They Should Have Called

“Silence tells its own story—and it’s never the one you want to hear.” — Douglas Thomson

The cottage stood on the edge of the estate, set slightly apart from the main house by a stretch of scorched land and the skeletal remains of the old orchard. Apple trees that had once bloomed pink and white each spring now rose like blackened silhouettes, their limbs lifted in a kind of frozen lament.

It had been Alasdair’s idea, after Eloise’s death. When Daniel had brought the girls back to the estate—grief-raw, half-formed in the silence left behind—his parents had offered the main house without hesitation. "Grief needs space," his father had said, with that particular blend of tact and understatement that Daniel had come to recognise as love. "And children need room to grow."

Rather than share the house, Alasdair had arranged for the cottage to be built—a modest, practical home set just far enough for privacy, but close enough to remain connected. He’d overseen every part of the process himself, consulting the plans with near-scholarly precision, selecting materials with the same care he gave to archival bindings, and coordinating tradesmen like a quiet general. He’d helped where he could—moving supplies, offering tea, staying long after the builders left—but he’d kept Daniel out of it entirely. "You look after the girls," he’d said. "I'll take care of the rest."

And he had.

Unlike everything else, it had survived the fire.

The roof stood firm, its slate tiles gleaming dully in the morning light, not a single one missing or scorched. The windows were intact, reflecting the grey sky like blind eyes, revealing nothing of what lay behind them. The white stone walls bore no smoke, no soot—untouched, unscathed. As if the fire had chosen not to touch it. As if it had been spared, not by accident, but by design.

It stood like an anomaly.

A monument to what once was.

A lone memory in a field of ruin.

It should have been a relief.

But it wasn’t.

Because it was wrong. It was empty. Too perfect. Too silent.

Like something staged. Preserved. Waiting.

Daniel had tried to contact his parents repeatedly over the past days, each call more desperate than the last. The first attempts had been almost casual, routine check-ins. By the third day, his messages had grown increasingly urgent, tinged with the fear he tried to keep from his voice. By yesterday, he had been calling hourly, hanging up only to try again minutes later. He had known—deep down, he had known—that they wouldn't be here. His parents were still away at the botanical conference in Aberdeen, where his father had been presenting his latest findings on sustainable coffee cultivation. A lifetime's work distilled into a forty-five-minute talk that had drawn experts from across Europe.

But standing here now, staring at the undisturbed doorway with its familiar brass knocker (a coffee leaf, matching the one on his café's sign), that certainty no longer felt like enough. The pristine state of the cottage felt wrong, deliberate—like something preserved as bait in a trap. The garden beds beneath the windows, his mother's pride, were still neatly tended, the early spring bulbs pushing up through soil untouched by the devastation. A watering can sat beside the front step, exactly where his mother always left it.

They should be back by now.

Or at the very least, they should have called.

The whole estate had gone up in flames. It had been on the news, plastered across every screen and newspaper in Scotland for days. The "Mysterious Fire at Historic Campbell Estate" had dominated headlines, theories ranging from tragic accident to targeted arson. Reporters had camped at the estate boundaries, keeping a respectful distance but hungry for details, for interviews, for something to fill the vacuum of information. His father would have seen it, would have called the second he heard. His mother would have rung his phone until the battery died, would have found some way to reach him even if she had to walk the entire way from Aberdeen. She was relentless when it came to family, had once tracked Daniel down at a remote coffee plantation in Brazil when his phone had been stolen, somehow managing to get a message to him within hours.

And yet—nothing. Three days of silence. Three days of growing unease.

Daniel's pulse picked up, just slightly. The quiet thrum of anxiety that had been his constant companion since the fire sharpened into something more defined, more urgent. His mouth went dry, the metallic taste of fear coating his tongue. Every instinct—honed by years of reading subtle changes in soil, in weather, in the precise moment coffee beans reached their perfect roast—screamed that something was very, very wrong.

He pulled out his phone, the device cold in his grip, and dialled his father's number for what must have been the twentieth time since they'd fled the estate.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

With each hollow tone, hope dimmed a little more, guttering like a candle in wind.

