Chapter 1: The Whisky and the Wanting
The attic bedroom smelled of dust and damp wool, of old paper and the ghost of a thousand peat fires. Isla lay perfectly still, listening to the distant skirl of bagpipes from some far-off gathering in the village below. The sun was a dying ember behind the hills, bleeding rust and gold across the slanted ceiling, painting the familiar clutter of her childhood summers in long, distorted shadows.
“God, I’d forgotten how lumpy this mattress is,” Morven murmured into the shared pillow. Her voice was a low, warm thing in the dimming light. “It’s like sleeping on a sack of potatoes.”
“A very old, very musty sack of potatoes,” Isla agreed, her own voice soft. The single malt from their grandfather’s clandestine stash glowed warmly in her veins. It had been Morven’s idea, of course. Sneaking down to the parlour, giggling like girls again, tipping the precious amber liquid into two mismatched tumblers. They’d drunk it sitting cross-legged on the worn rug, the silence of the big, empty house a blanket around them.
Now, under the heavy quilt, the space between their bodies was a charged and fragile thing. They had shared this bed for a dozen summers, until adolescence had made it strange. That strangeness had returned, fuller, thicker than before.
Morven shifted. Her foot, cold, brushed against Isla’s calf. Isla sucked in a quiet breath.
“Sorry,” Morven whispered, though she didn’t move her foot away.
“S’alright.”
The pipes faded into the gathering dusk. A floorboard creaked somewhere deep in the house’s bones. Isla was acutely aware of the scent of Morven’s shampoo—something clean and sharp, like green apples—cutting through the attic’s old-smell. She stared at a water stain on the ceiling, shaped like a frond of bracken.
Morven’s hand moved.
It wasn’t an accident. It was a slow, deliberate slide from her own side of the bed, over the rough linen sheet, until her fingertips found the thin cotton of Isla’s nightdress, just above her hip. The touch was a brand. Isla’s whole body went taut, a wire strung too tight.
Morven’s fingers paused. The entire world narrowed to that single point of contact.
“Isla?” Her name was just a breath, barely audible.
Isla couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Her heart was a frantic bird against her ribs. This was her cousin. This was Morven, who cut her own hair with kitchen shears and laughed like a crow and had painted Isla’s toenails shocking pink when they were fourteen. This was the same, and this was utterly, terrifyingly different.
The hand moved again, a tentative inch, palm flattening against the dip of Isla’s waist. The warmth of it seeped through the cotton. Isla’s own breath hitched, a ragged, telling sound in the quiet.
That was all the answer Morven seemed to need.
She turned. The mattress groaned. Isla felt the shift of weight, the heat of Morven’s body aligning with her own, chest to back. Morven’s nose brushed the nape of Isla’s neck, a whisper of sensation that sparked a shiver down her spine.
“You’re trembling,” Morven said, her lips so close the words vibrated against Isla’s skin.
“I’m cold.”
“Liar.”
The hand on her waist slid upwards, over her ribcage, slow and certain. Isla’s eyes fluttered shut. Every thought, every fear, every dusty, bookish instinct in her mind was drowned out by the roaring rush of her blood. Morven’s thumb stroked a slow arc just below the curve of her breast. It was an question. A promise. A point of no return.
The last of the sunset bled away, leaving the room in deep blue gloom. The bagpipes had stopped. The only sounds were their breathing, uneven and syncopated, and the frantic drum of Isla’s heart.
Morven’s fingers traced the line of her collarbone, nudged the strap of her nightdress aside. Her kiss, when it came, was pressed to the newly bared skin of Isla’s shoulder—soft, open-mouthed, devastating. A low, broken noise escaped Isla’s throat. She was unspooling, coming apart at the seams held so tightly for so long.
She turned.
In the near-darkness, Morven’s face was all pale angles and dark eyes. Her short, blonde hair was mussed. She looked fearless, and very young, and terribly vulnerable. Isla reached up, her fingers clumsy, and touched the sharp line of Morven’s jaw.
“We can’t,” Isla whispered, but her body was arching towards Morven’s, her hand sliding into the hair at the nape of Morven’s neck.
“Why?” Morven’s voice was rough. She leaned in, her forehead resting against Isla’s. Their breath mingled. “Give me one real reason.”
Isla searched for one. The house was empty. The world outside was black. The only history that mattered was right here, in the texture of Morven’s skin under her palm, in the decades of shared secrets that had somehow led to this impossible, inevitable moment. The careful categories of her life—cousin, friend, woman—dissolved into meaningless noise.
She didn’t answer with words. She closed the scant distance between their mouths.
The kiss was not gentle. It was a spark to tinder, all the unsaid years of sidelong glances and nervous laughter and a longing Isla had refused to name, igniting at once. Morven made a sharp, hungry sound and pulled Isla closer, her hands finding Isla’s hips, her back, tangling in her long, unbound hair. The taste of whisky was still on her tongue. Isla sank into it, into her, the fear melting into a sheer, staggering need that left no room for thought.
When they broke apart, gasping, Morven’s eyes were wide and dark. “Okay,” she breathed, the word shaky. “Okay.”
She kissed her again, slower this time, a deep, exploring pull that made the very floor seem to tilt. Her hand found the hem of Isla’s nightdress, fingers skating up the outside of her thigh. The touch was electric, final. The last pretense of childhood, of innocence, sloughed away like a outgrown skin.
Outside, the wind picked up, moaning in the eaves of the old house. It sounded like a warning, or a welcome. Isla didn’t know which. She only knew she was no longer listening.