Curse of the Stag’s Eye (Haunted Hearts)

7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

W hile Rhys and Dawn tried 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.

The wind had died down and fog gathered outside, dulling the booming of the waves and thinning the moonlight. To my mind, the fog felt pernicious, purposefully isolating us even more from the mainland.

On an information board, I found a small section about Howard Baines. The same story Rhys had told me, about how he’d been found dead in his bed. The account came from the other keeper’s official report, Mr Squirrel, in which he mentioned finding the damp-cheeked Mr Baines in the room with a fire blazing in the hearth, taking with it the last remnants of his private letters and papers.

Maybe that’s why there was so little known about Howard Baines. Jessop had burnt everything belonging to Baines before leaving. What a cruel and petty thing to do. It wasn’t enough to just murder the man, he tried to erase him entirely.

Rhys read some of the captions aloud in Welsh. I think he was trying to show off a bit. I hate to admit that I liked it. I could never resist a cuddly, bilingual bear, as my time spent touring Europe and sharing the beds of many Spanish, German and Italian men would attest to. Hungarian ones too. And more than a handful of Greeks, come to think of it. Rhys switched to English to read about how a squall had engulfed a packet ship sailing from America and it had sunk off the coast, with all hands lost.

Nikesh put his hands on his hips. “And a packet ship is…?”

“It carried post across the ocean,” Rhys said. “Letters, parcels, documents, whatever, really. Passengers, too, sometimes. Though it was an expensive way to travel. This was long before planes, remember. Or even radio.” Nearly one hundred years later, a team of scientists recovered items from the wreck of the Branwen . Most of the objects had been kept safely stored away until a recent project had been launched to properly examine them.

“ Branwen. That name’s in the logbook.” I ran my finger down the glass. The ship appeared several times. Each time next to Mr Baines’ name.

“It says here it made a regular packet run from the States.” Rhys had been studying the placards. “Bringing letters from here to there. That’s why it appears so often, I suppose.”

“Baines watched that ship come and go so many times, he must have known its schedule like the back of his hand.” I found more references to the ship in the log. “I suppose he watched it get caught in a squall.”

“He must have felt so powerless.” Dawn shoved her hands in her pockets again. “God, it must be awful, standing up there on the gallery, knowing a ship’s in trouble but unable to help.”

Rhys checked a map on one of the information stands. Done in an olde-worlde font and made to look like a crinkled and water-stained old map, it marked the location of the wreck. “It would have been quite far out, and the bad weather would have made it even harder to see, but yes, he would have seen the whole thing. How terrible.”

Dawn stood by a window. “Speaking of, it’s getting worse out there. I don’t fancy climbing those steps up to the car park in this fog.”

Nikesh cuddled up to her. “It’s perfect spooky weather, though, innit babes?”

One display case held a stack of letters retrieved from the sea bed. “These have to be recreations. Wouldn’t the water have destroyed them?” Some of them were open and legible, albeit barely.

“Look.” Rhys pointed. “It says they were buried under dozens of mailbags and sediment, protected from the seawater. Most of the letters recovered have been studied but a handful are still waiting to be examined. The project had been relying on funding from the EU and ran out of money after Brexit. There are a couple of chests and at least one tin they haven’t even opened yet.”

He took a tenner from his wallet and dropped it into the collection box by the door. A tall, fibreglass replica of a generic lighthouse with a large, clear orb on top and less than a quarter filled with coins and paper notes from around the world. I spotted euros, yen, and some dollars. Rhys hovered by it, eyebrows raised.

Nikesh bundled a few folded notes before Dawn took money from her phone case and dropped it in.

I tutted and dropped a few coins from my pocket into the slot on top of the orb. “Every little helps, doesn’t it?”

While the others moved through the glass corridor to the ground floor of the lighthouse, I lingered in the doorway connecting it to the museum. “I wonder why he keeps coming down here. The… ghost.” The ridiculous word tripped from my mouth. I wasn’t really starting to buy into this, was I?

Rhys shrugged. “I dunno. Probably because he walked these stairs day and night for his entire working life. You’ve heard of Stone Tape Theory, yes?”

I had but I didn’t want to seem too knowledgeable so I shook my head.

Rhys laid his hand on the wall. “It’s the idea that places can sort of record events, remember them, and play them back. If something happens — something tragic, usually — the energy of it can permeate the walls, the floors, the ceilings, and be experienced again and again, long after it happened.”

“It gets played back? What, like a hologram? Or like a holodeck?” Nikesh said. “From Star Trek ? The Next Generation, not the original series. And Deep Space Nine . Though they’re called holosuites in that.”

Dawn looked him up and down. “It’s like I don’t even know you sometimes.”

I said that theory sounded like something that would be easy to test scientifically.

Rhys leaned against the cellar door. “Can I confess something to you?” His voice echoed against the cold, thick wall of the lighthouse.

I clenched my fists. “Go on.”

