Page 2 of Curse of the Stag's Eye
We each had a go at lifting the chain. I hadn’t come here to perform feats of strength, but I needed to play nice for the time being. I did my best but hardly budged it. Nikesh made a big show of heaving it up a few inches. Dawn laughed and clapped. My hand rusty from the ancient chain, I took a tissue from my pocket and wiped it clean.
Rhys pulled a small notepad from his pocket. Spiral-bound and periwinkle in colour, it had a picture of a cheerful cartoon ghost on the cover. He clicked his pen and checked his watch, a wind-up one with a large face. “Right, I’ve got us down to arrive at six p.m. on the twenty-third of October, which is fifteen minutes from now. Well done, everyone, for arriving early.” He ticked off an item on his list. I half expected him to give us all a gold star. “We’ll be ready to start exploring by ten past six, all being well. Come on, then.” He cheerfully clicked his pen again and tucked it away.
Rhys led us across the bridge to a little grassy outcrop barely bigger than a football pitch. Wedge-shaped, with one long, jagged promontory jutting out from one side, the island was smeared with grass and scrub. A misshapen lump of rock, it had a spine made from a crumbling, zigzagging wall running up from the bridge to a clump of thatched buildings and a dreary pale tower.He turned to face us, holding his arms out wide, like a circus ringmaster entertaining his audience. “Drink it in, everyone! This is going to be our home for the evening — Stag’s Head Lighthouse!”
Nikesh grinned like a Cheshire cat. Dawn frowned and forced a smile. I bit my tongue. Rhys’ enthusiasm was infectious, I had to admit, but I needed to stay focused. I just kept telling myself, over and over, that he was a liar. And I was going to prove it.
Chapter 2
Abitter wind slicedacross the little island, rippling the grass like waves and tossing Rhys’ side-parted hair. “At least you don’t have this problem.” He pointed at my shaved head.
I should have worn my cap. “I don’t even have a beard like yours to keep me warm.” I had stubble, my usual four or five days’ worth. That was as long as I could stand before it got too itchy and I shaved it all off.
“I arrived about an hour before all of you,” Rhys said. “I wanted to make sure I got here before dark. You didn’t drive all the way from Yorkshire today, did you?”
“No, yesterday,” I said. “I’m staying in a B&B about half an hour away. It was the closest place to here I could find.”
“You should have said. You could have stayed with us in our camper van.” Nikesh slapped my arm a little as he talked. “We could have had a big spooky sleepover! Stayed up all night, swapping ghost stories…”
Dawn put her arm around his waist as we walked. “No, love. Remember the last time? With your sisters? You got soscared you wet yourself? You left a puddle on the carpet and everything.”
He stopped dead in his tracks. “No, babes, no. It was the dog, remember? I told you. It was the dog.” He tucked his chin into his chest and walked on ahead.
The lighthouse and its associated buildings were outlined by a shabby white wall, no more than waist-high. The lighthouse tower itself — white with curving blue stripes — stood at the farthest point of the island, close to the edge. Off to one side, a free-standing cabin held the foghorn. First, though, we came to a row of cottages, three in all, surrounded by a wide, gravel-lined path, and facing two large, walled gardens.
“Look at the size of those seagulls.” Rhys pointed to several birds fighting on the edge of the cliff. “Proper monsters, they are.”
“There’s no such thing as seagulls,” Nikesh said. “They’re just gulls. Well, those aren’t, those are gannets.”
In the chilly air of a Welsh autumn evening, I stood at Rhys’ side, his face illuminated by the weak, citrus pink rays of the setting sun. The whitewashed cottages, huddled tightly in a row as if braced for cold weather, glowed a faint rose colour in the waning light. Rhys unlocked the door to one of the cottages and keyed in the code to the alarm.
We all set our bags in one corner. Rhys had sent an email to us all advising us on what we should bring — a sleeping bag, water bottle, food, and some warm clothes.
He flicked the master light switch. “Welcome to the visitor’s museum of the fifth most haunted lighthouse in Wales!”
Dawn pulled off her woolly hat and tucked it into the pocket of her jacket. “Why not go to the first most haunted?”
“Because every bugger’s already been there. Even Yvette bloody Fielding’s been there. This is the road less travelled, so to speak.”
I paced about. “I expected these to be holiday cottages.” There were no interior walls. A massive lighthouse lamp — hexagonal in shape and made of undulating lenses — stood in the centre of the room, surrounded by placards in Welsh and English explaining how it worked and where it had come from.
I passed by dusty shelves of backup batteries and a Victorian-looking generator painted olive green. I paused at a spare bulb displayed in a special crate complete with its own sprung suspension system to avoid breakages in transit.
“These three cottages were built years after the lighthouse itself. Two of them were knocked through to make the museum,” Rhys said. “The last one was kept as it would have been when it was still in use.”
“Does that mean we can stay the night?” Nikesh grinned like a maniac. “I’ve always wanted to stay at a lighthouse. Ooh! Can we sleep inside the actual tower?”
Rhys puffed out his cheeks. “No, mun! I told the Trust we’d only be here for a few hours.”
“Then why’d we bother to bring sleeping bags?” Dawn asked.
“You know, just in case we broke down on the way here, or get caught in bad weather, or whatever,” Rhys said. “Never hurts to prepare for the worst, does it? The cottage is just for show really. And the lighthouse would be a bit too cold to spend a whole night in. Plus it’s a long way to come if you need a pee.” The cottages had no bathrooms and instead shared a block of toilets a few yards away from the houses. A chilly walk in the dead of night, I’m sure.
“There’s a toilet in the lighthouse tower but it doesn’t work anymore,” Rhys said. “There are a couple of coal sheds we should take a look at as well, come to think of it. I have that pencilled in for half six so we’d better get a move on. We don’t want to run behind, do we?”
His perkiness and obsession with timekeeping were equal parts sweet and grating. I chose to focus on the grating. I couldn’t let myself be distracted.
Cabinets and display tables lined the walls of the museum. Bosun whistles, uniforms, compasses — all under glass and neatly labelled. A number of tall information display boards chartered the history of the lighthouse, from its construction to its automation.
