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The moon hangs low and full in the sky, round and yellow as one of the wheels of cheese that rich folk have imported from France or Italy or Switzerland, filling the bellies of ships and stocking the shops whose keepers couldn't afford even one slice of it. Not even if they pinched every penny they earned.
The light it casts over the ocean is yellow, too, a ghostly silvery-yellow that bathes the waves and the sand and the rocks and the great spiraling structure that rises up into the black sky, starkly silhouetted, framed by constellations that any sailor knows by heart. The wind is howling and bitter cold, the spray from the sea even colder than that.
The harbor won't open for another month or so— the ice has broken but it will be weeks before it thaws enough for safe passage both for coming ships and going ones, and another cold front could set them back even further. Then the first ships of the season will arrive, stocked with sugar and fruit, wine and coffee beans.
The lighthouse keeper called Etho knows better than to linger at the edge of the sea like this at night. His mother taught him better than that, and even if she hadn’t, then his father’s death would’ve surely done the job.
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The interior of the lighthouse is as cold as the exterior, save for the wind and save for the damp. Save for most of the damp, anyway; there's no real escaping the damp, out here. Etho expects to find mildew in the walls, but that will be a problem for another night.
He rubs gloved hands together to warm them, and his breath puffs white and cloudy in front of his face. His cheeks sting from the wind. He leaves the door open behind him for now; the interior of the lighthouse is darker than the outside, no moonlight to bathe things in yellow or cast silhouettes.
He tucks the key into his coat pocket. Now, he’d glanced over the floor plan, and he does have a copy in his pack if he needs it. It was yellow and faded, as was the map he followed to find his way out here; the shopkeep had given him a strange look that Etho couldn't place when he'd claimed to be the new keeper of the Cape Hope lighthouse, but he had sold him a map just the same when Etho asked. He'd smiled genially and then had charged him double for being an out-of-towner. Etho wasn’t born yesterday; he knew he was being grifted, just as surely as he knew to keep his mouth shut about it.
It's near half a day's walk to the closest town, the general store where he'd filled his pack with oats and coffee and tobacco. It'll be a full day's journey there and back, then, and much of that day will be dark, in early February. Only six in the evening, and it's as black as a summer's midnight and not half as warm.
He does find himself missing the southern ports from time to time, but there is joy to be found in the northern ports. These long, frigid nights have a kind of peace to them. A lighthouse keeper from a family of lighthouse keepers, Etho has never been discomfited by solitude.
He feels his way along the wall, treading carefully on floorboards that feel sturdy but may well be rotted underneath. He walks as though each next step might give way. You never know how well the last wickie kept up care of the house, and Etho could not get a clear answer out of his employer but he does have the sense that the last one to man this light was hired a long, long time ago— a very old man, a man who might have had the job for decades, who might have been dead a month before anyone thought to check, if not for the light, if not for the young sailor boys dashed upon the rocks in absence of the light. Etho was a sailor boy once, and he lost friends to the sea in one way or another.
He had not brought a lamp with him, thinking foolishly that there would be one left in the lighthouse somewhere and fuel stores as well— whale oil is not difficult to come by as a light keeper, and at most of his assignments he’s had storerooms full of it. It is a lighthouse and presumably has been for decades, he hardly thought he'd have to supply the light—
He hits the first stair with his shin and curses aloud at the burst of pain, nearly dropping his pack in the darkness, which would not be a good choice on his part. No siree.
He curses again, more quietly this time. Well, that’ll bruise.
The stairs creak as he walks up them. Old, black metal, cold to the touch even through his thick winter gloves. Perhaps they could be thicker, Etho thinks sheepishly, wondering what that shopkeep might say to his idea of winter clothing. This is as far north as he has ever worked.
This place is old, and huge, every sound echoing, bouncing off of rounded walls and back to Etho's ears— every creaking footstep on the stairs sounding nearly like two.
