CHAPTER 29

STANDING JUST INSIDE THE LIGHTHOUSE, NOLIE LOOKED around. The air smelled heavy somehow, like a place that had been closed up for a long time, and her skin felt clammy and damp. Similar to the castle ruins near Maggie’s, the stones seemed to be holding in the cold, letting it seep out until she had goose bumps even though she was wearing a jacket.

There wasn’t much to the lighthouse, really. It seemed to be just a tall, round tower. Stairs curled up one side, carved of the same dark stone as the rest of the lighthouse, and there were grooves in each step, like hundreds of years of footsteps had worn away the rock.

Except no one had been in here in hundreds of years besides Albert and Maggie, and they’d only lit the light and left. Had it been the girl? The ghost? Pacing this dim, cold place?

The thought made Nolie want to run, to get out.

Behind her, Albert stepped closer. “What now?” she asked him. Bel was still standing just inside the door, looking out into the fog behind them.

Albert looked up at the top of the tower. There were big, arched windows carved out there, letting in the gray light, and Nolie could see a sort of small platform where the steps ended. In what light there was in the tower, it looked charred and blackened.

“We go up there,” Albert replied, nodding at that platform. “There’s a lantern. We light it, and then—”

“And then we maybe get stuck in the fog forever trying to row out,” Nolie finished.

“It let us in,” Bel reminded her, coming into the chamber. She left the door open, and the fog curled in after her, twining around her ankles like a cat.

“We got this far, which has to mean something.”

Nolie nodded. She was doing this for her dad, to save him, but what if she never got out, either? What would her mom do without her?

“I’m surprised you didn’t bring a camera,” Bel said to her, coming up close enough to nudge Nolie with her elbow. “Bet your Spirit Chasers show has never been anywhere as ace as this.”

Nolie smiled despite her shivers. “I don’t know, they did an episode in an asylum that was pretty freaky, but this would have to come in a close second. Could shoot up to first place if we actually see a ghost.”

Albert was already walking toward the steps, but he paused, looking over his shoulder at both of them. “I never saw anything when I was here the last time, far as I remember. But maybe she’ll make a special appearance for you, Nolie.”

“Yay,” Nolie replied, wishing she felt something more than scared. A camera would’ve been nice, actually, but not so she could record whatever happened. So she could have something to hide behind. Looking at all of this through a lens would’ve made it feel like a TV show, not the scariest thing she’d ever done.

But as Albert began moving up the stairs, she made herself follow behind him, Bel taking up the rear.

•   •   •

“All for one, one for all,” Nolie said. “That’s from a book.”

Albert gave her what she was now beginning to think of as his signature scowl, his dark brows lowering over his eyes, corners of his mouth turning down so sharply it was almost funny.

“I know that,” he said. “That book is older than me.”

Shrugging, Nolie shoved her hands in her pockets. “Just keeping you on your toes.”

“Can all of your toes hurry up?” Bel said from behind Nolie. “The sooner this is over, the sooner we can get home.”

“Do you remember this bit?” Nolie asked as they wound their way up. “I mean, the fog felt all familiar. So, does this?” The stairs were so narrow her shoulder brushed the wall, and while heights had never really bugged her, she kept her eyes firmly on Albert’s shoulders, not the ever-increasing drop on her other side.

“Summat?” Albert replied, and Nolie guessed that was old-timey for “kinda.”

“It’s like . . . you know when you wake up from a dream, and for the first bit you’re awake, everything you dreamed is clear? But then you lie there, and it all starts to fade? That’s what my memory of this place is like.”

“It feels like a dream for me, too,” Bel said, and Nolie dared a glance behind her. Bel had paused a few steps back and was looking down toward the open door. More fog had slid in now, creeping along the floor, and Nolie had the uneasy feeling it was slithering after them.

“Okay, let’s get a move on,” she said, fighting the urge to start shoving Albert up the stairs.

They moved up and up until finally, just in front of one of the arches cut from the stone, the stairs stopped at the little platform.

And there, in the center, was the light.

Or what Nolie assumed was the light.

“This is it?” Nolie looked at the glass cylinder on the platform. It covered a pile of sticks and rags, and it didn’t seem like a light strong enough to push away magical fog, but then, it was clearly magic, too, so what did she know?

Taking the box of matches from Bel, Albert studied the lamp, but didn’t lift the glass.

“What is it?” Bel asked. She was still standing behind Nolie, closest to the edge of the platform.

Albert shook his head, his hair falling over his forehead. “Just . . . I got this far last time. I lit it. I remember that. And after . . .”

He didn’t have to say what had happened after. They all knew.

“Do it,” Nolie said, looking out the window. There was nothing to see, nothing but gray. No water, no sky. Just this endless fog, and in that second, she didn’t care if they never got away from the island. If the light would get rid of the fog, that’s all that mattered. Anything but this never-ending mist.

Nodding, Albert reached out and lifted the glass.

Suddenly, a wind blew in through the window. It was less like a breeze and more like a solid thing hitting them, smelling like the ocean and old stone, and it was hard enough to make Nolie’s eyes water.

“What—” she started as she lifted a hand against it, but before she could say anything else, there was a cry from behind her.

The wind was still blowing as Nolie turned to see Bel fall off the ledge and down toward the stone floor below.