The Four Poles

We had lived a quiet life, until it happened. 

My grandma and I lived on a small island, which was almost in the middle of nowhere. By the age of 11, I knew how to operate the lighthouse that my grandma said “was the most important thing in our lives”. I also knew how to tie several knots into a perfect fish net and how to gut those fish in under a minute, which I thought was pretty impressive. Yes, life wasn’t fast or exciting here, but it was safe. We rarely had any worries, except for one. The lighthouse. Our island was in the middle of the ocean, turquoise water that stretched all the way to the sun. And from the books that my grandma occasionally brought back from her long trips, I had read that lighthouses were used for guiding boats safely through rocky or reef-riddled waters. But why would any boat come all the way out to our island? Other than the huge lighthouse, the only house on the island was a ramshackle hut, rickety and creaky from all the years it had been through. That was where me and my grandma lived. But the mystery of the lighthouse never interrupted my life, and I was content to explore and map the island, which I had nicknamed Lobster Island. You see, over the 11 years which I had lived here, I had spent most of it exploring the island. What I had found was that at the end was a flat-ish peninsula which looked exactly like a lobster shell. I suppose the shape looked as much like a sideways fish as a lobster, but a lobster seemed better than a dead fish for a name. And life continued like this, until my 11th birthday. On that day, grandma brought home a special present for me. Something she called a “compass”. It was a flattened cylinder made of a hammered, pewter-looking metal. The needle was green and pointed to the same place no matter where I turned the cylinder. According to the manual that came with it, it was different from most compasses in that it always pointed West. It was called a “Lar Compass”. I had an instinct, somewhere deep inside of me, that this was very important. As soon as I finished eating my birthday meal, I dashed off to test out the Lar Compass. I ran all around the island, even to the lobster tail. But no matter where I ran, the needle pointed to the same place. The lighthouse. My grandma never let me inside, instead teaching me how to control it from the control box outside of it. Once in a full moon, she would go inside of the lighthouse. “Maintenance,” she called it. But I was 11 now! Surely I could see it for myself, right? I pocketed the compass and ran towards the hut. I asked my grandma if I could please, please, please see what was inside. She heaved a great sigh, and agreed that it was time. Hopping from foot to foot in excitement, I followed her creaky footsteps into the lighthouse. Stairwell after stairwell, all spiralling upwards to the same point. The top. At last we reached the summit. A heavily padlocked door stood in front of us. One by one, my grandma unlocked the many padlocks. The door swung open silently. Inside was something unexpected, and also a little anticlimactic. A single green stone, perfectly round and smooth, levitated in the middle of the room, seemingly suspended by nothing. Feeling a little disappointed, I turned to my grandma. She instructed me to place my compass under the stone, in a slot I hadn’t noticed before. I did, and the needle spun crazily. But that wasn’t right, was it? Compasses pointed to magnetic fields. No stone could be powerful enough to do that to a compass- right? Suddenly, I was much more interested. I reached forward to grab the stone and take a closer look… but my grandma stopped me. She told me that that was enough for today. But that night, as I slept in my cot, I couldn’t keep my mind off of that green stone. I took out the Lar Compass. Ever insistent, the needle pointed to the lighthouse. There was no way I could ever sleep with the mystery of the lighthouse on my mind. Making up my mind, I quietly crept into my grandma’s room, oiled the hinges of the door and took the keys from a hook above her bed. I snuck into the lighthouse. The spiralling staircase didn’t seem to take half as long to climb up this time. I quickly unlocked the massive door, and I stepped inside. The stone was still there, levitating serenely in the middle of the room, just as it was before. I approached it slowly and carefully. Cautiously, I pinched the stone with my pointer and thumb. For a moment, nothing happened. Then something started to feel dreadfully wrong. It felt like my very reality had been distorted. Everything twisted upon itself. I ran out of the room and looked outside. The forever calm ocean was- gone! The remains of sea creatures flopped pathetically, and abandoned coral reefs started to dry. But the water wasn’t gone, I realized. The stone I now held in my hand- it had been holding together the entire world with its magnetic power. I turned it over. Carved in its smooth surface were the words: Lar Stone. I looked up, horrified. Because approaching our small and defenseless island was a tidal wave. A tidal wave, taller than my eyes could make out, literally breaking through clouds as it mercilessly bore down upon us. Frantically, I rushed back to the room and tried to place the Lar Stone into its former place. But, just like a real magnet, it resisted these attempts. I realized, every degree would matter. It couldn’t be a single millimeter, not a single micrometer off. And there was no way I could find exactly where the stone was supposed to go. But there had to be a way. The compass! Turning it over, I searched for a switch, a lever, a trigger, anything at all. But its pewter surface remained as smooth and undisturbed as the ocean had once been. Defeated, I sat down to wait for the inevitable. The wave made its way towards Lobster Island, a wall of pure oblivion. Wait… this wasn’t how I had been raised. Even if I had to die, I couldn’t do it while I was giving up. I looked for anything, something that could save me. The slot! Hurriedly, I placed the Lar Compass into the slot. And something magical happened. The sides of the compass folded, split, and spun into place, revealing something similar to the compass but spherical. I would later learn that this was a gyro compass, but of course the Lar version of it. Guided by some kind of pre-instinct, my hands moved quickly, adjusting levers, flipping switches, making measurements and occasionally playing rock paper scissors for no apparent reason. The gyro compass spun and whirred until a slot clicked into place, perfectly sized for the Lar Stone. And that was when the crest of the wave dropped onto our island. It was less heavy than the real wave, but it did disrupt everything and submerge the entire island. As the water filled the room I racked my brain. Underwater, I frantically adjusted the gyro compass again and placed the stone into the slot. But underwater, the light had been bent. Again, running out of breath, I adjusted the gyro compass and placed the stone. The strange distortion feeling faded, and the water leaked out of the lighthouse, returning to its proper place. The wave disintegrated. I sat, breathing heavily and drenched, on the floor of the room. Across the world, a shaken teenager inside a red lighthouse made some adjustments to a red stone using a Polaris Compass. On the opposite side of this red lighthouse, a blue lighthouse contained a middle aged couple, working feverishly to correct the Transire Stone’s latitude. In the East, an ancient old man tended to a Star Stone expertly. 4 Stone Holders. 4 Poles. 4 Stones.