Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Then the sound of the tannoy cuts through the racket as it crackles, hisses, and comes to life. “This is a safety announcement. All passengers, please make your way inside the boat immediately.”
My heart clenches in my chest. Safety announcement? I glance around. There’s only a few of us standing on the deck. Everyone else that boarded the ferry is already sheltering from the elements. I’m closest to the door to the inside, so I turn and bend to pick up my case when the boat rears up like a spooked horse. The movement tips me over and I land against the side of the ferry, my shoulder taking the brunt of my fall.
Before I work out which way is up, two men appear and lift me from under my arms. I yelp in pain as they pull me to my feet. “Get inside,” one of them cries.
I look around for my case, but it’s gone. No! I can’t have lost that bloody parcel. “My case!”
The man who yelled at me points toward the other guy who’s heading inside, pulling my luggage with him.
Thank God. I make my way toward the door, the ferry lifting and falling in a way it hadn’t been up until now. I step into the interior of the ferry and the door slams violently behind me, as if to say, you bloody idiot, don’t come back out until you’re told.
The room I find myself in is painted white in that shiny outdoor paint and there are windows, waist height, on three walls. It’s actually brighter in here than it is outdoors. There’s a door through to another room, but about eight people are sitting on the three benches that line the walls of this room. I grab my case and slide onto the end of the wooden bench facing forward. To the side of me, a woman fiddles with a rosary. To be fair, if I was Catholic, I’d be making the sign of the cross and saying some Hail Marys right now. I know it’s Scotland, but this sea is rough. The only ferries I’ve ever been on are the huge car-transport types we used to go on when I was a kid to cross the English Channel to France. None of them were ever quite this…bouncy.
I glance around at people’s expressions, trying to figure out if they’re scared. If people aren’t allowed out on deck, maybe the conditions have changed since we set sail. Maybe the crew isn’t prepared for seas this rough.
I turn to the woman next to me, my fear surpassing my embarrassment at talking to a complete stranger. “Is that normal for them to ban people from the deck?” I ask.
She doesn’t turn to look at me as she taps at her mobile phone. “I’ve never known people to be out on deck in the winter.”
I’m clearly not a local. But given that I’m not even allowed to take the rental car across on the ferry, because all cars on Rum require a permit, are there any locals on Rum? And how on earth did Zach end up here of all places?
It’s none of my business, I tell myself. I’m just here to deliver a package and I’ll be off the island and back to Glasgow by the end of the day.
A very long hour and forty-five minutes after we set sail, we dock at Rum harbor. Alive.
“Thank you,” I call out as I come down the metal walkway onto solid ground. I’m not sure if I’m talking to the captain, the crew, or the woman with the rosary beads—any and all who kept us safe, I suppose.
Now, I just have to find Kinloch Cottage. That’s all the address I have. Kinloch Cottage, Rum. I glance around, trying to get my bearings, but don’t have to work out which direction to go. There’s only one. I follow the rest of the ferry passengers up the road. Most of them are being picked up in cars at the small car park about fifty meters from the harbor. But two continue up the road and I follow them. They must be heading into town. Or the village, or wherever there’s life on this tiny island. When the two people I’m trailing get into a car farther up the road, I realize I have no idea where I’m heading or how long it will take me to walk there. I guess part of me just supposed there’d be a taxi stand off the ferry? No such luck. To make matters worse, the fog that engulfed us on the ferry seems to have followed me on land, and I can’t see more than ten meters ahead.
Fuck fog.
Fuck Scotland.
Fuck Zach Cove.
I stop, wondering whether I should go back to the ferry terminal to see if anyone there knows how to get to Kinloch Cottage. The beep of a car horn makes me jump, but the couple in the car I followed off the ferry pull up beside me.