What Lies Beneath the Fog

》4《

"How did you sleep? Do you like your new room?" Mum called as soon as she heard me coming down the creaky stairs.

"Good, Mum, thanks. I really like it here," I told her, kissing her on the cheek and reaching for one of the ready pancakes.

"Take a plate, Liam, eat like a big boy! I know you are not even seventeen yet, but me at your age..." Dad teased, entering the kitchen. He winked at me and took a pancake, without a plate, himself.

"Oh, you two, at least sit down, I'll get you some tea," Mum said, laughing, placing a plate full of pancakes on the table.

When she joined us with three mugs of steaming hot tea, I was already talking to Dad about my dream.

"I'm not sure if this was a dream or if it happened just before I fell asleep... There was someone walking up the lane under my window last night. Are there some more houses up there? Could it be someone from the locals going home late?"

"No, Liam, our house is the last. The lane continues up for a while, then descends slightly to a staircase carved in the rocks. Behind that, there is a kind of a natural bridge, a narrow ledge on the cliff's side, that leads to the Old Lighthouse. From this side of the island, it is the only way to reach it. I don't know now, but it used to be closed in the past, at least to the tourists. Nobody would go there at night. It is far too dangerous," Dad informed me, and after a while, he added, "Unless you saw the local celebrity herself."

"Who would that be?" I asked, thinking maybe of an eccentric, retired artist or a deranged movie star. 

"The White Lady of Foggy Island, who else?!" My father grinned like a little, naughty boy. Obviously, he did not believe the island's legend himself.

"Enough! Stop talking of ghosts and spirits, and other local nonsense," Mum scolded. "Have your breakfast and then off with you two. You need to go down to Cala to thank Lynn and Will and buy some more groceries. I'll stay in today; there is loads of cleaning, unpacking, and organizing to be done while you are out."

So that was decided. We were to disappear for the morning.

As Mum had suggested, after breakfast, we split up. I walked out of the house with my father, leaving her home alone.

We went down the lane that led us around the surprisingly fog-free valley and its grazing sheep. It didn't take us that long down the hill; the village wasn't as distant as it seemed the previous evening.

After some time of walking in silence, Dad pointed to the left. A narrow path branched off from the lane there, leading to a white church perched on a cliff, above the village. And there were a couple of stone buildings standing around it, looking as ancient as the church itself.

"There, behind the church, is the local museum and library, Liam, should you ever get bored."

I noticed how his voice sounded different, more genuine in this tranquil place, without the city's filter of constant noise of the traffic and hundreds of contemporaneous conversations of thousands of people everywhere around us.

The only sounds I perceived here, apart from our voices, were the crashing of waves in the distance, an occasional screech of a hungry seagull, and a low rustle of the omnipresent heather bushes swaying in the breeze.

"What do they have in the museum, Dad?" I asked, knowing from the way he was looking at me, that he would tell me anyway. I didn't expect such a tiny island to have a museum.

"It may surprise you, but this place is amazingly rich in history," he started, his eyes full of excitement. "They have some extinct animals' bones, for instance, and a couple of well-preserved Iron Age tools. Then there are a few stones from the Norman castle that once stood on the other side of the island. Now it's completely ruined, and what's left of it is under the water, in the sea. They even found a few Roman coins in one of the caves on the shore. That's quite something! This is the only island in Scotland with a trace of the Ancient Roman Empire on it!"

My science loving father. Make him talk about nature or history...

"Most importantly," he went on, "at least for the kids your age, they have a whole lot of information about the old, Byron's Lighthouse, and its unlucky, tragic keepers. They are preparing a brand new exhibition about the White Lady and all that mysterious legend..."

There she was again, the White Lady. So, if I got it right, she was in some tragic way connected to the Old Lighthouse... I wanted to ask more about it, but it would have to wait. We have just reached the first houses of the village.

The lane that we followed until now, split in two here. One part led farther down, reaching the bay and the harbour, where we arrived yesterday. Most of this morning's mist seemed to be confined there at the moment, hovering above the water, hiding the fishing boats from view.

The other part widened into a road and stopped descending, turned to the right, and continued straight. Looking that way, I could see the village lying spread in front of us, along the road. It was formed by near-identical, stone, white-painted houses with small windows and red roofs. There didn't seem to be many of them, but there were a few lanes on both sides of the main road, with more cottages huddled along them, so I couldn't be sure of their number.

In the centre of the village stood the only pub and guest house on the Foggy Island, owned by Lynn and Will.

The White Lady.

Its wooden sign, depicting the local ghost walking over the cliffs, creaked slightly in the breeze. I had to smile, whoever had painted the image... obviously understood the local history better than art.

"Let's say hello to our friends first, and then we'll go to get the groceries. What do you think?" Dad suggested as we walked towards it.

"Yes, fine. I wonder if Dean is around in the summer, we haven't seen each other for such a long time."

Dean was Lynn and Will's only son, my potential new friend. We had only met a few times in the past, so we didn't know each other too well. However, he was only a year older than me. We might just have something in common.

"I hope so, Liam. He could show you around and introduce you to the local kids. Let's see."

We reached The White Lady a moment later, and my father pushed open the red-painted door of the old pub.