“Can’t we at least give it a full week?” I suggest. “Let’s see how Mr. Shen’s doing after a few more days. I know it’s been tough. And, like, terrifying. But I think we can handle it. I believe in you guys.”
I’m pretty sure I’ve never said those words before.
They’re staring at me like I’ve sprouted an extra head. But they aren’t saying no.
***
It’s Morgan’s idea to get our parents away from the lighthouse for the day. We need groceries, for one thing. And they need some time to, you guessed it, relax.
“Do something random and fun,” says Morgan. “You’ll pass through the state park on the way to and from town. Go on a hike or something.” I can tell she’s worried about them. It’s hard to see them this deflated, this anxious. Maybe they’ll feel more like themselves if they take some time to recharge.
They’re onboard with it. Maybe because “random and fun” is their lifestyle in a nutshell. Maybe because they really do want to get away from this place.
They want us to come along, but we claim we’d rather stay behind and unpack. Eventually, they cave and head for the car. And we get to work.
We feel safer in the old lighthouse than in the keeper’s cottage. So we set up camp in the lantern station. Morgan brings her laptop, and I bring a stack of books from the visitors’ center. Our plan, basically, is this. Step one, learn everything about lighthouses. Step two, prepare for any possible disaster. Step three, be heroes.
We talk a little, but not about what we’re really thinking. Should we be rooting for something bad to happen? Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking. I don’t want something bad to happen to random, innocent people. For that matter, I don’t want something bad to happen to us.
A few hours later Morgan has a zillion tabs open on her browser. I didn’t know that many articles on lighthouses existed. Meanwhile I’m halfway through Lighthouses through Infographics. I hate it. But it’s more informative than Top Ten Lighthouses of the Western World.
We’re both taking notes in our school notebooks. Every so often Dad or Mom texts us.
Got groceries. Milk and eggs should be fine in the cooler for a while.
About 15 min. from home. Can see skeleton tower light from here. Stopping at a kayak rental place. How’s that for random and fun!
That sounds more like the parents we know.
We haven’t been paying attention to the time. Sunset creeps up on us.
The storm doesn’t creep, though. It roars in like someone suddenly turned on a fog machine, a giant hose, and the mother of all fans. This is a window-rattling, foundation-shaking tempest. If there was any sun left in the sky a minute ago, it’s gone now. The only light comes from the skeleton tower. And even that’s sketchy in this downpour.
“I hope Mom and Dad finished kayaking already,” says Morgan. “This is brutal.”
My response is cut off by a crack of lightning, so close it sizzles. So close that it hits the skeleton tower.
The lightning bolt fades as fast as it appeared. Now it’s dark. Completely dark.
The skeleton tower’s light is out.
We leap to our feet. Morgan swears loudly. “That thing can’t be broken! It’s a legit navigation aid! Ships need that light!”
“Is it for sure broken?” I ask.
“I’ll try to get a better look,” says Morgan. “Stay here. Text Mom and Dad.”
“Text them what?” I call after her. But she’s already opening the door to the catwalk. She steps out onto the metal platform and goes to the railing.
I text our parents. You guys OK? Be careful driving in this.
The text doesn’t go through. Because of the storm, maybe? Or . . .
I hear a rattling noise and look up. Morgan’s trying to get back inside. Key word: trying.
The glass door isn’t opening for her.
I run over and yank on it. But it doesn’t budge. Morgan is trapped out on the platform. She’s only been outside for a few seconds, but she’s already soaked. The wind is tearing at her hair and sweatshirt. She looks scared. As scared as I’ve ever seen her.
“Jason!” she shouts at the top of her lungs. I barely hear her through the glass. “There needs to be a working light. You have to—” Something-something-garble.
“What?” I shout back.
She gestures frantically at something behind me.
I turn, half-expecting to see the ghost of Seth Blake. Instead I just see the giant lens.
Finally, I get it.
The skeleton tower—Emma Blake’s gift—is dead. Point Encanto has gone dark. This part of the coastline needs a light.
It’s time for steps two and three of our plan.
Chapter 14
“Mr. Shen, if I mess this up and ruin a historic light, I’m sorry.”
I mumble this as I open the little hatch on the lens. Inside, the light bulb waits for me. I hope this thing has a surge protector. With all the lightning in the air, my life pretty much depends on no stray currents traveling through any wiring.
I manage to turn on the bulb without getting zapped. So far so good. Now I need to get the lens moving.
Slight problem: the lighthouse is starting to shake. I’m talking major shaking. Like an earthquake. Seth Blake’s curse was not here to make friends. It was here to reduce this lighthouse to rubble.
