The lighthouse stood like a skeletal finger against the storm-churned sea, its white paint peeling in strips that fluttered in the wind. Mira tightened her grip on the rusted railing, her boots squelching in the mud as she climbed the spiral stairs. The air reeked of salt and mildew, and somewhere below, a gull cried like a lost child. She hadn’t wanted this place—this hollowed-out relic of her father’s obsession—but the lawyer’s letter had been explicit: “The property is yours now. Vacate within thirty days.”
At the top, she pushed open the heavy door to the tower room. A single bulb flickered overhead, casting jagged shadows across the walls. Her father’s journals lay open on the desk, their pages yellowed and brittle. She traced a finger over his scrawl: “The light isn’t meant to guide. It’s meant to hold them back.” A cold draft snaked through the cracks, and Mira shivered, though the air was thick with heat.
Below, the waves thudded against the rocks like a heartbeat. She’d never believed in his stories—the ghosts, the voices in the fog—but tonight, the wind carried a whisper she recognized. Her mother’s voice, faint and frayed at the edges. “Mira…”
She spun, but the room was empty. The door creaked shut behind her, though she hadn’t touched it.
—
The town of Marrow’s End clung to the coast like a barnacle, its buildings hunched against the elements. Mira wandered the narrow streets, her coat collar up against the rain. The locals eyed her with the same wary curiosity as the gulls—watching, waiting. At the general store, she asked about her father. The clerk, a man with a face like weathered oak, muttered, “He was here for the storms. Said he could hear them in the glass.”
That night, Mira returned to the lighthouse. The tower room was colder now, the air thick with the scent of ozone. She lit a candle, its flame guttering in the draft. Her father’s journal fell open to a sketch of the lighthouse, but something was wrong. The tower had always been straight, yet the drawing showed it leaning, its base crumbling. A note in the margin read: “They’re coming for the light.”
A knock at the door. Mira froze. The sound came again—three sharp raps, then a pause. She crept to the door and cracked it open. A boy stood there, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, his jacket soaked through. “You’re the keeper’s daughter,” he said. Not a question.
“Who are you?”
“Call me Jace.” He stepped inside before she could stop him, shaking rain from his hair. “Your dad wasn’t crazy. The light’s a seal. And it’s breaking.”
—
Jace spoke in fragments, his words tangling like the storm outside. He said the lighthouse wasn’t just a structure—it was a prison, built to hold something that had once lived in the waves. “Your dad tried to keep it out,” he said, pacing the room. “But the storms are getting worse. The seal’s thinning.”
Mira didn’t believe him. Not entirely. But the journal entries—those relentless, frantic scrawls—hinted at something real. She asked, “What’s in the water?”
Jace hesitated. “Things that don’t belong. Things that remember.”
The candle sputtered out. In the darkness, Mira heard it: a low, resonant hum, like the ocean itself was breathing.
—
They worked together after that. Jace showed her the hidden compartments in the lighthouse—copper wires snaking through the walls, a rusted generator in the basement. “Your dad kept it running,” he said. “But the storms are draining it.”
Mira learned to read the patterns in the waves, to listen for the shifts in the wind. She found more journals, buried in the floorboards, their pages filled with calculations and desperate pleas. “The light is failing,” one read. “They’re coming.”
But it wasn’t just the storms. It was the town. The people of Marrow’s End had known about the lighthouse for generations, and they’d kept their distance. Now, as the storms grew fiercer, they began to gather at the base of the tower, their faces gaunt, their eyes hollow. “The light’s dying,” they whispered. “The seal’s breaking.”
—
On the night of the final storm, the lighthouse trembled. The wind howled like a wounded animal, and the sea rose in a wall of black water. Mira stood at the tower’s heart, her hands on the generator’s lever. Jace was beside her, his face pale but determined.
“We can’t stop the storm,” he said. “But we can hold the light.”
She nodded. Together, they cranked the generator until her arms burned, until the bulb in the tower blazed like a star. The hum grew louder, more desperate, and the waves began to pull back, as if recoiling from the light.
But then—silence. The storm died. The sea stilled. And in the stillness, Mira heard it: a voice, not her mother’s, but something older, deeper. “You have kept us at bay.”
The light flickered. Mira’s breath caught.
—
In the days that followed, the town changed. The storms never came again, but the people of Marrow’s End remained haunted, their eyes fixed on the lighthouse as if waiting for something to return. Mira left it behind, but the memory stayed with her—the weight of the generator’s lever, the hum in her bones, the voice that had spoken from the sea.
She never saw Jace again. But sometimes, in the quiet moments, she’d hear the whisper of the wind, and she’d wonder if he was out there, still watching, still waiting.
