The Lighthouse

 “Hand me my smokes, girl,” demanded the haggard old woman seated in the rocker. She ran her hands up and down opposite arms to warm herself. Her ragged housedress pulled up carelessly over her knees revealed fatty thighs. The room was darkened, its tattered, green drapes drawn though Lilian’s phone showed the time was nearly noon.

Lilian took a deep breath. “Where do I find your smokes, Aunt Mad?”

“It’s Maude, you dummy. And how would I know? Search!”

Lilian studied the stacks of cardboard boxes piled up to the ceiling, which no one had moved for half a century. Dozens of broken Tupperware lay in a corner. Sweaters and shirts were strewn across a couch. Mismatched shoes had been tossed atop black garbage bags bursting at the seams. She began lifting dirty rags and Styrofoam food containers. She found a lighter and a smushed carton of Winstons under a wooden piece of furniture, which appeared to be a table. Hurrying to the rocker, she handed her great aunt the cigarettes then leaned over to hug her.

“Don’t ever do that again,” snapped Maude.

“Oh, okay, Auntie, whatever you say.”

“Don’t call me ‘auntie.’ Such mush.”

“I just wanted to thank you,” Lilian began. “I…”

“Don’t.”

Lilian brushed a tear from her eye. Her mother had been so affectionate, lavishing hugs and kisses on her all the time for no reason at all. Lilian wouldn’t be getting any affection here. She had never met Maude, her only living relative, and she was beginning to understand why. Still, the grouchy old woman was the only person who’d agreed to take her in and save her from foster care.

Might as well get unpacked. Lilian rushed to the door to haul in her suitcase from the porch. She’d only been allowed to fill one. The rest of her parents’ belongings had been auctioned off in an estate sale. After rolling her bag in, she ventured, “Where’s my room, please, Aunt Maude?”

“Take the couch. You can find it under that stuff.”

“Oh.” Having her own space had been a silly illusion. The shack at the end of Quarry Lane was as tiny as her father’s workshop had been and consisted of only one room.

“Where do I move your clothes?”

“Wherever.”

Lilian began removing mountains of dirty laundry, careful to fold each piece as if it were fresh out of the dryer. By the stench, she knew the clothes were far from washed. After thirty minutes of work, she uncovered the so-called couch upholstered in fake leather, with split cushions and arms. When she sat on it, the thing wobbled, balancing on three legs.

“Can I take these trash bags out to the garbage can?”

“Don’t you dare move anything else, you little twerp, or you will be out of here on your ass.”

Lilian nodded. Stepping over the bunch of trash bags, she wheeled her suitcase toward her spot, happy that she’d decided on a teddy bear instead of her mother’s iPad. She took out Bear and hugged him to her chest then turned toward the wall so Maude couldn’t see tears on her cheeks roll down.

I know she gets money for me but I hope she’ll learn to like me. I won’t be a bother. Maybe foster care would have been better. Memories were still too strong. Her mom and dad’s car stuck at that railroad crossing. Lilian had managed to undo her seat belt. Her parents hadn’t been so lucky. Over and over the sight of the train swishing the car away like a toy still filled her brain. Why had she alone survived?

Some uncanny shiver came over her – a sudden urge to glance to her right. Behind some warped lumber was a fireplace. A little girl’s picture on the mantel caught her eye. Lilian couldn’t resist walking over and touching its golden frame, an ornate golden rose decorating each corner. The subject in the black and white picture appeared to be about thirteen, Lilian’s age. Dressed in a short, sleeveless dress with a high collar, white socks, and darker-colored mary janes, the child held her right fist strangely over her chest above her heart. But what most stood out was the odd expression on the girl’s face – the lips, bloodless, and the sunken, blank eyes. Where was the bouncy smile of a preteen like herself? Well, in this house…

“Who’s in the picture, Aunt Maude?’

“Shut up!” yelled the waspish old woman so sharply that the frame nearly fell out of Lilian’s fingers. “Put that back.”

Lilian spent the rest of the afternoon refolding her clothes back into the suitcase, which was to serve as a dresser drawer. Her stomach growled noisily even though she’d eaten a snack mix on the plane. She hadn’t had a real meal since Milwaukee. Finally, she could bear the hunger no longer. “Aunt Maude, what’s for dinner?”

“How the hell should I know?” Maude reached for something at the side of her chair. A brown glass bottle of beer, which she promptly guzzled down.

