Translucent

Chapter 1: Arrival at Perthshire

ABERFELDY, SCOTLAND
Present Day

The fantastic landscape of green and golden meadows rolled quickly by the window. The car trip went faster than I thought. It felt like seconds since we landed at Edinburgh Airport.

Nathaniel Thompson, my future stepfather, said we were sixteen kilometers from Aberfeldy. The gray clouds hung low but Nathan said it had always been like this in Scotland. Scottish Countryside sceneries seemed otherworldly to the point I thought we were moving somewhere out of the country, out of the British Isles.

"Look, Lisa!" my mother – who sat in the front seat next to Nathan – broke my imagination. "Don't you love this place?"

I darted my gaze towards the forest and glens outside the window. Aberfeldy was nothing like London at all–the city I had called home for the past sixteen years. It was definitely more rural, much smaller, and resided by only a handful of populations. Sights of cottages and less-than-three-story buildings slowly began to welcome us to the center of Aberfeldy. The city was small enough that it would be hard to get lost unless that was to get lost beyond the birch woods. Based on the research I did on my future home, people here seemed to embrace the thick highlands life, indulging themselves in an outdoor lifestyle. The absence of crowds, tall buildings, traffic, and packed roads made my stomach lurch in discomfort. But perhaps this was what I needed. Perhaps, the difference is good after all.

"Hmm," I murmured.

Mum had been trying to cheer me up, as she realized that my world crumbled down just months ago as she filed a divorce from my dad. Her engagement with Nathan, whom she had an affair with beforehand, simply made it worse. My family might not be the richest in Great Britain. We lived in a decent neighborhood in West Hampstead but we were happy – at least my dad and I were.

Nathan had been part of my life for years since my mum started taking the secretary position. He was, well, good looking, and very likable. Most of all, he was a flourishing tycoon, having owned a major, successful real estate company in the UK. Despite having been divorced and left childless for a while, people could tell he was quite content with his wealth. As a naive, sixteen-year-old, I was always kept away from adults' matters. The divorce and engagement rolled like a blurred film. All the arguments between Mum and Dad ran in my head endlessly. Then came the day when Mum told me to pack up as we were to move to Nathan's penthouse in Kensington. No matter how hard I tried, what could a so-called clueless teenager do about it? The sad look of my dad who let me go and told me that I deserved a better future, was the last look of his that I saw.

"Nathan is a good guy." My mother said one day, before moving to the Highlands.

She tried to convince me that our life would be much better once we left father, who – apparently to my mother – would only make her life worse with all the debts he had, that our family's financial living deteriorated. Defending my dad seemed like it was worthless. My mother, so ambitious and powerful for women at her age, had controlled my life by forcing me to live with her, ensuring that life with Nathan would be much better than our previous life with Daniel, my dad. But even the walls of Nathan's townhouse would never keep my longing to be with my father who was living in the distance. I was just a powerless girl constrained within Nathan's walls.

Even though Nathan did all he could to gain my attention, he would never be my father. This explained my ever-growing hatred and despise of him.

Just a week ago, Nathan announced that he would have a new property business opened in Scotland and he would help to develop some new properties in other places in Perthshire too. Even more, he bragged that he won a bid to a historical house that we were going to live in for an unknown length of time in the future. Yet I didn't give a single damn about it.

"Lisa, we're almost there," Mum said as she passed me a water bottle to the back seat, breaking me off from my thoughts. "You're going to be surprised by our new home. It's grand! You'll have more space there and you can invite your new friends over, isn't that true, Nathan?"

"Sure!" Nathan exclaimed. "After all, we'll be staying in the town's most famous property–a historic site! The locals called it the Haywood House. Can you believe it? The house we're going to live in even has a name."

Had we moved to Windsor Castle, I still wouldn't care.

"What's the history?" I mumbled.

"Ah, nothing much. They were just some landed gentry family whose lineage went on for centuries before they left years ago. The house was abandoned. Their history got swept under the rug, it's like the locals wouldn't have a say about it. But alas they could've really turned it into a museum or some sort but they couldn't care less, and now it was up for sale." Nathan answered.

"That wouldn't be possible if it weren't for Nathan's extraordinary bidding ability. He was dying to get it so bad as if there's no other house to choose." Mum gushed.

"It's the value, Lillian. It always is." Nathan chuckled. "Besides, you might be lucky to spot some ghosts. Remember, this is Scotland. We might even find our own 'Loch Ness Monster'."

"Bugger it, Nathan. You know those things aren't real." Mum snorted, flipping open her phone in annoyance while Nathan was laughing triumphantly.

Another trick to win my attention that would never work.

The car turned towards a small, windy road that could only be traveled by a single vehicle. The path was getting smaller and the car started to head uphill as we entered a wood filled with birch trees with golden buttercup flowers among the bushes.

Then we stopped before tall gates that seemed to block the view of my new home. Two thin men rushed to open them and let us in.