7 Liney To Fear #2
Elle would slam down the book she’d been reading and hop from the armchair to chase me.
Neither of us would shriek for fear our parents would catch us.
I was fast, but I’d lose my breath before a full lap of the main floor.
I’d wheeze and lean against the dining table until she’d pounce and tackle me to the floor.
She’d tickle me mercilessly. Elle knew exactly how much she could get away with, keeping me from harm.
Beware the book monster, she’d whisper through a grin.
Back when she was a monster of games. Night escapades and mirth.
I’ve stopped, lost in my memories. Wax trickles over my thumb, hot but not burning.
Another noise, inside, brings me back. A rhythm above, a soft thumping.
I rush up the last few bends of the stairs, and the trapdoor comes into the candle’s light above me.
Behind it is the solemn sanctum of keepers.
A temple to warnings and riptides and the gaze of a sailor across the bow of a ship.
I have to blow out the candle to hold onto the rungs. I place it carefully against the wall. Then I peel the wax from my fingers and flick them down the depths of the tower.
The odd-rhythmed thumping vibrates my hands through the bars as I climb. The trapdoor isn’t locked. Elle has never forbidden me from this room, but it’s always been understood between us that this is her business, not mine.
I throw open the door and crawl up. The room is dim. Only a single lantern casts light, while the center mirror lens spins, empty. How long has the light been out? I woke to its red glow. My eyes find the source of the thumping.
Elle is slumped on the floor, eyes closed, spasming.
Ice flashes through me. Elle is never in danger. It’s not possible. My strong, diligent sister. My protector. But she convulses so violently I fear her neck may break.
I crack through the panic and rush to her. My blanket-robe falls off. With only windowpanes between us and the flurry outside, the cold prickles at my exposed neck, arms, and calves. Ice batters from all sides of the lighthouse, creating a thunderous chorus.
I kneel and grab each side of Elle’s face to stabilize her. The wax of the candle didn’t hurt my fingers, but her cheeks scorch me.
We’ve always feared I’d be harmed out here. By my own body or the sea. I never considered Elle was the one to worry about.
She’s breathing, rough but deep. Good. Her eyes have opened, but she seems unaware of the surroundings.
Her face is pale, blue spider veins spread under each eye.
Her lips are cracked, and her teeth chatter.
I read of putting leather in the mouth of someone convulsing, but there’s nothing within arm’s reach.
“Elle,” I say over and over, voice trembling. She wouldn’t be this weak if it were me shaking. She’d be decisive, a knife of a woman.
I pretend I’m that knife. I grip either side of her head, fighting with her to keep it steady.
I yell her name as I lean over her arm and torso to lessen the spasms. Her eyes focus, but not on me.
Behind me. I look around the lightroom, searching for what she sees.
The huge, lightless mirror still spins uselessly.
A few feet behind me, beside the trapdoor, is a small cup of water.
I grab the glass, instinct taking over, and throw it in her face.
She snaps her eyes to mine, spluttering and blinking away the water.
“What—Liney? Why are—what did you—”
“Relax.” What would she tell me? “You were convulsing, badly. You might’ve hit your head.”
Elle sits up. She rubs her eyes, then squints out one of the windows. “I had a nightmare.” Her voice is stronger already.
“Your eyes were wide open, but you couldn’t see me. What happened?”
Elle shakes her head and pulls her wool coat tighter. I fight off my own shivering and clench my teeth. She’s still pale, nearly blue-tinged, and her eyes are bloodshot.
“I need a moment.” She closes her eyes, and for once she looks her age. It’s easy to forget she’s not yet twenty-five. How have these watchful nights shaped her?
“Does this happen a lot?” I feign a casual tone and rub my arms to keep warm.
Elle snaps upright like a flame bursting to life. She shrugs out of her coat and hands it to me. “Are you in nightclothes? You’ll freeze! What possessed you to come up here?”
