The Lighthouse Witches(49)

“Numbers?” I said, astonished by her appearance. She was electrified by fear, her eyes wide and her voice loud.

“Did he hurt you?” she said. “Did he threaten you with anything?”

I reeled. “Hurt me?”

She drew a hand to her mouth, and I saw she was becoming upset.

“Isla, what’s going on?”

“I was just so worried,” she said, gripping my arm. “When Bram told me what had happened, I had to come straight to see you.”

“Has the boy been found?” I asked. “Did the police find his parents?”

She shook her head. “Come over to the café tonight at seven,” Isla said. “There’ll be a group of us. We need to make sure this is dealt with, and fast.”

“Make sure what is dealt with?”

She lifted her gray eyes to mine. “Trust me.”

She threw me a long look before turning to run back toward her car.



* * *



—

I went to Isla’s café at seven, still baffled but determined more than ever to find out what was going on. Of all people, Isla would know who the boy was, and why he was roaming the bay on his own. She would know if he was safe.

The café windows were dark, the blinds down. I opened the door and called “Hello?,” before spotting a dozen candles flickering in the center of a circle of women, all sitting cross-legged on cushions. It looked somewhere between a yoga class and a séance.

Isla appeared in front of me. She’d put on makeup and pinned up her hair, and I saw she was wearing a long black dress.

“Come in,” she said, a pleased glint in her eye. “Lock the door behind you.”

I saw that the women in the circle were all the women I’d swam in the mareel with—Ailsa, Ruqayya, Louisa, Greer, Mirrin, and Ling. Niamh was there as well, a great-grandmother whom I’d often spotted walking her sheepdog, Ginger, along the bay. She ran a croft just outside the village and was related to Isla. The room was charged with anticipation, as though we were celebrating something. The child, I thought—maybe the boy had been found.

“Have a seat,” Isla told me. There was an empty seat cushion on the floor between Louisa and Ling. I sat down, and Ling reached out and gently took my hand.

“I can imagine this all looks very strange,” Isla said. “Perhaps this will help us all feel a little more . . . at ease.” She picked up a tray from a nearby table. Balanced on it were three bottles of wine and nine glasses.

Isla poured each of us a glass and held it up in a toast. “To protecting the ones we love,” she said.

We toasted, and I drank.

“I’ve told the ladies about the child you saw,” Isla said, turning to me. “We’re all persuaded that this isn’t a child from the island. Not a human child, at any rate.”

I looked from Isla to Ling, who sat next to me. Had I heard her right? “I don’t follow.”

“We’ve each of us studied the sketch you provided of the little boy,” Greer said gently. “And he’s definitely not one of the children from the island.”

“Perhaps he’s a tourist,” I said. “He didn’t speak English. There could be a family staying on the island. Or perhaps they sailed here.”

“I’ve already asked,” Ruqayya said. “My neighbor Allie works at the tourist office. Nobody has reported a missing child. Not for years, now.”

It didn’t make sense. I had seen him, touched him. He’d been inside my home.

“Remember I told you about the history of this place?” Isla said. “About the witches who were burned near the Longing?”

I turned to her. “Yes?”

“I told you about how the witches put a curse on the island,” she said, tilting her head. “This child you saw—we believe he’s part of that curse.”

A finger of ice crept up my spine. I’d read the situation wrong; this wasn’t about helping find a little boy who was lost. They were pulling back the curtain on a world I didn’t know, a world of whispers and fear, inviting me in.

I set down my drink, my mind racing. “You remember I told you my brother went missing?” Isla said. “Right before he disappeared, my mother had an encounter exactly like yours. She heard something at the door, and when she opened it, she found a little boy looking up at her. She assumed he was lost, and she said she noticed he looked like he’d had a fall, for he was covered in dirt. She said she tried to bring him inside, but as soon as she turned around again the child was gone. Not a week later, my brother went missing.”

I looked around at the women in the room. Did they all believe in this?

“What are you saying?” I said lightly.

“I told you my brother went missing,” Isla said. “But that wasn’t the whole truth. What actually happened was, he went missing, but another boy was found a year later. A child who looked exactly like my brother.”

“Not a child,” Ruqayya added. “A wildling. One of the fae in human form.”

“One of the fae,” I repeated, confirming I’d heard her correctly.

“Remember, I told you about the curse,” Isla said.

I gave a nervous laugh. “You can’t reasonably expect me to believe . . .”