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one
To everyone’s surprise, it’s Nicky who causes the most fuss when Bee tells them they’re moving.
She’s sitting on the rocking chair, just across from the loveseat, and her hands are curled around a steaming mug of tea. After she calmly delivers the news, she shoots them that smile they’ve each come to know well over the years. The smile that turns her eyes into crinkly, crescent moons. The smile that means, you might not like this, but it’s the way it’s gonna be, kid.
“It was always my plan to move back to the island once I’d retired,” she goes on, when nobody says anything. “There’s this old cottage there that’s been in the family for years, and-”
“You can’t do this to us,” Nicky squawks all of a sudden. Andrew blinks, mildly surprised, and turns to face him. “I don’t want to move.”
“I know it’s a big change,” Bee replies serenely, “but I think it will be a good change. For all of us. I haven’t been to the island since I was a girl, but I remember it being-”
“I don’t care about some stupid island,” Nicky snaps, interrupting her again. “This isn’t fair. You’re- you’re ruining my life!”
With that, he rises from where he’d been wedged in between Aaron and Andrew on the loveseat and they all watch him storm off to his room and slam the door behind him. Andrew can’t help but hide his smirk in his fist. The thing is, Nicky never blows up at Bee, so it’s a bit of a novelty for everyone. She must be used to Aaron giving her attitude by now. Familiar with Andrew’s quieter fury, even, but Nicky? He never talks back, never gives her a reason to scold him, is always admonishing Aaron and Andrew for giving her shit, eager to remind them she was the only one who took a chance on fostering three boys who were just about to hit puberty and also came as a set, a trio.
“Well,” Bee says. “That was... unexpected. You two don’t have anything to say?”
“I hate school,” Aaron mumbles with a shrug.
“You realise you’ll still have to go to school, right?” Bee returns, raising an eyebrow at him. “The three of you will actually be doubling the island’s school-age population from three to six. Isn’t that cool?”
Aaron gives her a blank stare and then shrugs again before pulling out his Nintendo Switch from where it was sandwiched between the cushions and turning it on, apparently done with the conversation. Bee looks at Andrew instead.
“I don’t care where we live,” he says, because it’s true. All he gave a damn about growing up was not letting him, Aaron and Nicky get separated. Now that they’re all together, with Bee, why should it matter where they live? If Bee wants to go live on some tiny island nobody’s ever heard of, he’s all for it.
“And your cousin?” Bee asks him.
“He’ll come around,” Andrew assures her.
Bee gives him a small smile and takes a sip of her tea and Andrew supposes he should go check on Nicky. He walks into his cousin’s room without knocking and finds him curled up in a foetal position on top of his comforter, crying. Andrew frowns down at Nicky before raising his foot and nudging him in the ribs with his toes.
“Hey,” Andrew mutters. “The fuck was that?”
“It’s like I said,” Nicky manages through sobs, “I don’t want to move.”
Andrew’s frown deepens. “What’s going on with you?”
“I just started dating someone, alright?” Nicky hisses. “They asked me out like, two weeks ago and we’ve been dating and now I have to move and they'll probably dump me because who would agree to try long distance after only two weeks of dating? Ugh.”
Andrew knew this, actually, or could have guessed at the very least because he had seen Nicky and Erik Klose together after Erik’s last football game. Bee had forced Andrew to pick Nicky up as he was the only other driver in the household and he’d been waiting in the school parking lot when Erik must have been walking Nicky to the lot. And so, Andrew had seen them, holding hands and laughing, their smiles so wide they could’ve split their faces in two. Nicky had looked happy, so happy, but then he’d spotted the car and dropped Erik’s hand like it was a candy bar he’d been caught shoplifting. Andrew didn’t say anything when Nicky climbed inside the car even though the words fizzed inside his throat like violently shook-up soda. Me too, he’d wanted to say. I think, at least. How did you know?
So, they’d just driven home in silence, Andrew having rolled the windows down to air out the smell of the clandestine cigarette he’d just smoked, Nicky grinning into his sleeve as the world zoomed past them.
And now, two weeks later, Nicky buries his face in the front of his hoodie, sniffling, and Andrew still doesn’t know what to say, not really.
“If they don’t want to,” Andrew manages, eventually, “then fuck them. They don't deserve you.”
Nicky laughs at that, but it’s a little wet-sounding. As Andrew’s about to leave, though, Nicky murmurs a tiny thanks.
Andrew pretends not to hear it.
They’re going to be okay.
He thinks.
two
Bee wants them to finish the school year, so they do, which means they move away at the beginning of summer vacation. Andrew is fully prepared for summer on the island to be dull. What he isn’t prepared for is the weather; the island seems to be perpetually in the eye of a storm. The sky is always paint-water grey and the clouds are forever shedding themselves of rain like dogs shaking their coats free of mud. It’s a whole world away from the hot and humid summers he’d grown used to back in South Carolina.
Even though the weather is terrible ninety percent of the time, there’s plenty to be getting on with. Andrew, Aaron and Nicky help Bee tidy up the old cottage and make it as cosy and homely as their old place had been. Andrew takes the room in the attic and spends his days reading by the huge, circular window. It has a stained glass border so that on the rare occasion when the sun manages to poke its way through the gloom, it creates rainbow-coloured snippets of light on the old, creaky floorboards.
Taking her retirement very seriously, Bee returns to the myriad of hobbies that she’d previously only dabbled in. These include tending to the garden, making her own herbal tea blends, reading tarot cards and knitting. Bee has always been a knitter, really; she would make the boys scarves and sweaters at the time of year when autumn swooned into winter as well as various knick-knacks like book sleeves and pot holders for her friends. Andrew, Aaron and Nicky decide to learn too, and the four of them knit by the popping-candy crackle of the fire in the evenings while the rain batters the windows and the wind howls like a lost animal. They knit so much those first few weeks that Bee decides to open an Etsy shop so they can sell things on. Aaron, who is the worst knitter of them all by far, cycles to the post office and mails out the items, and the four of them split the cash evenly.
