The Silent Beacon

In the heart of the tempest, where the world's fury met the quiet strength of the lighthouse, Tadhg Cthonall had found his voice in the language of light.

It had been a long time since he had one, though if you had asked those who knew him best, they might have once considered him quite the linguist. Words had once danced across his tongue, carried by curiosity and confidence, but the years had stripped him of most of them. Now, silence was his companion, punctuated only by the creak of the spiral stairs and the low rumble of the ocean far below.

Lighthouse keeper was certainly the furthest from academia he could imagine, and yet it suited him better than any lecture hall or library ever had. Here, amid salt spray and thunder, he understood the subtle language of the sea—the rise and fall of waves, the flight of gulls, the dark swell of clouds that foretold storms.

He watched the gulls fly low, circling closer together, their cries ragged in the damp air. The unseasonable assembly was a warning, one he had learned to heed. The storm would arrive soon.

Then, piercing the gray morning mist, came a strange light—sudden, bright, almost impossible against the slate sky. Isolation had been one of his few remaining pleasures in this world, and he bristled at the intrusion. No one was supposed to be on the opposing island for some months, though he had ignored the ramblings of the coastal authorities during their routine visit a fortnight ago.

“Oh, do deliver your wares and get out,” he wanted to bark. But no words came.

They wouldn’t. Not anymore. Not since the accident, not since the last echo of his voice had faded, leaving him stranded in a kind of quiet he had once mistaken for peace. Only Niamh, the Newfoundland he had adopted before his move two years prior, remained a faithful listener. She was as dusty black as the basalt cliffs they stood upon, her pink tongue lolling like a miniature lighthouse in the mist, and just as attuned to the sea as her namesake.

Another flash of light cut through the gloom.

Plumes of white sprayed into the air as he groped for his lantern, nearly tripping over the sleeping Niamh, who stirred and growled softly in protest. Big John, the locals called it at this time of year, when the gods of the waves pounded the cliffs, and the air hung thick and damp in clouds. Tadhg cursed under his breath to every deity he could summon and opened the hatch a fraction of an inch to light the wick. The smell of old kerosene mixed with the lingering tang of burnt sinew, the latter a reminder of many fires tended and many storms survived.

Across the small island on the observation deck, a silhouette waited. Long, dark hair—darker than Niamh’s—fluttered like a cloak in the wind, yet she seemed impossibly small against the vast, angry horizon. She cradled her lantern and flashed it again.

Hello, she seemed to say. One quick, piercing flash.

Tadhg lowered his adjustment knob. Hello.

Then came a series of long and short flashes, punctuated by pauses. He mimicked them as best he could, though memory faltered under the weight of the storm and the unfamiliar rhythm. The patterns seemed random, sporadic, yet deliberate, each one carrying a pulse of meaning he could almost grasp. She shook her head slowly, gesturing back and forth, then toward herself.

Her name.

He focused harder as her lantern blinked in the storm. Short—pause—short, long, short—short—short, pause, long, long, short—again and again. Tadhg consulted his booklet, slowly deciphering the message:

E—l—i—z—a—b—e—t—h

Elizabeth. He checked his booklet again and carefully flashed his own name back.