Chapter Text
Aziraphale stepped out of the ferry boat, one hand on his hat to fight the wind while the other clenched around the handle of his suitcase, his lungs filling with the salty air and ocean spray. The sudden rain that had trapped him inside the boat's belly rather than on the deck for the entirety of the trip was quickly receding for a bright ray of warm sun, light shimmering on the surface of the water. The docks were busy with fishermen selling their catch right from their boats, tourists boarding small cruising ships for a tour of the island, and locals walking their dogs. The overall atmosphere was vibrant and brought a large smile to the Aziraphale's face.
He went through his pockets to take out his reservation papers and approached the little kiosk acting as a tourist information office, where he was welcomed by a bright, wide, if a bit mechanical, smile: “Hi, welcome to Dubharrad, what can I help you with?”
“Hello. I was wondering if you could help me find this place,” Aziraphale replied, passing the papers to the friendly woman behind the counter.
“Oh! You're renting Eden's cottage? You're going to love it there. As you may know, Dubharrad is a car-free place, but we do have an electric tram that goes from one side of the island to the other. So what you want to do is take it here,” she took a map from out her counter and circled a point on it, “and stop there. After that, you'll have to walk for about 10 minutes, following the lighthouse sign, and the cottage is on the right at some point.”
Aziraphale thanked her, kept the map she offered and went off to look for the shuttle.
A car-free, lost-in-time, quiet island. Exactly what he needed for a peaceful retreat and a break from his busy London life and stressful job as an investigative reporter. His suitcase was heavy in his hand — he had more books than clothes — but he soldiered on and walked towards the little town, quickly getting to the area where he could wait for the shuttle.
The colourful fishermen’s shacks gave way to quaint stone houses. The cobblestone roads, free of any motor vehicles, were animated without being too busy, and the place smelled of freshly baked bread. Suddenly feeling quite peckish, Aziraphale quickly glanced at the shuttle’s schedule plastered on the wall and decided he had time for a well-deserved pastry.
He was just finishing his Ecclefechan tart, a delicacy he had never heard about before but that he knew was going to be his favourite treat here on the island, when the little white electric train came into sight. Aziraphale felt a wide smile spreading on his face. He loved trains. He particularly loved those touristy ones that circled towns while providing information about the place’s history and a few anecdotes. This one didn't do that, but the trip around Rashie Nook, Dubharrad’s sole village, was pleasant nonetheless. The reporter took mental notes of the roads and sights, in case he wanted to come back this way by other means — maybe he could rent a bike? He had not biked in years, but one doesn't forget how to do that, do they?
His eyes set on the distant lighthouse as a landmark, he followed the little dirt path slithering between the hills, huffing and puffing as his back and temples dripped with sweat, until he finally reached the cottage he had rented. It was even cuter than what he had seen in the pictures. The baby blue paint on the door and windows brightened the dark stone exterior and slate roof. Colourful blooms filled the luxurious gardens, and the sight from the cottage was one of the most breathtaking things he'd ever seen. The house was built twenty feet from a steep slope down to the sea, with the stern-looking lighthouse standing tall and steady at the edge of the island, barely half a mile away. Aziraphale could already picture himself taking his breakfast or his tea here, watching the waves crash on the rocks, bringing with them stories of sailors and adventure.
He adored stories. Whether they were invented, like the ones he loved to read in his favourite novels, or real, like the ones he wrote for a living. Still, he was taking a break from that. A big one. He would spend the next three weeks resting and reading, without a thought for work.
His plan set in his mind, he entered the cottage and busied himself getting set up. The woman renting Eden's cottage had been kind enough to fill the cupboards, which meant he didn't have to walk back into town for grocery shopping today, so he simply lay back and relaxed on the sofa. A few hours later, he settled in the garden with a book and a nice cup of tea.
Things were going exactly as planned.
***
Aziraphale rolled over in bed, the morning sun streaming in to shine right in his face. He felt too warm and cosy to really wake up just yet. That was, until he heard the boat horn outside his window. His eyes snapped open, and he panicked for a moment. Boats were common on the Thames, but he wasn’t used to hearing their loud horns through his bedroom window.
Oh, yes. He was on holiday on a charming island with no cars and one small village. He wondered if some families in the rural part of the island would keep a horse and carriage. Then, he wondered if there were any vehicles on the island at all, in an official capacity. Did they have an ambulance? A fire engine? Or a snowplough? This was Scotland. Snow actually fell here, unlike in London, where any significant snowfall became slush within a day or so.
