The Lighthouse Witches

by C. J. Cooke

  He’d lost me at this point. “And . . . what has that to do with Patrick buying the land?”

  “Ach, it’s just a theory.”

  “Which is?”

  He stroked his beard. “Well, with kids going missing and all that . . . Some folk say that archaeologists are going to dig up murdered bodies. And that’s why Patrick’s buying so much land. To control where they dig.”

  I followed his train of thought. “So he doesn’t get caught for murder?”

  He turned to me, the answer written all over his face. I recalled what Isla had said. He’s an odd one, that Roberts. I work for him to keep an eye on him.

  I said, “But if everyone thinks he’s a murderer, how come he hasn’t been picked up by the police?”

  “Well, Bram’s head of police,” he said. “And who is Bram married to?”

  “Isla,” I said. He was implying that Isla’s influence reached right into the police department. That she had sway on who was investigated and who wasn’t. But Isla had told me she found Patrick to be odd. What would her motive be for keeping an investigation away from him?

  “Anyway, enough conspiratorial talk,” he said suddenly, waving a hand in the air to disperse our speculations. “How’s about I propose a toast?”

  “To?” I said, lifting my empty glass.

  “You, Ms. Olivia Stay.” He raised his glass. “For all the work you’ve put into making the Longing a little less crap.”

  I laughed. “Cheers.”

  The timer on the oven buzzed. I set down my glass to retrieve the quiche I’d made. I could never cook very well, but quiche I could do, having learned at art school that eggs tended to be heavily marked down at supermarkets close to student digs because no student could be bothered with the faff. We called the girls to the dining table and I lit a candle.

  “One minor detail,” Finn said, biting his lip. “I’m allergic to eggs. Sorry.”

  I looked from the quiche—which had turned out beautifully—to him, and then both of us burst out laughing.

  “Shit. I should have checked.”

  “I love eggs,” Cassie piped up. “I’ll have Daddy’s portion.”

  I stood and rummaged through the cupboards. I’d avoided the supermarket in Strallaig so stridently since that weird night at Isla’s café that all I had in was a half packet of crackers and a can of baked beans.

  “Can I interest you in . . . six crackers and some baked beans?”

  “Yum,” Finn said, holding up his plate. “Get in my belly.”

  Despite its rocky start, the evening was relaxed and fun, with the three girls chatting and laughing and Finn joining in with their banter. Saffy’s absence both relieved and concerned me. She was free to go as she pleased so long as she adhered to a curfew and let me know where she was, but since we’d arrived she’d abandoned the second part of that rule, and my nagging hadn’t seemed to have achieved much. When Cassie started to wane, I saw Finn become anxious to get her to her bed, so I suggested to the girls that we say good-bye. Nobody wanted to.

  “We can do this again,” I said.

  “When?” Clover insisted. “Tomorrow?”

  I laughed. “We’ll see.”

  Finn scooped Cassie up and carried her to the car parked by the road at the end of the causeway. I told Luna and Clover to stay indoors while I carried Cassie’s shoes, which she’d taken off in the bedroom.

  “Thanks for a lovely night,” Finn said, closing the passenger door and straightening before me.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, and then neither of us said anything because it seemed that something had grown between us over dinner. Perhaps it was just friendship, I told myself. We’d certainly grown closer. Friends did that. But as he took a step closer, kissing my cheek softly, I realized it was something more.

  I felt immediately guilty. I hadn’t told him yet that I was ill. I knew that, like me, he was ferociously cautious about romantic relationships. But Finn was standing in front of me, so close our noses almost touched, a look in his eyes that seemed to say everything I was thinking and feeling inside. And then, a bang on the car window.

  “Kiss her, Dad! Kiss her!” Cassie screamed.

  Both of us laughed and took a step back.

  “Aye, thanks for that, Cass,” he said, embarrassed.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said, smiling. “Maybe we can spend some time together. As friends.”

