Sunset of July (Pantoum)
Music dancing through the night
Tracing comets through the sky
On and on till morning light
Oh, the sunset of July.

Tracing comets through the sky
Soaring up into the dark
Oh, the sunset of July
It cannot last, you lit the spark.

Soaring up into the dark
At long, long last, your heart flies free
It cannot last, you lit the spark
The fire burns into the sea.

At long, long last, your heart flies free
Whirling, free of smothering prison
The fire burns into the sea
But not a soul will look or listen.

Whirling, free of smothering prison
On and on till morning light
But not a soul will look or listen
Music dancing through the night

~~~~~~~~~~~~SLIGHTLY OLDISH WRITING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ciana remembered the first time her father let her work the light. It was four years ago, just before sunset, and the luminous gold sun was beginning to dip below the faraway horizon. She and her father were standing in the familiarly dim, circular, low-ceilinged light room, where the light mechanism for their lighthouse was situated. Ciana thought that the mechanism was a beautiful thing, really. The old wooden wheel, and all of the different gears, brass and silver, interlocking perfectly, turning effortlessly, endlessly, from sunset to daybreak.
Her father was the lighthouse keeper, and someday, she would be too.
“See, Ciana,” her father explained, his dark eyes gazing into her own green ones, “you have to grab this wheel.” He took hold of her small hand with light nimbleness and placed it on the large wooden wheel in front of them. “Turn it,” he told her, “for about three and a half rotations, and then let go. The lighthouse will do the rest of the work for you.”
“It’ll reflect the light onto the lens, which will beam it out to the ocean!” Ciana said excitedly, jumping up and down on the rattling wooden floor.
Her father smiled and placed a warm hand on her skinny shoulder. “Turn it now, my little lightkeeper.”
With great concentration, Ciana narrowed her eyes, grasped the wheel and shoved her entire body weight into the task of turning it. Her father oiled it often, but it was an ancient lighthouse – her family had been running it for centuries – and it creaked terribly.
Ciana didn’t mind. The sounds it made were the sounds of home. As she heaved the wheel around for the final rotation, a self-satisfied smile spread across her small, pale face. Gears clicked into place, and a bright golden light emerged from the machine, ricocheting off a well-placed lens and beaming out of the window just as the sun’s last glowing rays faded into the dark sea.
Ciana dashed to the window of the lighthouse, leaning out over the ocean, pride leaping in her chest as she watched the long yellow beam of light, her light, sway methodically back and forth across the sea.

She remembered that day as if it were yesterday, the colors and sensations still bright and alive in her mind. Every two hours, on the dot, Ciana and her father would ascend the steep, tightly twisting staircase, where the dank walls were lit only by flickering orange torchlight. Every two hours, Ciana would turn the wheel, rewinding the lighthouse to guide ships with its strong golden beams once again.
All of the wheel-turning had strengthened her muscles, so now she would use a single hand to turn it while she talked with her father, although some part of her mind was always trained on the feel of her fingertips on the worn old wheel.
It was their time, her and her father’s. Sometimes they’d talk about lightkeeping, or their family’s rich history in the seaside town of Fogshore. Sometimes they would talk about town gossip, or the weather. Much of the time, they’d discuss her father’s magic tricks. He made a living by performing around the little seaside town of Fogshore. Ciana would beg to know how he guessed her card, or pulled a penny from an empty pocket, and he would reply, Smoke and mirrors, my little lightkeeper. Smoke and mirrors.”
Ciana’s mother, Elissa, would roll her shimmering hazel eyes at these sessions. “Darin, dear,” she would say, her voice melodious and light, “don’t coop up Ciana in the lighthouse when she could be out on the high seas.” Her mother would then sigh, her broad shoulders sinking, and her long curly scarlet hair would swing as she would go off to find Adrienne.
Adrienne was Ciana’s twin sister, but they couldn’t be more different. Their family didn’t often leave the lighthouse, but when they did, the people of Fogshore always remarked on how similar Ciana and her father looked, and the same about Adrienne and her mother.
Ciana had her father’s shadowed eyes, nimble fingers, and dark, wild hair. But that wasn’t where the similarities ended. They both had a burning passion inside of them – a passion for lighthouse-keeping, a passion for history and their family’s legacy as the lightkeepers of Fogshore.
