The Lighthouse Witches

by C. J. Cooke

  The guards from the Privy Council led the women and girls close to the stakes and began to remove their chains. The whole island had turned out for this terrible scene and I hated every one of them. Familiar faces greeted me at every turn; the women whose babies Finwell had delivered, who had sung her praises every day since; the men my father had worked with, and the children I played with often. They knew my family, and they knew my mother to be the sort of person who would never do the kinds of things she confessed to. I saw Duncan’s sons and his wife, who must have known what a blackhearted bastard he was. What cowards they were, to watch on as the accused were pulled by ropes around their neck to the stake, bony and obedient as mules.

  My mother was innocent, as were Jenny and Finwell. I knew she had only confessed to those things because she was scared.

  Father Skuddie stepped forward toward the women, and I thought for a moment he might announce that God had forgiven them and they were to be set free. But he simply crossed himself and prayed that their souls wouldn’t be left to linger in Hell.

  The guards began to tie the women to the stakes, three to each one. When a guard tried to separate Jenny and Finwell, Jenny began to scream. “No! No! Let me stay with her!” she shouted, and the guard relented, shoving her roughly against the stake so that she banged her head. She started to slump as they tied her, and I realized she’d blacked out.

  My mother was tied to the stake opposite me. She was scanning the crowd, and I waved until she saw me, and her face brightened.

  I will never forgive myself for what I did then.

  I froze.

  There were too many words I wanted to say to her. I wanted to pull her away from the stake and save her and I wanted to push all the guards and the judges and tie them to the stakes, and at the same time I wanted to run away and hide in a cave and pretend none of this was happening. But instead, I froze and stared blankly at her, and she stared back at me, terror laid nakedly on her face.

  The guards tossed gunpower around the stakes and threw in the torches. In seconds, the flames were creeping up the wood, sending black clouds of smoke whirling into the air. The noise of the sea and the crackling wood grew louder, but suddenly a loud voice sounded from the front. I looked up and saw it was Finwell, her head reared back and her mouth open.

  “I curse you, sons of Duncan, and your sons’ sons, and all the people who stand before me now. I curse you that Lòn Haven will atone for our blood, and that there will never be peace on this island until our innocence is spread throughout the whole of Scotland!”

  The other women started shouting their own curses, calling up the fae, conjuring the powers of darkness on the island, a chorus of rage rising up amidst the flames. It was an astonishing sight, and the crowd were shocked into silence. And as the women started to fall unconscious, consumed by smoke and flame, one voice in the crowd sounded loudly.

  “I curse you all, people of Lòn Haven! I curse you to burn your own children just as you’ve burned my mother!”

  It was Amy, shouting at the people around her.

  The crowd moved back, wary of the cacophony and the flames, which were being driven by the wind toward them. The sky darkened and the waves lashed at the rocks. In a moment, I watched as a guard grabbed Amy by the hair and started to drag her toward the stake, apparently with the intention of burning her with the others. My mouth was wide in horror, and I was still rooted to the spot, nailed down by fear and the strange, weightless sensation that this wasn’t real, that it wasn’t happening.

  A judge shook his head at the guard, who gruffly shoved Amy to the ground. I would learn later that the only reason her life had been spared was because the Royal Inquiry had a strict judicial process in place for witches—a barbarous process, yes, but one that had order.

  In a moment, the rest of the women’s cries died out, their voices quenched by the flames. The crowd began to tire of the scene; children grew restless, babies cried for milk. I stayed until Amy rose up from her spot on the ground and huddled close to me, both of us watching our mothers and Amy’s sister consumed by the fire, black smoke rising into the darkening sky.

  LUNA, 2021

  I

  It’s morning; Luna wakes with a drumming headache and a strange euphoria at having survived the night. The sun is shining, the loch a bright lens and the hills proud and purple with heather. Last night’s torrential downpour is a distant memory, save the pans full of water on the kitchen floor and the wet patch on the ceiling. She stares up at it and sighs. She’ll have to message the owner. There will be money owed for repairs. But first, she needs to deal with Clover.

  Luckily, Clover seems a little less hell-bent on destruction this morning. She asks for Pop-Tarts—which Luna bought on request—and they eat those together at the dining table, both in their pajamas. For a moment, Luna considers not mentioning the overflowing bath episode. But she knows, from her training, that Clover needs to talk about this. Silence never works.

  “How are you feeling?” she says.

  Clover shrugs. She’s focused on her Pop-Tarts, and the skin beneath her eyes is mauve and sunken. She’s slept in her day clothes, and strands of brown hair have loosened from her ponytail, hanging around her face.

  “Can you tell me why you left the taps running in the bathroom?” Luna says gently. “Did you want to take a bath and simply forgot?”

  Clover keeps her eyes on the plate, her lips tight.

  “And what about Gianni?” she presses, careful not to speak too fast, to keep her tone gentle. “I saw you cut him up. Did you decide you didn’t like him anymore?”

  “He needed to die,” Clover says, raising her eyes to Luna.

  “Why did he need to die?”

  Clover shrugs.

