The Keepers

The Belle View lighthouse had been empty for years.

The new keeper and his daughter arrived on the island late at night, in a storm. Their new home was gloomy and musky. The only decor was a portrait of a girl on a beach, featuring the lighthouse itself in the landscape behind her. A bookshelf on the wall contained a record of all shipwrecks which had occurred there.

Rain dripped onto their heads constantly, although they could find no leak. The wind beat viciously against the lighthouse as they laid down to sleep, while the waves crashed ever higher up the rocky cliffside.

Their first night, Ellen and her father awoke to the sound of screaming in the darkness.

Under the sweeping lantern of the lighthouse, a nightmare was unfolding on the water. A large ship had struck a rock in the storm, tossed about by the wild waves. The ship had split into two halves, both sinking rapidly beneath the black water. Sailors dotted the surface, strewn about like spatters of blood in a slaughterhouse. It was their screams that had woken the keepers.

The keeper and his daughter watched in horror as the sailors were dashed against the jagged rocks, one after another. Some tried to swim towards the tower, but as the lantern light swept away and returned to illuminate the scene, each had vanished.

They flew down the stairs, nearly falling a thousand times, and burst from the door together. The rain pummeled their faces, their arms, and the mud sucked at their feet with every step. As Ellen turned down the road to the village for help, a bloodcurdling scream stopped her in her tracks. She turned slowly, fearfully, to the sea once more.

In the flash of the lighthouse lantern, she had only a moment’s visibility. A sailor, suspended meters above the waves, flailing and twisting frantically. Darkness. As the light returned, there were two. Darkness. The lantern swung round again, and Ellen gasped in horrified comprehension. The two bodies were one. The sailor had been split in two by some unseen force.

She slipped in the mud and fell to her hands and knees, shocked. Her father had not seen, but ran down the rocky embankment to the small rescue boat pitching in the harbor below.

Ellen looked towards the town. The life-saving station had a small beacon of fire positioned at its crest. It was not far. She got to her feet again and ran.

The rest of the night was a blur. Ellen reached the station, raised the alarm, and returned with the rescue crew to the lighthouse. Her father had done his best, but the little boat was unable to crest the massive waves the storm had brewed. The rescue crew ventured out in a larger vessel, pulling him aboard just before his boat was sucked beneath the water, but they could find no evidence of the wreck, and no signs of the sailors.

There was to be no sleep that night. As the storm abated, the rescue crews were joined by volunteers from the village, and the recovery began. Ellen waited anxiously on the shore, dreading the discovery of the body she had seen inexplicably ripped to shreds above the water.

But there was not a single trace of the ship to be found.

The day was foggy, making the search all the more difficult. Ellen tried to focus on cleaning their new home, but even as she wiped away old dirt, grime, and cobwebs it was as if they sprang back into place.

Several times during her work, Ellen whirled around, certain that someone was behind her. Some children from the village, perhaps, curious and mischievous, breaking in to scare the newcomers.

But there was never anyone there.

The next night was, if possible, worse. Ellen could not say whether it was dreams which plagued her, or restless spirits. But when the sun dawned on their second day in the lighthouse, she felt like death herself.

As they sat down to breakfast, Ellen found herself staring at the portrait on the wall. The girl stood on a beach like theirs, with a lighthouse behind her just like theirs. Her hand was outstretched and filled with sand, which was trickling down from her fingers to float away on a breeze. Her gaze was turned towards the frame, towards the viewer, and her eyes were black.

Ellen looked through the history books on the shelf, as it was her duty to record this shipwreck. She paused at a familiar face between the pages. The portrait--it had been recovered from a shipwreck nearly a decade ago, along with its subject. The wreck had been the worst ever recorded. One sailor had even been split in two.

The girl’s name had been Madison. She had died in this very tower, of wounds sustained during the wreck. She had been the same age as Ellen was now.

Madison’s eyes followed Ellen everywhere she went.

Ellen waited until her father had gone to check the fuel levels, then found an old tablecloth and draped it over the edges of the frame. It was insensible of her, but she found the portrait and its story unsettling.

That night, the fog had thickened. As Ellen readied for bed, she saw with consternation a wet spot on the blankets. Dread mounting though she could not say why, she pulled back the sheets and gasped.

Drenched in seawater and covered in seaweed, a cracked compass lay in the middle of the bed.

Unable to sleep or even lie down in the bed, Ellen returned to the kitchen and brewed a cup of tea. As she turned toward the stairs, she gasped and dropped the mug to shatter across the stone floor.

The tablecloth had fallen, and Madison was looking at her.

