Chapter Twenty-Nine
Amelia
I opened my eyes, suddenly cold, as if my blanket had been yanked off. But no, it was still there. I rolled to my back, my body dipping into an indentation in the mattress that was still warm, as if…well, as if Rory had been snuggled up behind me and had just gotten up.
The room was bathed in the silvery light of morning, and Rory sat in the armchair by the window, his hands tunneling into his unruly hair.
“Are you all right?”
He jolted, then slowly took his head from his hands and turned to look at me, his features indistinct in the shadowy room. “Yeah, just couldn’t sleep any longer.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and stood. “I was going to wake you in a few minutes, but since you’re up, let’s have a look at your knee.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and eased my leg onto his lap. His hands on my skin were an uncomfortable reminder of last night, even though his touch was far less intimate. He unwrapped the bandage and gently prodded my knee. “The swelling’s gone down a bit. How does it feel?”
I carefully flexed it a few times, then got to my feet and walked around the room. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it did. I mean, it’s not great, but it’s definitely better than it was.”
“Good.” He slid from the bed, retrieving his phone from his nightstand and poking at it. “It’s almost seven. Let me re-wrap your leg, and then we should get moving. It’s nearly twelve miles to Elgol. That’s going to take us all day. And there’s more rain expected later, so we want to get to it.”
“Super. I can’t wait to be wet and cold and miserable again. Okay if I grab the bathroom first? I won’t be long.”
“Go ahead. Might as well put on your rain gear, too.”
A little while later, we were on our way. We went over a lovely old stone bridge that offered a stunning view of the glen cutting between the mountains. I stopped on the bridge to take some photos, the first since before we traversed all the streams and rivers yesterday, when I was afraid I’d drop my phone in the water.
“This is a very famous view,” said Rory. “It’s actually more famous if you take the photo with the bridge in it. Let’s compromise, for Carrie. Give me your phone and go stand over there.” He gestured to the right side of the bridge. When I was in position, I turned. “Say ‘Sligachan.’”
Grinning, I said it, and he snapped a few pictures before handing back the phone. “I took a close-up of you and then a zoomed-out one so you can see the background. Glen Sligachan separates the Black Cuillins to the right—so called because they’re comprised of black igneous rock—from the Red Cuillins to the left, so called because they’re mostly granite and look reddish when the light hits them. There’s your geology lesson for the day.”
“Take a selfie with me,” I blurted out. I didn’t have many pictures of him (and those I did have may or may not have been ones I stealth-snapped earlier in the trip under the guise of taking scenery shots) and wanted at least one good one.
“Sure. I’ll take it; my arm is longer than yours.” He sat beside me on the stone wall and leaned in close. “I think we got some of the view as well,” he said after he snapped a few shots.
“Thanks, Rory.”
“No worries. Ready to go?” He handed me my poles, and we started off.
“Would you like me to take a picture of the two of you?” We turned to see two middle-aged women behind us on the bridge.
“Aye, that would be brilliant, thanks,” said Rory. “Can I bother you to take one with mine as well?” My heart gave a happy little kick at the thought that he wanted to remember me after the trek was over.
They took pictures of us, and then we returned the favor before crossing the bridge and going through a gate to pick up the path.
The sky over the glen was dark and brooding, and the tops of the mountains on either side were cloaked in mist. It had been amazing when we were up on the Trotternish Ridge and we could see the mountains stretched out on either side, but walking at ground level between Marsco on the left and Sgùrr nan Gillean on the right, looking nearly straight up at their imposing faces and cloud-enshrouded peaks? It was awesome.
I took a few pictures and then just stared. No photograph could begin to do justice to this place.
“Are you all right?” asked Rory, after I’d stopped for maybe the tenth time in as many minutes to gape at the mountains. “Is it your knee?”
“No. I just never imagined a place like this. Not ever.”
“Glen Sligachan is pretty damned impressive.”
I shook my head. “Not just the glen. All of Skye. I mean, I’ve seen The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, where they film in exotic, scenic places. Of course I know that those places exist in the world. And I knew that Scotland had some pretty amazing scenery, too. But I just never—” I broke off, not even sure how to put my thoughts into words.
“Never what?”
“Never imagined the way it would make me feel to be here, to be standing among all this beauty. I know it’s been spectacular all along, but I think in the first few days, I was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other and taking all the photos I could, and trying to remember every detail for Carrie, that I just forgot to take it all in for myself. And now that I am, it’s going to be hard to go back to flat Long Island and even flatter Miami.”
I could stay here. The thought came to me, sudden and unbidden. I shook my head to clear it. No, of course I couldn’t. My life was back in the States, where an iced coffee was never more than ten minutes away, where my family and Carrie were. Where my new job was. I pictured the wide beaches of Miami, the avenues lined with palm trees, the beautiful weather. Then I thought of the traffic. And the crowds, and the noise. And the oppressive heat and humidity in the summer.
