The Lighthouse Witches(37)

“If I tell you something,” Clover says when the shivering has died down enough for her to talk. “Do you promise to keep it a secret?”

Saffy nods, drawn in by this sudden sharing of a secret. “I promise.”

“I saw a wildling.”

“A wildling?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In the Longing.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“But I did.”

“You were sleepwalking, Clover. And anyway, they don’t exist.”

“But they do! That’s the thing.”

“Describe it, then.”

At school, a boy in Clover’s class—Thomas McKee, a know-it-all who liked to one-up her at every opportunity—had told her that wildlings lived in the lighthouse right by her house. Clover had told him that this was stupid, and that wildlings didn’t even exist, but he’d insisted, blethering on about soul-sucking fae that were going to kill her whole family. Worse, the other kids had agreed with Thomas. She needed proof to convince them that it was nonsense.



* * *



—

Clover waited until her mum and Luna had fallen asleep. Then she wrapped herself up in her mum’s coat, pulled on her wellies, and found a torch from the side of the front door.

Outside, the night was still. The ocean looked different in the dark, like a black planet that she might step onto and walk until the end of forever. The sky was thick with stars, and the rocks were like shadows.

She pushed open the door to the Longing. It hardly budged, and she had to lean all her weight against it to get it open. Inside, it was dark and smelled toilety. She could feel her heart fluttering in her chest like a butterfly in a jar. Quickly she turned to leave, but the heavy door had already closed behind her, jammed shut. Somewhere above her a caw sounded, and there was a shuffling noise, like someone moving across the room.

With trembling hands, she shone her torch into the gloom and called out, “Who’s there?” Her heart was jackhammering in her throat. She whimpered, stepping up against the door, praying that Luna would wake up. Luna, please! I’m in here. Come and find me.

The shuffling sound continued. She tried so hard to be brave, but it definitely sounded like something was dragging itself across the floor to get to her. Her torchlight fell on the stairs, and when the shuffling and dragging started again, she raced up them, terrified.

By the time she reached the second flight her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might pass out. There was a window there with a very thick stone ledge, and she climbed inside it, tucking her knees up to her chin. Then she cried, as quietly as she could.

She’d only been there a few minutes before she realized something very odd—all the sounds had stopped. Not just the shuffling sound on the ground floor, but the wind that had been banging at the window and the roaring of the sea. The chittering of the bats had stopped, too, and the creaking of the window frames. Everything was completely silent.

She sat up a little, wondering what had happened. Had there been some secret signal that she’d missed? It felt like the lighthouse was holding its breath.

But then, she heard it, a little ways below. Maybe the first turn of the stair.

A clicking sound.

She pulled back inside the window ledge sharply, terrified in case it really was a wildling. A horrible thought had slid into her brain—what if a wildling did live in the lighthouse, and it had smelled her? What if it came upstairs after her? There was nowhere for her to run.

She looked up above her and saw only the lantern room. There was nowhere beyond there, nowhere at all to hide. She was trapped.

Click-click.

She had to face it. She had to see what was down there. Maybe it was Luna, looking for her.

With her heart in her mouth, she raised the torch like a weapon, found the “on” button with her thumb, and pointed the beam downward.

The light pooled on an empty floor, just her mum’s paints and equipment for the mural visible, covered up with dust sheets. Clover gave a huge, lung-squeezing sigh of relief. She’d been so scared. But as she did, she saw it. From beneath one of the sheets, a thin, gray arm reached from the shadows, a hand retrieving something from her mother’s paint supplies.

Clover screamed at the top of her lungs. She dropped the torch with a loud clatter and raced blindly downstairs, pulling with all her might at the front door until a crack of moonlight appeared, letting her escape.



* * *



—

“Do you think it could have been a badger?” Saffy asks, once Clover has finished telling her tale. “Or a fox?

Clover hesitates. “I don’t know.”

“But you didn’t see a creature. Or a . . . wildling. Just an arm of something?”

Clover nods, shaking all over again at the thought of it.

Saffy is struck by how convincing Clover’s tale is, and for a moment she glances out the window at the Longing and feels afraid. She feels a sudden rush of protectiveness toward her baby sister. Clover and Luna have such a tight bond that she’s been pushed to the margins. And it isn’t cool to be all cuddly. But now, in this unfamiliar bed, with the rain pelting the roof like frozen peas, she’s glad of Clover.

“You can’t just run off like that,” she says, feeling Clover’s legs warm against hers.