It is awhile of fumbling around in the dark before he does finally manage to find a lamp and luckily, there is fuel still in it— he hums happily when it lights on the first try. He'll have to find proper fuel stores tomorrow, when there's daylight to help him search.
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The work is quiet and it is slow. It is the same work day after day: he fuels the lamp. He cleans the lenses. He looks after his own home, as well, in a steady, day-after-day way. Plodding and consistent. He eats the same meals each morning and each night. He makes coffee. He washes his laundry.
He looks out at the sea.
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CANADIAN LIGHT-HOUSE ESTABLISHMENT.
OATH OR AFFIRMATION OF LIGHT KEEPERS.
I, Etho Slab, having been appointed keeper of the light at Cape Hope in Rocksborough, Vancouver do solemnly, sincerely, and truly swear (or affirm) that I will diligently and faithfully execute all the duties of the said office of light-keeper of the said light Cape Hope to the best of my ability and in strict conformity to the rules, regulations, instructions, and directions which have been or may be prescribed, and in obedience to all laws that have been or may be passed by Parliament of Canada for the government and management of the Canadian Lighthouse Establishment service; and I further solemnly, sincerely, and truly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of Canada.
Sworn or affirmed before God and subscribed this 1st day of February Anno Domini 1892.
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2/4/1892. Cold wind from the south. Ice has not broken yet. General duties for the day.
Settling in well. Have identified storeroom and old records as well as cleaned up some of the dustier ones. Will need to make bi-weekly trips to the general store.
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Birds live on the beach that he doesn't know the names of. Northern birds— he is still learning the flora and fauna, this far north, cold-weather fish and fowl. He fishes when he has the time for it, which is often enough, and the weather’s good for it, which is less often. Trout tastes about the same, even if it’s not a kind of trout that he has ever seen before.
When a morning's work is done and there won't be any more of it until dusk, he will sometimes set up with a sketching pad on a dry flat rock and watch those northern birds hopping around the dunes. They're small, and they make nests in the sand, nestled into the brush that grows there, little eggs all in a careful pile— plants that he doesn't know the names of, either, having never worked this coast before, though he can make some guesses at the taxonomy. He knows rocky coasts much better than he knows sandy ones with dunes; he knows southern coasts much better than he does northern ones.
A man's got to make entertainment for himself somehow, and the sketching calms his mind. He likes the weather, the wet and blustery winds that spray salt into his mouth when he takes a breath, the grayness of most mornings as the whole of the coast settles in for a long springtime rain season— for the counting of hours by candles burnt down, happily finding the sunlight stretches on longer and longer each day— he likes the shopkeep who charged him double but was gentle and friendly with the townsfolk whose preferences he clearly knew by heart, and he likes the thought of the sailor boys who must be in the very heart of their journeys, and now two months out from harbor. He likes the little birds in the dunes. Though his work is to keep ships afloat and sailors alive instead of dashed upon the rocks, and Etho has worked ships himself for many a year and knows the ways of sailors well, this work does not see him having many face-to-face conversations with the sailors. It does not see him having many face-to-face conversations with anyone at all.
That's fine. He likes it that way well enough. He's sure that he could find a position on another cargo ship if he wanted one, but his body is getting to the age that he couldn’t keep up with the work as well. Better left to the young men.
Etho has always been the sort to keep to himself. He's a perfect fit for a lighthouse keep, an old friend told him over drinks just a few months ago, clapping him on the back. Just like your da— not surprised you ended up a wickie, old friend, and it was a compliment, delivered with warm eyes, smile lines wrinkling. Etho agrees. It's good, honest work, and he likes it. None of the glory and adventure of sailing, but the solitude is peaceful. He likes to look at the ships as they come in, and when they get close enough he can even spot the sailor boys on their decks.
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Etho makes the trip out into town, and again the shopkeep looks at him strangely and charges him double. Etho is a little offended now, as he would hardly call himself a tourist.
“Come by the lighthouse sometime,” he offers awkwardly.