Straight to voicemail. His father's voice, so familiar it ached: "You've reached Alasdair Campbell. Please leave a message, and I’ll return your call promptly." The message cut off there—no personal touches, no mention of being away. Just the essentials, efficient and to the point. Just like his father.

He tried his mother next, knowing the result would be the same but unable to stop himself from trying. The compulsion to reach out, to connect, was overwhelming, a drowning man grasping at anything that might keep him afloat.

Same result. Her voice, warm and lilting where his father's was firm and measured: "Hello, you've reached Moira Campbell. I can't come to the phone right now, but please leave a message." A pause, then softer: "And if this is Daniel or one of the girls, I love you."

The message hit him like a physical blow. How many times had he heard those words and taken them for granted? How many calls had ended with that simple phrase, expected and unremarkable until now, when its absence carved a hollow in his chest?

He stared at the screen, thumb hovering over the call button, his mind suddenly unwilling to accept what his gut was telling him. The rational explanations he'd clung to over the past days—poor reception, dead battery, lost phone—felt increasingly hollow in the face of this continued silence. Each passed hour made them less plausible, less believable, even to himself.

This wasn't like them.

His father was meticulous about checking in, had been ever since Daniel was a boy. Even when travelling, he maintained schedules with military precision, calling exactly when he said he would, not a minute early or late. Daniel had inherited that same exactitude, that same need for order and reliability. His mother was incapable of ignoring missed calls—it was a family joke that she could sense her phone ringing even when it was in another room, her "maternal radar" unfailing. Even if something had delayed them, even if they were still travelling back—they would have answered. They would have found a way.

A slow, creeping unease began to settle in, transforming from worry to something darker, something he wasn't ready to name. It crawled up his spine like ice water, pooling at the base of his skull, whispering terrible possibilities he couldn't allow himself to consider. Not yet.

Where the hell are they?

Douglas' voice broke the silence behind him, quiet but carrying easily in the still morning air. "No answer?" His tone was carefully neutral, but Daniel heard the concern beneath the question, the confirmation of fears already discussed in hushed tones at the Emporium while the girls slept.

Daniel shook his head, eyes still locked on the phone screen as if willing it to light up, to show his father's name, to provide some reason for hope. The bright display seemed to mock him with its unchanging message: No Missed Calls.

"They should have called." His own voice sounded strange to his ears—too level, too controlled, like saying it out loud might make it sound more reasonable than it felt. The past days had taught him to mask his fears, to project calm for his daughters' sake, but here, faced with this empty house, the facade was cracking. Hairline fractures spreading through the careful composure he'd maintained, threatening to shatter it entirely.

Douglas' expression barely shifted, but Daniel saw the subtle flicker of concern in his eyes, the tightening around his mouth. The Guardian had been researching while they were at the Emporium, making discreet inquiries about the conference, about travel disruptions, about anything that might explain the silence. He'd returned from each outing with the same grim expression, each lead evaporating into nothing.

He knew what this meant. They both did.

The evidence was piling up, impossible to ignore: the White Rose Society's methodical destruction of the estate, the targeting of specific areas, the silence from his parents. Pieces of a puzzle forming a picture Daniel didn't want to see.

Isla shifted beside them, arms still folded tightly across her chest, her brows drawn together. The past days had changed her—hardened her in some ways, focused her in others. She'd spent hours with Ewan, asking questions about the White Rose Society, absorbing information like someone preparing for battle rather than a young woman who'd just lost her home. Even her stance had changed—more balanced, more aware, as if she'd instinctively adopted a readiness for whatever might come next.

"Maybe they're just out of signal?" Her voice had an edge of forced logic, but the hesitation in her tone gave her away. She was grasping at the same straws Daniel had clung to for days, knowing they were flimsy but unwilling to let them go. Her eyes, scanning the cottage with almost analytical precision, belied the hopeful suggestion.

They all knew better.

The silence was too loud.

Something wasn't right.

Douglas had mentioned it yesterday, carefully, as if testing the waters: "We should consider the possibility that they've been targeted as well." Daniel had cut him off, unwilling to hear it, unwilling to accept that the danger might have spread beyond the estate, beyond his immediate family. The anger had been swift, defensive, fuelled by the terror of what accepting such a possibility would mean.

