The old manor lay buried in snow, weighed down by its own history. Darkened turrets rose above the roofline, blunt against the sky. Wind whistled through cracks in the stone, lonely and relentless. Everything here felt frozen and yet quietly alert.

  The car stopped.

  “Look,” Heather said. “Someone’s waiting for you.”

  Veronica stood on the porch under a string of flickering lights. Chestnut hair escaped her hood in loose strands across her shoulders. Cold had flushed her cheeks; she held her phone in one hand, thumb moving idly over the screen. The dark blue jacket, zipped high, made her look older, more guarded.

  “Hi,” she said, eyes still on the phone.

  “Hi,” Andrew answered.

  She stepped closer and turned the screen toward him.

  “Found a new app. It guesses personality from photos. Want to try?”

  Andrew tried for a smile, but his head shook instead.

  “No… I don’t.”

  “Afraid it’ll call you a level-three mystic?” She gave a quick smirk.

  Her voice was light, but her gaze slid past him. She was only half present.

  Nothing has changed, Andrew thought.

  The same Veronica. Quick. Untouchable. Only now she was distant even when standing right beside him.

  He drew breath to tell her about yesterday, but Veronica raised a finger.

  “Wait…” She leaned toward the screen. “The stream’s starting. I don’t want to miss the intro.”

  While the parents dealt with luggage, Veronica muttered something and vanished into the house. Andrew remained in the snow. The door had barely closed when Uncle Victor and Aunt Mary appeared on the threshold.

  “Here are our travellers!” Victor called, arms wide. “No trouble on the road?”

  He was tall and lean, with sharp features and a gaze that missed little. Even in a warm jumper he carried an air of control. Andrew managed a small smile.

  “Not exactly. I saw a sign on a tree.”

  “A sign?” Mary echoed. Her fingers adjusted a cuff button without thought.

  “Yes. Like two raised wings,” Andrew said.

  Mary rarely faltered. For a split second her face paled.

  Victor seemed to look past Andrew, into some private distance. He blinked, then said nothing.

  “You all right?” Mary asked, stepping closer. “You’re pale… and your eyes too.” She touched his forehead.

  Andrew opened his mouth, but Mary had already turned toward the porch and clapped her hands.

  “Everyone inside. Before the cold gets us.”

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  They moved into the house. Andrew entered first, fastening his rucksack. Behind him came a fragment of Victor’s voice:

  “Two wings…”

  He did not hear the reply. He saw only his father’s face, suddenly shadowed.

  The hall carried the scent of smouldering pine and old leather. Warmth met his face after the outside cold, laced with memories of many winters.

  The floorboards did not creak. Broad oak planks, polished by generations, took each step in silence.

  Tall bookcases lined the walls, heavy with worn bindings.

  Above the fireplace hung the family crest: a lynx with one paw raised, standing on an interwoven root, the old Cameron mark from a time when their ancestors lived closer to forests than cities.

  Every Christmas the family gathered here. As children, he and Veronica had sat by the fire, listening to their grandfather’s strange stories. Then the crest had been only pattern. Now something in its lines felt familiar, though he had no words for it yet.

  Andrew sank into an armchair and watched the flames. He noticed Veronica slip from the room. The glow of her phone lingered in the corridor, then vanished.

  The fire’s warmth brought back the sunlit attic, the smell of old magazines, her ringing laughter.

  “Let’s call it Spark-Eater!” she had said once, studying his drawing of a fire-breathing dragon.

  The laugh echoed in memory, bright and already distant, as if from another house.

  Light cut through the door crack again. Minutes later Veronica returned, still looking at her screen, but with a lightness in her step that had been missing for years. She stopped by the chair and announced:

  “Tonight we’re doing proper Scottish games. I’ve planned a challenge and a hashtag.”

  The spark in her voice flared, the one Andrew had missed. For a moment the house itself seemed to stir.

  “We’re going outside?” Victor asked.

  “Of course!” Veronica readied her phone. “Everything’s set: snow arena, two logs for caber tossing, fairy lights around the edge. It’ll look like a stage.”

  She turned to Logan.

  “Uncle, you need a kilt. Please. The followers will love it.”

  Mary laughed, pulling an old tartan shawl from the rack. Victor narrowed his eyes, already slipping into role. Even Heather, adjusting her sleeve with scepticism, agreed to “swing a log once, for the children.”

  Veronica darted about the yard with her phone, setting angles, giving orders, catching light. The old flame danced in her eyes, the one that could bring the house to life, if only for herself.

  “Andrew, hold the lights!” she called. “No, diagonally! And don’t stand in frame. Step aside. Yes. Perfect.”

  He obeyed. Held, lifted, fastened. Even tried to smile when the camera turned his way. It felt almost real.

  Almost.

  A minute later he stepped aside and sat on the lowest porch step. Without him the picture was complete. The adults joked. Veronica snapped photos. He was the extra piece.

  Andrew clenched his hands in his pockets, warm breath clouding in the frost.

  When the laughter faded and the sitting room filled again with half-whispers and the crunch of shortbread, Andrew sat curled in the armchair, chin on knees. A clock ticked somewhere upstairs. The fire grew lazy.

  Veronica stood by the window, scrolling fast, as though searching for something she could not quite find.

  Andrew rose.

  “I need to tell you something,” he said quietly, moving closer.

  “Well?”

  “I… don’t even know where to start.”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense, Sherlock,” she said with a smirk.

  “Yesterday… my hand drew on its own,” Andrew said, swallowing. “Instead of an elf… a bird appeared. In a cage.”

  Veronica gave a soft snort, eyes still on the screen.

  “And today… on the tree…” He faltered when he saw she wasn’t looking. “I touched the bark, and it answered. With warmth.”

  Veronica raised her eyes slowly. For a second the old curiosity flickered. Then it died behind grown-up weariness.

  “You’re still the same dreamer,” she said. “Always running your own film in your head. Shame no one else gets to see it.”

  “There was a howl too,” he tried once more, but she had already turned away.

  She gripped the phone tighter. He knew that gesture. She always did it when she wanted to say more and could not.

  Andrew’s jaw tightened. Hurt burned his throat. He stood abruptly. The room felt suddenly close, foreign. His heart pounded as if trying to escape.

  He could not stay another second.

  Upstairs, Andrew stopped before the old map of Edinburgh on the wall. His fingers clenched until the knuckles cracked.

  “Why don’t you believe me?”

  His fist struck forward.

  It met unyielding surface. From the point of impact, from old folds and cracks in the paper, a golden glimmer flared. Light raced along streets and hills, and for a heartbeat the familiar symbol emerged, the same as on the tree.

  Andrew froze.

  From the touch, a ripple rolled across the walls. Shimmering circles spread from the map, distorting the room.

  He turned. His face flashed in the mirror.

  A chill ran along his arms.

  The eyes in the reflection were not his own.