Freya’s eye caught upon the eagle once more. She watched it floating upwards in the air thermals, wings outstretched. It reminded her of one of Torin’s stories, gathering height and aspect, slowly, seemingly without effort.
‘The lighthouse was built in 1899 on the largest of the islands, Eilean Mor, and in clear weather its light could be seen from twenty miles away. But more often than not, mist enshrouded the island and visibility was poor. A three-man crew maintained the lighthouse, and every fourteen days they would be replaced. No one wanted to remain on the Flannan Isles for long.’
Freya looked at the bird for a moment, still moving upwards, then closed her eyes. The Seven Hunters were mere pinpricks of land, bleak and isolated, encircled by a hostile, violent ocean. Eilean Mor had its lighthouse and the ruined chapel of St Flannan, and Eilean Taighe, also part of the northeast group, had a stone shelter. Further out in the western islands was Eilean a’Gobha (Isle of the Blacksmith). These brutal rocky outposts had been populated a long time ago. But they were not really a place for men. For some reason, Freya thought of Sam and the tale of the Green Island.
Torin cleared his throat and Freya sensed him drawing her back to him. She smiled and thought she caught the glimmer of a smile in return. ‘Jack Ducat was principal keeper at the lighthouse and, on the seventh of December, 1900, he returned to duty. His usual first assistant, William Ross, had been taken ill, and had been replaced by local man, Donald MacArthur, an occasional keeper. The second assistant was Thomas Marshall, a regular member of the crew. For the two weeks following the men’s return, a heavy fog hung over Eilean Mor and the lighthouse was not visible. The light, however, could still be seen from time to time. It was spotted on the evening of the seventh of December and then was obscured for the next four nights. It was seen again on the twelth of December and after that was not visible again for over a fortnight.
‘On the evening of the fiteenth of December, two ships passing in the vicinity of Eilean Mor reported that there was no light shining from the lighthouse. For some reason, no action was taken. The relief ship, the Hesperus, was due to sail to the Flannan Isles on the twenty-first of December. Perhaps that was why. But bad weather delayed the Hesperus and it didn’t depart until Boxing Day.
‘It was said that those on the relief boat were filled with a sense of dread and foreboding. They suspected something untoward – it was virtually unheard of for keepers to allow a light to go out. When they reached the shore their fears were compounded. A flag would usually be raised to show the relief vessel had been spotted. But the flag was down and there was no sign of the lighthouse crew who would usually assist the incoming men. When the siren was sounded, there was still no response.
‘Third assistant keeper Joseph Moore and second mate McCormack of the Hesperus rowed ashore and Moore went to check on the station. He found the outer door locked. With his set of keys, he unlocked the building and went inside. But the place was deserted. The fire was unlit in the grate, the clock on the wall had stopped and the beds were unmade. Some versions of the tale say that an uneaten meal sat upon the table.’
Freya felt the hairs on her arms rise. ‘Like the Mary Celeste.’
Torin nodded. ‘Indeed. Moore returned to the launch and informed the relief that the crew were missing. Searches of the island were carried out but no one was found. It seemed that the crew had simply disappeared. The Hesperus returned to Lewis, while Moore and a team of others were left behind to man the lighthouse for the time being.’
So they relit the beacon, Freya thought. The light on the Flannan Islands flashed twice in rapid succession every thirty seconds. Freya had tried and failed, as Sam had enjoyed telling her, to memorise the distinctive qualities of each Scottish light. For some reason, however, she remembered this one.
‘As they searched the building more thoroughly, they began to piece together bits of information. Everything appeared to have been running just as normal until the fourteenth of December. The keeper’s log, always meticulously maintained, as you know from Pol, noted that there had been a storm on the fourteenth of December. It had, however, blown over by the following day. But the jetty and railings had been badly damaged and while some ropes had been washed away, others had become entangled in a crane seventy feet above normal sea level. A stone, weighing over a tonne, had been tossed high up on the island. Quite a storm and no messing. There were a number of log entries noting the mood of the men during the storm. Ducat had been irritable while MacArthur had wept. Then Ducat had been quiet while MacArthur prayed. Then all three men had prayed together. Quite what had terrified them all, three seasoned veterans of storms, was puzzling.’
