Keeper of the Light

a lighthouse keeper makes a strange new friend who leads her to make an important - and morally questionable - choice.

Light used to shine high every night, a single, thick beam of yellow making the night less intimidating, less threatening. Now the lighthouse stands on its cliff quietly, its broad stripes of red and white paint chipped and cracked, the steel rails orange and green with rust. A friendly giant at rest. 

It has been there for as long as the locals can remember, a constant guardian.

The tourists love it. They like to walk along the outside of the lighthouse on the mossy red boulders and they especially enjoy breathing in the salty breeze. The kids like pretending they're sailors and pirates and such along the boulders which line a path down to a little beach, while their parents call out to them warningly. Photographers like closing their eyes to let the air caress their faces before they take a snapshot of the serene landscape. The more spry visitors climb up the 168 stairs to the top where they get a grandiose view: to the south, the small island town, lazily sprawling with its various shades of maroon, periwinkle, and all other hues between cream and ebony; north, nothing but the Pacific in its rolling blue-gray glory, a terror to some and a wonder to others. 

The less athletic stand inside at the bottom and snap pictures of the ascending spiral staircase.

Nearly everybody makes sure to stop and read the placard off to the side, placed there a few years ago by the townspeople. It tells the story of a keeper who once lived in the lighthouse in the mid-1900s; a woman, in fact, by the name of Louisa Winters. She lived in solitude, long before there was even a town, and the only way anybody could tell she was alive and well was by looking out for her light. Louisa loved her lighthouse, and took her duty seriously for she knew how many lives were at stake out on the open sea. The story goes, as written, that one night where the waters were gentle and serene, an unconscious body washed up on the sandy coast near the lighthouse. Louisa found and rescued the young man, a fisherman named James Hammond, and brought him to the lighthouse. Fortunately, the lost fisherman was fine; cold and jarred, but ultimately fine. His boat had sprung a leak and sank, forcing him to swim to shore. Louisa took care of him for a few days and even let him help out with lighthouse chores. One morning, he woke up and Louisa was nowhere to be seen. Her boat was also gone. Confused and concerned, James searched for the keeper but to no avail. He knew lives were on the line, so he carried out the duties of the keeper as best as he could day after day, night after night, waiting for Louisa to return. She never did. James, with no way of escaping the island, and unwilling to let the lighthouse stay unattended, lived there as the new keeper for three months until he was finally relieved by somebody who came to check up on Louisa, worried that she hadn't been spotted in the nearby harbor town in a long while. Finally, the placard tells visitors that James Hammond decided to return to the lighthouse and became its keeper until he retired at 70 years old. The fate of Louisa remained unknown to him forever.

This is the story that leaves visitors haunted, wondering whatever happened to Louisa Winters. It is the story all the locals know and tell, and is the story James continued to tell until his passing, but it is not the full story.

After all, everyone should know there is always more than one side of a story.

Louisa Winters was a woman with a personality as cold as her name. She had a reputation for showing up in town only to replenish her supplies, and even then she did not leave her lighthouse often. She preferred to live in solitude on her little island, where she found fulfillment in being responsible for the safety of anyone who sought light out at sea. Louisa found solace in knowing that her light helped others find their way, and was content. She told herself and others that she was content, and did not need the company of anything more than the hissing foam of waves hitting the shore; the gulls crying as they flew by; the gentle hum of the light. 

It was to her own surprise, then, when Louisa did the unexpected and made a friend on the lonely island. 

She enjoyed strolls along the coastline, took pleasure in closing her eyes for brief moments and feeling the salty breeze comb through the curls of her hair. One particular fall morning, the sun was out and the air was still warm enough that Louisa had taken off her coat to let her skin soak in the sunshine. Though it was pleasant for a while, the wind picked up and blew Louisa's hat off her head and into the water.

"Rats," muttered Louisa as she reached out halfheartedly to catch her hat, knowing it was a goner. She faced the sea for a minute, watching her hat drift further and further away into the blue before it was pulled under by the waves. She sighed and squinted against the sunlight as she turned to head back to the lighthouse.

The next day Louisa was on her usual walk when a soft whistling sound caught her attention. She peered around, but saw no birds who could be the culprit. She thought nothing of it, assuming it was the wind.

"I have your hat. Do you want it back?" came a musical voice.

Louisa gasped and her eyes snapped to the source of the sound. At first she saw only water, but then what appeared out of the water but her hat, and then a shimmering hand holding it, and then an arm and before she knew it, Louisa was staring wide-eyed at a creature that resembled a human, but so very obviously was not a human. The creature's shimmering torso, as Louisa stared longer, was covered with scales much like those of a fish but much more iridescent than any fish she had ever seen, and the hand holding her hat featured webbing between each of the five fingers. It resembled a woman.

"This is your hat. I saw you lose it earlier," the creature outstretched her arm, tossing back her darkened, soaked hair. It made a soft smacking sound as it hit her back.

Louisa took a few steps forth, too shocked to care that her feet were submerged in the freezing seawater. She tentatively reached out and took her hat with a trembling hand, then jumped back. "Wh-what are you?"

The creature blinked. "You humans call us mermaids. We call ourselves the -- " she emitted a series of soft clicking and chirping noises. 

"Mermaids aren't real." Louisa shut her eyes hard, then reopened them. I'm dreaming, she thought.

