Elena politely tells us it’s time for her to get back to her research, and Ondine and I step back outside, where the night air is fresh and cool. For the first time since I met her, I’m annoyed with Ondine, and I don’t make any attempt at small talk.

Possibly sensing my mood, Ondine says nothing as we walk along the high street, back to Elena’s house. I close the door behind us, and she says, “What are your plans for the rest of the night?”

“Dissertation,” I tell her. “I’ve got the meeting with the dean of studies in the morning.”

“In Glasgow?”

I shake my head. “Video call. The dean’s away at a conference in Denmark.”

“She set up a meeting with you when she’s in Denmark?” Ondine gives me a look like she’s concerned for me. “Will Pendle be there?”

“He’s been reassuring me about it, so I assume so. I guess I should make contact with him tonight to check.”

She stares at me for a minute, then asks, “When are you going to tell him about all this?”

“What – that I’m half man, half albatross?”

Ondine bursts out laughing, which makes me laugh, and I realize that it’s not really her I’m angry with. I’m upset at this whole situation, that is so ridiculous and so unbelievable I suddenly doubt I’ll be able to tell anyone else. Ever.

“What’s happening to me? None of this seems real.”

“Believe me, I know where you’re coming from.” Ondine’s face is so sad, so full of pain, that I want to reach out and hug her.

“When are you going to tell me what’s going on with you, Ondine?”

“Soon. I promise. You should focus on doing as much work as you can tonight. Make sure you get enough sleep, though. You don’t want to look dopey during the meeting. Convince them you’re one of their brightest and best, fully deserving of the scholarship.”

She’s read my mind. Of course, she has. Maybe everyone on the team thinks my scholarship is in question, because I’m behind schedule. Dr. Pendle’s been reassuring me that tomorrow is no big deal, when we all know that the stakes are high.

“If I can help you in any way, just knock on my door. You know, if you want to rehearse your pitch or anything.”

My pitch. Dr. Pendle insists that we all meet regularly, as a team, to talk about our work. Any one of us could ramble on at length about our research, but he pushes us to keep it concise – an elevator pitch, a one-sentence pitch, getting to the heart of what we’re investigating. I can do that in my sleep, but the dean doesn’t want to hear my pitch – he wants to hear why I haven’t met my deadlines. I’m letting the side down with my poor work ethic.

I open the file on my laptop and sit staring at the screen. “No One Believes What I Know I’ve Seen”: Common factors in witness accounts of water beast sightings in contemporary Scotland. The quote in the title of my dissertation was provided by a research subject called Aileen, who witnessed her best friend’s abduction at Loch Leven in Fife, eastern Scotland. As soon as she uttered those words, I felt the familiar tingle on the back of my neck, which then ran down the length of my spine. It describes perfectly how I have felt these five years since Rufus was taken.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The events of today lend themselves to a new title, something along the lines of No One Will Believe What I’ve Just Found Out I Am: Reckonings of a half-man, half-albatross. The ridiculousness of it makes me laugh out loud.

“Stop fooling around and get to work!” Ondine shouts from her room.

“Mind your own business!” I yell back, knowing deep down that she’s right. I do need to focus. And that means putting the events of the past couple of days to the back of my mind, while I concentrate on wrangling this data into submission.

Two hours later, I realize that the data has already been sufficiently wrangled. That isn’t the reason I’m stuck. What I need to do instead is focus on writing it up, already. The problem is, and has been for the past few months, that I think my chosen method of presenting the findings is too basic. It isn’t sophisticated enough, or sufficiently eloquent. There’s a fundamental mismatch between the narrative accounts, which when watched or listened to are like contemporary fairy tales, and the academic structure I’m trying to fit them into.

It occurs to me suddenly that I don’t want to write them up as a dissertation, because the nature of the witness accounts I’ve spent the past few years collecting belong in the realm of storytelling, not in the rigid world of academic writing.

These stories belong between the covers of a book, beautifully designed and bound, held in the hands like a cherished treasure. This is the impasse, I realize – I might be lazy, a procrastinator, but the reason I can’t produce this dissertation is because I believe these stories need to be honoured, not turned in for academic scrutiny and seen only by a handful of people.

I imagine telling Dr. Pendle that these years of scholarship have been for naught. I can hear his likely answer – that I mustn’t waste all of this hard work, that I should submit as planned, graduate, and then consider other means to share and disseminate these stories.

I phone him, but it goes straight to voicemail. I text him, asking him to call me back as a matter of urgency. Five minutes pass, then ten, and I email him, marking it urgent.

Forty-five minutes later, I try phoning him again, and send him another message. He’s a night-hawk so I doubt he’s asleep at this hour, but it’s the only explanation I can think of. Either that, or there’s a crisis or an emergency. Or he’s in danger.

I knock on Ondine’s door, and she opens it almost immediately. “You want some help after all don’t -. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Dr. Pendle – he’s gone silent. I’m starting to get worried about him.”

“Did you ring Lin – or any of the others?” I shake my head, annoyed with myself for not thinking of it, and Ondine grabs her phone. She speaks with Lin, who hasn’t seen him, and confirms that none of the rest of the team has, either.

“I guess if he doesn’t get back to you, or show up for your meeting tomorrow, we’ll know something’s up.” She looks worried, and as she scans my face she says, “What else is going on? What’s happened?”

I tell her about the dissertation, how I’ve decided it’s incompatible with the way I think the stories should be presented to the world.

She looks thoughtful for a minute. “I get it – I really do. Pendle’s disappeared off the face of the earth, your world has turned upside down in the space of forty-eight hours, and you’re dealing with the probability that the dean is going to say some unpleasant things tomorrow. But I don’t think you should tell her that you’re giving up – not yet anyway, just in case you change your mind.”

“I don’t think I will.”

“Maybe not, but I think we should buy you some time so that you don’t do something you later regret.” She pauses, and I can see her mind working as she looks at me. “I’m going to get you out of the meeting tomorrow. I’ll call the dean’s office and say there’s been an emergency, and we’ll keep trying to reach Pendle in the meantime.”

“What kind of emergency?”

“I’ll think of something. Don’t worry – I’m not about to tell them you just found out that you’re half-man, half-albatross.”

“That is a good reason to be falling behind with my work, though.”

“You’ll get no argument from me. Okay, so you’re not going to be holed up in your room working all night, and I really can’t be bothered to do any more, if I’m honest, so let’s do something else.”

“Like?”

“Come down to the beach with me. I’ve got things to tell you, and it’ll be easier to do that if I can show you what I’m talking about at the same time.”