A flicker of movement caught my eye, and I realized that the white hands were back again. I could see them pressed up against one of the parabolic mirrors – several pairs squeezed together – 314as pale and beseeching as ever.

“They didn’t want to be friends with me either,” Conall said, his wet voice full of bitterness. “That’s why they’re forgotten people.”

“How did they come to be forgotten, Conall?” I asked.

I recalled what he had written in his letters, his dread of being left alone and forgotten in the basement.

He gave a slight shrug, suddenly looking sullen. “I push them into the mirror,” he said. “The one in the Strangers’ Room.”

“Is that what happened to my sister?” I asked.

Conall fixed me with a dark look. “She was just like the others,” he said. “Searching all over for me, looking for me as if she wanted to be my friend, but when I came out of hiding and showed myself to her, she wasn’t pleased to find me. Just afraid like all the others. So I pushed her into the mirror and then the world forgets her, just like it forgot me. And it serves her right.”

“How do you get those people back out?” I asked.

“You don’t!” he snapped. “If they don’t want to be my friend, then they stay there forever.” 315

“And what about my sister?” Will asked. “Kenzie. She saw you here last year. Why did you kill her rather than push her into the mirror? Was it because I said the words about how I knew you were there?”

“No one can know I’m here!” Conall looked suddenly wild-eyed. “No one! Papa told me I mustn’t be found out, or bad things would happen.”

“We wouldn’t have hurt you,” Will said, his voice catching in his throat. “There was no need for you to kill Kenzie.”

“I was trying to drag her to the mirror,” Conall replied. “But she yanked herself away and fell through the window. It wasn’t my fault – it was an accident.”

The mirror was white with hands now, just as the cliffs of Bird Rock turned white with gannets. One of the hands was pressing so hard against the surface that it looked as if it was about to come straight through to the other side again.

“You’re still to blame,” I said. “Rosie and Kenzie would both be here if it wasn’t for you.”

Conall’s eyes narrowed, and black wells of hatred suddenly burned in his gaze. “They never should have been here in the first place!” he growled. “None of you should be here. It’s my lighthouse. So if you’re 316not going to bring Charlie back then get out! Get OUT! GET OUT!”