The Last Light of Skye

There are destinations you admire… and there are destinations that stay with you. For us, the Isle of Skye is clearly the latter. When we first began researching this island, one thing stood out at once: Skye has a quality you will not find anywhere else. It is not just a collection of beautiful places. It is a story in its own right.

Skye is an island where the landscape does more than impress. It feels alive.
The Old Man of Storr rising like a giant from the mist.
The Quiraing, a surreal landscape that seems to hide secrets in every fold of the earth.
The Fairy Pools, crystal clear and almost otherworldly.
Neist Point, where the cliffs and the Atlantic wind remind you how small a person truly is.
Even the smallest corners, like the Fairy Glen, carry that same quiet sense of enchantment.

But Skye is more than beauty. It is an island woven with stories: old clans, lost flags, disappearances, legends passed down through generations. At the same time it is a place where nature changes its mood by the minute. Sunshine, rain, mist, sun again… the island breathes. You feel it the moment you arrive.

This blend of dramatic scenery, deep folklore, real history and unpredictable weather makes Skye, for us, one of the most remarkable destinations in the world. A true signature location that reflects the essence of FavouriteDestination: places that are more than photogenic, places that stay with you long after you have left.

We knew immediately that this had to be one of the first stories we would publish. Not only because Skye has everything we look for visually and in spirit, but also because it represents what we stand for: a destination you do not simply visit, but experience.

And on a personal note, I hope this story, with its mist, music, history and mystery, has allowed you to feel something of the island. Perhaps it has sparked your curiosity. Perhaps Skye is already beginning to take shape in your imagination.

Maybe, like us, you will find yourself falling a little in love with this rugged corner of Scotland.

We hope this story inspires you and that you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to life.

The wind tugged at Lara’s hood as the bus screeched to a halt at Ferry Road End.
‘Portree, last stop!’ the driver called to the back, as if she were the only one left.
She was.

She stepped down. The door hissed shut and the bus slid away, a yellow blur swallowed by the grey evening. In front of her: a narrow road, wet tarmac, low clouds dragging over dark hills. In the distance she saw only the faint orange glow of a few streetlights by the harbour.

Skye felt different from the mainland at once. Quieter. Heavier. As if the island were watching her, instead of the other way round.

Lara put her rucksack down; the strap had been cutting into her shoulder for hours. The air smelt of wet grass, peat smoke and sea salt. She drew a long breath and pulled out the notebook she’d been clutching in one hand since Glasgow.
It had been Jan’s.

She stroked her thumb along the edge of the cover. The cardboard corners were rounded from use, the black cover faded. On the first page his messy handwriting sloped just a little too far into the margin, as always:

‘When the sea remembers, follow the last light.’
Underneath: Skye, 2017.

She could hear the detective’s voice again, from years ago on the phone. Calm, almost clinical:
‘We haven’t found a body. Only a rucksack. The weather was bad. You need to prepare yourself…’

Without a body there had never been a real ending. Only that one line in his notebook. The cryptic sentence nobody could do anything with. Except perhaps here.

A headlight pierced the mist. A white taxi rolled slowly up the road and stopped right in front of her. The window slid down.
‘Lara?’ asked the man behind the wheel. A light Scottish accent. Grey curls beneath a dark blue beanie.
‘Yes.’
‘Ewan MacLeod.’ He held out his hand. ‘Your B&B host in Portree decided you needed someone who wouldn’t drive straight into a ditch in this mist.’
She gave a short laugh, grateful for the air in the tension. ‘Good call.’
She threw her rucksack onto the back seat and climbed in. The seat felt cold through the damp fabric of her coat.
‘Glasgow to Portree in one day is a long haul,’ Ewan said as he pulled away. ‘Bus on time?’
‘Too long,’ Lara said. ‘But I wanted to be on the island today.’
She didn’t add why. That would come later. Or not.
—
The road wound along dark pools of water. To the left a steep slope loomed up now and then, then a glimpse of a loch. The wipers scraped a steady rhythm: shrrp — shrrp — shrrp.

‘You’re from Germany, right?’ Ewan asked. ‘Portree Guest House said something about Stuttgart?’

‘Nearby, yes. Now Berlin.’

‘And what brings you to Skye in October? Most people come for midges and crowds in July and August.’

‘So I’m too clever?’

He chuckled. ‘At least you’re too late for midges. That’s a win.’
She looked out. Rags of mist slid past the car like veils. Sometimes she saw a row of white houses with slate roofs, then suddenly nothing but emptiness. She pictured Jan sitting here. The same road, the same rhythm, the same cold air against the window.

‘Been to Skye before?’ Ewan asked.

‘Not really,’ Lara said. ‘I made it as far as the bridge once. Then… we turned back.’
She swallowed the rest of the sentence.

He nodded, as if he heard more than she was saying. ‘The Misty Isle does that to people. Either you keep coming back, or you turn round just before the bridge.’
They fell silent for a while. On the right a sign loomed up in the dim light: PORTREE 7. A little later an exit towards Old Man of Storr.
Lara’s gaze caught on the sign. She’d seen that name hundreds of times in articles. The jagged rock, fifty metres high, the landslip, the photos in every guidebook.