It was almost painful to think about.
“Those places have their own beauty.”
I shrugged. “They do. But it’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not, but I’m biased,” he said with a smile, which I tried and failed to return.
It was a few minutes before he spoke again. “You never mentioned what you’ll be doing in Miami.”
“I…it’s hard to think about it, you know? Carrie and I are supposed to be going together, to start these new jobs at a hotel that’s opening there. And if she doesn’t wake up, then how can I still go?”
“You’d go because it’s what she’d want you to do, Amelia. She’d want you to go on living.”
“But then I’d always wonder if I was following her dream instead of mine,” I whispered. And that was it, the thing I hadn’t admitted to anyone, not even myself.
He stopped walking. “Hey, look at me.”
I did, meeting those incredible eyes.
“Carrie would want you to be happy.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because you’ve been showing her to me this whole time. I feel like I know her, and I know this to be true. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.” I could almost believe anything he told me when he looked at me like that.
“So, tell me about the job.”
“It’s at a new hotel that’s opening up in South Beach, which is the happening place in Miami. It’ll mostly be working reception at the beginning, but there’s plenty of room to advance. I eventually want to get more into the tourism side of things, like arranging excursions and activities for the guests—sailing, parasailing, scuba diving, trips to the Keys and the Everglades. I’m hoping it’ll be a stepping-stone to working not just for the hotel but booking tours for anyone visiting the Miami area.”
“It sounds like you’re enthusiastic about it. I don’t think you have to worry that it’s just Carrie’s dream. Gordon from your group mentioned he works in that field. Did you talk to him at all?”
“I did. He gave me his card and said he’d be happy to meet with me when I get to Florida, which was nice of him.”
“Yeah, he was a nice guy.”
We stopped for a quick break and a snack at a spot overlooking two lochans (“wee inland lochs,” according to Rory), but he didn’t let us linger there. “We’ve still got about eight miles to Elgol,” he said, staring at the forbidding clouds overhead, which had not dissipated throughout the morning, as they’d sometimes done.
Another mountain soon came into view on the left, its summit lost in the clouds. “What’s that one?”
Without looking at it, he muttered something that sounded like bla-ven, then quickened his pace. I thought about hustling to catch up to him, but the path was flat enough that I could manage without his help.
I wondered at his sudden mood change. I didn’t think it was anything I’d said. At one point, he looked back and did a slight double-take when he saw that I was like twenty feet behind him.
He strode back to me. “Can you go any faster? It’s gonna start pouring any second.”
Indeed, the air felt heavy, electrified, the way it often did in July or August back home, when it was ninety-five degrees with 100 percent humidity, and a thunderstorm was imminent.
I picked up the pace, though only a little, because while my knee was holding up, I didn’t want to push it.
Bla Bheinn continued to tower over us on the left, but Rory didn’t even look at it as we passed. He was focused on the path before us, the sky over our heads, or on me. We hurried across no fewer than five streams as we passed a biggish loch on the right.
And then with a mighty crash of thunder, the skies opened up and rain poured down as if some great dam in the sky had been breached.
“We have to move faster,” he said. He took a firm hold of my arm and practically dragged me down the path. We hurried along, trudging through yet another stream and slogging through another bog, the mud sucking at our boots as if it wanted to keep us there for eternity.
And all the while, the rain continued to pour down as the sky rumbled. Finally, the path emerged at a bay. The sea was roiling, the whitecaps churning angrily.
“Almost there,” yelled Rory.
Almost where? There was no way we’d come twelve miles.
Then I saw a small hut a short way down the beach. “Please say we’re going there!”
“Yes, that’s the bothy at Camasunary Bay. We’ll take shelter there and see if the storm passes. We’re still about four miles from Elgol.”
When we reached the bothy, Rory opened the door and quickly ushered me inside the stone structure.
I stood there for a moment, so relieved to be indoors that I could have cried.
Rory touched my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
I smiled. “Just happy to be out of the rain.”
He smiled back. “Yeah, it was pretty rough out there. Let me help you with your boots.”
We stripped off all our wet gear and hung it in the entryway. I entered the main room, chafing my hands up and down my arms, trying to warm up. “It’s left unlocked? I mean, I’m obviously not complaining, I’m just surprised.”
“Aye, that’s the point. It’s maintained by the Mountain Bothy Association for exactly this purpose—for walkers to have a place to shelter.”
The front room had a picture window that offered a gorgeous view of the stormy bay. Below that was a counter that held a coffee can, a box of teabags, a few decks of cards, and some other random things. Along the opposite wall were two tables with benches. The back room had platform bunk beds along the right wall, each one roughly the width of a double bed, and additional single-layer platforms along the back and left walls. A decent number of people could stay in that room.
