“Five thousand dollars,” she suddenly hears Miss Amalia say. “More than that, even. And those…belongings of yours are not going to raise five thousand dollars.”
Lampie gasps and sits up straight. The cat jumps indignantly onto the floor. “Five thousand dollars? But we don’t have five thousand d—”
“Of course you don’t,” says Miss Amalia. “No one has that much money. And that is why you need to work to earn it. That’s all there is to it. You can work, can’t you?”
“What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to work? Can’t…Can’t I just work at home?”
“No, that would not do. Absolutely not.”
“Or here? With you?”
“Here?” Miss Amalia chuckles. “The very thought of it. Of course not. I just told you. You’re going to be working at the admiral’s house.”
“Where?”
“At the Black House, just outside town. You must know the place. Such a wonderful coincidence that someone came into town yesterday to ask if…”
“The Black House?” A song starts playing inside Lampie’s head, an old skipping song from the marketplace.
In the Black House, the monster’s home
Where the beast does live and roam…
“But there’s a monster living there!”
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” Miss Amalia says, pouring the tea. “The admiral is a highly respectable gentleman. Highly. Otherwise we would never consider sending a child there.” She pushes a flowery cup toward Lampie. “Come on, chin up, it’s perfectly normal for a girl of your age to go out and work, isn’t it? Besides, I’ve made sure that you will have one free Wednesday afternoon per month, which is not bad at all, so you should be grateful to me and—”
“But how long do I have to stay there?”
Miss Amalia starts calculating. “If we say a dollar a day, then that’s five thousand days. But if you do your bit and your father does his, that’ll be half each. And half of five thousand is only…?” She looks at Lampie as if she is back in the classroom. But even if Lampie’s head had not been full of panic, she still would not have been able to work it out.
“Twenty-five hundred days!”
“Th-that’s such a long time,” stammers Lampie.
“It’s only seven years.”
Seven years? That is terribly, horribly, endlessly long.
Miss Amalia stirs her tea, tinkling the spoon in the cup. “And seven years?” she says with a smile. “That’s nothing at all if you consider the grand scheme of things.”
Lampie tries very hard to consider exactly that, but all she can picture is vast long stretches of days. Days without her father, without the lighthouse, without everything she knows. In a house with a monster. She pushes her tea aside and shakes her head.
“No, I can’t do it.”
“I’m afraid you have no choice, child.” Miss Amalia folds the letter neatly and puts it back in the envelope. “Now, drink up and fetch your things. We shall head over there at once.”
Lampie starts crying. She can’t help it. She cries into her tea; she cries as she packs up her belongings, and as they go outside. She cries as Miss Amalia pulls her along, and she cries all the way through the town, past the harbor, through the alleyways and up, farther and farther away from the sea, until they are outside the town and heading along the road through the forest. Then she runs out of tears.
nailed shut
From far away, the wind carries the scent of the sea. And something else with it: the sound of hammering. Big nails are being knocked into wood.
Lampie does not know this, but the sound is planks of wood being nailed over the lighthouse door. Augustus is inside and can no longer leave. Locked up with enough matches for seven years, which he has to use to light the lamp every night.
“With this leg?”
“That leg of yours is none of our concern, Waterman. And don’t forget to turn off the lamp every morning.”
“You don’t need to tell me that. I’ve been doing it for ten years.”
“You made your daughter do it—that’s not the same thing.” The sheriff chuckles at his own retort. His deputies laugh along with him and go on hammering.
“And what about my food? Am I supposed to eat matches?”
“We’ll make sure someone brings food every evening. But don’t expect anything special,” the sheriff says with a snort.
Augustus presses his face to the small hatch in the door. He can just about squeeze his nose through, but nothing else.
“And what about my daughter?”
He does not receive an answer.
“What about my daughter? What’s going to happen to her? Eh?” There is nothing Augustus can do, except for spit at the men through the hatch. Great gobs of hate. “Hey, I asked you a question!”
The last nail receives a final whack, and the men quickly pack up their things. Pulling faces, they wipe off the spit. Then they head down the sea path and back to town.
Augustus swears at them as they go. “Answer me! When am I going to see my daughter again?”
The sheriff goes on walking. “You’re going to have to earn it first, Waterman!” he calls back over his shoulder. “And then we’ll see.”
Martha
The Black House was built just outside the town, on the top of a cliff, so that it could look out over the sea. But the trees around it have grown higher and higher in recent years, so high that all you can see out of most of the windows is a few branches and the leaves of the black ivy that grows all over the house. Someone should shear it, but no one ever does. The ivy is full of rustling and full of life; owls live there and spiders, beetles and bats.
Are there any people living inside? There is no sign of it. Angry, stern, the house stands with its back to the sea, its shutters closed, its doors bolted, a high fence with sharp points all around. What happens here is no one else’s business, it says. So keep out.
In the Black House, the monster’s home
Where the beast does live and roam…
Lampie stumbles along the bumpy forest road. Miss Amalia is much taller than she is, so she has to run a little to keep up with her. The pillowcase with her clothes inside keeps banging against her legs and almost making her trip.