After a difficult night dredging up old, and best forgotten memories, (as related in the previous tale, ‘A Glimmer in the Fog’), Reggie Upton trudged wearily down the stairs and into the kitchen of the Squid and Teapot. It was barely six o’clock, but the kettle was already whistling tunelessly on the hob and the comforting smell of baking filled the kitchen.

Philomena Bucket was making a batch of the inn’s ever-popular Starry-Grabby pies; flour speckled her apron and an odd strand of flaxen hair fell tumbling into her eyes. She looked up as Reggie entered, and nodded towards the woodstove.

“ You’re up and about early,” she said. “So, if you’re having a drink, you can make me one too.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” admitted Reggie. “It’s always the same whenever I spot that blasted Glimmer Man. He was around again last night, hovering about Ghastly Green like the Ghost of Misgivings Past. The blighter always puts me on edge.”

“He seems harmless enough,” said Philomena. “After all, what mischief can a couple of floating orange eyes do to you?”

Reggie fiddled with his tea cup, suddenly flustered.

“Oh, he’s such an odd sort,” he said. “Not threatening, exactly, but not what you’d call reassuring either.”

“When you came back from helping Winston,  you  definitely looked shaken.” Philomena said, quietly. “You don’t have to tell me anything. But if there’s something you’re carrying, it might help to talk about it.”

Reggie was silent for a long moment. Outside, the sun began its futile daily attempt to break through the fog bank that envelopes the island.

“I keep thinking,” he said finally, “that I’m not the man people think I am. They see the medals, the military bearing and moustaches and think: ‘There goes a chap who’s stared down the enemy and returned with a tale or two to tell.’ But there are tales I’ve never told. Not to anyone.”

Philomena said nothing, but poured him a mug of nettle tea and waited.

Reggie stared at the rising steam. “It was on the Frontier. India. 1880.  I was a subaltern then, all polished buttons and ignorance. I’d been given temporary command of a small company. They were young lads, mostly. Eighteen or nineteen. Barely old enough to shave, let alone die.”

Philomena flinched slightly but didn’t interrupt.

“We were escorting supplies through a narrow gorge; it was supposed to be a simple march, but someone had tipped off the local dissidents. We were ambushed from above; gunfire, rocks, screaming. It was over in minutes. Maybe seconds. We hadn’t a chance.”

Reggie’s voice cracked like an old window frame.

“I remember falling. There was blood – so much of blood – and the weight of Private Camm slumped across me. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. But they didn’t check the bodies. They assumed we were all dead.”

He swallowed hard.

“So I stayed there. Perfectly still. For hours. Underneath the corpses of the men I’d led. Boys who’d trusted me. I lay in silence while the birds came to peck at them. And when night fell, I crawled out and made my way back to camp.”

Philomena reached across the table, placing her hand gently over his.

“I told the colonel that the lads died bravely, and that I had fought on, against all odds, until I managed to send those cowardly scoundrels scuttling off, back up into the mountains.The army gave me a commendation. Within the year I was promoted. They even wrote a letter to my mother.”

He gave a short, bitter laugh. “She had it framed.”

“And you’ve lived with this ever since,” said Philomena softly.

“More than that,” he said. “I hid under those boys. Let them die while I played dead. That isn’t courage. It’s cowardice, dressed in a uniform.”

Philomena shook her head. “It’s survival. War is not all honour and bugles, Reggie. It’s chaos. You lived because you had to. And perhaps – just perhaps – you lived because someone, or something, wanted you to live.”

Reggie looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this island doesn’t collect souls by accident. You’ve seen too much to be ordinary. Maybe the Glimmer Man wasn’t a warning, but an invitation – to stop hiding under the weight of guilt and walk into the light of your own truth.”

He frowned. “That sounds suspiciously like something Annie Besant would have said to me.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Philomena.

A silence settled over them, gentler now. Outside, the sun was still fighting a losing battle with the fog. Reggie exhaled long and slow, as if releasing something long held.

“Thank you, m’dear,” he said.

Philomena smiled. “Nothing stays buried on Hopeless, remember? But some things can be laid to rest.”

Reggie nodded. For the first time in years, he felt a little lighter. Almost – though he’d never admit it – hopeful.

A faint glimmer hovered outside the kitchen window. You could almost imagine that they were eyes that watched and quietly approved, before slipping back into the fog.