Chapter One -  The Lighthouse Breathes - 23:58

Deep breaths, Piper. Only sixty-two steps to go. Sixty-one. Sixty—Okay. Maybe sea-salt fries at dinner were a terrible decision.

My boots clattered against the iron spiral stairs, each step ringing like a drumroll inside a giant metal throat. The Seal Point Lighthouse didn’t just stand there like people thought. It breathed. On a night like tonight—wind clawing at the windows, the Atlantic throwing itself at the rocks—the whole tower hummed.

Thrum-thrum-thrum.

I felt it in my molars.

“Almost there, Piper,” I muttered, patting the cold stone wall as I climbed. I talk to the lighthouse. A lot. Mayor Stillwater once called it “proof of a juvenile imagination,” which honestly just proved he’d never tried talking to anything that actually listened.

The wind shrieked through the narrow-slit windows, salty and sharp. Somewhere below, waves boomed against the base of the tower, deep and hollow, like the sea clearing its throat.

The hum shifted.

I stopped.

That was new.

The lighthouse didn’t change rhythm unless something outside changed first—a storm front, a ship too close to the rocks, fog thick enough to swallow sound. Dad had taught me that when I was little, back when I followed him up these stairs with a flashlight that weighed almost as much as I did.

I tilted my head, listening.

The hum wasn’t louder. It was… focused.

My fingers brushed the silver key at my throat without me thinking about it. I’d worn it every day since I was five—through scraped knees, swimming lessons, and one very dramatic incident involving a jellyfish and my pride. Dad had clasped it around my neck that summer afternoon and said, “You know, Piper, this is special. Never take it off.”

I hadn’t asked why.

Some things didn’t need explaining.

The last few steps opened into the lantern room, and I sucked in a breath that tasted like ozone and old brass. The Great Lens dominated the space—massive, faceted, spinning slowly on its track. It looked like a crystal beehive caught mid-thought.

Thrum-click. Thrum-click.

I wiped my foggy glasses on my sweatshirt and glanced at my pocket watch.

23:58.

Two minutes to midnight.

The shortest night of the year was nearly over.

“Nothing weird,” I told myself, though my voice echoed a little too much. “Just another perfectly normal lighthouse doing perfectly normal lighthouse things.”

"Efficiency!" I said, doing my best impression of Mayor Stanley C. Stillwater’s nasal honk. I even puffed out my chest and pointed an invisible finger at the dark ocean. "Progress! We don't need a dusty old lantern, Piper! We need lasers! We need a gift shop! We need a statue of me holding a clipboard!"

I rolled my eyes so hard it almost hurt. The Mayor thinks the ocean is just a giant bathtub that needs to be organized. He doesn't get that the lighthouse isn't just a light; it’s a guard.

The wind slammed into the tower, rattling the glass. Bringing back to the present.

Outside, the fog thickened instead of thinning, curling around the beam as it swept across the harbor. It didn’t scatter the way it should. It gathered.

I leaned closer to the glass.

Down below, the water around the jagged rocks—Dragon Rock, Dad called it, though he always said it like a joke—looked darker than the rest of the Cove. Heavier. As if the sea there had weight.

A memory surfaced without asking permission.

Dad’s voice, low and steady, singing while storms rattled the windows of the keeper’s cottage. I never remembered all the words—just the tune, and a line or two that always seemed to calm the air.

Light and shadow, side by side…

I hadn’t realized I was humming until the sound slipped out.

The lighthouse answered.

The hum deepened, vibrating through the soles of my boots and up my spine. The Lens slowed—not stopping, just… listening.

My watch ticked over.

23:59.

The beam shifted.

I pressed my nose against the glass. The rain was coming down in sheets, blurring the world into a grey smudge, but I knew exactly where to look. Razor Rock. A jagged, nasty tooth of stone that sticks out of the surf about a mile out.

"Okay, midnight... show me something," I whispered.

The clock clicked. The beam swung around.

Not sweeping wide anymore, not its usual patient arc. It narrowed, tightening into a focused line of light that cut straight through the fog and pinned the rocks below.

“That’s… not normal,” I whispered.

The fog didn’t lift.

It pooled.

But it wasn't the usual white light. As the lens turned a stray spark of lightning cracked against the rod above me—and the beam shifted, flooding the fog with a weird, shimmering violet. It looked like liquid amethyst cutting through the dark.

And then—

Something moved.

At first, I thought it was a trick of the light, the way waves fold over themselves in the dark. But the shape didn’t vanish when I blinked. It rose from the water, sleek and dark, then changed—stretching, softening, refusing to settle on a single form.

The purple light hit Dragon Rock dead-on.

A seal.

No, a dog?

Almost a seal.

My breath caught.

The shape turned.

Toward me.

“Is it… looking at me?” I whispered, pressing my palms to the glass.

The figure lifted one flipper—one hand—and waved.

I stumbled backward so fast my heel caught on the metal grate.

“Nope,” I said aloud. “Absolutely not.”

I rubbed my eyes hard, counted to three, and looked again.

The fog had taken on a strange color now—not gray, not white, but faintly purple. Like crushed amethyst catching moonlight. The same shade as the stone set into the key at my throat.

Warmth spread across my chest.

Not heat. Recognition.

The figure lingered for one more heartbeat—then the light shifted, the fog rolled, and the water returned to looking stubbornly ordinary.

Just rocks.
Just waves.
Just the Cove pretending nothing had happened.

The hum eased, settling back into its familiar rhythm.

Thrum-thrum-thrum.

I stood there, heart pounding, lungs burning, staring at the spot where the light had touched.

“I’m losing my mind,” I told the lighthouse weakly.

The tower creaked.

Somewhere below, the sea answered with a low, distant sound that felt less like a wave and more like a sigh.

But I did understand one thing.

Something was down there.

Something that had seen me.

And somehow—without knowing why—I knew it wasn’t finished.

I looked back out at the black water. Deep down, way below the sound of the wind, I heard a whistle. It wasn't the wind. It was a melody

I rested my forehead against the cool glass and let out a slow breath.

Stone remembers, the song echoed faintly in my thoughts.

The lighthouse kept breathing.

And so did I.

“Thanks for stopping by the shore.”