  If it’s possible to describe the look he gave me in the half second before he answered, I’d say he looked a little crushed, and instantly I knew I’d said the wrong thing.

  “I mean . . .”

  “Yes,” he said, rallying. “Actually, I could show you the rewilding project.”

  I told him I’d love to, with the girls of course.

  A couple of days later, he drove us all in his truck to the plain that he was rewilding with his “team,” which turned out to be his friend Willy, who had fitted the windows in the Longing, another man, Kirwin, who worked at the ferry port, and Finn’s brother, Leo, who was an older, rounder, version of Finn. He lived with his wife and three kids on the south side. The trees were little more than saplings, but haste wasn’t the objective, Finn said. “In fact, haste is the enemy,” he told the girls, who all mouthed “Haste?” at each other. “A project as important as this one demands considered planning and patience.”

  “And plenty of trips to the pub,” Leo added.

  “Speaking of which,” Finn said, “shall we adjourn to the island’s one and only pub? They serve fabulous chicken nuggets.”

  VI

  He took us through the mountains to the west side of the island, where the ferry port was. The west side was noticeably more populated than the east, with whitewashed croft houses dotting the landscape. The beaches were like the Bahamas in appearance, with a bow of pristine white sand and turquoise blue water, green cliffs on either side.

  “You’ll sharp know you’re in Scotland and not the Bahamas when you swim in it,” Finn said. We parked and I stepped outside to take in the scene, wishing I’d brought a sketchpad. It had been a long, long time since I’d seen a view quite as incredible, and I felt moved by it. I wanted to absorb it, be in it. The girls all ran off to paddle, and before I knew what was happening Finn had cupped my face in his hands and was kissing me, a sensation at once startling and welcome, the closeness of him so natural that all the fear I’d had about men and love and relationships managed to subside, just for that moment.

  “Can I come over tonight?” he said in a low voice. Then, when I flinched: “I’m not suggesting . . . I mean, just to spend time. I’m not wanting to rush anything . . .”

  “I was just wondering whether you meant you had a babysitter,” I said.

  “Well, that there’s a bit of a conundrum,” he said. “Seeing as we’re each other’s babysitters, in effect.”

  “Bring Cassie. She fits right in with Luna and Clover.”

  He kissed me again, and this time the girls caught sight of us from the shoreline and laughed, pointing and making “wooo” noises.

  “Nothing like pre-adolescent girls to keep you humble,” Finn said.

  * * *

  —

  Later, once Finn had dropped us off to allow Cassie time for a nap at home before dinner, I stood in front of the small mirror in the bathroom of the bothy. I had started bleeding again. The cramping had started in my lower back and deep in my pelvis. It wasn’t my period. I knew this wasn’t going away. No matter how much I tried to run from it or deny it, this illness was here, inside my body. Stitched into my DNA.

  I needed to see a doctor. I needed to be up-front with Finn, and with my daughters.

  After all, they were at risk of inheriting it, too.

  I was wearing another of Saffy’s dresses and a touch of red lipstick. I looked nice. I even liked my hair. I felt like I h
ad been in hiding for years, and now, for the first time, I was coming out of the cave. Right as my time was running out.

  The doorbell rang. I took a breath, tried to position the words on my lips, and opened the door.

  But the man who stood there wasn’t Finn. He was young, late twenties at a push, a black beanie tugged down over black hair to his jaw, and a hoodie worn under a denim jacket.

  He did a double take when he saw me, so much so that I wondered if we knew each other.

  “Patrick,” he said, expectantly. “I’m Patrick Roberts.”

  VII

  “Patrick Roberts?” I said, uncertain if I’d heard correctly. This . . . was Patrick Roberts? The Patrick Roberts?

  “Yes,” he said. “You’re Liv? The artist?”

  “I am,” I said, clearing my throat. I hesitated, expecting him to say he was the son of the owner of the Longing. But he didn’t. He was the owner. I held out a hand. “We finally meet.”