Torin paused for a moment, as if still trying to work it out. Then he carried on matter-of-factly. ‘Two sets of the men’s outdoor oilskins were missing. The one that remained at the lighthouse belonged to Donald MacArthur.
‘Robert Muirhead, the superintendent of lighthouses for the Northern Lighthouse Board, made for Eilean Mor on the twenty-ninth of December and produced a report of his findings. Muirhead concluded that the three men had left the lighthouse to carry out repair work or secure stores against the storm and had either been blown off the edge of the rocks or washed away by a freak wave. The first theory was disproved as the wind had been blowing inland. And many disbelieved his second idea that a roller, as he called it, could have swept them out to sea.’ Torin paused and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘But we all know that freak waves have since been seen and proved.’
‘So the sea took them,’ said Freya.
‘Perhaps,’ said Torin. ‘But a lot of people have said along the way that three lighthouse men would never leave the building all together, would never leave the lamp untended, no matter what. It is possible, I suppose, that Ducat and Marshall went out to patch things up after the storm and MacArthur stayed back. That would explain only two oilskins being missing. Perhaps MacArthur then caught sight of a freak wave approaching and ran out to warn the others without putting on his outdoor gear. Some accounts also have it that there was an upturned chair on the floor of the kitchen, as if someone had left in haste. So that is consistent with that theory. MacArthur might then have tried to raise the alarm, only for all three of the men to be swept out to sea.
‘But,’ continued Torin, drawing in his cheeks, ‘you will remember that Moore found the outer lighthouse door locked. Why, if he was in a panic, would MacArthur have the presence of mind to secure the door after him? It makes no sense.’
‘So what do you think happened?’ Freya asked.
‘I don’t know what happened. It was a long time ago and the facts are hazy.’ Torin frowned, scrunching up his eyes as if attempting to see something. ‘But what I know is that the place was desolate and dangerous and three men were together there, stranded in close proximity. It can do strange things to a man.’
Torin’s words triggered something in Freya’s mind. It was what Pol had said to Sam when they went up the tower: ‘It can do odd things to a man’s head to be in a lighthouse alone at night, especially at night, looking out over the sea.’ Loneliness and madness. Was this the moral of Torin’s tale? ‘So do you think MacArthur killed the other two? He was the outsider, after all, the irregular, if you like. Perhaps he killed them and then killed himself. Pushed their bodies off the high cliffs into the ocean and then jumped off too.’
‘It is one possibility,’ said Torin. ‘One among many. One of the ships that passed the island while the lamp was unlit reported sighting a ghostly longboat close by on the water, crewed by three men with faces the colour of bone. The crew sounded the horn but there was no response from the boat, which later vanished. This fuelled the already-existing belief that the island was haunted, stalked by the Phantom of the Seven Hunters. Perhaps fear and madness, and subsequently murder, stemmed from that. Some said the keepers were taken by the Ceasg, Scottish mermaids; others were convinced it was the work of aliens.’ Torin laughed and then was serious once more. ‘Who knows where the truth li
es. Some things in life are mysteries that cannot be solved, no matter how much we want them to be. We simply don’t know what happened, and we have to accept that, no matter how much we don’t want to. They are the disappeared.’
Freya stared at Torin. Now she thought she realised the purpose of the story. She had to accept that strange, horrible things happened all the time – things that cannot be explained, that make no sense. She had to stop wondering what had happened to her family. She had to stop asking questions that she would, perhaps, never find the answers to. And, most important of all, she had to stop living alone on an island. But what if she couldn’t accept or stop all those things?
‘You risk disappearing too,’ Torin said, as if she had asked the question out loud. Then he paused. ‘You need to be careful of the past.’
