The Lighthouse Witches(30)

“York,” she says. “I’ve never even been to London.”

“Yawk,” he repeats, mimicking her accent.

“Sorry, I meant ‘Yark,’?” she says, teasing him back.

He reaches out to place the rope back in her hands, daring her to hold it, and his fingers brush against hers. It’s only a momentary connection and yet it feels like she’s touched raw lightning. She raises her gaze to his. He stares back, nailing her to the spot with those eyes filled with danger. She can tell, in a way that is cellular, that he is taking her in, layer by layer. She craves to be wanted.

“Maybe I could show you some other trees,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting into a half smile. “Ones that didn’t involve murder.”

“I’d like that.”

Something flickers at the fringes of Saffy’s vision, and she turns to see Rowan standing between the trees, watching them uneasily.

“Hey,” Brodie calls to Rowan. Saffy gives a big friendly “hey there” wave, as if she’d fully expected Rowan to manifest like a dark cloud. Rowan doesn’t respond. She has her hood up, and eyes them both with a scowl. Brodie reads the mood and walks toward his girlfriend while Saffy busies herself by studying the rope in her hands. Her hearing is fully tuned in to the conversation.

“You OK?” Brodie asks Rowan. She responds, but it’s in Gaelic. Angry, hissed words.

“Of course not,” Brodie says, then something else in Gaelic. Rowan arches her face up to his, and he leans forward, pressing his sublime lips against hers. Saffy tries not to look, but she sees and feels it all, the handful of seconds that he kisses Rowan stretching through time, glaciers melting, the earth burning and turning to dust. She imagines that this is what it must feel like to be impaled.

She crumbles the dry leaf in her palm, turning it to fragments.





LIV, 1998



I

Finn apologized for his comment that afternoon. I’d gone back to the bothy and made myself something to eat, though I couldn’t eat at all. He looked shamefaced, his hands in his pockets. I let him in.

“I really didn’t mean to offend you,” he said. “Sometimes my sense of humor rubs people up the wrong way. This isn’t the first time . . .” He cleared his throat. “For what it’s worth, I actually wasnae being serious when I said you were running from something.”

I folded my arms. “I don’t follow.”

“Thought we were having a bit of a laugh, that’s all,” he said. “But I know I go too far sometimes. People have told me.” He bit his lip. “I’m sorry.”

I softened. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. I was just being a bit . . . oversensitive.”

The truth was, I was running. But this time, I thought I’d managed to hide it from everyone, including myself.

Just twelve days ago, I had fled in the middle of the night with my girls and whatever essentials we could pack into bin liners. My relationship with Drew had long gone sour, but it was a phone call I’d received the day before that had made me bolt. I’d had a smear test that showed some abnormal cells. They’d called me back for a colposcopy and blood test, which had left terrible bruises all over my arms when they couldn’t find a decent vein.

The next day, the phone call came. From a doctor at the hospital to let me know the scan results were in. They’d found a solid mass, around five centimeters in length, and she wasn’t sure it was in my cervix or ovary. She wanted to speak to me urgently about getting another scan.

For the rest of the day I was in another realm, outside time, floating above my body. I knew all too well what the outcome was. Mum had died from cervical cancer. And Aunt Lynne. And my grandmother. All of us, born with a gene that prevented the women in my family growing old.

Mum had four rounds of chemo. She grew thinner and weaker, less and less like herself. They tried surgery. We celebrated the news that it did work, only for the cancer to return. She died two weeks after the news.

I had three girls to care for. Three fatherless girls. Who was going to care for them, raise them? Not my father. Not Sean’s family. They had hearts of gold, but his parents were too old and his brother was an alcoholic.

What if my girls were born with this gene?

I ran. I thought that if I kept moving, we might outrun this terrible disease.

I drove us all the way to Newcastle before the fuel light came on and I was forced to pull into a petrol station. I filled up with petrol, then bought us all some cold water and crisps in the services station. I spotted a small email café in the corner of the station. I needed to check that email from Anna Taylor, the one about a commission. Some kind of mural she’d been asked to do but it clashed with her wedding.


Hello my lovely, how are things?

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you but I’ve been busy, as you can imagine! Are you able to do the commission? It’s well paid and I recommended you very highly. (I don’t know if you’re doing many murals these days? The one you did for St. Mark’s hospital was incredible. Still the best one I’ve seen!)

Patrick is very keen for you to take it up but he doesn’t do email. Please can you think about it? I’ve forwarded you the info. Let me know as soon as you can!



The venue was a decommissioned lighthouse with the bizarre name of the Longing. It was situated on an island, Lòn Haven, off the east coast of Scotland. The owner wanted an artist to create “a stunning and inspiring mural” inside the lighthouse, which was being transformed into a writing studio. A handful of images showed rugged coastline fringed with turquoise sea, a tall white lighthouse overlooking cliffs. Five thousand pounds plus expenses for just over a month’s work.