The Lighthouse Witches(70)

The child had disappeared, never to be seen again. The day after, the laird died. Mrs. Dunbar informed the Privy Council, who placed posters of the child around the village. There was no doubt that the child’s appearance was of the Devil, the witches’ curse coming to pass.

I heard the fear in her voice, but I did not yet register the change that had swept across Lòn Haven. I was still stunned to be back in Amy’s presence, and although she had wept in my arms, I didn’t dare ask the question that buzzed in my head.

“I’m not married,” she said then, as though reading my mind. She looked at me with caution. “Are you . . . promised?”

I blinked. “No.”

She sat down next to me and took my hand in hers. “I missed you, Patrick Roberts,” she said softly. “I hated you, actually.”

My heart all but burst inside me. Amy was everything to me—my kin, the other half of me. “Believe me when I say I wanted nothing more than to come back.”

“Will you marry me?” she said softly.





SAPPHIRE, 1998


“I want to show you something,” she tells Brodie. “But you’ve got to promise me you won’t get scared.”

They push open the door to the Longing.

“Aw, man,” he says, frowning at the smell of paint. “I hate this place. If I’d known you were bringing me here, I’d . . .”

She silences him with an ardent, hungry kiss. It sends white heat from her toes right up to her head, shooting through her skull in bright sparks. Then she plucks the skeleton key that’s tied around her neck between finger and thumb and holds it up.

“Follow me,” she says, leading him through the dark across the floor of the Longing.

“It’s creepy, this place,” he says. “They used to kill witches here.”

“You’ve mentioned,” she said, enjoying the shift in power from him to her. She bends, a small torch between her teeth, and reveals the lock on the floor.

“Watch,” she says, slipping the key and turning it slowly.

“Do you even know what that is?” Brodie says in a low voice.

“It’s our secret cave,” she says, pulling back the grille.

“It’s Witches Hide,” he says. “Everyone says it’s cursed. You go through that cave and you never come back.”

She delights in his sudden terror. “You’re not scared, are you?”

She sits down on the edge of the hole and dangles her leg. The torchlight reveals a drop of about ten feet. As long as she falls right, she should be fine.

“Saffy,” he says, warningly.

She jumps. A second later, there’s a thud, then a light sigh. He looks down into the hole.

“You OK?” he says. She looks up at him with a grin.

“Come on, then.”

In a moment he has lowered himself as deep as he can into the hole while holding on to the edge. And then he drops, bending his knees and rolling awkwardly in a bid to lessen the impact on his legs.

He finds his cigarette lighter and flicks it to life. The small yellow flame barely cuts through the gloom.

Mercifully, the sheer drop leads to a long underground chamber that deepens farther into something that reminds Saffy of a cathedral. There are stalagmites and stalactites and pools of murky water. About thirty feet ahead, the cave seems to split in two directions.

Brodie looks wary. She smiles to herself, relishing the fact that he is trying to conceal his fear. The cave is kind of creepy, she thinks, but with Brodie here she feels safe. “How far does the cave go?” she asks him, wondering if it cuts through to the other end of the island. If they might tumble out into the ocean without realizing it.

“I’m not sure,” he says. “I’ve never gone through it. I’m not allowed.”

“You’re not allowed?” she says, laughing.

“It’s called Witches Hide for a reason,” he snaps. “And if my dad discovered I went through, he’d break my legs, I can tell you that. Here, have a look at this.”

He gropes the rock with his left hand while holding the lighter close to the surface. She sidles up to him and squints. “There,” he says, running the light over the markings. Carved deeply into the stone are a dozen individual runes. Lines, circles, and geometric patterns, similar to the mural. Similar, but different.

“What do they mean?” she asks him.

“Apparently it’s black magic,” he says. “The witches did it when they were held here.”

“But weren’t all the women innocent?” she says. “Like, witches weren’t actually real . . .”

“I’m only going by what the stories say,” he says. “Look. Up there.”

He stretches up high and illuminates the ceiling. Four digits. “1662.”

She gasps. “Is that the year these were made?”

“Apparently. They say there’s other graffiti farther on in, names and so on. But I think we’ve come far enough.” He turns to head back toward the entrance.

“Wait,” she says, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him to her for a long, ravenous kiss. As if he is hers and hers alone, forever and ever.





LUNA, 2021