought he might explode, because he wasn’t imagining it, the way Colin was looking at him, the way he licked his lips, and then, slowly, because time had stopped, Colin was leaning in, and Jeremy saw it, saw the way he began to close his eyes, and then Jeremy’s mouth opened and he said,

“Don’t.”

Colin froze, his body turning to stone. Now his eyes were wide, and whatever had been there was shrinking, replaced by surprise and something else.

And then, because Jeremy’s life was a fucking rom-com, the slam of the French door announced Aggie’s arrival, and Colin was gone in an instant, suddenly five feet away with his back to Jeremy, rubbing what remained of the sunscreen into his arms.

“All right, you dozy fuckers, who’s ready for some proper football?” Aggie appeared by Jeremy’s lounger, football in hand, and frowned at him over the rim of her sunglasses. “What are you doing, Jeremy?”

“Being an idiot,” said Colin. Then he turned, grabbed the ball from Aggie’s hands, and said, “Come on, let’s play.”

The rest of the day passed with little incident, and if Aggie picked up on any weird energy between the two boys, she didn’t mention it. They made it through the afternoon, and ate dinner on the porch with Aggie’s parents and brother.

“This weather is gorgeous,” said Aggie, leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed. She was working on a chicken drumstick, and she waved it around like a baton. “Maybe we should knock together some tents, sleep out here tonight.”

Winston snorted. “If you want to wake up soaking wet, then sure.”

“It’s going to storm tonight?” said Colin with a frown. He usually prided himself on knowing the weather to a tee.

Aggie’s dad nodded. “Aye. A bad one, too.”

Aggie rolled her eyes, looking out down the garden and the fields that lay beyond. “Figures.”

The storm, when it hit, was loud, unstoppable. It rattled the windows in the house, unleashed buckets of rain, and dragged thunder through the sky, like cannonballs rigged up to a chariot and pulled through a sea of rocks.

At least, that was what Jeremy thought, when he woke up, his heart pounding, opening his eyes to the silky darkness of Aggie’s room. His breath was shallow and fast, and a moment later, Aggie stirred beside him, her hand finding his and squeezing it. “You all right?”

“Fine,” whispered Jeremy, fighting a shiver.

Aggie sighed, a quick breathy thing, and shuffled closer under the blanket. “Deep breaths.”

And it worked. Minutes later, Jeremy was fast asleep, and he didn’t wake again until Aggie kicked him, right in the shin, about five hours later.

“Quit snoring,” she grumbled, making to kick him again.

Jeremy dodged her, and nearly fell out of the bed. Then he noticed that her couch was empty, and his stomach swooped. “Colin’s gone.”

“Yeah, you know how he never sleeps.” Aggie sat up and rubbed her eyes. “He’s probably downstairs talking to Baggins.”

But once they got downstairs, this proved to be wrong. The kitchen was empty, and Baggins was fast asleep on the sitting room sofa.

Frowning, Aggie, checked her phone. “Huh. He texted. ‘Dad called, sheep stuck in ditch.’” She rolled her eyes. “There you go, then. I’ll drop you at home,” she added, at Jeremy’s stricken look. “Since I’ve got opening shift.”

“Ditch?” he said, because what.

“Did Colin not cover this during your introduction to farming? If a sheep gets stuck in a ditch, that’s one thing, but if a sheep gets stuck in a ditch in the rain, they can drown. No flippers,” she added. “Or gills.”

So, Jeremy thought, looking out the windows to the empty front drive, Colin’s truck conspicuously missing. That’s that, then.

On Thursday, Colin hadn’t shown to pick up Jeremy for farm rounds. He didn’t show up on Friday, either.

Jeremy couldn’t count the number of times he’d started a text to Colin, trying to explain himself or say something, anything, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Jo about what had happened either, because as time went on, it all seemed less real, and he started to wonder whether he’d just imagined it all.

So he threw himself into practicing his clarinet and messing around on his keyboard, and spent more time hanging around Aggie while she worked. He only saw Colin briefly on Friday, when he stopped by Sweet Ray’s between farm visits. Things between them had been normal, Jeremy guessed, if a little stilted, but Colin had barely looked at him. It had stung, sure, he had expected it to, but what he hadn’t expected were the butterflies in his stomach, or the overwhelming urge to corner Colin and explain himself. Jeremy swallowed, his mouth dry from just thinking about it.

How? he thought, not for the first time. Nothing happens for weeks, then everything happens.

And now, it was Saturday, a mere three days since the Not-Kiss, and he and Aggie were holed up in the tiny ice cream van, sweating through their shirts, waiting for Colin to text them back.

“Fuck, marry, kill,” Aggie was saying. “Idris Elba, Daniel Craig, Cillian Murphy.”