“The lighthouse,” the shopkeep responds, his odd green eyes glittering as he tilts his head. “You mean the one at Cape Hope?”
“That’s the one,” Etho says, suddenly sheepish though he isn’t sure why. It’s as respectable a job as the keeper of a general store, isn’t it, but he feels the shopkeep’s eyes lingering on him as he walks out the door, and he thinks that he will try to keep his head down next time he needs to buy sugar.
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He’s trying to set his alarm clock when he hears a strange sound, one night— it can’t be on the beach, five floors down. It’s too close of a sound for that. He turns and the books on the shelves are on the ground, like they’ve been thrown there. He jolts in terror, dropping the clock, and at once it goes off ringing and makes an unfortunate collection of sounds like some of its inner workings have broken. Etho despairs. He gets it to stop going off, sets it back on his nightstand, and adds it to the list of things that will need fixing.
Then he goes and stands and frowns at the books on the floor for a while and, when he cannot come up with an explanation for why they might’ve thrown themselves from the shelf, simply puts them back in their places and goes to bed.
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2/18/1892. Light South wind with rain first part of 24 hours. Last part of 24 hours light variable winds with thick damp fog. General duties for the day.
Ran out of sugar for coffee. Nearest general store is a half day’s walk. Tried to substitute molasses. Molasses does not taste much like sugar. Will wake early to make the trip to-morrow.
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He hears odd sounds often— he dismisses them, mostly, as the settling of an old, old lighthouse. Surely nothing that can’t be explained by architecture, or animals, or wind and waves.
Sometimes the wind sounds almost like it’s wailing, or laughing, or whispering.
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2/19/1892. Light variable winds & calm with thick damp fog first part of 24 hours. Last part of 24 hours clear fine and warm wind light N.W. Sea smooth. General duties for the day.
Woke late. Alarm clock is still broken. Did not make the trip into town. Attempted once more to fix the clock once the morning's work was finished. Was not able to fix the clock, nor to reassemble the clock after disassembling it.
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2/21/1892. Woke early due to a terrible sound. Thought at first it was the remains of the alarm clock but no; it came from another room of the lighthouse, farther upstairs by the sound of it, and on trying the lamp I found it would not light to my great confusion. Set out without it, feeling along the wall for guidance. The sound I heard is not easy to describe in words. By the time I reached its source it seemed to have stopped. Perhaps the wind or a strange dream. On returning to my chamber I found that the lamp would light as usual.
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3/26/1892. Could have sworn I had enough sugar to last me two weeks but I did not. Had coffee without sugar again to-day, and everything else without sugar as well. Was not in a good mood to do much of anything. Perhaps rats have infested the kitchen. Will check to-morrow.
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The record-keeping room houses the books, the documented daily operations and other logs kept by past light keepers.
The room is old and brown, the shelves rickety and all cobwebbed, dust caked on in a layer at least a quarter of an inch thick. There is a window with old drapes that he flings open, happily with some flair, allowing light to spill in. He feels pleased at the dramatic opportunity.
One of the drapes tears in his hand, and not with very much force applied, either— as though the fabric was falling apart, at the end of its life, just one touch from disintegrating.
He knows that the lighthouse must have been manned as recently as just a few months ago, but some of these rooms seem as though they haven’t been touched in decades.
He likes to go paging through old books, especially old records kept by lighthouse keepers like himself, and he’s curious about the history of this one, since it'd been so hard to get any concrete information. That’s just the Coast Guard for you, stuffy officers in shiny new standard-issue boots, looking down their noses at the old wickie who’s asking nonsense questions. He picks out a few of the more recent ones, coughing at the dust they scatter when he flips through them to look over the dates. They’re about what he expected. He sets them aside to read properly later.
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Time passes. He settles in, does the work he's used to doing. The ice thaws; the ships come in, the first shipments of spring unloaded at the harbor: sugar and fruit— coffee and wine.