‘Could you drive there tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘The Storr?’ Ewan threw her a quick look. ‘Everyone wants to go there.’
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘But not just because it’s in every top ten.’
He picked up on her tone. ‘Is it… for personal reasons?’
She hesitated. The mist made the car feel intimate, as if the world outside barely existed. Maybe this was the moment to lay the first stone.
‘My brother disappeared here,’ she said. ‘Seven years ago. He was on his way to Skye. The last sign of life was a message from Portree.’
Ewan’s hands stayed steady on the wheel, but his jaw tightened for a second. ‘I remember that, vaguely. German lad, wasn’t he? Camping?’
‘Yes.’
‘The police turned the place upside down: helicopters, volunteers,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve lived on Skye all my life. You don’t forget something like that. You were… family?’
‘I’m his sister.’
Ewan was silent for a moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. It didn’t sound like a stock phrase, more like something he refused to say lightly.
‘They found his rucksack on the mainland,’ Lara went on. ‘But his notebook was inside. And there was a line in it. A sentence. I think it has something to do with here.’
She turned the notebook so he could see it for a moment in the glow from the dashboard.
When the sea remembers, follow the last light.
‘That’s… poetic,’ Ewan said. ‘Sounds like someone who had too much whisky and not enough sleep.’
‘He hardly drank back then,’ Lara said. ‘He wrote a lot. But this… this was different. As if it was meant for someone. Or as a message.’
‘“Last light…”’ Ewan murmured. ‘That sounds like a lighthouse. Neist Point, maybe, way out west. The lighthouse there has been shining over the cliffs since 1909.’
‘And “when the sea remembers”?’ Lara asked.
He shrugged. ‘On Skye we like to think the sea remembers everything already. Sometimes she takes things, sometimes she gives them back.’ He gave a faint smile. ‘Maybe your brother had a flair for drama.’
Lara closed the notebook. ‘I want to follow his route. As closely as I can. Storr. Quiraing. Fairy Pools. Neist Point. Everything in his notes.’
‘You’ve got more of his notes?’
She hesitated, then nodded. ‘Fragments. Odd lines. Coordinates. A pub name in Portree. A sketch of a cliff.’
Ewan let out a low whistle between his teeth. ‘Then you’ve got yourself a treasure hunt. And I’ve got myself a few days’ work.’
She looked at him. ‘Will you help me?’
He pulled one corner of his mouth up. ‘I’m a guide. But I’m also a MacLeod. We’re responsible for a decent share of the mad legends round here.’ He tapped the steering wheel. ‘I’ll help you. But you’ll have to accept you won’t find everything you’re looking for.’
She turned her gaze back to the window. ‘I don’t need to find everything,’ she said. ‘Just enough.’
—
Portree appeared as a ring of light around a dark bay. The harbour was a half-moon of coloured houses, their pastel shades dulled by the rain. The sea in the bay lay dark blue, almost black, broken only by a few reflections from the streetlamps.
Ewan parked by a B&B on a hill above the village. A white house, two storeys, curtains glowing faintly from inside. The air smelt of wet earth and something warm on the stove.
‘Your host’s called Fiona,’ Ewan said. ‘She knows every story that’s happened on Skye in the last fifty years. Including your brother’s.’
Lara swallowed. ‘Does she know that I… who I am?’
‘I told her, gently,’ he said. ‘She’s discreet. But she’s got a good memory. Sometimes that helps more than a file.’
He lifted her rucksack out of the car and set it on the step.
‘Ewan?’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you. For not just doing small talk.’
He smiled briefly. ‘On Skye there aren’t enough people to waste on small talk. Get some sleep. Tomorrow, nine o’clock, by the harbour. We start at the Storr. The Misty Isle’s best seen before she hides behind the clouds.’
She nodded. He got back in, raised a hand in farewell and disappeared round the bend, back into the night.
—
Inside it was warm. The hallway smelt of soup, damp wool and something floral from an old potpourri dish.
‘Lara! Welcome!’ The woman in the living-room doorway was smaller than expected, with reddish-grey curls and a floral apron. ‘I’m Fiona.’
Lara stepped out of her shoes and immediately felt how cold her socks were.
‘Let me guess,’ said Fiona, taking her coat. ‘You’re thinking: why did no one tell me Skye in October feels like a cross between a fridge and a washing machine?’
Lara laughed. ‘Something like that, yes.’
‘Come in, I’ve got soup. Lentil. Cures everything: rain, grief and bad decisions.’
Lara stumbled over that one word: grief. She wondered if Ewan had mentioned Jan, or if Fiona had just guessed. She walked into the living room. A woodburner hummed softly, the windows were misted up. On the walls hung black-and-white photographs of Skye in earlier days: fishing boats, sheep on an unpaved road, a group of men outside a pub.
‘You’re from Germany?’ Fiona asked as she filled two bowls. ‘Coffee? Tea? Whisky?’
‘Tea, please,’ Lara said. ‘Whisky maybe later.’
‘Good sequence,’ said Fiona. ‘Sit down.’
On the round table lay a plastic folder marked Guestbook. The pages were thick with smudges from wet fingers and dog-eared corners.
