Eileen woke up with a startled gasp as a loud banging started outside the house.

  The main house was cold. Dreadfully cold. Eileen wondered if that was more due to the lack of heating over the past few days before her arrival or if it was simply how depressing the entire place felt to live in, a psychological coldness rather than a physical one.

  Not that Eileen put much stock in that sort of thing. She’d sooner believe she’d caught a fever.

  As it was her first time in the family home, she hadn’t expected such a large estate. Aunt Gretten hadn’t given off the impression of being affluent enough to own a six-bedroom house. But here it was. The only real issue was the lack of centralized heating, which better explained the cold than any of the nonsense theories she’d come up with half-asleep. Embarrassingly so, in fact.

  But in her defense, it wasn’t as if she’d been firing on all cylinders. The whole house had felt too strange to her, too empty. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to sleep in her late aunt’s bed, so she’d opted for the lumpy old couch instead. A mistake, as her aching back could now attest. All in all, she’d gotten maybe ten minutes of uninterrupted sleep.

  The banging came again, and Eileen groaned as she pulled herself upright, rubbing at her face before standing. She dressed as quickly as she could and stepped outside.

  If the cold in the house was bad, the ice outside was deadly. Large puddles had frozen overnight, leaving the driveway and even sections of the fields treacherous underfoot. One wrong step could send her sprawling.

  She spotted the barn light immediately. That was odd. While it might be nice to leave the animals a night light, or bad for their sleep cycles, though Eileen lacked the experience to say which, she hadn’t turned it on. Someone else had.

  Her grip tightened around the shovel leaning by the side of the house. It had been left there from before the storm, and she hefted it easily onto her shoulder. With careful steps, she made her way toward the barn.

  Without hesitation, she swung the shovel against the barn door, the sharp clatter startling the animals inside, and whoever else was in there.

  Eileen didn’t stop to think. She stormed in, wielding the shovel like a club, banging it off the wooden railing that separated the animals’ pens.

  A hand shot out, grabbing the shaft of the shovel, stopping her in her tracks. She struggled against the grip, but the man holding it was stronger.

  “Look, miss, ”

  Eileen didn’t let him finish. She slammed her knee up, catching him right where it hurt.

  The man let out a strangled wheeze and collapsed onto his side, arms wrapped around himself.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, taking in his scruffy beard, dirty leather jacket, and worn jeans. He looked like he hadn’t had a proper wash in days.

  He coughed, still trying to catch his breath.

  Eileen sighed, stepping back, giving him enough space to recover, but not enough for him to try grabbing the shovel again.

  Slowly, he pushed himself up onto his feet, careful to keep his distance.

  “Who am I?” he repeated, his voice still hoarse. “Séamus Daly. Who are you? Attacking people with shovels and kicking, ”

  “I’ve got the shovel.” Eileen lifted it slightly, emphasizing the fact. “I ask the questions here.”

  Séamus exhaled sharply, hands raised slightly in mock surrender. "I'm allowed to be here. Gretten, your aunt, always said I could use the barn if I needed a place for the night."

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Eileen frowned, taking a deep breath through her nose before sighing. She wasn’t sure she trusted him, but that didn’t mean much. Her late aunt had been the type to offer people lodging for the night. And just because something made sense didn’t make it true. It didn’t make the man trustworthy.

  That and,

  “Aunt Gretten’s dead,” she said. “Been dead for the last month and a half.”

  An expression Eileen could only describe as watching bleach decolor a painting crossed Séamus 's face. His shoulders sagged slightly, and he sighed so hard she might have called it puffing rather than sighing.

  “Gretten’s dead?” he echoed. “I’m sorry. I’ve been... preoccupied this last year. I, I can’t recall the last time I saw her. That’s a shame. Again, I’m sorry for your loss... Miss?”

  Eileen hesitated, still sizing him up. The way his face had fallen at the news wasn’t something she could fake or read too much into. Either he genuinely hadn’t known, or he was the best liar she’d ever met. She wasn’t ready to decide which just yet.

  “O’Shea,” she answered after a pause. “Eileen O’Shea.”

  Séamus gave a small nod, pressing his lips together like he was trying to find the right words but coming up empty. He ran a hand through his hair, eyes drifting down to the barn floor as if the right thing to say might be buried there.

  Eileen shifted her stance, arms still crossed. “And you are?”

  He blinked as if realizing for the first time that he hadn’t introduced himself. “Séamus Daly.”

  She tilted her head slightly, watching his face. “You knew my aunt well, then?”

  “Well enough,” Séamus admitted. "She was a good woman. Didn't deserve to go like that."

  “She went in her sleep,” Eileen said, more sharply than intended. “Not much ‘like that’ about it.”

  Séamus frowned, shaking his head slightly. “Didn’t mean it that way.”

  Eileen didn’t respond, just held his gaze a moment longer before looking past him toward the open barn door. The sun was finally starting to burn through the cloud cover, but the dampness of the night still clung to the air.

  “So what exactly are you doing here, Mr. Daly?” she asked, cutting through the quiet.

  There it was. The question again.

  Séamus exhaled slowly. “Tracking something.”

  Eileen arched an eyebrow. “Tracking what?”

  He hesitated. The answer felt too big to say outright, but there was no use in hiding it. Not when she was standing right in front of him. Not when he had no real excuse for being in her barn beyond the truth.

  “There’s something loose on the island,” he finally said. “It killed a man last night.”

  Eileen’s expression didn’t change immediately. It was as if the words took a moment to settle in her mind. Then, her brow furrowed. “I heard about Brian O’Reay. So you’re tracking whatever got him? Word I heard was that he got caught by stray debris from the storm.”

  "That'll be the story the Mayor wants to be known," Séamus replied, shaking his head, frown taut. “But Brian was actually attacked by some strange animal. Not sure what yet. Been tracking it.”

  Eileen studied him. "And? What did you find? What sort of features does this thing have?"

  "I only found its trail," he said. "Then I lost it."

  She huffed through her nose. “Not much of a tracker, then.”

  Séamus’s lips twitched, just barely. “Never said I was, but when his lordship the Mayor asks, you gotta answer.”

  Eileen recalled the man, the brief sighting of him in town, chewing people out over small nicks in their doors. The not-so-subtle threats against anyone who didn’t make repairs quickly. It wouldn’t do to focus on Mayor Belgrave now.

  “What do you think it was?” she asked finally.

  Séamus shook his head. “Not sure yet. But it’s big, on four legs, and strong enough to crush a man.”

  Eileen crossed her arms tighter, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “You plan on trying for that trail again when the sun’s fully up?”

  “Aye.”

  Her gaze flicked toward the barn door again. “You’re going to need help.”

  Séamus frowned, shifting his weight. “And you’re offering?”

  Eileen lifted her chin. “I don’t make offers lightly, Mr. Daly. But I might know more about animals than you do. You don’t recognize the tracks, I’ve studied animal tracks in college. If anyone on the island can recognize what you’re chasing, it’s me. And if I recognize what it is, we’ll know what it wants.”

  “And where it goes, I’m guessing,” Séamus said, studying her for a long moment before giving a small nod. "Fair enough. But if anyone asks, I told you nothing of this. Don't need the Mayor causing me issues for babbling."