On the rare day that the weather is calmer, Andrew, Nicky and Aaron take the ancient, rickety fishing equipment they found in the garden shed and go down to the long, lonely stretch of the pier to fish. Or, that is, try to fish, as none of them really know what they are doing.
And so, time passes. Their new daily routines aren’t very exciting - are bordering on boring, even - but Andrew doesn’t really mind.
In his opinion, boring has its own sort of charm.
One evening, a few weeks into summer vacation, Aaron goes to bed early to play Nintendo and Nicky scurries off to the study to write a letter to someone Andrew assumes is Erik Klose (who, apparently, did agree to try a long distance relationship), so Bee and Andrew are left to their knitting. The wind outside has shrunk to a gentle, sleepy purr, and the only other sounds are the fire’s soft hiss-spitting and the rhythmic clacking of their needles. Andrew sips on a cup of Bee’s latest herbal tea blend, an infusion of chamomile, rose petals, lemon verbena and lavender, as he slowly works on a mustard-yellow book sleeve.
“What do you think?” Bee asks, nodding at the teacup in Andrew’s hand.
“A bit too floral for me,” Andrew replies, which they both know is a kind way of telling her it tastes like dirt. “But, it’s okay, I guess.”
“I should have you write the labels,” Bee teases with a wink. “Want to take a break? I could read your cards.”
Andrew’s hands have begun to cramp a little, so he nods and scoots over to her.
“You got a question for me?” Bee asks, shuffling her tarot deck.
Andrew hums. He doesn’t, really, but he supposes he can pick something cliché. Just to play along.
“What does the rest of the summer hold for me?” Andrew drawls, a little sarcastically.
“Good one,” Bee replies. She cuts the deck in half. Picks up a card. “Two of Cups. The card of happy relationships. Could symbolise a budding or flourishing friendship. Or, romance, maybe?”
Andrew pulls a face. “Definitely not my card. Try again.”
“The cards don’t lie,” Bee sing-songs, waggling her finger, but she acquiesces and cuts the deck again before flipping over another card.
“Ouch. The Tower. You know this one, right?”
Andrew blinks dazedly at the card, taking in the bold zig-zag of lightning striking the tower, cracking it like an egg. “Destruction?”
“Of a sort. It represents an unavoidable event, maybe even a disaster,” Bee confirms. “And the change that comes in its aftermath.”
“Great,” Andrew says blandly. “Sounds incredible.”
“You could have stopped at one card,” Bee chides playfully. “Good job you don’t believe in them, huh?”
“True,” Andrew replies. He likes going through Bee’s different decks and looking at the pretty illustrations, but he doesn’t believe the cards have a way of predicting the future (though Bee would tell him that she doesn’t think that’s their function, either, that they’re more a way of communicating with yourself, of figuring things out or finding a potential answer to a problem, ‘just like therapy’).
The heat from the fire and the tea has made him feel drowsy and he doesn’t feel like returning to his knitting, so he says goodnight to Bee and heads up to the attic. The stairs creak resentfully beneath his bare feet as he goes.
Once he’s in bed, under the covers, his gaze travels to the bitten-nail crescent moon hung just outside of the yawning attic window. It looks mocking, like a crooked, pointy grin, and he returns the smile lazily before closing his eyes hard.
Before he falls asleep, he thinks of the two cards Bee had pulled for him.
The Two of Cups. The Tower.
He thinks of overflowing water.
Tumbling bricks.
three
The next morning it’s sunny and Aaron traipses into Andrew’s room with a fishing pole in hand. It bumps against the wooden beams of the ceiling noisily and Andrew scrunches up his nose in annoyance before poking his head out of the blankets and squinting at his brother.
“There’s no rain,” Aaron announces loudly, gesturing at the window. “Let’s go out, dipshit.”
Andrew tosses a pillow at him but climbs out of bed all the same.
The three of them run down to the pier after a breakfast of croissants stuffed with melty brie and thick slices of cucumber. The sky is heavy with grey, staticy clouds and it weighs down on them like a threat. Nevertheless, they clumsily cast their lines, resting their rods against the cold metal of the railing afterwards.
After an hour or so, Nicky gets fidgety and abandons his rod to run down to the pier’s end.
“I miss you!” Nicky screams into the void-that-is-not-a-void of sea and sky. At the disturbance, a flock of sea-birds pulses outwards from the rocks in all directions like a feathery, screeching firework. “I really miss you!”
“Oh my god,” Aaron hisses under his breath, looking around wildly for anyone who could be listening before hiding his face in the crook of his elbow. “Shut up.”
Andrew just laughs what Nicky and Aaron call his evil villain laugh, wishing he had something to shout into the void, too.
Once Andrew’s stopped laughing, he goes back to his fishing pole. Nothing’s bitten, so he looks up at the sky instead.
Above, he can see the wavy outlines of the startled sea-birds, like bits of bent, black wire. They’re squawking like it’s the end of the world and circling the old lighthouse.
Though the lighthouse is tall - imposing in its own quiet way - Andrew has to admit he hasn’t paid much attention to it on all these unsuccessful fishing trips.
Giving it a fleeting glance now, he can tell it’s defunct. Abandoned.
“It’s haunted,” Aaron says, all of a sudden, as if he’s subconsciously followed Andrew’s train of thought. He fiddles with the reel of his fishing pole and it chirps like a mechanical bird. “Katelyn told me.”
“Who’s Katelyn?” Andrew asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Is she that pretty girl whose family runs the post office?” Nicky asks. He’s just ran back from the end of the pier and he’s out of breath, doubled over. “I saw you talking to her the other day when we went to mail out that pot holder.”
Aaron blushes a cherry red and tries to change the subject. “Does nobody care that I said it’s haunted?”
“There’s no such thing as haunted,” Andrew replies, rolling his eyes.
“You don’t know that,” Aaron mumbles.
