The Lighthouse Witches

by C. J. Cooke

“She’s to stay at least one more night for observation,” Eilidh is saying, mistaking Luna’s look for a query regarding her care. “She has a concussion and is a bit dehydrated. And there’s an injury on her hip that the doctors would like to speak with you about.”

  “Is she taking me to Mummy?” the girl asks Eilidh in a weak voice.

  “I’m sure that’s on the cards,” Eilidh tells her with a smile. “You’ll be home soon enough, sweetheart.”

  Ethan gives a heavy sigh and rests his hand on Luna’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says under his breath. He begins to pull out his car keys, because clearly they’ve driven all this way for nothing. They’ve come to collect a grown woman, but there’s been a terrible mix-up and here they are, presented with someone else’s missing child.

  He turns to walk out, gesturing for Luna to follow—but she can’t. She turns back toward the girl, staring.

  The child looks up, shyly taking in the sight of the woman in front of her.

  “How come you have my giraffe?” she asks, sitting straighter.

  “You recognize it, Clover?” Eilidh says, encouraged by this exchange.

  “It’s Gianni,” she says, itching to get him. “Can I have him please?” Luna finds herself handing over the toy, dumbfounded as the child squeezes it to her cheek. Exactly as Clover used to do. “I missed you, Gianni.”

  “I’ve had him a long time,” Luna finds herself saying, but Clover is already talking again, explaining that she set him down just the other day and when she went to cuddle him in bed he was gone.

  “I put him right on the bedside table. Didn’t I, Gianni? And then I got dressed and he was gone.”

  Eilidh leans over to Clover and glances up at Luna. “Do you recognize your sister, Luna? It’s OK if you need a wee while.”

  “You’re called Luna?” the girl asks, narrowing her eyes. Luna nods.

  “Well, isn’t that lovely?” Eilidh says. “Two sisters, reunited. As soon as you’re well you’ll be returning home with Luna.”

  Luna opens her mouth to say something, but she is overwhelmed with a dozen emotions at once. The girl looks so like Clover, it’s uncanny. Same pale, freckled face, same brown hair that curls at the bottom and those round denim-blue eyes fixed in the same intelligent, challenging stare—just like Luna’s. She has the same nose as Luna, too, a little too wide, and her ears stick out. She’s missing two front teeth, and her left cheek dimples slightly when she talks. Just like Saffy’s.

  But she can’t be Clover. She’s more than twenty years too young.

  A nurse comes in then, keen to change Clover’s drip. Luna can feel Ethan’s eyes on her, expectant, the air between them filled with questions. She knows he wants her to leave, now that it’s evident that this is all a mistake. But her heart is racing, her instinct shouting every bit as loud as her fear.

  Who is she, if not Clover?

  LIV, 1998

  I

  I sat at the kitchen table holding the hand that had slapped Saffy, as though it belonged to someone else.

  What have I done?

  I was strongly against corporal punishment, had never lifted so much as a finger against my children. Saffy’s words had riled me, yes, and I remembered feeling shaken by the sight of the little girl in the lighthouse, a little girl I had doubtless imagined . . . but clearly I was losing my grip.

  After I struck her, Saffy ran out of the bothy. I’d taken Luna and Clover with me and driven up and down the main road, trying to find her, but there was no sign.

  I’d returned to the bothy, hoping that Saffy might have blown off steam and returned. Shaken by the empty rooms, I’d called Isla and asked her to keep an eye out for Saffy on the main island of Lòn Haven. I had tried to keep the details vague, but she didn’t hesitate in prying.

  “Strange for Sapphire to be out walking alone, isn’t it?” she’d said. “Given that she knows no one here.”

  “There was a bit of a disagreement this morning,” I’d said awkwardly. “She’s just upset.”

  “I see. Perhaps it’s a hard adjustment for her, this place.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “She couldn’t have stayed back in England with her father? Or grandparents?”

  I’d bristled. Isla didn’t know me well enough to be asking such things.

  “If you see Saffy,” I’d said, biting back stronger words, “could you tell her to stay put, please, and call me to let me know where she is?”