‘Lots of people come back here,’ Fiona said. ‘They write three years in a row that this is “the most beautiful place on earth” and then complain about the weather. That’s how I know they mean it.’
Lara stirred her soup and looked at the book. ‘May I…?’
‘Of course. But careful, you can lose your whole evening in there.’ Fiona set down the tea. ‘I’ll just pop back to the kitchen. Shout if you need anything.’
Lara opened the book. Names from all over the world: Italy, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands. Notes about the Old Man of Storr, the Fairy Pools, dinners at the pub on the corner.
She flipped back to 2017.
July. August. September.
Her heart skipped when she saw a familiar curl in the letter J. A name.
Jan Keller – Germany.
Her fingers went cold, though the stove was close by. She read the text beneath. The pen had pressed faintly through the paper.
Skye feels like walking inside a story you half remember from a dream.
Tomorrow: Storr. Then further north. When the sea remembers, I’ll know where to go.
The line was there. Here. In a stranger’s house, in a friendly hand between unknown names.
Lara’s throat tightened. She had to force herself to breathe evenly. The words swam for a second before her eyes. Tomorrow: Storr. Then further north.
‘Have you found him?’
Fiona’s voice sounded closer than expected. Lara looked up. The woman stood in the doorway, a tea towel twisted in her hands.
‘My brother,’ Lara said hoarsely. ‘He wrote here. In your house.’
Fiona came closer, bent over the book and narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I remember him now. Thin boy, dark curls. Big rucksack.’
‘He wrote that he was going to the Storr,’ Lara said. ‘And then further north. Do you remember if he told you anything? About his plans?’
Fiona frowned, her gaze turned inwards. ‘He asked about the walks on Trotternish,’ she said. ‘The Storr, Quiraing. And he wanted to know how long it took to drive to… Neist Point. But he didn’t have a car. I thought that was odd.’
‘Neist Point,’ Lara repeated. Ewan had mentioned it too. The westernmost tip, with its lighthouse.
‘He said he might hitch a lift with another guest,’ Fiona went on. ‘I don’t know if he did. I left for a funeral in Inverness that day. My husband stayed. But he…’ She swallowed. ‘He died two years later.’
Lara looked back at the book. Under Jan’s text another name, with the same date.
Olivier Hart – Australia/Scotland.
Back on Skye after thirty years away. One more walk with the giants before I decide what to do with the rest of my life.
Lara stared at the name. Olivier Hart. The surname meant nothing to her. But one line in her brother’s handwriting and one line from someone else, on the same date… her stomach knotted.
‘Fiona,’ she asked slowly. ‘Do you remember who this was? Olivier Hart?’
The woman narrowed her eyes again, as if she were trying to hear the letters instead of just see them. She nodded, hesitantly.
‘Tall man, grey hair in a little ponytail. Australian accent. But he said he was born here. On Skye. He didn’t stay long. Left the next day. They… sat together at breakfast, I think.’
‘Jan and he?’
‘Yes. In a way, that’s a nice memory. Jan laughed a lot. He talked about photos, about stories. And Olivier looked as if he was seeing something he’d lost.’
A shiver ran along Lara’s spine.
‘Do you have any contact details?’ she asked. ‘An e-mail? Anything?’
Fiona shook her head slowly. ‘I keep bookings for five years. After that I have to make space.’ She hesitated. ‘But Ewan knows almost everyone who comes from here. And a lot of people who come back.’
Lara traced the page with a fingertip. Two lines, two men, one day.
When the sea remembers, I’ll know where to go.
She closed the book carefully. As if it were glass.
—
That night she slept badly. Outside, the wind howled along the wall, rain rattled at the window like grit. Now and then she heard a car labour up the hill, then faint voices by the harbour.
In her dream she walked along a narrow path on a cliff. On her left: emptiness. On her right: a wall of black rock. The sky was lilac and blue, suspended somewhere between day and night. Ahead of her walked Jan, just as he’d looked at twenty-three: narrow shoulders, coat too big, camera swinging from his neck.
‘Jan!’ she called. He didn’t turn.
He walked on towards a white lighthouse at the end of the world. Its beam turned slowly, sweeping ribbons of light across the sea. In the foaming waves below she saw something glint, as if the sea itself were throwing a memory back.
When he finally turned, his mouth moved. No sound. Only that line, engraved in the air between them:
When the sea remembers, follow the last light.
She tried to ask what it meant. But the wind tugged at her, harder and harder, until she felt herself being pulled backwards into the void—
She woke with a jolt. Her heart hammered in her throat. The room was dark, only a faint glow under the door. The smell of wood smoke still hung in the air.
She rolled onto her side and looked at the chair beside the bed. The notebook lay there. It was open. She was sure she’d left it closed.
On the page with the line, something she hadn’t noticed before. Either the light had hidden it, or her mind had refused to see. Under Jan’s handwriting, smaller and hastier, in a different pen:

