Darkhouse

The mess was overwhelming. Gwen stood in the center of the dusted room, contemplating how to sort through the scrappy furniture and array of items. Gwen Kingston and her husband Felix had just purchased the small cottage connected to an old lighthouse. They planned to renovate the musty homestead that smelled of rotting fish and sandy seaweed.

Felix opened the chest in the corner and tossed its weathered contents into a heap. He threw a little black book on top of the junk pile.

"Felix, don’t throw this away...it looks brand new!" Gwen pounced.

"It can’t be new, it has been here for decades," Felix replied.

"It looks pretty new to me," she argued.

"Whatever," he scoffed, rolling his eyes.

Gwen picked up the little black book on top of the stack and opened it. Its pages were empty and its durable leather cover was in excellent condition. She placed the notebook into the keep pile and continued tidying.

The next morning, Gwen drank her bitter coffee in the living room. The walls were empty, except for an oil painting of ocean waves. She grabbed the notebook off of the keep pile to write a note reminding herself to buy cream and sugar. Gwen bent the stiff cover open. Written in dark ink were the words, "Darkness Kills." Darkness kills? Why would Felix write that? Gwen thought. She set the notebook down as Felix entered the room.

Gwen held up the book, displaying the page, "what does this mean?" she demanded.

"What are you talking about, I didn’t write anything," Felix answered as he poured his coffee.

Their argument was cut short by the heavy rain outside plotting onto the rooftop and the rising roar of thunder rumbling in the ruffles of the thickening clouds.

"I didn’t know a storm was coming," said Gwen.

"Me neither," Felix uttered over the sound of the dense waves, smacking against the slated grey rocks.

"I love summer thunderstorms. Let’s go watch it."

They shuffled to the door, opened it, and peered out at the gentle waves in the sea and the sunny sky spotted with cream-colored clouds.

That night, Gwen laid in bed unable to sleep. The day’s events circled in her mind. First, the strange message in the book. When she opened that book on the day they arrived, the pages were empty. The only thing that lingered on those pages was the classic smell of leather and stale paper misted with saltwater. Then the sound of the thunderstorm. She and Felix both heard it, but it was a peaceful summer day once they looked outside.

After finally falling asleep, Gwen suddenly woke up to the mellow noise of scratching coming from the corner of the room.

"Skra skra skra."

"Felix, go back to bed," Gwen mumbled through the folds of her pillowcase. The scratching continued.

Gwen flipped over, "Felix sto-" Gwen's voice cut out as her hand settled on the warm skin of her husband next to her, asleep.

Her eyes widened in the darkness. The sound of dripping dribbled against the wooden floors. Gwen shoved Felix awake as she yanked the chain of the lamp filling the bedroom with light. The two sat up and stared at the little black book lying open on the desk as glossy black ink seeped through the pages and trickled onto the floorboards.

Slowly, the couple slid off the bed and walked toward the desk. Underneath the puddle of ink, the words "the tale is in the waves" sat on the page.

"Ho-h-how…" Felix stuttered.

"I…I don’t know."

Gwen lifted the book. The corner of the spine crumbled into her fingers and the pages were less pristine than they were yesterday.

"The tale is in the waves, darkness kills…" she mumbled as she paced the room. Felix watched her in confusion.

"What do you think it means?" she asked.

"It doesn’t matter!" Felix barked, "let’s just throw the book away... it’s freaking me out."

"No!" Gwen lurched back, cradling the book in her arms. "It’s a message...it was written for a reason."

Ignoring Felix’s worry, Gwen left the room and began searching the cottage. She peered around the living room. "Waves...waves," her eyes locked onto the painting hanging awkwardly on the wall, "waves." Felix followed her into the room.

"Help me get the painting, grab the other side," directed Gwen. Felix obeyed.

They lifted the painting off the wall and laid it face-down onto the floor. Gwen traced her finger across the skeleton of the painting.

"Here!" she pointed at a bundle of crinkled paper stuffed under the wooden frame. She handed them to Felix as she unfolded them.

Felix looked up at Gwen, "They’re letters."

As Felix snored in the bed, Gwen sat on the cold floor reading through each letter. The letters all began with, "Dear, Mr. Edwin Griffing…" He must have been the old lighthouse keeper, Gwen thought. One of the letters was requesting him to come from Ireland and fix the light. She pulled out another letter regarding his family. Edwin had a wife and three children. He had moved from Ireland and his family was following behind. She moved on to the last letter which addressed his family’s travels. This letter seemed concerning. "I’m sorry to inform you, your family has already set out on their journey. Expect them within the next 10 days. Keep watch for them during the daytime, if you have yet to repair the light," was written in elegant cursive. Gwen remembered the realtor pointing out the history of the lighthouse. The brick structure was weak and the light had been broken for over a century. Huh, Gwen thought, poor Edwin must have not been able to fix the light. She re-folded the letters, placed them in the desk drawer, and tried to sleep.

"Bye Felix!" Gwen called.

"Where are you going?" Felix asked, peeking his head out of the kitchen.

"I’m going to the library...also who should I call to get the light fixed?"

"We are not getting that light fixed."

