“And?” Opal prompts, when he looks unsure.
His face is pale, and all his good humour is gone as he stares at my aunt. “People are saying that they’ve seen a ghost.”
Opal’s entire face hardens. “Nonsense.”
“I don’t think so, lass. Their expressions… even the Hidden Folk. If you saw them, you wouldn’t call
them liars.”
“No, perhaps not,” Opal says. “Just fools. Fooled by the wind and the moonlight and centuries of silly
tales. There is no such thing as ghosts, Angus. You know that.”
Something saddens in his eyes, and he nods. “Well. That’s what the talk of the steamie is, anyway. I won’t disturb you.”
We watch him turn to leave.
“Angus?” Opal calls after him.
He turns to look back at us. “Aye?”
Opal pauses before she speaks. “I mean it. There really is no such thing. They’ve misunderstood.”
Angus nods, dazedly, but he doesn’t seem convinced. He walks away.
He is already halfway back to the nearest village before I can ask what unspoken understanding the two of them just shared.
“Come on,” Opal says briskly. “Let’s take a walk.”
She leads me in the other direction, and he’s out of sight by the time I catch up to her.
“How do you know there isn’t a creature in there?” I ask her, trying to match the long strides that she takes when walking.
“There is sturgeon in that water,” she says plainly, “Kelpies when the weather is poor. Blue Men if they’re migrating. And perhaps the odd Ceasg.”
I flinch at the name. Reliving last night, with the shining eyes in the water and the vicious teeth.
“But no Loch Ness Monster.”
“What’s a Ceasg?” I ask innocently.
“Hope that you never find out.”
Too late.
We walk through the trees between the loch and the road. I try to walk exactly where she does, making sure that I keep up.
“And you’re sure there is no such thing—”
She reels around before I can even finish my question. She kneels down in front of me so that our eyes are level. She looks desperate for a moment, vulnerable in a way that I did not anticipate.
“Ramya, listen to me. I know this last while has been a lot of change. Vampires, Fae, Hidden Folk and Sirens. But believe me. Hear me when I tell you, there is no such thing as ghosts. They do not exist. They will never belong in that book my father left you. All right? You will never find one.”
“You said we can feel lots of things that we cannot see,” I point out.
She stares at me, sadly. “Do you feel anyone here, Ramya?”
I stare back at her and my eyes are suddenly tight and tense. I blink rapidly. When I speak, my voice is hoarse. “No.”
She nods once. “Exactly.”
Then, she is back on her path, walking with determination that forces me to hurry to keep up.
*
Marley and I pretend to be asleep when Aunt Leanna tucks us both in. It’s only once we hear her reach the bottom of the tower stairs that we cast off our duvets and hurry to the window, pulling coats on over our pyjamas and slipping on shoes.
“I definitely got a splinter last night,” grumbles Marley, as I lift the pane.
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll put some witch-hazel on it,” I tell him. “For now, we’ve got things to find. You’ll never guess what this man told me about by the loch today.”
I had tried to bring it up at dinner, but Opal had pointed her finger at the radio, causing the music to drown me out.
The oak tree is back. Alona allows us to climb onto her branches, only this time she doesn’t wait for us to scale down. She decreases in size, shrinking until she is a small oak, the size of a child. Only once we hop onto the grass does she transform, back into her human-looking form.
“That is definitely impressive,” I muse, unsure of what to say when your new acquaintance can change into a tree and back.
“Thanks,” she says breezily. “Follow me.”
