I thought of arguing, but after what had just happened, it did sound good to get out of the lighthouse for a while. I nodded and followed him towards the door. He checked to make sure the staircase was clear, and then we both hurried down it, and I left a note for Dad saying I’d gone for a walk.

Despite the birds and the flies and the awful stench of guano, it was a relief to be out in the cool sea air, away from the oppressive atmosphere of the lighthouse. I followed Will as he picked his way over the scrubby grass, taking care to avoid the rocks. Every now and then, I glanced back at the lighthouse, my gaze drawn to it irresistibly, but nothing weird happened. No lights came on, and no faces appeared at the windows.

As we continued along the cliff, we passed close to the hunters’ camp and I saw some of the men in their blue overalls using a system of pulleys to 209pass large nets of birds from the high plateau, where they’d been plucking them, down to another part of the island, where they had built a series of peat fires on stone hearths.

One of the hunters was taking the headless birds from the sack and cracking their wings – a horrible sound that echoed through the air – before passing the carcasses to another hunter who held each one in the flames for a few minutes. Even from this distance, I could smell the fat that was pouring off the bodies and could see how the fire leaped and sizzled as the droplets dripped into it. The air smelled of singed skin and grease, and the whole thing made me shudder. There were piles and piles of the dead birds below, and the living ones seemed to fill the sky with their shrieks above us, as if they knew what was happening to their companions and were furious.

Will circled the camp and took us to where the island stretched out in a little outcrop. We were at the furthest point from the lighthouse here, while also being able to see it on the opposite piece of land directly ahead of us. A single stone bothy huddled close to the ground. Will said that it had originally been a place for the monks to come to meditate. 210

He stood back to let me go inside first. The circular entrance was so low that I had to crawl in on my hands and knees. Once inside, I couldn’t have stood up without knocking my head on the ceiling, but it was fine for sitting in. Faint beams of light shone through the cracks in the stones, and it took my eyes a moment or two to adjust to the dimness.