He gets to see the sailor boys on the decks, jeering and shouting, climbing rigging and making great leaps down from it, the way that Etho did, once.
The days have taken on a consistency. Every lighthouse is a little different, but all of them are the same, some ways; there’s always this routine, this consistency. Day in, day out. She has her little quirks, but it’s nothing that a little bit of hard work won’t solve. He monitors the radio; he maintains the grounds; he cleans the lenses; he takes inventory of fuel stores and he logs it all, easing into the routine, as reliable as the tide. When the strange happenings start, they are gradual enough that they feel almost like part of the settling-in.
He has the odd sense, at times, that he is not alone in the lighthouse. He first wakes with this sense on a night in late February, when he’s been here for weeks already, and it’s not so much a sense as a certainty. Something is watching him.
A painting hangs on the wall opposite his bed which seems to have the brightest brown eyes, for a moment. He stares, frozen in terror. A moment later he blinks the sleep out of his eyes and they adjust some more to being awake and he sees that they are only two brown fruits in a bowl, which he did know, he admonishes himself. He tries to settle back to sleep, but strangely the room seems freezing cold, so it takes him a long time.
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There is moss that grows up the walls of the lighthouse.
He would think that a February this far north is too cold for so much moss. The moss doesn’t seem concerned with this logic. From a distance it softens the lighthouse’s hard geometry, blurring the seam where cut stone meets soft earth.
Up close, it’s a layered, living thing: a velvet nap overlaid with wiry, hairlike shoots that stand up against the wind. Etho presses one gloved finger into it and the surface yields with a damp, spongey give and then springs back.
He spends a morning and then the better part of an afternoon clearing it from the doorway and the lowest-floor windows, scraping it away in chunks. He resolves to scrub the stones tomorrow, but calls the day’s work done when the windows will at least open without having a thick green carpet to tear through first.
He wakes in the morning and has to stare for several seconds at the exterior which he is sure he’d scraped entirely of moss just yesterday— it is as though he never did anything at all. There it is, a thick green carpet.
He wonders, feeling a little mind-boggled, if he somehow just dreamed the entirety of yesterday morning and the better part of yesterday afternoon. He’s been having a lot of strange dreams lately. He supposes it’s the only explanation that makes sense, and he resolves that if he is going insane, he must stop at once, because he has work to get done. This matter settled, he sets to clearing the moss again.
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On cold, windy nights the moss becomes a companion to the light, a witness to the sweep of the beam and the long, patient work of keeping watch.
The lighthouse stands, white and wind-battered, and the moss comes back and comes back and comes back, and eventually Etho stops trying to get rid of it.
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3/22/1892. Have given up my war with the damned moss. I will write to my mother to tell her of it. She has given me several suggestions, but none of them have worked. I fear it is a different sort of moss than we are used to down south. I have never encountered anything like it.
Light S. East to South wind these 24 hours with frequent light rain showers. Last part of 24 hours cloudy but dry. Sea quite smooth. General duties for the day. Went fishing today in the afternoon.
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Etho wakes to the house breathing, a slow, settling sigh that makes the floorboards complain. He’s gotten used to waking this way in the middle of the night.
For a moment he lays still, listening to the radiator click and the thud of waves against the shore, muffled by distance, five floors below him. He reaches to turn the lamp on but it won’t light, to his frustration. He squints at his alarm clock, then remembers that his alarm clock is disassembled on the floor.
Something at the window catches at the corner of his vision— a pale shape that stands out against the black of the night. Cautiously, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and creeps across the rug. He stops at the sill and peers into the black, and his throat tighten, heart rate skyrocketing.
Pressed against the glass as if from the other side of the world is a handprint. Not the smudge of a careless passerby— not that there could be any passersby, thirty feet up into the air— but a full, deliberate palm, fingers splayed. It glows with a faint, unearthly pallor.
He reaches out without thinking, fingertips hovering an inch from the pane. The glass is cold and dry. No warmth answers his touch.