“Jesus,” Jeremy grumbled. “You don’t make this easy. I guess I’d fuck Cillian, marry Idris, and kill Daniel.”

Aggie sat up. “What?! You’d do in the best James Bond of our lifetimes?”

“Oh, please, he had one good Bond movie. Plus, he kind of looks like a weasel.”

“One good Bond movie?” Aggie wheezed. For all she complained — justifiably — about Bond movies being sexist, racist, seriously devoid of people of color, and contrived to a fault, she loved them to pieces and owned all of them. “Please tell me I’m imagining this blasphemy.”

“See, Cillian’s a wild card. He’s the kind of guy you want for a one-night stand, but I’m not sure he has staying power,” said Jeremy, ignoring her. “Idris would probably be the best option for a husband. Can you imagine having him in your bed every day? Heaven.”

Aggie smirked. “So Jeremy likes men with a bit of muscle. Chunky,” she drawled, wiggling her hips for emphasis.

He fought a blush and threw his napkin at her head. “Shut up.”

She batted it away and started fanning herself. “This is ridiculous. How much longer have we got?”

Winston was supposed to take over for them at three o’clock, then Aggie was free for the day. Jeremy checked his phone. “Twenty minutes.”

A sudden bang on the back of the van made them both jump. Jeremy and Aggie exchanged a worried look, then he sat up and opened the door.

The sun was blinding. He squinted against the glare, and felt his stomach drop when he realized who was standing in front of him, leaning against the van, shirtless.

Colin’s face was impassive as he looked at both of them. “Ready for a break?”

Aggie scrambled forward. “Yes, Jesus Christ, yes. Why didn’t you text me back?”

Colin shrugged, opening the other door. “Phone’s dead. Are you waiting on Winston?”

“Of course.” Aggie slid out of the van and pulled Jeremy out behind her, into the raw heat of the day. “Seen him around?”

Winston showed up a few minutes later, no more surly than usual, and Jeremy quickly caught on to the fact that Aggie had been planning on the three of them having a beach day. This explained why she’d been wearing a bikini under her outfit and stashed a towel in the front seat of the van, and Jeremy couldn’t help but feel a spike of worry. It wasn’t because he didn’t have a swimsuit — paranoia now dictated that he carried it everywhere, even if swimming wasn’t in the plan. No, it was because this would be the most time he and Colin had spent together since the dumb thing almost-happened and, well.

“Hang on,” said Jeremy, in the midst of Aggie throwing all her stuff together, with Mozart tucked up in his arms. “I can’t bring her, can I? Besides, I don’t want her in the sun all day.”

“Don’t worry.” Aggie turned to Colin. “Did you bring the stuff?”

Jeremy’s heart sank when Colin went over to his truck and opened the bed to reveal a pile of beach-going gear, including two umbrellas because he wasn’t “trying to become a lobster,” and, well.

Now Jeremy was out of excuses, and he mulled over his inescapable fate as he changed into his swimsuit, sparing himself a glance in the beachside bathroom’s mirror. All the walking and swimming had put a little more meat on his bones, and his hair really was running wild. He put on his sunglasses, pointed at his reflection, and said aloud, “You look like a goddamn piece of broccoli.”

The very least he could do was pretend that nothing was wrong, so he strolled out of the restroom and back into the sunshine, drawling, “All right, all right, all right.”

“You’re a shit McConaughey,” Aggie said, throwing him a towel while Colin snorted. “Come on. Let’s try to find a spot.”

In addition to the two umbrellas, Colin’s beach-going hodge-podge included a collection of mismatched, half-torn old bath towels, several large bags full of food and drinks, and a variety of sports equipment. It took a few minutes for the three of them to get everything shouldered and squared away, then they set off for the water.

The beaches at Dunsegall were of a bright, white-grey sand that was blinding and burning in the sunshine. Jeremy held Mozart as they all walked towards the water, weaving between families and couples growing redder and redder in the sunshine. It was clear that these people were not well-versed in spending time in the sun, and as they walked, Jeremy felt like he could hear all of the pasty Scottish skin sizzling and crackling as it burst into shades of orange and red. He had forgotten, though, what it was like to walk through a crowded place with Aggie and Colin, two of the most popular people in town.

“All righ’, Col?” bellowed an enormous man, his forehead pouring with sweat. “It’s a lovely day, innit?”

“Aye, Mr. Priestly, and I’ll be coming around to see to those chickens next week!” Colin called back, smiling in a way that didn’t look quite right. Jeremy watched, and it struck him that this was not Colin’s real smile. It was his professional one, caged and tight, and it looked absurd.

“Hallo, Aggie, dear!” This was a woman with bright blonde hair and very large teeth.

