The Last Lightkeeper

The wind howled like a restless spirit outside the glass of the lighthouse tower. Waves crashed against the jagged rocks below, white spray glowing faintly in the moonlight. From his perch atop the cliffs, Elias Harrow watched the sea churn, his fingers wrapped tightly around a chipped porcelain mug of tea gone cold.

He had been the keeper of the Wrenhaven Light for over thirty years. The job had passed to him from his father, who had taken it over from his father before that. The Harrows had always been lightkeepers—sentinels in a world most people forgot existed. Technology had changed the seas. GPS, sonar, and automatic systems had rendered lighthouses obsolete. But Wrenhaven still stood, still blinked out its warning every twelve seconds like a heartbeat refusing to die.

Tonight, the heartbeat felt irregular.

A heavy fog had rolled in earlier than expected, wrapping the lighthouse and its cliff like a shroud. Elias had seen all sorts of fog—thick as smoke, thin as breath—but this one was different. It swallowed sound and light. The beam of the lighthouse barely penetrated more than a few dozen meters before it was devoured.

He checked the time: 1:43 a.m.

He turned back to the logbook and noted the conditions. Thick fog. No vessels visible. Light functional. But he hesitated before closing it.

There had been a sound earlier—a horn, but not from any modern ship. It was lower, mournful, as though it had come from beneath the waves. Elias had heard that sound once before. He didn’t like remembering when.

He reached for the small wooden box hidden under the log table. The lid creaked as he opened it, revealing a yellowed newspaper clipping and an old photograph. The headline read:

“Local Boy Lost at Sea: No Survivors After Night Storm Sinks Fishing Vessel”

The photo showed two boys, no more than twelve, standing barefoot in the surf. One of them—grinning, holding up a rusted crab trap—was Elias. The other, more reserved but smiling with a quiet warmth, was Thomas Reeve.

Thomas had been Elias’s best friend. They had gone everywhere together—down the cliffs, into the forest, even out onto the sea, though both of their parents forbade it. But that summer, desperate to prove they were old enough, they stole a boat and rowed out during a storm warning. The tide turned faster than they’d expected. A wave capsized them.

Elias washed ashore hours later. Thomas never did.

A gust rattled the windowpane.

Elias looked up, heart thudding. For a moment, just a second, he thought he saw a shape moving through the fog. Not a boat. It was… too still. Like it was waiting.

He grabbed his lantern and stepped outside. The sea wind cut through his coat, and his boots slipped on the damp stone stairs as he descended toward the bluff.

The fog closed around him, thick and silent. Even the crash of waves was distant, as though the world had receded.

At the edge of the cliff, he stopped.

There, just offshore, was the outline of a boat. A small fishing boat—wooden, familiar. It shouldn’t have been there. The coast was too dangerous for anything not built to take the rocks.

Elias’s breath caught in his throat.

On the boat stood a figure. Not waving. Not moving. Just… standing.

He knew, before he even called out, who it was.

“Thomas?” he said. His voice barely carried past his lips.

The figure tilted its head.

And then, impossibly, it smiled.

The wind died. For a moment, the world held its breath.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Elias whispered, tears slipping down his weathered cheeks.

The figure lifted a hand and pointed—to the rocks below.

Elias followed the gesture and gasped.

There, half-buried in seaweed and time, was the wreck of a small fishing boat—its bones exposed, broken on the reef. He had never seen it before. No one had. But it had been there all along.

The truth came