A Light Between Oceans Episode 01
The lighthouse that Sandy and Hattie knew and loved now had an uncertain future . . .
The freezing sea spray stung her face as water splashed in, soaking her legs.
She tried to cry out, but nothing came – only a silent gasp of terror as she strained against whatever it was that held her fast.
It was pitch black and the wind whipped her cheeks. Where was she?
She heard the water smacking hard against something. What could it be?
Of course, she must be in Dad’s rowing boat on the sea.
But it wasn’t like before, when he had taken her out in the sunshine, and they’d laughed and sung, gliding up and over the gentle swells.
Where was Dad? Why wasn’t he here?
There was a blinding flash of light, then another, and then, somehow, she knew.
It was the nightmare again – the one she’d had so many times before.
She tried to wake herself. If only she could move or speak, then it would stop.
A towering wave was hurtling closer and closer. It was so big, it would knock down the lighthouse and cast it into the sea.
With a horror that gripped every part of her, she remembered that that was where Dad was. He was up in the lighthouse.
“Hattie!” she screamed through the darkness.
Sandy stood in the bright kitchen, steadying her nerves as she took in the sights and sounds that always soothed her.
She breathed in the aroma of fresh coffee, heard the clink of milk bottles on the doorstep and the soft hum of traffic.
On the wall hung a framed collage of photos of her at different ages, mostly with Dad.
In the last ones, when Sandy had turned sixteen, he’d already begun to look thin with the illness that had taken his life soon after, but his smile had been as wide as ever.
Sandy missed him every day.
There were a few pictures of her with school friends, and one of a young version of Dad, standing beside the beautiful woman she’d never known – her mother.
With eight-month-old Sandy in her arms, they stood in the sunshine beneath the lighthouse.
There were several with Hattie, who had stepped in when Sandy’s mother had died, looking after Sandy whenever Dad needed her.
Sandy loved the photo of the two of them in Hattie’s kitchen at the back of the guesthouse she ran.
They were covered in flour, with Hattie’s round face shining out with all the love and pride of a mother, though she’d never been one.
Come on, Sandy told herself, shaking off the last disturbing vestiges of the night.
Yes, she’d had the nightmare again, but she wasn’t a terrified child any longer.
It was 1970; she was now thirty-one and the successful proprietor of Pegasus Fabrics.
She didn’t live in the lighthouse cottage in Belmouth, surrounded by the incessant sound of the waves and her fear of the sea, but here, in her little flat off the Fulham Road.
It had been a busy week, and Sandy needed to get to the shop early again this morning.