They take a break for lunch, rushing back to the cottage to eat before returning to the pier. Impossibly, the rain stays away. It’s as if the stormy weather is being held back by some kind of mystical force. A magical barrier.
Eventually, though, twilight comes and the sky is swampy with mist. Aaron and Nicky start packing their things away, grumbling about how they haven’t caught any fish even though they should’ve known that they’d all catch jack shit from the word go. Andrew slowly bundles his own things together too, but he’s distracted. He can’t stop thinking about the lighthouse and how it looms, empty and useless, on the edge of the sea. The jagged cracks in its greying paint remind him of something. The Tower card from the other night, perhaps, and he scratches the back of his head, feeling like he’s being watched all of a sudden.
When he looks up, he sees what looks like a shadow pass by one of the higher windows.
And even though Andrew knows it must be a trick of the light, an image spun from shadow and fog and bird, a shiver travels up his spine anyway.
four
Somehow, they’ve acquired an interloper.
Katelyn-from-the-post-office begins tagging along on their fishing escapades and alternates between asking Aaron to teach her how to fish (as if he has half a clue), and sitting on the pier’s edge reading a beat-up paperback with a cover like a cheap Halloween movie. Andrew prefers it when she does the latter, because it’s quieter, but he’d much prefer it if she didn’t bother them in the first place. He doesn’t understand why she has to be there at all. It’s not like she’s their friend.
Aaron and Nicky don’t seem to mind though, so he holds his tongue.
The rain seems to have returned from its extended vacation but falls into the sea in sad, sparse droplets. It’s like it doesn’t have the strength to really go for it anymore and make them run for cover like it used to. Andrew doesn’t mind because it means they can stay out for as long as they want, even after the sun sets.
Once the sky’s starting to darken and his fishing pole has long been abandoned, Andrew sneaks off to hide in the shadows that huddle round the base of the lighthouse and smoke a cigarette. The three of them are usually at home by this hour, taking shelter from the wailing, rainy chaos, and it isn’t as easy to scurry away under Bee’s watchful eye. But now, he’s alone, and he sucks smoke into his lungs and lets it linger there until he’s feeling light-headed. When he breathes out, he blows wispy tendrils of white into the night. As he stands there, it gets darker by the second. Stars begin to dot the sky like freckles blooming under sunlight. The moon comes out of its hiding spot between a cluster of gossiping clouds, a slightly thicker slice of fruit than it had been the night before. Its reflection - its twin - shimmies and shivers on the surface of the sea.
It’s quiet. Oddly peaceful.
Then, the giggles of the other three twist toward him from further down the pier and it’s over. Andrew tosses his cigarette butt away, stuffs his pink-cold hands in his pockets and goes to rejoin them.
“What’s all the fuss about?” Andrew grumbles as he approaches.
“Oh. We were just playing a game-” Nicky starts.
“Did you go take a piss?” Aaron interrupts, quirking his head to the side. “You were ages.”
Andrew shrugs. “Sue me.”
“It kind of smells like cigarettes,” Katelyn muses, looking around curiously and wrinkling her nose. “Do you guys smell that?”
Nicky frowns. “Maybe a little-”
“Nope,” Andrew interjects. “Weird. Must be imagining things.”
“But-”
“What game were you playing?”
“Truth or dare,” Aaron replies smugly, in a way that implies playing truth or dare makes him cooler than cool.
“Wow. Edgy,” Andrew comments blandly.
“You wanna do one?” Katelyn asks him and she’s either immune to sarcasm or just politely ignoring his tone. Andrew can’t decide which is worse.
He narrows his eyes at her. “More than anything.”
Katelyn hums and looks around. It’s properly dark now and they’re all obscured slightly by the lack of light. Nevertheless, Andrew just about makes out her blurry, pointing finger.
“Why don’t you go inside the lighthouse?” Katelyn dares.
There’s a heartbeat of silence.
“Didn’t- didn’t you say it was haunted?” Aaron asks, sounding nervous.
“Well, that’s what makes it a dare.” Katelyn pauses and then, to Andrew, she says, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to-”
“I’ll do it,” Andrew bites out around a sharp grin.
He feels everyone’s gaze swivel towards him, but before Nicky and Aaron can start protesting, he’s already turning on his heel and walking away.
The rain gets heavier as the sky growls loudly above his head. Andrew reaches the lighthouse entrance feeling slightly breathless and pushes against the door. He curses under his breath as it whines, straining against the pull of a bolt lock. Enough of the old door opens that he catches a pale, chiffony border of light, though, which means the bolt is fastened but loose. He slips his old library card out of his wallet and uses it to lever and slide the bolt away from its slot. Like that, the door slowly unlocks.
Andrew steps inside and begins climbing a spiralling staircase. It’s immediately cold, reminding him of crawling inside of an ice tunnel on a snow day, and rain taps curiously at the windows that border the walls. Above, there’s this honeyed, tell-tale flicker of light and Andrew feels a sudden sureness enter his bones: he knows he’ll find someone at the top.
Ghost or animal or human, they’ll be there. Waiting for him.
He quickens his pace and sure enough, when he arrives at the top and enters the lantern room, there’s a boy standing just ahead, his shadow stretching across the floor like a shock of spilled paint.
The boy has red hair the colour of mashed berries. Of Bee’s homemade jam. He’s scrawny, all limbs, wearing a hoodie that completely swallows him and pants that look too short, exposing a set of bony ankles. Next to him, on the floor, lie a sleeping bag, an open duffel, and a camping stove. The boy’s eyes are as big as dinner plates, a fiery midnight blue in the half-light from the gloom and the candle-lit lanterns.
He looks terrified for a few seconds before relief momentarily softens him.
Then, he just looks annoyed.
And Andrew- Andrew opens his mouth to make some smart comment or other but at that exact same moment, two things happen in very quick succession.
One: lightning strikes just outside the window. Only once, a brilliant, all-consuming white.
Two: the boy uses this brief, disorienting flash to rush forward toward Andrew and press a pen-knife against the soft column of his exposed, rain-damp throat.
