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Wake had been on this rock a long time.
Long enough that the months and years passed the way moments would to a young, doe-eyed wickie, barely wet behind the ears. The sun bounced up and down behind the horizon more times than he could contemplate. Staying in one place had once seemed unthinkable to him, so used to the cradle of a ship’s bunk, carried by the waves, to rock him to sleep.
A lifetime ago. Now, he wasted away in stillness, the chaotic jaunt of a shanty traded in for the chorus of seabirds that scavenged.
Aye, the open air of a ship’s deck and the vastness of the sea was but mere memory, locked away in the receding depths of time. Wake had been here a long time. Long enough to know.
Whatever it was that slumbered in that lighthouse, it had been here far, far longer.
He’d had a number of men pass through to be his second. Work was only possible in pairs under such conditions, and it was a necessity. This kind of work in particular, solitary and short-lived, drew all sorts. Men with something to hide, men running from something. At its best, men who were searching for something.
Those men who searched often were not prepared for what was to come if they actually found it.
His prior partner was a gentle soul, he was. The type who hummed as he worked and left scraps for the gulls as he passed them by. A few drops of drink were enough to grease his tongue - and such stories would pour out! Even Wake himself rarely heard such flights of fancy. The boy thought himself something of an artist, he supposed. His family thought a stint of hard labor might toughen him up a bit.
That wickie hadn’t lasted out the four damn weeks he’d been assigned for.
It was the first time he’d shared the Light with another. Wake was young, then – relatively speaking – and much more arrogant. He thought it a gift.
That scrimshaw was a foolish errand, an attempted totem of something unknowable. The blasted former wickie that had been his second had created it; something to pass the time; a distorted reflection of what emanated from the tower at night, as it crossed the dark surface of the sea.
One couldn’t give form to a force of nature any more than they could control the whims of the tides. Madness set in almost immediately. That wickie, his name long-forgotten – clawed at the foot of Wake’s bed, gasping and sweating and so flustered he could barely get the words out of his mouth.
“A sea witch,” he’d spat, after a sleepless night. Wake had heard him crying, whimpering, thrashing as he struggled against the tide of dreams. Waking nightmares, filled with black-eyed sirens plagued him from then forward. He did his part, assured him that they were bad dreams and nothing more. He knew better: the boy had called out to something, and it had answered him.
Gulls began to follow him on his trails each morning, like they were stalking their next meal. Wake said nothing. He lasted three more days.
Putting him down was a kindness; he was already lost.
Time passed, unchanged. Wake remained.
Ephraim both broke the monotony and brought things back to a familiar balance. Across the table, pretty as a picture, and so silent. A man like that harbored secrets, that’s for damn sure. The set of his jaw was a locked vault, like any moment he’d open his mouth and the darkest confession you could imagine would spill out of it. A liar, that much was certain. Probably worse. Well, best not to know.
Routine was good for the lad. Keeping him busy was key. Too much freedom was a burden on the mind. Doldrums , he mused.
It had been three days since Ephraim’s arrival and already he could sense him getting antsy. No tells, really, he kept a calm demeanor. Just a feeling, like the way the air changed before a storm was about to hit. He just knew. There was a tension there, taut with unease and curiosity. A dangerous combination.
For one, Ephraim had been watching him. Quietly, in the down moments of the twilight hours when he assumed he went unseen. Between the slits of wood that made up their cabin walls, eyes fixed on the shadows they both cast. Habits borne of a man accustomed to hiding his tracks, Wake surmised.
Worse was that he’d been asking about tending the Light with more frequency, an urgency that grew with each passing day.
Wake knew from his years as a sailor: a wave could grow in size and strength, but only for so long. Eventually, it needed to break. The real question was what rocks it would crash upon. Mornings where there was blood and sick and worse that needed to be cleaned from the floors and his crew taught him well. It was all but unavoidable.
Men had but a few primal needs: a lust for flesh and a lust for blood. They were sharp as a barb in one’s side and drink was the only thing that dulled it. If he didn’t give in to one, he might well be taken over by the other.
Hard, back-breaking work could delay it for a while, in the way exhaustion and aching limbs only could, but ultimately baser instincts had their due, and it needed to be paid.
Joining with the light was unlike laying with a woman (or a man for that matter – long enough at sea and you ceased to be quite as choosy as you once were as a young man). For one, a woman was warm, soft, and her touch was a source of pleasure. When Wake tended the light, her presence lacked warmth but rather was heat incarnate, a blistering and brilliant thing. After that experience, none other could compare. He reckoned he’d be incinerated by that light one day.
He'd welcome it. Hell, perhaps he even wished for it. Never again would he share it.
The rock was a lonely place, when it wanted to be, when one didn’t know how to listen to it. During this communion, he could hear it all. The sea salt ran through his veins and the gusts of briny air filled his lungs. Cool tidal pools lapped at his skin, cold and aching.
Wind rustled over the calm waters and whispered to him. Sometimes he even answered.
Seagulls screamed, souls whose tongues had been twisted so that god might never hear their confessions. Secrets spilled to the open sea, and to the keepers of this damned little rock. One in particular called out to him, with black pits of eyes that seemed so familiar. Within them was not the soul of a sailor but an artist, and its calls sounded like accusations.
Wake wished that he didn’t understand them.
Water dripped through the poorly patched roof in rivulets, rhythmic and soft. The boy quietly laced up his boots in preparation for the day’s chores, and Wake pretended not to watch him.
It had been two weeks. Halfway there. This one may even make it.
As Ephraim walked away, his silhouette disappeared into the misty ether. Lines of seagulls spotted the sky around him, their black eyes fixed on the boy as they looped along the shoreline.
They day crept onward, and the crunching grind of machinery, the roar of coal being fed into the fire met him. Rusted forks scraped across empty plates. Tin cups sloshed with liquid and fed a thirst unquenchable by water alone.
By nighttime, the land that had been bright and familiar had a yellow sheen cast over it by the illumination of the Light.
It had been two weeks. Two more weeks and it was over.
They could make it that far.