Adri, as Ciana called her sister, had the charismatic enthusiasm of her mother, the pure will, the rebellious grin and uncontainable energy. The sisters would play together on the gray-sand beach, make-believing they were pirates out to pillage and loot. Adrienne loved these games. Ciana didn’t – the thought of being out on the sea, the enormous, terrifying blue monster, was immensely scary to her – but she noticed how much her sister ached at the bindings of the lighthouse and its slim confinements, so she played.
Ciana knew that Adrienne, like her mother, had the spirit of an explorer.
This explorer’s spirit was what began the slow and torturous unraveling of their lives.
Ciana’s father would tell her stories in the lighthouse, stories of his life as a young traveling magician, performing tricks as he passed from island to island. His deep, dark eyes would seem to become ever more hollow, as if they were staring through Ciana and past her, to somewhere far away that only he could see.
His entire being would light up when he talked about her mother. They had met when she was on a pirate ship and raided his small travel vessel. Elissa had done this many times before, but Ciana’s father told her that his wife-to-be had a strange reluctance to steal from him. She was hooked by his shyness, his adeptness for magic tricks, and the mystery that was him and his past. He, in turn, was overwhelmed by her remarkable presence. She had an energy that could turn a room into a party, with her broad shoulders, determined grin, and mischievous hazel eyes framed by freckles and tangled red hair.
Together, they went to Ciana’s father’s ancestral lighthouse home on Fogshore and started their family. Elissa, Ciana’s father would tell her, was always a bit unsure about living in the lighthouse. After spending a lifetime on the sea with her pirate crew, it seemed so… confining. She was unused to the darkness.
Her mother had seemed to deal with the jarringness of the transition alright in the beginning, but over the years, Ciana watched her expression grow ever more distant. She hardly seemed to laugh anymore.
And one day, she left. Ciana had never seen her father so despondent. His dark, hollow eyes were pools of shadow; unapproachable, almost on another world. He was hunched over and pale, silent tears streaking down his sharply angled cheekbones as the ship sailed off into the sea.
It was an unusually sunny day, she remembered. Fogshore was usually engulfed in wisps of dark mist, the sea roiling, and the wind scraping the gray sky, but on this morning, the sky was the bluest shade she’d ever seen.
Ciana remembered shielding her eyes from the brightness, barely catching a glimpse of her mother, who was silhouetted against the glowing sun.
She remembered her sister, Adrienne, and how her hand clasped tight around Ciana’s. Her sister’s green eyes, wide and longing, were like round mirrors, reflecting the ocean.
She remembered how all three of them stood there – Adrienne, her father, and Ciana – hands locked together, watching as her mother crossed the horizon, as the all-consuming, ever-blue sea swallowed her up like she was nothing.
Her mother was gone.
She had always been a bit nervous about it, but from that day on, Ciana was truly afraid of the sea. Her heart pounded violently in her chest when the memory of her mother, enveloped by blue, never seen again, resurfaced. Her lungs felt tight and suffocating when she thought of her sister’s eyes that day, the uncanny, magnetic way they were drawn to the waves.
Ciana vowed to never let her sister be taken by the sea.
After her mother left, the lighthouse conversations with her father were never the same. Ciana would start talking, but her father would let the threads trail into nothingness, lost in his own world. The lighthouse was often quiet, with Adrienne swimming out in the ocean in solitary, easy circles, or perching on the rocks that poked out of the waves, and Ciana and her father were silent while she turned the old worn wheel.
One day, Ciana woke to find the old boat that had always been chained to the dock floating on the violent, crashing waves. Thick fog wreathed the old lighthouse, whose red and white stripes were peeling in long strands of paint. She and her father were going to repaint it today. She looked up at the lighthouse’s top. It narrowed to a pointed tip against the gray-blue sky, and she could tell where the small light room was by its windows. When she stood at the center of the little room, she could see all around her; there were windows on every wall.
Ciana lowered her eyes and stared at the ocean spray, watching it smash into the boat’s sides over and over again. The salty sea air invaded her senses. She couldn’t stop watching as the boat rocked from side to side, the ocean tossing it mercilessly.
“Ci!”
Ciana jumped. “Adri! You know I hate being scared.”
“You’re such a spoilsport.” Her sister’s laugh was light and carefree, weaving easily into the dense seaside air, but there was something off about it.
“Adri, why is the boat out?” Ciana hadn’t taken her eyes off of the vessel. Her words held a dark and terrified tone, and her low voice, normally lost in the roaring wind, cut through like a serrated knife.