North ridge – Storr – Quiraing – Uig – Fairy Glen – last bus?
Beneath that, on its own, one word, circled:
Neist.

She stared at the page. The circled word seemed almost to quiver.
Outside the wind rose in a long, low whistle, as if the sea somewhere beyond the hills were answering.

The next morning a dull greyness hung over Portree. The rain had stopped, but everything was still dripping. Cars gleamed damply along the harbour, the fishing boats were dark shapes in the water.
Lara sat at Fiona’s kitchen table. Black tea with a slice of lemon steamed in her mug. Scrambled eggs and toast lay on her plate, untouched.
‘You look like you spent more time in the air than on your pillow last night,’ said Fiona, slinging a tea towel over her shoulder.
‘I had a dream,’ Lara said. ‘About a lighthouse.’
‘Neist Point,’ Fiona said without hesitation. ‘Everyone dreams about Neist sooner or later. It’s the end of the world in our little universe.’
Lara turned the notebook slightly. The page lay open with the extra lines, the rushed words beneath Jan’s sentence.
North ridge – Storr – Quiraing – Uig – Fairy Glen – last bus?
Neist.
‘Did you write this?’ Fiona asked.
‘No,’ Lara said. ‘It was already there. I don’t know how I missed it last night.’
Fiona bent over it. ‘That’s not the same hand as above,’ she said. ‘See? Different rhythm, different pressure.’
‘So someone added it later,’ Lara said. ‘Maybe Jan himself, another time. Or…’
‘…someone who walked with him,’ Fiona finished. ‘Or someone who tried to reconstruct his route.’
Lara stared at the circled word Neist. It looked like a destination and a question all at once.
‘Ewan’s waiting by the harbour,’ Fiona said. ‘Eat something. Skye’s not an island to chase answers on with an empty stomach.’
Lara forced herself to take a few bites. The eggs tasted of butter and pepper. The warmth pushed gently against the knot in her stomach.
—
Ewan was leaning against his taxi on the quayside. The sky above the bay shifted from steel grey to a paler shade. Only the pastel houses along the water gave any colour.
‘You look a shade less pale than last night,’ he said by way of greeting. ‘That’s my test for whether people are ready for the Storr.’
Lara held up the notebook. ‘I found something. Or rather: something that was already there.’
She showed him the page. He read, lips moving slightly.
‘“North ridge”,’ he said. ‘That’s the Trotternish ridge. The spine of this part of Skye. The Storr, the Quiraing, Uig, Fairy Glen – they all sit along the same line.’
‘So this is… a route?’ Lara asked.
‘A classic one,’ Ewan said. ‘Lots of keen walkers follow it over several days. Portree to the Storr, then along the ridge to the Quiraing, then on to Uig. Fairy Glen is a kind of playful dessert.’
‘And then the last bus?’ Lara said. ‘And then Neist?’
Ewan gave a low whistle. ‘If he missed the last bus from Uig, he’d have had a problem. If he caught it, he could get back to Portree. From there you can head west. To Neist Point.’
‘You thought of Neist as soon as you saw “last light” too, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Here, when you say “last light”, you think of the lighthouse. Or the last sun on the cliffs.’
He closed the notebook and handed it back. ‘Today: Storr and Quiraing. Then we’ll see if his notes, your dream and the island’s own logic cross anywhere.’
—
The drive to the Old Man of Storr took barely fifteen minutes. They headed north on the A855, along the coast. The road climbed gently, sea on the left, hills rising into the clouds on the right. After a few bends the silhouette appeared that she’d seen in so many photos: a cluster of dark pinnacles against a bright haze, like a hand reaching out of the hillside.
‘There,’ Ewan said. ‘The Old Man.’
Even from a distance she could see it: one slender basalt needle, fifty metres high, standing apart from the rock wall, with steeper cliffs and towers behind.
The car park was half full, even in October. A few hire cars, a campervan, a minibus. The air smelt of wet tarmac, rubber and wind.
‘Path’s been improved,’ Ewan said as they looked up at the slope. ‘Used to be one big mud bath. Now there are stretches of gravel and stone. Don’t underestimate it, though.’
They zipped their coats, Lara hoisted her rucksack on. The first stretch felt steep immediately. Her legs protested after the long bus journey the day before.
They walked in silence. The wind came side-on, snatching at them. Rain hung in the air but hadn’t committed yet. After a few bends Lara stopped and turned round.
Below them the Sound of Raasay lay like a dull mirror. In the distance she could see the outline of Raasay itself, long and low, and behind that the mainland, hazy in the drizzle. The air had a sharp salty edge that prickled in her nose.
‘Jan saw this too,’ she said softly.
‘Most likely,’ Ewan said. ‘Unless the mist swallowed everything that day.’
They climbed on. The path took a right-angled turn and grew steeper. The soil was dark brown, slick in places. Sheep wandered casually along the route, their wool grey-white, eyes black and disinterested.
After half an hour the Old Man towered properly above them. The basalt pillar looked bigger than in any photo. Its surface was rough, full of cracks and ledges. At its base lay blocks of fallen stone, as if something had been trying to push him over for centuries.
‘How did this form?’ Lara asked, more for something to say than from real curiosity.
‘Huge landslip,’ Ewan said. ‘Millions of years ago the whole mountainside collapsed. The Storr is the high bit behind there, the Old Man’s what’s left of a volcanic plug. The rest of the mountain slid away slowly, but he stayed standing.’
‘And now we take selfies with him,’ Lara said.
‘That’s what we do with survivors,’ Ewan said. ‘We turn them into symbols.’
He pointed to a smaller side path that didn’t go straight to the base of the rock but curved away along the slope.
‘This way,’ he said. ‘Most people go straight to the Old Man. But your brother’s line in that guestbook – “walking inside a story you half remember from a dream” – that sounds more like the view from up there. The balcony.’
The path grew narrower, rockier. Now and then Lara had to put a hand on a wet stone to pull herself up. Her fingers turned red and cold.
At the top, on a kind of natural balcony, they stopped. The world opened.
Hills fell away steeply to the sea. Small lochans lay like dark mirrors in the hollows. The Old Man and the other pinnacles stood to their left, slightly below, like chess pieces on a tilted board. The clouds moved past in layers, shafts of light breaking through here and there.
Lara felt something shift in her chest. This was exactly the kind of scene Jan would have wanted to catch. Too big for a single photo, just small enough to burn into your memory.
‘He stood here,’ she said. ‘I just know it.’
Ewan nodded. ‘If I were a young photographer here for the first time… yes. I’d fill my memory up right here.’
She crouched and leafed through the notebook. Between Jan’s lines were sketches. Little blocks with lines, perspective scribbles of landscapes. She found one that resembled what she saw: a vertical rock to the left, two small silhouettes on a ledge, water far away.
She looked up again. To their right, a few metres on, the ledge narrowed and dropped more steeply. In the mud she saw half-washed footprints.
‘I’m just going to have a look,’ she said.
‘Careful,’ Ewan said at once.
She stepped onto the narrower strip of grass. Her boots searched for grip. The wind grabbed her coat in a sudden gust. For a moment she felt her balance tilt – as if the ground under her foot were shifting.
Ewan was beside her in two strides. His hand clamped round her forearm. Harder than necessary, but effective.
‘Don’t,’ he said. His voice was calm, but his fingers were shaking. ‘The hill’s older than you and your brother put together. It always wins.’
