Page 7 of Curse of the Stag's Eye
I leaned over the little run-down wall, as much as I dared. “If there was anyone, I doubt they went down there.” Folds of sandstone and shale peppered with tufts of hardy grass made a steep drop down onto jagged rocks and an angry sea, where the waves rumbled and rushed. The weather was turning.
“I’ve got goosebumps.” Nikesh rubbed his forearm. He was almost giddy. “What was it, do you think?”
“I don’t want to speak out of turn, Nikesh,” Rhys said, “but I suspect it was probably a ghost.”
Chapter 5
Rhys decided to keepthe door of the lighthouse on the latch. In all honesty, I would have preferred to lock it tightly. I didn’t want anyone else sneaking in when we weren’t looking. Since we left the coal shed, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched and wondered if perhaps Rhys had an accomplice on the island.
Rhys led the group back through the museum to the lighthouse tower and the foot of the winding main staircase, where he grinned back at us. “Here we go.” His voice echoed up through the tower.
The stairs had a little green emergency light at every other step. Just enough to make sure we didn’t trip in the dark but not enough to read by, or to spoil the mood Rhys was trying to create. He went to open the cellar door.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, mate.” Nikesh stepped back. “What you doing?”
“We’re starting at the bottom and working up.” Rhys held the door open for us.
“Nah, mate, nah,” Nikesh said. “You don’t start in the darkest, scariest part of the place! You’ve gotta ease us in first. Make us feel comfortable.” He peered into the darkness of the cellar and shuddered. “Besides, there’s no way I’m going down there.”
“Oh. Right you are!” Rhys took his notepad out and scribbled something down. “Tell you what, let’s start in one of the bedrooms instead.” He started climbing the winding staircase. I realised then he hadn’t stopped smiling from the moment I met him. An ex of mine had a dog, a golden retriever called Saint Olaf, who existed in a state of constant happiness, wagging her tail and panting maniacally at the slightest little thing. Rhys reminded me a bit of her.
I suppressed the urge to smile back at him. He wasn’t going to make this easy for me. “What about people who supposedly see ghosts during the day?” I followed him, keeping my phone’s torch pointed at the worn steps. “Or just hear them when they're, I don’t know, at home, just doing normal things? They’re hardly in an open, receptive frame of mind.”
“Haven’t you ever done something at home on automatic pilot? Like you were in a trance? Loading the dishwasher, ironing clothes, or whatever?” He stopped every now and then to listen. He reminded me more of Saint Olaf by the moment. “Besides, there’s lots we don't understand about hauntings. Maybe moon phases affect them, or sunspots.”
“Sunspots? That's a new one on me.”
“My auntie Chloe says they’re drawn to complicated souls.” Dawn’s shoes clicked and clacked on the stairs.
“You’ll be alright, then.” Nikesh pinched her bum. “Nothing complicated about you, is there?”
Rhys and I exchanged eye rolls before we reached a small landing and he opened the door to the only room on the first floor.
A metal bed — barely big enough for Dawn, let alone me or Rhys — sat tight as it could against one curved wall. An old-fashioned suitcase rested on top, lid open, and filled with a plain brown suit and cream shirt. The weight tube stood erect in the dead centre of the room. I wondered how many keepers stubbed their toes on it in the night.
The only window hung between the bed and a cold, stark fireplace. Some aged photos rested on the bone-white mantelpiece. Pictures of women and children. Families of keepers past, I assumed. Next to the fireplace, a wardrobe, and beside that — tucked away in the darkest part of the room — stood a simple writing desk. Whoever worked there must have strained their eyesight to its limit. Or used a lot of candles, I suppose. None of the furniture had been adapted to fit the bowed walls, it all just sat there, awkwardly, straight-edged, and defiant.
“This was one of the keepers’ rooms, back when this was a manned lighthouse.” Rhys gave us a guided tour. “They’ve recreated it, just as it would have been when the last keeper worked here.” Rhys held his lantern up to a wall of framed photos. Keepers from days gone by. He tapped one with his finger. “This is who we’re here to see.”
“Is that Mr Squirrel?” Nikesh asked.
“No, no, Mr Squirrel was just one of the unlucky people who lost their lives in service to this place. No, this is the ghost that keepers have reported seeing over the years. And a very distinctive and distinguished man he was too.” A man in his late sixties, with fluffy white sideburns, wearing a flat, peaked cap, and a sour expression stared out from the frame. Except not sour, not really. Determined, maybe. Weary, almost. Thin-lipped and clear-eyed, he cut a dashing and imposing figure. A nameplate read Principal Keeper Howard Baines.
“He must have had some life.” Nikesh flicked his own ear and looked over his shoulder. “I’ve always wanted to live in a lighthouse. I think it looks dead cozy and romantic.”
“It was a hard life.” Rhys ran his hand along the writing desk, narrowly avoiding a magnifying glass. “There was nothing romantic about working in these places. It was hard work, demanding, and monotonous. Plus the added pressure of knowing that if you make a mistake, people might die.
“Our Mr Baines spent months here at a time, tending the light. He would have had to work the fog horn by hand, every few minutes, in bad weather. This was before they built that separate horn in the hut outside. And back then, the bridge to the mainland wasn’t all fancy aluminium, remember. It was rope and a few bits of damp wood, then there were all those steps to climb. If the keepers got in trouble, and they managed to navigate all that, there still wasn’t a soul around for miles who could help them.”
“How many people worked here at one time?” Honestly, it surprised me to hear Nikesh taking an interest.
“Always three — That was the rule.” Rhys gestured a lot with his hands, his eyes gleeful. I couldn’t help but smile this time.
“It started off with only two per shift but there was a famous case back in… I want to say 1800? Or 1801, maybe? There were these two keepers in Smalls Lighthouse, off the west coast of Wales. It’s one of those really remote ones, built way out to sea. They never got on, always fighting, they were, and then one of them died in an accident. The other feared being blamed for the death so what could he do? He didn’t fancy living with a corpse for months, until the next relief arrived, and he didn’t want to get rid of the body in case it washed ashore. It would have looked even more suspicious, wouldn’t it?
“So he built a makeshift coffin for the body and lashed it to the outside of the lighthouse but a storm tore the coffin apart. Thewinds caught the rotting body and moved the limbs, making it appear as if it were waving to the living keeper, beckoning him out into the storm. When the next shift came, they found the keeper’s hair had turned white and he’d gone quite mad.”
My throat ran dry at the thought of a rain-lashed cadaver calling to me in the night.