Sidestepping the boxes, Lilian walked to a tiled counter, which had probably once served as a kitchen. There were round plastic dishes full of mold, coffee grounds, crusts of stale bread. A bag of tortilla chips peeked out from under a stained dish rag. Hopeful, she pulled it out. Empty. After digging around under more piles of paper cups and plastic forks, Lilian found a small egg carton. Of the original six, two remained. She scrounged around some more and encountered a saucepan, which she wiped off with a dirty apron. Then she set it atop an electric burner. After plugging in the burner, she found it worked, so she broke the eggs into the pan and scrambled them, hoping they weren’t from years ago and praying she wouldn’t get sick.

Once the mixture was cooked, she took two plastic forks she had saved from the pile of dirty plates, wiped them on the bottom of her shirt, and carried the hot pan over to her aunt. She sat cross-legged on the floor beside her and offered Maude a fork. In silence, they shared their first meal. 

With nothing else to do, Lilian changed into pajamas, searched around for a blanket, gave up, and used her winter coat to cover herself. After several hours of listening to the wind rattle the window panes, she got up. Sleep was evasive. She opened the door and stood on the porch. Not as cold as Wisconsin, but cold enough. A weird feeling in the pit of her stomach grabbed her as if she had been here before. Maybe in a dream?

A beam of light suddenly hit the porch posts, crossed in front of her, then disappeared. After a minute, the beam reappeared, crossed her path, then again went away. Pulling on her coat, Lilian started down the dirt path in search of the source of the light. At first, she walked, but then she ran until she came to a clearing, which provided, in the glow of a half-moon, a breathtaking view of the sea. Off to one side of the harbor was a lighthouse, an eerie kind of presence in the foggy night except for the bright beam of light at its top.

Intrigued, Lilian snuck closer, reeled in by its magic, by a feeling of longing and surprise. Lilian sat on a nearby boulder and observed the rotating beam of light as it swept by periodically in its 360-degree trek. The salty air lifted the hair off her neck. Seawater splashed her pajama bottoms as the tide came in. In the distance, a freighter’s horn blared as the vessel crept slowly by.

* * *

In the morning, she awoke with a start. It was a Tuesday. And Tuesdays meant school. She dressed in her best T-shirt and jeans. Aunt Maude had moved from her rocker to the porch and the door stood ajar, wind whipping through the shack and giving it an odd airing out.

“Will you take me to school, Aunt Maude?”

“Hell no.”

“Should I walk?

“Brilliant.”                     

“Which way?” Silly question seeing how, from the taxi ride, Lilian had noted that only one road entered and exited the point. 

“Up there,” Maude pointed, “then ask.”

“Okay.”

Lilian trudged into the building, an hour late. She introduced herself at the front desk and explained that she was the new resident at 11 Quarry Lane and that her aunt had had a very important appointment and hadn’t come along to register.

In her first-period classroom, Lilian took a seat in the back, alone. It was February, well into the school year, so nobody required a new friend. 

When the bell rang, she got up and followed the crowd. Checking the schedule the counselor had printed for her, she arrived at her history class. A girl sitting on the teacher’s desk slid off, strolled over to Lilian, and put her face up close. “You’re new. Where do you live?” 

“With my aunt. On Quarry Lane.”

Laughter filled the room. The scorn the kids seemed to have for her was understandable. If she had told her friends back home what her frowsy aunt’s dwelling looked like, they’d have surely laughed their pants off, too.

“What’s so funny, class?” asked the teacher who sauntered in. “Take your seats. Lilian Pon, do not come to school tomorrow without supplies.”

The rest of the day went down with similar explanations and chuckles. At lunch, she took her tray to the girls’ room and ate in one of the stalls. 

When school let out, she rushed outside, heading quickly back along the road she had earlier taken. Certain that Maude wouldn’t care what time she got home, Lilian hurried to the lighthouse. You may be my only companion, Mr. Lighthouse. We’ll see.

This time, she tiptoed up close. Something pulled her forward, a kind of magnetism, till she stood in front of its entrance. She pushed lightly. The double doors slipped open. Inside, she faced a tiny, cylindrical room. The white paint on the once-red brick had peeled away in spots. Opposite the door was a wooden window divided into twelve panes, its glass sections intact. The window had been set inside a foot-deep wall. Its ledge was wide enough to be a window seat. “Hello? Hello? Anybody here?” she called.

Her voice echoed back to her. “Anybody? Anybody?”

Intending to gaze out a window, Lilian tiptoed across the floor. The double doors closed behind her. Um, must have been a breeze. What struck her was the absence of furniture. Only three pairs of wooden oars leaned against the one windowless wall.

A thick, cast iron pole painted blue, the only color in the place, stood upright in the exact middle as if impaling the entire building. To her right, a twisty, spiral staircase went up up up and around like an enormous skinny snail. The steps seemed to be made of gray slate and there was no banister. Lilian called out again, to no avail. Yet, for some reason, the lighthouse felt safe, and Lilian, content. She figured it was the hypnotizing rhythm of the lapping waves that had drawn her in somehow.

