The lamp is lit. It is as if a weight falls from Lampie’s chest.
The lighthouse is very small and very far away, a black line against a black sky. But the light is strong and it sweeps over clouds, waves, houses, over everything that Lampie knows so well. She lays her cheek against the cold glass.
At the door she had whispered, “Hello?” and, “Is there anyone there?” But no one replied – and nothing moved. (You see, Mother?)
On tiptoes she had crept to the window. She counted five windows in the almost round room. There were gaps in the curtains and through the fifth gap she could see a vague light moving – and then she had her answer.
She lifted herself onto the window sill behind the curtain, pulled up her feet and looked out.
So her father is at home as usual, and he can light the lamp, can somehow limp up the stairs every night. And get back downstairs, which is even more difficult. He can eat and sleep as usual.
Without her.
So he does not really need her.
Maybe he does not mind that she is here. Maybe he is thinking: Good riddance! That child – what use is she to me?
Or…
Maybe he is not living there at all, and they have locked him up somewhere she will never find him. In a cellar full of rats, with water and bread. Or not even that. And someone else is living in their lighthouse, a different lighthouse keeper, one with two legs and no daughter. Or perhaps he does have a daughter, one who is much cleverer than Lampie, who can read and write and always remembers the matches, and who is sleeping in Lampie’s bed right now, under her checked bedspread. Or…
She does not know anything. She climbed all the way up here and she still does not know anything.
Something is moving in the room.
Something under the bed is moving and quietly growling.
Ah, so there is something in here after all.
She has to get out of here, to escape right away! Mother! Help!
But her mother is not there. What did she say to her? You’re actually dead. Even the shard of mirror is downstairs, down two safe flights of stairs, next to her warm bed, by the chair with the pillowcase and the dry socks.
Jump down onto the floor, Lampie, and run, run downstairs!
But her feet refuse to budge. She sits on the window sill, too terrified to move.
Stupid, she’s so stupid.
*
He fell asleep and someone came into the room. He does not know who or what, but someone is sitting on the window sill. Someone who is breathing.
Attack! Rip them apart! cries the monster in his head. Face the enemy! Get up and fight! Stand up now and bite, bite, bite!
But he cannot get up and he is so thirsty. He could drink an entire lake – and then another two. His throat is sore, his skin is cracking, he must have a fever or something.
Now is when it really matters, now his life is in the balance, and now he just stays there, under his bed. He is such a gutless coward.
It sounds more like groaning than growling, but Lampie is not entirely certain.
She has been sitting here for a while now, and she still has not been eaten. But there is definitely something there.
So there is a monster. A monster that fits under a bed.
But monsters don’t exist.
“Monsters don’t exist!” she whispers.
The thing under the bed laughs, softly hissing. Lampie gasps and pulls up her feet even higher.
So it really does exist – and it sounds like a snake.
There is a snake under the bed, and she is not even wearing shoes. How is she ever going to get to the door?
She thinks about Martha’s leg with the bandage on it. About the trail of blood on the stairs.
She wraps her arms around her legs and makes herself as small as she can.
*
He can hear that it is only a child, just a girl, frightened and defenceless. He should be able to deal with her easily.
If he were not so tired and so hot, he would…
What, Edward?
Bite, tear, suck her dry? No, more like…
Ask for water, call for help, beg for…
No! Never! He is a monster, and monsters terrify people and make demands and threats: give me water, or I’m going to… What?
“Monsters don’t exist!” she squeaks.
He just laughs. What does she know about it? Even his father calls him one, so it must be true.
I’m going to bite you in a minute, thinks Edward. I’m just going to wait for a moment, just rest for a little longer. He is so hot but so cold.
Inside her head, Lampie has been bitten to death long ago, but in reality nothing is actually happening. She can’t hear him now.
But monsters are cunning. He is waiting for her to do something, of course. And then…
Well, he is going to have a long wait. She is not going to move a muscle, and she is good at keeping still.
Through the gaps in the curtains, she looks into the dark room. Where the light sweeps around the room, she can just about make something out. The floor is full of books and there are pieces of paper all over, covered with writing, torn and stained. On the walls are shelves with even more books, in crooked rows. An armchair, a low table with bottles of ink on it, a stool with the legs pointing upwards. In one corner is a dark shape, which looks like a bath. And in the middle, there is a big wooden bed with crumpled sheets on top of it. And a monster underneath.
A monster that reads books? A monster that can write?
She pictures it, scales and all, sitting at a desk in Miss Amalia’s classroom, and the teacher slapping its tentacles with her ruler when it spills some ink and, in spite of herself, she giggles.
She quickly clasps her hand over her mouth.
Under the bed, the monster starts shrieking.
She is laughing at him! She is not scared of him at all. She is just laughing at him!
No one laughs at him!
He’s going to, he’s going to… He wants to let out his most terrifying monster scream, but all that comes out of his throat is a hoarse croak.
But he is going to get her. He can’t see her, but she is sitting up there by the window, and there is nothing wrong with his hearing. He needs to wait for his chance. When she is sitting up there, he can’t easily reach her, but look: she is already coming down by herself. Thank you, you stupid child. Now I’ve got you…
She is wearing socks, not even shoes, which will make it all the easier for a monster like him. He will bite straight through her bones. He will…
A weapon, she needs some kind of weapon. Lampie can’t see a club or a stick anywhere, but there is a big flat book on the floor, and suddenly she is no longer frozen, but jumps off the window sill, grabs the book, and when she sees something emerging from under the bed – not big, much smaller than she had imagined – she takes the book in both hands and whacks its head, so hard that the book shakes and she falls onto the floor. But so does the little monster. It rolls onto its side and lies there.
He had not expected her to be able to hit so hard. He feels the blow echoing through his head, through his whole body, and he falls into the darkness of the night – and he is so tired that he just lets himself fall.
Beaten to death by a girl… sniffs his father from a very long way away. Very quietly, so quietly that he almost cannot hear it. And then he hears nothing else.