“Hi, Mrs. Beech!” Aggie called back with a wave. “I like your new haircut!”

And so it went, on and on and on, the entire way down the beach.

“I feel like I’m at a pageant with Dunsegall’s best and brightest,” Jeremy said, once there was a moment to get a word in.

They had reached a fairly open spot right next to the water. Aggie shucked her bags and plopped down onto the sand. “I’d have to say April 25th,” she simpered, putting on a lilting voice. “Because it’s not too hot and not too cold.”

“What?” said Colin, his expression blank.

“Miss Congeniality,” said Jeremy, spreading out his towel. “One of the best movies of all time, probably.” He put Mozart down and she began to sniff around.

Colin was frowning, doing his angry-grandpa thing as he unloaded the rest of the gear and popped open an umbrella. “Never heard of it.”

“You haven’t heard of anything.” Aggie rolled onto her back and stuck her leg up into the air. “All right, boys, let’s get ourselves sunscreened and sorted, then let’s go for a swim, then maybe a bit of a lie-out, then a bit of a swim, repeat until crispy. Yeah?”

What soon followed was, as Jeremy later described it to Jo, as close to a beach movie montage as he was ever going to get.

With the sun beaming and blazing high above, they charged into the water like elephants, yelling as the water splashed onto their stomachs and faces. It was weirdly warm, the water, and when Jeremy mentioned this, Colin called out, “Gulf Stream, Yankee!”

They paddled out until their feet were no longer touching the ocean floor, then began swimming in circles around each other. Only once did Jeremy feel a surge of panic, his stomach swooping and his mouth going dry, then it was gone, and he went back to racing Aggie, who could outswim them both, probably even with her legs tied together.

Finally, after rolling around in the water for what felt like hours, they crawled back up the sand to their setup and dug into the food Colin had packed for them. Mozart was happily sprawled out under one of the umbrellas, and appeared to have made herself a little bed in the sand. Jeremy fed her chunks of chicken from his sandwich and she began to purr.

“Jesus,” groaned Aggie through a mouthful of — something that Jermey couldn’t see. “Col, I swear to God, you’ve got to let us sell these in the shop.”

Colin’s ears went red, and Jeremy shifted to see that Aggie was eating a little iced cake. There was a whole container of them, sitting neat and shiny in the pile of food.

Jeremy looked at Colin. “Did you make those?”

Colin shrugged and stuffed half his sandwich into his mouth. “Ye’serdy.”

Jeremy reached out and took a cake. It was perfectly square and the icing was thick and opaque. He took a bite, then had to stop himself from groaning aloud, because Aggie was right, Jesus. The icing melted in his mouth, and the cake was sweet and spongy. Jeremy didn’t know much about baking, but it was one of the best things he’d ever eaten. Not that he was biased.

“It’s good,” he said to Colin, hearing his mom’s voice in his head as he did. Tread carefully.

“Thanks.” Colin shrugged again then stood up. “I’m going for a walk.”

Jeremy made to get up. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” said Colin, loud and final. He didn’t even look at Jeremy, then he was gone, heading down the beach.

Jeremy sat back down with a sigh.

Aggie had watched all this with her usual disinterest, and she cleared her throat before opening a bag of crisps. “What the fuck was that about?”

“Nothing.” Jeremy scuffed the sand with his foot.

Aggie snorted, passing him the bag. “Right, okay. Well, whatever it is, fix it, because I’m not about to have my summer ruined by two idiot boys.”

Jeremy scoffed, gesturing in the direction Colin had set off in. “You just saw me trying to fix it, and look how that went.”

“Keep trying, or try harder. Colin’s a moody git most of the time, and he can be a right prat when he’s got his feelings hurt, but he’ll listen at some point.”

“You speak from experience, I’m guessing?”

Aggie considered. “I mean, the last time we fought, like really fought, was back in primary school, and that was about me stealing his favorite pencil.”

Jeremy had to laugh. “I’m afraid this is a bit bigger than a pencil.”

“Most things are,” she conceded with a grin. “But just be honest with him, and he’ll be honest with you. That’s how most people work.”

Then she changed the subject, and Jeremy followed with relief. That was a bit more touchy-feely than he had expected to get with Aggie, and he wasn’t sure if she knew that Colin had tried to kiss him. It was clear that as close as they were, she and Colin didn’t tell each other absolutely everything, and as much as Jeremy hated talking about himself, he would hate talking about himself to Aggie even more.

Time went on, and Aggie decided she wanted to play football in the surf. Jeremy joined her, and even as the sun went yawning across the sky, the afternoon beginning to fade, the sky shone bright and the air stayed hot.

