AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“ISITTRUEthat all lighthouse keepers eventually go mad?”
And here we go.
Luckily, Oliver didn’t have to answer the question they inevitably received at least once every tour group.
Tess was an expert on the subject.
Oliver watched her now as she led the first official lighthouse tour group of the summer season through the main room of the lighthouse, stopping at the base of the spiraling staircase up to the tower.
Tess laughed as she shook her head. “Not anymore, thanks to modern science,” she said, standing in front of the eight people with such confidence and pride, it brought mixed emotions to Oliver’s chest.
Sometimes, he felt like he was drowning in them.
Living there, haunted by the tragedy of his past, was hard. As time passed with no answers, he thought maybe hemightbe slowly losing his mind. And yet he felt compelled to stay. Loyalty to his family’s legacy—loyalty to the town—was rooted deep in his core.
“It’s true that in the nineteenth century, lighthouse keepers had a high frequency of madness and suicide. But it had less to do with being solitary in the tower than people assume,” Tess told the crowd, who were now captivated.
“One of the greatest lighthouse inventions back then was the Fresnel lens, which increased and intensified the range of the lighthouse beacon. The rotation speed of the light was important and the best way to ensure its accuracy was to float the light and lens on a circular track of liquid mercury.” She led the group toward the artifact on display that showed the older instrument in action.
Without real mercury, of course.
“When the mercury got dirty, it was the lighthouse keeper’s job to strain it through a fine cloth to clean it. It was the exposure to the mercury fumes that drove them to madness,” Tess concluded with a wide grin, happy to be the smartest one in the room.
The crowd applauded, enlightened, and Oliver winked at Tess over their heads as she continued toward the stairs. The best part of the tour was getting to see the beacon at the top of the tower, and he knew Tess loved seeing the expressions on the visitors’ faces when they saw the incredible view up there for the first time.
Knowing the group was in more than capable hands, Oliver headed to the records room, where he kept a log of the weather each day. He opened the door and entered, a familiar musky smell filling his nostrils. Same smell since he was a child. One that used to fill him with his own sense of pride when he’d help his father perform the same duty, but these days, it was just another reminder that he’d been in the same place, doing the same thing, for a long time.
Maybe too long.
Switching on the light, he scanned the old wooden bookshelves where hundreds of logbooks were preserved. Old, worn leather and yellowing pages of decades ago stood in line with the year etched on the spine. Newer books were evident on newer shelves. Less dust, less fading from time and from sunlight streaming in through the small round window directly across.
The weather log was also automated now on a spreadsheet, shared on the coast guard’s internal database, but the town wanted to continue the paper records in the old leather notebooks to preserve the history and keep with tradition. Generations from now, the lighthouse would still be standing there, long after everyone in the town was gone, a new generation carrying the community forward, and these current weather reports would be historical documents.
Oliver reached for the recent logbook and checked the temperature gauges for outside; then he documented the temperature, wind and ocean patterns, including that day’s force and wave height. He sighed as he wrote the date. Two days after the anniversary of his wife and eldest daughter’s disappearance. Lost at sea on a day as clear and calm as this week’s forecast.
An experienced sailor, his wife had known the waters better than most. She’d been a competitive sailor for ten years before they’d started their family. There had been no reason to suspect that taking the boat out that day would have resulted in them not returning home.
The lack of closure was the hardest part. Not knowing. Always looking. Always waiting.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever find the answers he was searching for.
He closed the logbook and placed it back on the shelf. Then, turning off the light, he left the room and locked the door. Footsteps on the tower stairs indicated that the tour was wrapping up, so he headed outside and waited for Tess and the others.
The old-fashioned camera was set up on the tripod on the grassy area in front of the lighthouse and he took his position behind it to capture the photo of the tour. It was an add-on feature that, to Oliver, only amplified the touristy element of the whole thing, but the mayor’s office insisted on it. They said people loved to receive the printed black-and-white photo in the mail weeks after arriving home from their vacation. A little reminder and incentive to return.
“Okay, everyone, line up over here,” Tess instructed. She positioned the group with a great backdrop of the lighthouse tower and the ocean in the background, tallest in the back, shortest in the front. “And...smile!”
The group of tourists did and Oliver snapped the photo.
“Copies will be mailed out in two weeks. Thanks for coming. Be sure to sign the guest book as you leave,” Tess said, happily accepting tips from several of the group.
Oliver grinned. He doubted he’d get tips if he ran the tour. Tess was special. She knew the town’s history better than anyone and relished the old stories.
“Generous crowd today,” she said, flashing him the bills as she approached.
“By end of summer, you’ll be able to afford that new bike you’ve been wanting,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“I’m actually saving for a kayak,” she said, and his gut clenched slightly. He’d never stop her from going out on the water. She loved to swim and fish and enjoy the local tour boat for whale watching, but each time she was near the water’s pebbly edge, his chest tightened and it was difficult to breathe. He longed to move somewhere a little farther inland, but he knew being away from the ocean would crush his daughter’s spirit.
