“But you have,” I said, feeling a fresh wave of despair. “You’ve spoken to her a couple of times on Bird Rock and caused a big upset yesterday by showing her the video on your phone, remember?”

“But that was you,” Will replied. “I showed you the video.”

I shook my head. Will and I had spoken about the video last night but now that I thought about it I wasn’t sure if he’d ever specifically mentioned Rosie or had just apologized for playing it.

“When I got back last night, I found that my whole family has forgotten her too,” I said. “But Rosie does exist. I travelled to this rock with her all the way from London. She ate at the table downstairs with us and took photos of the lighthouse outside. She was here. She was real. But somehow everyone’s forgotten her. I know this must sound completely impossible, but it’s the truth.”

There was quiet for a moment, then Will said, “It sounds wild but … well, with this place, I think anything is possible. It’s hard to accept that my memories aren’t accurate, though. If that’s the case, then how can we trust anything we think we know?”

I was silent for a moment. “I guess we can’t,” I 199finally said.

Will gestured at the words written on the walls. “Perhaps this has happened before. If people were vanishing and being forgotten, then how would we know that they’d vanished? Unless there was someone left like you who did still remember. Maybe that’s why so many keepers here were considered insane and ended up in asylums.”

“Yeah. I had the same thought.”

“If this is true, then it makes it even harder to know for sure what’s happening on the island,” Will went on, looking worried. “Maybe there was originally someone else in the lighthouse with you, or another hunter back at the camp with me, and they’ve gone, and we’ve forgotten them already. We can’t possibly know what we no longer remember.”

I groaned and put my head in my hands. I didn’t feel like myself at all. What if that meant it was happening to me too? Maybe it would be my turn to melt away into the fog next.

“What the hell is happening here?” I asked.

“It all stems from this place,” Will said. “It’s been unlucky since the day it was built.”

“When was that exactly?” I asked. 200

“No one knows. The records were lost, remember? Or never existed to begin with.”

“I’ve just been looking at one of the old keeper’s logbooks,” I said. “He keeps drawing this old woman. He calls her a … a bean nighe?”

I held up the book so Will could see. His eyes narrowed slightly at the sight of the old woman on the page.