She swallowed, heart pounding in her throat. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.
He didn’t let go until she was back on safer ground.
‘Lots of accidents here?’ she asked, trying to steady her breathing.
‘Fewer than you’d think,’ he said. ‘But every accident is one too many. And every year there are people who think they can get a better shot than the last thousand.’
He looked at her. ‘You don’t need to find him on the edge of a drop.’
Shame and gratitude tangled in her chest. ‘I know. But if I stand where he stood, it feels… closer.’
‘Then we’ll pick places he might have been where you can still walk back into your own house afterwards,’ Ewan said. ‘We’ve got a few more of those on the list today. Quiraing. Uig. Fairy Glen.’
—
Back in the car Lara turned the heater up and held her hands over the vent. Her cheeks still burned from the wind.
‘How far is it to the Quiraing?’ she asked.
‘Half an hour,’ Ewan said. ‘We’ll keep going up the coast past Staffin, then turn onto a single-track road up the hill. The Quiraing’s on the far side of the same landslip as the Storr.’
‘So he may have walked here yesterday,’ Lara said. ‘Or all along the ridge, like in his note.’
‘Could be,’ Ewan said. ‘There’s a multi-day route across the whole Trotternish ridge. But that’s not a walk you take lightly. Especially not alone.’
The road grew quieter after Staffin. Sea now on the right, the Trotternish slope on the left. A sign pointed to a narrow turning, a road that twisted uphill.
‘We go up here,’ Ewan said.
The single-track road was wet and bumpy. They passed a few passing places, met the odd car. At the top a car park appeared, half full. Beyond it: a surreal landscape.
It looked as if a giant had hacked into the hillside and torn chunks out. Craggy rock faces, strange shapes with names like the Needle and the Prison, high rims, flat terraces. The slopes were covered in bright green grass, scored by dark lines of paths.
‘Welcome to the Quiraing,’ Ewan said. ‘Another landslip that never quite settled.’
The wind was stronger here, freer. Lara could feel it against her teeth when she opened her mouth a little. The air smelt of wet grass and something mineral, as if the rocks themselves had a scent.
They followed a path that threaded along the face. Sometimes it was broad and comfortable, sometimes narrow with a steep drop to the right. Ewan pointed out landmarks.
‘There, that’s the Needle,’ he said. ‘And that big block’s the Prison – looks like a ruined fortress. Up above you is the top of the ridge. Walking the crest is spectacular, but you need clear weather for that. And a healthy instinct for self-preservation.’
‘And Jan?’ Lara asked. ‘What do you think he did?’
Ewan drew a breath. ‘From his words, I’d say he liked wandering more than pushing on. He wanted to look, not tick things off. So I imagine he did what we’re doing: this path, maybe up to one of the terraces. Not the whole ridge. He didn’t have a tent, did he?’
‘Not according to the police report,’ Lara said. ‘He slept in hostels and B&Bs.’
They walked in silence for a while. A group of walkers passed them, chattering, waterproof trousers rustling. Then they were alone again.
‘Have you ever seen… anything strange here?’ Lara asked. ‘Disappearances. Accidents. Things that don’t make sense.’
‘You mean apart from the fact the hill looks like it’s had an argument with the earth?’ Ewan said.
She waited.
He sighed. ‘You know the story of Michael Bell?’ he asked.
Lara shook her head.
‘He was English,’ Ewan said. ‘Disappeared in the eighties after a camping trip to Skye. He left the island, was seen a few times on the mainland. And then… nothing. Forty years on, police and newspapers still ask if anyone knows anything.’
‘And no one does,’ Lara said.
‘No one,’ Ewan repeated. ‘Skye gets the blame because this is the last solid bit of his story. As if the island swallowed him. But whatever happened probably happened on the mainland. An accident. Or something else.’
He kicked a small stone off the path. It bounced down, jumped a couple of times, came to rest.
‘And then there was that day in 2022,’ he went on. ‘A man went from house to house with a gun. One dead, three wounded. People who knew each other. Here, in a community where we all know each other. Politicians called it the darkest day in Skye’s history.’
He fell silent. The wind filled the gap.
‘What I’m trying to say,’ he said eventually. ‘This island is beautiful, but it’s not a fairy tale world outside reality. Things happen here that make no sense. Violence. Disappearances. Broken people. That’s why stories like your brother’s don’t get to become myths by default. There are facts. And there are gaps.’
‘And we’re walking between the facts and the gaps,’ Lara said.
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Ewan said.
—
Halfway round he pointed to a grassy shelf a little above the path.
‘Shall we go up there for a bit?’ he asked. ‘Quiet spot. No selfie sticks.’
They scrambled up. The grass was springy and wet. On top they were tucked just out of sight of the main route. The wind hit harder, but there was space.
From here they could see the sea curving round the peninsula. Little lochans glimmered below. The rocks of the Quiraing loomed above, grey and green.
Lara sank to the ground. The earth was cold through her trousers, but she didn’t mind. She laid the notebook on her knees and pulled a pen from her pocket.
‘What are you doing?’ Ewan asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe I want to leave something, too.’
She looked at the pages with Jan’s words. Then she turned further, to a blank page.
She wrote:
Portree – Storr – Quiraing – Uig – Fairy Glen – Neist.
When the sea is done remembering, I’ll learn to let go.
She stared at the line. It sounded different from Jan’s, but related somehow.
‘That’s a good one,’ Ewan said. He’d been watching, unembarrassed. ‘The sea remembers plenty. But she doesn’t decide on her own.’
‘Who does, then?’ she asked.
‘You,’ he said. ‘And the people who tell the stories.’
She closed the notebook and slipped it away.
‘There’s something else in that book I talked to Fiona about,’ he said as they stood up. ‘That other name. Olivier Hart.’
‘Do you know him?’ Lara asked quickly.
‘Not personally,’ Ewan said. ‘But I’ve heard the name. A MacLeod who moved to Australia as a child. His mother’s from Glendale, out west. He used to come back sometimes. And a few years ago, around the time of… your brother, I heard he was on the island again.’
‘Fiona said Jan and he had breakfast together,’ Lara said.
‘Sounds like him,’ Ewan said. ‘He seeks people out. Likes to talk. He’s got a kind of melancholy he hides behind jokes.’
‘Does he live on Skye now?’ Lara asked.
‘Not that I know of,’ Ewan said. ‘But people with roots in Glendale have a habit of returning when they’re old enough to remember what they’ve lost.’
He paused and looked at her. ‘I can make a few calls tonight. See if anyone knows whether he’s sitting on a hill somewhere, grumbling about the rain.’
‘I want to talk to him,’ Lara said. ‘If he’s the last person who saw Jan…’
‘…then he deserves the chance to finish his side of the story,’ Ewan said. ‘And you deserve to hear it.’
—
After the Quiraing they descended on the far side. The road curled down to Uig, a small village on a bay. The ferry terminal stuck out into the water like a concrete finger, ready to send ships towards the Outer Hebrides.
‘Boats to Tarbert and Lochmaddy go from here,’ Ewan said. ‘From here you can go right off the edge of the map.’
Lara looked at the empty pier. She pictured Jan standing here, maybe wondering whether to board a boat and leave the island that pulled at him.
They had a simple lunch in a small bar by the pier. Fish soup, bread, strong coffee. The walls were lined with yellowing photos: boats in storms, men with salmon, a black-and-white shot of a group of children outside a school.

