Gulls have a way of sounding almost human.

It was the first thing Andrew Kerr noticed as the ‘Hesperus’ pulled away from Eilean Mòr. The engine chugged steadily into the grey Atlantic until the little relief vessel became little more than a dark smudge against the horizon. Before long, even that disappeared into the drizzle leaving only the lighthouse, the wind and the sea.

Andrew had spent the previous five years tending lights around the Scottish coast, but nothing had prepared him for the Flannan Isles. The older keepers spoke of the place in lowered voices. They never refused an assignment outright – that was not the way of lighthouse men – but neither did they volunteer.

“It’s only lonely,” one had told him. Another simply shook his head.

“Mind the weather.” That was all.

The lighthouse itself was immaculate.Whitewashed walls, gleaming brass, every pane polished until it reflected the endless Atlantic beyond. Principal Keeper Malcolm Fraser believed that a clean lighthouse was a reliable lighthouse, and Andrew quickly learned that dust was treated almost as seriously as darkness.

There were three men stationed there. Fraser, Ian MacLeod and Andrew himself. The routine never changed. Rise. Clean. Wind the machinery. Polish the lenses. Log the weather. Trim the lamp. Eat. Sleep. Repeat…

But, by the third day he could almost believe the stories had not been exaggerated.

It began with a mug.

After breakfast, Andrew washed the cups and stacked them carefully on the wooden rack beside the sink. One. Two. Three. He counted them without thinking. The following morning there were four. He frowned.

“You expecting someone?”

Fraser looked up from his porridge.

“No.”

Andrew lifted the extra mug. “It’s not mine.”

“It belongs there,” Fraser replied without looking. MacLeod continued buttering his bread. Neither man seemed interested. Andrew shrugged. Perhaps one had been tucked away in a cupboard. He placed it back.

The following evening he noticed something else. Four pegs beside the door. Three oilskins hanging on the pegs, one peg empty. It was probably nothing. The station had once housed different crews. The spare peg had simply never been removed.

Still…He found himself counting.Three beds. Four mugs. Three men. Four pegs. It felt as though the island was beginning to play tricks.

A week later the weather closed in. Not a violent storm, but a slow, relentless mist that wrapped itself around the cliffs until the world beyond the lighthouse ceased to exist. The sea vanished, the sky vanished. Even the cries of the gannets seemed muffled. That evening Andrew climbed alone into the lantern room to tend the light. As the great lens revolved, its beam swept across a wall of white.

Then he saw movement. Three figures crossing the compound below. Fraser, MacLeod… Andrew frowned.That couldn’t be right. He was here.

He leaned closer. One man stopped. The second carried a coil of rope. The third wore no oilskins.

Andrew’s stomach tightened in confusion as voice spoke behind him.

“You’ll strain your eyes.”

He spun around. Fraser stood in the doorway. MacLeod beside him. Both carrying tools. Andrew looked back through the glass. The three figures were still there. Walking slowly towards the western path. One.Two.Three. Then another emerged from the mist.

A fourth.

The newcomer walked several paces behind the others. Not hurried or hesitant. Simply following.

When the four reached the edge of the cliff, the last man stopped. Though Andrew could not possibly make out a face at that distance, he knew – absolutely knew – that the figure was looking directly at him. The stranger raised one hand – not in warning or greeting. The gesture seemed like it was almost……in recognition…

Then the figure stepped calmly into the empty air beyond the cliff edge.

Andrew shouted.

By the time Fraser and MacLeod reached the window, there was nothing below except waves exploding against black rock.

“You saw them, didn’t you?” Andrew whispered. Fraser’s face remained unreadable.

“What exactly did you see, lad?”

“There were four.” Andrew heard his voice quaver in confusion and fear.

Silence. MacLeod lowered his eyes. Fraser rested one hand upon the window frame.

“My predecessor told me something when I first came here.” He began. Andrew waited.

“He said this island always has four keepers.”

“But there are only three…” Andrews voice faltered. Fraser nodded slowly.

“Aye.”

Neither man spoke again. No explanation followed. No laughter. Not even suggestion that Andrew had imagined it. Only silence.

The relief boat arrived twelve days later beneath a pale winter sky. Captain Morrison came ashore with fresh supplies and a sack of letters from home.

As Andrew helped carry provisions into the kitchen, the captain paused, his eyes on the drying rack. He looked at Andrew.

“Still keeping it, then?”

“Keeping what?” Andrew replied.

“The fourth mug?” Andrew felt the colour drain from his face.

“What fourth mug?”

The captain pointed. There they were. Four stoneware mugs. Dry, clean and perfectly arranged. Andrew counted them twice, then a third time. One. Two. Three. Four. When he turned to ask Fraser about it, the older keeper was already carrying sacks towards the store. MacLeod never looked up. Neither man acknowledged the mug.

Andrew packed his belongings that afternoon.

He never returned to the Flannan Isles. Years later, after his retirement, a journalist asked whether the stories about the vanished lighthouse keepers were true. Andrew smiled politely.

“No,” he said. “The sea took three good men. That’s all anyone can prove.”

The reporter seemed disappointed.

“So there are no ghosts?”

Andrew considered the question for a long moment. Then he remembered the mist. The cliff. The raised hand. The fourth mug drying quietly beside the sink.

“I didn’t say that.”

Outside, somewhere beyond the window, a gull cried over the sea, the sound almost human…

Perhaps it was…