“I know that I do a lot of these investigations, and I keep on top of current theories, but I don’t believe ghosts will ever be scientifically proven. I think science requires a clear head and a logical approach, but ghosts need emotion. They need the right frame of mind to—” He held his hands up like claws. “—to latch on to, you know? They won’t react to cameras and microphones, they only react to minds.”

“Is that why you don’t have any of those cool gadgets they use on the telly?” Nikesh clearly wasn’t going to let that go.

I shivered as a gust of ice-cold wind descended rapidly on us as if it were a horse come rampaging down the main staircase, accompanied by a ferocious clattering that rocked the room around us.

Nikesh grabbed Dawn’s hand, making her yelp. I couldn’t move my feet. I wanted to but I physically couldn’t. I’d never experienced anything like it before.

Rhys stood open-mouthed. I swear he was enjoying himself. When the cold passed, he giggled.

Nikesh shook his head violently. “No, I don’t like it. I’ve changed my mind. Let’s go, babes.”

He went to walk back into the museum but Dawn took his hand. “Hang on, hang on. Please. Don’t go yet. I have to stay. And look, you wanted to see a ghost, didn’t you? That’s the whole reason you came with me.”

“I know, but… I didn’t think I’d feel like this.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his puffy jacket. He turned on the spot and threw his head back. I think he was trying to stop himself from crying. He even stamped his feet, a little. “I don’t want to give up yet, I don’t. I need to… Oh, God, I don’t know.”

“You need proof.” Rhys spoke so softly I barely heard him. “You need to see it with your own two eyes.”

Nikesh dabbed his finger under one eye, then the other. “I really want to believe in something bigger than myself. When I was a kid, Mum and Dad brought me to church every week but it never clicked with me. Dad’s Hindu, Mum’s Catholic. After I was born, there was some disagreement over which religion to raise me in. Mum won. Anyway, I’ve tried praying. I’ve tried yoga, meditation. I’ve wandered around a forest, talking to the trees, but none of it works for me. I just… I need to believe that there’s more to this life than just getting up and going to work every morning, and queuing to get into some sweaty club every Friday night.”

Dawn frowned. “You never told me you felt like this.”

“Because we haven’t been together that long, and I want to keep being the bubbly, happy bloke you met in the chip shop after the pub one night. That’s what you expect. That’s what everyone expects.”

“I didn’t know you thought so deeply about things.”

He sniffed. “I was afraid you wouldn’t like me as much if you knew.”

“Silly moo.” She threw her arms around his waist and kissed him on the cheek. “I’m scared too, if it helps.”

Nikesh’s back straightened and he fixed a loose strand of his hair. “Right. No more. This is what I came here for. So if we’re going to do this, let’s do it properly. Rhys? It’s time.” He opened the cellar door. “Shall we?”

Something slammed behind us. The hairs on my neck stood on end.

“Hello?”

Rhys beamed and his voice turned an octave higher. “Yes, hello, Michael! We’re in here!” He walked out to meet the newcomer.

“Who the hell is Michael?” Nikesh still gripped the handle of the cellar door.

There was someone else on the island. I bloody knew it. My face grew hotter, my ears burned, and I clamped my jaw shut.

Rhys returned with a tall, bearded man wearing large, square, designer glasses. He was older than any of us, mid-forties, I’d say. Receding salt-and-pepper hair shaved down tightly. An ex-rugby player, from the look of him, with a large head, broad chest, and thick midriff. A crop of hair dusted with silver poked up from the open neck of his pale blue linen shirt. A long, camel-coloured overcoat kept the crisp evening at bay.

Nikesh caught sight of him and immediately straightened his posture and lifted his chin. Dawn tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Everyone, this is Michael Price. He works for the Lighthouse Trust.” Rhys introduced each of us, one by one. Michael smiled and shook hands, though he stood close to Rhys. “Gaz, this is the man I was telling you about. I thought you couldn’t make it?”

Michael eyeballed me from the tip of my toes to the top of my head. “I was just passing and wanted to make sure you got in without any trouble.”

“Just passing?” I squinted at him. “We’re miles from anywhere.”

Nikesh nudged him. “Come to keep an eye on us, have you?” He kept his chest puffed out like a horny pigeon.

Michael adjusted his glasses. “Hah, not at all, not all.” He smiled at Rhys.

“Michael is another believer, aren’t you Michael? You were telling me last night.”

“Ah, yes, yes.” Michael crossed his arms. “I am. Are you nearly finished, or…?”

“Finished? We’ve only just started, mun!” Rhys scribbled something on his notepad. “We’ve had some good results already and we’re just about to head down to the cellar, if you want to join us?”

Michael checked his watch. Something on the face sparkled in the lantern light. Diamonds, I realised. “I suppose I can stay for a bit.”

Aye, I bet he could. I bet this was all planned out last night, over dinner. Him and Rhys, drinking wine and laying out the schedule for the evening. Maybe it had even been all Michael’s idea. Flash git. Well, I was no fool and I wasn’t going to be taken for one by the likes of him.