  He was slender with searching eyes and a soft voice, barely more than a whisper. I looked him over, taking in the tatty black jeans and Adidas trainers, trying to reconcile the image I’d carried in my mind of this man with the one in front of me. I’d always pictured an older man, the kind who wore a tie and played golf, who talked too loudly and maybe drank too much. This was a . . . boy. A gentle, slightly awkward, rakish twenty-something, with a whiff of nerves and body odor. A Keanu Reeves circa Bill & Ted’s kind of boy.

  He spent a moment wiping his feet on the doormat—laughable, really, given how old and worn the carpet was—before stepping inside. His eyes fell on the dining table set for six—my girls and I, as well as Finn and Cassie.

  “I’m not disturbing you, am I?” he said.

  “Not at all,” I said, lying. The fact that Finn and I had just been talking about him made me self-conscious, as if our words lingered in the air, incriminating us. I scanned the road outside nervously. It occurred to me, a moment too late, that if Finn arrived to find Mr. Roberts here it would be an awkward start to the evening.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived,” Patrick said, glancing around. “Did Isla tell you I was on a sailing trip?”

  “She did,” I said. “Shetland, I think she said.”

  He nodded. “You’ve settled in OK?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  His eyes fell on a pair of Clover’s knickers, which she’d inexplicably left on the armrest of the sofa, and he gave a nervous laugh.

  “My daughters are with me,” I said as an apology.

  “Sapphire, Luna, and Clover,” he repeated with a smile. “Isla told me. Are they here? I’d love to meet them.”

  Just then, Clover came into the living room, dressed in nothing more than a swimsuit, a pair of goggles strapped to her forehead.

  “Hello,” she said, looking up at him. “Who are you?”

  “I’m . . . Patrick,” he said. I could tell he wasn’t used to kids. “How are you?”

  “Why are you wearing a swimsuit, Clover?” I asked.

  She toggled the goggles over her eyes. “Just to look fabulous.”

  Patrick grinned. “I like your style,” he told her.

  “Thanks,” she said primly. Then, “I like your shoes.”

  He looked down at his shoes and smiled. “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Who is this?” another voice said. Luna, studying Patrick with a serious expression.

  “This is Patrick Roberts,” I told her. “He owns the Longing.”

  She looked him up and down. “You own the Longing?”

  He grinned, still nervous. “Uh, yes. I bought it last year.”

  “Why did you buy it?” Luna persisted. “It doesn’t work, you know.”

  He ran a hand through his dark hair. “I know . . .”

  “You have the same name as Saffy’s book.”

  “Do I?”

  “The one with Icelandic words in it,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

  She ran up into Saffy’s bedroom in the loft, returning with the old book I’d seen Saffy reading the day after we arrived.

  “I’ve told the girls to take extra-special care with that,” I told him, apologetically. “I can tell it’s very old.”

  Patrick took the book from Luna and looked it over, his long fingers turning the pages carefully. I could see there were some runes in the book, similar to the ones in the Longing. “You said it has Icelandic words?”

  Luna nodded.

  He bent down to her eye level. “Do you know what Iceland used to be called?”

  She shook her head.

  “Snowland.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “That’s a much better name.”

  He brightened and flicked through the book. “Do you think so? It’s had a lot of names, actually. Gardarsholmur was one. The Norse used to call it Saga Island.”

  “A saga’s a story.”

  He smiled. “A particular kind of story, but yes, a story. Do you speak Icelandic?”

  “Well, not yet,” Luna said bashfully. “But Saffy looked up some dictionaries at school.” She craned her head to see the page he had opened. “That word means ‘bird,’ ” Luna said proudly, pointing at one of the scribbles. “And that one means ‘human.’ ”

  “Human?” Patrick said, puzzled. “I don’t think so.”

  Luna nodded, adamant. “Saffy checked it.”