Andrew sucks in a breath through his teeth.
“You’re just a kid,” the boy remarks.
“Just a kid,” Andrew repeats, ignoring the blade bumping against his Adam's apple. “I bet I’m older than you.”
The boy laughs breathily then pulls away his knife, twirling it in his hand like he’s performing a magic trick before tucking it in his back pocket. “I’m fifteen. You?”
Andrew raises a hand to his neck, brushes his fingertips against his pulse point and is surprised to find it racing. “Sixteen,” he grits out. “I win.”
“I never agreed to a bet,” the boy says, raising his eyebrows. He looks around wildly as if he’s waiting for someone else to step inside the lantern room. “How the fuck did you get in?”
“Lock wasn’t very secure,” Andrew replies blandly.
The boy tuts. “I knew it wasn’t. Just banked on nobody actually wanting to break into this shithole.”
Andrew looks around. The inside of the lighthouse looks just as run-down as its exterior. The actual lantern lurks just beyond some clear doors, taking up much of the centre of the room, its panelled lens making it look like some huge crystal. One that’s lost its shine and has become dull and lifeless.
“It was a dare,” Andrew tells him.
“A dare,” the boy repeats, nonplussed. “Right.”
“Everyone says this place is haunted,” Andrew goes on, shrugging.
“Well, as you can see, I’m very much not a ghost.”
“Okay, Mr. Very-much-not-a-ghost,” Andrew says, folding his arms. “You got a name?”
“You can call me Neil,” the boy replies after a long moment. “You want a cup of tea?”
Andrew stares at Neil as he processes the question. The last thing he thought he’d be offered by someone who had just had a knife to his throat was a cup of tea.
“Sure,” he replies, eventually. “I’m picky, though.”
Neil rolls his eyes and heads over to the camping stove. He fiddles with the dial, the gas canister hissing, cat-like, before the flame catches. Then, Neil pours a bottle’s worth of water into a beat-up looking saucepan to bring it to the boil over the heat.
While the stove thrums away, Andrew just watches as Neil potters around, grabbing a couple of metal camping mugs and a beat-up box of Earl Grey tea.
Andrew can’t help but balk at the sight. “Earl Grey? Really?”
Neil looks at him, affronted. “I’m half-British.”
“And have no taste, apparently.”
Neil grumbles under his breath as he decants the bubbling water into the mugs and passes one to Andrew.
“It’s old lady tea.” Andrew takes a disgruntled slurp while it’s so hot he can barely taste it. “And disgusting.”
“I resent that.”
Andrew takes another, scalding sip. “So, what’s the deal? You a runaway, or something?”
Neil, who had previously been twitchy, stills. His gaze darkens like something charring. “That obvious, huh?”
“It’s not like I’m gonna rat you out,” Andrew continues. “You can trust me.”
Neil winces. “I barely know you.”
Andrew looks down at the dregs of his tea. The others are probably wondering where he is. He already knows he won’t tell them what he’s found. As he said, he’s trustworthy. Plus, they wouldn’t believe him even if he did tell them. A spiky pole of a boy living in the lantern room of the lighthouse? Making tea by candle-light on a creaky, old stove and slinking inside a ratty sleeping bag at night? It’s the stuff of adventure stories. They’d sooner believe there was a ghost floating about.
“I won’t tell anybody,” Andrew tells Neil, firmer this time, earning an owlish blink in response. “I’m ‘just a kid’, remember?”
“Okay,” Neil says finally, apparently done with his appraisal of Andrew. “I believe you.”
“You want me to come back?” Andrew finds himself asking. “I can bring stuff.”
Neil’s eyes are glossy with fire-light and Andrew doesn’t really know what he’s doing. He can’t believe there’s some kid hiding out in the old lighthouse. Living there like it’s normal. More than anything else, it’s the most interesting thing Andrew’s come across since they moved to the island.
As such, he’s determined to hold onto it, at least for now.
“If you want,” Neil says with an easy shrug. “Things were getting a bit tough, to be honest. I was starting to ration supplies.”
“Well, I can easily bring you food or whatever,” Andrew tells him. “You’ll owe me a few stories in return, though.”
Neil frowns at that, but holds out his hand anyway.
Andrew shakes it before handing Neil his empty cup. “I can bring you some tea that actually tastes good, as well.”
“I’m quite happy with my Earl Grey, thanks,” Neil responds, mock-offended, and oh. Yes, Andrew thinks. This certainly rattles things up a bit.
The others are gone by the time Andrew makes his way outside again. It’s raining even more forcefully as he makes his way back to the cottage, thunderous hands wringing the sky like a rag, but he takes his time anyway. He knows the secret of the lighthouse now, and he’ll carry it with him like any other precious thing he might find by the shore.
He’ll keep it close, like a marbled pebble with veins of fluorescent turquoise, or a funny-shaped twig, nestled in the safe haven of his pocket.
When Andrew finally gets home, soaked through but still grinning his fanged wolf's grin, Nicky and Aaron immediately start questioning him.
Andrew doesn’t give them anything but his silence.
That, and a shushing finger against his pursed lips.
five
The first time Andrew visits Neil, he gives him some spicy potato chips, a couple of slices of Bee’s cherry-studded fruit cake, a box of Sencha green tea and an accompanying bauble of a strainer. In return, he learns how Neil travelled to the island in a stolen, wooden rowboat.
The second time, Andrew brings a few packets of instant ramen, a bag of plump, neon-orange tangerines, and most of a loaf of bread. Neil offers him a story about hiding out in a cave by the harbour before eventually finding the abandoned lighthouse.
The third time, Andrew gifts Neil a stack of well-thumbed fantasy novels, a few rolls of toilet paper, some cheese and stale crackers.
For those, Neil tells him about running away.
“My parents aren’t very good people,” Neil says, nibbling around a cracker. When he talks about the past, his voice goes kitten-paw soft. Distant as Pluto. “I saw some pretty awful things. Got scared. Took off.”