Now, standing before the empty cottage, that possibility was impossible to ignore. It stood before him, as tangible as the undisturbed house, as real as the silence stretching between his calls and the absence of response.

Daniel stood in absolute stillness, his phone still clutched in his hand, the screen dark now, useless. Three days of calls. Three days of waiting. Three days of hoping for a simple explanation. Three days of watching the worry in his daughters' eyes when they thought he wasn't looking.

The small house in front of him was quiet, undisturbed.

Too quiet.

Too untouched.

It felt wrong, like it didn't belong here—not because it had been spared, but because everything else had been taken. The selective nature of the destruction seemed suddenly significant in a way it hadn't before. Not random. Calculated. Someone had made choices about what to destroy and what to preserve, and those choices told a story Daniel was only beginning to understand.

The estate was gone, the fields turned to ash, the main house left in ruin—but this place remained.

Empty. Hollow. A shell without the people who made it matter.

His parents should be here.

They should have come home.

They should have called.

They should have—

"We need to go, Daniel."

Douglas' voice was quiet but firm, cutting through the heavy fog in Daniel's mind like a blade through cobwebs. The words themselves were gentle, but beneath them lay iron—the voice of a man accustomed to making hard decisions, to leaving places and people behind. They had agreed before leaving the Emporium: a quick reconnaissance only. In and out. No lingering. The White Rose Society might still be watching, might still have agents in the area. Three days was not enough time for the dust to settle, for the hunters to abandon their territory completely.

He turned slightly, but his feet didn't move. His body felt weighted, unresponsive, as if gravity itself had intensified around him, rooting him to this spot. Leaving would make this moment permanent, make it real in a way he wasn't ready for. To turn his back on this place—on the possibility, however faint, that his parents might return to it—felt like abandonment, like giving up on the last thread of hope. Like closing a door that could never be reopened.

The cold had seeped into his bones now, not just from the chill of the morning but from something deeper, an internal winter spreading through his veins. The sky above them had darkened almost imperceptibly, clouds thickening, promising rain that would wash away footprints, evidence, whatever meagre traces might remain of what had happened here.

Douglas had closed the distance between them, standing at his side now—close enough that Daniel could feel the solidity of his presence, but not so close as to crowd him in his grief. His expression was calm, steady, but his eyes carried an understanding Daniel hadn’t expected. There was no impatience, no pressing urgency—just quiet recognition.

Douglas had seen this kind of loss before. He’d mentioned it once, in passing, during a late-night planning session at the Emporium—how sometimes being a Guardian meant losing people before you could save them. But it wasn’t just the Guardian work. Daniel knew he’d spent years as a paramedic, and in that line of work, grief wasn’t abstract—it was faces, names, the weight of hands he couldn’t hold onto. Car accidents. Empty cribs. Calls that came too late.

He carried it all with the same quiet control. The same shadows behind his eyes. The kind you didn’t get from one kind of life alone.

Douglas knew what it was to lose something.

He had seen this kind of grief before.

Daniel wanted to argue.

Wanted to tell him that he needed more time, that they couldn't just walk away, not yet—that somewhere in this desolation there might be a clue, a sign, some indication of what had happened to his parents. The words pressed against his throat like physical things, desperate for release.

But what was there to stay for?

The estate was nothing but ruin, and his parents were nowhere to be found.

There was nothing left to fix.

Nothing left to save.

A crow called overhead, the sound harsh and mocking in the stillness. It circled once, twice, before settling on what remained of the garden wall, its obsidian feathers gleaming in the weak light. A witness. A sentinel. Patient and impassive.

Daniel’s hands curled into tight fists, the tension coiling in his chest like a rope pulled taut, ready to snap. His nails dug half-moons into his palms, the small pain a focal point, something real to anchor himself to. The rage that had sustained him over the past days, that had given him purpose during the endless planning sessions, was being eclipsed by something colder, emptier—a void expanding within him, threatening to consume whatever remained.

Isla stepped forward, her face pale, her posture rigid, but her voice was steady when she spoke.

"Dad."

He turned to her, and for a moment, she just looked at him. Her eyes—so much like his own—held a mixture of grief, determination, and something else. A quiet understanding that belied her years. She'd lost as much as he had—her home, her sense of safety, perhaps her grandparents—and yet here she stood, steady amid the ruins. Not unbroken, but unbowed.

