It made sense but she couldn’t empathize. What did it matter that they wouldn’t do it? Wasn’t that how society was formed, with each soul taking the job most suited to them? Very few humans went it solely alone.
“As far as was it dumb,” Mr. Wilson continued, pursing his lips, pondering, “it certainly borders on it. Doesn’t makeyoudumb though. Makes you crazy.” She laughed as he continued, “But that’s also why youshouldbe a lightkeeper. You’ve got the crazy for it.”
She snickered. “You make ‘crazy’ sound like a compliment, Mr. Wilson.”
“Only for you, Daria.”
There was a comfortable, natural pause, and she shifted to pull out some boat dimensions she had scribbled together at the tradingpost and some money. “Here. I got a commission from the shipping company already. These are the dimensions.”
He took them, seemingly unsurprised to hear it. News really did spread fast in such a small town. “Yup. I remember making your last one.”
Five years ago, he had made her a new one in celebration of her becoming the keeper. Her father’s boat had been over twenty years old at the time and had seen more than its fair share of trouble.
“I’m sorry to lose it so soon,” she said. “I always appreciated it. And how well it was built.”
He had taken her father’s in a sort of trade. She had been happy to see it go. It reminded her too much of him.
“Why don’t you take your father’s back?” he said. “And then we can trade again once this is done.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Sure. You need one far more than I do, and it’s a dangerous walk otherwise.”
“I like the rocks.”
“Sure, sure,” he agreed easily. “And I bet you’re good at them, but one good slip and you’ve got a scratch that can kill you.”
She laughed. “Stop being so dramatic.”
“Just take the boat please.”
She nodded. “Okay, thank you.”
CHAPTER 5
She collected some fresh supplies—at a certain point in the month, as it got further and further from her last supply shipment, she lived almost exclusively on tinned food and fish, so she was not about to pass up this opportunity for something fresh—before heading to the docks with Mr. Wilson to get the boat. After a little bit of small talk, he saw her off, waving to her until he was just a speck.
It was an easy enough ride back, even if her muscles ached from all the rowing the night before. The sea was different today, like a different entity entirely, and though it was still a bit choppy, it didn’t even slightly resemble what she had seen the night before. She was glad it didn’t; otherwise she might have had to stay with Lionel and his wife for she did not think she had the strength to fight like that again so soon. She’d have to start rowing more often so she would never be caught off guard again.
It was late afternoon by the time she returned back, and after eating some of the biscuits Rose had packed for her, she lit the light and started her watch.
---
The next day the sea looked strange to her as she sipped her morning tea. It looked strange as she ate the last of the biscuits. It looked strange as she polished the glass of the light and fixed a crack near the foundation. It just looked strange.
There was nothing she could pick out specifically though. The color was normal, a deep turquoise blue. The waves were back to being friendly and rhythmic. The gulls floated lazily overhead. Fish jumped.Pelicans swooped. Dolphins played, and the water sparkled as it dashed against her favorite rocks. Everything was as it should be.
Except that it wasn’t.
She couldn’t unsee those sailors’ faces. She couldn’t help but want to turn her head from the shoreline lest she see their broken bodies. She knew the sea was unkind and demanding. That was one of the rules of nature and she had seen it play out a thousand times with the birds and the fish and the whales. She knew Father had lost men before. Hell, she had too. Sailors she rescued would list missing men in the hopes that miraculously they had survived and would be found. She knew they never were. And though she knew she had saved over twenty, she dared not think how many she had unknowinglylost.
The only reason that she could imagine for why this time was different was that she had seen their faces and heard their voices. Or perhaps it was because her own survival had been so unlikely, so improbable, that it seemed unfair that she should live and they should die. And now, staring at her closest—and really only—friend, the sea, she felt…betrayed.
The realization came slowly and it felt ridiculous. What right did she have to be mad at the sea after all it had given her? How could she be mad at something for its own tumultuous nature? That was how the sea was. It churned and it changed, never the same from day to day and never leaving what it touched the same either.
But why would it let her live and not the others? It made no sense and it actually hurt to think about. For even if she considered the sea her friend, she knew it didn’t think the same. It should have been as impartial to her as to them, so why,why,had it claimed them and not her?
She wondered if the guilt she would have felt if she had not gone out would have been the same as this. The result was certainly the same, but she imagined if she hadn’t stepped up when needed, she would have never been able to face this lighthouse or the sea again.