“Are they looking for you?” Andrew asks, feeling a sudden leak of protectiveness trickle through him.
Neil pouts, thinking about it. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’m not very valuable. Not really.”
You are to me, Andrew thinks. As thoughts go, it’s completely unbidden, stupid and Andrew pushes it to the side, hoping it’ll disappear if it’s ignored.
“And if they are,” Neil continues, hugging his knees to his chest and offering Andrew a grin, “they’ll never find me here, right? Some island in the middle of nowhere. An old, broken-down lighthouse that nobody would ever willingly enter.”
Andrew raises his eyebrows.
“Nobody except you, that is,” Neil concedes, looking at Andrew like he’s some kind of miracle, his eyes entirely too loud in their blueness. “Guess you’re special, huh?”
Andrew scoffs and shakes his head, but Neil just continues to look at him like he could save the planet from being destroyed if he wanted to. It’s overwhelming. Makes Andrew want to curl in on himself like a pill bug and roll away.
“How long has it been since you ran away?” Andrew asks, trying to steer the conversation away from himself.
“A while,” Neil replies, deliberately vague. “I squatted in a few apartments here and there but I was mostly on the move. On trains or buses or even just walking. I could walk for miles and miles but I always felt this creeping sense of dread, like someone was about to catch up with me. It wasn’t until I came out here that things got better. That feeling hasn’t gone away, I guess, but it burns a little less brightly.”
“Like you’ve turned down the dimmer switch,” Andrew mutters.
“Exactly,” Neil says, nodding his head. “Like I’ve turned down the dimmer switch.”
“So, you like it... here?” Andrew asks, trying not to sound too disbelieving.
“I do like it,” Neil replies. “It would be nice if it were a little more homely, but-”
“We can make it more homely,” Andrew tells him.
“We can?”
“My foster mother has so much cutesy, cosy shit back at the cottage. There’s paint and tools and stuff, too. I’m sure we could make this place look like less of a dump if we tried.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. My brother and my cousin and I got the cottage ready in less than a week, pretty much.”
Neil presses his lips together. “Do you think they could help us?”
Andrew frowns. “My brother and cousin? You want to let them in on this?”
“They’re just kids, too, right? It’s not like they’ll tell anyone what we’re up to.”
Andrew knows Aaron and Nicky wouldn’t tell Bee, especially if it incurred Andrew’s wrath, but the thought of telling them still makes Andrew wary. He likes that whatever’s happening is just between him and Neil. He feels like widening the circle to include more people would make everything feel less special, somehow, but he also knows that it’s a petty, childish thought he shouldn’t indulge.
“I’ll ask them to help,” he tells Neil.
“Cool,” Neil says, flicking Andrew some dorky finger guns and it’s so fucking cute and endearing that Andrew forgets all about not not indulging his own stupid whims for a second.
“So, do you wanna sneak out tonight, or what?” he asks.
Neil blinks at Andrew as he digests the question, his eyelashes fluttering like moth wings. “Maybe,” he replies, a little uncertainly. “What did you have in mind?”
“Just meet me by the trees by the old farm around midnight, okay?”
“So, it’s like, a surprise?”
“You don’t like surprises?”
Neil thinks about it. “I mean, I could learn to.”
“Okay,” Andrew replies. His stomach growls audibly and he supposes he should go home to join the others for dinner. “See you tonight, then.”
“Tonight,” Neil repeats before nodding. He has ever so slightly pinkened. “Got it.”
Andrew walks home feeling not only hungry but embarrassingly triumphant.
six
Andrew sneaks out after everyone is asleep.
Neil is waiting by the tree-line like he said he would be. He looks a little on edge but when he sees Andrew approaching he visibly relaxes, his shoulders lowering and a smile brightening his pale, moonlit face.
They walk a bit and then Andrew settles a huge, plaid picnic blanket on the ground, signalling for Neil to stop. He pulls out a smaller, yellow comforter from his backpack as well as a flask of camomile and cinnamon tea and a chunk of spiced banana bread for them to share.
They drink their tea then lie down on the picnic blanket, looking up at the velvety swathes of black sky above them.
“Why do we force the stars into bullshit shapes and call them constellations?” Neil mutters after a moment of silence. “Why can’t they just be stars?”
“I think that would put a lot of astronomers out of business,” Andrew replies dryly.
Neil does a full-on belly laugh and Andrew just continues to squint up at the sky to see if he can recognise any constellations. He and Aaron used to be into that kind of thing when they were a bit younger. Aaron even stole a book about it from the school library. Bee gave them hell for that.
“What are you looking for?” Neil asks, still sounding amused.
“Anything,” Andrew mumbles in response.
“So, is that what you wanna be when you’re all grown up?” Neil asks teasingly. “An astronomer?”
“Fuck no,” Andrew replies. “I’m going to be a therapist. Like Bee was.”
Neil hums. “Once the lighthouse looks nice, maybe we could get it up-and-running again. I could be a lighthouse-keeper.”
Andrew shoots him a look. “You could be a lighthouse-keeper.”
Neil laughs again.
“Why not?” Andrew goes on. “You could stay on the island. Guide the boats. I’m sure it would be kind of boring, but someone should probably do it. You could pretend you’ve lived here all along. Go to the market and the post office. Go for hikes. But you’d never stray too far from the lighthouse. You’d take care of things, of the lantern-”
Neil’s laughter fades and Andrew gets this feeling that he should stop talking.
He waits for Neil to say something but Neil doesn’t respond at first, his eyes glued to the stars above.
“That would be nice,” Neil says, eventually. His words come out accompanied by a sigh that peels off into the night like a scrap of fog. “That would be-”
He trails off, his gaze clouding over slightly, as if he’s looking at something that Andrew can’t see, something unreal or far-off.
“Sometimes, I think of my life as a piece of elastic,” Neil continues after a little while, raising his hands and making nonsensical shapes with them as he talks. “Stretching taut, you know? More often than not, it’s been tense, a quivering thing, close to breaking, even. But, in the end, it always snaps back into place. Something resembling normal.”