Ellen pressed a hand to her heart, panting, and stared at the painting. For a moment, she could have sworn the girl’s hair was blowing in a silent breeze, that the waves behind her were rolling into shore. She squeezed her eyes shut, but could still feel the black gaze.

She opened her eyes and frowned. This was at least a problem she could fix. She swept up the fragments of her mug and mopped up the tea, feeling those black eyes on her. She set aside the broom and rolled up her sleeves, approaching the portrait.

No matter how she tried, Ellen was unable to remove the portrait from the wall. It was as if it had been fused into the stone, or carved from it. Biting her lip, she glanced around for the tablecloth. Feeling defeated, she covered the portrait again and returned upstairs without her tea.

The next morning was overcast but the fog had begun to lift. Neither Ellen nor her father had slept much since their arrival on Belle View Isle, and breakfast was silent.

As she cooked and cleaned up afterwards, Ellen found a flask full of seawater, a wooden spoon covered in barnacles, and a rusted tobacco tin. As though in a daze, she carefully set each aside and resumed her task as though without interruption.

Her father and the rescue crews had still not recovered any bodies from the wreck. He had grown quiet, brooding, and seemed anxious that evening at dinner. He did not seem to notice the painting covered by the tablecloth.

As Ellen cleaned up the dishes and he went to check the lantern, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned, wondering if he had forgotten something.

There was no one there.

As she stood there, plate and dish towel in hand, Ellen felt her gaze pulled inevitably towards the portrait.

The tablecloth fell silently to the floor.

Ellen gasped, stepping backwards. Madison seemed closer, somehow. Further along on the beach. As though she were moving towards the frame.

She shook her head. She was letting her imagination run wild. She stepped closer to the portrait, certain she had misjudged it.

There were footprints in the sand, behind the girl. Almost as though she had taken a step.

Ellen shuddered, glancing briefly back up at the painted face. As always, the black gaze stayed fixed on her. She hurried from the room and up the long, winding staircase to the lantern room. She did not want to be alone. She did not want her father to be alone.

She found her father on the main gallery, standing above the water in the open air. The balcony encircled the tower and was high enough to see across the tiny island, clear to the other side. He stood at the railing looking down at the rocky cliff face on which the sailors had lost their lives.

They watched the sunset together in silence.

In the morning, Ellen took a walk on the beach. She found the exact spot from the painting, the spot where the girl stood, and looked around. She had come to prove something to herself, to remove the power of the painting, but felt only a deep chill in her bones. There was something in the sand there, beneath her feet.

She knelt down and scooped up a handful of sand. Something sparkled within it, and she straightened, allowing the grains to fall between her fingers.

A small gold coin glittered up from her palm. She dug deeper in the sand, but found nothing else. She returned excitedly to the lighthouse with her treasure. She froze in the doorway, having forgotten that the portrait was uncovered and free to stare at her.

She crept closer, gold coin squeezed tightly in her fist. With a jolt, she realized how much like the girl she must have looked only moments ago. Standing in the exact spot, holding sand, watching it fall. She looked closely at the girl’s outstretched hand and gasped. Peeking out from the pile of sand in her palm was a small gold coin, exactly like the one Ellen had just found.

That night, she could not sleep. She could swear she heard footsteps on the stairs, climbing endlessly, ceaselessly, upwards. Then, after what felt like hours, the footsteps stopped outside her closed door.

The doorknob twitched.

Ellen squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again.

The door was open.

The girl from the painting stood on the landing. The ringlets in her hair waved in a nonexistent breeze from a painting. Her dark eyes fixed on Ellen. She stepped into the room.

Ellen was frozen in the bed, eyes wide. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move.

Madison took another step, and another. She was crossing the room, slowly but steadily. The invisible breeze ruffled her dress but did not touch Ellen. She stopped at the bedside. She stood mere inches from Ellen, glaring down at her with those black, vacant eyes.

Madison stretched out her hand, and it was full of sand which began to trickle down, began to coat Ellen, burying her as it continued to fall.

She tried to cry out but her mouth was filled with sand. She was choking on it. She tried to scream but she could not speak, could not see. All she could hear was the rushing of the waves as they crashed onto the rocks in the painting …

She woke to the sound of gulls crying. To the salty smell of the sea. To a fresh ocean breeze on her face. To the sensation of sand, trickling between her fingers.

She opened her eyes.

Before her was the kitchen, and she could see someone at the table with her father. To her left and right was the shore. She could not understand it, and she could not move or even turn her head to look behind her. The figures at the kitchen table got to their feet, and Ellen recognized her father, and … herself.

Herself, with black eyes.

As her father left the room, the not-Ellen drew closer, smiled, and covered Ellen and her frame with the tablecloth.