In the vivid glow of the black light, something on the windows was revealed. Numbers. Thousands of them.
I turned around on the spot, my eyes adjusting to the light, taking in the sight of it, trying to understand what I was seeing.
It wasn’t just on the windows, either—the writing continued across the floorboards, on the walls, a frenzy of numbers and words. The numbers appeared to be grouped in four, written vertically.
1 1 1 1
6 7 8 9
8 1 9 2
2 6 9 1
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It looked like the work of madness, all the numbers glowing in the dark. A film of grime had grown over the numbers, so it hadn’t been done recently. Why would someone do this? It couldn’t have been the little boy I’d spotted. He was far too young, and he could never have sourced the kind of paint that only showed under UV light. Tourists, I thought hopefully, playing some sort a game. Or “outsiders”—the same people Isla had blamed for the graffiti. A shiver ran all over me. First the bones, now this . . . it was terrifying. The writing was the same throughout, the same flick on the tail of the “9,” the same exaggerated cap on “7.” One, maybe two people had written all of these. And they’d gone to the trouble to use paint only visible under black light.
On the floor, where the triangle of bones had been, I spotted a rune. A star inside a circle, or a pentagram. The bones had been placed in the center of it.
So they hadn’t been left at random. The frenzied numbers and words and runes looked satanic, or the work of someone who needed help.
I raced down to the bottom floor, where I’d left my Polaroid camera. My heart was racing and I was shaking with fright, but I knew I had to go back up. I had to will myself, count to three in my head before forcing my legs to move. I went back up and took a handful of photos before hurrying back down again and into the night.
In the bothy, I started to dial Finn’s number, but I stopped halfway and hung up. Why was I calling him? No—I needed to call Patrick Roberts. It was his property, and we needed to go to the police together. He answered after two rings.
“Hello?”
“Patrick? It’s Liv.”
A silence. “Hello, Liv.”
“Sorry to call you so late. It’s just . . . there’s something in the lantern room that I’m concerned about.” I told him about what I’d spotted. The numbers. The writing.
“I . . . I spotted a little boy in the Longing,” I said, tripping over my words. “I told the police but they didn’t believe me. I’m not sure he was the one who did all the writing but maybe this proves someone was with him?”
“Stay calm,” he said. “I’ll come straightaway.”
“I took photographs. I thought we could take them to the police. As proof.”
“Don’t do anything just yet,” he said hastily. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I hung up, filled with a strange relief. Maybe this would force the police to search for the boy I’d found.
I spread the Polaroids I’d taken over the dining table, studying them in the light of the table lamp. I could make out words, too, but they were nonsensical, a kind of delirious poetry, written in a scrawl.
AMY.
WHERE ARE YOU?
AMY. AMY. AMY.
A knock sounded at the front door. It was Patrick.
I turned back to the photograph, my heart racing. The words stirred something in my memory.
The night I’d met him, we’d had a weird moment when I heard him call me by another name. What was it?