What Lies Beneath the Fog

》24《

There she was again.

Anne Byron, standing outside in the pouring rain, calling me, her voice just a weak whisper but so urgent and insistent that I had to follow her...

I started awake, jumping out of my bed, my heart pounding crazily against my ribs, echoing the sounds that had woken me up.

There was a loud noise coming from downstairs. Someone was pounding at the front door, calling my name, like the apparition in my dream. But this someone had a loud, melodious, and rather familiar voice. It was filling my room, entering with the raindrops carried by the wind through the open window.

"Liam! Liam, wake up!" The impatient voice urged me. There was a hint of worry in it, too.

I made my way downstairs, gliding over the stairs at a high speed, and opened the door as soon as I reached it.
Emma stood there in the rain. Her pounding fist made contact with my chest, where it had substituted the opened door. She looked at me, relaxing visibly, and I was happy that I didn't take my clothes off last night.

Then it hit me. Last night's events weren't just a dream. I had really followed the ghost to the lighthouse. My jeans were still damp from the walk in the rain.

I looked at Emma, tuning my mind quickly out of the thoughts about my night adventure and into her voice. She was talking to me; her words coming in a fast, excited, nearly incomprehensible stream.

"Liam, I saw her, I saw the ghost!" She blurted out in an attempt to tell me too much too fast. "Last night when I left the library with Mum. Anne was strolling on the cliffs in the rain, walking towards your house. But Mum wouldn't let me come up here. And your phone wasn't working, you didn't reply to any of my texts. I just couldn't tell Mum about the ghost... I haven't slept all night!"

I put my arms on her shoulders, trying to calm her and stop the confused stream of her worried words.

"Emma, I'm fine," I assured her. "I didn't get any of your texts. Otherwise, I would have called back. Are you ok?"

"Yes, fine. I just thought... I don't know what I thought, really. I had to check that you were ok," she muttered, looking at me, her eyes still troubled and full of questions.

"Come in and wait a moment, please," I said, making her come inside and leaving her in the hall. Then I ran up the stairs. "I'll be right back. We go to the lighthouse. Now," I called down to her, knowing what we had to do with a sudden, perfect clarity.

Once in my room, I grabbed the small wooden box that belonged to the key from the chest of drawers and stuffed my phone in my pocket. The key from the Byron's Lighthouse was still there. When I heard how loud the sound of the rain on the roof had become, I quickly shut the window. It was raining heavily, and the window ledge was already all wet. On my way down, I stopped in the middle of the staircase to put on my shoes where I left them last night.

Emma was watching me, looking puzzled and thoughtful, a slight worry still visible in her eyes.

"Where is all this mud coming from? Where have you been?" she asked, pointing to the muddy footprints on the floor.

If I needed any more proof that my last night's stroll with the ghost really happened, this would be it. The muddy footsteps were covering all the floor in the hall, ending by my shoes on the staircase.

"I followed Anne Byron to the lighthouse," I admitted.

Emma's eyes widened with incredulity.

"At night? In that rain? You're mad! What did you see?" she asked, nearly jumping with excitement, unable to stand still.

I had to stop her stream of questions. Otherwise, we would never get out.

"I'll tell you on the way. We must go. I think Anne wants to show us something."

I picked my jacket up from the floor where I dropped it at night. It was still wet. Then I opened the door for her, and we walked out into the heavy downpour.

Last night's rain was nothing compared to what welcomed us this morning. The wind was picking up, chilling the air and getting stronger and stronger as we approached the bridge.

Just as I finished retelling to Emma what I had done at night, we reached it. The bridge looked absolutely impossible to cross over. The rain water pouring over it made it look shiny, slippery like ice. The wind screaming in a high-pitched voice deep down among the sharp cliffs made my skin crawl into gooseflesh.

Emma paused for a moment, too, looking pale. But we had to go. Taking a deep breath, I descended the few rock steps leading to the bridge and helped Emma down. Slowly, carefully, holding our breaths and trying not to look down, we made our way to the other side. It took us minutes that felt like hours to reach the opposite cliff. Once there, I climbed up and pulled Emma to me. She was still a bit pale but looked as determined as I felt to solve the old mystery.

As soon as we set foot on the heather lined path leading to the lighthouse, we were welcomed by a faint scent of roses, enveloping us like the typical island's fog. The scent which I came to associate with Anne Byron's presence. I looked around but couldn't see her anywhere.

"Roses? Here?" Emma whispered, looking around as well. But there were no roses to be seen.

"It was the same last night," I told her.

We followed the narrow path, rendered muddy by the constant rain, all the way to the lighthouse. The wind was even stronger here, making it difficult to walk, as if it wanted to stop us deliberately from reaching the white, ancient building towering above us. I took the key out of my pocket as soon as we reached the closest building, the keeper's house.

"Do you think it's from the house?" Emma asked quietly.

"No. It's from the tower," I said, feeling absolutely convinced about it.

I wasn't sure how I knew it, but it was with the same kind of certainty with which I had known before that I had to come here, or that Emma was supposed to come with me. That she, too, would play a part in solving this mystery. There was nothing for us in the house. Anne wanted us to search the tower.

Emma didn't question my reasoning. She followed me to the door of the tower, and I slipped the key, now feeling icily cold in my hand again, in the old-fashioned lock.

As soon as I turned it once, then let go of it, the ancient door swung back on its own, without any other resistance than a loud, pained creak. It banged loudly against the wall, and after that, an eerie silence filled my ears. It wasn't a sudden and complete lack of sound, it was more the kind of silence that can be heard under the water, when the sounds are still there but altered, muffled, not quite able to reach us. Even the crying wind tormenting the sea of heather flooding the cliff seemed to have quieted by a few octaves for the moment.

Strong smell of roses spilt out from the open tower. It was like the apparition itself, mysterious and elusive; a hint, a clue to follow. Or maybe an invitation.

We were where we were expected to be.