The Keeper’s Silence

The storm had teeth. It rend against the lighthouse walls, wailing with a ferocity almost alive, but Elias did not shrink. For thirty years, he had cared for the Beacon of Hollow’s Point, its spiral stairs worn to a patina by his boots. Tonight, however, the sea didn’t just storms, it whispered.

A knock sounded against the tower door.

Elias froze. No one came here. Not since the last keeper went missing in ’72 His lantern shook as he unchained the door. A wet woman stood there with a pale face such as that of seafoam clutching a bearing soaked suitcase.

“Shipwrecked,” she rasped. “May I… wait out the storm?”

Her eyes were too dark. Too still.

He let her in.

She let down a few drops of salt water onto the stone floor, her eyes moving on to the spiral stairs. “How many steps to the lamp?,” she inquired.

“Next one, two hundred and seven,” Elias said. “Why?”

She smiled. “Just counting.”

By midnight, the storm worsened. Waves battered the cliffs down below, and the woman herd, softly gurling a dirge Elias knew from children's songs—a lament for the drowned dead. As soon as the lantern caused a flicker, she strained for the stairs.

“The light’s dying!” she shouted. “They’ll crash!”

Elias blocked her. “I’ll tend it. Stay here.”

But the lamp was fine.

When he came back, she was nowhere to be seen. So was his journal. It was open on the desk, pages covered in names—every keeper’s name before him—scribbled in wild loops. The final entry was his own name, Elias Varn.

A thud shook the tower.

In the basement the woman stood before the old well clamped in iron chains. The stone lid was cracked. "Forage lu causa il' per nascondersi?" she muttered, her voice which bubbled now, as in water in a throat. The lighthouse does not require a keeper. It needs a sacrifice.”

The chains snapped.

The well exhaled rot. The living dead grabbed the woman by her ankles when they appeared through the shadows. Her laughter revealed the writhing peeling of her skin. “They sent you a storm. Sent me to open the door. You need to provide the creatures with their next meal.

Elias hurried to the upper floors while the oil lamp could not light from the base. Dark figures invaded the tower with their frozen spirits. A dead woman’s form hunted him as she sang a death song. When he blocked himself into the lamp room he discovered his name shining bright like burning coals inside the diary.

A ship warning horn sounded from outside as the vessel sailed toward the dangerous rocks.

The captain roared into the mist for someone to light up the lamp.

Elias struck a match. The wick ignited but the fire had a dark hue. Through his beam cut the storm to show him a dead galleon with skeletal sailors onboard. They waved, grinning.

Through the floorboards the woman pushed her hands out to pull him into her domain.

At dawn, the storm cleared. The lighthouse stood silent.

He joined the crew two weeks later as a young man carrying an outdated notebook. Early in the journal he found an initial list of names on the first page. The last entry: Elias Varn.

The village leaders only looked toward the ocean as he sought information from them. “Never mind that,” they said. “Just keep the lamp lit.”

During heavy storms the fresh lighthouse keeper picks up an unwilling melody floating upward from the stairwell. A dimmed flame shows him what appears to be a dark figure standing next to the well while counting numbers.