The Lighthouse Learns to Sing

Chapter 1: The Letter in the Bottle

⟨Character 2⟩: Cold soup again. It’s like eating a pond. I can’t believe you made me wait for this. My cards are the only thing keeping me awake. Watch this one, Zeph. It’s called the vanishing ace. You pick a card, any card, and then — poof — it’s gone. See? That’s skill. Not like this soup. It’s been sitting there so long it’s got its own weather.

⟨Character 1⟩: Don’t call me Zeph. And don’t flick cards at my map. I’m trying to get the harbour right before the tide turns. The breakwater’s off by a whole thumbnail. If I don’t fix it, the whole thing’s useless. You could help, you know, instead of complaining. Hold the ruler. No — don’t touch it. Just hold it still.

⟨Character 2⟩: Hold it still, hold it still. You sound like the alarm clock. I’m helping in my own way. Distraction is a service. Besides, your map’s already wrong — the little pool by the jetty is missing. The one with the green sea glass. I saw it when we were down there. You left it off. I bet you left it off on purpose so you wouldn’t have to draw the wobbly bits.

⟨Character 1⟩: I didn’t leave it off. I just hadn’t got to it yet. Maps are built in layers. You start with the big shapes and then you add the small ones. If you drew like that, your cards would be a scribble. Now hold the ruler or go away.

A bottle taps the window. Then it rolls along the sill. ⟨Character 2⟩’s hand shoots out and catches it before it falls.

⟨Character 2⟩: Got it! Ha! Did you see that? That’s reflexes. That’s years of catching cards. There’s paper inside. It’s all curled up like it’s been in there a while. Should I open it or do you want to do the honours, Captain Map?

⟨Character 1⟩: Give it here. You’ll tear it. I’m the one who reads the small writing in this house. You squint at your own cards. Look — the pencil’s all shaky. Someone wrote this in a hurry. Or in the cold. Listen. ‘My song is gone. Without it I cannot warn the ships. Please come.’ It’s signed with a little drawing of a lighthouse. And then — what’s that? A line of music with three empty spaces.

⟨Character 2⟩: Three empty spaces. Like three notes missing from a song. That’s the kind of puzzle I like. We should go. Now. Before the fog comes in. I can row. I’m good at rowing. You said so yourself last summer.

⟨Character 1⟩: I’ll draw the route. The harbour’s shallow on the north side — we go wide around the sandbar and then straight for the cliff. There’s a path up from the beach. It’ll take us twenty minutes if we row hard. Don’t argue. Just get your shoes on. And bring your kite. I don’t know why, but bring it.

They row across the harbour. The sun slides toward the water and turns it bronze. On the cliff, a seagull lands on the rail.

Cadence: Two small sailors, up from the sea! Looking for a song, are we? I’m Cadence, and I rhyme on purpose, so don’t ask me to stop. I’ve been waiting by this rail all day. The lighthouse told me someone was coming. It’s got a heart, you know — an old music box — but it’s missing three notes, and without them its beam won’t roar, it’ll just blink and sulk. The fog’s due tonight, and a ship’s expected. No song, no warning, no safe passage. So what’s the plan? You’ll need more than a frown.

⟨Character 1⟩: Three notes. We can find three notes. I’ll map the search. The rock pools — they’re close. Then the fog bank, if we have to. Then the lighthouse itself. Each spot gets a grid. We start at the pools. That’s the quickest way down and back up. Cadence, you fly ahead and keep an eye out. ⟨Character 2⟩, you — stop wandering. I need you to hold the map while I measure.

⟨Character 2⟩: You’ve missed the little pool by the jetty again. The one with the green sea glass. My card said look for the green. What if the green note is there? It’s always the green one. I bet it’s under the sea glass. You’re going to walk right past it, Zeph. If you let me draw the pool in, I’ll hold the map after. Deal?

Cadence: Green, silver, warm — that’s your three. Green like sea glass, silver like moonlight on wet rocks, warm like butter melting. The fog comes low and quiet, so keep your eyes on your toes and your ears on the ship’s bell. Off you go. The sun’s already dipping, and I don’t like the look of that horizon one bit. But don’t worry — I’ll be squawking if anything’s up.

Chapter 2: Pinch, Puff, and the Fog

The rock pools at the foot of the lighthouse gleam like green glass, and the fog is already sniffing at the shore.

⟨Character 1⟩: The rock pools go all the way round the cliff in a low ring, see? I’m charting them. Pool one is right here, big and deep, and that’s the one to start with. The tide’s going out, so the water’s clear, and Cadence said the green note was sea-glass green, so it’s got to be somewhere wet. By my count, there are eleven pools. Eleven. That’s a lot of wading. But it’s fine. If I number them and go clockwise, we won’t miss a single one. Keep your eyes down. Little things hide in the cracks. I wish you’d stop flicking those cards for one second and help me look.

⟨Character 2⟩: I’m looking. I can look and flick. It’s a skill. Besides, flicking makes noise, and noise brings out crawly things. You want to find something green among all this slippery rock? Watch.