“This is normal to you?” Andrew gestures around vaguely, thinking not of the shadowy clearing they’re currently in but of the abandoned lighthouse. Of Neil’s lonesome, clawed-out fox den of a life.
“Something resembling,” Neil repeats pointedly, finally tearing his gaze away from the stars and turning slightly to face Andrew.
A sudden breeze twirls in a pirouette around them, kicking up a flurry of dead grass. Dry flower petals. Neil’s eyes are wide and bottomless, black and twinkly as entire galaxies in the dark, and he’s so close.
So very close.
Andrew clears his throat for no reason and tucks his hands between his knees.
“It’s comforting to think of things like that,” Neil goes on, bringing his index fingers together and then moving them apart, as if tugging on an imaginary rubber band. “That it’s all fine. But I’m just a kid, really. I don’t really know much about anything. I’m actually pretty useless in so many ways. So, thinking about the future- it scares me. Because, like, what am I gonna do? When I’m an adult, what am I gonna do?”
Neil’s questions are gilded with desperation. Yearning. Andrew squeezes his knees tight, locking his hands in place so they won’t reach out for something unattainable. There are a million things he wants to say but he’s not sure which of them to give form to. In so many ways, he too feels like a useless kid.
“You can do whatever the fuck you want to do,” he says, finally. “What even is ‘normal’ anyway? There’s no such thing.”
Neil frowns but he nods. “You’re right. It’ll work out, won’t it?”
And Andrew wants to tell him yes . Yes, of course it’ll work out. Andrew will fucking make sure of it if he has to.
But Neil just shakes his head before Andrew can say anything. Before he can make any childish promises. “Sorry. You planned this whole picnic and I’m just- ugh, never mind. It’s cold, right? Should we head?”
“Let’s head,” Andrew replies. He folds up the comforter and picnic blanket and tucks them into his backpack neatly.
When they walk back, they’re quiet. It’s not until they’re about to part ways that Neil speaks again.
“Hey,” he begins. “At least I have you, right? That’s ‘normal’, isn’t it, having a friend?”
Andrew gives a tiny nod and Neil grins, his eyes squeezing shut.
“I’ve never had a friend before,” Neil goes on. He opens his eyes, holds Andrew’s glance for a second or two, and then waves once before walking off in the direction of the lighthouse.
Andrew waits until he disappears from his line of sight before heading home, feeling like a whole new constellation has just flickered into being inside of him.
seven
It only takes them a few days to make the lighthouse look a little nicer.
Nicky makes a ‘clean-up’ playlist and they listen to it while sweeping all the floors and sprucing up the walls with a coat of pale pink paint they found in the garden shed. Aaron washes all the windows and Neil sorts through his things, collecting all his rubbish for the others to throw away when they leave.
After everything’s sparkling-clean, they start decorating. Andrew, Aaron and Nicky bring a few potted houseplants they hope Bee won’t notice are missing and some cushions and blankets they know are going spare. Andrew even puts up a shelf for Neil’s rapidly-growing book collection.
Nicky and Aaron get along with Neil surprisingly well, and while Andrew and Neil don’t tell them the whole story, they accept that Neil is a runaway who’s living ‘between places, just now’ without asking too many awkward questions.
Everything is going fine, and the lighthouse is almost-perfect, until Aaron shows up one day with Katelyn trailing behind him.
“What’s she doing here?” Andrew asks, a spark of annoyance flaring into being inside of him. He’d taken a risk getting Nicky and Aaron involved. To let one more person in on the secret just increases the risk of Neil’s existence on the island getting revealed.
If that happens, Neil could be taken away.
And Andrew’s not going to let that happen.
“She can help, jackass,” Aaron snaps, glaring at him.
“I won’t tell, really,” Katelyn says to nobody in particular before wandering around to get a good look at the lighthouse.
She stops when she reaches the bookshelf and turns to Neil with a grin on her face. “You read the ‘Secret Pirate’ series, too?”
Neil visibly brightens. “Yeah, I just started it. It’s cool so far, though. I really like Kafka, the right hand man?”
“Oh, yes. He’s lovely,” Katelyn replies dreamily. “Pierre’s my favourite, though. She’s so, like, powerful. I just want to be her.”
Andrew frowns and gets back to unravelling the string lights, irritation still pulsing through him. Andrew was the one who had brought Neil the Secret Pirate books and they hadn’t even talked about them yet. The string lights look even more tangled than they’d been five minutes ago and he silently rages.
“You need help hanging those?” Nicky asks.
Andrew shoots one last look at Katelyn and Neil and nods his head.
Everything will be fine, he reminds himself, later, when they finally turn the string lights on, hundreds of tiny bulbs illuminating the ceiling like so many stars, and Neil coos at the sight, amazed.
It’ll have to be.
-
A few days later, operation tidy-up-the-lighthouse is complete.
“I can’t believe how cute and pretty it looks,” Neil says, looking from the elaborate blanket fort they’ve constructed around his sleeping bag to the creaky, little tea trolley Andrew had extracted from the dusty depths of the attic.
“We did amazing,” Nicky breathes out, slinging an arm around Neil’s shoulders. “I’m actually jealous I don’t get to live here.”
“Me too,” Katelyn adds. “It’s so cosy. The perfect place to hide away from the world and read.”
“You have everything you need, you reckon?” Aaron asks Neil, who nods immediately.
“Guys, this is more than enough, seriously,” he says. “I never expected even this much, I swear. I- I really appreciate it. Wish I could repay you somehow.”
Andrew reaches out for Neil’s hand and squeezes it in his own. Neil shoots him a grateful smile and then a wink, his grin morphing into something flirtier.
Andrew keeps holding Neil’s hand even though he feels his cheeks heat up and can hear Aaron coughing awkwardly.
“Should we go back to the cottage for dinner now?” Aaron asks, looking at an invisible watch on his wrist.
