The Lightkeepers

by Abby Geni

  But on the morning of the fourth day, everything changed.

  The sun was high when I awoke. Dimly, I was aware of some kind of disturbance. For a moment I thought I was still in the coast guard house—but no, during the night I had made it back somehow. My fever was undiminished. Sweating beneath the blankets, I slid in and out of a hot, honey-colored dream. A persistent banging roused me. Someone was hammering on my bedroom door.

  “Get up!” Mick shouted. “Galen wants all hands on deck.”

  “I’m too sick,” I called back.

  The door flew open, and Mick strode into the room. He looked even larger than usual today, his girth increased by a heavy vest.

  “Get up,” he said. “We need you.”

  He gazed down at me for a moment. Then he yanked the covers away. I shrieked as he hefted me out of bed. Boots were shoved over my pajamas. He tugged a sweater onto my torso. Before I could gather my wits, he had frog-marched me out of the room and down the stairs. My heart was thumping so wildly that I thought I might pass out. A shape flicked by—I almost screamed—but it was only Charlene, wrapping a scarf around her neck as she raced out the front door. Her expression was grave.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “Something at Sea Pigeon Gulch,” Mick said. “I don’t know what. I just heard Galen yelling. Something bad.”

  Out on the slope, I felt like an overstimulated newborn, startled by the most ordinary things. The sun was too big and bright. The wind was a bucket of ice water, upended over my head. Mick kept his arm looped through mine, preventing me from bolting. In the distance, I saw the coast guard house bobbing along as I stumbled forward. Maybe I could head back there now, shut the door behind me, and never come out again.

  A group was gathered at the water’s edge. Sea Pigeon Gulch was a tiny inlet, a crevice with high, granite walls. The sun never shone into that cold gorge. My heart was now pounding hard enough that it interfered with my vision. At the crescendo of each beat, the world danced a little.

  Mick picked up the pace, frowning. Forest turned and grimaced at us. He lifted a hand. It was a strange, indeterminate gesture, as though he were waving us away and summoning us onward simultaneously.

  “I’m not sure you should—” he called, then paused. “It might be better for you to . . . Or else maybe . . .”

  I was surprised; I had never seen him at a loss for words before. After a moment, he turned helplessly to Galen.

  “Let them come,” Galen said.

  Mick broke into a run. He let go of my hand. In his wake, I lost my balance and stumbled. Lucy was on her knees, rocking back and forth. As I watched, she gave a high-pitched, inhuman sound, an ambulance’s wail. Charlene crouched beside her, but Lucy batted away her embrace. Charlene, too, was wiping away tears.

  “Oh, no,” Mick said, gazing into the gorge. “Oh, man.”

  I moved forward slowly. It was an odd sensation. I did not seem to be walking, but rather drifting on a current, carried inexorably toward the shore. Galen stepped aside to let me pass. The stone opened outward in a jagged vee. Inside, the sea was dark and frothy, sucking at the walls.

  There was someone in the water. Facedown. The waves jiggled him from side to side, his arms and fingers bobbing on the wash. I stared for a while, making sure. I knew that rangy frame all too well, the marble skin, the broad shoulders. He had been in the water long enough that he did not look completely human anymore. He might have been a clever simulacrum—a blow-up doll or a crash-test dummy. His blond hair was disfigured by dirt and blood. For once, he was not wearing his red stocking cap. Squinting closer, I saw a nasty wound on the back of his skull. His pants were torn. His ankle looked swollen. Andrew wore only one shoe.

  13

  I SOMETIMES WONDER HOW much about you I really remember. I have held on to what I can, of course, over the years. There was the day you and I had a picnic on the National Mall. I remember the heat of that golden afternoon, the glare on the dry grass, the drone of honeybees. There was the evening you and Dad got into such a terrible fight that it woke me up. I remember creeping down the hallway in my nightgown, trembling with cold and nerves, listening to your voices in the kitchen. You lost your temper to such an extent that you hurled a tomato across the room, leaving a splotch on the paint (scary at the time, hilarious in retrospect). There was the morning I found a rabbit in the backyard, its throat worried and bloody. For the next few hours, you and I worked in vain to save it, bent over its small form like doctors in the ER. I remember the day you spilled coffee down a brand-new skirt and cried. I remember the evening you and I made a mobile out of rainbow pipe cleaners. I remember events. I remember stories, since they can be told and retold, memorized like poetry for a recital.

