The storm raged outside, waves crashing against the jagged cliffs like an angry beast trying to tear the land apart. Inside the lighthouse, Elias Mercer adjusted the lantern’s wick, ensuring the flame burned bright enough to pierce the thick fog. His hands, gnarled from decades of work, moved with practiced ease.
At seventy-two, Elias was the last keeper of Blackthorn Lighthouse. The government had warned him for years that automation would replace him, but he had stubbornly refused to leave. This lighthouse was more than just a job—it was his life. His father had kept the light before him, and his grandfather before that. The Mercers had guided ships safely through these treacherous waters for over a century.
A sharp knock at the door startled him. No one visited Blackthorn Isle in good weather, let alone during a storm like this. Cautiously, Elias grabbed his rusted iron poker and approached the door.
“Who’s there?” he called over the howling wind.
A woman’s voice, strained but clear, answered. “Please! I need help!”
Elias hesitated. Strangers were rare, and not always trustworthy. But the desperation in her voice swayed him. He unlatched the door, and the wind nearly tore it from his grip. A young woman stood there, drenched, her dark hair plastered to her face. Behind her, the storm raged, the sea frothing like a maddened creature.
“Come in, quick!” Elias pulled her inside and shut the door against the tempest.
The woman collapsed onto the wooden bench by the fireplace, shivering. Elias grabbed a woolen blanket and draped it over her shoulders. “What in God’s name are you doing out here in this weather?”
“I—I was on a boat,” she stammered. “The storm came out of nowhere. The others… they didn’t make it.”
Elias frowned. “No ships were due tonight.”
She looked up at him, her green eyes haunted. “We weren’t supposed to be here.”
Something in her tone sent a chill down his spine. Elias had lived long enough to know when a story held hidden depths. “What’s your name, girl?”
“Lillian,” she whispered.
He studied her. She was young, early twenties perhaps, with an air of fragility that didn’t quite match the determination in her gaze. “Well, Lillian, you’re safe here for now. But come morning, we’ll need to get you to the mainland.”
She nodded, but her eyes flickered toward the lighthouse stairs. “Does… does anyone else live here?”
“Just me,” Elias said. “And the ghosts, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
A strange expression crossed her face. “Ghosts?”
He chuckled. “Sailors’ tales. Every old place has them.”
The storm outside grew fiercer, the wind screaming like a banshee. The lighthouse trembled, but the beam of light held steady, cutting through the darkness.
Lillian stood abruptly. “I need to see the light.”
Elias frowned. “Why?”
“Please.” There was something urgent in her voice.
Against his better judgment, he led her up the spiral staircase. The higher they climbed, the louder the storm became, the walls groaning under its assault. At the top, the great lantern spun, its glass prisms scattering light in all directions.
Lillian stepped forward, her fingers brushing the glass. Then she did something Elias had never seen before—she whispered to the light.
The flame flickered, then burned impossibly bright, turning from gold to an eerie blue.
Elias staggered back. “What—what are you?”
She turned to him, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Elias. But the light was dying. It needed a new keeper.”
And then, before his eyes, Lillian began to fade, her form dissolving into the glow of the lantern. The storm outside quieted, the waves stilling as if pacified.
Elias reached out, but his hand passed through empty air. A deep understanding settled over him. The lighthouse had chosen its next guardian.
With a sigh, he adjusted the lantern once more, ensuring the light—now Lillian’s light—would guide the lost souls home.
And for the first time in decades, Elias Mercer felt at peace.
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