The Lighthouse Witches(17)

“Is it an insect bite?”

“We think it’s a wound inflicted by a human.”

She’d straightened, searching his face. “Who?”

“Well, I was hoping you might be able to shed a bit of light on it,” the doctor had said. “Can you make out the numbers?”

“Numbers?”

She’d bent quickly once more to see the mark, closer this time, but Clover had moaned and squirmed to change position.

“I can’t make it out,” she’d said. “What numbers?”

“It’s very small, as you can see, but on closer inspection we found four digits. The numbers two zero two one.”

Luna had leaned forward and stared hard. There they were: four numbers etched lightly into the skin in a vertical row.

2

0

2

1



Someone had carved numbers into Clover’s skin.

“The police are looking into it,” she tells Ethan. “Apparently it could be anything. A gang sign. A code.”

They both fall silent. How can this have happened? And why? Ethan rises from his chair and wraps his arms around her, holding her tight.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But . . .”

“She is Clover,” she snaps, pulling away. “I don’t care what you think.”

“OK.” For a while neither of them speaks. “So . . . you think she’s still a child because of what she’s been through?”

She covers her face with her hands. “It’s my fault. It’s my fault she went missing.”

“You can’t say that.”

She snaps her head up, fixing him with a glare. “It. Was. My. Fault.”

“You were ten, Luna.”

“You weren’t there, Ethan. You don’t know . . .”

“How were you to blame, exactly?”

She falters. “I just know I was. I can’t remember the details.”

But suddenly it’s there, the memory of Sapphire coming into her room and talking to her. She knows instantly this was it, this was how it happened. Where has this been, this slice of her past? Where has it been lingering?

“I think it started with Saffy,” she says, closing her eyes. “She went missing. But on purpose.”

He tilts his head. “What do you mean, ‘on purpose’?”

“I think that Saffy and my mother had a falling-out.”

“What about?”

“I’m not sure. Saffy stopped speaking to her and was sulking for ages. I think . . . she came to me and asked for a favor.”

As she speaks, a memory crystallizes in her mind, her senses relaying micro-images and smells that cohere into something that makes sense. She remembers Saffy coming into her room after school.

“I need a favor,” she’d asked.

Saffy hadn’t done anything to deserve a favor but Luna had been curious. For a moment, she had glimpsed what other girls with an older sister experienced: a kind of friendship instead of constant humiliation and venom. Favors earned and requested, conversation that took place with words instead of silences.

“OK,” she’d replied finally.

“Can I come in?” Saffy had asked, which was odd as she was already in Luna’s bedroom, and she usually never asked to come in. Luna had nodded, and Saffy had closed the door and sat down on her bed. She’d studied her nails.

“I’m going into hiding,” she’d said flatly. “And I need you to pretend you don’t know.”

“What do you mean you’re going into hiding?”

Saffy had heaved an irritated sigh. “I’m running away? From home? I’m telling you because I want you to keep it a secret.” She’d lowered her eyes. “And I want you to tell me how Mum reacts. Like, if she’s upset or if she doesn’t care. She’ll probably throw a party. Balloons and everything.”

Luna had felt a rush of relief at the thought of her sister no longer living with her. “Where will you go?”

Saffy had turned her face to the window. “I was thinking of that hut we found in the woods. Just for a few days, you know? Maybe a month or so.”

“What about food? Won’t you be hungry?”

“Maybe you could bring me food?”

Luna had wanted to say no, why should she, but she’d found herself nodding. If she didn’t bring Saffy food, she might die. So Luna had agreed.

“I want you to write down how Mum reacts and tell me,” Saffy had said. “Write down what she says, what she does.”

Luna had cocked her head. “Why?”

Saffy had given her a hard stare. “Just do it.”

“And what happened?” Ethan asks.

“She packed some stuff into her backpack and left that night,” Luna tells him, surprised at the sudden ease with which this information surfaces in her mind. “She went to the woods.”

She remembers going to the hut where Saffy had said she’d be. She’d been afraid of the woods, after a boy at school had told her they were haunted.

Saffy had been sitting on the floor of the horrible, ivy-choked hut, her headphones on, smoking, and reading an old book.

“Well?” Saffy had said when Luna entered. “Has she organized the celebration party yet?”