  And yet a great deal has been lost. Nowadays, I can’t call up the exact timbre of your voice. I am not sure whether your eyes were hazel or unmottled green. Was it you who liked to take the time to give yourself a full pedicure, separating each toe with a roll of cotton and applying several meticulous coats? Or was that a character from a TV show? Was it you who watched the presidential debates before each election with a beady eye, hunched in front of the television, hollering out your own questions and rebuttals? Or am I remembering the mother of a friend? I have lost so many details. Whether you wore earrings. Whether you were afraid of spiders. Whether you had inside jokes from childhood with your twin sisters. Many things are gone forever. If time is a river, these are the memories that have slipped to the bottom, too heavy to be carried on the current any longer—tumbled in the dirt, hidden in the silt.

  I even wonder what parts of your personality I may have fabricated. It was all so long ago. Surely, some of what I recall must be my own creation. Maybe you didn’t spill coffee on an expensive new skirt and burst into tears in the middle of the street. That recollection might have come from a nightmare; it does have a lurid, dreamlike quality in my mind. Perhaps we never found an injured rabbit in our backyard. Come to think of it, that does sound like the plot of a short story I once read.

  Each time we remember something, we change it. This is the nature of the brain. I imagine my recollections like rooms in a house. I can’t help but alter things when I step inside—tracking mud on the floor, moving furniture out of alignment, kicking up swirls of dust. Over time, these small alterations add up.

  Photographs speed this undoing. My work is the enemy of memory. People often imagine that taking pictures will help them recall exactly what happened. In fact, the opposite is true. I have learned to leave my camera in the drawer at important events, since snapshots have a way of superseding my recollections. I can either have the impression in my brain or the image in my hand—not both.

  To remember is to rewrite. To photograph is to replace. The only reliable memories, I suppose, are the ones that have been forgotten. They are the dark rooms of the mind. Unopened, untouched, and uncorrupted.

  One thing I am sure of—one thing I do remember—is that you believed in God. I am as certain of that as I am of anything. You and Dad used to debate the matter, working yourselves up into a lather of erudite references and philosophical rhetoric. My father was (and is) a devout agnostic. He stands firm in the conviction that he doesn’t know everything and never will. You, on the other hand, went to church every Sunday. I remember the long, sleepy mornings I spent at your side, watching the light shift through the stained glass. I remember those uncomfortable patent leather shoes. The rise and fall of the minister’s voice. The pungent odor of floor wax. I remember the look on your face during services—elated, confident, as radiant as a bride. You would follow every word of the sermon, nodding in agreement like a student in class. You sang the hymns with gusto, your voice sweet but out of tune.

  Church was coal for the furnace of your mind. You would spend the rest of every Sunday mulling over higher matters. All three of us would head home and settle in the living room. Dad reading the newspaper. Me perusing the comics section. You chewing on your pencil, thinking and thi
nking and thinking.

  Back then, it bothered me that I did not share your conviction. I could not revel along with you. You prayed often, sitting with your face turned toward the sun, eyes closed. When Aunt Janine was having trouble at work, you gave her a gold cross on a necklace to support and sustain her. I remember hearing you on the phone with Aunt Kim, urging her to have faith. You offered me the same advice when things were not going well at school. It gave me a squirmy feeling.

  Even then, I was in my father’s camp all the way. The Bible stories were silly. Sunday school was a bore. The sermons contradicted each other. Sitting in the quiet, sun-drenched church, I felt nothing, no power, no release. The hymns left my soul unmoved. In short, I have never believed in God.

  That is, until Andrew.

