But it doesn’t work like that. Memories, like stones, have their own gravity.
She thinks instead of St. Ives, of her years there with Grace. She should be grateful for that life, and she is, but it should be enough, she thinks. She attended an excellent high school, developed a strong network of good friends. Yes, she fell into drugs. Yes, she had an almost insurmountable compulsion to steal, a compulsion that still nags at her. Even now, she’s eyeing that painting of the lilies on the wall and wondering if it would fit in her bag. She shakes it off. The painting is gross, and she knows all too well the sinking shame that follows the thrill of slipping away undetected. Grace never gave up on her, no matter how many times Luna stole money from her. She was a devoted foster mother—dedicated, patient, capable of showering her with unlimited attention. Her other life was the one before that, with her birth mother, Liv, and her sisters, Saffy and Clover, a life that ended abruptly with her being dumped in a forest by her mother. Why?
The “why” of her abandonment has all but pulled her apart over the years. She remembers vividly waiting for her mother, believing wholeheartedly that she’d come back for her. Weeks passed, months. She’d run up to strangers in the street, in the mall, shouting out “Mum! Mum!” Christmases spent in foster homes. She’d sit by the living room window, watching the cars pass. She always believed her mother would come back.
But she didn’t.
LIV, 1998
I
The day the girls started at school, the equipment and paint for the mural arrived. I’d planned to start setting up as soon as it came, but I had been feeling ill all day, laid up on the sofa with a hot-water bottle on my stomach. By evening I felt better, and when the girls went to bed I headed out to check out the delivery.
It was a wild, windy night, autumn descending on the island in a fury with all her gales and rain. I hurried quickly across the wet rocks, pulling the heavy door of the Longing open and shutting it tightly behind me.
The black sludge on the floor was gone, drained away to a film of slime. I made sure the piece of wood was put back carefully across the grille on the hole in the floor. Then I pulled back the tarp that was covering the cherry picker and the rest of the equipment. It looked good. Enough paint to cover several lighthouses, and in the exact colors I’d requested. Brand-new paintbrushes, a wallpaper table, work lamps, and extenders for the hard-to-reach parts. Protective clothing, a harness, goggles. It was top-notch equipment, and I felt relieved.
I decided to store the paintbrushes and protective clothing in the lantern room, just in case the ground floor flooded again. It was dark, but my torchlight fell on something that definitely hadn’t been there the day before.
On the floor was a white triangle made up of three objects.
I bent down carefully to take a look at it, retracing my steps in my mind. No, the lantern room had definitely been empty. I’d have spotted such a thing if it had been there.
Bones. The triangle was made out of three delicate animal bones, perhaps the leg bones of a fox, crisscrossed in the shape of a triangle.
Someone had been here. And they’d left me a message.
Or a warning.
Just then, there was a noise from below. A loud creak, then a slam. Footsteps.
Someone was inside.
I felt sick. I listened, my heart roaring in my ears, for the sound of the footsteps. They were heavy and slow. So, definitely not one of my children.
There was no way out of the lantern room, and nowhere to hide. I was trapped. I would have to pray that whoever it was would leave. Or I’d have to confront them.
I’d like to say that I screwed my courage to the sticking-place and went out to confront the intruder, but I was terrified. What kind of person would come out on a stormy night to a derelict lighthouse? The sort of person who would also kill an animal to make some horrible symbol like the one lying in front of me. I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted it all just to go away.