Kai nodded.
“Oh, well, great,” said Colton. He looked at Fintan. “What do you think?”
“I don’t mind,” Fintan said.
Colton blinked several times.
“What? If you were living there, you really wouldn’t mind them?”
“If I was living there,” said Fintan, going bright pink, “I don’t think anything would bother me.”
There was a pause.
Colton swung around to the council table.
“Fine,” he said. “That is absolutely fine.”
Maggie Buchanan made a small, neat note on her paperwork. “Any other business?” she said.
Chapter Fifty-one
They left the chamber in silence.
“Well, that’s great,” said Kai. “I appear to have just lost my first case.”
“It’s in a foreign jurisdiction,” said Flora. “It totes doesn’t count.”
Colton had disappeared on his phone. Fintan, on the other hand, was looking thrilled.
“Who says we lost?” he said, grinning with happiness.
As they emerged, they found themselves in the middle of a mob of people carrying flaming torches.
“It’s the Lughnasa,” said Flora.
Lorna came running up.
“How did you do? How did it go?!”
“Well . . . we kind of lost,” said Flora glumly.
“No way!”
“Are you Lorna?” said Kai.
“Yes! Hello!” And Lorna embraced Kai so instinctively, Flora couldn’t help perking up.
“I suppose it could be worse,” she said. “The Rock will still be beautiful.”
“Come on!” said Lorna. “Screw that. We’ve got mead!” She passed over a large bottle. “Come to the Lughnasa!”
And they couldn’t help themselves; the crowd was moving too fast, and they allowed themselves to go with the flow, down the road, toward the sunset and the oncoming darkness that Flora knew was about to settle on Mure and stay the entire winter long. The laughing faces of friends and neighbors were reflected now not in sunlight, but in the flickering flames of the torches.
Isla and Iona passed, their hair done up in leaves, symbolizing the falling leaves of the end of summer and the harvest brought safely in. They were at the front of the procession carrying the great green man down to the harbor to be set alight.
“This place is INSANE!” shrieked Kai, swigging more mead.
Innes, without Agot, had somehow materialized at their side, and they paraded down to the sound of beating drums and high skirling pipes.
Ruaridh MacLeod was this year’s king, as Isla’s flushed and happy face attested, and he stood on the very tip of the harbor as the green man was lit and placed upon the ceremonial boat.
“Here we call you!” he intoned, as the first flames started to take hold of the great figure.
“Domnall mac Taidc far vel!”
“Far vel!” shouted the crowd, raising their cups and glasses.
“Donnchadh of Argyll far vel!”
“Far vel!”
The flames were licking up the structure now. It was the first properly dark night of the year, and the chill was coming down from the fells.
“Dubgall mac Somairle far vel!”
“Far vel!”
“Dughgall mac Ruaidhri far vel!”
“Far vel!”
The names went on and on. The figure was properly alight now, and was being cast off by the men closest. Flora glanced round. Lorna was standing close to Saif, although they weren’t touching. She looked down at the road to the port. Parked there was a gleaming brand-new sports car with its top down. There were very few cars like that on Mure. She squinted. Who the hell was that?
To her total and utter surprise, Hamish heaved his enormous bulk out of it, alongside, of all people, Inge-Britt. Flora couldn’t help it; she nudged Innes.
“Look!”
“Ah yes,” said Innes, smiling. “I don’t think he saw much point in saving his share of the farm money.”
“He wanted a red sports car?”
“All the time, apparently.”
Flora laughed.
“Oh for God’s sake. I will never understand anybody.”
“Fingall mac Gofraid far vel!” bellowed Ruaridh.
“FAR VEL!”
The crowd was getting rowdier, the shouting and the music louder and louder. Andy would keep the bar open very late tonight.
“I’m sorry about your case!” Flora hollered to Kai. “I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job of persuading people.”
Kai glanced around to where Colton and Fintan were entwined and making out madly up by the beer garden.
“Do you know, I don’t think they’re that fussed,” he said, smiling. “Anyway, I don’t understand the problem.”
“What do you mean?” said Flora.
“With the wind farms. I think they’re beautiful, those turbines. They look like they grow out of the sea. I think they’re absolutely lovely. I bet they’ll love looking at them on windy days.”
Lorna and Flora looked at each other, shrugged, and chinked their glasses together.
“Harald Olafsson, far vel!”
“FAR VEL!”
There were a lot of Haralds, Flora thought. And then she concentrated on enjoying the flames, and the night, and the mead, until suddenly Ruaridh stopped shouting and the drums fell quiet and they all stared as—what they often hoped would happen at Lughnasa but so rarely did—the Northern Lights began, gentle at first, then, soon, rippling across the sky, in skeins of dancing yellow and green. Fingers pointed, cameras were taken out; the Viking ship traveled on unnoticed into the dark of the night as awestruck people took in the greatest of all shows dancing the full width of the night sky.
Flora eventually broke away from the crowd. It wasn’t that she wasn’t enjoying herself. She just needed to think. She decided to wander up the beach, knowing for sure that nobody else would be there. At the headland, she watched the incredible display above her, glancing back to the firelit group of happy people down by the harbor. Was she really going to leave this? For what? Dry paperwork all day? Cases that got lost? Sitting on a sweaty, overcrowded train every day, over and over? Heating up her dinner from a plastic tray, waiting for the ping of a dirty microwave?
She thought about what Colton had said. About the fresh faces of Iona and Isla, and their excitement about all the possibilities Mure presented them with.
She sighed and stared out to sea. Under the rippling lights, she caught sight suddenly—nobody across the harbor seemed to have seen it; they were still all staring up—of a pod of whales, orcas by their fins, tossing and turning in the moonlight and the aurora borealis. As if they knew where she belonged. Where she could be herself, could be valued, not just as a cog in a huge, impersonal machine.
Where it could be all right. Not perfect. But all right.
She stared at the lights for a little while longer. Oh, they were so beautiful. When she was wee, her mother had told her it was just the clouds dancing, and would wake her up at night to see them.
As she stared, one of the lights flashed and turned red. She looked at it again. What the hell was that? It wasn’t part of the aurora display. It looked more like . . .
And then she started to run.
Chapter Fifty-two