On the Bridge of Sea Mist

It was the minister himself who oversaw the emptying of the cottage, and he who built a bonfire, and cast upon it all the old, unholy grimoires that Alasdair MacAskill had hoarded. They burned with a black and noisome smoke. One item he did not burn, but, strangely for a man of his calling, buried and placed under a small cairn of stones from the old tower. As he had removed Alasdair's books, a single, loose sheet had fallen from between them, and fluttered to the floor of the cottage. When he had picked it up, he saw that it was, incongruously, a leaf torn from a child's fairy-tale book – a faded illustration of a queenly figure, tall and beautiful, with high cheekbones, pale eyes, and flowing, dark hair. She stood with one foot upon an aetherial bridge, spanning an awful gulf, and at the other side, dimly drawn, was a land of enchantment.

These days, the cottage is a ruin, and the tower reduced, fallen into the sea. Nearby folk are no longer superstitious, and do not fear the howling of the storms which sometimes come to the western coast of Scotland. The dour minister has long since left his mortal ministry, and no doubt now knows more joy, in some world invisible to us, than he did in life. Only Rab MacRae is left, old and half-blind. When the wind howls, or the seabirds scream, he swears – to the derision of the wiser folk of today – that he can hear two women, calling out in joy to one another.