STINK

“Stop getting under my feet, will you?” Martha raises her hand, but Lampie ducks out of the way in time. She’s used to it from home, of course.

She has never seen Martha like this before. There is a bandage on her leg and she keeps limping around, sitting down, standing back up, letting the tea water boil dry, jumping at the slightest thing: a dog barking, Lenny giggling, and then she lashes out. A slap for the dog, and a snarl for her son, who sits at the table with his lip trembling for the rest of the morning.

Lampie strokes his head and brings him tea and sandwiches, because Martha does not do that today either. The girl stays in the shadows as much as possible. In the afternoon, she heads upstairs with her buckets. Not that downstairs is clean or that she has nothing else to do there, but no one is paying any attention to her today, or telling her that it is not allowed.

It smells really bad upstairs in the corridor, just as bad as in the pantry, and it only gets worse as she turns the corner. The doors are wider here and the walls are covered with antlers on wooden plaques. There is also a rhinoceros’s head, all grey and wrinkled. It has sad little eyes – and a long strand of cobweb on its horn. Lampie quietly opens the door beside the rhinoceros. She sees a room lined with shelves of stuffed animals and glass cases full of butterflies and beetles, all stabbed through with needles. Not a wing is moving. An empty tiger skin lies on the floor, and on the wall there are portraits of men in uniforms. They stare at her with angry eyes. What is that child doing in here?

Quickly, Lampie closes the door again.

She walks on, following her nose, to where the stink gets worse and worse. At the end of the corridor is a door with a staircase behind it disappearing into the darkness. That is where the smell is coming from. And somewhere up there must be the room she is not allowed to enter.

But shouldn’t she go upstairs to tidy up? To mop up whatever’s rotting away?

 

One time, when she was much younger, there had been a boat drifting just outside the harbour, a boat that was being bounced around by the waves and was going nowhere. It couldn’t go anywhere, because its skipper had died at sea and his body now lay in the hold, while his catch was stinking on deck. It had been a magnificent haul – mountains of fish in the burning sun. The town’s seagulls went crazy, flying in clouds above the ship and filling their bellies.

The old skipper had been called Pete. Everyone laughed at him a little behind his back, because he said strange things and never washed. He had always been smelly, all his life. He could never hire a mate to work with him either.

His ship stayed out there, floating beyond the harbour, with plenty of fish still left, and the wind blowing in the wrong direction. The whole town felt sick for two days.

The sheriff and his men finally rowed out to the ship and threw the catch overboard, along with the skipper. They tossed buckets and buckets of water over the deck, but the stench would not go away.

The harbour master refused to have the ship in his harbour, so they burned it out at sea. That stank too, even worse in fact. The smoke blew straight towards the town and lingered there for three windless days.

It became known as Pete’s Revenge.

The townspeople walked around with cloths over their mouths, no one ate anything and Mr Rosewood had to throw away his supplies. Lampie’s mother was still alive at the time and was unable to talk or walk, but she could still smell, and Lampie gave her wet cloths and bags of lavender, which did not help, and she was not sure whether to open the windows or to leave them shut. Her father never helped; he was always drunk, but drink did not help against the stench either, and it got to the point where no one wanted to breathe. But of course they had to.

Pete’s Revenge. Yes, that is how bad it smells upstairs.

 

Lampie looks around. No one. On soft feet, she climbs the steps to the tower. Around the curve, there is another flight of stairs. Big dark drops have left a trail on the wood. It is blood, she knows it is, and she nearly turns back. Another curve, she has to go up again, and the stairs are becoming narrower and narrower. She has to let go of her nose, or she will not have enough air to breathe. Eeuw.

At the top of the stairs, in the half-light, she sees a door bolted on the outside. The source of the bad smell is lying on the floor: a broken plate with pieces of rotten fish. And something else. A key. A noise suddenly comes from below: Lenny shrieks, the dogs bark and Martha’s angry voice calls her name. Lampie grabs the key, hides it in her dress and pelts back down the stairs.

 

After Lenny has had ointment rubbed into his hand, the tea has been mopped up and Lampie has made a fresh pot, Martha glares at her.

“Where were you? Did you go upstairs?”

“Only a bit of the way,” says Lampie, with red cheeks. “I thought… The smell was so bad. I just wanted…”

“Let it stink,” says Martha. “It’s just how the house is. It’ll go away.” Then she roughly grasps Lampie’s wrist. “You’re not to go up into that tower. What have I told you?”

“I’m not to go up into that tower.”

 

Oh, but she does go, of course. The heart wants what the heart wants – and the heart of a lighthouse keeper’s daughter wants to see the lighthouse. The head of a lighthouse keeper’s daughter can think all the sensible things it wants, but that does not help.

Her mother does not believe it is a good idea either. She has been talking and talking all evening.

Even if you do see something, what can you do to help your father?

Leave the man be, he’s old and wise enough. Well, he’s old, in any case.

There is something up there, Emilia, I don’t know what it is either. But something. Something dangerous.

You said yourself that monsters don’t exist, says Lampie.

That’s right. They don’t.

Well, then.

I am your mother, says her mother sternly. And I really would rather you didn’t. In fact, I forbid it, Emilia!

Lampie stands up and takes a deep breath. “Yes, but do you know something, Mother?” she says. “You’re actually… dead.”

Her mother has no answer to that. Lampie feels her disappearing from her head, slowly and somewhat sadly. For a moment, Lampie feels miserable and lonely, but then she was miserable and lonely already. She is simply here. Simply alone.

Lampie sits down cross-legged on her bed and waits until it is completely dark. Her hands play with the key.