The sea breeze blows around the house, the branches scratch at the windows. Lampie lies there, angrily listening to the sound. She really, really wants to find out if she can see the lighthouse from the tower, see whether the lamp is lit. She can picture her father limping up the steps. Or slipping, falling, and breaking his other leg. And she isn’t there to help him.
Your father can take care of himself. Her mother’s voice sounds stern.
No, thinks Lampie. She knows that he can’t. What if the lamp isn’t lit again? What if another ship…
Even if that is true, says her mother, there is nothing you can do about it. You’re here.
I don’t want to be here!
You are where you are. Go to sleep, my sweet child.
Lampie tosses and turns for a while, from left to right, right to left.
Just give it a try.
I can’t sleep when I can’t hear the sea!
Then listen. It’s there. It’s always there.
No, it’s not, says Lampie. Where is it? I can’t see it anywhere.
But it’s still there. Behind the trees. Very close, in fact. Just open your ears.
Lampie listens and she can actually hear the waves quietly splashing and crashing, far away at the foot of the cliff.
It’s not the same.
No, says her mother. It’s not the same. Do you want me to sing the lullaby for you?
No, thank you, says Lampie.
But her mother sings it anyway:
White ships, grey ships,
Sailing across the sea,
And a boat called the Aurora,
Bringing you to me…
The lullaby always used to help. But not now. Angrily, Lampie sits up. Why isn’t she allowed to go up there?
She hears something, above her on the stairs. Was it one of the dogs, or did someone just scream?
Did he hear something? Is someone finally coming? The monster sits up.
No. It was just his imagination.
He is used to being alone, but it has been such a long time. The water is all gone. The food ran out long ago, but that does not seem as bad now. The worst of it is the thirst, the dryness. No, the worst of it is that they have forgotten him.
But that can’t be true, can it? They can’t really have forgotten him, can they? Someone is going to have to come upstairs at some point, aren’t they? They haven’t all left. He can hear the dogs barking, and he sometimes sees someone in the garden. They haven’t all gone, so one day, soon, someone will have to come up to him, won’t they?
And then he needs to be ready.
Ready for what, Edward? From far away, from before, he can hear Joseph speaking. Always the same lessons, the same words: Don’t bite, don’t scream, don’t let the monster out. You’re not a monster, lad.
Really? Then what is he?
A knight with honour and with might, a musketeer who knows no fear.
Well, not any more. Not at all. All he knows is hunger and fury and dryness and…
The monster pricks up his ears.
He heard something, just now, down on the stairs. Someone is coming up.
Martha’s hands are shaking, and the plate and the glass are tinkling quietly. The fish is quite rotten by now and it stinks. Well, he should think himself lucky. He. It. She has no idea. She has lived here for so long, but she has never seen it. Heard it, yes. And dreamt about it, in long nightmares. Blood and scales and even worse. Of course, Joseph always came back downstairs in one piece and even spoke about it with a kind of affection.
Hmm.
But it got him in the end anyway. And those two men last week, the butler and the handyman, big men with big sticks, but they came back down bleeding and terrified. They ran straight out of the door. She knew she would never see them again. Not likely.
She puts her ear to the door and listens. Nothing. But it is in there, of course.
Quietly, she slides the two bolts, takes the key from her apron pocket and slides it into the lock. Something inside the room shuffles across the floor. She can hear it. It is very close.
“Get away from the door!” she says in her sternest voice. She hears it chuckling quietly. “Go on. Otherwise you’ll get nothing.”
The laughter turns into a hiss. But it does sound a bit further away.
“I’ll open the door,” says Martha. “But you’d better be careful or I’ll… I have a stick!”
She does not have a stick. So stupid. She will have to remember it next time. Or bring the dogs. Only they don’t dare come up here, they stay at the foot of the stairs, whining and pacing in circles, and they absolutely refuse to go any further.
“I’ve got a stick. I mean it! I’m opening the door… now!”
She hears her own shrill voice. Oh, that’s really going to frighten him! She is an old woman with no strength, no stick, just a plate of fish. This is not a job for her. She feels angry with Nick again. This is men’s work. Coward, coward.
Martha takes a deep breath, turns the key in the lock and opens the door a little way. It is pitch dark in there, and it stinks. Rotting seaweed, dead fish. Her breath is racing. Put down the tray, get out of there.
Out of the darkness, something slides towards her. She screams and jumps, stumbling halfway back through the door, dropping the glass, and the plate shatters on the floor. She feels sharp teeth in her calf and she kicks, kicks until it lets go, and then she scrambles out of the room, slams the door, locks it and limps along the corridor, down the stairs, away, away and down.
Never again. She is most definitely never going to do that ever again. So then… So then someone else will have to do it… Someone else… But not her.
Then what happens will happen, and she will just have to leave, and Lenny will have to… and she and Lenny will just have to…
She stumbles and sobs, the blood trickling down her calf and into her shoe.
Martha leaves the broken plate in the corridor. Tonight, once again, the monster will have no food.