She figured it would work to their advantage, though. The weather would make it more difficult for the helicopter to take off, and if they were hard to see, all the better. The ideal situation was that the people on the ship, whoever they were, would have no idea they were being spied on.
Tor strode briskly to the top of the headland and vanished over the edge. Luke made a small, choked sound.
“It’s fine, there’s a ladder,” Inga reassured him. She looked down the steep flights of ladder rungs leading to the all too tiny dock far belong them. Tor was already halfway down. “I hate this part,” she muttered under her breath.
As they began climbing down, first Inga and then Luke, a loud, plaintive bark echoed from above them. They both looked up. Rogue was dancing anxiously at the top of the cliff.
“He can’t climb down the ladder,” Luke said over his shoulder to Inga.
“It’s probably better if he doesn’t. Bernie!” she called up. “Mind watching the dog for us?”
“On it!” Bernie called.
Rogue was absolutely miserable about this, barking loudly over and over, but they heartlessly ignored him. By the time theygot down, Tor was in the process of checking over the small boat at the dock, uncovering the engine and starting it to make sure it ran. Fat raindrops were beginning to strike Inga’s hood and face. Looking out to sea, she saw an ominous dark wall of cloud, and no sign of the ship at all.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she called to Tor, in the stern of the boat.
“No better time!” Tor shouted back brightly. “They won’t expect a thing. Get in, you two.”
Inga halted Luke with a touch to his arm. Leaning over, she said quietly, “Are you sure you can shift if anything happens? If not, we should probably put a life vest on you.”
Luke shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”
It wasn’t like she could hold him down and wrestle a life vest onto him. She was going to have to trust him on that.
A sudden, strange tearing sound, like a sheet being ripped in half, made her look around. Bernie gave a distant yelp of surprise, and then a large black shape bounded into Luke, nearly bowling him over into the water.
“Whoa, hi, boy,” Luke said, rubbing Rogue’s ears.
The dog pranced over to Inga, who petted him too.
“How in the heck did he get down here?” She looked up at the steps zigzagging up the cliff, and the small figure of Bernie looking down. “Did he—jump?”
Tor cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, “I thought you were keeping him up there!”
“I was going to!” Bernie yelled down. “I looked around and he was gone!”
Luke went down to one knee and took Rogue’s ruff firmly in both hands. “Listen, old friend,” he said seriously to the dog’s face. “I don’t know how you got here, or how you do stuff like that. But this time, we’re going out there alone. We’re just goingto head out to the ship and back, but this is a humans-only trip. If you try to come out with us, we’ll just bring you back.”
Rogue whined and drooped, exactly as if he could understand the words.
Luke gave the dog’s ruff a gentle little shake. “It’s not a punishment, fella. You’re our backup. We need you to stay back here, in case we need you later. So stay.”
Inga looked curiously at the dog, but this time he stayed put, sitting forlornly on the dock as they climbed into the boat. Inga kept an eye on him as she reached over to untie the mooring rope.
“Is he going to be all right down here?” she asked as the boat began to bob away from the dock.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine. He can swim around to somewhere he can climb up again.”
“Yes, but how did he get down in the first place?” she asked, peering up at the cliff. Bernie was waving, and Inga reflexively waved back.
“I’m not sure, but I guess you’ve noticed he has a way of getting in and out of places.”
“Yeah, but down a cliff?”
“Do you really think that’s the weirdest thing we’ve seen today?”
The boat rocked on the waves. It remained relatively stable in the small, sheltered notch where Tor kept it docked, like generations of lightkeepers before him. But as soon as they motored out into the unsheltered sea and bigger waves began to hit them, the small frame of the skiff rolled wildly under them, and Inga had other things to worry about than Luke’s magic teleporting dog.
