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I feel I should start this story with it was a dark and stormy night.
Barry would laugh, of course. He used to have so many tales of smugglers, pirates, of shipwrecks and buried treasure. Made up, for him, and adored by the children, and every time he would start Don would tell him he should start with a storm. And every time Barry would laugh and tell him that wasn’t the weather for sailing, warn him to stay away from the sea in a storm, and every time he would humour him regardless and begin his tale with one.
I don’t know if you’ll remember this day. Truly, I don’t know if I want you to. I want you to have memories of the joy you both brought him, not the sadness of today, yet I know it will stay. Grief never truly leaves us.
You are both so young still, too young. I am old enough now I know I am unlikely to see you both reach adulthood, I know there will be so much of your lives I will not live to see, and I can only hope they are good ones. I know he did not mean to leave you so soon. I know he meant none of this, that he would have come home if he could.
There is a part of me still clinging to the hope he may, that clings to decision of lost at sea and knows it is not the same of death, and another that feels Barry would comfort in the idea of being forever at sea.
I suppose that is why I turned to this story to write today. Truthfully, I leave it so late because I did not know if I would write it for you. So very little was changed for publication, it seemed unimportant compared to some of the others.
And yet today I can think of no others.
It was only a short time after our marriage Barry and I made the decision to holiday in Hastings, taking the advantage of Hartley’s invitation to the house he had recently inherited from his grandfather. Of course Cisco joined us, and- though Hartley never spoke of it with us- I believe this was the visit where he realised Cisco was more than our dear friend.
Hartley’s house had an excellent view of the cliffs, and Cisco had noted the lantern glowing on the clifftop during the night. Hartley had little to say about it at breakfast, saying only that it had first appeared two nights past, and no one knew anything.
Cisco, of course, being Cisco, was immediately intrigued.
Barry had chuckled, and suggested a walk down along the sea front. Hartley made his apologies, he had business to attend to, and the three of us set out together.
Barry took us a way down the front, to the Stade and the net stores, to where the boats were lined up along the beach and the men bringing in the catch.
It didn’t take long for Cisco to find someone to talk about the lanterns with.
The suggestion of ghosts thrilled him all the more, enthralling him in conversation with the fishermen even after Barry had slipped away to make acquaintances down at the lifeboat station.
I wonder now how much Barry realised even from that first night. He had, after all, been born a fisherman’s son, and been involved in the lifeboat in Brighton for years. He even knew some of the people at the lifeboat station already.
He seemed quite amused by Cisco’s excitement at having a mystery to solve though. I think he simply wanted Cisco to have the fun of solving the case.
Still.
Cisco needed little excuse to ride the funicular up to where the castle stands on West Hill. He was fascinated by its workings, even so much as to be briefly distracted from his ghost stories.
He had been quite certain the glow was coming from somewhere near the top.
And I do admit to being rather caught up in the thrill of some of the tales of smugglers and shipwrecks we were told.
Three days Cisco had been unable to find the exact location of the lantern. There were marks where he suspected it to have been placed, and it had to have been of large enough size to be seen from such a distance, and this I am certain is when Cisco started to piece together the truth of it.
Yet it would be the following night the true culprits would be caught.
It was a dark, yet calm night. Dark clouds had begun to gather in the sky, but I had not noted them especially.
We were sat, the four of us, in Hartley’s parlour, sharing a drink and a tale. The flames of the fire kept the room warm with a comforting flickering light as Hartley regaled us with another tale of smugglers he had heard from his grandfather.
“The lantern is lit again,” Cisco said, nodding to the window where, sure enough, we could see a light coming from the hill.
Barry’s entire demeanour shifted at that, and he headed for the window.
“You are quite fascinated, aren’t you?” Hartley asked.
“I am a very curious person,” Cisco said. “I have a theory as to its purpose, but-”
“The maroon needs to be sounded,” Barry said, near flying out the door.
“Barry,” I called after him.
“The maroon means the lifeboat,” Hartley said. “Why does he need the lifeboat?”
The weather had begun to turn even before we made it to the seafront, the wind gathering, and lightning flashing in the distance. A small crowd had already gathered, and we joined them as they pointed to the speck that was two boats on in the distance, growing increasingly hard to see as the weather changed so rapidly.
“Where is Barry?” I asked, a growing fear in my voice, fear to acknowledge what I already knew.
Cisco took my hand in his own, a rare very public symbol, and unnoticed by the others, or perhaps simply understood.
I could not tear my eyes from the sea and her growing violence in my fear. And truly, my dears, it is a fear I never could prevent. I suspect it was one Barry understood, one he gained when Cisco and I had more precarious cases, and I know one he felt himself when Don followed in his footsteps, and even his pride could never truly hide.
I do believe I let go of my breath until the lifeboat landed on the shingle, others rushing to pull them up and out the boat, including the shivering man Barry insisted by taken somewhere warm.
He met my eyes and I could not help but kiss him, relief flooding me as this time she had chosen to return him to me.
Cisco took his hand, as if to ensure Barry was truly standing there, before helping bringing the half-drowned man inside.
A young man, barely more than a boy, who could only have been his brother came rushing from the town.
Mark and Clyde Mardon, as they were identified, were orphans, recent arrivals in town from the North, and Mark had taken a job on a fishing boat. And they had both heard stories of wrecks off the coast and they had had an idea. If they could find a ship perhaps they could also find her treasure, and so Clyde had hidden near the caves on West Hill, caves supposedly once used by smugglers, and lit a lantern to guide his brother back to shore under the cover of darkness.
The storm had not been unexpected. There had been the feeling of change in the air. Barry had mentioned it earlier, and many of the other fishermen had taken note too, and prepared themselves.
And Barry had run into it, intent on saving a life.
He was apologetic when we returned to bed, the three of us together, Cisco unwilling to leave his side, should he run into danger again.
The flame of the candle cast a low light across the room.
“I should have warned you more,” Barry said.
“You saved his life,” Cisco said. “Did you know who he was?”
“I wasn’t certain,” Barry said. “But there were some with suspicions already, and a few keeping an eye out to sea. I did know someone would need help, who it was was not important. You would both have done the same.”
“I love you,” I said, unable to find any other words to describe the array of emotion I felt.
“I love you,” Barry said. “I love you both. I do not want to make you worry for me.”
“I believe it inevitable,” I said. “But would you be the man we fell in love with if you had not gone?”
He smiled softly at me, and I kissed him once more.
This time Cisco could follow, as I knew he had so wanted before.
"You know," Cisco said. "If you enjoy detective work, you could always join us next time."
“I think I’ll leave that to you and Iris,” Barry laughed.