The wind at Lizard Point does not arrive. It insists.
We had taken shelter near the old lighthouse buildings just after dusk, when the sea stops pretending to be separate from the sky. Esmeralda was checking charts she didn’t entirely trust anymore. Twinkles was listening to the wind as though it was speaking in a language almost—but not quite—familiar.
Pedro was asleep in a hat he had decided belonged to him permanently.
I went into the lantern room alone.
It was smaller than I expected. Older too. Everything in it felt slightly out of phase with the present, as though time had stopped caring about this particular structure centuries ago.
The glass panes were filmed with salt and memory.
And then I saw it.
A faint rotation of light.
Not the lamp.
Something behind it.
For a moment I thought it was reflection. Then I realised it was moving independently, out at sea—answering the lighthouse, or perhaps arguing with it.
When I went back down, Esmeralda asked what I’d seen.
I told her the truth.
“Something is still signalling from the water.”
Twinkles didn’t look surprised.
Pedro, still asleep, said nothing at all.
But the next morning, the tide had changed its pattern slightly, as though listening more carefully than before.
I didn’t mention the lantern room again.
Comments