The Lighthouse Witches(20)

“Please don’t do that,” I said. “You’re likely to pull it off.”

“Sorry. I thought Roberts would have sorted the place out before getting it decorated.”

“I think it would take quite a while to sort this place out.”

“Not at all,” he said with a sniff. “Dynamite would sort it in seconds.”

“Oh, before I forget,” I said, shining the torch up at the bats flitting in the high corners beneath the lantern room. “I need to get someone out here to take care of the bats.”

“You mean, take care of the bats or take care of the bats?” he said, drawing his finger across his throat at the second repeat.

“I don’t want them harmed. But I’ve no idea if the paint will bother them.” As I said this, a large bat flitted closely overhead, making us both duck.

“I think they’ll bother you more than you’ll bother them,” he said, chuckling. “I’ll take care of them. I do a bit of pest control, on the side.”

“Didn’t you say you do plastering on the side?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “There’s a lot of ‘on the side’ when you live on an island.”

“You’ve dealt with bats before?”

He shrugged. “Not much I haven’t dealt with. Bats, seals, the occasional whale . . .”

“A whale isn’t a pest, surely.”

“It was a joke.”

He had a dry sense of humor, which I appreciated more than I let on. “How soon can you start?”

He produced a notepad and pen from his pocket and jotted something down. “Tomorrow, if I move some things around. I can’t do much about the time it takes plaster to dry.”

“I can start painting over here if you want to plaster that section first.”

He didn’t answer, but spent a long while checking the walls with his fingertips, pulling at loose bits of stone. “Been a while since I’ve been inside,” he said.

“You know the Longing well?”

He placed a hand thoughtfully on the newel post. “He said it took him a year to make this.”

“Who?”

He turned to me. “My great-grandfather. He made this banister. The whole thing. A hundred yards of iron. Beaten and welded by hand. There might even be a picture of him here.” He strode over to the wall behind the staircase, and I followed. My torchlight fell on a small gallery of picture frames. It was the first time I’d noticed them. “There he is.” He wiped the glass with his fingertips. “Angus McAllen.”

“He was a lighthouse keeper,” I said, noticing the photographs of men posed in their uniforms.

Finn nodded. “Aye.”

“Your family ran the Longing?”

“Not for a long time, now. They cut the shipping routes. The Longing was decommissioned after that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hardly your fault, is it?” he said. “My family owns—owned—the Longing and ten acres around the bay. Even the wee bothy you’re staying in. It got passed down to me.”

He went to say more, but stopped short, busying himself with his inspection of the walls. I figured it was difficult for him, being here.

A hired plasterer instead of the owner.


II

I barely slept that night. I couldn’t help but mentally play out the scene of someone creeping past the bothy and into the Longing, clutching a pile of bones, wanting to scare me off. Wanting to threaten me.

The next morning, after the school run, I resolved to call Isla and get her take on the matter. But exhaustion rendered me barely coherent—I babbled down the line at her about bones and triangles and naked children. “I was wondering if you’d heard anything,” I said. “From the locals about me being here. I know a single mother with three kids moving into the area doesn’t always go down well . . .”

“Why don’t you come over?” she said. “We’ll have a cuppa and a chat.”

Isla lived on the other side of the island. I found the south side more charming than the north, with a coastline scooped out by white beaches and turquoise sea. Sailing boats swayed in the port, and a row of pretty terraced houses painted in different colors—pink, blue, yellow, lilac, and orange—lined the street overlooking the North Sea. Isla’s house was at the end of a long driveway, a large barn conversion with immaculate gardens. Isla greeted me at the door and led me to the sitting room, where I found her daughter, Rowan, curled up in a white armchair with a tub of ice cream and a blanket. She was watching Friends.

“Row’s off school today, as you can see,” Isla told me. Rowan turned and gave us both a beaming, contented smile, which only served to make Isla cock an eyebrow disapprovingly. “Period pains never called for a day off when I was young. But here we are.”

“Olivia,” Rowan said as I sat on the sofa opposite. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but your aura is dark. Is something wrong?”

I looked to Isla, not quite sure how to respond. It seemed like this was her usual kind of query posed to household guests.

“I . . . found a few odd things in the Longing,” I said carefully. “I suppose I’m unnerved by it.”

Rowan nodded sympathetically, her gazed fixed above my head. “Yes. When I heard you were coming, I put a rowan branch on the door. “