  NOW, LOOKING BACK, I can tell you what I felt that day. At the time, standing at the edge of Sea Pigeon Gulch, it was just a rush of emotion, like a bonfire on a frozen winter night, almost too much relief. I took one last glance at Andrew’s pale, swollen figure, and then I turned away. Every step on the packed ground felt like a revelation. Every gust of wind was a sweet caress. Galen and Mick were with me. Someone’s arm was linked through mine in a steadying manner. I remember seeing Forest’s silhouette on the landscape ahead, hurrying toward the cabin. The sun touched the high clouds with light. A seabird winged by, braying noisily. Somewhere in the background, Lucy was sobbing. Charlene was supporting her, murmuring to her.

  In that moment, I may well have been converted. It was enough to make a person believe. There seemed to be no other explanation. Andrew had been a foul thing, a wicked creature, and so God had erased him, exactly as I myself might have removed a blot from a sheet of clean, white paper.

  14

  THE POLICE CAME. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet I was. After four months of isolation, I had come to think of the islands as an impenetrable fortress. Only Captain Joe was intrepid enough to find us on a map, let alone make the arduous journey to our shores. I had lost touch with the simple fact that California was only thirty miles away. All it took to attract the attention of the civilized world was a call on the radiophone. At once, a helicopter was dispatched to our location.

  I was in my bedroom—Mick had deposited me there—when I saw a wisp of movement, a shadow on the glittering sea. The helicopter crossed the horizon. Downstairs, the biologists were coming and going, voices raised, doors slamming. I remained unconcerned. I perched there in a pleasant dream.

  Andrew’s body was still in the water. None of us could have reached it, even if we had wanted to. The tide was coming in. From a police standpoint, this was fortunate. Andrew’s corpse would be pushed toward shore; he might bang himself up on the rocks, but at least he would not be carried out to sea before anyone could get to him. In truth, he had chosen an ideal time and place to drown. A few hours later—a different gorge—and the marine life would have made short work of him. His remains might never have been discovered.

  My flu was gone. It had been carried away as rapidly and finally as a fetid odor on the breeze. The fever had broken. The headache had disappeared. Only a residual weakness remained, a tremor in my extremities. I was now ravenous. For three days, I had imbibed nothing but clear fluids. Yet it seemed indelicate to raid the kitchen at this juncture, stuffing my face with crackers and canned fruit as Andrew’s body floated in the surf and Lucy lay in her bedroom. I could hear her crying. Sometimes it was sobs, like a kitten mewing, and sometimes it was deep, wracking breaths, like a woman in labor. From what I gathered, Mick and Charlene were in there with her, making futile attempts to soothe her pain with stale cookies and hot tea.

  Beyond the window, Galen and Forest appeared, striding together up the hill. As I watched, they stationed themselves by the helipad to wait. The helicopter was closer now. It moved with startling speed, the whirl of the blades disturbing the sea beneath. There was the suggestion of a dragonfly about its contours. It breached our perimeter, whizzing along the shoreline, casting its shadow on the grass. I saw a trickle of movement amid the green: mice bolting in panic. That glowing bubble maneuvered downward. It alighted in the center of the rectangle of pavement.

  Figures began to emerge from inside. The metallic husk disgorged them one at a time, each ducking low, apparently to avoid the blades, though these were at least ten feet off the ground. The rotor slowed, spinning lazily, sending out pulses of breath that shook the grass. I had been expecting blue uniforms, but the policemen were in plain clothes. Galen and Forest hurried forward. There was a round of handshakes. I watched as the group collected by Sea Pigeon Gulch.

  There were two officers, plus a doctor, distinguishable by his silver kit. Galen and Forest lingered outside this knot of officialdom. The policemen were plainly having trouble figuring out how to get Andrew onto dry land. He could not be reached by boat; there was nothing on the islands that could maneuver into that narrow inlet. Nor would it be safe for a diver to attempt it; the tide was too strong. The policemen adopted thoughtful poses, stroking their chins and rumpling their hair. It reminded me of the way men would gather around a car that had stalled on the road.

