Page 11 of Curse of the Stag's Eye
His eyes narrowed. “I won’t. Go on.”
“When I was a kid, I used to have a ghost that appeared in my room every night. I never saw her but I could sense her, if you know what I mean? A girl of around six or seven, she was, I’m sure of it. Same age as me, at the time. She’d run into my room when I was lying in bed reading theBeano.”
Gaz grinned. “I was aDandyreader, myself.”
“I’d hear her footsteps padding on the lino, you know. She was always barefoot. She’d run in and grab my comic out of my hands, then run out again. The comic would just go flying across the room. Frightened the crap out of me the first time, I don’t mind telling you. Then it became sort of a game. I’d try to keep it out of her reach, or I’d pretend to be asleep, then wake up and catch her, and she’d run out again.”
“That sounds terrifying.” He looked at me like he also thought it was a little psychotic but was too polite to say.
“It does now, yes, but I was only a lad at the time. I didn’t think anything of it. I never told anyone. I wasn’t a very talkative child. I didn’t have many friends, I preferred my own company. I lived in a world of my own half the time. I still do, I suppose. When you’re young, you don’t know any better, do you? You just think, okay, this is just how the world is. Sometimes ghosts just run about the place, fair enough.
“I got bullied a lot in school, and when I got older I was told that the stress of it can come out in funny ways. I thought oh, okay, maybe that’s all it was, then. And she’d stopped coming to me by that stage too. Maybe she’d never been there at all or maybe she stopped visiting because I had my mind on other things.Star Warsand boys, mainly.”
Gaz laughed. “I was more into football. And boys.”
“Oh.” My heart did a little flutter, like a baby bird trying to fly. “I didn’t know you were gay. Unless you’re bi? Or something else. I don’t want to—”
He held up a hand. “I am gay, yes.”
He gave me a little grin then, and the fluttering in my heart got a little faster right along with it.
“I’d have guessed you were more into rugby than football.”
He patted his round belly. “I think I’d have been good at it but it was a bit too posh for my school.”
“Do you play a lot of football, then? Five-a-side on a Saturday morning in the local park?”
Gaz chuckled. “Not these days, I don’t. I should get back to it, I suppose. I always liked being part of a team. Well, most of the time. It can get a bit stifling after a while.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “I like my own space. I'm used to entertaining myself. I've queued up at midnight to buy a new game and taken days off work to play it without speaking to another soul. I kind of disappear when that happens. I think it puts people off me, to be honest.”
He studied my face for a moment, like he was trying to suss out if I was being honest with him.
“I disappear for real,” he said. “Every now and then I get the urge to just take off. Sometimes I go abroad but, usually, I just go camping. Somewhere nice and remote. Away from people, and houses, and cars, and phones. A couple of nights is all it takes to clear my head and I'm good to go for another while.” He threw the ball of crumpled sandwich packaging from hand to hand, like a novice juggler. “It rarely goes down well with whoever I’m seeing at the time.”
“I wouldn't mind.” Oh God, I’d said that out loud. The burning in my ears spread across to my nose. “I mean, if it were me, is what I meant. And it’s not me. But if it were me, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t have a problem with… it.” How my face didn’t fully catch fire, I’ll never know.
He caught the packaging ball and tossed it straight over into a nearby empty bin. “If you ever wanted to go camping I could recommend some good spots. I could show you where they are. Or next time I’m going, we could—”
My face scrunched like the sandwich packaging. “Oh, God, no. I don't do the Great Outdoors. I’d be screaming for a decent Wi-Fi signal and an oat milk latte within twenty-five minutes.”
I finished my Scotch egg. The arguing voices had waxed and waned, but now they grew louder. Hoping to put a swift end to it, I called over to Dawn and Nikesh to politely suggest we get moving.
I threw my backpack into the corner of the room with everyone else’s and lifted my lantern. “Have you never had any kind of scary encounters, then?”
“With men? Yes. With ghosts?” He hesitated. His eyes were so warm. So comforting. “No.”
Dawn and Nikesh arrived, arm in arm, and all smiles. Dawn cocked her head to one side. “Have you two finished your little tiff, then?”
Gaz turned to me, puzzled. “That wasn’t you two arguing?” he asked her.
“No,” Dawn said. “It was two blokes. Definitely. If it wasn’t you, who was it?”
Chapter 7
While Rhys and Dawntried to find the source of the arguing voices, my fingers ran over the placards. Inside the display case were several old logbooks from the lighthouse, detailing when each keeper started and ended their shift, as well as notes of any relevant occurrences. They even noted the weather at regular intervals throughout the day.
I spotted Howard Baines’ name a few times. It sent a chill down my spine, thinking I might have heard the footsteps of the man who made those marks. Each keeper noted the names of the ships that passed the lighthouse, as well as the date and time. I drew my fingertip down the glass, over the names. Squirrel, Baines, Squirrel, Jessop, Jessop, Jessop. The handwriting was, I thought, all the same. It must have been one keeper’s job to note all of the information. Maybe they just picked whoever had the neatest penmanship.