Pinch: Psst. Psst! Is that a card? It moved like a shy fin. I love things that move like shy fins. But I’ve been reviewing the menu of this pool, and it’s mostly rock. Very bad for digestion. If anyone orders, I’d ask for something softer. Or nothing. Nothing’s safer. Except a sandwich. A sandwich would be grand. Just to look at, mind. My legs are on backorder, so my motto is short: never wade where the sun don’t shine.

⟨Character 1⟩: Oh! A crab. There’s a crab. ⟨Character 2⟩, stop, you’re going to have the whole pool backwards. I’ve seen you do that trick at breakfast — dealing cards under a napkin where no one can see — this isn’t breakfast. Still. Hi. Do you happen to be called Pinch? Cadence gave us your … name. Yes? She said — don’t get excited — she said if I saved a joke in a bucket, Pinch might like it.

Pinch: That’s me. Once pinched a stranger, hence the name. Total accident. Now I only pinch shellfish. Not really. My best work is as a look-out. But I know exactly why you’ve come, because I happened to find a particular shiny thing that shines and hums between my claws. The green ’un. Music on it. Glimmer lights, clear as fine sand. Where’s my joke?

⟨Character 1⟩: Careful! I told you to keep the shells still. Hold on, was that one in our pocket? Because this pool is one…” On page seven of my notebook.” I’m marking my real pools from my make-believe pools. Here’s another one. On page seven. I can show you. Can you please say that joke in the actual comic strip?”

⟨Character 2⟩: Take eleven! Okay, Pinch. Little crab in a big raincoat? Walks into a rock and says guess I’m in shell. Because his shell was gone. Ha! I’ll hold your hand forever.

Pinch laughs so extremely hard, both pincers retract like recoiling bellows until he pales and pops something metal-clean actually, a sea-green flat shell was actually holding. The small green-covered music note ticked coastward and stopped along the merest tufts of kelp. Wren added a bullet to the notebook right then. Once no one had taken the moment to say out loud from whence this convenient verse-plucked crab note was obliged to hand them things. She closed her notebook so quickily not. Actually.

Chapter 3: The Lighthouse Learns to Sing

The lantern room is round and warm, all brass rails and curved glass, with the great lamp standing in the middle like a patient old clock.

⟨Character 1⟩: One and two and three and — no. No, that’s wrong again. The music box just clicks its little brass tongue at me and stops. I’ve counted the beats seven times. Seven! I even drew the rhythm on the corner of my chart, and it still won’t sing. I don’t understand. Every map I’ve ever drawn worked if I was careful enough.

⟨Character 2⟩: Zeph, maybe it isn’t about being careful enough. Maybe it’s about who’s singing. The box clicked for all of us when Cadence named the notes. It never clicked for just one person. What if we did it together? Like the radio at home — you always take the low part and I take the melody.

⟨Character 1⟩: Together. Okay. Okay, together. Here — take my pencil. Yes, really. Draw the route from the door to the lamp and up, and I’ll follow your line. My map. But your hand.

⟨Character 2⟩: Really? The pencil? All right. Four steps to the lamp. Then up the brass heel, along the rail, over the top of the whole cloud of sunset. If I reach past my map line I’m scraping it out — off my cloud, right across this curl of pencil. And when the straight lines catch, I… would scratch them off, I mean erase.

Cadence: Let that tail you three are staring at turn loose. Breathe the song like a rope of rough but nimble cloud-paper. Go on, then, hands. Here. Simply hand both pencils up and let the night turn out.

Puff: Come on — any time now. Enough of patience out of him and cloud-proof patience slipping thin, and me settled plainly halfway over the poor thing tucked.”

⟨Character 2⟩: From the kitchen radio, then. One, two, three, we come to the sea, and the ships below keep their bellies below. That’s my melody.

⟨Character 1⟩: Hmmm — hmmm — below — below. That’s the low part. That feels right. Do it again, ⟨Character 2⟩.

Cadence: I find two sour little brothers, a shining shelf across their shut knot to where to keep me black door lock what they scratch! Right. Those strong low puff-note lines below the surface cutting farther.

Puff: Help my arms stay. Whole heart hurt whole so after something. Too steady put up oct- no too careless, one thing slams under hearts same thing right—gone too—how they light, everything good boat home fog edge clear. Long sun’s spread sits stop sing—“Sign silence hard from a small torn,” you remind,

⟨Character 1⟩’s low hum, ⟨Character 2⟩’s tune, and the two Puff lines kept slowly breaking across tongues right people where much else began working all of moving. But none of that group actually arrived at click right turn.

⟨Character 1⟩: I can’t. I can’t lift my hands. Hold hands — don’t let go of hands proper holding onto my toes! If I go won't-bout nobody making without you again again fight years a fool for gone night and go and gone unless not through slowly by rolling off him off while with room small edge brass elbow handshake with one except hair and kneework without stop nothing a chained only another,

⟨Character 2⟩: It isn’t a trick, Zeph! I don’t have a trick. I fudged my scales on plain kitchen once and counted both near door-top cup side poor white; I can’t do such near tip feet dangling, feel to—It half-scared is sharp fire with burners both the whole a kite scratch old taped ones warm years help bent or gone —or down slow. Eventually fell all instead. Many never enough. Sorry—