PROLOGUE:

The cellar was damp and dark. I tried to push aside my childish fears, but my intuition told me that this musty, putrid smell was evil. My eyes frantically searched the cavernous space for something that would guide me back to civilisation and warmth, and that’s when I saw it.

A book.

Sitting neatly on it’s on own on the floor, like a discarded sweet wrapper that had been carelessly cast aside by it’s owner.

My cold hands were sweating with adrenaline from my fall and my dexterity had left my fingers. The brown aged leather felt smooth to touch, but cold, so cold. I almost dropped the book again as its touch was not what I had expected. It seemed to have a source of ice radiating from it that was distinctly different to it’s surroundings. My IPhone torch was holding up and as I tried to flick through each page it became apparent that this was a diary. The handwriting scrawled and curled with distinct stylised wording. Letters and inks blotches smeared the yellow parchment with crossings out that had been fiercely sliced through. Even with my fingers being so cold, I could detect the heavy indentation of the ink pens tracks. The language was not of one I could translate, but I felt fear from the spidery nature of the writing and the energy that the book was radiating. As I kept flicking through the pages, the writing turned to drawings that had been smudged and blotched in red.

I panicked. This wasn’t red crayons or scarlet felt tips. This was blood.

The blood wasn’t from the wound on my own head from the fall, this was someone else’s, but who and why? A deep, guttural sound erupted in my throat, I screamed as loud as I could to be heard from the House above me. HELP ME!

Chapter One- New Beginnings

The house completely sucked. Everything about it.

Where do I even start without it sounding like a teenager having a huge hormonal hissy fit?

We’d come back to my Mom’s native ancestral home, but this was not my home. It was cold, dark, stormy and all the kids talked weird. I was told the accent was something between Norwegian and Gaelic dialects, but to be honest, I’d switched off from the conversation I was having at the time with my older Sister, Jen. Listening to the Jonas Brothers was much better than trying to comprehend the shit-show I was about to be put through. I wanted to block everything out, everything!

Mom had wanted to get the hell away from everything and everyone after the accident and it was completely understandable, but hell, what was she thinking? What the hell is a 13 year old boy supposed to do in the back ass of nowhere? In my mind there’s a huge mis-match between a Californian teen from San Fran and a small remote island community in the Scottish Shetlands.

We’d arrived in Vaila late in the afternoon on the Ferry. The journey from San Francisco had been arduous for us all. So many thoughts were in our minds whilst we travelled and most of the time we sat in silence and watched the world rush past us. We were grieving and in robot mode.

As we pulled and dragged our belongings into our ‘new’ car (a dirty 40- year old Land Rover Defender) at the Harbour Car Park I took a deep intake of breathe. This was not what I’d signed up for. Where was Starbucks? Where was our GMC Acadia?

My only thought at this point was: If this is the island, this is the car, then what’s the house like?

My question was answered 30 minutes later after driving through dark- water filled pot holes and off-terrain country farm tracks. It was dusk and not much could be seen from the window, but I recall the first sight of Claigeann Taigh as it loomed in the darkness from behind a rocky outcrop.

The imposing 17th Century Mansion was everything you’d think of from your darkest dreams. Cold grey stone, with more windows than I could count. Two lights dimly shone from the front portico where the shadow of a man’s silhouette stood waiting to greet us. This was my Grandpa, and a man I’d never met.