A mysterious figure emerged from the shadows on a Scottish island. She felt an undeniable pull to be with him

The sun began to dip below the horizon over Skara Brae, an ancient stone settlement on the Orkney Islands, located off the northernmost edge of Scotland.

A solitary figure stood amidst the 3,000-year-old stone structures, holding a warm cup of tea as the fading daylight enveloped the scene.

Rachael, a history graduate in her early 20s, had been fascinated by the Neolithic sites of Orkney since childhood, growing up near Glasgow. Becoming a tour guide at Skara Brae was the fulfillment of a long-held dream.

During the bustling summer months, Rachael would lead groups of tourists through the UNESCO World Heritage Site. But on this quiet March day in 2013, there were no visitors. Instead, she found herself lost in the peaceful expanse of the deep blue sea, enjoying the serene solitude.

“I can still recall gazing at the sky, the sea, and the cliffs, as the twilight transformed into a beautiful lilac hue, signaling the end of the day,” Rachael recalls to Dinogo Travel today.

Her moment of daydreaming was suddenly interrupted by a buzz from the radio in her pocket.

“My manager radioed in, telling me a visitor was arriving, advising me to be alert and set my tea down.”

Rachael complied and walked towards the entrance of Skara Brae. As she peered down the path, she noticed a lone figure approaching her.

As the figure drew nearer, she saw it was a man, clad entirely in black with a hat adorned with a feather. Instantly, Rachael felt a spark of curiosity.

“It was that enchanting sensation of spotting someone in the distance – and you get this feeling, like they’re somehow familiar, yet also mysterious and captivating,”

The enigmatic man with the feathered hat was Anthony, an American college student from the University of Wisconsin, studying abroad in Edinburgh. Like Rachael, Anthony had a deep fascination with history.

“I planned a journey to Orkney to explore the stone circles, ancient tombs, and, most importantly, the village of Skara Brae,” Anthony shares with Dinogo Travel.

Anthony had traveled with a friend from Edinburgh, taking the ferry from Aberdeen. By the time they reached Orkney, both were exhausted. Anthony was eager to see the sights, but his friend chose to rest instead.

Anthony hoped that by visiting Skara Brae in the early evening, he could get closer to the ancient structures, rather than simply observing them from a distance, as was typically advised.

“As I walked up, my first thought was, ‘Great, there goes that plan. There’s someone here. I can’t sneak around,’” Anthony recalls.

However, when Anthony and Rachael—who have requested to keep their last names private—introduced themselves, his initial concerns quickly dissipated.

“Everything shifted. Rachael had a way of making the site come alive, transforming it from just a heap of stones into a place that felt human and tangible,” says Anthony.

Eager to chat with someone as enthusiastic about history as herself, Rachael offered to show the American visitor around the ancient village on an impromptu tour.

As they explored the stone structures, the two discussed the rich history of Skara Brae. Anthony admits he was “captivated” by the way Rachael brought the site to life.

“It’s not just about stones, it’s about the people and the stories they left behind,” he reflects.

“Needless to say, we completely lost track of time, and I was completely enchanted,” he adds.

“I think we both realized there was some kind of connection between us,” Rachael says, noting that she barely noticed the buzz of her radio. As night began to fall, her manager was calling, reminding her that the site was about to close.

‘I belong with him,’

Later that evening, Anthony and his friend were browsing a local grocery store. As he turned down one of the aisles, he was taken aback to find Rachael, arm in arm with another man. It was clear that he was her boyfriend.

“I felt pretty disappointed,” Anthony admits. “But it didn’t really matter. I was only in Orkney for the weekend. What was I going to do? Start a long-distance relationship with a tour guide in Orkney?”

Rachael recalls this moment as well. She wasn’t shocked to run into Anthony again – living on such a small island, encounters like this were common – but she was taken aback by the unexpected wave of emotion she felt in that chance meeting.

“I just gave Anthony and his friend a quick ‘hello,’ then I remember getting into my boyfriend’s car. We drove to my flat on the island, and I can still picture looking out the window and seeing Anthony walking by with his rucksack slung over his shoulder.”

Their eyes met, and Rachael saw the hint of disappointment on Anthony’s face.

“I just knew deep down that I belonged with him, not with the other guy. I should be with him,” Rachael reflects today.

Yet at the time, she pushed the thought aside – knowing Anthony would soon return to Edinburgh and then to Wisconsin. She figured she would likely never cross paths with him again.