The questions kept coming. Even when he should be relaxing, his investigative journalist’s brain took over, asking all kinds of questions until he managed to calm it again. But it didn’t look like that was going to happen because he found himself wondering what breakfast foods the cottage’s owner had stocked in the kitchen.
To his delight, he found a packet of bacon in the fridge and fresh eggs from the cottage owner’s chickens in a wire basket on the counter. They made a wonderful breakfast that he ate at the kitchen table by the open window. A short rain shower had blown in while he cooked breakfast, but the fresh sea air was enough to make up for not being able to dine outside.
The rain passed quickly, but Aziraphale still took his umbrella with him when he left the cottage to explore the island. Maybe tomorrow he would rent a bike, if the skies didn’t threaten rain again. For now, he would huff and puff his way up the winding trail to the nearest tram stop. His first order of business was to find a bookshop. He always bought a book from every location he visited.
The village had a tiny one nestled near its town centre, alongside a handful of other businesses that catered to the tourists who came here to relax. The quaint little thing wasn’t much, carrying mostly hardcover bestsellers and children’s books, both new and used. Aziraphale preferred second-hand books. He loved reading long-lost stories penned by forgotten authors. He had quite the collection back at his flat, where an entire spare bedroom was devoted to rare volumes. But here, he’d have to make do with something a little more common.
“Hello,” said the lady with the steel-grey bob standing by the till. She looked to be in her mid-sixties by Aziraphale’s estimation – probably the owner of the shop. “How are you doing today?”
“Good morning,” he replied. “Doing great. This is my first time on the island. I thought I’d browse through all the little shops here.”
“Well, welcome to Rashie Nook, Dubharrad! Feel free to browse and let me know if you need anything.”
He thanked her and moved towards the first shelf, lined with Sunday Times Bestseller Lists novels, both new and used, older bestsellers and current ones. Aziraphale perused the selection.
Hmm, “The Let Them Theory”...oh, self-help. No, thank you. He moved on to the next. Let’s see…someone here wrote about the Bible. I have read enough books on religious analysis to last a lifetime. An autobiography of a Scottish footballer… Oh…
He stopped before “The Majesty of Our Oceans” by an author he’d never heard of. It was an older book, published about twenty years ago. The cover wasn’t much to look at, being a simple green and yellow painting of some kind of branching coral, but it spoke to him. He was taking his holiday by the sea, and non-fiction was usually to his tastes. He picked it up off the shelf and flipped through the pages.
Aziraphale expected it to be full of despair over humanity’s destructive tendencies towards natural ecosystems, since that was a big theme in nature books back then. But he found it to be refreshingly positive as he scanned a few chapters. The author wrote about various ocean environments around the world and the amazing creatures that lived in them.
He browsed for another half hour before reaching the bottom of the last shelf and straightening up with a sigh. “The Majesty of Our Oceans” would have to do, not that it was a bad choice, nor was the selection in the shop horrible. It was surprisingly nice for a small bookshop on an isolated island. Something about the nature book just called to him.
He brought it up to the till and paid for it after some small talk with the older woman. It turned out she was the owner and a proud resident of this tiny village. They talked about the shops one could find here, and she was good enough to point him to the local coffee shop where he could get a cup of tea to warm up. The weather up here was still rather brisk.
Aziraphale trudged three shops up the street to the brownish-grey stone building with cheery yellow shutters. A sign above the solid wood door said, Uncommon Grounds. Of course. A pun. Weren’t most coffee shop names these days?
He got a cup of Earl Grey to go and took it with him on a small hike around the village, staying on the pavements when possible. Bikes were everywhere, and the occasional bicycle taxi didn’t leave much walking room in the narrow streets. But the people were friendly. Many waved to him as he trekked through town, taking in the quaint nature of it all.
He eventually found himself near the harbour where fishermen prepared their boats for sailing. Aziraphale stuck around for a while to watch the men move about the decks in a coordinated ballet of sorts as he sipped the stone-cold tea remaining in his paper cup.
He lamented having to head all the way back into town, but once he got back up on the main streets, a kind passerby pointed him to the tram stop, for which Aziraphale was eternally grateful.