Then she shook her head, her voice barely above a whisper, carried on a breath that clouded in the cold air between them.

"There's nothing here anymore."

She didn’t sound defeated. Just clear. Cold, and sure.

The words hung between them, simple but devastating in their truth. This place—once the heart of their family, once his parents' sanctuary—was just a building now. Empty walls. Silent rooms. A memorial to what was lost rather than a home to return to. A shell without the spark that had made it more than just stone and timber.

Daniel exhaled slowly, a long, measured breath that crystallised in front of him before dissipating into nothing. It didn't make him feel any lighter.

He nodded.

Not in agreement.

Not in understanding.

Just... accepting the inevitable.

And then, without another word, he turned away from the house and walked back towards the ashes. Each step felt like a surrender, like leaving a part of himself behind. The ground was uneven beneath his feet, treacherous with debris and shallow craters where the fire had burned hottest, consuming even the soil itself. His boots left temporary impressions—already being filled with ash blown by the morning breeze, the earth itself erasing his presence even as he departed.

They walked in silence, the crunch of their footsteps the only sound in the heavy morning air. The grounds that had once been alive with the sound of workers, of machinery, of life and growth, were now a mausoleum, a testament to what had been lost. No birdsong. No distant hum of tractors. No calling voices. Just emptiness and the hollow echo of their passage.

Daniel didn't look up at first. His head was down, his jaw tight, his hands curled into fists at his sides. The taste of ash coated his tongue, bitter and pervasive. The smell of it clung to his clothes, his skin, his hair—a scent he knew would linger for days, perhaps weeks. A physical reminder he would carry with him, no matter how far they went from this place.

He had spent his entire life building something that mattered.

Not just a business. A legacy.

Something he could pass down to his daughters, something that would outlive him, just as it had outlived his father and his grandfather before him. The café, the estate, the knowledge passed from generation to generation—all of it part of a continuum that stretched back centuries, to Elspeth Stewart and her sisters, to promises made and kept. A trust. A responsibility. A purpose.

Now?

Now, it was nothing but ash beneath his feet.

As they reached the edge of the estate, the boundary where their land met the public road, he finally turned for one last look.

The sight of it—the destruction, the emptiness, the absence of everything that made this place home—hit him like a physical weight. The air seemed to thicken in his lungs, refusing to move. In the days since they'd fled, he'd remembered it as it was: vibrant, alive, thriving. Fields stretching to the horizon, neat rows of coffee plants reaching for the sun, the greenhouse glass gleaming in the afternoon light, the main house standing proud against the Scottish sky. The reality before him now seemed almost obscene in its starkness, a perversion of everything this place had been.

This land had been in his family for generations.

He had worked it, protected it, fought for it.

It should have been his daughters' inheritance. Their future.

And now?

There was nothing left to pass on.

His life was gone.

His legacy was gone.

The wind picked up, colder now, carrying with it the first few drops of rain—a soft patter against his face, mingling with the ash that clung to everything. The sky had darkened further, heavy clouds hanging low, as if the heavens themselves mourned what had been lost.

And for the first time in years, he didn't know what came next. The plans they'd made at the Emporium—the careful steps towards understanding what had happened, towards possibly reclaiming what was lost—seemed suddenly insufficient, a bandage on a wound too deep to heal. The future, once so certain, stretched before him now as blank and desolate as the burned fields.

He turned away and kept walking. The rest would follow, whether he wanted it to or not. Each step took him further from everything he had known, everything he had built, everything he had believed would endure.

Behind him, Isla paused for just a moment longer, her gaze lingering on the devastation, memorising it with precision before following her father. The rain had begun to fall more steadily now, drops darkening her hair, running down her face like tears she refused to shed. Her face was set with a determination that hadn’t been there days ago. Not just grief. Not just rage. But something older — the beginning of a vow. A resolve born from ashes, tempered in the fire that had burned their name.

Whatever came next, they would face it together—and they would make someone pay.

The crow watched them go, its eyes tracking their retreat. When they were almost out of sight, it spread its wings and took flight, a dark silhouette against the greying sky, circling once more over the ruined estate before disappearing into the gathering storm.