As time passed, she accepted that reality, even though she often found herself reminiscing about their walk around Skara Brae at dusk.

“I always had a few visitors who stood out in my memory – whether it was a unique connection we shared, something they said, or the way they engaged with the village that left a lasting impression. Anthony fell into that category of top five memorable visitors to Skara Brae,” Rachael reflects.

Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh and later in Wisconsin, Anthony couldn’t help but replay his conversations with Rachael in his mind. Their meeting had a significant impact on his work.

“Thanks to that tour guide, my research focus shifted from Neolithic Britain to Neolithic Orkney,” he says.

But Anthony, like Rachael, had placed her in the past.

“It was a travel story – one of the best I had – but that’s all it was at the time.”

A second chance

A year and a half later, in the fall of 2014, Anthony returned to Orkney to further his research. This time, he explored all the island's Neolithic tombs, mapping solar alignments using a detailed Ordnance Survey map from the UK.

“I spent six weeks cycling around the islands, armed with a compass and an Ordnance Survey map,” he remembers.

Meanwhile, Rachael had transitioned from working at Skara Brae to a new role at Maeshowe, another iconic archaeological site on Orkney.

She had broken up with the boyfriend she'd been with the previous year and was enjoying her time with friends, taking in the natural beauty of the island.

Rachael also cherished her solitude, especially the quiet Thursday mornings spent reading through the local Orkney paper, the Orcadian.

One Thursday, as Rachael relaxed on her couch flipping through the paper, she came across an article that piqued her interest. It was about an American tourist who had found a message in a bottle. The photo showed him, wearing a feathered cap, proudly holding the bottle with a wide grin on his face.

Rachael could hardly believe her eyes. The man in the photo looked exactly like him – in fact, it had to be him, the man from Skara Brae.

At the same time, Anthony had completed his solo cycling trip and was now traveling with his college advisor, who had come to Orkney for a short visit to check in on his student.

Anthony’s professor wanted to visit Maeshowe, so the day after the article was published, the two of them unknowingly headed to Rachael’s workplace.

“I’ll never forget walking into the visitor center and spotting her there,” Anthony recalls. “It was so strange, but what stuck with me the most was her voice.”

“Then, total chaos ensued – ‘How are you here?’ It was overwhelming.”

Rachael immediately recognized Anthony as well.

“The visitor center was housed in an old mill. He bounded up the wooden stairs, swirled in, flung open his leather jacket, and scattered leaflets, tickets, passports – everything – across the desk,” she recalls.

“He said he was there to book a tour, and I asked him for his name. When he told me, I thought, ‘That’s the same name from the newspaper. It has to be him.’”

A few moments passed as Rachael processed the tickets, but then she looked up at Anthony again and felt compelled to speak.

“I think I remember you from somewhere,” she said. “At Skara Brae.”

A flood of emotions hit Anthony – relief, surprise, and a surge of excitement.

“That was such an incredible moment,” he reflects now.

The bond Anthony and Rachael had shared a year and a half ago was still palpable, and both of them could feel it. Even Rachael’s colleagues noticed the chemistry between them. Though Rachael wasn’t scheduled for any tours that day, her coworkers reshuffled the roster so that she would be the one guiding Anthony and his professor around Maeshowe.

“We ended up co-hosting the tour because Anthony knew so much about Neolithic Orkney,” Rachael explains.

They worked seamlessly together, exchanging insights about the site’s history and feeding off each other’s energy.

“My colleagues were already joking around, calling Anthony my new boyfriend,” Rachael laughs. “They were just having fun, saying, ‘Who’s this guy trailing behind you like a puppy dog?’”

After the tour, Rachael asked Anthony for his number – the chance encounter was so unexpected, she didn’t want to let it slip away.

Anthony was over the moon, though he couldn’t quite figure out whether Rachael was inviting him out as a fellow historian, as a friend, or something deeper.

Later that week, the two met for lunch at a local cafe, followed by a stroll along one of Orkney’s rugged beaches.

“The connection was instant,” Anthony recalls. “We talked nonstop for nearly two and a half hours.”

A few days later, they went to see a movie together in a makeshift cinema set up in a church hall in the Orkney port town of Stromness.

“We were sitting as close as possible, but neither of us acknowledging it,” Anthony recalls.

After the film, he finally addressed the unspoken tension.