Feel less tired after the tram ride, Aziraphale stepped off the car and strolled back to the cottage for lunch, planning on staying there for the afternoon, but around four, he began to rummage through the cupboards again, looking for something appetising to eat for teatime. He found the ingredients for toad in a hole, but he found himself craving Earl Grey tea when the kitchen only had black.
Maybe that nice coffee shop sold their tea. If not, he’d get another cup there with a pastry, then return to the cottage for a proper teatime meal. He was rather hungry after all that walking.
Once again, he found himself making the journey into town and opening up the heavy wooden door of Uncommon Grounds. Only this time, he almost ran into a tall, lanky fellow with bright red hair done up into a perfectly imperfect loose bun.
“Oh!” said Aziraphale. “I am so sorry.”
“Eh, ‘s’okay,” said the lanky man without making eye contact from behind the sunglasses he wore. He spoke with a softer Scottish brogue than the rest of the town. “Excuse me, I gotta run.”
He squeezed past Aziraphale and was gone. Dumbstruck, Aziraphale was fairly certain he should have been able to watch him go down the street, but by the time he turned on his heels and poked his head out, the man had vanished. The reporter shrugged to himself and entered the café once more.
“Back again so soon? I'm going to have to know your real name at that rate, Earl Grey,” said the woman behind the counter as he approached.
He chuckled and introduced himself as she made his tea. He wanted to ask who the redheaded man who had just blown past him was, but it was a weird impulse that he filed under the nosy journalist category of his mind. Instead, he thanked Nina – that was her name – and found a seat by the window, where he settled with his cup and his newly acquired book.
He was lost deep in his reading when a handwritten note beside a paragraph attracted his attention.
The author went on about a certain type of fish that lured its prey with its bright colours. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but someone had underlined a few words, quite excitedly judging by the pressure of the pen, and written: “Could be him, the sea devil?”
Oh, a mystery! He loved all the little things people scrawled in the margins of second-hand books. He adored trying to figure out what they were talking about. Aziraphale felt the back of his neck tingling. He browsed through the book more thoroughly than he had in the bookshop, on the lookout for more handwritten notes. He found many more, always mentioning a “him”, but failed to see the connection with the original text. The tingle of mystery kept nagging at him. Someone had a white whale, and he just needed to know more. Curiosity was in his DNA. He had made a living out of it. Of course, he was on holiday, but what wrong would a little bit of mystery do?
He was almost through the book when he found it. The Clue.
“He sings to them off the shores of Dubharad. Tell S.”
Aziraphale felt his heartbeat quicken. He reached inside the inner pocket of his trench coat and took out a little notebook to lay down a few notes and observations, circling twice the words “Find S.”
The book was only twenty years old. Maybe he could actually locate S, if they were alive and still in the area, and have a conversation about these notes.
He realised, when he looked up again, that the sky had grown quite dark. Days were a little shorter up here, he reminded himself, and he had got quite lost in his investigation. He thanked Nina, pocketing a little package of tea bags she had prepared for him, and left the café. It wasn't completely dark yet, and the wind felt dry, so Aziraphale decided he could stick around for a while.
His first impulse was to get back to the bookshop and ask about the previous owner of “The Majesty of the Ocean”, but he found the door closed. He squinted to try and see inside, but everything was already dark, so he turned on his heels and strolled along the street.
He reached the docks, standing there for a few minutes. A strong wind howled, making his trench coat flap and the boats’ masts sing. Despite the hour, a few fishing boats were getting ready to leave for the night, young men carrying fish traps on board. A woman, watching them by the side, attracted Aziraphale's attention. She was holding a handkerchief by her nose, as if she had been crying, and right before he boarded, she grabbed a blond young man and forced him into a hug.
“Stop it, ma!” he protested. “Y'can't do that every day, I have to go!”
“Don't worry, Doris!” said one of the men already on the docks. “He's not pretty enough to be taken!”
“And even if he is, they always come back!” another added, laughing.
The young fisherman was freed from his mother's grip and boarded the ship under the taunts of his colleague.
Aziraphale dithered. His instinct, of course, was telling him to go speak with Doris, ask her questions. Why was she so afraid? But he was on holiday. And his therapist had been adamant: he needed to take a real break. No white whale. He probably should have thought about that before booking a stay on an eerie Scottish island. By the time he stopped fighting within himself, the woman was gone, and the ship had departed. Aziraphale clicked his tongue, frustrated, but decided it was time to go home and properly relax. His first day on the island had not been relaxing so far, between the exercise and his brain being utterly unable to turn itself off for more than an hour.