Freya looked at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You must take care.’
Freya didn’t understand. ‘What do you see?’ she said, suddenly afraid.
But Torin simply shook his head. When he spoke there was real concern in his voice. ‘I don’t know. But perhaps this isn’t the best place for you to be.’
Freya felt a flash of anger. Now he sounded like her mother and father. They were all worried about her it seemed, even Torin – out in the middle of the ocean, in a lighthouse, surrounded only by the sea and the disappeared. Suddenly, she heard her own words about the Flannan Isles. This was not a place for men. And yet she couldn’t bear to think that they might have relevance for her. She thought of Ailsa and her gift, and was sure it could not be so. No. She wasn’t ready to accept this just yet. She closed her eyes, to stop them filling with tears.
Torin reached for her hand and enclosed it within his own. ‘Shhh,’ he said. ‘Calm yourself.’ Then she heard him mutter something under his breath.
But she couldn’t make out the words.
14
IT WAS 3 a.m. and Freya’s mind was dull, distracted. She was lying on the sofa drinking warm milk, having woken earlier from the familiar dream of her son ascending the lighthouse tower. Random thoughts slid slowly across her mind and then moved on. Marta, with a feather duster, laughing as they had cleaned and tidied the cottage that day. Eagles rising high in the air searching for prey, Torin’s lilting voice accompanying their ascent. Freya smiled. Then, some of his words, spoken the day before, popped into her head.
‘You risk disappearing too.’
Her smile faded. To distract herself she concentrated on the patterns of light dancing across the ceiling, intersecting the darkness, the bright flashes from the beam of the lighthouse and the paler threads of light from the moon. For a time she simply stared upwards, watching, unmoving, then suddenly she threw her legs off the sofa and headed into the kitchen. For a moment she stood over the pan of cooling milk and watched the soft curls of steam still rising from its surface. The subtle movement simultaneously gave her comfort and made her want to cry. A moment later, she grabbed the pan and poured its contents down the sink. Then she moved back towards her bedroom.
The corridor was in shadow but light spilled reassuringly from the open bedroom door. As Freya passed the locked door of the lighthouse tower in the hallway, her hand reached out once more and her fingers grazed the lock. The touch of cold metal sent a shiver through her, and with it came sudden flashes of the dream she had had. But now her recollection was sharp, crisp, the images in high definition. Sam was clambering up the stairs of the lighthouse tower, hotly pursuing Pol, turning and smiling at her periodically, the wide grin of one whose dreams were coming true right there and then. Her face in contrast had been pale and serious, her hand sweating, squeezing the metal banister tightly as she followed them in their dark, claustrophobic climb. They rose higher and higher. The voices of her son and Pol had pooled around her in the narrowing tower, the words indistinct, a cacophony of noise. And then suddenly there was relief as they reached the lamp room, with its glass and vistas and sense of light and space. She remembered Pol speaking about the lamp, the Fresnel lens, Sam standing beside him, mouth open a fraction, rapt.
After she and Sam had looked out over the sea and returned to the lamp room, she had been the first onto the staircase, eager to get back down the tower. She had turned momentarily at the top of the stairs to check that Sam was following behind her, and she had seen something, something which, until now, she had forgotten. Pol handing the key to her son.
The recollection gave Freya a start and the images from the dream fell abruptly away. But the tingle in her fingers from the cold metal of the keyhole now journeyed up her spine. She wracked her brain but she couldn’t remember, couldn’t know for sure whether the giving of the key had actually happened, or was something she now misremembered or had simply dreamed. Besides, even if Pol had passed the key to her son, it was no doubt simply so he could lock up the tower when they had finished. It was highly unlikely he would have let Sam keep it. Yet something bothered her, nonetheless.
She remembered how her son had pestered and pestered her about the locked door, the lighthouse tower so tantalisingly close and yet out of bounds. She had had the same conversation with him over and over.