  “I’ll do you one better,” Isla had said, suddenly obsequious. “How about Row and I take a drive around the island just now, see if we can find her, and when we do, I’ll take the girls out for a coffee. Give them a chance to become pals. How does that sound?”

  I had hesitated. “Sounds . . . great. Thank you.”

  Until Saffy was found, I was helpless.

  “Did you and Saffy have an argument?” Luna asked as I was making breakfast. She was always the most perceptive of the three, highly in tune with the emotions of others.

  “No,” I said, smiling. “She’s just out exploring, that’s all.”

  Mothers are the best actors.

  Once Clover and Luna were set up at the dining table with bowls of cereal, I went outside, taking in the sight of the gray ocean wrapping around the tiny lighthouse island like a fist, a mackerel sky troubled by seabirds swooping and screaming beneath the clap of the waves. Saffy had never been an easy child. Defiant and headstrong, she was born with a will already forged in iron. Nonetheless, I’d always expected that having a teenager would be a turning point, the part of parenthood where everything got better. Throughout those early years of nappies, teething, tantrums, and night terrors I’d consoled myself by imaging a time when my girls were old enough to be self-sufficient. Maybe then I wouldn’t be pulled in three different directions, always spinning plates. But Saffy’s defiance had grown into disrespect and contempt. I felt as though I needed an emotional suit of armor to protect myself from her spiteful comments. She resented every thought, cell, breath, and ounce of me.

  I turned and glanced inside the bothy, noticing at once that Luna and Clover were now playing on the floor of the living room with their dinosaur toys. I left them to it, picking up my Polaroid camera and heading to the lighthouse for another look.

  II

  The Longing was still intimidating in the light of day. The sheer height of it made my mouth run dry. I waded quickly through the filthy sludge on the floor and toward the staircase. I took my time, focusing on every detail—the curl of the iron banister, the sound of the seabirds outside, the spots on the wall where the light rested. It was the most beautiful building I’d ever laid eyes on, and the saddest. Both cathedral and asylum. A monument to hope and to loneliness.

  The elements and island wildlife had all but claimed the place. I wasn’t an expert on pest control but I had worked on a number of projects that brought me into close contact with vermin; here, the upper floors were inhabited by a sizable community of bats, while the presence of seabirds—black with white heads, a kind I’d never seen before—on the windowsills told me there were nests.

  I headed up to the lantern room at the very top. The stairs narrowed at the last flight, and the climb into the little room itself was a bit of a squeeze. I’d only spent a moment or two in this room the day before, but now I was able to appreciate the space and the views it afforded across the island. The sun was beginning to burn off the fog, flinging out the beauty of Lòn Haven—the vast emerald ocean, muscular, shining cliffs, hills dotted with cairns and lush forests. Dusty floorboards creaked beneath my feet, but they seemed in good enough order, and the room had been cleaned and tidied recently. Perhaps this was where Mr. Roberts was going to install his writing studio.

  I took several pictures of the walls, then the views, with the Polaroid camera. The views would serve as my inspiration for the mural. Yes, I had the symbols
that Mr. Roberts wanted, but a mural requires depth—layers of images, if you like. So I needed to think about the base layer. A palette of oceanic colors, even. I took more photos, careful not to overthink it too much—whatever drew my eye. The seals on the rocks below. The lavender tufts of heather in the fields, the white-tipped waves, the way they kept springing up and charging like white horses. The strange, black-headed seabirds hovering in the wind outside.

  And I thought about how I arrived here. Here, in this lighthouse, with these girls and this life. I’d felt so proud accepting my place at the Glasgow School of Art. I was set to conquer the world, one brushstroke at a time. Later, in my gown and cap and in the toilet of a Starbucks, I’d discovered I was pregnant. I’d had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fling with a textiles postgrad. He was an exchange student from the Netherlands and I’d admired his crochet sculptures. He was already long gone, backpacking around Europe.