  “You know, if you wanted to have a bath, you could just tell me . . .”

  “I didn’t,” Clover snaps.

  “I see. So why did you run the taps to flood the bathroom?”

  “To flood the house, dummy,” Clover says crossly.

  Luna takes a breath. She can feel her nerves ringing, her heart pounding. She has met many, many children with behavioral problems. She was one of them, once upon time. But she never expected a reunion with her either of her sisters to turn out like this. How naïve she was to think things might ever return to how they were over twenty years ago.

  “I was thinking we could go somewhere fun today,” she says brightly, changing tack. “Just the two of us.”

  Clover looks puzzled. “Why?”

  “Well, to get to know one another again. To . . . spend time together.”

  “Why?” Clover demands again.

  Luna stares at her plate of half-eaten Pop-Tarts. How did she ever find these remotely edible? She needs to find a Starbucks or Pret for breakfast. “Would you like to go to a park?” she says.

  Clover looks restless. She looks around, taking in the room. “How long do I have to stay here?”

  “We can leave anytime,” Luna says. “We can go to my flat today if you like.”

  “Where’s your flat?”

  “I live in Coventry. Do you know where that is?”

  She shakes her head.

  “It’s quite a drive from here. We can take it in stages. Spend a night in Edinburgh, maybe? And then drive down the next day?”

  “I want to go back to the Longing,” Clover says.

  Luna stares, a sudden wave of panic washing across her. The Longing. The name conjures such terror, such complex memories. They’re so close to it now, just a short drive and a ferry away. She can almost feel it calling to her.

  She tells Clover to brush her teeth and get ready. She has no plan, but right now she needs to be alone. She needs a moment to think about what to do next.

  Ethan calls, and she’s relieved to hear his voice.

  “Everything OK?” he asks. She tells him about the events
of the night before. It’s a relief to confide in someone.

  “Fucking hell,” he says. “I knew I should have stayed.”

  “What could you have done?”

  “I don’t like the sound of this. You had labor pains in the hospital. What if the stress of this kicks that off again?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Please come home today. Please.” A pause. “Though can you imagine Margaret’s reaction if Clover flooded our flat.”

  “She’d go mental.”

  “We’d not hear the end of it for decades. We’d literally never be able to sell the place.”

  She hears something in his comment. He’s thinking they’re going to sell the flat. They’re still splitting up.

  She ends the call by telling him she’ll come home as soon as she can. Clover comes downstairs in the clothes she was wearing the day before, a white T-shirt that looks dirty and boy’s jogging bottoms, donated by the hospital.

  “I have an idea,” Luna says. “Why don’t we go get you some new clothes?”

  Clover’s eyes light up, and Luna remembers how much she and her sister loved dressing up as children. It’s a reassurance, a tenuous one. But she can’t help but feel hopeful.

  She’s uncertain where to go for toys or clothes befitting a child, least of all in somewhere as rural as Drumnadrochit. This is not something she’s ever done before, and she hasn’t even started shopping for the baby yet. They drive to Inverness, where the busy city and bustling mall are a comfort. A false one, she knows, but it’s a relief to be among crowds.

  They find a Starbucks—thank you, God—where she gets a decaf latté and a croissant. The presence of familiar chain-store names is a balm. They find a Next store. Clover’s face lifts at the bright lights and the mannequins dressed in colorful clothing, the racks of sequined and printed T-shirts and dresses.

  “Can I try on this one?” she says, lifting a tulle dress in vivid pink ombré.

  “I’m afraid that’s only for babies,” Luna says. “See? It’s too small. The label says it’s only for children aged eighteen to twenty-four months.”

  Clover is crestfallen.

  They head to the section for children aged seven and over, where Clover delights in the range of outfits, the velvet headbands, trainers with pom-poms, and dinosaur-shaped handbags. The mystery of Clover’s age aside, her reaction is heartwarming; the angry, sullen child from last night is gone, and in her place is a chatty, funny child completely in her element among fashion.

  Clover picks out leggings with a unicorn print, dungarees embroidered with roses, a dress with pink and blue tassels, and a handful of shoes, including wellies with a dolphin fin on the back seam. In the baby section, Luna can’t help but look over the beautiful sleepsuits and dungarees. Would it be jinxing things if she bought something for the baby? She lifts a panda-print onesie in newborn size and thumbs the soft fabric. She tries to imagine a baby wearing it, her baby, slipping the tiny legs and arms inside and holding him lengthwise along her arm. Will it actually happen?

  In the changing room, Luna waits outside while Clover tries on her selection. She calls out, “Luna? Would you help me, please?” The curtain moves, and Clover’s head appears there. She gestures for her to come in.

  Inside the cubicle, Clover is naked save her underwear, and instantly Luna’s eyes fall on her little body reflected in the triple mirror. The smooth, unblemished skin, the round belly and flat, undeveloped chest. How little she is, Luna thinks. And how vulnerable. Just this morning she’d wanted to strangle her. Well, not quite—but putting her on a time-out for sure.

  The square white dressing on Clover’s hip stares back at her.

  “How’s the ouchie on your hip?” she says as she bends to zip Clover’s outfit. “Do you need a new dressing on it?”