He caught the tram back and walked to the cottage in the increasingly dark evening. The path, slithering along the cliff, gave him a nice view of the ocean, and he could spot the lights of the fishing boats at large. Halfway to the cottage, Aziraphale stopped to watch and listen to the melody of the wind against the rocky shore. His nape tickled him.
He sings to them.
If he closed his eyes, the wind certainly sounded like a song. And that night, while he fell asleep, the eerie melody carried on the sea breeze serenaded him. He awoke feeling isolated and alone. He shivered, imagining being completely on his own, without the friends and family who made up his support system for a split second before logic outweighed emotion. It was nothing more than the wind in his dreams.
He had a busy day today, and it didn’t involve worrying about what the wind whispered during the night. This morning, his larger notepad came out, the one he brought with him to take notes about the book of poetry he had tucked into his suitcase to occupy his evenings when the island’s businesses closed.
The poetry remained in its spot in his suitcase, though. Aziraphale had other plans for this notepad. He fished his smaller notebook out of his trench coat pocket and opened it to the information he had scribbled down yesterday. This was carefully copied onto a fresh page in the larger one. He also pulled out a small package of sticky tabs, which he normally used to mark important passages in his books, if the paper was in good enough shape to take the gentle adhesive.
He flipped through the old ocean book, locating, then marking with a tab, which he numbered with a pen, every mention of this mysterious “sea devil”. They began in the section about frogfish, colourful relatives of deep-sea anglers. Their bright, spotted patterns resembled the coral they lived in, lulling their prey into a false sense of security. Then, they would wiggle the lure attached to the top of their heads, and before the unsuspecting prey knew what was happening, it became a meal instead of getting one.
Lures others in by looking beautiful? wrote Aziraphale. Why?
He continued through the rest of the book, marked the handwritten sections, then copied them into his notebook along with their corresponding tab numbers. Some notes put forth theories about where this sea devil might live, suggesting several environments off the coast of this group of islands. Another, written on a section about why great white sharks bite humans, then release rather than devour the unlucky victims, talked about the creature possibly looking for the right prey.
Aziraphale wrote that down and added, This appears to be a sentient creature who would not make the same mistake about food over and over. They are not prey nor taken for other nefarious reasons, like slave labour, or they wouldn’t be coming back. Does he need something from them? Do they return without shoes or missing a lock of hair? Is there something he gives them?
That led to uncomfortable thoughts about that horror movie where the alien antagonist laid eggs in people’s chests, only to have them burst open when the offspring hatched. As far as he knew, nobody had exploded, thank God. He suspected he would have heard about that on the news. Probably before it was published. Things got around the newsroom.
The last thoughts from his unknown inside source appeared in a short chapter about the beauty of the ocean. It was scrawled next to a beautiful picture of a lion’s mane jellyfish. The bell of the jellyfish was spread out, the scalloped edges of it looking like ghostly petals floating in the water. The thick mass of tentacles was tightly compressed together, resembling a thick stem that slowly changed colour from yellow underneath the bell to a reddish purple and finally, a deep blue at the tips. It reminded Aziraphale of a delicate hand-blown glass flower. He gazed upon it for a moment before he noticed the scribble beside the photo.
He only takes beautiful sailors in their twenties. Seems to prefer blonds and gingers.
There was another opinion penned below a picture of a common dolphin with its unusual hourglass mark on its sides — pale yellow in front of the dorsal fin, dirty grey behind it.
Maybe that’s because there’s a lot of blonds and gingers around here? Jimmy disappeared for a couple of days. He’s got brown hair.
Aziraphale had to agree with that. A tiny island this far north? You were going to get a lot of descendants of the Celts. He wryly thought that the Moors, who invaded Southern Europe in ancient times, probably learned about the cool, rainy climate further up and decided to pass on conquering the future UK.
He picked up his pen again.
Might prefer blonds and redheads, but he may take more of those because that is the demographic on this island. Held one sailor for two days. Is this the norm? Is there consistency, or does he keep them until he gets whatever he needs? I need to TALK to one of them!
He underlined “TALK” two more times.
His stomach growled just then. Aziraphale looked up at the quaint clock hanging on the kitchen wall. It was closer to lunch than breakfast, but he hadn’t eaten at all. He turned back to his notes to read them over one last time with a sigh.
“Wonderful…now I’m chasing this white whale,” he muttered.