Olivier opened the door wider and stepped back.
‘Come in,’ he said. His voice was slightly husky, somewhere between Scottish and something else. ‘You’re shaking on your feet.’
‘I’m all right,’ Lara said automatically. But as she crossed the threshold she realised how tired she really was. Her legs felt heavy, her head light.
The hall smelt of coffee, damp wool and a faint trace of peat smoke. On the coat rack hung a dark raincoat, an old fisherman’s cap, a scarf in the MacLeod tartan.
Ewan shut the door behind them and lingered by the wall, as if he didn’t want to intrude too fast.
‘You two know each other?’ Lara asked, unzipping her coat.
‘We all half-know each other,’ Olivier said. ‘That’s the curse of an island. I’m Olivier.’ He held out his hand. ‘But you knew that already.’
‘Lara,’ she said. ‘But you knew that too, apparently.’
He gave a brief smile, but his eyes stayed serious. ‘You do look like Jan, yes. Especially around the mouth. He had the same expression… like he was holding something back behind his teeth that he wasn’t ready to say.’
‘That’s accurate,’ she said quietly.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘The sitting room’s warmer. And I’ve got coffee. Or tea. Or… something stronger.’
—
The sitting room had large windows looking over the valley and, further off, a sliver of sea like a strip of silver. Stones, shells and a few old Polaroids lay on the sill. The sofa was draped with a rough blanket, a worn rug on the floor.
Olivier gestured to the sofa. ‘Sit. You too, Ewan. Don’t pretend you’re just the driver.’
He put three mugs of coffee on the low table, next to a tin of biscuits.
Lara took the notebook from her bag and laid it in front of her, but didn’t open it yet. She needed to hear his voice first. His version.
‘You were here… when Jan was on Skye,’ she began. ‘You had breakfast with him in Portree.’
Olivier nodded slowly. ‘Fiona’s place,’ he said. ‘I’d just come back to the island after thirty years in Australia. Everything smelt different, but the air felt the same. Like opening a book again where you’d stopped at chapter three.’
He ran his thumb along the mug’s handle. ‘Jan came down with a rucksack that made you think: either he’s totally naïve or he knows exactly what he’s doing. We got talking about photos. He had his camera with him, showed me a few shots from the Highlands.’
‘And?’ Lara asked.
‘He had an eye,’ Olivier said. ‘Not just for the dramatic things. For small stuff too. An empty bus shelter in the rain, a crooked post with a faded sign. He looked like he was always searching for the edge of the story.’
It hurt, and yet the description felt like a hand resting on her shoulder.
‘He said he wanted to go to the Storr,’ Olivier went on. ‘And then along the ridge to the Quiraing. He asked if he was mad to go alone, with the weather like it was.’
‘What did you say?’ Ewan asked.
‘I said he wasn’t mad,’ Olivier said. ‘But that he needed to listen to the hill. And to his own limits. And if he found someone on the way who wanted the same path, he should take the chance.’
He drank, then set the mug down.
‘Did you go with him?’ Lara asked, leaning forward.
Olivier looked at the window, as if the answer were out there.
‘Partly,’ he said. ‘I had my own plans. I wanted to come back here to Glendale, to this valley, to decide whether I wanted another chapter here or to stay in Australia for good. But when he stood up from the table I thought: I can give him a first day with a local voice in his ear. After that he has to choose for himself.’
He took another breath.
‘We drove up to the Storr together,’ he said. ‘In my hire car. He took pictures on the way of mist over the Sound of Raasay, of sheep in the road. He talked about you, by the way.’
Lara’s throat tightened. ‘About me?’
‘About a little sister who always asked “and then?” when he came home from school,’ Olivier said. ‘And that he was finally collecting stories big enough for all your “and thens”.’
She swallowed. Jan, missing her annoying questions. It hurt and comforted at the same time.
‘We did what you did yesterday, I think,’ Olivier said. ‘Walked up, to the ledge, to the balcony where everything opens out. He was quiet. Very quiet. Not like in the car. Then he kept talking.’
‘And then?’ Lara asked, without irony.
‘Then he asked if I’d go further up the ridge with him,’ Olivier said. ‘Along the Trotternish crest to the Quiraing. I said: not today. Not with those clouds. Not with two people who’d only known each other a morning.’
‘But he wanted to,’ Lara said.
‘He wanted everything,’ Olivier said softly. ‘Not recklessly, but urgently. As if he was afraid that if he didn’t go now, he never would.’
‘And you?’ Ewan asked. ‘Where did you go?’
‘I walked back down to the car,’ Olivier said. ‘He came a bit of the way with me. At a fork we made a plan. He’d go up onto the ridge to a certain point, then come down to the road by a gate, where I’d pick him up later. We set a time. Weather permitting.’
‘Did you tell the police that?’ Lara asked. There was an edge to her voice. ‘About that arrangement?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘All of it. They mapped my whole route. Checked my hire car. My boots. My jacket. As if I’d… as if I’d…’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘I understand. They had to. But yes, I told them. Everything.’
‘And you didn’t see him again,’ Lara said. It wasn’t a question.
Olivier shook his head. ‘The clouds closed in. The wind shifted. I stood at that gate at the agreed time. An hour. Two hours. Nothing. At first I thought: maybe he came down earlier, maybe he hitched a lift with someone else. By the time I got back to Portree and he wasn’t at Fiona’s, I knew something was wrong.’
He put the mug down. His hand was trembling.
‘Next morning the police were at breakfast,’ he said. ‘Fiona was pale. People had already been up on the hill. They asked me if I’d seen him. I told them I was the last one, as far as I knew. Then everything… turned into the wrong sort of film.’
Lara looked at the notebook. ‘How is it that you wrote something in his book?’ she asked. ‘Or someone did. There are extra notes under his line.’
She slid it towards him and opened the page.
Olivier bent over it. His eyes traced the words.
North ridge – Storr – Quiraing – Uig – Fairy Glen – last bus?
Neist.
He nodded slowly. ‘That’s my handwriting,’ he said. ‘After… after everything. Months later. I came back. I couldn’t…’ He searched for the word. ‘I couldn’t bear that one line standing there on its own. As if he’d only been poetry. So I wrote down what we’d talked about that morning. The route. The logic. Where he wanted to go.’
‘And Neist?’ Lara asked.
Olivier’s smile flickered. ‘He asked me on the way up, “If you had to choose one place on Skye to decide what to do with your life, where would you go?” I said: “Neist Point. If you stand there, everything before that either makes sense or feels pointless. But it’s clear, at least.” He just wrote “Neist” in his own notebook. I added it here later, to mark that… that that would have been his final point, I think. If he’d made it that far.’
‘But he didn’t,’ Lara said. ‘Not the way it was meant.’
‘We don’t know that,’ Ewan said softly. ‘We only know where he was no longer seen.’
—
‘What do you think happened?’ Lara asked. ‘Not as a witness. As a person.’