  A termination wasn’t in the cards; a school friend had had one and relayed the procedure to a group of us in tears. Excruciating, she said, and humiliating. I preferred denial, right up until I went into labor and the midwives left me alone with a tiny blonde cherub that was apparently mine. I moved the cherub and me into a bedsit in Bristol. Over time, I got used to the routine of staggering through the days, drunk with sleep deprivation.

  I fell in love. Sean was an artist I met while teaching at Bristol College. We were happy. Sean taught ceramics and encouraged me to exhibit my work. We both had a collection at the Lime Tree Gallery at one point, and they sold so well that we were able to go on our first family holiday. We went to Nice. We had Luna, then Clover. They looked like twins, despite being two and half years apart, both with Sean’s big blue Irish eyes.

  Clover had just turned two when Sean went out for a drink with a friend. Peter was three times over the limit when he took a bend at a hundred and eight miles an hour. The car spun out and hit a wall. Peter was killed instantly; Sean clung on for three days. They told us to say our good-byes and switched off the machine.

  It’s a blur, that soul-shredding chapter of my life. We were homeless a lot, drifting from place to place and relying on the mercy of friends. I was a single mother to three girls, trying to juggle painting commissions and sporadic teaching contracts with school runs and homework.

  I thought of the sleeping bodies of my daughters tangled beside me when I woke that morning, and most mornings, legs and arms akimbo.

  Did I love them?

  More than my own life.

  Would I have done it all again, knowing what I know now?

  No, I don’t think I would.

  I’d had such high hopes for motherhood. And I wanted everything for my children. But every single day I had to confront the glaring reality that I simply wasn’t able to provide the kind of life they deserved. And it crushed me.

  III

  I took the stairs back down, holding tightly to the banister that was only partially secured to the wall of the lighthouse. I tried not to look down into the abyss of that tall stone tower. I was used to heights—murals usually involved cherry pickers or the cranes people associate with firefighters rescuing cats from tall trees. But the drop here was nerve-jangling. I had good balance, decent core strength, yet even so, I took those stairs as carefully as I could, keeping my eyes away from the vortex of the center of the lighthouse. One slip, one distraction from each solid step would land me on solid concrete and break my back. Or kill me.

  At the bottom of the staircase, I recalled the episode from the night before.

  The doll in the dirty water.

  It was still there, and much less eerie in the cool light of day. But I remembered how I’d felt a pull toward the section of the floor beneath the stairs. I moved toward it, sloshing through the water, feeling a bit stupid. My foot hit against something. A piece of wood.

  I reached down and felt the hard edge of a slab of wood, about two-foot square. It wasn’t heavy, and as soon as I lifted it the water started to gurgle and pour down into whatever the wood had been covering. A good thing, as far as I was concerned, as the dark water started to go down.

  I assumed the wood had been covering a drain, but as I looked closer, I saw the grille wasn’t a standard drain covering. The bars were old and rusty, fixed in place by a heavy lock. The water continued to pour down through the bars, a long echo indicating that there was quite a deep drop there. I couldn’t see the bottom.

  Luna and Clover were already outside when I emerged from the lighthouse, playing tag and laughing. I started to tell them off for leaving the bothy when they’d been instructed to stay indoors, but they were laughing so hard my words died in the wind.

  At lunchtime, the old Range Rover that I recognized as Isla’s pulled up outside. Through the window I saw a cloud of blonde hair emerge from the passenger side. Saffy, followed by another girl.

  I ran outside, unable to stop myself from bursting into tears and throwing my arms around her. Luna, Clover, and I had scoured the area around the lighthouse, searching the caves dotting the cliffs farther along the bay. We’d gone into the forest, then drove into the little town, Strallaig, in case she’d made it that far, but there had been no sign of her. I’d told myself that if she didn’t turn up by two o’clock, I’d call the police. It was half past one.

  Saffy tolerated my hug—I guessed because we had an audience—and I thanked Isla for finding her. There was a man in the driving seat. An older man, mid-sixties, with a stone-cold stare.

  “This is my husband, Bram,” Isla said.

  “Hello,” I said. He didn’t smile or say hello back, but I wasn’t bothered. I was just grateful to have Saffy home.

