Page 56 of The Lighthouse Keeper

A necktie. With an I Magnin label. “Is this yours?” I held it up in Rafe’s direction, already knowing the answer. “It’s a striped silk necktie.”

His gaze directed over the ocean, he gave a single shake of his head.

“Thought so.”

Tucking the tie into my pocket, I settled myself on the rear bench, taking hold of the paddles without asking. Rutger shopped at I Magnin, and he favored silk. Beyond that, the presence of the tie made no sense whatsoever. “You’ll have to tell me where to go.”

“The current may fight you, but head south along the shoreline.” Rafe’s level tone helped fix my mind on the task at hand.

I hadn’t rowed a boat since our summers on Lake Michigan. I knew the basics, and went to work, though rowing on an ocean was a new experience. It wasn’t long before Rafe’s warning came to pass and I found myself wrestling the current as well as the waves.

To take my mind off the blisters forming on my palms, I started up a conversation. “What was the spell you tried, the one that changed your eyes?”

Rafe was quiet for so long I came to regret starting with such a difficult topic. I’d begun to ponder other topics when he spoke.

“The amulet.”

Another silence had me biting my lip to keep from prompting him. Rafe would answer in his own time, or not at all.

“Martin kept the amulet in the room he and Mother shared. I was a curious child and, while I wasn’t spying, I did see him with it. Even as a child, I knew it reeked of evil.”

“They say curiosity killed the cat,” I said, mostly to take my mind off the set of swells trying to beach our little craft on the nearby shore.

“In my case, it wasn’t so dire.”

His dry tone made me laugh.

“I asked Mother what it was, and she made the mistake of telling me that destroying the amulet would send the demon spirit back to hell. She never imagined I would find the thing, but I did. I only knew a simple destruction spell, but I gave it all the power I could muster. I don’t know whether the protection spell was set by Martin or by the man who created the amulet in the first place, but my attempt backfired. I was knocked out, and when I woke, I could see the spirit world, but nothing else.”

He paused and I made sympathetic noises, which he ignored. “Really, it was dumb luck that I wasn’t killed. After that, Mother decided it was best if I didn’t go to school in town…” He spoke calmly, as if any unhappiness had been washed clean by time. “…and Martin hid the amulet again.”

Despite the cool, grey drizzle, the exertion had me sweating in my suit. A gust of wind tried to take my hat and I broke off mid-stroke to recapture it.

“What’s wrong?” Rafe asked.

Squashing my hat firmly in place, I resumed my work. “Nothing. My hat.” A new question came to me, and I posed it before I could censure myself. “Martin. Why don’t you call him father?”

Rafe answered quickly. “Martin Gallagher isn’t my father. He took Mother in when she was with child, after she agreed to help him hide the Ferox Cor away.”

“I see.” Any number of possible situations presented themselves, though I settled on one. She must have traded the Baron name for the protection his name could offer her. Since I had some experience with trading on a name, I offered no criticism.

“It was a false bargain, in the end,” Rafe said, as if reading my mind. “He thought that with the Ferox Cor in hand and a Baron at his side, he’d rule the world. She convinced him to hide it away, and over time, he saw the wisdom of that choice. She came to love him, though, more than was good for her.” He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, so I did.

“Seems to me that your mother saved us all from a fairly terrible fate.”

“She did.”

His voice had a finality that discouraged further questions. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my face, though we seemed to be making progress. Picking through Rafe’s words in search of any false notes, I stroked the oars. If nothing else, he’d explained why he didn’t seem to mourn Martin’s passing.

We were passed by fishing boats making their way into the harbor, larger passenger vessels that sailed between Seattle and other cities along the coast, and one large, steam-powered freighter that sent rolling waves in our direction. My arms and shoulders were long ready to give up before we reached our destination.

“Look for the place where dugouts tie up,” Rafe said. “They call it Ballast Island.”

“I think we’re almost there.” I hoped so, anyway. Saltwater splashed onto an open blister on my palm, making it sting.

The shoreline was as dark and drab as the clouds overhead. Close ahead, many canoes were grounded on a rocky outcropping rising above the waves. Beyond that, piers jutted out into the water, proudly displaying their industry. The piers were crowded with fishing boats and freighters, brick buildings huddled in the mist, and the whole place crawled with men, mostly men, hollering, laughing, busy men.

There were people on the place he called Ballast Island, too, although plainly it wasn’t an island. As a Midwest boy, I didn’t know much about shipping, but during my time in San Francisco I’d learned that ballast was the material – rocks and sand and chunks of broken concrete – that was loaded on ships to keep them steady when their hulls were empty. So, the “island” really was just a pile of rocks dumped by cargo ships on their way in and out of Seattle’s harbor.

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