“Ciana, I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you. We should have told you, I should have convinced Father to tell you.”
Ciana whirled around to face her twin sister, grasping Adrienne’s tanned wrists with her long, pale fingers. “What? What didn’t you tell me?” Ciana’s eyes were tinged with desperation, and she was trembling in the salty breeze.
“Ciana, my little lightkeeper.” A hand weighed down her shoulder. “We have to leave.”
“No!” Ciana screamed, the primal sound tearing through the air.
“Your mother…” Her father’s voice shook. He inhaled and continued, “Your mother is out somewhere on the ocean, and we need to find her. I need to find her.”
“Ci,” Adrienne told her sister, uncharacteristically gently. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stay in this lighthouse. I know you love it, but it’s not my home. I have Mother’s spirit. I don’t belong in a tiny lighthouse on Fogshore. I belong…” She took a deep breath, looking Ciana right in the eye. “Out on the sea.”
Ciana dropped Adri’s hand. “You won’t,” she pleaded, tears forming in the corners of her eyes and streaking down her face like little rivers. “You can’t! I can’t lose you!” She buried her face in her father’s chest.
“You could come with us,” Adrienne suggested quietly, eyes cast downward. The sandy beach they were standing on was hidden beneath a wisp of fog. “I know you can’t stand the ocean, but…” she let her sentence trail off, a thread of opportunity.
Ciana wanted, wanted more than anything, to take hold of the thread and climb it until she found her family again. She pictured life on the ocean.
Blue, blue, blue, as far as the eye could see. Open skies, rather than the comfort of the lighthouse’s ancient walls. And worst of all, no lightkeeping. No well-oiled machinery, and no beams of light to guide her.
Still, her family would be with her. They could be her light. They could all be light together.
“Okay,” Ciana said in a small voice, staring at Adrienne’s boots.
“Yes!” Adrienne cheered, her eyes lighting up. She dragged her sister over to the boat, their father following behind.
Adri and her father climbed into the boat, but Ciana’s feet refused to move. She stood at the edge of the sea, water seeping into her shoes and soaking her socks.
“C’mon, Ci,” Adrienne urged.
“I…” Ciana choked out. The water crept higher up her skinny ankles. Her eyes were focused on the horizon, where the sky was met by the dark ocean. The waves were powerful. Their crashes echoed in her mind. Crash, crash, crash. She couldn’t think.
“Ciana?”
“I…” Crash, crash, crash. The wind whipped her long dark hair, tangling it around her pale neck.
“Ciana!”
The waves and the wind were getting stronger, smashing against the rope that held the boat to the dock. She watched, horror spreading through her skin, as the boat slipped away, waves engulfing the little vessel. “I can’t,” Ciana whispered beneath the wind. “I can’t.”
Her father and Adrienne’s little boat was already gone, swallowed into the great dark monster that was the ocean.
Ciana screamed.
She screamed for her mother and her father and her sister. She screamed and screamed and screamed until her voice was hoarse. She screamed into the fog and the sky and the sea.
But there was nothing she could do. Ciana’s hair was tangled and her eyes were wild. She pelted down the beach, racing up the stairs into the lighthouse, the waves’ crashes still repeating in her head. Crash, crash, crash.
She had to find them. She had to. It had been only a few hours since Ciana’s father and twin sister had left, and she couldn’t think about anything else. She couldn’t get the image out of her head, of her family in the boat, at the cruel will of the ocean as they faded into the fog.
Ciana paced her tiny bedroom. The light was dimming. Soon it would be time to wind the lighthouse. A sob wrestled its way up through her throat. Her father was gone. She was the only lightkeeper left, her father’s little lightkeeper.
A sunray streamed through the tiny round window in the side of the lighthouse and lit the surface of her small wooden dresser. There was a brown-wrapped package on top of it. Ciana frowned through a waterfall of tears. There had definitely not been a package there this morning.
She crossed the room and picked up the package. Ciana squinted in the dim light. Her heart leapt into her throat when she recognized her father’s spidery handwriting on the brown paper.
My little lightkeeper, it said. Ciana’s breath caught. If your sister and I are not back from the seas in a year, open this. Please don’t open it earlier, alright? I hope it doesn’t have to come to this. I hope it won’t end this way. But maybe it will, and you’ll need this. I know you will.
The words settled in her mind. This was the only piece of her family she had left. Ciana felt through the paper, but it was wrapped in many layers, and she could not tell what hid inside.