  “Where was she?” I asked.

  “We spotted her walking along Salters Road, about a mile that way,” she said, turning to point left. “We’ve just stopped by the café for a cuppa, haven’t we, girls?”

  The other girl, Rowan, introduced herself as Isla’s daughter. At fifteen, she was the same age as Saffy, and just as shy and awkward, but she was friendly with it, too. She had long hair dyed raven black—an inch of copper roots betrayed her true color—and heavy black eye makeup. An oversized Marilyn Manson T-shirt and studded Doc Martens indicated that she was somewhat of a goth. I invited her and Isla in for a coffee.

  “Oh, we’ve just been to Mum’s café,” Rowan said. She laughed nervously when she spoke, a light tinkle of bells.

  “Whist,” Isla said, which I remembered meant “be quiet.” Then, to me: “We’d love to, but I’ve to open the café for a crafts workshop.”

  She explained that “the café” was her café in the town of Strallaig. She ran it while looking after properties, like the Longing, on the side.

  “Another time, then,” I said.

  She nodded. “Oh, before I forget—I’ve ordered all the things you asked for. The paints, the harnesses, brushes, extension poles, a thirty-meter cherry picker. They’ll take another week or so to arrive, but they’re on their way.”

  I was astonished. “You found a cherry picker?”

  “The thingamajig that looks like a fireman’s lift?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aye. Took a bit of finding, that, but I got it. And I’ve got a plasterer coming out to sort out all the bits of the interior wall that need fixing.”

  I told her I owed her. “Not at all,” she said brightly. Then, turning to get back into her car, she added, “Why don’t you come over one night? Bring the girls.” She winked. “We can have that coffee with a dram of whiskey.”

  IV

  I registered the girls at the local school, a small joined-up primary-through-secondary school with a hundred kids. It was very relaxed, with a lot of focus on the outdoors, and I tried not to think about where I would register them once I finished the mural.

  I decided to keep the girls at home for a week longer so we could spend some time together before I s
tarted work, and specifically to try to get myself back into Saffy’s good graces. The weather played nice for us, those grim scenes of lashing waves and witchy trees we’d been met with on our first night ripening to lush vistas of emerald fields, golden beaches, and rich blue ocean. The wildlife, too, was something else—we came to recognize the seals that seemed to reside on the rocks behind the Longing, the big gray one who shuffled and grunted in response when Clover called hello to him each morning, and the two slim black ones who often played together in the water, slick and quick as missiles.

  “Sharks!” Luna shouted one morning. I raced outside to find her pointing at a dorsal fin moving slowly through the water, only twenty feet or so from where we stood. A fishing boat was nearby, and I saw a man leaning over the side, sliding a pole into the water. The dorsal fin turned and began heading toward him. Clover clapped a hand to her mouth.

  “The sharks are going to eat him!” she squealed.

  The man was shouting something.

  “What did he say?” Luna said.

  “It’s Basil,” he said, waving his arm at us. “Basil!”

  “Basil?” I called back.

  “Oh, the basking shark,” Luna said. “Remember? Isla told us about him when we arrived.”

  We watched, speechless, as the shark lifted its snout out of the water to the fisherman’s pole. And instead of feeding it, the fisherman used the pole to rub up and down the shark’s body.

  “He likes a good scratch,” the man shouted.

  And every morning after that, a similar scene—the fisherman, whose name we learned was Angus McPherson, stopped off at the bay on his way back from his morning catch to say hello to Basil, our friendly neighborhood basking shark.

  We visited Camhanaich, the ancient standing stones set in a circle, which, according to Saffy, was likely used by Neolithic settlers for ritualistic slaughter. We drove through a sea fret, which was like driving through milk, and watched coal-black storm clouds roll in like traveling mountains. We explored the forests, spotted otters and kingfishers by the rivers, and the clock-round face of an owl in flight. We picked wildflower bouquets and took them back to the bothy, identifying each plant using an old encyclopedia of Scottish flowers: fair-grass, fool’s parsley, bog myrtle, hop-clover. We dried and hung them from the windows of the bothy.