Curse of the Stag’s Eye (Haunted Hearts)

26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

I n the museum, I rattled the lid of a display case.

Rhys nearly had a fit. “What are you doing, mun? You’ll break it!”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that.” I searched around for something I could use. An open frame on a wall held several nautical instruments, including a set of sailmaker’s tools. A needle holder, a seam rubber, a set of pickers, and a short, dull knife.

“What are you looking for?” Dawn asked.

I jimmied the knife under the lid of the display case. “We saw Baines sitting at his writing desk, yes?” I jiggled the knife about. “And he was writing a letter.” The knife rattled. “We know he watched that packet ship, the Branwen , going back and forth from America. He was the only one who noted it in the logs. Bloody thing…” I took the knife out.

“Move out of the way.” Rhys pulled out his keys and dropped to his haunches. From a little keyring, he pulled a pen knife. He slid the blade into the lock of the display case and wiggled it around. He stuck his tongue out from the corner of his mouth as he worked. The lock popped. He opened the case and returned the keys to his pocket.

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

“Blame it on a misspent youth.” He grinned, his eyes twinkling. “I was an urban explorer before it was cool. How do you think I got my taste for wandering around buildings in the dark? I was sneaking about abandoned hotels and pubs before I was a teenager. This lock was a piece of piss after you’ve opened a few dozen padlocks.”

Before us were spread a handful of open, handwritten letters. Behind them lay five or six more, still in their envelopes, the addressees all but illegible. A tin, ink pot, and some fancy pens filled out the rest of the case. Carefully, I lifted each open letter in turn.

“What are you looking for?” Rhys’ voice had become a whisper, as if speaking too loudly would cause the letters to crumble.

“I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it.” I could just about make out the names in the harsh electric light of the museum. None of them felt like likely candidates. “What’s in that tin?”

Dawn checked the placard. “It says people could pay extra to have their letters transported in tins like this one. As extra protection I suppose? It says there are likely to be more letters inside but the project hasn’t had a chance to examine them yet. The tin is still sealed.”

I lifted the tin. “Think you could pick the lock?”

Rhys laughed. “No chance — It’ll be rusted to buggery, I’m sure of it.”

“That’s a pity.” I took the sailmaker’s knife and jammed it under the lid, and tapped it with the hammer from my pocket.

“You can’t do that!” Rhys tried to grab the tin but I refused to let go. “It’s probably priceless!”

I ignored him and kept tapping the knife. “Leave it — It’s important.”

He looped his arm around my wrists. The tin fell to the wooden floor and split open.

“Oh, Christ, you’ve done it now.” Rhys stooped as if ready to scoop the tin up but stopped himself, afraid of doing more damage.

I knelt and picked up some envelopes. Three in all. Better preserved than the others on display. The tin had provided an extra layer of protection from the sea water. Two of the envelopes were addressed to someone in Aberystwyth. I showed the last of them to Rhys. “Read the name.”

He sighed and squinted. “Mr Howard… Baines. Stag’s Head Lighthouse.” He took the letter from me while I returned the tin and other letters to the cabinet. “How did you know that would be in there?”

“I guessed. The way I see it is this: Baines was expecting something important to be on the Brawnwen the day it sank — That’s why he was watching out for it on the day he died. He and Jessop said they’d write to each other and we saw Baines burning a stack of letters he’d kept hidden in the cellar, so they must have been exchanging them for a while. We don’t know how long Jessop had been in America for before Baines died. When the ship sank, Baines must have known this letter was lost and that caused him to, I don’t know, die of a broken heart, I suppose.”

Rhys handed me the letter. “But Baines must have known he could just write back and say, hey, by the way, your last letter is at the bottom of the sea, any chance you could write another one?”

“Oh. That’s true, I suppose. We’re still missing something…” I flipped the envelope over, hoping to find a return address but all I discovered was a wax seal. “Jessop wasn’t taking any chances. Sealed with wax, paid extra to have it specially protected… He wanted to make sure this letter got to Baines safely.”

“How do you know it’s from Jessop?” Dawn asked.

“Well, it must be, mustn’t it?” I went to open it but Rhys stopped me.

“No, no, stop it, that’s too far.”