The hand doesn’t move.
Outside, wind howls against the old stone of the lighthouse.
(And the moss. Also the moss. The moss is down there, on the stone. Etho thinks about the moss and is annoyed again.)
He resolves not to sleep anymore that night. He sits on his bed in the dark and watches the window, all night long; he listens to the click of the radiator and the sound of the waves five floors below him. Dawn comes, soft and cold and grey.
At some point, he must blink. At some point, he must nod off to sleep, sitting there exactly like that— he jolts back awake. There is no handprint on the window, but there is a thin patch of moss, right there on the glass— isolated— someone less sane than Etho might say that it nearly forms the shape of a hand.
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3/30/26. Light S.E. to East wind these 24 hours with clear fine weather during 24 hours. Sea smooth. General duties for the day.
Beginning to suspect causes for these strange occurrences are not entirely natural. Did not journal yesterday as I was out all day making the trip into town. Shopkeep has become friendlier. Still charging me double.
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Something about the moss that he can't seem to be rid of, creeping over walls like a blanket, determinedly reappearing after he’s cleared it as if it’s smug about the whole thing— like it wants the lighthouse to look derelict and stay that way. Like nothing Etho does will shake that sense of being long-abandoned. He imagines the moss gloating at him. He imagines the moss saying many things to him— perched atop a sea wall and grinning down at him with bright brown eyes, laughing high and bright, saying, You’re not getting rid of me anytime soon, Etho, I’m here to stay.
Well, he imagines a lot of silly things. It’s being out here, all alone— it’ll do things to a man’s mind.
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The entry for March 31 is not written by Etho. He stares at it a very long time, when he finds it. He left his journal out on the table in the kitchen and didn’t even think of it, as he does not share this lighthouse with anyone, and so there was no risk that anyone would see it. He did not expect someone would write in it.
It’s not in any language that he understands. It doesn’t look like a human language at all. His head starts to ache if he looks at it for too long.
He turns the page and dates a new entry, resolving to ignore it.
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4/1/1892. Please ignore yesterday’s entry, as I believe the wind caused my ink to spill on the paper accidentally. This is the only explanation I can think of for it, as I left my journal on the kitchen table and found it written in when I returned to it.
Light variable winds these 24 hours with light rain showers. Last part of 24 hours fair weather. Sea quite smooth.
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Over the door in the foyer is a crucifix. It’s made of silver, by the look of it— it’s tarnished black. It looks as though it has been there for a long, long time.
He takes it down, one day, and polishes it until it shines.
It’s beautifully constructed. Someone took great care in etching every ornate detail. It must have been expensive. He carefully replaces it on the hook in the foyer, so that it hangs over the doorframe.
He gets some peace from the moss, for a little while. It does not bother him as much by waking him at night. He finds that he misses it, and the lighthouse seems lonelier. This is not a particularly sane train of thought, so he does not document it, and he resolves to focus more on his work, which is known to cure most ailments of the mental kind.
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5/6/1892. Cold and moderate breeze South to S. East for first part of 24 hours. Last part of 24 hours light S.E. wind with rain during 24 hours. Sea moderately smooth - General duties for the day. Did some fishing in the afternoon.
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Someone is at the door downstairs.
Etho wakes with this certainty, in the middle of the night. His bedroom is freezing cold despite the night having been almost balmy when he went to bed, and he can see his breath clouding in front of his face. When he goes for the lamp it will not light. He has grown accustomed to these odd happenings, and to the painting he finds shaken to the floor from its place on the wall; he pays it no mind, thinking it must have been a surprise earthquake of some minor sort, as every one knows those are common along the western coast. That, or it is the moss. He has begun to make his peace with the possibility that the moss just likes to disturb his paintings and also his books and also most of his things just after he finally gets them put away properly.
There is someone at the door downstairs.
He doesn’t take his gun with him. He should, but he doesn’t. He’ll think back on this later. He does take his lamp, even though it won’t light. He starts down the great black spiral staircase.
