Sam felt uneasy all of a sudden, and the shopkeeper’s warning about the chapel being cursed returned to haunt his thoughts. Then he heard someone whisper his name three times in the shadows just behind him.
Samuel. Samuel. Samuel.
But when he spun around, there was nobody there.
It must have just been the wind. Fear and imagination can lead the brightest of people down dark paths. No wonder a child growing up here imagined so many awful and twisted tales confusing fact and fiction, he thought, remembering all the stories that Henry said Robin had made up. He was going to ask the old man about that again as soon as he tracked him down. He had spotted a small police station in Hollowgrove, and made a mental note to stop there on the way back, hoping they might know where his friend was living now. Somebody must. World-famous authors don’t just disappear. Besides, Henry had a new book called Rock Paper Scissors coming out next year. Sam knew because he had already pre-ordered it.
He picked himself and the torch up off the muddy ground, and walked over to the newest-looking headstone in the cemetery. He had to read what was engraved on it several times before his brain could begin to process the words.
HENRY WINTER
FATHER KILLER OF ONE, AUTHOR OF MANY.
1937–2018
He didn’t believe at first that Henry was dead.
There was a tiny glass box on the grave, the kind someone might keep trinkets inside. Sam shone his torch on it, and hesitated before bending down to take a closer look. When he did, he saw that the box contained three items. A sapphire ring, a paper crane, and a small pair of vintage scissors, designed to look like a stork. It was the ring that caught his eye, not just because of the sparkling blue rock, but because it was still attached to what appeared to be a human finger. The wind picked up then, and Sam thought he heard someone whisper his name again, three times. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but he ran to his car as fast as he could and didn’t look back.
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Acknowledgements
Huge thanks as always to Jonny Geller and Kari Stuart, not just for being the best agents in the known universe, but also for being two of the best, wisest and kindest human beings I am lucky enough to know. Huge thanks also to Kate Cooper and Nadia Mokdad for selling my stories around the world, and to Josie Freedman and Luke Speed for the screen adaptations of my novels. Thank you to all the lovely people at Curtis Brown and ICM, with special thanks to Viola Hayden and Ciara Finan.
Thank you to the wonderful team at Flatiron Books, especially my editor Christine Kopprasch. I am quite superstitious when it comes to writing, and I don’t tell anyone anything about my books until I have written them. Not even my dog, and I love him the best. I had wanted to write about face blindness for a long time, so imagine my surprise when my agent sent Christine this book, and she revealed that she had the condition. Thank you, Christine, for your genuine love of books, your persistent kindness, and for making this book so much better than it was. Thank you to Cicely Aspinall and the team at HarperCollins in the UK, and to all my other publishers around the world for taking such good care of my books.
Thank you to Scotland for inspiring so much of this story. If there is a more beautiful place on earth, I have yet to find it. All of my books have been partly written and/or edited in the Scottish Highlands, and my visits grow longer each year. Special thanks to the face in the window of the property I rented during the ‘Beast from the East’ snow storms of 2018, and the converted chapel where I had the idea for this novel. I remember every single thing about the day this story happened inside my head.
Thank you to Daniel, for being my first reader, best friend, and best lockdown partner a girl could wish for. For all of those reasons and so many more, this book is for you.
Thank you to the booksellers, librarians, journalists, book reviewers, book bloggers, and bookstagramers who have been so kind about my novels, and to everyone else who has helped put my books into the hands of readers. My final and biggest thanks is to all of you. Your beautiful pictures of the books and kind words always mean the world to me, but even more so this year. When I look back at 2020, I know it was the kindness of readers that kept me writing during the darkest of times. I’m forever grateful for your support, and I hope you continue to enjoy my stories.