The man was coming closer, his steps echoing throughout the lighthouse like approaching thunder.
Izzy spun around, her back to the door, ready to fight for her life, just as he came around the last twist in the stairs. He was breathing quickly, his chest rising and falling. She saw it all: the eyepatch, the old-fashioned clothes, the so-familiar face.
“Isabel?” he said, and his voice was exactly as she heard it in her dreams.
Zek Cole was standing before her and he was smiling, his drawn face alight at the sight of her. He knew her, just as she knew him.
“How can this be?” she managed. “You’re really here.”
“I really am,” he said softly, as if afraid he might send her running in terror. “The Sorceress is the queen of time and, if she wishes it, time can be made meaningless. She’s brought us together again.”
“Again? But I’m not your wife . . .” Then why did she feel as if she was?
“You are my wife.” He said it fiercely. “The Sorceress told me you had been reborn, while I remained sleeping in the between-worlds, but it makes no difference. We were made to be together.”
Too much information, she thought shakily, too much to take in. “The Sorceress?”
“I asked her to reunite us, and in return I must face the monster Neptune and help her to capture him.”
Suddenly it was all too real. Izzy shook her head.
He was moving closer, and there was no humour in his dark eye, only love and longing. “I have been waiting to see you again.”
“I’ve been waiting too,” she said. “I’m so glad ... so glad you’re here at last.”
Emotion overwhelmed her, and she pushed herself away from the door and ran on trembling legs into his arms. He was wiry and strong, his body hard from years of physical work, but he held her as if she were something very precious, and his breath against her cheek was warm and alive. Just as it always was in her dreams.
“You’re mine,” he said, “and I am yours.”
She believed him. As fantastical as his words were, she felt their truth at her very core.
Izzy turned her face, her lips brushing his. He cupped the back of her head in his palm and began to kiss her. Deep, passionate, longing kisses.
“All the years alone,” he murmured, pressing his face to her hair, kissing her temples, her cheeks. “Lying sleeping in the between-worlds, and waiting. And now I’ve found you again, Isabel.”
Izzy lifted his face in her hands, feeling the rough stubble. As much as she wanted to lose herself in this remarkable moment she knew it couldn’t be that simple. There was something poignant in his smile, a tragic edge.
“I remember . . . last time you faced Neptune you died. I stood safe in the lighthouse and saw it all. Please, I beg you, don’t risk your life again.”
Suddenly a squall hit the lighthouse, seeming to rock the very structure with its violence. Wind moaned up the stairs and rain lashed the porthole windows. It felt as if they were on a ship and under siege from the elements.
“He’s coming,” Zek said bleakly.
The memory was sharp in her brain - the cold blue skin rising from the sea, the dark predatory eyes that didn’t blink, the dorsal fin stretching sharp along its spine. How could anyone fight such a creature and survive?
“We need to leave,” she gasped, urgently pulling at his hand. “We must go. Now.”
His face was calm, his gaze tender. “It’s too late, Isabel. I’ve given my word and I can’t go back on it.”
“No.” Izzy heard him but she refused to believe. She spun around towards the door and wrenched at the handle, tugging hard. To her surprise this time it came open a foot, and she squeezed through the narrow gap, shouting for him to follow.
Immediately her hair was tossed into her face, the salty air stinging her eyes. She took one step towards the paved path that led through the ticket office and into the restored keeper’s residence.
And froze.
Her heart beat hard, the blood rushed in her ears, but she could hear neither above the whining of the wind and the crashing of the surf against the rocks below the lighthouse. The paved path was gone and in its place was a muddy track between tufts of grass. The residence was different too and, when she looked down over the wild waters of the bay, the town was not the one she knew at all. The houses were smaller, older, and smoke rose from the chimneys before being whipped into a frenzy by the gale.
She had been transported to another world: Zek Cole’s world.
Izzy spun back towards the lighthouse, angry and frightened, and found the door shut against her. She began to pound her fists against the rough wood until it opened. He stood there. His chest was rising and falling quickly, his face coloured by the eerie light from the storm outside. A crackle of lightning tore through the sky, striking the ground behind her, and she screamed. He grabbed her and dragged her inside, and let the wild wind close the door behind them.
“Make it stop,” Izzy shrieked. “Make it all go away.”
“I can’t stop it,” he growled. “Not until it’s finished. I told you. I have sworn to the Sorceress - I give her Neptune and she gives me you. I have to do what she wants. Only then can we be free to be together. I know last time Neptune won, but this time things will be different.”
Izzy wiped the dripping rain from her eyes. “I can’t remember everything that happened last time. My dreams are fragments . . . bits and pieces. Sometimes I think it’s as if I can’t bear to remember it all.”
He gave her a long look. “Come with me,” he said, “and I will tell you.”
She didn’t want to go; she didn’t want to be here. Zek Cole was a man who’d been dead for over a century and a half, a man vilified by history, and yet he said she was his wife and he loved her. Madness, it was madness, she thought wildly, as for a brief moment commonsense reasserted itself.
And then he turned and looked at her and held out his hand. “Isabel?”