Olivier let his head rest against the back of the chair. He looked at a hairline crack in the ceiling.
‘I think he fell,’ he said. ‘Not somewhere dramatic, not in some gorge with a name. Just, on a wet patch of grass, in mist. You lose the path, think you’ve found it again, step wrong. And if no one sees… it becomes a story with too many blank pages.’
‘But there were searches… dogs, helicopters…’ Lara began.
‘Skye is big and rough,’ Ewan said. ‘There are places you could walk twenty people past and still miss something. Especially in low cloud, or if chunks of rock have broken away after winter. It’s not a park. It’s an old animal that carries on, with or without us.’
‘That’s the version I can live with,’ Olivier said. ‘No malice, no intent. Just a mistake. But there’s something else…’
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
‘That morning at the gate,’ he said. ‘When I was waiting, in the mist, I heard something. Snatches of a voice. Not close enough to make out words. Close enough to know someone was there. I shouted. Nothing came back. Just the wind.’
‘Why didn’t you tell someone straight away?’ Lara asked.
‘I did,’ he said. ‘But by the time the police were there, the weather had shifted. The mist was thicker, the visibility worse. All I could say was: I heard someone. That’s not much when you don’t have a direction. Or a face. It could have been another walker. Or… my imagination.’
‘But you think it was Jan,’ Lara said.
‘I’m old enough to know when my imagination’s lying to me,’ he said. ‘This was real. I still sleep badly because of it.’
Lara clenched her hands into fists. ‘So he was close. And yet…’
‘…and yet no one got there in time,’ Olivier finished. ‘That’s the worst of it. Not what happened, but that he may have known he was alone.’
For a while the only sound was the soft tick of the clock on the wall. Outside, the wind keened along the side of the house.
Olivier drew a breath and laid his hand on the notebook.
‘That line of his,’ he said. ‘“When the sea remembers, follow the last light.” Have you ever worked out where he got it from?’
Lara shook her head. ‘He wrote half-lines more often,’ she said. ‘Snatches of songs, bits from books, his own phrases. But this one… stood alone. No context.’
‘It’s a twisted version of something my grandfather used to say,’ Olivier said. ‘He was a fisherman here in Glendale. If a boat went down and the sea gave nothing back for months – no wreckage, no bodies – he’d say: “The sea remembers in her own time. Watch the last light, that’s where the souls rest.” I told Jan that once, over breakfast. About the way people here talk about the sea, as if she has a memory.’
‘So it was your line,’ Lara said. ‘And he… carried it off.’
‘And the other way round,’ Olivier said. ‘He brought it back to me, in a way I never asked for.’
He looked at her. ‘That’s why I didn’t want that sentence living only in his book and my head. That’s why it’s in Fiona’s guestbook now too. So other people see it. Maybe they’ll think about it. Maybe they’ll look after each other better on the hill.’
Lara stared at the words, at the blend of Jan’s and Olivier’s handwriting. The cryptic line that had held her at arm’s length from any real answer for years suddenly had a source. A story. Not magical. Human.
‘If you see it like that,’ she said, ‘why does it still feel so unfinished?’
‘Because he never got to Neist,’ Olivier said. ‘Not consciously, at least. And to be honest… neither have I, since then. I haven’t been back there. It feels like that place belongs to him now. An unfinished chapter.’
Ewan pushed his chair back. ‘Then that’s our job,’ he said. ‘Not to beat the hill, not to wring anything out of the sea. But to finish that line.’
He looked at Lara. ‘We’re going to Neist Point. Today. With your stone from the Fairy Glen and this book. And with your grandfather’s words in our heads.’
He smiled briefly at Olivier. ‘And if you’d like to come…’
Olivier looked at the window, where a patch of light had opened in the cloud.
‘I’ve refused for years,’ he said. ‘But maybe this is exactly what I need to sleep again.’
—
The road to Neist Point was narrow and twisting. They drove south from Glendale, past low walls and fields full of sheep. The sea appeared now and then between the hills, dark and restless.
Lara sat in front, next to Ewan. Olivier sat in the back, silent. His hands rested on his knees, clenching now and then.
‘How far is it?’ Lara asked.
‘Twenty minutes,’ Ewan said. ‘We drive to the car park at the end of the road. From there it’s a path with steps, along a steep slope, down to the lighthouse.’
‘And the light?’ she asked. ‘Will there be… last light?’
‘If the clouds play nice, we’ll get a sun that breaks through the gaps,’ he said. ‘Neist is famous for its sunsets. But even without sun the light there is odd. As if it’s coming from somewhere else.’
They crawled up the last hill. The road ended abruptly at a car park on a cliff. Only a few cars stood there. The sky was still grey, but on the horizon a paler strip showed.
Lara got out. The wind hit her face at once, hard and salty. Every breath tasted of sea; she felt it in her throat and on her lips.
Ahead of them, lower down, she saw the tongue of land reaching out into the Atlantic: a narrow green spine ending in a rock platform with a white lighthouse and a handful of buildings. Sheer cliffs dropped on both sides straight into the sea. Waves crashed against the rock and flared into white.
‘There you are,’ Ewan said. ‘Neist Point.’
Lara swallowed. The Fairy Glen stone was in her pocket. The notebook in her rucksack.
‘Are you ready?’ Olivier asked.
‘No,’ Lara said honestly. ‘But that doesn’t seem like the right criterion.’
They set off. First along a metal fence, then down a long flight of concrete steps. Her knees protested, but her head felt oddly clear. The wind whistled along the rails. The sound of water was everywhere, far-off and close at once.
After the steps the path hugged the slope. Steep grass rose on the left, a sheer drop yawned on the right. The path was wide enough for two, but Lara walked in the middle, her eyes still stealing glances at the edge.
They passed a slab of rock where a cableway had once been fixed; only rusted remnants remained. A gull wheeled overhead, its cry tearing through the wind.
Near the lighthouse the path levelled out. The structure itself was modest: a white cylinder with a yellow lantern room, attached to a row of low white buildings. Paint flaked here and there, but everything looked solid. Beyond it there was only sea, up to a blurred line where water and sky met.
‘So this is it,’ Lara whispered, mostly to herself.
They walked to the plateau’s edge, where the cliffs fell in sharp steps into the water on both sides. The rock under her boots was cold and slightly damp. Wind lashed her cheeks, her eyes stung.
‘When I was a boy,’ Olivier said, ‘my grandfather brought me here. He said, “This is where the land ends, but not the story. The sea writes the rest.”’
Lara took the notebook from her bag. The pages rustled in the wind. She opened it at the line.
When the sea remembers, follow the last light.
She read it aloud. The words sounded different here. Less like a riddle, more like an instruction.
‘The sea doesn’t forget,’ she said. ‘We’re the ones who forget. Or try to.’
Ewan stood a little behind her, hands in his pockets. Olivier came to stand beside her, at a safe distance from the edge.