He realizes once he is standing in the foyer that the man is not knocking on the door, he is trying to break into it. Now he reaches for his gun only to find he did not bring it with him. He remembers, to his dismay, that the lock is easily jiggled open, just as the door swings open.
Above his head, the crucifix on the wall catches fire.
The man in the doorway seems just as startled to see Etho as Etho is to see him, and he looks terrified, which may have something to do with the crucifix burning above his head. Oh, dear. Well, Etho doesn’t know how he achieved that.
The man says, reaching for his pockets, “Who the hell are you?”
Etho says, “I’m the keeper of this lighthouse.”
The crucifix burns again. The man in the doorway screams, low and guttural, and goes for what looks like a blade, flashing silver in the flame-light, and Etho goes white and backs away and shouts “Don’t— don’t come any closer!”
Then something is standing between Etho and the man in the doorway. Etho knows, without knowing how he knows, that this is the thing that watches over him at night. The man lunges at him and then he freezes in his tracks, clutching at his throat, and Etho watches him twist and choke on nothing at all and fall dead to the floor.
He’s breathing heavily, holding his lamp up in front of him like it could shield him.
The moss is still here; he knows it hasn’t left.
“Thank— you,” he stutters out. He feels cold. There’s a blade in the dead man’s hands. He feels a sort of certainty that the moss has just saved his life.
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5/14/1892. Cold and moderate breeze to the South for these 24 hours. Smooth sea. In addition to dealing swiftly with the intruder at my door two nights ago, the moss has now fixed my alarm clock. This seems as likely as anything else it has done. I have asked it to stop eating so much of my sugar, to unclear effect. Will have to go back into town soon.
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Weeks pass. Summer comes, balmy and sweet. Etho stands at the top of the lighthouse and looks out at the ocean, like he sometimes likes to do.
The moss joins him, like it sometimes likes to do. Etho has gotten better at sensing when it’s there.
He says, “Warm night, isn’t it? Nice and clear. Look at all those stars.”
The moss kisses him, that night.
He feels the delicate sensation of hands cupping his face, guiding the kiss a little bit, which is good, because Etho has not kissed many humans before and it's definitely his first time kissing moss. The hands are warm— he's surprised that they’re warm. He would have thought a ghost’s hand would be cold. He would have thought moss’s hands would be cold too, and he isn’t sure whether this is a ghost or if it’s the moss or if it’s both, but he's sure that it’s at least one or the other.
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6/17/1892. Another encounter with the supernatural to-day. I shall not document the details of this one as I would consider them private. Future lightkeepers should be most certainly aware that this spirit is as friendly as a spirit could be.
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Etho falls from the top of the lighthouse.
It’s late at night. The moon is as full as it was when he first arrived here, five long months ago— It’s a clumsy mistake and it’s nearly the last one he makes, both legs swung over the railing to get at a particularly stubborn patch of rust. He thinks of his father, as he falls. He thinks of the next letter he won’t write to his mother.
The moss catches him. He hits the ground hard, but not as hard as he thinks he should, and then he’s on the ground shuddering, breathing heavily in terror, startled to have survived.
The sky is very blue above him. The carpet underneath him is thick and soft and green.
The moss stands over him, hands on his hips, and looks down. He says, “Sheesh, that must’ve hurt.”
Without thinking, Etho responds, “It didn’t, really.”
“Well, that’s good,” says the moss. “Are you just gonna keep layin’ there, huh?”
“I’m getting up,” says Etho, frowning. The moss holds out a hand, and Etho takes it. It’s warm.
The moss hoists him to his feet. His eyes are big and brown. He smiles, and it’s a big, toothy smile. He says, “Real freakin’ embarrassing, just falling off the top like that.”
Etho laughs and rubs the back of his head. “Uh. Yeah.”
He wishes he were a better conversationalist. Luckily for him, the moss never seems to mind.
