Christmas at the Edge of the World

“My great-aunt’s cottage, in the north of Scotland. Your great-great-aunt’s, you know. She’s lovely.” And she wouldn’t be there. “It’s a wonderful place, full of charm.” As if fourteen-year-old boys cared about charm. “I thought we could use a change of scenery,” Laurel finished a bit desperately, and to her surprise, Zac had stared at her for a long moment and then merely shrugged.

“Fine. Whatever,” he said, and walked off.

Laurel decided to take it as a win. She wasn’t going to have to drag him there kicking and screaming, at least, and once they got

to Eilidh’s cottage…well, things would get better. A lot better. They would start to make sense. Or so she was desperately hoping—that the magic of Eilidh’s cottage was still there, still worked.

Now, after nine hours of driving through Christmas traffic and the hour-long ferry from Scrabster, Laurel was still clinging onto that hope, more out of sheer, bloody-minded determination than actual belief, but still. Good things were going to happen.

Zac had barely spoken to her all day, immersed as usual in his phone, although the signal had become patchy on the ferry, and he’d resorted to staring moodily out at the darkened sea instead. Conversation was clearly not an option, and Laurel decided to wait until they were settled in the cottage, cosy and warm, before she attempted to crack his cold veneer.

The ship began to creak and clank like Marley’s ghost as it drew up to the quay, and Laurel climbed back into the Rover. “The cottage is only a few minutes away,” she said brightly. “Right on the beach. We’ll be there in no time.”

Zac did not reply. What a surprise.

Soon they were driving off the boat into Stromness, a town Laurel remembered as quaint and charming, with steep, narrow streets, some of them cobbled, and terraced cottages rising above on the hillside. She couldn’t see any of it in the impenetrable darkness of a midwinter’s night, and as she followed the traffic off the ferry, she wished she’d thought to print out some directions to Bayview Cottage.

For some inexplicable reason, she’d thought she’d be able to find her way instinctively—take a right off the boat, follow the street to the edge of town, the cottage was on the right. She remembered her mother calling back to them, saying how they were almost there, as she and Abby pressed their noses to the back window and watched the town’s main street wind its way along the harbour, thrilled to be back on the island and soon out of the car.

Only everything looked different now; there was even a Tesco Superstore in Kirkwall, Laurel had seen online, and Stromness seemed bigger too, more buildings along the narrow harbour side street, ones she didn’t recognise or remember, and had the street really been this long? In her memory it had been a few seconds between the ferry and Bayview, but clearly that hadn’t been the case.

“I thought you said it was only a few minutes away?” Zac said, startling her because she’d half-forgotten he was there. She was hunched over the steering wheel, peering at the road, her eyes straining in the darkness, the car’s headlights seeming to make very little difference against the impenetrable blackness that loomed everywhere.

“It is.”

“We’ve been driving for ten minutes.”

“Have we? Goodness.” The buildings had dropped off so all was darkness, the water no more than a black gleam in the distance, more a sense than a reality. “I suppose I missed it. It’s been awhile since I’ve been here.” Zac sighed heavily. And biting her lip, Laurel manoeuvred the huge Rover into a dirt track in her best attempt at a three-point turn. It was closer to seven.

“It should be up here on the left somewhere…” Laurel murmured as she headed back towards town, hanging onto her upbeat tone by a thread. “I know it’s right on the edge of Stromness…” Although was it? She and Abby had walked into town, but it had taken ages. Laurel remembered complaining that her feet hurt. So maybe it wasn’t as close as her hazy memory had made her believe. Maybe nothing was as she’d remembered, a possibility that made her stomach lurch in panic.

And why was it so dark? It had never been dark when they’d driven up before, but then, of course, it had been summer, the season of midnight sunsets, rooms full of golden light even as she’d been going to sleep. It certainly wasn’t like that now.

“Where?” Zac demanded. There was nothing to see anywhere but field and sea and darkness. Lots of darkness.

“Somewhere…” Laurel bit her lip. She’d been really stupid not to look the directions up on Google, and of course her phone had no signal, something she’d actually been grateful for, except for now when she could most definitely use it. And the truth was she’d had some naïve, fairy-tale belief that everything would magically fall into place the second she arrived on the island, because this was Orkney, land that she loved. Right.

Just then, with the world feeling so unfamiliar and so dark, Laurel’s optimism slipped. She almost wished they hadn’t come. What if the cottage wasn’t the cure-all she was naively hoping it could be? Or if not a cure-all, then at least some sort of beginning, a way to make this right, or at least better. Surely that wasn’t too much to hope for?

“What does it even look like?” Zac asked.

“It’s a little stone cottage, right by the sea. It’s got a steep slate roof and a little blue gate in front…” And that was all Laurel could remember, actually. But here was an unexpected plus—she and Zac were having more conversation now than they’d had in the last eleven days. “It’s lovely,” she finished, a bit lamely, as Zac peered out the window.

“Is that it?” He flung out a hand towards a narrow lane leading off to the left, a building barely visible in the distance, behind some runty looking trees and a tall, prickly hedge.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember it being so far from the road.” But then she didn’t seem to remember much about Bayview Cottage, except for a few hazy details, like some gold-tinted montage from a Disney film. This was the right location—somewhere on the outside of Stromness, anyway.

“I suppose we could at least check,” Laurel said, and slowly pulled the Rover into the narrow, rutted lane, overgrown hedges brushing either side of the car as they bumped their way towards the cottage.

“There’s a gate,” Zac said, sounding unimpressed as he nodded towards the house, and Laurel caught sight of a weathered wooden gate hanging off one hinge. Once upon a time it might have been blue.

“Winters are hard here, I suppose,” she murmured. At least it looked as if they might be in the right place. Laurel pulled up next to the cottage and turned off the engine. She looked at Zac, who was looking even more unimpressed.

“Are we actually staying here?”

“Well, yes. At least, I think we are. Assuming this is Bayview…” Laurel peered at the darkened cottage as she climbed out of the car. “It is!” she called back to Zac. “Look, it says it next to the door.” She pointed to a hand-painted slate sign. Zac did not deign to reply.

“It’ll be fine inside,” Laurel told him bracingly. “And wait till we get the fire going…” She was determined to stay cheerful now, despite the icy wind that blew off the sea, and the rain that needled her face with sharp, stinging points. It was freezing. Never mind.