“I’m struggling to keep this just as a friendship,” he admitted.

“That was pretty sweet,” Rachael reflects now.

After that, they became a couple.

“We didn’t do the whole casual dating thing of ‘Let’s see where this goes.’ From the start, it was clear: ‘This is us, we’re together, and we’ll make it work,’” Anthony recalls.

Managing a long-distance romance

Looking back, both Anthony and Rachael admit they had no idea what it truly meant to start a relationship with someone living an ocean away.

For one thing, traveling between Orkney and Wisconsin was no small task.

“The first time I traveled to America, I had to go from Orkney to Glasgow, then to Amsterdam, followed by a flight to Detroit, then Milwaukee, and finally to Anthony’s mom’s place,” Rachael recalls. “You can imagine how exhausted I was when I finally got there.”

In the following years, the couple met up every six months or so in places like Scotland, the US, Canada, and the Netherlands.

“I think my family was worried that I was getting my hopes up over something so uncertain, that this long-distance relationship might not last,” Rachael admits.

“From the very beginning, my mom was all in for Rachael,” says Anthony. “My friends, on the other hand, were extremely doubtful. Every single one of them thought it wouldn’t work out.”

Despite the hurdles of distance, both Rachael and Anthony were determined to make their relationship succeed. Just a few months into their long-distance journey, Anthony popped the question.

He had originally planned to propose to Rachael near some waterfalls in Wisconsin. However, while Rachael was well-acquainted with the rough weather of Orkney, a Wisconsin winter was a whole new level. She didn’t have the proper gear for a snowy hike.

Instead, he proposed in the warmth of his bedroom.

“He got down on one knee by the bed and asked, ‘I love you, Rachael, will you marry me?’” Rachael recalls.

“Of course, I said yes without hesitation. It was truly magical, wonderful, and, honestly, a bit surreal,” says Rachael.

After more time apart, they married in May 2016 during an intimate ceremony at the prehistoric standing stones of Stenness in Orkney, where their journey had started.

“It was freezing and windy, but in hindsight, it felt like the spirit of Orkney was right there with us,” Rachael reflects.

The ceremony had a small gathering of close friends and family, including Rachael’s relatives. Although Anthony had initially told his loved ones not to make the long journey, he later wished they had. However, two of his best friends surprised him by flying in from North America.

Rachael and Anthony's vows were exchanged in a pagan handfasting ceremony, a Celtic tradition where their hands were bound together to represent their unity.

The guests stood in a circle around the couple, who stood at the center. Rachael and Anthony offered a velvet pouch to each guest, who then selected a handwritten vow to read aloud to the couple.

“Everyone played an important role in the ceremony,” Anthony recalls. “And what made it even more special was that we wrote the entire ceremony ourselves.”

Following the ceremony, the celebration included a meal with speeches. The couple blended American traditions, such as feeding each other cake, alongside the Celtic rituals.

Getting married didn’t immediately solve Anthony and Rachael’s long-distance dilemma. After their honeymoon on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, they had to separate once more to handle visa matters.

Eventually, Rachael moved to Wisconsin to be with Anthony, and they spent a few years in the US before returning to Scotland in early 2020.

Full circle

Today, Anthony and Rachael are living contentedly in Edinburgh, in a cozy cottage located in Dalkeith Country Park, a historic estate and park. Interestingly, this is the very place where Anthony spent time as an exchange student back in 2013.

“Sometimes life really does come full circle,” reflects Anthony.

Both Anthony and Rachael are employed at an insurance company, though their passion for history and archaeology endures. In their free time, they enjoy exploring Scotland’s rich historical landmarks together, while Rachael volunteers at a museum in Edinburgh, and Anthony shares his archaeological insights on Twitter under the handle @RileyFlintSpark.

Nine years after their first encounter, the couple finds it fascinating to look back on how two random meetings in Orkney and a message in a bottle ultimately brought them together.

“I’m not really one for believing in fate,” says Anthony. “People kept telling me it was fate, over and over, but the truth is, it took a lot of hard work to get here.”

“It certainly took a lot of effort,” Rachael acknowledges. “But looking back, some moments felt truly magical. The connections we shared, some of them feel too meaningful to just be coincidences.”

Reflecting on everything we’ve been through is quite emotional. There were incredible moments, as well as some tough ones – just like any couple experiences. But for me, it shows that magic really does exist.”