He doesn’t journal this, as he is chiefly embarrassed to have fallen at all, and resolves to take this as a second chance and be much more careful going forward, as it’d seem senseless to do anything else.
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He goes into town.
He fuels the lamp. He cleans the lenses.
The shopkeep is never going to stop overcharging him, but he does greet Etho warmly every time he comes in, and sometimes he throws in little cakes or candies with a wink.
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7/2/1892. Light N.W. to S.E. wind these 24 hours with thick fog, showers most of 24 hours. Unusual for the season. Sea smooth. General duties for the day.
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He’s not sure when he first starts to realize that he isn’t human in the same way he used to be. It hits him all at once, but in the way where he can tell he’d been suspecting it a long while.
It’s July. He’s standing on the beach.
“The light,” is the first thing he says. “The harbor— the ships. Who’s going to send the reports to the Coast Guard?”
The moss, who is sitting on the green-dusted sea wall and watching him with big eerie brown eyes, says with a shrug, “The lighthouse sure doesn't seem to notice a difference, her wick-trimmer bein’ dead or alive or something in between. Everything’s been moving along just fine, hasn’t it?”
Etho is a little dazed and concerned, but he takes this in stride, because he doesn’t know what else to do. “Uh. Okay,” he says.
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“How long have you been out here,” he asks the moss one night. His voice is soft. They’re in Etho’s bed, running hands along each other’s faces, cupping each other’s cheeks. Two warm bodies, pressed together underneath the covers.
The moss grins at him, a big, toothy smile, so bright it'd make Etho's heart stutter in his chest if he still had a beating heart. As it is, he approximates the effect as closely as he can, thinking he should at least make the effort.
“A long freakin’ time,” the moss says.
His eyes are very brown. Etho thought he remembered how brown they were, but he didn’t. They are browner than that. Deeper than that— richer than that, beautiful like rich dark earth cupped in his palms, moist and fertile.
“I didn’t think a ghost could have eyes that brown,” he blurts. Or hands that warm, he thinks, or— lips that soft.
“Depends on the ghost,” the moss says, puffing out his chest a little and lifting his chin. “I’m the best there is, so my big beautiful eyes must just come with the package— I dunno, no one's commented on them in a long damn time—” and Etho feels— delight. He’s helpless with it, suddenly. Endeared. he wants to do nothing but watch this ghost’s mannerisms, from cheerful to indignant, for the rest of the day. He could spend several days like this, even. He could spend an eternity.
There’s work to get to, but after that, maybe.
The moss does seem to like him well enough. He remembers the kiss, and he feels the dusting of pink over his cheeks without needing to see it. He isn’t sure he has the blood in his body for blushing the way he is, but, well. He approximates the effect as closely as he can. He should at least make the effort.
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8/24/1892. We are nearing the end of summer and into autumn. A new shipment of oil comes in to-morrow. The weather has been balmy still, warm winds from the South and a smooth sea. I have finished my Oscar Wilde and I think I will start on another.
The moss has asked to write an entry as well and I advised that he keep his own journal so as not to confuse the records.
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Etho thinks of himself as having befriended the wind, by now. He’s lived months on this beach, months of it howling in his ears as he sleeps in the lighthouse. It moves across the sand in long, impatient gusts, buffeting it and buffeting the hem of his coat, blowing salt right into his face. The sky is blue. Twin pairs of footprints dot the shore to Etho’s back, some recent and crisp, the ones further back already blown away.
The moss stands with his back to the wind, knobbly brown hands tucked into lush green pockets. They’re a workman’s hands. His dark, curly hair is blown wild by the wind. He watches the ocean the way people watch a clock when they are waiting for something important to begin. The waves aren’t as dramatic as the wind would suggest they should be, today. They’re steady.
The sun is sinking in the sky— the light changes, as it does. Shadows lengthen over the sand and the sea takes on a deeper, blacker tone. The wind doesn’t relent; if anything it strengthens, buffeting Etho’s coat and his knit hat. His mother knit it for him.
