The Winter Sea

Surprised, I said, ‘That would be nice.’

I was kicking myself for my bland choice of words, but he didn’t appear to have noticed.

‘Right, then. How does ten o’clock suit you? You’ve no problem walking the coast path?’

‘No problem at all,’ I assured him.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Again I was hit with that flash of a smile, and as I looked at it I realized why I’d had that niggling feeling I’d seen Stuart’s face before. The brothers weren’t that much alike, but there was still a slight resemblance, although Graham’s features, to my mind, revealed a force of character, a strength, that had no echo in the face of his more handsome brother.

Stuart might be nice to look at. Graham was the kind of man I couldn’t look away from.

Maybe that was why, when he had gone, the first thing that I did was make a beeline for my workbook. In the section bookmarked ‘Characters’, I wrote three pages, longhand—the descriptive details of a man with eyes the color of the winter sea.

I didn’t know exactly how I’d use him yet, but I had a suspicion that when I began to write tonight he’d turn up somewhere, entering the story with that easy, rolling stride that said he had a right to be there.

It was nearly time for supper when the knock came at my door.

I knew it was unlikely to be Graham, but my face must still have shown at least a trace of disappointment when I saw that it was Dr Weir, because he said, apologetically, ‘I didn’t interrupt your work, I hope?’

Recovering, I said, ‘Oh, no, of course not. Please, come in.’

‘I’ll not stay long.’ He wiped his feet, and stepped inside. ‘I promised Elsie I’d be home by dark. I’ve found those plans that I was telling you about, the plans that show Slains as it was in the old days, before the Victorian earls made it over. And I found a few old photographs I thought might be of interest to you. Where did I put them, now?’ Feeling inside his coat pocket, he found the small envelope holding the photos. The plans he’d brought rolled in a brown cardboard tube that he’d put, in its turn, in a clear plastic bag so it wouldn’t get wet. A wise precaution, I decided, since the strong wind off the sea had spattered water on his eyeglasses.

He took them off and wiped them while I put the plans and photos on my work table. ‘I don’t have any Scotch,’ I said, ‘but I could make you tea or coffee.’

‘No, my dear, I’m fine.’ He looked around with open interest and approval. ‘Jimmy’s made this very cozy.’

‘He’s been wonderful.’

‘Aye, all the Keiths are fairly that,’ he told me. ‘Even Stuart, for his faults. He got you back home in the one piece, I see.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘He’s a good lad, Stuart is, but…’ The doctor appeared to be choosing his words. ‘He’s still a lad, in many ways.’ Which, so I gathered, was meant as a fatherly warning.

I smiled, to show him there wasn’t a need. ‘Yes, I’ve noticed.’ And then, pretending ignorance, I asked him, ‘What’s the other brother like? The one who teaches?’

‘Graham? Well now, Graham is a very different animal from Stuart. Very different.’ He turned thoughtful. ‘He’s a person you should talk to, now I think of it. His memory’s remarkably good, and he has the resources to look things up for you. Besides,’ he said, ‘he’s something of a Jacobite himself, young Graham. Anything to do with the ’08, he’ll likely know it. He lives down in Aberdeen now, but he comes up nearly every weekend. You might see him sometimes on the beach—he has a dog with him, a little spaniel dog.’ He tapped his watch. ‘Is that the time? I must be going. Keep those photographs as long as you’ve a use for them. The plans, as well. I hope they’ll be some help.’

I knew they would be, and I told him so.

Mind you, I thought, when he had gone and I was left alone again, they’d also serve to make my morning’s work a waste of effort. Crossing to my work table, I pushed my made-up floor plan to one side so I could make room for the real one.

It slid smoothly from its tube, and I unrolled it on the table, pinning down the upcurled edges with a ruler and the long edge of my workbook. There it was—the proper layout of Slains castle, drawn to scale and neatly labeled.

I examined it, then frowned, and with a disbelieving hand reached for the plan I’d drawn this morning. I laid it carefully alongside, for comparison.

There was no way, I thought, this could have happened. But it had.

They were the same.

Not just a little bit alike. They were identical. The kitchen, and the drawing room, the chamber where Sophia slept, the little corner room with light for sewing, they were all here, in the places where I’d put them in my writing, where I’d seen them in my mind.

But how? How did a person draw a thing so perfectly they’d never seen before?

I felt a stirring in the depths of my subconscious, and again the woman’s voice within my mind said softly, ‘So, you see, my heart is held forever by this place…’

Except the voice I heard this time was not Sophia’s.

It was mine.

Jane was calming, on the telephone. ‘All right, it’s weird, I’ll grant you that.’

I told her, ‘Weird is not the word. It’s freaky.’

‘Carrie, darling, you’ve got a photographic memory. You can quote entire conversations that we had three years ago. I’m telling you, you’ve seen the castle plans somewhere before, that’s all. You’ve just forgotten.’