“It’s Lampie. She’s here to buy matches.”
“Lampie? From the lighthouse?”
“Yes. How many Lampies do you know, woman?”
“Send her up here!”
“That’s exactly what I was going to do.”
Tutting and sighing, Mr. Rosewood takes off Lampie’s soaking scarf, hangs it over an oil drum, and gives her his scarf to wear instead. The wool tickles her wet cheeks.
“Take off your shoes down here, and then you can get out of your wet things upstairs, and we’ll…”
“No, thank you,” says Lampie. “I need to get home.” The scarf slips off and falls onto the floor but, without stopping to pick it up, she wraps the matches in the chamois cloth and puts them in her basket.
Then she hurries back outside.
basket
Meanwhile Augustus is sitting at home, cursing.
He has emptied all the drawers onto the floor, pulled all the clothes out of the wardrobe. The floor is scattered with saucepans and shirts, with cups and dried peas. But there are no matches. Anywhere.
He curses Lampie and he curses himself. The fire has just gone out, and the stove is as cold as a stone. He hurls the useless hurricane lamp across the room. The hail rattles against the window. What should he do? There is nothing he can do! Absolutely nothing! And where has that child gone to?
He hauls himself up there, limping on his good leg, up all sixty-one steps to the lamp room. She is not there either, and the wind almost blows him over the railing.
The waves crash against the tower. They are as high as a house, great green beasts that want to swallow everything and smash it all to pieces. He is not worried about his tower, but he is worried about the ships that will be blown into the bay in the pitch darkness. Above the storm, he thinks he can already hear the cracking and creaking of ships’ bows being ripped open. And that is his fault. No, it’s that child’s fault, that wretched child. Where on earth could she be?
He peers out, eyes trying to pierce the darkness. Please. Don’t do this to me. Please, don’t fall into the sea; come home safely. Please…
Scowling, he chases his thoughts away. Wishing is not going to help. What he wanted most of all did not happen. And the one thing he really, truly did not wish for, well, that did happen. No one ever listens to him.
So go on, thunder away all you like. Fine. Let the ships smash themselves on the rocks. Why should he care? Let the child blow away, that wretched child.
The wretched child is walking home through the storm. Or at least she is trying to.
She is no longer talking to the wind. They stopped being friends long ago, and now it is blowing right into her face.
She is making very slow progress. Stumbling across the town square, which is littered with branches and leaves, she heads for the quay, for the steps that lead down to where the path of stones begins.
Lampie swallows. The wind chases the sea over the steps, almost onto the quay. The path to the lighthouse can only be seen by the white foam splashing up as the waves break on the stones. Will she really have to go into the water? Will she have to swim?
She looks at the lighthouse, a darker silhouette against the dark sky. Her father is inside, probably pacing in furious circles. She can picture his face perfectly and how angry he is with her. She sees him stumbling, constantly looking at the door. She sees the door, the door knob; all she has to do is reach out her hand, she can already feel it against her fingertips…
Clutching the basket tightly, Lampie steps into the water.
At first it is not so bad; at first there are wooden posts and she finds her footing on the stones. The wind shrieks around her.
Hello, hello, my friend, are you back again? Have you really come to play this time?
Child, child, lighthouse child,
Are you as strong as the sea so wild?
“Yes!” screams Lampie above the storm. “Yes, I am! Yes, I am that strong!”
She struggles her way from stone to stone. The pitch-black water swirls around her, rising higher and higher, its cold biting into her calves, her knees, her thighs. Her heart is thumping.
But when she looks back, she is halfway there. The hardest part is still to come, but she has already done half of it.
“You see, wind! You can’t…”
The wind rips the basket out of her hand. It blows it high, spinning it in a little pirouette above her head, just to tease her, and then carries it away, with matches and all. To another country with another beach, to another child, who will find it tomorrow. Lampie watches the little dot disappear into the dark sky. She screams in fury and immediately gets a mouthful of seawater. It is salty and cold, and she is already chilled through, and now she has lost everything. Her tears are salty too—she can’t taste any difference.
She looks around. The lighthouse is as far away as the harbor, both out of reach for such a small girl in such a big sea. But she does not need to go home now, of course, not without matches.
The water rises higher and higher, and her feet lose their hold on the stones. She can swim, but she doesn’t.
Fine, she thinks, then I’ll come to you, Mother.
Her father is sure to be sad, but he was sad already. She lets herself sink.
She does not feel the cold bodies coming to swim beneath her in the water, the cold arms taking hold of her. Swirling green hair, like seaweed, billows in the waves.
Voices chuckle and chortle: “Oh my, a soul, a little drowned soul!”
Her head is lifted above the waves. She is pulled to the lighthouse island and dumped onto the stones.
“No two-legs in our water!”
That is where Lampie is lying now, beside her own front door, while out at sea a ship hits the rocks.
rock
And, as always, the next day the sun rises again. The water lies in the bay, perfectly still, as if slightly ashamed.
Waves? Us? No, of course not.
Storm? whispers the wind terribly quietly. No, no, that wasn’t me. It brushes Lampie’s face, like a hand stroking her cheek.
Mother? She is confused for a moment. Mother? Am I dead?
In her head she hears her mother laughing softly. No, my sweet child. You’re not dead.
Oh. Lampie is almost sad. Really?
Really. It’s not your time yet. Don’t you hear the seagulls? Don’t you smell the water? You’re still here.
Lampie smells the salty water and hears the cries of the gulls. She feels the little stones sticking into her back and feels how wet her dress is. She opens her eyes a little and, through her lashes, she sees the lighthouse, high against the clouds.