Etho stops and takes off his hat. He holds it in his hands for a moment. He’s still getting used to the way the cold feels now that— now that, well.
He’s been writing to her, same as he always has. The postman still takes his letters.
“Work to do, still,” he calls, and the moss turns and grins at him, the dying sunlight glinting off his bright brown eyes.
.
The work is quiet and it is slow. It is the same work, day after day: he fuels the lamp. He cleans the lenses. He looks after his own home, as well, in a steady, day-after-day way. Plodding and consistent. He eats the same meals each morning and each night. He makes coffee for two. He washes his laundry.
He looks out at the sea.
.
Cape Hope, Oct. 12, 1873. — By order of the U.S. Coast Guard, the venerable beacon known as the Cape Hope Light, which for more than three decades has stood sentinel upon the ragged promontory, will be withdrawn from service and its lantern extinguished until further notice. The decision follows the recent gale of the 9th instant, which inflicted such damage upon the tower’s gallery and lantern-room as to render the structure unsafe for the keepers and unfit for the guidance of mariners.
The storm, of a severity seldom witnessed upon this coast, tore away ironwork, shattered panes, and undermined the masonry at the base, exposing fissures that the engineers declare cannot be repaired without the temporary removal of the light. The Coast Guard, after inspection and consultation with an honorable Captain of the United States Navy, resolved that the risk to life and limb in attempting immediate restoration is too great.
The Cape Hope Light has long borne a sombre reputation among sailors and townsfolk alike. Since its erection in the year 1839, no fewer than ten persons have been killed in the waters beneath the cliff in circumstances that have excited conjecture. Some superstitious mariners have declared the place accursed; more sober men have attributed the tragedy to treacherous currents and hidden ledges.
The present keeper, a man of sober habits and long service, has been removed to the mainland.
In consequence of the discontinuance of the light, temporary signals will be established at the neighbouring headlands, and the Revenue Service will maintain a watch by night until the lantern is restored.
.
The great spiral staircase creaks, when Gem's footsteps find it— old, black metal, cold to the touch. She isn’t wearing gloves and she thinks she maybe should be. She’s hardly dressed for the weather at all. She flipped the breaker when she found it, which took ages, by the way— but the place is old, like so old she isn't even sure how old and she tried looking online and didn't find, like, much?
The room is huge, every sound echoing, bouncing off of rounded walls and back to her ears— it’s going to take a while to warm up.
Her phone’s dead, because of course it is. Her charger’s in her backpack. She’ll plug it in once she finds a good outlet. The bedroom probably has one. The bedroom probably has a bed, too, or at least that’s what she hopes the listing on apartments.com meant by “fully furnished”?
Most of her stuff’s still out in her car— she’ll worry about moving in properly tomorrow, after she’s gotten some sleep. It was a long drive up here.
She leaves the door open behind her, admittedly a little nervous— it's just so dark inside— and she tucks the key into her coat pocket. It's old, and it's pretty— ornate metal, like a prop for a period movie. This whole place kind of feels like a set for a period movie. There’s moss growing over the whole base of the lighthouse, thick enough that she could barely find the door.
She reaches for the light switch, feeling along the wall near the doorway. Aha. It takes kind of a bit of effort to flip, and it makes a heavy click when it switches and that echoes, too, makes her jump a little with just how loud it is. Good lord, this place is old.
The wind howls outside. The beach was so pretty like two hours ago but now, okay, she can admit to herself that everything seems kind of creepy, and she's not second-guessing this, alright. It was the closest most affordable housing she could find and masters’ students can't be choosers, can they. The point is the marine biology of it all, she doesn't have to live in luxury the whole time, the point is the field work.
Besides, she thinks, shivering and hugging her arms. Think how cool it's gonna be, saying she lived in an old lighthouse during grad school. She wonders if she'll get any cool stories to tell at parties.