Read Chapter 8: The Vanished Keeper

The rain held off long enough for Freya to reach the clinic's sagging porch, but the sky behind her had gone the colour of a fresh bruise. She knocked once, then pushed the door open when no answer came.

Inside, the waiting room smelled of antiseptic and boiled tea. A gas lamp hissed low on the counter, casting the narrow space in amber. Through the open door to the examination room, she could hear low voices — Alistair's steady rumble and a lighter, female one.

She stepped forward, meaning to announce herself, and stopped.

A woman sat on the edge of the examination table with her back to the door, a child curled asleep against her chest. Freya recognised the dark braid, the broad shoulders. Charity, the fisherman's wife — and Alistair's sister-in-law, if the pub chatter had been right.

Alistair stood across from her, holding a stethoscope to the child's back. He didn't look up.

"The crackle's easing," he said. "Another day of that poultice and the fever should break properly."

"Thank you." Charity's voice was soft, tired. She shifted the boy and looked past Alistair, out the window. "The sky's turning. You'll have your hands full tonight."

"I've had worse."

"You've had more help, too." She said it without cruelty, but the words landed anyway. Freya saw Alistair's jaw tighten before he turned to wash his hands.

Freya cleared her throat. "Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Charity turned, and her face — drawn, kind, with eyes that held too many years of weather — relaxed into a tired smile. "You're the filmmaker. I saw you in the pub."

"No filming tonight," Freya said quickly. "I came to talk to Alistair about the tower."

Alistair dried his hands on a towel and finally looked at her. "Morag found you, then."

"She rescheduled. We're going at dawn." Freya paused. "Though she hasn't exactly said where."

"East cliff," Charity said. She rocked the boy gently. "Nothing out there but the old lookout and the memorial stone."

Freya took a step closer. "Memorial stone?"

"For the keeper's daughter." Charity's voice flattened. "Eilidh."

Something in the room shifted — a current Freya couldn't see but could feel. Alistair's hand paused over the instrument tray. "Charity," he said.

But Charity was looking at Freya, and her eyes had gone distant. "It was a long time ago. She was just a little thing. Donald's niece. She followed him up to the light one afternoon, and she wasn't watching, and the wind —"

"Charity." Alistair's voice was firmer now, the doctor's tone that allowed no argument. "That's enough."

Charity blinked, the spell broken. She looked from Alistair to Freya, and something flickered behind her eyes — calculation, or recognition. "You didn't tell her."

"There's nothing to tell."

"There's plenty to tell." Charity stood carefully, the boy still sleeping against her shoulder, and made for the door. She paused beside Freya, low enough that Alistair couldn't hear. "Eilidh's story isn't the one you're looking for. But there's another one. The keeper before Donald — she vanished three years ago. No one on this island will say her name, and they have their reasons." Her eyes cut to Alistair, who had turned away to the counter. "And some have more reasons than others."

Sherry turned and left the clinic, the door creaking shut behind her.

Freya stood frozen, her reporter's instinct snapping to attention like a dog on a leash. *The keeper before Donald. Vanished. No one says her name.* It was a story — a real story, the kind that could survive a shipping company's spin. She turned to Alistair, who was still not looking at her.

"The keeper before Donald," she said. "Who was it?"

"Someone who left."

"Charity said vanished."

"She'd know better than to say 'left' if she wanted to sleep tonight." Alistair turned, his face carefully blank, but she caught the muscle twitching beneath his eye. "It was a long time ago. The light was automated for six months before the board decided to reinstate keepers. Whomever was stationed here had their reasons for going. It doesn't matter."

"It matters if it's a story."

"It's not your story." He moved past her toward the door. "And I need to check on Donald before I take the clinic shift. You should be learning the light, not digging holes that don't need digging."

Freya followed him outside, the sharp wind cutting through her jacket. "Charity said 'vanished.' Not 'left.' Those are different words."

"They're the same when you're on this island." He stopped at the path leading toward the keeper's row and turned, his face angled into the wind so she had to look at him sideways. "There are people here who survived things they don't talk about. And there are stories that don't belong to outsiders. If you start pulling threads, you might unravel the whole cloth."

"I'm not trying to hurt anyone. I just want to understand."

"Understanding costs more than you think." He held her gaze for a beat longer than was comfortable, then broke away. "I'll meet you at the tower at dusk. If the storm holds off, we'll run through the light."

He walked away before she could argue, his boots crunching on the wet gravel.

Freya stood there, her breath coming in short, sharp puffs. The compass weighed warm in her pocket — a hundred identical compasses, the engraving of a dead girl's name. And now a vanished keeper, a name no one would say.

She turned toward the tower. The light wouldn't prime itself, and Alistair would need her to be competent tonight. But she couldn't shake Charity's words — *she noticed, didn't she? Did he flinch?* Something was buried here deeper than a drowning and older than an automated light. And whatever it was, Alistair was standing right on top of it.

Her phone buzzed. Gray's name lit the screen.

*"Update due by 2200. The rep's arrival is confirmed. I need a pitch by morning or I'm sending someone who can close."*

Freya looked from the phone to the tower, to the dark line of the cliff where Morag would meet her at first light with a compass in her pocket and a name on her lips.

She typed back a single line: *"Tell him I have something better than a closure story."*

She pocketed the phone before she could second-guess it. She'd have to find a way to make that true — and quick.

The tower stairs were steep and worn. She climbed them slowly, running her hand along the cold stone, feeling the pulse of the island beneath her feet. The lens room was a cathedral of glass and brass, the great prism suspended like a frozen star. She had hours before dusk, and a name burning in her throat.

*The keeper before Donald.*

*Vanished.*

She pulled out her phone and dialled Morag.

The postmistress answered on the second ring. "You're calling early."

"Charity told me something I think you know about."

A long pause. The line crackled with static.

"There are two kinds of secrets on this island," Morag said finally. "The ones we keep to protect each other, and the ones we keep to protect ourselves."

"Which one is this?"

Morag was quiet long enough that Freya checked the screen to make sure the call hadn't dropped.

"Bring the compass sharp at first light," Morag said. "And leave your questions at home. What I show you isn't a story to be told — it's a thing to be witnessed."

The line went dead.

Freya stood in the tower, the wind rattling the old panes, and she felt, for the first time since she'd arrived, that she was standing on the edge of something far larger than a documentary. The vanished keeper, the dead girl, the locked trust, the brother who'd broken promises and died before he could keep them. They were threads of the same rope — and she was holding the frayed end.

The lens caught the last of the day's light and scattered it across the walls, red and gold and gone.

Outside, the first wind of the coming storm shook the tower like a hand testing a door.