‘What did you want to do here?’ he asked. ‘When you decided to follow his route?’
‘I wasn’t sure,’ she said. ‘At first I thought: find answers. But the closer I got to this point, the less that felt like the goal. Maybe… I just wanted an ending that wasn’t made of silence.’
She felt the stone in her palm. She took it out. The smooth, flat pebble from the Fairy Glen, light grey with a thin white vein.
‘I found this there,’ she said. ‘It felt… like some kind of key. Or something waiting.’
She walked to a safe spot near the edge, where the rock formed a small shelf. She knelt. The wind tugged at her hair, blew a strand across her face.
‘What are you doing?’ Ewan asked.
‘Nothing dramatic,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to throw it off the cliff in slow motion.’
She laid the stone on the ledge, not too near the drop. She tore a blank page from the notebook, her hand steady, and wrote:
Jan – we walked your route.
The sea hasn’t given anything back, but we have.
We’re taking your line home.
Underneath she wrote her name. And, after a moment’s pause, the names Ewan and Olivier.
She folded the page as small as she could and tucked it under the stone, wedging it in place. No bottle, no monument. Just paper and stone in a place the wind always finds.
‘The sea doesn’t read English,’ Olivier said quietly.
‘Then she’ll read our footsteps,’ Lara said. ‘That we came. That we didn’t leave you to the mist alone.’
She stayed there for a moment. The sky was starting to crack open; through the cloud cover a strip of light fell on the horizon. The light was soft gold, briefly, before it slid behind a cloud again.
‘Last light,’ Ewan said. ‘Not quite, but a rehearsal.’
Lara stood. She looked at the line where sea and sky met.
‘You said your grandfather reckoned souls rest where the last light is,’ she said to Olivier.
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘But he also said they were just words to live with the pain. He lost three friends in one storm. If you don’t make stories then, you drown on the inside.’
‘Maybe I’ve spent seven years trying to live without a story,’ Lara said. ‘Just with facts and blanks. Maybe that’s why I could never put that book away.’
She closed the notebook and slipped it carefully back into her rucksack.
‘And now?’ Ewan asked.
‘Now I’ve got a beginning, a middle and an end,’ she said. ‘No plot twist, no hidden killer. Just a boy, a hill, a mistake, an island too big to keep every trace. And people who remember.’
She looked at Olivier. ‘And someone who was there. Who waited. Who’s carried more guilt than is his.’
His eyes shone, but he didn’t blink it away. ‘I haven’t given you anything that brings him back,’ he said. ‘Only my share of the emptiness.’
‘That’s already so much more than nothing,’ Lara said. ‘Now it isn’t just our emptiness. He’s touched more people than I knew. That makes him… bigger than his disappearance.’
She turned back towards the sea one last time. Waves smashed against the cliffs below, an endless motion of coming and going. On the horizon another narrow band of light broke through. For a moment it looked exactly like the edge of a page.
‘When the sea remembers something,’ she said softly, ‘that’s not on me. But I can choose what I remember. And how.’
—
On the way back she walked a little slower. With every step up the stairs she felt the weight of the moment shift, slightly, from her shoulders. Not because it was lighter, but because it was shared.
At the top, by the car park, she paused and looked back. The lighthouse was small now, almost like a model. The sea beyond was a flat grey field with little white flecks.
‘What will you do when you go home?’ Ewan asked, unlocking the car.
‘Sleep, first,’ Lara said. ‘Then… maybe write. Not just about him. About Skye. About the Storr, the Quiraing, the Fairy Glen, Portree, Glendale, Neist. About what it’s like to visit a place your brother chose as his last.’
‘You’re not going to turn him into a saint?’ Olivier asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘He was stubborn. Messy. He replied late to messages. He forgot birthdays. But he did have the courage to come here. I don’t want the story that stays to be only about his vanishing, but also about his seeing. About what he saw.’
‘If you ever want to put a photo of him in Fiona’s guestbook,’ Ewan said, ‘I’ll make sure there’s space. Between the lines.’
‘And if you ever want to come back,’ Olivier said, ‘you know the way. Glendale’s not going anywhere. Neither am I, any time soon.’
She laughed softly. ‘I thought everyone on Skye was constantly on the move.’
‘Only in our heads,’ he said.
—
That evening, back in Portree, she sat again at Fiona’s round table. The guestbook lay open at the 2017 page.
Jan Keller – Germany.
Olivier Hart – Australia/Scotland.
Fiona sat opposite her, a mug of tea in her hand.
‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Has the sea given anything back?’
‘No miracles,’ Lara said. ‘Words. A route. A place to let go without forgetting.’
She took a photo from her bag. A print she’d had made before she left: Jan on a bench in Berlin, laughing, hair blown wild, camera in his hands.
‘May I…?’ she asked.
Fiona nodded. ‘I’ve already made room.’
By the photo Lara wrote, in neat letters:
Jan Keller (1994–2017?) – Germany
Loved stories, light and mountains.
Last seen chasing all three on Skye.
Below, smaller, she added:
His sister walked his route. Skye remembers with her.
Fiona read it and laid her hand on Lara’s wrist. ‘Now he doesn’t just belong to the files,’ she said. ‘Now he’s ours too. Everyone who flicks through here and wonders who he was.’
Lara smiled. ‘That’s exactly the idea.’
—
The next morning she took the bus back to the mainland. By the Skye Bridge she looked back one last time. The hills lay half hidden in cloud, but there were gaps where light slipped through.
She took out the notebook. On the first page his line still stood.
When the sea remembers, follow the last light.
Under it, in her own hand, she wrote:
Until then, follow the stories.
They’re the lights we can choose.
She closed the book and tucked it into her bag. Outside, the bus rolled onto the bridge, away from the island, back to the mainland. But somewhere between the pages, between the wind above Neist Point and the stones in the Fairy Glen, she felt that part of her and Jan now rested in the same place.
Not as a ghost between the cliffs, but as a story that had found its ending. Painful, yes. But rounded enough not to gnaw.
As the bus left the island behind, she didn’t think: what have we lost?
She thought: that’s where I need to send people.
To the Storr, where a stone old man has outstared the centuries.
To the Quiraing, where the earth has peeled itself open into an amphitheatre.
To the Fairy Glen, where a small pebble under an unremarkable stone might be hiding a folded page.
To Glendale, where a man with grey curls still looks out to sea and sometimes thinks of a young German.
And to Neist Point, where the last light is not only for souls, but for those left behind.
Skye was no longer just the backdrop to Jan’s disappearance. It was also the island where she had learnt how you can have a complete story, even when the body is missing.
And somewhere high above the cliffs, the wind seemed to carry a familiar question:
‘And then?’
This time, she had an answer.