The Night Mark(69)

“My, um...my father just killed an alligator that snuck up on me,” Faye said. “Close call. I’m a little...” She waved her hands wildly to illustrate her agitation. “You know. Frantic.”

“You are a lucky lady to have such a man to take care of you.” Hartwell grinned temple to temple.

“I am, yes.”

“What can we do for you, Mr. Hartwell?” Carrick asked. “Did you come for alligator stew? Alligator steaks? That’s what’s on the menu for the next week or so.”

“I thank you for the hospitality, but I’ll pass. That meat’s a little tough for me. I was passing by. On my way to visit some friends over on Hunting, you know. Thought I’d say howdy.”

“Howdy,” Faye said.

“Howdy, indeed, Miss Faith. You feeling all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said. “Apart from the alligator scare.”

“That’s good to hear. Real good,” Hartwell said. “Since I seem to have caught you all at a bad time, I’ll just be on my way.”

Hartwell walked toward the kitchen door. At the door, he paused and turned around.

“Chief Morgan, I meant to ask... Y’all don’t have a haunted lighthouse, do you?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“Oh, I hear it’s common for lighthouses to have a ghost or two. You sure you don’t have one?”

“Sure as I am of anything,” Carrick said.

“Strange.” Hartwell shook his head. “I was here a couple nights ago in my car, you know, just visiting the beach with some friends. We like to do that at night, do a little clam digging. Well, anyway,” he continued, “I heard some kind of spooky, I don’t know...moaning sounds coming from the house or the lighthouse or the barn. I must have imagined it. Or maybe it was just the wind...”

“Just the wind,” Carrick said. “Been real windy.”

“Probably so, probably so,” Hartwell said, his hands in his pockets.

“Did you find any?” Faye asked.

“Excuse me, Miss Faith?”

“Clams,” she said. “Did you find any clams while you were out here digging?”

“No, I sure didn’t,” Hartwell said. “But that’s all right. I found something better than clams.”

“Good for you,” Carrick said.

“Very, very good,” Hartwell said. “Y’all take care now. We sure do appreciate our lighthouse families out here.” He winked and walked away. Soon as he was gone, Dolly came out of the house carrying a basket over her arm. She paused, looked at them, looked at the alligator, shook her head and walked on toward the chicken coop.

“Nobody goes clam digging in June,” Carrick said.

“He knows about us,” Faye said.

Carrick nodded. “He knows something. He knows you’re not my daughter.”

“Hope that’s all he knows,” Faye said. “Why did he ask how I was feeling? Was that a threat?”

“I don’t know, but I swear if he tries anything with you...” Carrick said. He held up his bloody ax.

“You can’t kill him like an alligator.”

“True,” Carrick said. “Next time I’ll use the shotgun. On the alligator, I mean.” The sound of Hartwell’s motorboat intruded into their conversation. She almost preferred the alligator.

Carrick walked off, dragging the alligator by the tail behind him.

“Wait,” Faye said. “Next time? What do you mean next time? Carrick? Are there more alligators around here?”

Carrick didn’t answer, but she could swear she heard him laughing.

“I’m not eating that!” she yelled after him.

Then she went and got the ax from Carrick.

Just in case.

*

Three more days passed in a haze of hard work and happiness. No more alligators showed up to menace her. No Hartwells, either. Faye had survived almost a full week in 1921 and though her body was sore in ways it had never been before, her heart glided light in her chest like a sailboat in a strong, steady breeze. She had only one lingering complaint about her life here at the lighthouse, and that could be an easy fix if Faye could talk Dolly into helping her. Faye waited until Dolly was at work in her sewing room to go begging.

“I need clothes,” Faye wrote on Dolly’s slate. “Please.”

Dolly sighed. “I made you three skirts two weeks back,” she wrote back.

“Pants,” Faye wrote on Dolly’s slate. “I need pants.”

Faye could handle Bride Island and she could handle 1921 and she could handle Hartwell, but she couldn’t handle all of it in an ankle-length skirt and underskirt in South Carolina in June.

Dolly was not amused by the request.

“Pants? For a girl? No,” Dolly wrote on her slate, shaking her head for emphasis.

“Yes,” Faye wrote. “I hate doing chores in skirts.” She underlined hate a few times for emphasis. Six times in fact.

“I do chores in skirts.”

“You could save the world in skirts. I can’t,” Faye wrote, meaning every word. Faye had never considered homemaking an art before, but if it were, Dolly was Picasso, Rembrandt and Martha Stewart rolled into one. “I’ll die of the heat. Help me.”