The mermaid looked down at herself. "I am as real as you are. Are you real?"

Louisa realized with a sinking feeling that she was not, in fact, dreaming, and that this was all real. Or she had gone mad.

"That noise you made--is that your language?" she asked instead of answering.

"It travels underwater better," the mermaid answered toothily, and Louisa shuddered when she noticed how sharp and pointed its teeth were.

"How do you know English?"

"You are not the only human who has encountered one of us," the mermaid said matter-of-factly, "and we are good at keeping ourselves hidden. Humans like to speak about many things. It is entertaining to listen to sailors."

Curiosity overcoming her initial shock, Louisa looked over the mermaid again, still somewhat unable to believe her eyes. "You keep saying 'we.' Are there a lot of you?"

The mermaid nodded. "Oh yes. We are many. The ocean is large."

"I guess that makes sense," Louisa mumbled, then caught herself. "Not that any of this makes sense. This is crazy. I'm crazy. This is--" she looked back at the mermaid. "I'm sorry. Why are you only choosing to speak to me now, after all these years?"

The glistening creature shrugged. "I had no reason to, before."

Louisa smiled for the first time in a while. 

They talked for hours, the mermaid and the lighthouse keeper. They talked about their lives and only stopped when it became too dark and cold for Louisa to stay outside. 

She promised the mermaid she would return to talk when she had the time, and the mermaid nodded obligingly. 

A friendship blossomed between the two, and they developed a routine. Louisa would do her work as a keeper of the light, and in her spare moments she would go by the shore to talk with her new friend the mermaid. This continued until the winter when the days grew shorter and darker and Louisa's visits to the shore became more infrequent. 

The mermaid, impatient and upset by the short visits with her friend, asked Louisa if she could neglect her work for just a day. 

"I can't," Louisa protested, shaking her head. "You know that. If I don't do my job, people could get lost and die."

The mermaid quieted, though secretly remained resentful of the lighthouse for hogging the company of her friend. 

Another time, the mermaid swam luxuriously in circles as Louisa sat upon a rock. "What would you say if I told you I could relieve you of your work, forever?"

Louisa looked up from the drawing she'd made in the sand. "What's that mean?"

The mermaid stopped and stared up at Louisa from the water with soulful eyes. "You could come live with me, as a mermaid. You wouldn't have to work all day. We could swim around the sea and explore everything. You said you wanted to see the world one day. I can take you!"

Louisa scoffed. "I'm a human. I can't live in the ocean."

"It is possible!" the mermaid retorted, splashing her tail against the water with an excited smack.  She flipped onto her back and rested her head on the sand. "You would submerge yourself in the water...and then you would become one of us."

Louisa raised an eyebrow, dubious. "Just like that? I'd drown."

"You would not drown. You would stop breathing, but only briefly. And then...you would become alive," the mermaid sighed wistfully, like the experience was the best feeling in the world. 

Louisa thought for a moment, thought about the lifestyle the mermaid had told her of. Exploring the deep sea, swimming into books and crannies of coral reefs, playing with the fishes, taking naps in thick forests of seaweed. It seemed like everything Louisa had never known she'd wanted. 

"You want to. I can see it in your eyes." The mermaid made a satisfied humming sound. 

Louisa frowned. "I can't. The lighthouse needs me. It'd take forever to find a replacement keeper. And it'd be unreasonable." She waved a dismissive hand. "As much as I want to, I cannot."

The mermaid narrowed her eyes but said nothing. 

The calm night when Louisa found the man on the shore, James Hammond, she spotted her friend the mermaid nearby. 

"Did you guide him to shore?" she queried.

The mermaid nodded in excitement, her eyes gleaming. "Here is your replacement! Teach him to work the lighthouse! Then come with me!" 

Louisa's eyes widened as she looked from the man to the mermaid. 

The man, a stranger whom she had never known, and the mermaid, her longtime and her only friend. The man, and the mermaid whom she loved, for she was her only companion. 

"You promise it'll work? Me becoming a mermaid?" Louisa hissed softly. 

The shimmering creature nodded, her eyes seeming to glow as they reflected the moonlight. 

Louisa sighed. "All right. Give me a few days to make sure he's in good physical condition."

The mermaid giggled with glee. 

The night Louisa Winters disappeared was windy and temperatures were subzero. Her boat wobbled dangerously, threatening to flip as she rowed it far from shore. 

"How much further shall we go?" she asked the mermaid, who swam briskly, her motions tinged with a playful joy. 

"This will be deep enough," the mermaid said. "Come."

"Wait." Louisa's breath came out in billowing puffs of air. "If...if it doesn't work, bring me back to shore. Quickly, or I may freeze to death."

"I shall. But it will work!" the mermaid chittered eagerly. "You do trust me?"

"I trust you," Louisa replied, staring hard into the mermaid's angular face. Some sort of glint crossed her friend's eyes, and she shuddered as a sharp wind caught her.

The mermaid reached out her webbed hands. "Hold onto me and you will feel warmth."

Louisa took hold and her shuddering ceased. She stood slowly and took a deep breath. She brought one leg over the side of her boat, then the other. 

Louisa let out a horrified sob as she slid into the frigid ocean. The last thing she saw was the glow of the mermaid's sharp grin, for within minutes after the water enveloped her entire body, her heart slowed to a stop.