"Why not?"

"It will cost thousands!" Felix exclaimed.

Gwen huffed and slammed the door behind her.

"Here you go, sweetie!" the bubbly librarian sang, placing the stack of documents on the desk.

"Thank you. Do you know if you have any news clippings about the lighthouse?" Gwen asked.

"I’ll check in the back!" the librarian smiled and turned on her clumpy heels as her tight curls bounced with each hip-swaying step.

Gwen flipped through the dusty documents. A flyer decorated with red, white, and blue showcased bold, block letters that read, "FOURTH OF JULY FUNDRAISER! DONATE TO SAVE THE LIGHTHOUSE!" The document was stamped with the date 1972 in splotchy ink.

The librarian returned with another binder. She adjusted her purple cat-eyed glasses and peered down at the flyer.

"Oh my," she gasped, "I remember that fundraiser. That was the year of the big hurricane."

"A hurricane?"

"Yes, we had to lock up the lighthouse and the whole island had to be evacuated."

"What happened to the money? Why wasn’t the lighthouse ever fixed?"

"After the hurricane, everyone returned to the island but everybody forgot about the lighthouse."

The librarian flipped to a news article and pointed her red-polished nail at a paragraph that read, "The Fourth of July Fundraiser raised about $20,000 dollars for the lighthouse. However, the generous donations have not been seen since the hurricane."

"The big scandal was that the fundraiser organizer ran up north with all the money," she added.

Gwen turned pages of obituaries in the binder when a familiar name popped up, "Edwin Griffing, died June 7, 1834." The next pages were about his family. His wife and three children all died on June 4, 1834. Just three days before Edwin. Gwen continued reading the passage. His family had died in a shipwreck right off of the coast next to the lighthouse. The following research revealed that Edwin had gone insane and committed suicide shortly after finding the shipwreck.

As she drove home, sorrow spread through her body, stretched into her fingertips, and tightened her grip on the wheel. The thought of Edwin discovering that his family had died so close to homemade her heart empty. Gwen couldn’t shake the feeling that if the light had been working, Edwin’s family would have been spared by the deathly grip of darkness. The impossible etched into her mind is Edwin trying to tell her something.

Felix was laying under the sink, his legs spread across the scuffed kitchen tile, fixing the plumbing when Gwen burst through the door.

"This place is haunted!" she cried.

Felix set down his wrench, "I sure know the book is," he chuckled.

"I’m serious, I think Edwin is trying to tell us something. He is the one writing in the book!"

"Who’s Edwin?"

"He was the old lighthouse keeper in the 1830s. I researched him at the library. His family shipwrecked in the darkness and died because he couldn’t fix the light. Where is the notebook?"

Felix reached out gently towards Gwen, "honey you are acting crazy, you need to calm down."

"Where...is...the…book?" Gwen growled.

"I threw it away."

"You what?!" she screamed.

"Like you said this place is haunted. Plus, it’s clearly driving you crazy!" Felix scoffed.

Gwen began rummaging through each trashcan when loud thuds, sounding like footsteps came from the other side of the house...the side where the lighthouse stood.

"What was that?" Felix asked in a hushed tone.

"I’m not sure," Gwen said as they inched towards the door leading to the lighthouse.

The lights began flickering rapidly. Gwen hesitantly turned the knob, slowly opening the door and revealing the spiral staircase. The lights flickered faster and the footsteps thudded harder. Gwen blinked, relieving her eyes of the strobing lights. They stepped through the doorway and the flashing stopped along with the footsteps, leaving them in complete silent darkness. Moments later the lights returned to their normal state. There on the steel stairs was the decaying little black book. It looked older than ever. Its pages were mudded with the scent of fish and algae. A small key was perched in the center of the sand-tinted page. Felix retrieved the key and examined it in his shaky hand. Underneath the key was the phrase, "the light reunites."

"There!" Gwen pointed to a small closet, hidden in the shadows underneath the stairs. The metal key scraped against the edges of the keyholes as Felix pushed it in...a perfect fit. He turned the lock and opened the door, releasing a cloud of dust that billowed into their apprehensive faces. As the particles settled a clear box came into view along with the stacks of money inside. They counted for hours until their tired eyes were too heavy to remain open. $20,000 dollars.

Gwen looked up at Felix, "we can fix the light!" she excitedly announced.

"For Edwin," Felix added on.

Gwen softly grinned, "For Edwin."

The electrician arrived at the cottage the next morning and started working. The sun had set once he had finished. He pulled the lever, and the bright gleam of light blinked to life. As the light swept across the waves, a large foggy silhouette rose out of the sea. Water gushed off of the structure, splashing back into the ocean.

It was the ship. Its sail rippled in the wind. A ghostly figure wafted across the sand and breezed through the tall grass into the mist coiling around the ship.

Gwen looked down at the notebook in her hands. The crinkled leather peeled off of the spine and its pages molded into a seaweed green. Awash of saltwater moistened the rotting book and dampened her fingers. She looked back at the phantom ship. Its tattered flag flapped in the hazy twilight. Swept by foaming waves, the ship sailed into the star-freckled night.

Goodbye Edwin.