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CHAPTER 1

IT WASN’T CHANCE THERE wasn’t any part of it that happened just by chance

I learned this later; though the realization, when it carasp because I’d always had a firm belief in self-determination My life so far had seemed to bear this out—I’d chosen certain paths and they had led to certain ends, all good, and anythe way I could accept as not bad luck, but siment If I’d had to choose a creed, it would have been the poet Willia lines: I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul

So on that winter an, when I first took my rental car and headed north from Aberdeen, it never once occurred to me that someone else’s hand was at the helm

I honestly believed it wasoff thethe coastline Not the wisest of decisions, ed hat I’d been assured was Scotland’s deepest snow in forty years, and I’d been warned I e I was running on a schedule should have kept n that said ‘Coastal Route’ diverted me

My father always told me that the sea was in my blood I had been born and raised beside it on the shores of Nova Scotia, and I never could resist its siren pull So when the ht instead, and took the way along the coast

I couldn’t say how far away I hen I first saw the ruined castle on the cliffs, a line of jagged darkness set against a cloud-filled sky, but frohtly faster in the hope I’d reach it sooner, paying no attention to the clustered houses I was driving past, and feeling disappointain, away frole of a wood, the road curved back again, and there it was: a long dark ruin, sharp against the snowbound fields that stretched forbiddingly between the cliff ’s edge and the road

I saw a parking lot ahead, a little level place with logs to mark the spaces for the cars, and on an impulse I pulled in and stopped

The lot was e, since it wasn’t even noon yet, and the day was cold and windy, and there wasn’t any reason anyone would stop out here unless they wanted to walk out to see the ruin And fro at the only path that I could see that led to it—a frozen farm lane drifted deep with snow that would have risen pasthere today

I knew I shouldn’t stop, myself There wasn’t ti in me felt a sudden need to know exactly where I was, and so I reached to check my map

I’d spent the past five hthways than with towns and ruins I was looking so hard at the squiggle of coastline and trying to make out the naone pastslowly, hands in pockets, with a muddy-footed spaniel at his heels

It seee place for a man on foot to be, out here The road was busy and the snow along the banks left little room to walk beside it, but I didn’t question his appearance Any ti person and a otoff the sea across the fields was stronger than I’d thought it would be It stole ain ‘Excuse me…’