All that time though, Lampie could hear her mother talking inside Lampie’s head. And when her mother died, her voice stayed with Lampie. Her mother usually says nice things. Sometimes she is a bit stern.
Come along, she is saying now. Nightdress on, wash your feet, and get into bed! Stop dawdling!
Lampie does not mind it when her mother is stern. Then it seems as if someone is still looking after Lampie a bit. When she goes to take off her dress, she finds the shard in the pocket. She strokes it a few times before placing it on the bedside table. As she bends down to untie her laces, she hears something out in the corridor. Shuffling, snuffling. She jumps and looks up, but then she can’t hear it anymore. Maybe it wasn’t even there.
She does not want to think about monsters. Her head is full of things she does not want to think about. But now that it is getting dark and she can’t see anything outside, she can’t stop herself, and she thinks about it all: Her own bed. The sound of the sea around the lighthouse. Her father’s snoring, at home in the night. She tugs at her laces, which are in a knot, and tries so very hard not to think about everything that it feels as if she can actually hear his snores. Or maybe it’s real.
It is as if, far off in the house, someone is snoring.
Or maybe growling.
Mother? There isn’t really a monster here, is there?
Her mother just laughs at her. A monster? Of course not—what nonsense! Wouldn’t it have gobbled up Martha and those men with the coffin?
But what was inside the coffin? wonders Lampie. Could it have been a girl, a girl just like her? Is she the monster’s next meal, a monster that only likes little girls? With claws and teeth, with hairy paws, a man with six arms and with no mercy…Lampie can imagine all kinds of things.
She tugs even harder, but the lace won’t come undone. In the darkness she can’t see the knot, and her hands are too shaky. It smells a bit different now too—like rotten fish that has been lying around for a really long time.
The only monster she has ever seen for real smelled like that. A fisherman had caught it, and half the town went out to take a look: a foredeck full of a tangle of black snakes, with two big dead eyes at its center. Everyone went, “Aah” and “Ooh” and “Eeuw,” and the air above it was black with flies.
But if a thing like that were still alive…If those dead arms had muscles that could pull her down into the black night…
Stop it, Emilia! says her mother. When she says “Emilia,” she really means it. That’s enough. Shoes off, wash your feet, and go to sleep right away.
Yes, but, Mother, I really did hear something. It might have been a monster.
Don’t be silly. Monsters don’t exist.
The growling turns into a gurgling, barking sound. Far away. Or is it coming closer?
Lampie does not dare to wash her feet now. She does not dare to take off her clothes. She does not even dare to lie in the bed, but crawls underneath it instead, wearing one shoe and one sock. If something comes into the room, maybe it won’t find her.
She can’t sleep. Again.
She rolls herself up around her fear, and lies there on the cold floor, listening. Sometimes the barking sounds far away, sometimes closer. One time she hears something prowling along the corridor, with heavy paws and tapping claws. When it comes closer, she makes herself even smaller and curls up in the corner, with her back against the wall.
She wishes she had checked to see if the door had a lock. Anything could just come into the room. But the paws walk by and the tapping disappears down the long corridor. Then it is silent.
So she goes looking for shells, on a beach inside her head. She finds some really pretty ones, pink and green, shining and wet. She washes off the sand and lays them out to dry on a rock in the sun.
By the time the whole rock is full, she has finally fallen asleep.
day one of seven years
Lampie is awoken by a voice saying, “Oh.” Pale light pours into the space between the bed and the floor. She sees legs walking past, legs in ribbed stockings and black shoes.
“Oh,” says the voice. “So did I dream it? Or not?”
The legs walk to the window; someone gives it a rattle. It does not open.
Whose are those legs again? thinks Lampie. Why aren’t I at home? Oh yes. Oh yes, Martha.
“Well, maybe it’s just as well,” says Martha. She walks to the chair with Lampie’s pillowcase on it, picks it up and shakes it out. Lampie watches her clothes tumble out onto the floor. A ball of socks rolls away.
“Ah,” mumbles Martha. “So there is a girl here. But where is she? She can’t have been…Not on the very first night? Surely not…”
“Here I am,” says Lampie, crawling out from under the bed.
Martha gasps in horror! As if Lampie is a snake, or a crocodile. Or a monster. Panting, she clutches her hands to her chest.
“It’s only me,” says Lampie.
“I don’t like that kind of behavior, young lady,” says the woman angrily. “Sneaking around and hiding. You’d better not do that here. Do you understand?” She strides toward Lampie and looks at her clothes. “Did you sleep on the floor? In your dress? Tsk.”
I was scared, Lampie wants to say. I heard something. She wants to ask: Is there really a monster? Is it free to run around? Is it going to eat me up? Is that why they sent me here? She wants to ask a hundred things. But the words suddenly seem strange in the morning light. And Martha looks so angry, even angrier than yesterday, if that is possible. And her eyes are still really red.
“Don’t you have any other clothes?”
“Yes.” Lampie points at the pile on the floor. Martha picks up a couple of things: a dress and a vest.
“Hmm,” she says. “This clearly won’t do. I’ll make something for you. Yet another thing to worry about.” Then she holds Lampie’s chin, turns her face to the light, and looks at her cheek. Lampie can feel herself blushing; she really wants to turn her head away. The cheek hurts a little bit more than yesterday, as is always the case with bruises.
“I’ve read the letter,” says Martha. “This isn’t what I had in mind at all, but it’s what has been agreed, or so it would seem. Not with me, of course. But when does that ever happen?” She sighs. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. I really don’t know, um…Amalia. That is your name, isn’t it?”
Lampie gasps. “Emilia! My name’s Emilia!” Amalia? The very thought of it!
“Good, fine. Well, there’s breakfast in the kitchen, Emilia.” Martha turns to the door. “Are you scared of dogs?”