Izzy felt her feet moving, felt the warm strength of her hand in his, as she followed him up the steep staircase that twisted around and around to the top of the lighthouse.
Zek could hear her footsteps behind him. Her clothing was unfamiliar, the blue trousers and the knitted sweater manly, but there was certainly no way he could mistake her for anything other than a woman. The tight fit of her clothing around her curves, the soft line of her mouth, her long, curling fair hair were all very feminine.
In other ways, too, she was different to his Isabel - stronger, less inclined to obey him without question - and this worried him. Last time Isabel had stayed safe up in the lighthouse while he faced Neptune. Would she be so easily persuaded this time?
He had promised to do the Sorceress’ bidding in return for finding Isabel, and now all he wanted was to keep her.
He stood on the landing and waited for her to catch up. By the time she reached his side he’d decided there was no right way to tell his story, so he simply began to speak. While he spoke, the images crowded in on him.
He explained to her about the bargain he’d made with Neptune on the voyage from Nantucket, and how in return his life and that of his crew was spared. “In time I forgot about it, or pretended I had. And then the storm came and the steamer was heading for the rocks.”
That storm was like nothing he’d ever seen before, nothing he’d ever experienced. The wild tearing at the very fabric of the lighthouse, the pounding against the thick-glassed windows, as if the wind and rain wanted to come inside and attack him.
“We were up in the lantern room. I wanted to be sure all was well and that the lamps were burning bright. And that was when we saw him.”
“I know,” she whispered, “I remember that part.” She shuddered. “The light went out.”
“Yes,” he said bleakly, “the light went out, and nothing I did would relight it. Without the light the only chance I had of warning the steamer about the rocks was to send off some rockets.”
“You told me to wait here for
you.”
“I went out into the storm. It was so bad I could hardly see anything. I took the rockets out onto the edge of the cliffs ...”
“He was waiting for you. Neptune.”
She was shaking, and gripped her fingers together tightly. He could see her remembering the monster rising up through the waves, the seawater pouring from its blue skin, black eyes without any whites, unblinking and with nothing human about them. Mortal, it had said, its voice deep and hollow, I am here to claim what is mine. We struck a deal and now it is time for you to honour it.
“The steamer,” Isabel murmured, her face chalky. “He’d come for the steamer and all those lives.”
Zek didn’t disillusion her. “I tried to light the rocket but I fumbled. Nothing was working and I understood then that Neptune was controlling matters. He could have squashed me flat with his hand, but that wasn’t what he wanted.”
“I know you did everything you could to save the steamer. You lost your life ...”
She didn’t understand; she didn’t know the truth, and he wasn’t going to tell her. Heart in his mouth, he remembered how he’d watched Neptune’s black eyes peering into the lantern room. Isabel was standing, silhouetted against the faint light from the single lamp she was holding, and a smile curled the monster’s lipless mouth. The unblinking gaze dropped to his again, and Zek saw the greed.
It was Isabel the monster wanted.
He had stood, frozen, and listened to the steamer’s keel grinding against the rocks, and even though the wind was screaming he could hear the cries of the passengers and crew as they realized they were about to drown. And all the while the monster had stared back at him, enjoying his pain, and knowing there would come a point where he could no longer bear it.
I will give you my life, Neptune. Take me instead. Please . . .
No, mortal. I want Isabel. Give her to me.
The steamer was going down, the screams heart-wrenchingly desperate, more so because Zek knew it was impossible for him to save them. But it was equally impossible for him not to try, although he knew he would drown in the attempt. He’d turned to look up at Isabel, a final glance, thinking that at least she was safe. Then he’d dived from the cliff into the swirling, violent sea.
“Zek?”
Izzy felt another gust of wind strike the outside of the lighthouse, shaking it. Rain splattered. Lightning flashed, illuminating a violent world, before the thunder followed.
“This is the same storm, isn’t it? The Sorceress has taken us back in time so that we can get it right.”
“Yes.”
“Well then, we will get it right. We have to. I can’t live another 150 years without you, not again. We’ll do whatever we have to.”
He smiled, but it was a wary smile, and she almost laughed. It was becoming obvious to her that she was far more forceful and independent than the Isabel he’d known before. Just as well, considering what they had to do. She had no intention of waiting patiently in the lantern room while her man went out, alone, to save the world. This time her place would be right by his side.
They’d reached the trapdoor into the lantern room and climbed through. Time really had jumped backwards because the old, unused lamps were burning brightly and, as she stared, the lighthouse flashed out a warning over the waters below.
Zek was up and about, checking that all was in order, his movements full of confidence and long practice. This was his lighthouse, his job, and Izzy felt an ache in her heart as she remembered the way his name had been vilified all these years.
As he worked she stood, peering through the glass walls. The weather encircled them, pounding for entry, driving hail and spitting rain, as if it wanted to destroy them.
“Dear God,” she whispered, as the lights of the steamer flickered out to sea.
And he was beside her, his face a peculiar shade of green in the storm’s light. Once again he reached out for her hand. It seemed natural, and just as natural when she grasped his fingers, entangling them with hers, finding comfort in his touch.