  She glances at it in the long mirror. Clover follows her gaze and twists to inspect the dressing. “It hurts a little,” she says, her fingers tracing it.

  “How did you get that mark, Clover?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  Unease grows in Luna as she studies the mark. A memory rises up: she’s in a police station right after she’d been found in the forest, after her mother had left her there and she’d apparently tried to find her way home, but got lost in the process. There’s something on her leg that the police were concerned about. They ask her about it, over and over. I don’t know how it happened, she hears herself saying, just like Clover is saying now.

  Clover takes off her outfit and pulls on a navy sequined dress. She looks in the mirror at her reflection, hand on her hip, one knee bent in a sassy pose. “This one’s gorgeous. Can we buy it?”

  Luna tells her yes, and as she reaches to move the price tag, her fingertips brush Clover’s skin. Instantly she feels the snap of an electric spark, then the punching strike of that pain behind her eyes, deep in the bones of her skull and the grooves of her eye sockets, all the way to the back of her neck. Luna sinks to the floor, gasping with the pain and shock of it. Her vision is like a smashed mirror, and the lights are there, six white lights in a row.

  As she lies on the floor she can just make out Clover standing over her. Luna tries to open her mouth to speak, to tell her to get help, but then she notices Clover’s expression.

  Her face doesn’t betray a hint of fear or concern at Luna’s state.

  It’s a look of satisfaction.

  II

  “Feeling any better?”

  Luna looks up at the shop assistant and nods, grateful. “Yes, thank you.”

  “I had dreadful fainting episodes when I was pregnant,” the woman says. “Passed as soon as I gave birth. Hopefully yours’ll be the same.”

  Luna gives a weak smile. She’s sitting in a chair in the storeroom clutching a cup of sugary tea that the shop assistant made her. The thunder in her head has retreated to a dull throb at the back of her left eye, but she still feels frighteningly nauseous and dizzy. Clover stands nearby. She looks anxious. Luna looks down at her hand where she touched Clover. She had felt a small electric shock, then the bang of a headache that seemed to roll in out of nowhere. At the time it had been frightening, but now that the pain has diminished she can see her reaction must have frightened Clover.

  “I’ll buy you the clothes you liked,” she tells her gently. “Do you want to pick out a new pair of shoes?”

  Clover reaches out to take her hand, but Luna draws back, nervous. Clover’s expression changes—she’s hurt, and frightened, but Luna is still too hesitant to touch her.

  Back at the Airbnb, Luna slides the ready meals she picked up at the grocery store into the oven and sinks down into the armchair. She still hasn’t contacted the owner about the water damage. There are other, infinitely more terrifying things on her mind. Like why touching Clover seemed to bring on a horrific headache. Like why Clover is a child of seven and a half instead of a grown woman. Whether having Clover back in her life is a good idea or if it’s putting her and her unborn son at risk.

  At risk of what? she thinks.

  Death, answers a small voice from the corridors of her mind.

  She watches Clover carefully, weighing up her thoughts. Is she Clover? A voice tells her that she can’t be. Nothing that Luna has found online can answer why Clover remains a child. Yet she looks and sounds just like Clover.

  And there’s the mark on Clover’s hip, the horrible burn with numbers sliced into her flesh.

  She checks that Clover is occupied before heading to the bedroom, using her phone to try to take a photograph of the area behind each of her knees. It’s the only way she can see if anything is there, though it’s possible that such a mark would have long since faded.

  It’s an awkward area to photograph, especially with a flash. The first three images are blurry, the next too far away. She’s almost about to give up when she sees something in one of the
shots of her right leg. A tiny mark.

  She zooms into the image. It’s grainy, and very faint, but she can just make out a shape. No, not a shape. With a gasp, she realizes it’s a number.

  8

  She covers her hand with her mouth, zooming further into the figure on her screen.

  All this time, the mark has been there.

  Just like Clover’s.

  III

  That night, Luna’s dreams are memories filtered through imagination. She’s back in the bothy on Lòn Haven, a boisterous gray sea visible through a small window. Her mother is there, telling her to put on her trainers and fleece jacket so they can go out walking together. The air in the room feels wrong and her mother’s face is tight, but she doesn’t know why.

  And then, she’s in a forest. The wind is swaying the trees, their long black branches twisting overhead. She can see faces in the distance, watching her and her mother as they walk.

  They stop in a clearing. Isla is there, strands of red hair falling down from beneath a yellow beanie like red snakes. She smiles down at her, but there’s a rope in her hand.

  Be a good girl.

  Her mother’s tying her to the tree with the rope, wrapping it around her legs and arms the way she once bandaged her wrist when she’d sprained it. Her mother ties the rope in knots, fastening her in place. Luna’s heart is racing. She can feel the rough bark against her hands, the rope digging into her shins. Her mother is sobbing.

  And then she sees the knife lifting in the air. She feels the sting of it against her arm. The blood hitting her mother’s face.

  She wakes up gasping, her throat dry from shouting out. In the moonlight she can see a figure in the doorway. Clover.