main | table of contents The Reflecting Eye Copyright © 2003, S. Y. Affolee 8 The Lighthouse Driving the opposite direction from line seventy-four, Avtandil stretched from Monteport to the edge of the coastline and continued to skirt the border between sea and land by so many yards. But it was dark already at four-thirty in the afternoon and there was hardly any distinction between the land, the sea, or even the sky. It was only a swath of dark, cold velvet with only the pinpricks from the headlights of cars. Verity was driving to an address just outside of Monteport. Gammell had given her the address right before they parted at Miranda’s. “If you do decide to help me,” he had told her, “come by around five.” She could have gone straight home after work, but somehow, that little piece of paper with the address to the gray lighthouse beckoned to her. She tried giving herself a multitude of excuses. Gammell was probably crazy with all his talk about other worlds. Or at least highly delusional. The address was away from the relative safety of the city. And how well did she know Gammell anyway? Not well at all considering they had just met. But then there had been that frission of awareness every time he looked at her. What had that been about? It was as if his eyes were a blade, not just touching the insides of her wrists, but everywhere, along her arms, her back, the insides of her legs. Was he the hint of the escape from the real reason that she had come to Monteport? She shoved those self-examining thoughts aside. She came to Monteport because of a job. She was visiting Gammell because of a job. All right, she probably didn’t need the extra money, but she was curious about the antiques trade. And she was good at cataloguing. Because Gammell was strangely compelling had nothing to do with it. The lighthouse had been a steady pulsing star even from the city. As she neared, it grew larger and what supported that light that guided sailors loomed like a silent sentinel in black. There was a tiny road branching off from Avtandil and winding to the lighthouse. At the end of the road, she noticed that Gammell’s black compact car was parked in the grass. She parked beside his vehicle and got out of the car. She could hear the surf, a low relentless roar. The entrance to the lighthouse was as dark as the exterior. If there had been no light at all, she would have seen nothing. It would have simply been a strange column in the middle of the coastline. She knocked and waited. Amid the static noise of the surf, she heard the shrieks and cries of birds. The door opened and light and warmth from the interior spilled outward, warming her cheeks. Gammell stood in the doorway, temporarily surrounded by a halo of light. He was wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, top two buttons undone. His jeans looked like they were splattered with paint and his hair was mussed as if he had just come back from a brisk walk in windy weather. His gaze, however, was the same. “Hi.” Glancing into the interior, Verity saw that his living room was scattered with newspapers as if he were working on a delicate project which had the potential to leave something permanent on his floor. “Am I coming at a bad time?” “No. Come in Verity.” Once inside the threshold, she discovered that the newspapers weren’t in such a haphazard condition. They were surrounding a tiny chest of drawers which had been propped up by a square iron stand. Beside the chest were several bottles of chemicals, some brushes and rags, and a tool that looked like a scraper. For an antiques dealer, Gammell’s living room was remarkably modern. In the lighthouse with limited space, he had managed to fit in a couch and a large cabinet fronted with glass. Close to where the living room met another room that looked like the kitchen and the winding stair to the upper levels of the lighthouse was a large desk with a computer. As if reading her mind, he said, “I have a lot more antiques than just this curio cabinet but I’ve put them into storage.” He walked over to the chest of drawers sat down and proceeded to dump some of the chemicals into one of the rags. “You can put your coat on the couch. You can sit anywhere you like.” She did put her coat onto the couch, but she chose to sit on the floor, across from him, observing him in his work. “I didn’t expect this to be your home. I thought this was going to be some sort of a showroom. This wasn’t just some ploy to lure me here. “If it was a ploy, I succeeded, didn’t I?” He began rubbing the side of the chest slowly. “I used to run a store that sold antiques, but there’s not much of a free market there—three or four antique stores were already in existence in the Old Quarter when I came on the scene. Mine had been in the market district, not too far away, but people going to the market district aren’t going to buy antiques. So I turned consultant. More lucrative.” “If you’re a consultant, what do I have to do?” “When it comes to records, I’m somewhat disorganized. I have all the receipts and paperwork from my stint as a dealer. And of course the paperwork from my consulting jobs. But I also want a computerized database so lookup will be easier.” “Do you already have cataloguing software installed on your computer?” “Sorry, no. I don’t know very much about computers. That’s why I want an assistant—to help me with all of that.” “I guess I’ll set one up for you then.” She watched him carefully go over the front of the drawers with the rag. “Are you removing the old varnish and putting a new coating on?” “By Aunat, no.” He briefly looked up at her, irritated. “If you take the original varnish off this piece, the value will decline. I just want to get rid of the dust that’s accumulated.” “Oh.” “This curio cabinet is two hundred years old. It’s rather ingenious. After I finish, I can show you that it opens up with a false bottom in two of the drawers. There are drawers underneath those false bottoms. And in the bottom drawer, there’s a drawer within the drawer under the false bottom. It was probably rife with secrets when it was originally in use. Two hundred years ago, the head of the Rothburne family gave this cabinet to his soon-to-be wife as an engagement present. It was passed down through the years from mother to daughter.” “How did you get it? Did you buy it at an auction or through a client of yours?” “I acquired it from my sister. She has no use for antique things.” “How did your sister get it?” “She’s the direct descendant of that Rothburne line. But she hates family history. She says there are too many half-cocked relatives in our family already, including myself. So she married some tycoon down south and moved out of Monteport as soon as she could. She keeps on telling me that I should do the same if it were not for the top psychiatrists that now reside at the institute.” “You’re a Rothburne?” said Verity, somewhat surprised. “I thought your whole family moved away after you donated the manor to the institute.” “No, the family scattered. The rest of the family moved south to get away from the Monteport winters. The direct descendants stayed here. I’m the only one left and I’m not even in Monteport proper.” “It’s sad that your family fortunes have declined.” He glanced at her oddly. “Some would say that it was inevitable.” “Inevitable?” “The second Rothburne to live in Monteport was said to have dabbled in occult and magic. It was his own fault that he brought misfortune onto his own family. When I was a boy, I heard stories about this, all differing—some saying that he had been an ambitious and greedy magician, others saying that he was a bumbling and cowardly man who stumbled onto misfortune by accident. But the one thing that all these stories agree on is that the way to undo this misfortune is to repair the damage that he had done.” “It’s like a family curse. Have you tried finding more about it?” asked Verity. “My ancestor may have done something to make someone annoyed with him, but I don’t think it’s a curse. Just misfortune he brought upon himself. I’m doing all right myself so I’m not worried about the ramifications of my own family history. How about you? I think there are old strange skeletons in everyone’s closet.” Verity hesitated. The only skeletons were in her own closet. But for some reason, she felt she shouldn’t be compelled to blurt it all out, to let it go. The phone beside the computer suddenly rang. “I’ll get it,” said Gammell. She let out a breath, relieved that the decision was taken out of her own hands.