Daydreams| Outer Banks ¹

{Chapter Ten} The Lighthouse

"I mean, it's obvious, right?" John B said as the five pogues drove through the OBX. "A family heirloom? What better place to hide a message? He had to know it was gonna get back to us, right?"

JJ and Indi shared a glance which they both knew the other was thinking the same as them. The compass coming back was a coincidence but neither of them had the heart to tell John B that.

If going on wild goose chases was going to help John B eventually process the loss of his father then Indi and JJ were happy to along with it, as long as it all came to an end soon.

"Yeah. It's possible," Kiara agreed, going along with everything for John B.

"Or it's possible that you're concocting wild theories to help, you know, deal with your sad feels," Pope told the boy, being the only one out of the four to actually tell John B how he saw it.

Kiara sent Pope a warning look, telling him not to continue with what he was saying.

"Bro, you know how I process my sad feels?" JJ spoke up. "Dank nugs and the stickiest of ickys."

"Healthy," Indi remarked with a roll of her eyes.

"I'm not concocting, okay?"

"If it helps you believe, John B," Kiara spoke, in a soft voice, before he cut her off.

"Look, I don't need a therapy session, okay? I'm not trippin' out."

He was still in denial about his father. Everyone on the island knew he was dead, even Indi knew it. She didn't want it to be true, for her brother's sake, but after nine months he would have surely come back if he did get lost at sea.

However, John B would do anything in his power to avoid the topic of conversation. He was going to do anything he could to prove his father was still alive.

"Look, my dad is missing, okay. Missing. You don't know what is it like to have the person closest to you vanish and then have no idea what happened. To just wake up every morning wondering."

Indi would be lying if she said she didn't go to bed every night wondering what really happened to her father out there. He knew the oceans better than anyone she'd ever met, so yeah, it was suspicious that he got lost out there.

But hope was a dangerous thing and if there was only one thing Indi had learnt from her father it was that it was better to think of the worst than hope for the best.

"It's been almost a year," Kiara told John B in an attempt to get him to see past his hope.

"Hey, he could have been kidnapped. That's definitely a possibility," JJ blurted out. This made Indi laugh but she had to cover it with a cough to not upset her brother.

Pope nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah, he could be in a soviet sub getting interrogated by the KGB somewhere."

"Or Atlantis?" JJ suggested.

"JJ," Kiara said in a warning tone before turning back to John B. "Look, what do you think the message is?"

John B let out a sigh before answering her question. "Redfield. Redfield lighthouse. That's our dad's favourite place."

Indi peered out of the window to see a metal sign which read 'closed due to hurricane' pinned to the wooden board which directed drivers to the lighthouse.

She and her brother had been to the lighthouse many of times before their dad disappeared. He'd talk John B through the coastal shore, where was best for fishing and how to follow the sea using the stars, whilst Indi listened and tried to pretend that it didn't upset her to be constantly tossed aside.