  He smiled at her. “Oh. I’ll check it again, in that case.”

  “Go to your room, girls,” I told Clover and Luna. “I need to discuss the project with Mr. Roberts.”

  “You got my instructions, then?” he said, once we’d sat at the dining table. “For the mural?”

  I nodded, noting the word “instructions”—a generous description of the sheet of paper bearing a scribble that I’d received. “I did,” I said. “I’m almost finished.”

  His face lit up in surprise. “I’d love to see it.”

  VIII

  I left the girls in the bothy while Patrick and I headed to the Longing to look over the mural. I felt nerves setting in as I turned the key in the door. I had to remind myself he was the owner of this place, despite looking so insanely young. What if he didn’t like it? This was the moment of truth. I was finished with the rune design, but there was a lot of filling in to do, and I worried that he expected me to be a lot further on.

  Inside, I flicked on the work lamps, flooding the place with bright light. The raw patches of stone had been covered with fresh plaster, and the dirty water that I had sloshed through the first time I stepped inside had been pumped out and cleared up, and with it, that awful dead-fish smell. My equipment was still in place, the work lights shining on the chrome legs of the cherry picker and pooling on the empty paint tins I’d stored under the staircase. I’d painted the mural in oceanic colors to make it a little more themed, and more appealing to the eye. I turned the light to pick out the shades of blues and greens that I’d used as a base color for the overlapping triangles, and the lines that fanned outward to the other symbols.

  As I watched Patrick’s expression shift to one of surprise, then delight, my nerves melted away, and I felt proud.

  When he spoke, his mouth had an odd tremor to it. “It’s . . . out of this world,” he said. “Simply out of this world.”

  “You like it?” I asked.

  “I do,” he said, his gaze roving across the runes. “It’s a lot prettier than I imagined it would be.”

  “Really?”

  “I’d honestly thought you would just paint the runes in black lines.”

  “Well, Isla said you were using this place as a writing studio, so obviously I wanted it to inspire you.”

  He looked blank for a moment. “Oh, right. Great idea.”

  I had the weird sense that we were imagining the project from entirely different viewpoints.
But that was my job, I reasoned. I was the artist. He’d hired me to imagine it for him, as well as execute it.

  I told him to follow me onto the cherry picker platform for a better view, explaining that I’d used it to reach the highest parts of the Longing and that he’d be safely harnessed on it. I moved the platform slowly upward to the apex of the painting, explaining how I’d had to redo some of the symbols to accommodate the sections of plaster that Finn had added to smooth out the surface, or how I’d embellished them to make them stronger. I’d painted the symbol of a flame, for instance, with the colors yellow, red, and orange, but I’d decided to paint it quite large as that section of wall got less light from the windows. “I had to think about the shape of the building,” I explained. “Obviously the walls are curved, which means that perspective is a little different. Especially from the floor. I painted it so that when you look up from the bottom of the lighthouse you can see the mural almost as it appears on the page. Does that make sense?”

  He kept his head tilted back, his eyes on the mural. “It makes complete sense,” he said, though I caught him stifling a yawn.

  I lowered the platform gradually, spending a minute or so at each section to talk over the color choices and suggestions I had for developing it.

  “I was wondering if you had any ideas on how we could incorporate scenes or patterns around the mural,” I said in an attempt to draw him into the process. He didn’t appear to hear me, so I pointed at a section that was unfinished. “Here, you see, I thought of maybe incorporating some elements from Scottish folklore.”

  I went to say more, but beneath the whir of the platform he had whispered something. A name.

  “I’m sorry?” I said loudly. “I didn’t quite hear what you said.”

  We were still on the platform, his face close to mine, his eyes searching me and his lips moving, though I still couldn’t hear what he was saying. I stepped back into the metal barrier. The lights were bright, but it was just the two of us in the Longing.

  “Are you . . . ?” he said, his mouth open and his eyes searching my face.