What Lies Beneath the Fog

》11《

"Are you ok, Liam?" Dean asked even as I reached them.

I nodded at him, unsure of what to say.

"Have you seen a ghost or... oh no, don't tell me anything, please!" He interrupted himself halfway through the sentence, obviously regretting bringing up the subject of the ghost again.

His words made me chuckle. Dean definitely didn't believe the local legend. Or, was he just scared and found it easier to refuse it, to make fun of the 'believers'?

Emma gave me a knowing look, stroking her forearm thoughtfully-- it seemed that she felt the sudden chill in the air too. She looked into the distance, carefully observing the far edge of the cliff, as if she was hoping to spot something out there. Emma was so quiet and intent; she seemed mesmerised. As if she was under a spell or something.

For some reason, I felt compelled to touch the broken key in my pocket. Strangely, despite the warmth of the day and my body, it felt freezing, as cold as the air that had enveloped the cliff for a few moments. I was sure that this key, somehow, was connected to the island's mystery.

What did it open? Could it be...

I looked better at the keeper's house with its huge fog bell on the porch, where my friends stood now, with its backdrop of the noisy, restless sea deep below and the screeching seagulls high above.

Emma and Dean were not far from the entrance to the lighthouse's tower. I walked past them and approached its tall door, trying the rust-covered iron door handle tentatively. The door was locked, of course. But the keyhole looked big enough for the broken skeleton key, which felt weirdly heavy now, weighing my pocket down, still as cold as two pieces of ice. Maybe I found the right door...

"It's been locked since the fifties when the new lighthouse was built," Dean informed me. "Inside, they left everything as it had been when the Byrons lived here, with most of their personal stuff still there. It was supposed to become a museum. When they realised that they would have to make this place much safer and easier to approach than what it is, they changed their minds. It proved too difficult, not really worth the trouble."

"It doesn't look that unsafe to me," I said. "If there was a proper bridge..."

"Probably because it's a nice summer day today. Don't forget that we don't get many sunny days like this. Imagine coming here in the typical fog, making the rocks wet and slippery. It's too open," he said, pointing around, "if you walk just a step too far... Come, have a look."

I walked with Dean around the keeper's house. Emma followed us but kept turning around towards the sea of heather blooms covering the distant part of the cliff, every once in a while. What did she see over there?

We walked around the red and white foghorn that stood very close to the house, nearly touching its western wall, on the spot of the cliff closest to the sea. It looked like a second tower of the lighthouse, but shorter, not much taller than the house.

Walking beyond it, we reached the end of the platform.

There was nowhere to walk after. The lighthouse was built extremely close to the edge of the cliff, a precipice falling deep below, ending in high, black, rugged rocks jutting out of the sea. They looked like sharp claws of a sea monster hiding in its depths.

I remembered Will telling me that Anne's husband jumped off the tower. The thought made me look up. The lighthouse's tower was standing tall above us, casting a deep shadow over the rocks. I recalled reading about it in Emma's book the previous night-- it was seventeen meters tall. But the cliff itself was much, much taller. Falling from here, or jumping off the tower, would mean a certain death. Walter Byron must have been pretty desperate to take such a decision.

My feet started to prickle again. I took a few careful steps back, which made me touch the northern wall of the house with my back. I was starting to understand Dean's point about the safety issues of this place.

"The weather up here gets really extreme sometimes. Especially the wind. Imagine coming here when it rains fish," Dean said, smiling, waiting for my reaction. Was he teasing me? "Ask her," he said, looking at Emma. "She comes here in any weather, or time of the day, or the year."

Emma was absolutely serious at the moment; her cheerful mood had shifted completely. She wasn't herself at all.

"Sometimes, especially in winter, the wind gets so strong and the sea so rough that shoals of small fish get lifted out of the water and dumped up here. But, as usual, Dean is exaggerating; it doesn't happen that often," she explained distractedly, still looking around.

"Anyway," Dean continued,
"the wind and the fog destroy everything the architects design or build these days, just the ancient walls of this lighthouse seem to be strong enough to fight back the weather. And the cliff itself is not that secure either. There are some caves underneath; the sea hollowed the rock out in a few places. So, they are scared that parts of it will just crumble away at some point. All summed up, it was easier to leave this place as it is and make the museum where it is now, next to the church. It's safer and closer to the village."

Emma was still too quiet, lost in her thoughts, when Dean finished explaining.

"Emma," I touched her arm lightly, wanting to bring her back from wherever she was.

"Come with me," she said, grabbing hold of my hand and pulling me behind her.

Her little hand felt freezing in mine, as icy as the broken key in my pocket. I looked at Dean, hoping for an explanation, but he seemed unfazed, following us without questions, obviously used to Emma's unpredictable moves. So, I walked along with her too, happily leaving my hand in hers.

We made our way back to the front of the lighthouse and then followed a narrow path that lay half hidden under the heather and moss covering the cliff. Soon, we reached a lone grave. The only inscription on a plain erected stone that marked it, looking like it had been taken from the cliff itself, read, 'Walter Byron'.

Dean stayed behind; he obviously knew this place well enough and didn't need a closer look. Emma, on the other hand, seemed to be wholly absorbed in the two simple words on the tombstone, as if it meant much more to her, or the words had some deeper, personal meaning. She squeezed my hand lightly to get my full attention.

When I looked at her, she said, in a voice altered by emotion, not quite her own, "Here he lies without me, my Walter."

I stared at her, and what I saw scared me witless.

Emma's eyes morphed into two large, deep wells of darkness. She looked unfocused and ethereal, disappearing into a silvery-white mist, like a ghost. Then, without any warning, she dropped my hand, making me glance down, missing her touch. When I looked back up, I heard her calling my name, teasingly, Dean at her side.

I took a deep breath, and my heart started to beat again. What had just happened?! Feeling the summer heat on my cold body, I shuddered.

"Liam, hey, what's wrong?"

Emma looked completely normal again, her beautiful eyes two pieces of a mirror reflecting the purplish hues of the ocean of heather surrounding us.

"What happened to you? You looked... strange," Dean said.

So now I was the strange one. Not Emma. I looked around, observing the cliff. Everything looked perfectly normal.

The scent of roses was gone as unexpectedly as it had appeared.

I was sure that I had just received a message. Anne Byron had never left this place. Whatever had happened to her, she still loved her husband.

Now, after all this time, she wanted to be finally found.