‘If it was up to me, sweetheart, that doorway would be unlocked all the time. But you know it isn’t up to me, don’t you?’
‘But why not?’ Sam had wailed, at his most childlike and exasperating. It had always been one of the things he had wanted more than anything.
‘Because when Grandma and Granddad bought the old keepers’ cottage, that’s exactly what they bought. The cottage, no more. It wasn’t possible to buy the lighthouse. The Northern Lighthouse Board kept it and they maintain it so that it can still function as a beacon for ships. That’s why Pol has to come back and service the light, check that everything is working. You know all this, sweetheart.’ Her words were spoken low, calmly, hiding the deep irritation she really felt.
Sam nodded, slowly. ‘It just seems unfair that we have to walk past this doorway every day and know that we can’t go inside. Even though it’s the most exciting part of the building.’
‘I know. But there we are. Perhaps next time Pol comes, you can ask him if he will show you the light.’
Such a thought had obviously never occurred to Sam before and he could hardly contain his excitement. ‘Do you think Pol would?’ he asked, suddenly jogging on the spot.
‘If you behave yourself and ask nicely.’
Shortly after this last exchange, Pol had taken them both up the tower and Freya now recalled that Sam had never mithered her again about the locked door. Perhaps he was satisfied with this – a single journey up the narrow lighthouse stairs. But knowing her son as she did, she would have imagined that one visit would have pricked his curiosity and his keenness to return more than ever. Yet he had never mentioned it again.
Freya frowned now in the semi-darkness as her fingers ran once more over the old metal housing of the lock. A moment later she moved swiftly towards Sam’s room, with a sense of purpose that she had not felt for a year. She switched on the overhead light, knelt beside her son’s bed and began pulling out the boxes she had meticulously looked through over the past week. Before too long she found what she was searching for – the old copper key. She turned it over in her hands: its three teeth, mouldering and green, the loops of metal at its end, bright in the sharp electric light.
She ran back to the tower door, trying to control the excitement she felt rising within her. Heart pounding, she placed the key in the lock and tried to turn it. There was a momentary sticking, metal against wood, and then, with a grating sound, the key moved. Freya stood still for a second then reached for the old doorknob. With a creak the door swung open. Freya froze, pupils dilated, knees suddenly weak. It was not the prospect of ascending the tower – for all the wonders that had held for her son. Rather it was being able to stand once more in a place that had brought him such joy. Perhaps it was even the prospect of discovering things that he had hidden in this secret playroom, a place he had kept from
her.
The air was cold and musty with a winter that hadn’t quite been shaken off. But despite the smell of stagnation, Freya stepped forwards. She looked upwards, could just make out the staircase curling like a snake around the edge of the tower wall, scaling up and up, disappearing into darkness. She ran her hands up and down the rough granite walls on either side of the door, searching for a light. But she couldn’t find one. So be it. For now the journey would have to be made in the dark.
She felt almost delirious as she began to climb the stairs, the metal cold against her bare feet. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, her hand on the supporting rail. In spite of the darkness, she felt less nervous than when she had last been here with Sam. Come on, Mum! She could almost hear the quivering urgency in his voice, a mix of delight and desperation to reach the top, not wanting to be held back by her.
She smiled and involuntarily picked up her pace a little. She passed through the first room, which was bare save for some unidentifiable shadowy items at its edges. She continued up and up the staircase, passing old storage rooms and the makeshift sitting room Pol had created, in spite of the fact that the tower didn’t really need one, given the cottage below. Still, Pol had furnished it. Through the darkness she could just make out the shapes of the battered and tea-stained Parker Knoll armchairs, the tatty old rugs and the portable television set upon a chest of drawers. For the first time she wondered why the tower hadn’t been cleared out when they automated the lamp. Perhaps to honour the wishes of a maintenance man who passed through now and again. At last she began to see why his visits to the tower made Pol so wistful.
Beyond the Sea Page 7