  Eventually the group came up with a complicated solution—something to do with ropes and a surfboard. At first I watched the proceedings eagerly. Forest and Galen had taken charge, giving instructions with sweeping gestures. The policemen hurried to obey. The doctor stood to one side, visibly fretting, checking his watch every few minutes. The surfboard was lowered down on a system of rigging. Everyone was working together, shouting encouragement. But it was hard going. From what I could tell, they were trying to work the surfboard under Andrew’s limp form and hoist him upward. This required timing their industry with the surging tide and shifting waves. After their fifth failed attempt, I left the window. I lay down on the bed.

  Hours later, Charlene woke me.

  “Dinnertime,” she said softly, leaning in at my door.

  I sat up, yawning. Through the window, the sky had turned a muted gold, the sun low above the horizon. The helicopter was still in evidence, its bulbous belly refracting the light. The ground was shadowed, the coast guard house a dark, rectangular stain. It seemed remarkable that I had once felt the need to escape to that hulking relic. Now that the fear was gone, the threat removed, I could chastise myself for my carelessness. I was lucky to have escaped with nothing more than a chill.

  “How are you feeling?” Charlene asked as we headed down the stairs.

  “Great,” I said. “Fine,” I amended, catching her startled look.

  The meal was an odd one. The police ate with us, as did the medical examiner, whose name appeared to be Dr. Alfred. None of them were delighted by our repast of macaroni and cheese with canned tuna mixed in. They picked at their plates, peering around the kitchen at the mismatched chairs, chipped cups, and warped utensils, all of which—to me—brought back amiable echoes of dorm life. Mick ate heartily, shoveling pasta into his mouth. I consumed at least twice my share. Forest and Galen engaged in polite conversation with our visitors. Charlene seemed anxious, her dark eyes wider than usual, a deer in the headlights. Lucy was not there.

  Gradually I became aware that the two policemen were not policemen at all—they were federal agents. The islands were a refuge with congressionally designated wilderness status. Accordingly, the place fell under the jurisdiction of the men in black. This intrigued me. I had never been around government agents, and I would have expected something more polished, less homey. They were a mismatched pair, clearly alpha and beta. The latter was young, with a mousy, ineffectual beard. The former was a tanned, leathery fellow, a lattice of wrinkles scored across his forehead.

  By common consent, we did not discuss the matter at hand. Andrew had been disinterred from his watery grave and was now reposing in a refrigerated unit on board the helicopter; that much I had learned from Charlene as we had slipped downstairs together. During the meal, however, we all spoke instead about the San Francisco beat. Galen seemed to know
a great deal about the law. (Of course Galen knew a great deal about everything.) Mick joined in, and they reminisced about a few cases that had been splashed over the newspapers during the past couple of years.

  I was quiet. As I helped myself to more pasta, I wondered for the first time what had actually happened to Andrew. Oddly enough, this question had not occurred to me. I had been so overwhelmed by the shock of my reprieve that the reasons behind it had seemed unimportant.

  His corpse had been discovered at eleven a.m., which suggested that he had taken a morning walk. It was unlike him to do so—but stranger things had happened. Perhaps he had headed off to do a little fieldwork for once. He might have been gazing too avidly through his binoculars, not looking where he was going. Nobody had been a witness to the accident, which was hardly surprising. Galen and Forest had been on the water that morning, Mick in the lighthouse, Lucy and Charlene near Breaker Cove. I had been in bed, asleep. It would have been a matter of seconds for Andrew to lose his footing, knock himself unconscious on the rocks, and drop into the drink.

  After dinner, the two agents asked us to step into the living room. We distributed ourselves in our usual positions: on the couch, in the armchair, on a few ratty old pillows that were strewn across the rug. Both officers, however, stayed standing. I wondered whether this was intentional; we all had to literally look up at them. Hands on hips, the alpha agent launched into what sounded like a prepared speech, delivered many times before.

  “You’ve all had a trying day,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss. As you can imagine, we need to get as much information as possible before we head back to California. It’s our procedure—”

  He broke off. A door had opened. I turned to see Lucy emerging from her bedroom. There were purple crescents beneath her eyes. A blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, trailing across the ground.