The bartender eyed up the stranger through her mottled glasses with unease.
He was clearly American, stuck out like a sore thumb in the dingy pub.
A worn sign outside had lured him in from the bitterly cold rain, promising warm food.
The greyish soup he was given (asking for whatever they recommended) was at least something.
It tasted vaguely earthy (mushroom perhaps) with a few golf ball sized chunks of meat.
He glanced about the almost empty place, not exactly filthy but far from clean.
Still it was a far cry better than the weather outside - Scotland wasn't known for sunshine.
He tried to ask for a beer but was given a shot of whiskey instead, it was all they served there.
The bartender wasn't one for conversation he soon found, preferring instead to polish a single glass.
Her eyes stared fixedly at an old group photo of some kind.
A few of the people had been crossed out in thick red marker, others torn off entirely.
When she caught him staring she put down the glass and asked him why he'd come there.
Admittedly it was far from the usual tourist traps of Britain, the small island of Barra.
With a population of less than two thousand everything felt so much emptier.
Perhaps he'd been drawn to the loneliness he said, something as far from home as possible.
The bartender nodded knowingly, told him to go see Our Lady of The Sea in the morning.
She gave him directions to a bed and breakfast down the road and sent him packing.
He turned just before he left to see her staring balefully at that group photo once again.
By the time he arrived there he was soaked to the bone despite his thick coat.
This time as he knocked on the door he was greeted by a much older woman.
Her face was obscured by a mourning veil but she greeted him with a watery smile.
She sat him down in a warm dining room, offered him a bowl of the same soup he had in the pub.
He ate it still, grateful for the warmth though still unsure of the taste.
That night he slept fitfully in a small attic room that smelt faintly of dust and stale air.
He woke up the next morning to find the bed and breakfast home completely abandoned.
Even the same dining room he'd been in not hours before had changed completely.
Thick cobwebs obscured the formerly spotless shelves and rot covered all but an old record player.
After searching the whole house he could plainly see that it was frozen in time, in decay.
Remembering the bartender's words he swiftly left the home to see this Lady of The Sea.
As soon as the door closed behind him the entire place groaned and collapsed.
He ran, following the directions the bartender gave him, heading downhill to the coast.
On such a small island it didn't take him too long.
The statue he came to had perhaps one been of the Virgin Mary, now it was an inhuman mass.
Thick clumps of algae distorted the face and outstretched limbs.
At her feet lay a metal plaque, rusted but still readable.
It had three paragraphs on the island's history, how it had been abandoned in the early 1900s.
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