“But this might help us understand what happened.”

He took the letter and clasped it to his chest before pacing around the little museum. “Just stop and let me think for a second. There’s a ritual to this sort of thing. A pattern to be followed. The ghost isn’t floating around, checking every nook and cranny. He’s following a pattern. If we want Baines to find this we have to deliver it properly.”

I balled my fists on my hips. “I didn’t see a letterbox in the lighthouse door.”

“They wouldn’t have had a letterbox, no. Would a postman have delivered letters right to the door?”

“I definitely saw a letterbox in the cottage.”

Rhys shook his head. “No, no, the cottages weren’t around in Baines’ time, they were only built years afterwards. I told you both this, remember?”

I did not.

Rhys shook his head. “Baines’ ghost — It expects things to be where they’ve always been. So where would this letter have been, had it been delivered? In his writing desk? Okay, ritual, ritual… oh!” Rhys stopped his pacing. “Come with me.”

We followed him through the glass corridor connecting the museum to the lighthouse. Instead of going in, he pulled the lighthouse door closed and locked it. “Right, fingers crossed, everyone.” He took the letter and slid it under the door. Then he balled his fist and banged on the door three times, with a long pause between each bang. He stood back and ushered us back into the museum.

We stood there, peeking around the corner, for minutes, listening. Just listening. Every time I tried to speak Rhys or Dawn shushed me. I found it very annoying. “Look, what’s supposed to happen?”

Rhys tucked his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket, for warmth. “Well, I dunno, exactly. This just sort of felt like the right thing to do.”

I threw my hands in the air and walked away a few paces.

“It’s not as if I do this sort of thing every day!” Rhys called after me. “I thought we might hear him on the stairs, or he might, I dunno, mun, open the door or something.”

I asked Dawn if she felt anything. Any vibrations in the ether. Any disturbance in the Force. She just quietly shook her head.

With Rhys calling after me and Dawn bringing up the rear, I strode through the corridor and up the three stone steps to the lighthouse. I rattled the door, forgetting that Rhys had locked it. He typed in the passcode and gave me the key. The letter lay on the floor, right where Rhys had pushed it. Undisturbed. Unread.

“We’re running out of time,” Dawn said.

As he bent to pick up the letter, Rhys asked her what she meant.

“I can’t properly explain it,” she said. “I just… I feel like we’re running out of time.”

I made a face. “We can always stay the night. Or come back tomorrow. Baines has waited for a couple of hundred years, he can wait another night.”

Dawn’s eyes had become unfocused, her forehead crinkled in thought. “No, no, he can’t. It has to be tonight. It’s not just me that’s causing all this activity, there’s something about tonight. Something special. Something significant.”

“Sunspots,” I said.

Rhys went to say moon phases but he stopped himself. “Maybe it’s Baines’ birthday?”

“Or his death day,” I said. “The day he died, I mean. And the anniversary of the shipwreck?”

“Wait,” Rhys said. “Wait. What’s the date? The twenty-third, isn’t it? In that vision, Baines said Jessop would be at sea for six weeks and would arrive on the fifth or sixth of December. I suppose it could be… Oh, my God.” He counted on his fingers. “Today’s the day William Jessop left. The day he went to America. In that… vision, that time slip, or whatever it was, the day Jessop left, the day Baines walked him across the bridge — it was today, exactly two hundred years ago. The voice on the walkie-talkie, that was Baines, but he wasn’t telling us to leave, he was, you know, lamenting that Jessop had to leave.” The colour drained from his face and he checked his watch again, for the hundredth time that evening. “Eleven forty-nine p.m. You’re right, Dawn. We are running out of time. We only have until midnight. Until the date changes.”

“We don’t know that for certain,” I said. “With clocks going back and forward, did they even do that back then? Maybe we’re a day early. Or a day late?”

“I doubt very much if the spirit world runs on British Summer Time,” Rhys said. “I told you, there’s ritual to this. Pattern. It’s happening today and only today.” He held the letter out. “We’ve got to get this to Baines. Come on, we have to go back up to the lamp room. That’s where we saw him first, that’s where he’ll be. Up there.”

“No.” Dawn spoke softly. “Not up. Down.”