The Lighthouse Witches(29)

He laughs, and her cheeks burn. His stare peels layers off her, one at a time. She understands now the saying “weak at the knees,” because he has removed all of her bones just by existing. She feels wobbly and melty and stupid.

“It’s built on an old broch from the Iron Age,” he says.

“Oh yeah, I heard about that.”

“Yeah. It’s like a kind of round tower made of stone, though a lot shorter than the Longing. A Scottish chieftain would have lived there.”

She remembers this from the Neolithic museum but can tell Brodie’s enjoying sharing it. “Yeah?”

“A lot of people say it’s cursed. They built a lighthouse on top of it and everyone who worked there died young.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?” she says. “The curse thing.”

He shrugs. “Do you believe in witches?”

She’s not sure how to answer. “Well, yeah. Rowan’s a witch, isn’t she?”

He looks away. She’s pleased to see what looks like irritation on his face at the mention of her. “So she says. She meditates and collects crystals. That’s about it.”

“So, the broch is cursed?” she says, circling him back to the topic.

“Oh yeah. They chucked witches into the hole. Tortured them for a few months, then set them on fire. People say the witches cursed the island for it.”

“The witches cursed Lòn Haven?” Saffy says, intrigued. “Like—how?”

“Legend has it that they made a pact with the fae, to give them human form so they could take revenge on humankind,” Brodie says.

“The fae?”

“Fairies.”

She’s never heard this term but commits it to memory. Fae. “Why did they want revenge?”

“For taking over their lands. Destroying the forests, killing the animals. You follow?” he asks.

She nods.

“So the witches were all burned, wiped out. But now the fae could take on human form. People called them ‘wildlings.’ They just have to touch a human to transform into them. Usually children.”

A shiver rolls up Saffy’s spine. “And why would they do that?”

“To kill everyone in the family. It happened. That’s what they say. Whole bloodlines wiped out in a few weeks. The only way to stop them coming back to life is to kill them.”

“That’s creepy shit,” Saffy says, relishing how dark the tale is. The only stories she’s ever heard about fairies involved tea parties inside tulips. “But . . . you don’t believe it, do you?”

His gaze moves past her, into the distance. She turns and searches behind her. “What?”

“People have been killing wildlings in these woods for hundreds of years.” He moves his eyes back to her face. “Want me to show you?”

She follows him through the trees, her curiosity quickened. They cross a small river, then past a waterfall feathering down a bank of rock.

“What if we get lost?” she says.

“We won’t,” he says. “I’ve spent a lot of time in these woods, trust me.”

He stops at a thick grove of trees. Five have burn marks on their trunks, a black mouth of shiny charcoaled bark. The upper branches are untouched, but she can make out signs of regrowth on the lower branches where they’ve been previously destroyed. The lower trunk on one old tree has been gnawed away by flame. Perhaps a lightning strike, she thinks, or—more thrillingly—an act of arson. She walks up to one and lays out a hand to touch it.

“Don’t,” Brodie says. There’s a warning in his voice, and she turns, intrigued. “They’re sycamores.” He bends to pick up something from the ground. She starts, mistaking the teardrop pericarps of a sycamore seed for a moth. He tosses it into the air, where it twirls like helicopter blades. “Helicopter seeds. That’s how you can remember them.”

“So . . . what burned them? Lightning?”

He gives her a dark look. “You have to kill a wildling in a certain way. You have to cut out its heart and burn the rest of it. And the parent has to do it.”

“Holy shit.”

He grins, visibly pleased that he’s succeeded in scaring her. “I saw them do it, you know.”

She studies him. “Do what?”

He steps toward her. “Kill a wildling. I was six. I hid behind a tree and watched it all. The heart cutting, the burning.”

She swallows hard, imagining him as a child witnessing such a horrific thing. She moves backward. Her heel catching on something. She stoops to see what it is. A piece of frayed rope is visible there, hidden among the leaves like a snake. She lifts it up and runs her thumb along the fibers.

“The last thing that rope touched was a wildling,” Brodie says, and she drops it like she’s been burned. He laughs and steps closer as she examines the hand that held the rope.

“Aren’t you scared?” she asks Brodie, looking up into his dark eyes. “Living somewhere like this?”

He bends to pick up the rope. Shows he’s not afraid to touch it. “Aren’t you scared?” he says. “You’re just a wee lass.”

“Fifteen,” she says, straightening. “I’m fifteen.”

“?‘I’m fifteen,’?” he mimics, laughing. “I bet it’s a shock to the system, this place. So different from London.”