by Annet Schaap
They had spiders at home too, in the lighthouse, and their soft touch comforts her. She sings spider songs for them and releases them into the garden in the evenings.
Then she searches for a while to see if she can find a gap among the branches and the bushes, a place where she can see the sea, and the lighthouse. But she does not find one: the bushes are growing in all directions and the trees have branches right up into the sky. The deeper she goes into the garden, the more impenetrable it becomes. The garden stings her with its nettles and scratches her with its brambles, and soon she bumps into the fence.
I’ll never be able to climb over that, thinks Lampie. If I want to leave, how am I ever going to get out? The bars are slippery and high and impossible to climb. But after looking for a while, she finds a tree with a thick branch that reaches just under the tops of the bars. If she is very careful, maybe she can climb over to the other side, drop down onto the ground, hoping she does not land awkwardly, and…
She jumps as a bunch of seagulls suddenly flies up behind her, shrieking. Lampie turns around and walks back, across what used to be the lawn and is now the weed patch, past the pond in the middle, where a thick layer of rotting leaves covers the water. The windows of the Black House are all dark. But up there, right at the top, where there is a kind of tower, she can see something moving. Or is she just imagining it?
Lampie stands still for a moment and looks, but she doesn’t see any more movement. It must have been something like a curtain blowing in the breeze, or…
That tower, she suddenly thinks. Would that be high enough? Would she be able to look out over the trees and see the sea from up there?
Maybe. And if she asks, Martha is sure to let her go and look. Why wouldn’t she?
Feeling a bit lighter, she walks back towards the house.
Down in the kitchen, the light goes on. Martha must be starting dinner. Probably porridge again – she hardly ever cooks anything else. Lampie sighs.
From his room in the tower, the monster watches her walk, a patch of white against the dark grass. He watches her until she enters the house and then he slides back down onto the floor. He does not know who that was, and he does not care either. The monster is hungry.
THE SECRET
“But why not?”
“Because. You just can’t. Now lay the table.”
“Yes, but,” says Lampie, “I really, really want to!”
Martha pushes a pile of plates into her hands. With spoons on top. “Look, get a move on, will you? Where has that Nick got to?”
Lampie watches her fussing around nervously. She walks from the sink to the table and back, drops forks, picks them up, puts them in the drawer, no, no, on the table. Even though there is no need. Lenny is calmly crumpling up bits of newspaper, the dogs are noisily chomping away on bones, and the food was ready long ago.
“Please?”
“Hey, stop getting under my feet and sit down at the table. No, fetch the milk for the coffee. There is nothing in that tower, so why would you want to go up there?”
“No reason,” says Lampie. “Just because.”
“Well then,” says Martha. “The answer is no. Hurry up, I need some milk in my coffee or my day will be ruined.” She pushes Lampie towards the pantry, which always smells so badly of fish.
Lampie stops. “I want to see our house,” she says. “To see if my father—”
“Your father? The one who hit you? Why would you want to see him?”
Lampie shrugs. Because, she thinks, because, because. “Just for a little bit? Please?”
“Don’t look at me with those big eyes.” Martha turns her back on the girl. “I said no. No one goes up there. The room is locked and we’ve lost the key.”
I bet it’s not, thinks Lampie angrily, I bet that’s not true. Her father always used to turn away like that whenever he was lying. When he said he didn’t know where the money had gone, that she should just look harder for it. Even though she could smell on his breath what had happened.
She flings open the pantry door. It really stinks in there, like rotten old fish from the harbour that have completely gone off. Can’t Martha smell it? She picks up the milk churn. Empty.
“We’ve run out of milk,” she says.
Martha doesn’t seem to hear. She is standing by the stove and stirring the pan so angrily that it is splashing.
“So you can just get that idea out of your head,” she mutters.
Martha wishes that she could do the same, get it out of her head and think about something else, just for a moment. But all day she thinks about that room upstairs. She thinks about it, but she does not go up there.
Tomorrow, she tells herself every night. Tomorrow I’ll go. But she does not. All day long, she can smell the fish wrapped up in newspapers in the pantry. The smell is getting worse and worse. It really is time to take it up there. But she does not go.
She knows very well that she is only making it worse by not going. That she will make him angrier and therefore more dangerous. So she had better just grit her teeth and do it. Just go, and she can be back downstairs in no time. Open the door, put down the plate, close the door again. If she is quick, it should be fine.
But the afternoon comes, and then the evening, and she still has not been upstairs.
She could send that new girl though… Martha looks at her, helping Lenny with his puzzle, the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth. Such a little one, so skinny. It wouldn’t be fair.
But life isn’t fair.
She couldn’t send Lenny, that would never work, and Nick…
He is never there when she needs him, and when he is there he does not do as she says. He sometimes goes for a week without turning up for meals, and she sometimes sees him sneaking around in the garden, doing goodness knows what. She can call him until she is blue in the face, but he will not come. No, Nick is no good to her.
