As we followed Pa back towards the lighthouse, I felt a flush of pride that it was my Pa who had got there first and had known what to do. He wasn’t just one of the gawping crowd; he had done something useful. In that moment, I felt very important and very special.

Mutti had not wanted to come and see the crashed plane. She stood at the gate, her arms wrapped around her middle, waiting for us to come home.

I waved at her, then looked up at the sky, and took a long lungful of the morning. It had rained heavily overnight, and the air was filled with the scent of fresh rain, damp earth and the churning sea. The blustery wind was already carrying away the bitter smell of the smoke and the burnt cabbages, and the sun was trying to break through the clouds. Two or three narrow shafts of sunlight streamed down, spotlighting patches of the swollen ocean and our Castle – a brave silhouette against the silvery sky.

Then Mags interrupted my thoughts. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked. She was looking beyond the lighthouse, towards the south cliff. A man was standing on the ridge, staring down at us. The wind was whipping my hair around, so I held it out of my eyes, squinting up at the figure. I couldn’t make out his face, only the squarish set of his shoulders and some rather wild, white hair.

‘I can’t see his face properly, but it might be that man who was so rude to Mutti in the bakery. Could he be one of the fishermen?’

Mags shrugged, frowning. ‘I’ve never seen him before,’ she said.

Mutti must have noticed the direction of our gaze, as she turned to look behind her. Pa looked up too then, and stopped walking. There was a very odd moment when all four of us were looking up at this mysterious man, and he was looking steadily back at us. Time seemed to hold its breath. The wind dropped. Pa raised his hand in a sort of wave, but the old man turned his back and walked away.

I couldn’t have explained it at the time, but I was somehow aware of the significance of this moment. A shiver scuttled down my spine.

Chapter 12

12

Iasked Mutti about the mysterious old man when the two of us were up in the lantern room later that day. We were both drawing, as we often did. I looked and looked at the view, then closed my eyes, folding up the sea and the stones and the sky into my mind. Then I opened my eyes again, picked up my pencil, and tried to unfold it all on to the paper. But the sea was all wrong, and the sky had no depth, and the standing stones were just flat, childish shapes.