They were just in the middle of a pretty good kick-around, Aggie laughing herself breathless at the way Jeremy had fallen on his ass, when Colin reappeared. Aggie shouted a greeting and juggled the ball while Jeremy pulled himself out of the shallows, face flaming from equal parts embarrassment and nerves. But Colin remained impassive as he joined them, and the game went on, the three of them rushing about in the waterline, laughing all the while.

Some time later, they dove back into the ocean, now too tired to race each other, instead content to float and tread water. Jeremy found himself staring at the coastline, at what, from this distance and without his glasses, was only a series of smudges.

He could make out the small, colorful cluster that was the town and the harbor; the sea of sunburnt Scots that rippled yellow-red in the sun; the hills that broke beyond them and around them, cracked open like mossy geodes.

And there, perched on the edge of everything, expectant and yet impatient, was the castle, a distant, grey, monstrous blot. This place is timeless, Jeremy thought, and for a moment, it was like the vast, empty void of history opened under his feet and above his head, yawning and relaxed, waiting for him to fall in, before a huge splash from Aggie brought him back to his senses.

After they returned to their makeshift camp and scarfed down some more food, Aggie squinted up the coastline and said, “Fancy a walk? I want to show you the rocks.”

“Sounds interesting,” Jeremy deadpanned, wiping his lenses on the corner of his t-shirt.

Aggie shoved him on the shoulder. “Shut up, it is. It’s part of the history of the place. Old defensive barricades and whatnot.” She looked at him, cocked her head. “You really look so different without your glasses.”

“Noted,” said Jeremy, putting said glasses back on.

He expected another shove, but instead, Aggie smiled. “Good different, Jer.” Then she turned and marched off, heading west along the shore. “Come on!”

Jeremy and Colin quickly caught up with her, Mozart not far behind. Jeremy tried convincing the cat to stay with their belongings, but apparently, she had had enough of lying around all afternoon, and kept pace by his side.

Colin, in contrast, maintained his distance, staying closer to Aggie. Jeremy ignored this, and tried to ignore the way Colin’s back rippled, the tattoo twitching as he walked.

The ‘rocks,’ as it turned out, were only a ten minute walk up the shore, and sat along the bottom edge of the harbor almost like an outer shell. A mixture of craggy boulders of all sizes, the rocks rose in a gradual slope to about ten feet from ground level, and tapered out into the ocean. Most of them were covered in moss or seaweed, and the stench was impressive.

Aggie clambered up straight away, balancing between two boulders. “Aren’t they great? Sorry about all the crap, it’s because of the storm.”

“It smells like rotten fish,” Jeremy said, following her up the embankment at a more measured pace. The rocks were smooth but slippery, and he tried not to think about the moss oozing and tearing under his feet. All part of the adventure.

“One of the many smells of Scotland,” Aggie laughed, finding a dry spot to take a seat. “And not one of my favorites.”

From their vantage point, they could see the entire southern coastline, and Jeremy breathed deeply, loving the spray and the smell of the nearby forest, once you got past the scent of rotting seaweed. Beyond and below them, the water sloshed in calm waves, and the horizon was melting into a flat line beneath the never-setting sun.

Mozart was slowly making her way up the rocks, sniffing everything as she went. Jeremy kept one eye on her, and he almost missed Aggie’s next question.

“Hey, I meant to ask, are you coming to the kaylee?”

Jeremy turned to her with a frown. “The what?”

“Kaylee,” said Aggie again, like that was meant to help. “Didn’t Angus mention it?”

Jeremy thought back to a few days before, which was the last time he’d seen Angus. “No. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Aggie huffed. “At the end of every month, the island hosts a kaylee at the old manor off High Street. Angus plays accordion for the band, people bring loads of food and booze. Basically the social event of the season.”

“Okay,” said Jeremy. “But literally, what is a kaylee?”

“A dance. Traditional Scottish dancing. It’s really fun,” she added, upon seeing his expression. “Plus, it’s kind of a rite of passage.”

“Okay,” said Jeremy again. “Maybe.”

“Don’t be a killjoy,” she said, whipping out her phone and typing away. “You’re coming.”

Jeremy glowered and felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out and squinted at her message. “Sorry, how’s that spelled?”

“C - e - i - l - i - d - h, ceilidh,” she reeled off, standing up, then grinned at his eye roll. “Come on, you know that Gaelic never sounds the way it looks.”

“Hey!” came Colin’s shout. He was standing on the rocks about fifteen feet away from them, much closer to the waterline, and frowning at something. “I think you should come see this!”

Aggie obeyed at once, scrambling over the rocks like a crab. Jeremy followed, though at a more reasonable pace, and when he reached the others, his stomach dropped to his feet.

There, resting between the rocks, half-covered in sand and seaweed, was a silver cross as big as his hand, a dragon coiled around the base, its mouth open in a silent roar.