lived I knew that the main road out of my village would eventually take you to Inverness or Edinburgh two bigger cities that were full of people and according to our teachers great opportunities Though they never did explain what kinds of opportunities they meant I grew up in the village of Applecross in the far northern part of Scotland It was a nice enough place to grow up It had everything you needed to survive but not much in the way of distractions Applecross had two roads a main square with a small fountain that never worked Mr Fionnbhurd’s pub a supermarket and various other stores The farms were located just south of the village Nearly all of them were involved in raising sheep just like my father’s farm North of the village was the mill where they used to make the wheat Only old lady Cumai lived there now Higher up in the hills on the heathland were the remains of a large deserted castle Cumai herself claimed
the place was haunted on the thirteenth day of every month On the opposite side was the cold and murky sea On windy days the sky was clear and the clouds sped by like wool through the threads of a loom But when the wind dropped and the tide receded clouds of mosquitoes would swarm the beach But that didn’t stop me and Patches from searching the beach for treasures Yes treasures You might not believe me but Patches and I actually found a message in a bottle once Patches was my dog He was as tall as my knees and had long ears and shaggy fur He found the bottle actually I put it in my bedroom along with the other pieces in my collection of rare finds including chunks of metal pieces of driftwood and strange rocks I labeled each of them with names like Ligneous Steganosaurus Bone or Dry Leaves from the City of Doucumber I’m not sure if a Steganosaurus ever really existed or if there actually was a city named Doucumber I just made up the names on the labels so that Doug my brother wouldn’t try to
steal them Doug was obsessed with rugby girls and being a total idiot At the time he was sixteen and had already dropped out of school That was probably the only thing we had in common I didn’t care about finishing school either Viper That’s what my brother nicknamed me I think he chose it because I used to crouch down in the grass and hurl myself at him when we were little Or maybe it was because I used to lie on the rocks in the sun all the time I hated being called Viper but there wasn’t anything I could do about it Once a nickname sticks it stays with you forever Anyway it was true I did like sitting on the rocks especially the ones along the curve of the Baelanch Ba The name Baelanch Ba might sound fake like the names on my labels but it’s actually Gaelic for Oxen Road We just called it the Coastal Road and it ran along the entire coast There were several huge stacks of rocks
next to the road that were almost as big as the ancient dolmen which are basically big tables made of boulders I used to climb on top of them sit with my legs crossed and gaze out at the islands on the other side of the sea When I was young my father taught me the islands names in a particular order saying it had always been done that way in Applecross First came the islets to the north where the clouds seemed to come from Then slowly you traced your finger along the islands until you got to Skyle the largest one It was black eerie and surrounded by shadows My father promised me we would visit the island of Skyle on my fourteenth birthday which was less than a year away I was looking forward to it As I said life was good That is until the Lily clan arrived and everything changed