After a light lunch, Aziraphale once more found himself walking back to the village, the salty air doing wonders for the migraine he had built up while working. He hopped off the train at the docks, but of course, had missed the fish market. Most fishermen had already packed up, their catches sold. He lingered there, as if he hoped the waves crashing on the pier could speak to him.
For a second, he almost felt disappointed by how quiet the place was. What had he been expecting? Weeping widows and mothers? The police? Angry mobs brandishing their forks to go after a mysterious sea creature? Aziraphale chuckled at himself softly and shook his head. He could hear the disapproving tut of his therapist way too clearly.
Aziraphale turned on his heels, determined to turn his brain off for at least one afternoon. He started by stopping by the rental shop just up the street.
“Hello there, I would like to rent one of your velocipedes,” he said, secretly relishing the incredulous look on the young man's face.
“My what?”
“One of your bicycles.”
“Oh! Do you want an electric one?”
Aziraphale pouted. He didn't like the look of those big frames and thick wheels. One of the lighter ones in the back of the shop attracted his attention. It had a beautiful leather seat, wide handlebars, and a pretty basket.
“Can I have this one?”
“Well, sure… But you might find that the cobblestone can be really harsh, and the island isn't exactly flat.”
“Well, I've got the padding for that, and I don't mind the exercise.”
Had he winked at the mention of his backside? To a barely twenty-year-old boy? Well, that was either the sign of his exhaustion gaining on him or the holiday mood finally hitting him.
He left the rental place with his vintage bicycle and immediately put it to the test. It was, as expected, a bit hard on the bottom, and it took him a few minutes to gain his balance, but once he had, it felt incredible. He pedalled through the village, passing by the bookshop and finding it closed again – what type of hours were these people keeping? – and then followed the cycling path east out into the countryside.
Surging through the wind proved to be excellent for his thinking, and when he returned to Rashie Nook, it was with a much clearer head. He parked his bicycle in front of Nina's café just before tea-time. The place wasn't very busy, so he took a moment to chat with the woman as she prepared his drink.
“I've heard the strangest rumour about this place, you know? Sailors going missing? Is that a local legend?”
He noticed a tremor in Nina's hands as she put his cup in front of him, and she scowled at him.
“Yeah, something about that,” she replied curtly.
Aziraphale felt a tingle of excitement in his chest. He reached inside his pocket, took out his notebook and pen, and clicked it enthusiastically. “Give me the facts.”
Her frown deepened, and she scoffed. “Facts? What facts? Like you said, it's just a stupid legend, probably invented by mothers trying to stop their boys from becoming sailors in the first place.”
Aziraphale winced. Alright, maybe his approach was wrong. He slowly put the notebook away.
“So you don't know anyone who actually disappeared?”
Nina shrugged. “It's the ocean. It's a dangerous job. Sailors disappear all the time, but around here, they come back, eventually. People like to blame things they fear on so-called monsters, but believe me, nothing supernatural about it. Just the tide not playing in their favour all the time. Or ours.”
The bitterness of her tone wasn't lost on Aziraphale. Once seated next to the window, he opened his notebook and wrote her name down, with a question mark next to it. If she was hiding something, he just had to know what and why.
He'd been there for a couple of minutes when he noticed the man staring at him. Well, he assumed he was staring, as his eyes were covered with a pair of dark sunglasses. Aziraphale recognised the man whom he had almost bumped into the day before. He had pale freckled skin and long ginger hair cascading onto his shoulders. He was sitting perfectly still, his cheek in his palm. Maybe he was asleep? Or had he heard Aziraphale's conversation with Nina? From his seat, just by the counter, that was entirely possible.
The reporter tried not to stare back, but he could suddenly feel the man’s gaze on him, almost physically.
A ginger. The mystical creature liked young ginger men, and he seemed to be fitting the description, even if Aziraphale wasn't certain about young. His features seemed ageless.
Without warning, the man jolted to his feet, scraping his chair’s legs along the floor. He took a step towards Aziraphale and stopped, like he'd just hit a wall. He stood there awkwardly, the only noises in the café being the faint sound of music and the chime of the old clock over the till announcing five o’clock. Then, he muttered something under his breath and turned away, leaving the room with long strides.
By the time Aziraphale picked up his things to run after him, he had vanished. Just like the day before, he seemed to have evaporated into thin air, leaving the street empty, as a heavy rain started to pour down.