The Lighthouse Witches(66)

In the small square in the center of the village, flames sprung from a bonfire. A woman dressed as a witch had set up a large barrel of water where children were bobbing for apples. The girls raced off. Finn and I sat down on a park bench, bracing ourselves against the sudden cold.

“You feeling any better?” he said.

I nodded, though I wasn’t. “A little.”

“Hey, remember you wanted me to take care of the bats in the Longing?”

“Yes?”

“I found some black lamps. It’s an effective way to get rid of them.”

“Black lamps?”

“UV light. It encourages them to roost elsewhere. Worked in Ian Ewart’s barn. You just plug it in and let them get on with it. Also insects. So, I got you two—one for the lantern room and one for the main building.”

“Cool.”

He kissed my head. “Meant to say—I’d one of my hunches when you said you’d booked an appointment with the GP.”

“And what did your hunch say?”

A long pause. “It said you’re going to be around for a long while yet.”

I sighed. “How long’s a long while?”

“I think you’ll see your grandkids.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. To see my girls reach womanhood. That was all I wanted.

He put his arm around me, and I laid my head against his shoulder. In the distance, someone started to play the bagpipes, a plaintive ballad that drifted through the night.

I looked over at the girls. The woman dressed as a witch was handing out woolen dolls. “Take your wildlings,” she said.

Then she instructed them to cut them up with a pair of scissors and toss them into the fire.


II

Finn drove us home a little later. He made to get out but I stopped him.

“Where are you going?” I said, glancing at Cassie in the back seat. She was fast asleep.

“I’ve got to set up the black lamps,” he said.

I looked out at the scene in front of us. The black clouds that had bubbled on the horizon all evening had finally swept in, wind and rain battering the Longing. “Leave it,” I said. “You take Cassie home.”

He tried to insist, but I made him tell me how to do it and promised I’d do it myself. Two black lights, one for the lantern room—this was to deter insects, which had started to stick against the paint—and one for the top of the staircase to slowly encourage the bats to roost elsewhere.

I wrapped myself in the old fisherman’s coat Saffy had found in the shed and lowered my head against the gale as I walked to the Longing. I was nervous about going into the lantern room again, but I told myself that I was so close to finishing the job. And now that Patrick Roberts was back in town, I didn’t want to waste any more time waiting for the bats to leave. It would be a quick job, I thought. Place one UV lamp in the lantern room and one on the stairs, and that would be that.

I set up the first one at the top of the stairs. It sent a faint purple glow throughout the dark space, not unlike the mareel. I saw some of the bats begin to stir, and two flew outside. Encouraged, I moved to the lantern room. Quickly, I set up the black light. And then I gasped.

In the vivid glow of the black light, something on the windows was revealed. Numbers. Thousands of them.

I turned around on the spot, my eyes adjusting to the light, taking in the sight of it, trying to understand what I was seeing.

It wasn’t just on the windows, either—the writing continued across the floorboards, on the walls, a frenzy of numbers and words. The numbers appeared to be grouped in four, written vertically.

    1 1 1 1

6 7 8 9

8 1 9 2

2 6 9 1



The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It looked like the work of madness, all the numbers glowing in the dark. A film of grime had grown over the numbers, so it hadn’t been done recently. Why would someone do this? It couldn’t have been the little boy I’d spotted. He was far too young, and he could never have sourced the kind of paint that only showed under UV light. Tourists, I thought hopefully, playing some sort a game. Or “outsiders”—the same people Isla had blamed for the graffiti. A shiver ran all over me. First the bones, now this . . . it was terrifying. The writing was the same throughout, the same flick on the tail of the “9,” the same exaggerated cap on “7.” One, maybe two people had written all of these. And they’d gone to the trouble to use paint only visible under black light.

On the floor, where the triangle of bones had been, I spotted a rune. A star inside a circle, or a pentagram. The bones had been placed in the center of it.

So they hadn’t been left at random. The frenzied numbers and words and runes looked satanic, or the work of someone who needed help.

I raced down to the bottom floor, where I’d left my Polaroid camera. My heart was racing and I was shaking with fright, but I knew I had to go back up. I had to will myself, count to three in my head before forcing my legs to move. I went back up and took a handful of photos before hurrying back down again and into the night.

In the bothy, I started to dial Finn’s number, but I stopped halfway and hung up. Why was I calling him? No—I needed to call Patrick Roberts. It was his property, and we needed to go to the police together. He answered after two rings.

“Hello?”