I had a fight with my imaginary friend, and she didn’t want me to see you, and I can’t take one more person, even myself, bossing me around, and I can’t tell what’s real or not anymore.
“The storm,” I say, fitting the part of scared little sister. I put the coat on. Much too big for me, but sweltering from Elle’s body heat. “Has it gotten that bad before?”
Elle shakes her head, then leans it back against the bench. The world is a constant churn of water behind her. Above, below, everywhere between. The pane shudders against a gust.
I kneel over the bench to secure the window tighter.
“You don’t have to do that.”
I ignore her. The latch had come loose. If I hadn’t come upstairs, would I have found Elle under a pile of broken glass and snow tomorrow?
I press down on the mechanism to secure it.
Then something draws my eye out to the roiling water.
A distinct shape bobs, unlike the vague dark-on-dark sea and sleet.
A ship.
Its lights twinkle in and out like stars as it’s tossed by the waves. Nothing else would create a light out there. There’s half a world of water out that window until the European coastline.
I can’t tell how close the ship is. Too close. The harbor is so deep, the waves so engulfing, and the winds so wicked. They won’t make it on their own.
“Elle—Ship. A ship. We need to…”
I turn to her, but she’s no longer lying against the bench. She kneels, feet together and back to me, head lowered in prayer.
Elle isn’t the type to pray. I’ve never seen her pray save for Mass. Even then I’d hear her reciting songs or poems under her breath instead of appeals to God.
“Elle!” I turn back to the window. Is the ship closer? It must be. A second light flashes. They’re signaling for guidance.
I can’t hear her answer. I’ve never had to snap her out of reveries before. What has happened? Is she concussed?
“What’s wrong with our light?” I ask, tearing my gaze away from the ship. Looking at it won’t save their souls. Elle will.
She remains kneeling, head bowed.
“Is there a block in the lamp oil?” I stand before the mirror lenses. Their prisms turn slowly, reflecting only the dim lantern beside me.
“We can’t,” Elle whispers.
Her brain must be scrambled. Ocean madness has taken lighthouse keepers before. Was it our fight that tipped her over the edge? Or something out in the darkness?
I study the light. While most of the oil is stored in the locked basement, a reservoir hangs above the lens. She explained it to me when she first began keeping the light. A trickle of the oil falls in a spiraled pipe, slowly keeping the flame lit.
“I’m going to check if the oil is out,” I tell her. “If it is, I’ll need the key to the basement. If it’s not…” I’m hoping to prompt her.
Elle continues mumbling. This is more worrisome than her unconsciousness. I didn’t know Elle could be anything other than assured or angry anymore. It’s been a long day. She’ll come back to her senses with rest. But I don’t have time to wait for her.
I scurry under the lens, careful not to get my hair caught on its prismatic edges. The lamp swings slightly in the center, attached to the ceiling with metal rods, but no flame is in its burner. Above, where there should be a reservoir, there’s nothing but ceiling.
I misunderstood the placement of the oil well. When Elle said gravity, I assumed it was above, but I can’t remember her exact words. I scour the lamp’s surface. There’s nowhere for oil to enter.
“Where’s the oil?” I call out.
A violent thrust of wind whips ice shards at the northern window, shocking a shriek out of me. Is she speaking Latin? She never learned Latin. I’m wasting time. The ship could collide with our rocky coast as I stand listening to her ramblings.
I can’t peer into the lamp well within the cloister of the lenses. Its cotton wick is intact between the half sphere where the oil should feed into the wick and the rest of the burner. But to know for sure, I need more light.
The lantern. We use the same oil for every flame in the lighthouse. The reserve it contains might be enough to show them where to avoid. I scuttle underneath the lens again and come face-to-face with my sister.
Her eyes are no longer closed in prayer. They stare into the floorboards. While her mouth moves in whispers of a language I don’t know, it is those eyes that stop me.
They are no longer the welcoming amber that’s always felt like home. Instead of honey, they burn in twin crimson flames.