Curse of the Stag’s Eye (Haunted Hearts)

23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

M y heart jumped into my mouth. If Rhys and Dawn were coming with me in these time slips, they were nowhere to be seen, and I began to panic. What if these visions never ended? What if I were caught up in them forever?

The moon flashed, bright as a beacon. Baines — capless and shirtless — sat at his writing desk, pen in hand. A light dusting of snow-white hair covered his back and shoulders, and ran up his thick, sunburnt neck to meet the horseshoe of hair about his head. From where I stood by the unlit fireplace, I could make out some tattoos — a compass and sailing ship on his shoulder, a cannon and harpoon on his arm. He quickly covered the letter he was writing when Mr Squirrel approached and asked him if he’d heard anything from Mr Jessop since he’d left.

“Not a word,” Baines said.

“Strange that he chose not to keep in touch.” Mr Squirrel, a thin man with cruel eyes, made my flesh crawl. “I thought you two were… close.”

Baines scowled at him and jumped to his feet.

Mr Squirrel puffed his chest out and glowered, taunting Baines into a fight. “Disgusting, what you two got up to. Ungodly.”

As Baines lurched towards him, the sun shone through the bedroom window, stinging my eyes.

On a dull morning, snow gathered on the island far below and icicles hung from the gallery railing. Baines stood scraping ice from the glass on the outside of the lamp room. Jessop emerged from the hatch, bundled in a cap and scarf. He checked to make sure they were alone, they smiled, embraced, and stole a kiss. Within the lamp room, the beacon turned, bright as the sun.

“We shouldn’t. It’s against God.” Baines stood in the cellar, one hand on the stone wall.

Jessop held up an oil lantern, not unlike my own. “Is that what’s stopping you? A belief that what you feel — what we feel — is unchristian? Would God want you to live in misery? Would God want you to live in fear?” He laid the lantern on top of a barrel and gently took Baines’ hand. “Look into your heart, Howard. You and I are adults. We know our own minds. We know our own hearts. We are doing no harm. You came to me that night, you kissed me—”

“Stop.”

“—You kissed me because you wanted to, because your heart told you to. You held me so close I thought you’d never let go. That wasn’t a momentary lapse of judgement, nor was it madness, nor loneliness, nor simple lust. If God has taken any hand in our lives, then it was He who brought us together, here, now. It was God who gave us this chance for happiness. You are stubborn and you are dutiful to a fault but you are also kind. And gentle. Hah , and the finest whistler I have ever heard! You are skilled and you are dependable, and when you are near to me my soul sings.”

“You are argumentative,” Baines said. “Quarrelsome. Disagreeable. But passionate. And loyal. And patient.”

“Don’t deny your true self, Howard. Don’t deny me.” He kissed Baines’ hand. “Please.”

Atop the barrel, the oil lantern shattered. The candle flame blazed. When it had subsided, Baines, in his full uniform, stood before the blazing hearth in his bedroom. Red-eyed and damp-cheeked, he tore up page after page, envelope after envelope, and chucked them on the fire. They crackled and blackened and turned to a shower of ash, floating away up the chimney. He fought to suppress a howl of anguish but failed. He covered his face and then dug his fingers into the flesh as if set to tear it from his skull. He staggered to the window and threw it open to the driving rain and crashing thunder. “You did this! Damn you! Damn you!” Again and again, he shouted his anger and pain up to the rain-slicked Stag’s Eye, standing proud on the cliff, all but sneering down at him.

With a start, he stumbled backwards to his bed and lay upon it. One hand grasped his chest, the other his blanket, until his knuckles turned white. The fire grew brighter with each piece of paper it consumed, so bright it filled my vision, forcing me to turn away.

Mr Squirrel and Baines had gathered at the door of the lighthouse to wave Jessop off. He stood with a duffel bag over his shoulder and a suitcase by his feet. Older now, definitely, with crow’s feet about his eyes and a small pair of oval spectacles on his straight nose. He said his goodbyes. Baines offered to carry the suitcase to the bridge, at least. I plodded alongside them, aware that my steps made no noise on the gravel.

“You’ll write to me, as soon as you arrive.” Baines kept his voice low.

Jessop told him not to worry. He would write often. So often, Baines would be sick of seeing Jessop’s hand in the post. He tried to laugh but it didn’t work, and it did nothing to lighten the mood. “Make sure you don’t let anyone see my letters. I don’t intend to restrain my feelings.”

“You never have.” The wrinkles on Baines’ forehead had deepened. “I’ve found a good hiding place for your letters, behind a loose brick in the cellar.”

How long had they served together in the lighthouse? Ten years. Ten years and ten days. I knew the fact like I knew my own name. My head throbbed. This is what Dawn meant. Knowledge jutting not into my mind but out of it. In my head but not from my head. I winced.

“You know he’ll have plenty to say about you seeing me off.” Jessop nodded back to the lighthouse where Mr Squirrel stood, arms crossed.

The bridge — not aluminium, as it was when I arrived, but rather thick rope and a few rotting planks of wood — swayed gently in the breeze. Autumn, I thought from the colour of the trees lining the cliff face where, just hours ago but two hundred years in the future, I’d parked my car.

They both crossed it without a care. I carefully picked my way across, trying not to notice the sea frothing far below, its waves stretching up the rocks like a thousand anguished, grasping hands. The men journeyed up the steps to the curving pebble path and paused in the shadow of the standing stone. It towered over them, framing them, enveloping them, the single eye of some long-forgotten deity or spirit watching over them, blessing or cursing them, I couldn’t tell which. But I could guess.

“I wish you didn’t have to leave.” Baines’ voice had, if anything, dropped lower. His chin hadn’t lifted from his chest since they’d started walking.

Jessop set his hand on the side of Baines’ face, raising it so he could look directly into his eyes. “It’s not forever. I’ll sort out these shares, and come back home. Maybe they’ll make enough for us to get a house somewhere, in the countryside. Somewhere private for two confirmed bachelors to grow old together. Somewhere nobody knows us. We can tell them we’re brothers, or cousins, or something if we have to. No one will question it. They never do.”

"You'll be at sea for six weeks, so you'll get there, what, the fourth or fifth of December? I'll be just finished my shift and you'll be starting your new life."

"My new life won't start until I'm by your side."

Tears welled in Baines’ eyes.

“Now, come on.” Jessop pulled Baines’ collar and straightened up his cap. “You can’t let Squirrel know you’ve been crying. He’ll think you’re soft.” With one last look around, for safety, they kissed and hugged, hugged so tightly I thought they’d never let go. But they did. “Are you coming up to the carriage?”

Baines just shook his head.

Jessop nodded and lifted his suitcase. “Why don’t you make a model of the packet ship? For me. It’ll give you something to do until I return. And keep a look out for the Branwen . It’ll carry me back to you.” The sun reflected in his spectacles, dazzling me.

My vision cleared and I was back in the gloomy cellar where an older Baines crouched, brass lantern in hand. He removed the loose brick and retrieved from the cavity a bundle of letters tied with string. He returned the brick, clasped the letters tightly to his chest and stood, his eyes distant, and he moved slowly, as if in a trance.

The gloom swallowed me. Mr Squirrel sat cross-legged on the floor of the shed in soot-covered clothes. Coal stood in piles about him. His beard had grown long and wispy — If anything he’d become even thinner, and gaunt. With one blackened finger, he drew a circle in the coal dust on the floor. The same circle, round and round, over and over again, his whole body rocking with the motion of his drawing. He groaned slightly, a deep, rumbling groan. “Disgusting,” he said. “Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.” I tried to walk away, but without warning, his head snapped back and his eyes fixed on mine, turning my whole body to ice.