The Night Mark(62)

“But I am here. So why can’t I help?”

“Those are women. You’re... You know.”

“What?”

“A lady.”

Faye pursed her lips and stared at him. “Last night I was milking a goat in my underwear and drinking bourbon from a dirty flask hidden in a feed trough. I am not a lady. I am a grown woman.”

“You’re a lady in my eyes. But I suppose you can be the lady of the lighthouse.”

“The Lady of the Lighthouse?” Faye would have laughed, but she didn’t want to explain why she was laughing to him. “It has a nice ring to it.”

“All right, lady. You talked me into it.” Carrick stuffed his hands into his pockets and nodded. “I’m not promising an official position or anything, but as soon as the sun sets you can come up to the watch room.”

“Should I bring anything besides a blanket?”

“You should.”

“What?”

“Well,” Carrick said. “Considering what almost happened last night, a chastity belt.”

“Trust me, this underwear I have on is bad enough.”

Carrick sighed. “I meant for me.”

He left her alone, and Faye rolled back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. What the hell was she doing? She’d asked Carrick to show her how the lighthouse works. Why? Was she that bored already? No. Since waking up in this time, she’d been shocked, terrified, horrified, mesmerized, furious, fearful, attracted and aroused, but never once bored. That she’d seized on the idea of working with Carrick, being his assistant keeper, meant one of two very scary possibilities.

Either Faye knew she would never see 2015 again.

Or she was already falling in love with Carrick.

Or both.





15


Faye survived another day in 1921.

Barely.

She and Dolly tackled the rugs that day—taking them out of the house, throwing them over the clothesline and beating them with brooms. Halfway through the process Faye had the most horrifying epiphany of her life. This was why women in the old days didn’t have day jobs. Because keeping house was literally a full-time job. No electric vacuums meant women had to remove the rugs from the floor to clean them manually. No air filtration systems kept the dust out. And the oil lamps spread soot everywhere they burned. She’d have given her right arm for her Swiffer.

By two in the afternoon, Faye was so sick from the dust and the heat she waded right into the ocean fully clothed and vomited. Dangerous or not, she was too hot and miserable to care. She even sank into the water and let it wash over her like a penitent sinner at her baptism. Dolly watched her from the beach in fascinated horror as Faye floated in the ocean fully clothed for a few minutes, then stood up, and waded back to the beach. She went into the house, stripped completely naked and went to sleep.

When she woke up, it was dark again. She must have slept for six or seven hours, at least. Faye dressed by the light of her little kerosene lantern. The overhead gas lamps were almost useless when she needed light for only a minute or two. They took nearly ten minutes to light up and another ten minutes to go off. Faye kind of liked living by the sun and the moon and the little oil lamp. Everything was prettier by lamplight, softer, more mysterious. Maybe that was why people romanticized the past so much. It simply had better lighting.

After Faye found her shoes, she walked out to the lighthouse just as the evening turned into night. The lighthouse door opened easily, much more easily than it had two nights ago. Two nights ago? It felt like years since that evening she’d driven from the Church Street house to Bride Island and ended up here, compelled by something and for reasons unknown. Time, before so concrete, had turned to sand and slipped through her fingers. The harder she tried to hold on to it, the more fell through her hands. Maybe she should just let it all go.

“Hello?” Faye called, and heard her voice echo off the stone walls.

“Ahoy down there!” came the echoing answer. “Come up if you dare.”

“I dare,” Faye shouted in reply and started quickly up the winding iron stairs. Halfway up the steps, Faye slowed her pace considerably when her screaming thighs reminded her she wasn’t running a race.

“Okay, maybe I don’t dare,” she yelled up.

“Buck up, sailor,” Carrick called back. “I used to climb more steps than that carrying a fifty-pound can of kerosene.”

“Did you walk two miles to school every day and back?” she yelled.

“Four miles.”

Faye shook her head, sighed. “Never trade hardship stories with a man born in 1886,” she mumbled to herself as she started her climbing again.

Carrick opened the hatch to let her in, smiling at her as she gulped air and fanned herself.

“That’s a lot of stairs,” she said, panting still. “You must have amazing quads.”

“Quads?”

“Leg muscles,” she said.

“Ah, they get the job done.” Carrick shut the door hatch behind her and locked it.

She’d been so eager to see Carrick again, she’d raced right up the lighthouse. Now with him, she had no idea what to say. She felt as awkward as a schoolgirl with a crush.

She looked around. “This the watch room?” she asked. In 2015 the windows of this room had been boarded up, but they were uncovered now and looked out onto the island and the sea. Various instruments hung on wall pegs—she saw binoculars, a spyglass, plus a large, beautifully carved barometer. And in the middle of the room sat a strange box made of brass, glass and steel.