“Neptune is an old god. He gains his power from the sea and those lost within it. The lighthouse is a bulwark against his storms and he’d like nothing better than to tear it down.”
“So . . . what is the plan?” she said, taking a wobbly breath.
He looked at her and smiled. “I’ve come from the between-worlds, Isabel. I’m somewhere halfway between life and death, so I’m not entirely human either. That might give me the edge I didn’t have when I faced him before.”
As if in response to his words, the lantern room was plunged into darkness.
There was a tremendous roar from beyond the cliffs. Not thunder, not this time.
She’d dreamed about this, and now she wished it was still a dream. Neptune was coming up out of the waves, flesh shining an eerie blue, white hair long and wet and wriggling like a nest of sea serpents. It... he . . . was immense, a veritable monster, and as he rose to his full height he was as tall as the cliff and the lighthouse combined. His eyes had no white in them at all. They were shining like ebony as he gazed into the dark lantern room.
“Mortal!” he roared. “I have come.”
Izzy was aware of Zek’s arm tight around her. He was warm and strong, not like a dead man at all, and his breath stirred her hair as he spoke. “It is time for me to go down. Stay here.”
“No! We go together.”
He shook his head. “Stay here.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said stubbornly. “This time we’ll face him together.”
He opened his mouth again, but someone else spoke before he could get the words out.
“Tell her the truth, Zek. Tell her what Neptune really wants.”
Izzy gasped, gaze flying to the opposite side of the lantern room. A woman in a long white dress stood there, her red hair loose, her eyes a brilliant blue. After one glance, she found she could not meet the woman’s stare directly - the pain was too intense.
“No, Sorceress,” her man said, “I will do this my way.”
“Doing it your way wasn’t so successful before,” the Sorceress retorted with a nasty little smile. “Tell her. You say you love her. I believe you must doj you saved her last time at the cost of yourself and all those others. Trust her, let her stand with you. Learn from your mistakes, that’s why you’re here.”
Then it suddenly all made sense. Neptune had saved Zek, and then he’d demanded Isabel in return. Not the steamer after all.
“It’s me he wants,” she whispered. “Isn’t it? It was always me.”
Neptune roared, his tail slammed down on the sea’s surface and a huge wave of spume rose against the lighthouse. When the air cleared again, the nearing lights of the steamer were visible through the water running down the glass.
“Yes, Neptune wants you,” he admitted. “He told me he would save the steamer if I gave you to him. I said no.”
“But all those people . . . the passengers aboard the steamer...”
“I said no, Isabel.”
Her mouth went stubborn and straight, and Zek watched it with fascination. It was Isabel’s mouth and yet it wasn’t. “This time he’ll get what he wants.”
“No!”
Tears drowned her eyes, overflowing. “Do you know what they’ve said about you all these years? How they’ve blamed you and blackened your name and destroyed your character? I won’t let it happen this time. You don’t deserve it. You saved my life and now it’s in my power to put history right, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
She moved away, towards the trapdoor, but his quiet resigned words stopped her.
“We’ll go together.”
She felt a jumble of fear and relief, and the next moment they were through the trapdoor and running down the winding stairs. The wind dropped when they reached the door, and Zek was able to open it without too much of a struggle. She followed him out into the spitting rain, clinging to the wall of the lighthouse as they rounded it and made their way towards
the cliff edge.
Before them, the massive form of Neptune was swaying in the storm and, behind him, Izzy could see the looming shape of the steamer approaching the rocks.
History must not be repeated, she told herself. If necessary she would give her life to save the others. To save her husband. An odd calmness came over her as she gazed over the dizzying drop to the water below, to where the god of the sea waited.
Zek stepped in front of her, spread his arms wide and threw back his head. “I’m here, my lord Neptune!” he shouted into the wind.
Neptune’s oily eyes gleamed and his hair writhed. He swooped down, his face half fish and half man, and hovered over them. His mouth opened to show long sharp teeth. “I saved your life, now I’m here to collect on the deal, Captain Cole. The time has come to pay up.”
“Tell me what you want,” Zek said, but he was only playing for time.
“Isabel,” the monster said, his voice hissing like spray against the rocks. He smiled as she stepped out from the shadows.
Zek wanted to turn her around and run with her back to the lighthouse, to safety, but he forced himself to remain still. The Sorceress was right, Isabel was right - they needed to face this together.
Izzy spoke calmly, as if she dealt with sea gods every day of the week. “I want you to bring back the light and save the passenger steamer.”
The unblinking eyes fixed on her. “Why should I?”
“You said you wanted me. I’m here. Now do as I say.”
Neptune laughed. Behind him they could see the steamer struggling in the storm, all those souls aboard.
“Come with me,” Neptune hissed. “I command it, Isabel.”
“Not until you turn the light back on,” she shouted, angry and desperate.
But the monster just laughed, and suddenly they knew the truth. “You never meant to save the steamer, did you? If I hadn’t died and negated our deal, you would have come back over and over again. Isabel was just an excuse to make me give you the steamer. There would have been another ship after that, and then another.”
The Lighthouse Keeper and His Wife Page 2
