Free The Mysteries by Lisa Tuttle Page B

protect you.”
    “To protect me from Ray? ”
    “The man is sick with love for you. He's been waiting all day for you to come. And, if not for me, there'd be no one to stop him having his way.”
    “That's sick. That's totally sick. He's an old man. I'm just a kid!”
    “You're a beautiful woman. But love can be a sickness, that's true. Don't worry, I've given him a healing sleep, and when he wakes, his sickness will have passed. He won't ever try to bother you again.”
    “He'd better not! It's totally illegal, you know. I could call the police.” My face was burning, but I started to shiver, feeling cold and hot, disgusted and excited.
    “I've taken away Ray's sickness, but other men will fall in love with you, whether you will it or no. That is your fate. But, I promise you, I won't let you be harmed or dishonored. I'll always watch over you, even if you don't return my love. When you are ready to take a lover, it will be by your own choice entirely.”
    My feelings changed again. I noticed how handsome he was, how noble and sad. Maybe, once upon a time, in another country, I really had been his wife. I said, “Can I see you again? I mean, I'd like to. When I'm older.”
    He smiled. “When you are ready for a husband, I'll come again. I've waited more than a thousand years; a few more years don't matter to me.” He smiled, and his bright eyes were looking into mine, seeing me as I'd never been seen before. He was so handsome I could hardly stand it, it was like a sweet ache in my bones.
    And suddenly I was scared, not of him, but of the way I was feeling about him. I turned around and ran back to the safety of my own house.
    I took a big breath, and stood quietly for a few moments in the living room (in shape, exactly the same as the one next door), breathing in the familiar smell of home, listening to the slow ticking of the old-fashioned clock on the plain white wall, feeling the cool breath of the air-conditioning.
    I yawned. Then I wriggled and stretched, blinking and feeling sleepy. Did I fall asleep on the bus, or what? Maybe the whole thing had been a dream.
    I went to check out the refrigerator. It looked to me like we were going to have to eat out that night, unless Mom remembered to stop off at the supermarket on her way home from work. There was some half-flat Diet Dr Pepper left, so I drank that, and made myself a jelly sandwich and wolfed it down.
    Feeling better, I went back to my bedroom.
    Cu lay on my pillow, as usual. I flopped down and hugged him. “Cu! Darling Cu, you'll never guess! I met a man. He said he used to be my husband in another country, before I was born—what do you think of that?”
    Cu said nothing.
    I stared at his sleeping face, frowned, and shook him. “Wake up, sleepyhead!”
    He had nothing to say. Loyal he was, but sometimes a bit slow. I picked up Queeny from her throne on the tissue box on the bedside table.
    “Who was he, Queeny? What's his name? Was it true, what he said?”
    The silence rang in my brain as Queeny stared back with her blind, painted eyes, and did not respond. Sometimes, to tease or punish me, she would delay answering, but this time, I knew, was different. She didn't answer because she couldn't. She was just a doll.
    “Mocky?” The little purple pony smiled at me, looking shy and sweet and as loving as ever, but I knew as soon as my fingers closed around her soft, rubbery body, that she had changed, too.
    It had happened. They'd left me in spite of their promises.
    Or had I left them?
    Into my loneliness rushed the memory of him .
    He said he would watch over me.
    I believed him.
    I didn't even know his name, but he was my future as well as my past. He had promised to come back for me, when I was ready.
    I'm ready now.

    P.L.

7. James, Donald, and Thomas
    Joseph Moore, James Ducat, Donald McArthur, and Thomas Marshall, four retired seamen, took up their posts as lighthouse keepers in the newly constructed lighthouse on Eilean Mor in December