“Yeah, Bee will be expecting us soon, I guess,” Nicky replies, shooting Andrew a questioning glance that Andrew promptly ignores.
“I’ll catch up,” Andrew tells them as they start descending the staircase. Nicky tries to catch his eye again, a knowing smile playing at his lips, but Andrew just shoves the door closed in his face and returns to Neil’s side.
As soon as he’s there, Neil intertwines their hands again. They look up at the miniature galaxy of string lights.
“Thank you,” Neil says again, leaning his head on Andrew’s shoulder ever so lightly. “Nobody’s ever done anything like this for me before.”
Andrew shrugs. “No big deal. You deserve it.”
“You know, you really make me feel like I do,” Neil says, sounding surprised. “And- I meant what I said before. I wish there was some way I could repay you-”
Andrew shakes his head. “Just stay. Be you. That’s enough.”
“Okay,” Neil replies in a quiet voice. “I will.”
Andrew wishes he could hang around for longer, but Bee would probably get suspicious if he started skipping out on dinner. He untangles his hand from Neil’s own and grabs his jacket and backpack.
“It’s always lonely here,” Neil says distantly. “When you guys leave. I- I don’t mean that in a selfish, ungrateful way. I just-”
“Maybe one day, I could stay,” Andrew interrupts. “I’ll try to work something out.”
Neil freezes, momentarily surprised, and then off he goes again with the smile bursting with flirt. “That’d be nice.”
Andrew reluctantly forces himself down the stairs and heads towards the cottage.
Walking through the door, the first thing Andrew notices is that the cottage is quiet. Too quiet. When he enters the lounge, he immediately spots Bee sitting on the couch with her hands in her lap. Her gaze swivels to him and she looks solemn, her mouth a perfect straight line, and dread twists in Andrew’s gut.
Next to her, Katelyn, Aaron and Nicky stand in a line, looking awkward.
Looking guilty.
“You told her?” Andrew bites out.
Aaron chooses to focus on a particularly special spot on the floor while Nicky picks at imaginary lint on his sweater. Katelyn is the only one who holds her head up and looks at him.
“It’s not right,” she says calmly. “Him living like that. Surviving on scraps, potentially freezing to death.”
“Having nobody,” Nicky adds.
He has me, doesn’t he? Andrew feels like shouting.
“I’ve called the authorities,” Bee tells Andrew, and rage begins to boil in Andrew’s belly.
He was the only one who knew Neil’s story. It had been entrusted to him. Like something precious. As soon as he’d heard it, he’d decided protecting Neil from any more hurt was the most important thing. Something he had to do. But now-
“Fuck you,” Andrew finds himself saying, looking at the four of them in turn. “Fuck all of you.”
He storms out, anger and frustration pinballing through him, and he makes it all the way to the garden before collapsing on his ass on the lawn. Everything feels terrible, ruined beyond repair, and Andrew feels like a useless kid, unable to protect anyone, unable to fix anything.
Adrenaline courses through him, sharp and fast as an arrow, making him feel shaky, explosive. He focuses on breathing in and out, willing himself to calm down. He has to figure things out - to mend things - and he can’t do that without a level head.
Nicky finds him a good ten minutes later.
Andrew tries to ignore his cousin but he plonks himself right in Andrew’s line of sight, his mouth opening and closing silently like he’s a fucking goldfish.
When he finally speaks, he comes out with something wholly unexpected.
“You like Neil, don’t you?”
Andrew sinks his hands into the grass, his fingernails scraping against the dirt. “Yes,” he bites out, ripping out a handful of green blades and letting them scatter in the breeze. Yes , of course he does.
“Okay,” Nicky breathes out. “You know, my- the person I’ve been writing letters to back home- it's Erik Klose? You know, from the football team at our old school? He’s my... boyfriend.”
“That’s nice,” Andrew says sarcastically, wishing they didn’t have to do this right now. “Imagine if you were protecting him from something awful and Aaron, Bee and I fucked it all up. You wouldn’t be very happy, would you?”
Nicky frowns. “We haven’t fucked anything up. You’re so- you’ve always been like this, Andrew. So ferociously determined to keep everyone safe. I remember when someone wanted to foster just you and Aaron and not me and you just, like, lost it. Said you’d never let the three of us be split up. And with Neil, with keeping him a secret, it’s the exact same thing.”
“I want to keep Neil a secret,” Andrew tells him, “because I don’t want anyone to take him away. I said I wouldn’t tell. I told him that you guys wouldn’t tell.”
“But- Katelyn is right, Andrew,” Nicky fires back, his voice rising. “It’s not right, him living like that. You think you’re keeping him safe but that kind of life- he’s not safe. Don’t you get it? He’s just a kid. Younger than all of us, even.”
“He can take care of himself,” Andrew grits out.
“But he shouldn’t have to,” Nicky all but yells and that finally makes Andrew look up at him. Nicky’s visibly upset, breathing hard, his chest practically heaving because of it.
“Hey-”
“Doesn’t Neil deserve what we have?” Nicky interrupts, voice shaky, tears glistening in his eyes now. “Someone to look after him?”
“I’m looking after him,” Andrew retorts, getting to his feet.
Nicky makes an exasperated noise and takes another shivery, deep breath. “You’re just a kid, too, Andrew. I’m talking about like, an actual adult-”
“What’s so great about adults? All they’ve done is fuck Neil over-”
“But- doesn’t he deserve a chance to find his Bee? Someone who’ll take him in, keep him warm and well-fed? Scold him when he does wrong? Teach him things?”
Andrew shakes his head, feeling furious all over again, this time because he knows he’s fighting a battle he’s going to lose. Nicky, the rest of them - they're right, he knows that. He just doesn’t want to accept it because then Neil will be-
“It’s okay if he goes,” Nicky says softly. Quietly. Like he’s sure. “It doesn’t mean you won’t talk. It doesn’t even mean you won’t see him again.”
