Free Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Kerry Barrett

put out at being woken up. I knew how she felt. She jumped down from the chair and stalked snootily out of the cat flap while Eva walked, far less snootily, out of the front door.
    I sat at the kitchen table with my head in my hands. James Brodie. My emotions were all over the place as it was, without this blast from the past coming back into my life. I’d known Jamie had wanted to be a doctor like his GP dad, but the last I heard he was off working in disaster zones for the Red Cross or something. Never in a million years had I expected him to be in Claddach too. I couldn’t believe Chloé hadn’t mentioned it. Or had she? I vaguely remembered her gasping when he’d come up in conversation…oh but then I’d been sidetracked by the woman in the tam o shanter and we’d not gone back to Jamie.
    I’d met Jamie when I was fifteen. As a teenager I knew getting good exam results was my ticket out of Loch Claddach and so I’d thrown myself into my studies, poring over my books for hours after school and at weekends.
    Mum made me go out for a walk every day, practically forcing me into a jacket and pushing me down the hill.
    ‘A healthy mind in a healthy body,’ she’d cry, waving me off as I trudged down the road. But soon I grew to like my walks. Back then I was desperately embarrassed by my strange family and the hustle and bustle of life at home and in the café was almost too much for my self-conscious, painfully shy teenage self to bear. I rejected my magic and rudely avoided Mum’s attempts to get me interested in the family business. I longed to get away and the silence of the loch gave me a much-needed escape.
    One wintery day, after a huge storm had raged across the loch for most of the night, I was walking along my usual route along the shore when I came across a massive boulder that had been dislodged from the foot of the cliffs by the wind and rain. Where it had been was now a small cave, hidden from the road by the cliffs and sheltered from the gale whipping across the water by the boulder itself. Eagerly I scrambled across the shingle and ducked into the cave. It was small, I could touch the walls with my arms outspread, but it was dry and – bliss – so quiet. I loved it.
    I’d gone home that day and got a blanket and some candles as well as a pile of books and my Walkman. Then, every time I’d wanted peace and quiet, I’d headed to my rocky refuge and lost myself in a novel.
    As winter loosened its grip and the daffodils bloomed, my exams approached and I arrived at my cave one day to find someone else there. It was a tall, gangly boy about my own age. He was wearing a dark blue Scotland rugby shirt and sitting against the stony wall, his long legs bent up awkwardly. He had floppy dark brown hair that curled over his collar – ‘wasted on a boy’, my Gran would’ve said – and he was reading my copy of Pride and Prejudice .
    Hearing me approach, he looked up and grinned.
    ‘I think Lizzie is a bit of a drip,’ he said. ‘No wonder Darcy is so snotty with her.’
    Outraged, I darted forward and pulled the book from his hands.
    ‘She is not a drip,’ I said. ‘And who are you?’
    ‘It’s better on the telly than in the book,’ the boy said, getting to his feet and holding out his hand. ‘James Brodie.’
    ‘It was good on the telly,’ I admitted. I had the video of the BBC adaptation with handsome Colin Firth as brooding Mr Darcy and watched it over and over again. I shook the boy’s hand cautiously.
    ‘Esme McLeod,’ I scowled. ‘This is my place.’
    ‘I love what you’ve done with it,’ Jamie said cheekily. He screwed up his nose. ‘Can I share it?’
    I opened my mouth to say no. My cave was my sanctuary and I didn’t want anyone else there. But instead, for reasons that I never really understood, I said yes. And pretty much every time I went to the cave after that, Jamie was there too.
    Thinking of Jamie was giving me a headache now so I stood up and poured myself