I launch myself down the stairs. I’m going so fast, the spiraling of the staircase makes me dizzy. Then one of the steps falls right out from under me. Just comes loose and plunges all the way down to the floor. The clang when it lands is loud enough to carry over the sounds of the storm. Which is saying something.
I grip the railing hard and speed up. Another step falls away. And another. The whole staircase is collapsing beneath my feet like dominoes.
Three steps fall at the same time. Two of them were supporting my feet, and the third was my next-closest option. My body plummets. Luckily I already have a death-grip on the railing. My arms almost come out of their sockets, but I dangle instead of dropping straight down.
How far am I from the floor? Close enough to land safely if I let go of the railing?
The railing answers my question for me. It pulls away from the wall.
I crash through the opening in the staircase, left by the missing steps. I land on top of those three metal sheets. It isn’t cozy. But I shoot to my feet again with no trouble. If I’ve broken any bones, they aren’t important ones.
Now I’m standing in front of the clockworks. I grab the handle of the crank and start turning it. The massive metal weight hanging from the ceiling inches upward.
“Ninety turns,” I mutter. I crank as fast as I can. The walls of the lighthouse shake. Outside, the wind sounds like a million wrestlers slamming into the building. I hope Morgan’s okay out there.
I keep cranking.
The front door blows open. Instantly I get showered with rainwater. It almost hurts worse than the glass in the visitors’ center last night. The floor is soaked. My feet slip. I almost go down but hold on to the crank.
My arms ache.
One of the fallen stair pieces flies up and hits me in the shoulder. Quickly followed by the rest of them. One narrowly misses my head. One gets me in the back of the knee. I do fall now. But I drag myself back upright. Still cranking.
“You know what, Seth?” I shout as I crank. “Not this time!”
The top of the counterweight touches the ceiling.
I take a deep breath. Since I can’t get back up the stairs, I stumble outside. Through the pounding rain, I squint up. And see a beam of light streaming through the glass windows of the old lantern station. Turning with the rotating lens.
I also see Morgan, up on the catwalk. She leans over the railing and shouts something. I can’t hear her, but then she waves and jumps up and down. The message must be good.
I whoop back at her. “We have liftoff!” Which isn’t the right term to use, but whatever. I’m just getting started as a lighthouse
keeper.
I’m so stoked that it takes me a few seconds to realize something else is changing. The storm.
It’s dying down.
The wind fades. The rain eases up. It’s still raining. And cold. And dark.
But not completely dark. Not anymore.
Chapter 15
Morgan has no trouble getting the catwalk door open when she tries again. If you’re wondering how she gets down the ruined staircase, the answer is: very carefully. She also brings her laptop and our phones. The phones, by the way, are working again. Mom’s calling me.
“We can see the light!” she gushes as soon as I answer. “We’re a couple miles down the coast. We saw the skeleton tower go out . . .” She’s so breathless I can barely understand her. “We were out in the kayaks. We went too far out and it was taking longer to get back than we expected. And then the storm! We couldn’t see anything! We had no idea how close we were to the cliffs. But then the other light came on. Was that you two?”
“Um, yeah,” I say. “The foundation will probably hate us for messing with the historic stuff. But it was kind of an emergency.”
“It was amazing! I don’t know how we would’ve gotten back to shore without it! We’re on our way home now.”
“Okay, Mom. See you soon.” I hang up and look at Morgan. “The parental units are fully operational again.”
She laughs. “And so is this lighthouse.”
“Well—sort of.” I gesture at the fragments of the staircase. “It’ll need some fixing up.”
“Yeah. Same with the skeleton tower. The coast guard will have to repair that.”
I hope those repairs won’t take long. Partly because I don’t want to crank the counterweight ninety times every half hour just to keep the old lens rotating. And partly because that skeleton tower helped us. It’s a piece of our ally, Emma Blake. I want to keep her around.
“So that was pretty heroic,” says Morgan. “You turning the light on, I mean. Do you think it broke the curse?”
I look around the dark, damp lighthouse. All kinds of shadow footprints might be lurking here. Some friendly, some not. But that’s true for lots of places. I think of the Atlas of Cursed Places, back in my room. Is the skull icon still hovering over Point Encanto?
I shrug. “Maybe. Hard to say. I guess we’ll find out, Captain.”
After all, Mom called Point Encanto home. And I’m okay with that.
About the Author
Vanessa Acton is a writer and editor based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She enjoys stalking dead people (also known as historical research), drinking too much tea, and taking long walks during her home state’s annual three-week thaw.
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