The Lighthouse Witches(45)

“I’ll buy you the clothes you liked,” she tells her gently. “Do you want to pick out a new pair of shoes?”

Clover reaches out to take her hand, but Luna draws back, nervous. Clover’s expression changes—she’s hurt, and frightened, but Luna is still too hesitant to touch her.

Back at the Airbnb, Luna slides the ready meals she picked up at the grocery store into the oven and sinks down into the armchair. She still hasn’t contacted the owner about the water damage. There are other, infinitely more terrifying things on her mind. Like why touching Clover seemed to bring on a horrific headache. Like why Clover is a child of seven and a half instead of a grown woman. Whether having Clover back in her life is a good idea or if it’s putting her and her unborn son at risk.

At risk of what? she thinks.

Death, answers a small voice from the corridors of her mind.

She watches Clover carefully, weighing up her thoughts. Is she Clover? A voice tells her that she can’t be. Nothing that Luna has found online can answer why Clover remains a child. Yet she looks and sounds just like Clover.

And there’s the mark on Clover’s hip, the horrible burn with numbers sliced into her flesh.

She checks that Clover is occupied before heading to the bedroom, using her phone to try to take a photograph of the area behind each of her knees. It’s the only way she can see if anything is there, though it’s possible that such a mark would have long since faded.

It’s an awkward area to photograph, especially with a flash. The first three images are blurry, the next too far away. She’s almost about to give up when she sees something in one of the shots of her right leg. A tiny mark.

She zooms into the image. It’s grainy, and very faint, but she can just make out a shape. No, not a shape. With a gasp, she realizes it’s a number.

8

She covers her hand with her mouth, zooming further into the figure on her screen.

All this time, the mark has been there.

Just like Clover’s.


III

That night, Luna’s dreams are memories filtered through imagination. She’s back in the bothy on Lòn Haven, a boisterous gray sea visible through a small window. Her mother is there, telling her to put on her trainers and fleece jacket so they can go out walking together. The air in the room feels wrong and her mother’s face is tight, but she doesn’t know why.

And then, she’s in a forest. The wind is swaying the trees, their long black branches twisting overhead. She can see faces in the distance, watching her and her mother as they walk.

They stop in a clearing. Isla is there, strands of red hair falling down from beneath a yellow beanie like red snakes. She smiles down at her, but there’s a rope in her hand.

Be a good girl.

Her mother’s tying her to the tree with the rope, wrapping it around her legs and arms the way she once bandaged her wrist when she’d sprained it. Her mother ties the rope in knots, fastening her in place. Luna’s heart is racing. She can feel the rough bark against her hands, the rope digging into her shins. Her mother is sobbing.

And then she sees the knife lifting in the air. She feels the sting of it against her arm. The blood hitting her mother’s face.

She wakes up gasping, her throat dry from shouting out. In the moonlight she can see a figure in the doorway. Clover.

“You were yelling,” she says. “About someone trying to kill you.”

Luna rises, takes Clover back to her bed. She sits beside her until she falls asleep, running a finger across the small white scar on her own arm.

The scar caused by the blade.

She shivers, her stomach dropping. Liv did this.

Liv tried to kill her.





SAPPHIRE, 1998



I

“What are you reading?”

Saffy jumps at the sound of Luna’s voice. She looks up angrily and sees her younger sister standing in the doorway of her bedroom.

“What do you want?” she says, turning the page in her book.

“Nothing,” Luna says, shrugging, but it’s obvious she wants something. Saffy sets down her book and signals reluctantly for Luna to come in.

“I can’t sleep,” Luna explains. “What are you reading?”

“What does it fucking look like I’m reading?”

Luna shrugs. “A book?”

“Whoop de bloody doo.”

“It looks like a very old book.”

Saffy sighs. Why does her younger sister have to be such a moron?

“Look, just sit on the floor and shut up.”

Luna obeys. Their mum is busy in the Longing and she hates going in there.

“What’s the book about?”

“Witches.”

“Like The Worst Witch?”

Saffy sneers. “It’s not a stupid kids’ book. This is a history book about all the witches that they burned on Lòn Haven.”

Luna looks up at her as though she’s not sure whether Saffy’s pulling her leg or not. “Why did they burn witches?”

Saffy shrugs. “Lots of reasons. Misogyny. King James VI’s massive ego. Probably overcompensating for something. Also, religion—King Jamie wanted everyone to conform to his belief system and there were still a lot of pagans knocking around. They still kill people for practicing witchcraft in some countries. Did you know that?”