So there is no one else. If she does nothing, then it will die. And if that thing up there dies, she can forget about her job, and about living in this house with Lenny too. And then what? She takes a swig of coffee. Bitter, her life has become bitter.
Maybe it is not dead yet, but weak and less dangerous. Maybe. She will go tomorrow. No, tonight. Maybe then she will finally be able to sleep.
BLOOD
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.
I can’t sleep here.
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…
&nb
sp; 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.
MONSTER
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he is so useless, he can’t do anything, he is such a pathetic monster.
What an opportunity, an old woman like that, and he let her kick him away as if he were a baby. And she didn’t even have a stick.
Water gone, food gone, and now he has nothing. Just hunger and thirst. And he’s dry, so, so dry.
He can feel his body shrinking and stretching and craving, he has licked up everything off the carpet, there is not a drop left now, not anywhere. All he can think about is water: streaming, bubbling, splashing like a waterfall, with him in it and everything in him drinking it up.
Ha ha, but that is not allowed. That has never been allowed.
You need to forget about it, boy. Rise above it. His father’s voice echoes in his head. Remember – you are not a fish. You can beat this. Mind over matter.
He tries, he really does, but even his brain feels dried out.
Dry? You call this dry? The Kalahari, the Sahara – now that’s dry. We travelled through the desert for seven weeks to reach the other coast. We drank sand for seven weeks and we laughed about it. That’s what men do.
He tries to laugh but it just hurts his throat. Sand, what does that taste like?
Outside, the sea splashes, very gently, at the foot of the cliff. He crawls into the darkest shadow under the bed. Will anyone ever come upstairs again?
Probably not.
Because they’re scared, of course.
So they should be. If they come, he will bite them. He’s a terrifying monster, that’s what he is.
No, you’re not, lad. I know you. Joseph shakes his head.
Stop interfering, old man. You’re dead.
Who knew people could drop dead, just like that? It wasn’t his fault, it really wasn’t.
Joseph suddenly fell onto the floor. He was talking, explaining something about wind directions and the compass. Edward already knew it all though, as he had finished all the books ages ago, but Joseph was coming upstairs less and less often, so he let him talk. It was nice just to listen and nod and to say something clever every now and then.
That’s good, the old man would say. That’s good, Edward. You’re making progress, lad. Before long you’ll know more than me. Or something like that.
But they did not get to that point, because in the middle of north-north-west, his voice faltered and he sighed, sighed out his life, he was gone and what was left slid onto the floor beside Edward, scaring him half to death.
It wasn’t his fault. It really wasn’t.
He shouted, shook him, screamed, but a hailstorm had started outside. The sea down below banged against the rocks, and he could not even hear his own voice. Joseph had stopped moving. Edward had put a blanket over him, because he was so cold, but that did not help, and he already knew that it wouldn’t. Once the blood stops flowing and the heart stops beating, everything becomes cold and stiff. It’s called rigor mortis.
That’s good, that’s good, Edward. You’re so well read, lad. Next time your father comes home, I shall tell him, you can be sure of that.
But not any more. Not any more.
What are those? Tears? his father scoffs. Is that a runny nose? I do hope not. Men don’t cry. You know that.
After the storm had died down, it was an entire day before they came. He had almost given up hope, but then he heard them on the stairs. They were frightened.
“You go first!”
“No! You! You can go first!”
He thought they were coming to help him. He put on his friendliest face, so that they would not be scared. He still believed they would feel sorry for him, that they h
ad come to bring him something. Water, something to eat perhaps. Ha ha.
They came with sticks, such big men, two of them, both with sticks. And they just started hitting him.
He wanted to shout out: it wasn’t my fault, it really wasn’t, he just died! But they hit him and chased him away from Joseph’s body.
He wanted to say: my food’s nearly all gone, and my water, and every day I need…
But they just yelled: “Get back, you monster! You freak!” And they laid the old man on a blanket, as quickly as they could. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! That monster was trying to eat him!” They both drew big crosses on their chests.
Of course I wasn’t, he wanted to shout, I just wanted to make sure that he really wasn’t moving, I would never…
But they kicked him, and again, because he did nothing to defend himself.
So then he started hissing and shrieking and biting. He bit them in the ankles where it is soft. They bled and shrieked, and that felt good.
But then they took away the blanket with the old man on it and slammed the door. He heard the bolts slide, and they were gone.
And then nothing, for a really, really long time. Longer than ever, until that old woman this evening, and now… No one will ever come again, of course. Now it is all over and he will die up here, of hunger, thirst, dehydration. He will never learn to walk, never stand on a ship, never get his sea legs.
He closes his eyes and falls into the darkness.