“This isn’t the same as your long distance relationship,” Andrew tells him darkly. “If they put him in the system, he might not have anyone looking out for him the way we did. Or, they could send him back to his parents’ house. All kinds of bad shit could happen to him there. It’s just-”
“Not fair?” Nicky supplies, when Andrew trails off. “No. I don’t suppose Neil’s been through much that has been fair. But, Andrew, this doesn’t have to be the Next Terrible Thing, you know? It’s more like another chance. A fresh start.”
“I hope so,” Andrew replies, getting to his feet and fixing a glare on Nicky. “Otherwise, it’s your life on the line.”
Nicky makes a spluttery sound, his eyes widening briefly before his expression morphs into something altogether sadder. He leaves, teary-eyed, and Andrew’s left looking at the sky. The sun is slowly setting, orange light bleeding over everything, its descent conjuring these soft, hazy blocks of shadow that deepen and darken as it dips further and further down.
Andrew’s about to leave when he hears a small cough from behind him. When he turns, Bee is standing there with an unreadable expression on her face.
“Before you kill your cousin,” she says dryly, holding her hand out to him, “maybe you should come inside and listen to what I have to say.”
eight
As it turns out, Neil’s parents are dead.
They learn this from the authorities when they show up on the island.
Neil, who is swathed in around a million blankets and has a permanently full cup of tea in his hands, accepts the news quietly. Easily. Andrew watches from the other side of the lounge as Neil blinks slowly, says nothing but a gentle, “Oh.”
Bee ushers the two detectives into the kitchen and closes the door behind them. Andrew moves to sit beside Neil on the couch and takes his hand in his own. Rubs comforting little circles into Neil’s knuckles with his fingertips.
“What’s going to happen to me, do you think?” Neil asks after a few moments have passed.
“Nothing bad,” Andrew replies, even though he’s fretting so much that it feels like there’s an entire swarm of bees living inside his head. “We’ll make sure of it.”
Neil hums, nods and smiles. He sips his tea.
They wait and eventually, Bee returns from the kitchen alone.
“You’re staying here tonight,” she says to Neil. “Go upstairs and get Aaron or Nicky to set you up in the spare room.”
“Oh- okay,” Neil replies spacily, getting to his feet.
“You stay here,” Bee tells Andrew sternly. “We need to talk more.”
Neil shoots Andrew an apologetic look as he scurries out of the lounge. Bee sits down in Neil’s vacated seat and sighs.
“I know you were just trying to do the right thing,” she begins. “But this was a serious matter. You should have involved me.”
“Just tell me about your so-called ‘bright idea’,” Andrew says, pressing his palms flat against his knees. Bee had assured him earlier that nothing bad would happen to Neil. That she had a plan. They’d been interrupted by the detectives bringing Neil to the cottage and Andrew’s felt antsy and restless ever since. He needs to know what she has in mind, whether it’s the too-good-to-be-true thing he stupidly hopes is a possibility.
“I’ve been meeting with a man who lives on the island,” Bee says, and oh. That’s unexpected. Andrew practically gapes at her.
“Not like that,” Bee clarifies, chuckling at his expression. “He and I got talking at the market one day and I mentioned I was the foster mother to three amazing boys and he asked if he could pick my brain about it sometime.”
Andrew hums. “Okay.”
“It turns out he’s been thinking about fostering for a while, now. It’s just him and his teenage son at the minute - he lost his wife a few years ago, poor thing - and he’s always wanted another kid. I just told the detectives about him. They said it’s a pretty unorthodox way of doing things, but if he’s serious - if he and Neil meet and get along - they could rush something through,” Bee finishes.
She tilts her head to the side and studies Andrew closely. “What do you think? He’s clearly made this island his home and it would be nice if he could stay, wouldn’t it?”
Andrew nods. For Neil to stay would be more than nice.
It would be everything.
“Then, let’s cross our fingers and see what happens,” Bee says, giving his shoulder a soft, consoling pat.
And Andrew- well, Andrew actually does cross his fingers.
-
-
-
“Hey!” Neil shouts.
Andrew stops in the middle of the school yard and turns to wait for Neil to catch up with him. Nicky and Aaron both roll their eyes good-naturedly as they wave a see-you-later and head inside.
Neil stops a few feet away from Andrew and beams at him. They’re in matching school uniforms, right down to the stiff, white shirts and sloppily-knotted ties.
“First day at school,” Neil says, sticking out his tongue at Andrew. “Thought we should go in together, make an entrance, you know? Oh! Did you hear that with you, me, Nicky and Aaron starting this year, we’ve more-than-doubled the school’s entire student body?”
“I have heard that, yes,” Andrew deadpans. Bee won’t stop saying it, after all. Neil nudges him with his bony elbow and they start walking towards the entrance.
“You two! Wait for me!”
Andrew stops again and Neil follows suit. Kevin jogs towards them with his backpack swinging from one shoulder. He’s a little breathless, glasses sliding down his nose.
“Hey, Andrew,” Neil says, gesturing to Kevin. “Meet my foster brother, Kevin Day.”
“Yes, we’ve met many times,” Andrew reminds Neil plainly. “We literally had dinner together last night.”
“I know, but I just love saying it,” Neil says cheerily, looping his arm through Kevin’s. “Foster brother.”
“It’s gonna be weird having all you guys around,” Kevin says, pouting but letting Neil lead him to the door anyway. “Noisy, too. I’m used to it just being me, Katelyn and Thea in class.”
“Aaron and Katelyn will be like, kissing all the time, too,” Neil jokes, scrunching his face in mock-disgust. “Now that they’re a couple and all.”
“How will we cope?” Andrew asks sarcastically, holding the door open for Kevin and Neil to enter.
Neil laughs mischievously. “They’re not the only couple, though, right? Bet we could give them a run for their money, right, Andrew?”
Andrew pauses by the open door, willing himself not to start blushing right before they enter the classroom for the first time.
Kevin, on the other hand, squawks, surprised.
“Wait,” he says. “What?”