She continued calling out softly as she took the stairs, slowly, tentatively at first, then faster, counting 124 steps as she went along. Her heart raced as she eagerly awaited the view. With ankles throbbing and lungs out of breath, she reached the top of the staircase and stepped out onto a metal platform. Peering down, she was awed by a faint circle of light emanating from the ground floor from whence she’d come.

The cylindrical structure at the top boasted four tiny portholes at eye level. She ran to each and looked out. Directly below her to the left were the boulders of the jetty she had visited the night before. To the front loomed a wide expanse of ocean, and, to the back, if she squinted just right, she could see the black roof of the shack she was now forced to consider home.

Lilian ducked through a doorless opening onto a balcony that ran around the outside of the tower. A breathless “oh” was all she managed to say. The waves seemed to become restless the minute she stepped outside. The water crashed onto the boulders and slapped the sandbar of Myrtle Beach below.

Still, it’s pretty, it’s calming, she thought. It’s here, it’s steadfast, like a beam of hope. To capture the moment in a photograph, she removed her phone from her pocket only to find it no longer turned on. She stood at the catwalk railing, breathing in the salt air until the sun went down.

* * *

Unexpectedly panicked that Aunt Maude would be upset, Lilian hurried back to the shack. Inside she found the saggy-eyed woman seated, beer bottle in hand. 

“Hi.” Lilian had half-expected her aunt to ask about her day at school, but Maude merely rocked rhythmically in her chair, her eyes closed.

“I’m gonna need a backpack and some school supplies.”

Maude continued rocking as if Lilian weren’t there.

“Okay, well…” She had twenty dollars a friend had given her for her last birthday and a ring her father had bought. She might sell that piece of jewelry, in an emergency, for a few more bucks.

“I’ll get dinner started,” she announced. 

The squeak of the chair grew louder. Attempting to ignore it, Lilian searched through the kitchen’s piles of papers till she found some tuna cans. She pulled the tabs on two of them, washed the forks from the night before, and took the makeshift meal to her aunt. “Here’s food, Maude, for you.”   

Getting no response, Lilian moved to the couch and ate hers in silence. The creak, creak, squeak of the chair echoed her heartbeat. When the tuna fish was gone, Lilian reached into her coat pocket and took out an orange from lunch, peeled it, separated it into two halves, and laid one onto her aunt’s housedress.          

“You’ve been out there,” Maude hissed.

Lilian gasped. How could the old witch guess?  

“Never, never go out there again.”

Lilian nodded. She didn’t dare talk back.

Maude hadn’t opened her eyes. “You hear me, girl?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Fearing her aunt might jump up and slap her, Lilian stepped behind the couch. Something in her peripheral vision moved. The drapes. They were flapping. Funny. How could that be? Considering an absence of wind inside.         

Lilian waited till the rocking stopped, till her aunt’s jaw dropped down in slumber. She slipped outside and headed for the lighthouse. The inside room felt drafty, different. Something had changed. She sat on the ground-floor window ledge for what seemed to be hours.

Until, on the wall, a shadow appeared. The shadow seemed to take on human form. For some reason, Lilian remained calm. The figure approached. Lilian noted the pixie haircut, the mary janes, the stiff body like a mannequin cloaked in black. The figure had no face. It was just standing there at the window as if it, too, stared out to sea. Lilian’s thoughts immediately lit on the blank stare of the child in the black and white photograph. The picture on the mantle. “Is that you?” she whispered. “Did Maude do something to you?”

“Come, come see,” the voice moaned. Wheezy. Human-like. It was a voice. Yet it wasn’t. Lilian sensed the figure was staring at her, leading. Hypnotically, she climbed the 124 stairs.

At the top of the staircase, she stepped out onto the platform, then out through the opening onto the catwalk. The moon hid behind a cloud. Below, the ocean roared. Lilian felt the presence push her up against the railing. Tight. So tight the metal bar of the guardrail dug into her back. While yesterday the lighthouse had felt familiar, protective, Lilian now had a sudden sense of dread. “Let me go. Please don’t hurt me.” She told her body to move, but it wouldn’t budge She wanted to scream for help, but her throat went dry and her mouth didn’t work. She was alone. Cold leaped up her back.

She could hear and feel the shadow’s heavy breathing deep inside her own chest.

“Come with me,” the breathing beckoned. “Come.”

The ocean is safety; the ocean is love, the wind whistled. The railing gave way. Lilian fell backward. She shrieked all the way down until she hit the rocks.

Maude’s cackle echoed across the harbor, filling the dark of night.

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