“Look what I found,” said Rory. I turned to see him holding a small bottle of whisky. “It’s still sealed, and this note was under the bottle.” He held out a scrap of paper.
To the next folks who use this bothy—this should help keep you warm. Slàinte!
“I wouldn’t say no to a sip or two of that,” I said.
“Neither would I. But first, let’s have some coffee and those sandwiches, and see if this weather clears.”
Rory began fiddling with the camp stove, and I pulled out the sandwiches he’d charmed the cook at the Sligachan Hotel into making for us. As we drank our coffee and ate our late lunch, I stared out the window. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.”
He sighed. “No, it doesn’t.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll see how it looks in an hour. If it hasn’t let up by then, we’ll have to stay here tonight and set out for Elgol in the morning. I don’t want to be on the path in the dark.”
We played a few hands of gin with the deck of cards. After I beat him in a best-of-five, he put on his boots, grabbed his raincoat, and went outside. He returned five minutes later, shaking his head.
“It’s still pouring, and a text just came through from Tommy from a few hours ago—the signal is dodgy out here. They’re in Torrin, and he says the storm is expected to last all night, but clear out by morning, and there’s supposed to be good weather tomorrow. Might as well make yourself comfortable.”
Fine with me. The eight miles we’d done today had pushed the limits of my endurance. I was content to call it a day and watch the rain through the windows.
I slipped my feet into my boots and pulled on my jacket for a quick trip around back (the bothy had no bathroom), then changed into my sweatpants, T-shirt, and fleece, along with a pair of thick socks. There was no electricity or heat in the bothy, and neither was there a fireplace. But there were four walls and a roof, and that’s what mattered.
He gestured to the bottle of whisky. “No reason to wait any longer to drink this.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“It’ll keep us warm, anyway.” He dug a cup out of his pack, poured a healthy amount of whisky into it, and handed it to me. “Ladies first.” I raised it in salute and took a sip, then passed it to him. He finished it and poured more.
We sat at the table with the deck of cards. I dealt a round of War, which would keep us occupied for a while. I took another swig. I could get used to sipping whisky while listening to the rain pour down outside. All that was missing was a fire.
“So, The Lord of the Rings: books or movies?” I figured it was time to get to the important stuff.
“Och, that’s a tough one.” He took the cup from me and spun it between his long fingers. “I think I have to say the movies,” he said after a moment. “I love the books, especially Fellowship, but the movies are brilliant. You?”
“I love the books, too, but they’re my favorite movies of all time. Extended editions, obviously.”
“Obviously. What made you ask?”
“I saw that you have Fellowship with you.”
His brow crinkled. “When did you see that?”
“The other morning, when I went to the loo by myself while you were sleeping. When I looked in your tent, you’d fallen asleep with it in your hand. You must love it a lot to carry it around with you.”
“I do,” he said. He drained the whisky, then refilled the cup again.
I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I snagged the cup from him and took a sip. “What kind of music do you like?”
“Classic rock, all the way. I don’t listen to the radio enough to hear what’s current, anyway. You? Wait, let me guess.”
I sat back, crossing my arms smugly across my chest. No way would he get it.
“Eighties hair bands?”
I gaped at him. “How could you possibly have guessed that?”
He grinned. “You sing or hum sometimes while we’re walking. I think I’ve heard Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, maybe even some Poison? Definitely Bon Jovi.”
“Wait, you’ve heard me sing? I thought it was mostly in my head.”
“Not always, as I’m still trying to master my mind-reading skills. So, leather pants and long hair, eh? That’s what does it for you?” He ran his hand through his own longish hair and raised his eyebrows suggestively.
Under Armour and cargo shorts did it for me, too, but he probably already knew that. “Don’t forget the guyliner.”
He’d just taken a sip of whisky, and he sputtered slightly, clapping his hand over his mouth. “Who could forget that? I have some in my pack, but I don’t like to wear it on the trail, because it gets in my eyes when I sweat.”
I grinned. “Trust me, I know all about that.”
We continued playing cards and making small talk as the rain came down. Dinner was beef stew and chicken stir-fry again, but this time we just passed them back and forth, neither of us caring about double-dipping our sporks.
Rory didn’t say much during dinner, and in spite of our earlier light conversation (and my repeated kicking of his ass in cards), he was growing more and more tense as the evening wore on. Wordlessly, I poured him some more whisky and slid the cup across the table. He practically chugged it, not bothering to savor it in his mouth like he usually did.
“Rory, what’s wrong?”
He glanced up at me and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Is there something I should know about spending the night here?” If he was nervous about staying in this place, I wanted to know.
His brows drew together, and he cocked his head to the side. “No. The bothy was just built last year, and it’s well insulated. Why do you ask?”
“Because you seem tense.”
“I’m fine,” he repeated.
But the long sip of whisky that followed belied his statement.