From the journal of Megan Culbin
Somewhere in the Atlantic aboard the good ship Morgana,
August 2nd 1923

Where do dreams go when they die? In my case, they headed for Scotland and I have high hopes of giving the nightmares a decent burial there. Maybe then the dead will rest in peace.

To begin with, you must know that I did not love my husband.

I hadn't much liked Duncan when he was alive--not once we married and he revealed himself fully for the crazed fiend he was--and I liked him only slightly better once he was dead and buried as far underground as the sexton could decently place him. My unlamented husband had made my life a nightmare of humiliation for the time we were married, but Duncan did do one thing for me that I was grateful for. He actually got around to making a will in my favor before surrendering himself to complete drunkenness and debauchery. So along with inheriting all his debts to angry tradesmen, I also gained title to his late Uncle Fergus Culbin’s cottage in Scotland, the mysterious and unmentioned old man having the forethought to die the week before my husband overdosed on absinthe and a seven percent solution of cocaine while visiting a prostitute.

So, I am on my way to Scotland, a widow of extremely modest means, and no kin to turn to except a Puritanical aunt and uncle in Charleston and perhaps some distant relations of my late husband's who would doubtless prefer not to know me. My prospects are bleak enough, but I still count myself as the most fortunate of women. After all, I have escaped the worst possible marriage and will have a roof, however modest, over my head this winter. I am young and able-bodied. Not all widows--or wives-- are so lucky.