The Last Keeper of the Haunted Beacon
On a cliff where salt air gnaws at memory, the old lighthouse stands like a weathered skull. They say the beacon keeps its own council after midnight, the sea leaning in to listen. When I arrived in the harbor town, the locals crossed themselves at the name of Calder, the last man to tend the light before the storm swallowed him. The lighthouse still burned, rain squeaking on the iron railings, the mechanism groaning as if waking from a long dream.
I took the post, a desk with rusted hinges and a logbook that smelled of tar and old rain. The lamp glass sighed with every gust, and at times a voice rode the wind: “Turn it higher or the coast will forget us.” The fog conspired with the lamp, as if the light summoned something patient, hungry to see the world through glass.
“The sea remembers every light it ever stole, and it never forgives.”
The logbook’s pages curled, ink that glowed faintly in the corners, and one name kept resurfacing: Calder. The note described a ritual—five knocks on the lantern frame, a breath drawn from the sea, a vow to keep watch beyond the reach of living memory. I followed the rhythm, though each knock sounded like a squeeze of a cry from the past.
Night after night the lighthouse kept its vigil. The lamp’s rotation created a heartbeat in the stone. Footsteps echoed on the iron stair, though I lived alone. A hat would appear on the shelf, and then slip to the floor as if someone unseen paused to consider me. The glass fogged with salt and figures that drifted at the beam’s edge, silhouettes with hollow eyes that shone like coal.
- The lamp flickers in a pattern that matches a heartbeat
- Footsteps echo in the stairwell when no one is there
- The keeper’s hat rests on a shelf, then slides to the floor
- Salt-streaked glass reveals misty figures at the edge of the beam
- The fog thickens as ships vanish from the charts, only to become whispers in the night
Tonight the beam finds a figure at the water’s edge—a man in a coat long rotted away, eyes like twin lanterns. He raises his hand, and the light obeys. I realize then I am not the living keeper but a relay, a switch in a chain binding the living to the dead. The last keeper is not one man but a circle of watchers, each stepping aside to let the next breathe the air of the beacon.
I write this as the fog thickens and the sea sighs a farewell. If my name becomes a rumor in a town that never learned my language, remember this: the beacon is a doorway. The last keeper is the one who keeps looking, who never lets go of the light.