Lampie lies with her eyes wide open, staring into the darkness. Earlier, Miss Amalia made up the couch for her to sleep on and tucked in the stiffly starched sheets around her. Then she turned off the light and said, “Now sleep well, child.” But Lampie cannot sleep.
The room around her smells strange, of soap or something that is even cleaner. There is very little in the room: a table with straight-backed chairs, a cupboard, a cross on the wall and a big clock in the corner that ticks really loudly, all night long.
She wriggles one hand out of the tight sheets and lays it on the pillow beside her cheek. Not against it – that would hurt too much. Her tongue keeps touching the spot on the inside of her cheek where the skin feels broken and it tastes of blood. And in her mind, she keeps seeing her father. How he looked and what he said and then what he said next and what he did after that. If only she could talk to him for a moment. Just listen to him breathing or snoring. She’ll be able to go back home tomorrow, won’t she?
Home to a house with no furniture. Had they taken everything with them?
Oh, but that wouldn’t be so bad. They could always sit on boxes and eat off wooden boards. She could look for things on the beach. When she is home and everything is back to normal. When she has said exactly the right thing to her father and he is no longer angry with her. When she has worked out what that right thing might be.
She squeezes the shard in her other hand, under the sheet. Mother, I don’t know how to put this right.
Ssh. Go to sleep, my sweet child. Tomorrow is another day.
In the dark she hears a sound and something heavy jumps onto her legs. With soft paws, a cat walks over Lampie and nudges its nose into the cheek that does not hurt. Luckily it does not smell of soap, just of cat. The cat lies down next to her head, purring. She can feel its warmth and its soft fur against her cheek, all night long.
And her mother is right: the next morning is the start of another day.
“When can I go home?” Lampie is sitting at the breakfast table, her plate full of little squares of bread. She is not hungry.
“Home?” Miss Amalia peers over the top of her teacup at Lampie – and at Lampie’s cheek, which is very swollen. She shakes her head a few times. “It’s just as well you’re out of that place.”
Lampie tries to hide her cheek behind her hand. “But when can I?…”
“I have an appointment at the town hall later today to decide that.”
“To decide what?”
“What to do with you. What is best for you.”
“I want to go home.”
“So that we can weigh up all the interests. Particularly your own, of course.”
“I want to go home.”
“What a child wants is not always the best thing,” says Miss Amalia, eating her bread with dainty bites.
When Miss Amalia has left, Lampie goes to the bathroom and takes a look at herself in the mirror. It’s quite a bruise. The edges are already turning green and the skin of her cheek is red and swollen. Luckily she is not at home. Luckily her father does not have to see this.
I am absolutely furious with your father, says her mother’s voice inside her head.
Yes, but, Mother, says Lampie. He really didn’t mean to do it.
I’m sure he didn’t.
And he must regret it.
I hope he’s howling with regret, her mother says angrily. My poor child. Your poor cheek.
The cat winds around her ankles. Lampie lifts it onto her lap and strokes it all morning, strokes the warm fur until it crackles.
Miss Amalia is cheerful when she comes home. She has a letter that explains everything, she says. She unfolds a sheet of paper and puts it on the table in front of Lampie.
“Take a look,” she says. “Everything is coming together very nicely.”
She unties her bonnet and takes it out into the hallway.
Lampie looks for a while at the white paper with the black letters on it and strokes the cat on her lap. After a while, she hears the water in the kettle singing, and Miss Amalia comes back holding a tray with tea and cups on it.
“So, what do you think?”
“When can I go home?”
Miss Amalia puts the tray on the table. “That’s all in the letter.”
Lampie can feel herself blushing. She strokes the cat even harder and looks at the table.
“Oh, of course,” says Miss Amalia. “You didn’t attend school for very long, did you? Oh dear. On top of everything else! Well, it’s too late to do anything about that now.” She takes the letter from Lampie. “I’ll just have to read it out to you.”
Lampie would like to listen, but it is not easy. She keeps thinking about everything, all at the same time, about now, about before, about those two weeks at school, years ago, in that packed and stuffy classroom, where she could not understand what was being said and felt so worried. Just like now. So when can she go home?
“Five thousand dollars,” she suddenly hears Miss Amalia say. “More than that, even. And those… belongings of yours are not going to raise five thousand dollars.”
Lampie gasps and sits up straight. The cat jumps indignantly onto the floor. “Five thousand dollars? But we don’t have five thousand d—”
“Of course you don’t,” says Miss Amalia. “No one has that much money. And that is why you need to work to earn it. That’s all there is to it. You can work, can’t you?”
“What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to work? Can’t… Can’t I just work at home?”
“No, that would not do. Absolutely not.”
“Or here? With you?”
“Here?” Miss Amalia chuckles. “The very thought of it. Of course not. I just told you. You’re going to be working at the admiral’s house.”
“Where?”
“At the Black House, just outside town. You must know the place. Such a wonderful coincidence that someone came into town yesterday to ask if…”
“The Black House?” A song starts playing inside Lampie’s head, an old skipping song from the marketplace.
In the Black House, the monster’s home
Where the beast does live and roam…
“But there’s a monster living there!”
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” Miss Amalia says, pouring the tea. “The admiral is a highly respectable gentleman. Highly. Otherwise we would never consider sending a child there.” She pushes a flowery cup towards Lampie. “Come on, chin up, it’s perfectly normal for a girl of your age to go out and work, isn’t it? Besides, I’ve made sure that you will have one free Wednesday afternoon per month, which is not bad at all, so you should be grateful to me and—”
“But how long do I have to stay there?”
Miss Amalia starts calculating. “If we say a dollar a day, then that’s five thousand days. But if you do your bit and your father does his, that’ll be half each. And half of five thousand is only?…” She looks at Lampie as if she is back in the classroom. But even if Lampie’s head had not been full of panic, she still would not have been able to work it out.
“Twenty-five hundred days!”
“Th-that’s such a long time,” stammers Lampie.
“It’s only seven years.”
Seven years? That is terribly, horribly, endlessly long.
Miss Amalia stirs her tea, tinkling the spoon in the cup. “And seven years?” she says with a smile. “That’s nothing at all if you consider the grand scheme of things.”
Lampie tries very hard to consider exactly that, but all she can picture is vast long stretches of days. Days without her father, without the lighthouse, without everything she knows. In a house with a monster. She pushes her tea aside and shakes her head.
“No, I can’t do it.”
“I’m afraid you have no choice, child.” Miss Amalia folds the letter neatly and puts it back in the envelope. “Now, drink up and fetch your things. We shall head over there at once.”
Lampie starts crying. She can’t help it. She cries into her tea, she cries as she packs up her belongings, as they go outside. She cries as Miss Amalia pulls her along and she cries all the way through the town, past the harbour, through the alleyways and up, further and further away from the sea, until they are outside the town and heading along the road through the forest. Then she runs out of tears.