She could open it now, but then she would be dishonoring what her father wanted. That was the last thing Ciana would do.
Faithfully and with great care, she placed the package back on the dresser and waited.
Weeks passed, slowly turning into months. Ciana could think nothing but of her sister and her father. Thoughts of them, finding them, and opening the package consumed her mind. She barely ate, only leaving the lighthouse once a month or so to obtain small amounts of food. When she ventured into the town of Fogshore, the villagers whispered to each other as they passed. Ciana knew they were staring at her tangled hair and gaunt figure and sunken, insane eyes. She didn’t care.
She lived alone in the lighthouse, pacing circles and circles around her bedroom. She had started by turning on the lighthouse when it got dark, like she was supposed to, but as the time passed, Ciana worried that they would be sailing back and she wouldn’t see them. She spent more and more time up in the lighthouse-working room, staring for hours and hours on end. Her eyes were far away, and she could barely register their stinging when she didn’t blink.
If Ciana didn’t see their boat in time to turn on the lighthouse so they would see the right place to land, she would never forgive herself.
As it was, she could never forgive herself for not immediately joining her family. She thought of Adri’s laughing eyes and her father’s secretive smile and she couldn’t imagine leaving them. And yet… Whenever Ciana pictured the ocean, her throat closed up and her heartbeat sped up rapidly. Her fear and her regret chased each other in circles in her mind until they were the only things to ever occupy it.
Ciana became very accustomed to the dusty dark light-room where she spent her days and nights, although she barely slept. When she did, she was rocked by nightmares of dark, strangling oceans, lost sisters, and mournful fathers. Ciana often woke up in the night with tears stained on her cheeks. Whenever she felt like she had lost all purpose, she thought of seeing her family’s boat, and turning on the lighthouse like she had always done, so they could find their way home and be a family again.
Eventually, she thought of nothing else. Ciana had to find a way to get them back. If she didn’t, she didn’t know how much longer she could survive, racked by memories and drowning in an ocean of regret.
When the day finally came, Ciana nearly forgot. The thought struck her as she woke up that it had been a year since her family had been taken by the sea. She rushed to her dresser. It was almost too hard to tear her father’s handwriting apart, but it was necessary. She ripped the package open, and tore off about three more layers of brown paper wrapping until she reached the prize within.
It was a mirror.
Ciana was shocked to see a glimpse of her face in the mirror. The girl within was such a different person from the one she remembered. She looked away and went to search for another note – why was this mirror so important? – and found a slip of paper hidden inside the wrapping.

Ci, if you’re reading this, I love you. We’re twins, and even though we’re not identical, I hope you can see me in your reflection.
Love, Adri

My little lightkeeper Ciana. This mirror is for you. This will be hard for you, but I ask you to go to the storage room and get out the spare rowboat at the back. If you’re thinking of going to look for us, it will certainly not hold you that long. Take the rowboat and sail out as far as you dare, but make sure you can always see the lighthouse so you don’t get lost. Remember what I always said about magic tricks, Ciana, and drop the mirror in the water. Trust me, alright?
Love, Father

Tears pooled in Ciana’s eyes. It was all she could do to keep from collapsing on the floor with the notes clutched tightly. She raced around the back of the lighthouse, hair flying out behind her, and spotted the spare rowboat. Her heart clenched in her chest, and her heartbeat was loud in her ears. Could she do it? Could she ignore her fear?
Ciana had to do it. She had to do it for her father and for her sister.
Trembling, she climbed into the rowboat, fingers tight against the mirror. She untied the rope from its docking point, and then she was floating, floating in the endless sea.
Fog blanketed the ocean like a thick layer of smoke, and Ciana could only see the water in little dark patches. She wasn’t sure if this made her more or less afraid. Wind tore into her skin and shrieked in her ears. Ciana focused on the wooden handle of the paddle in her hands, trying to ignore the harsh way the waves whipped across the ocean’s surface. She looked over her shoulder. The lighthouse was close. She thought she’d have gotten out farther by now. Oh well. Ciana continued rowing.
When the smoky fog was thick and she couldn’t bear to go any farther out, Ciana stopped.
She looked at the mirror, and saw herself. She saw insanity in her eyes, and her wind-tangled hair, and her hunger-gaunt frame. She saw what the time without her family had done to her.
She dropped the mirror in the water.
The smoky fog parted as it fell in with an anticlimactic little splash. It sank only slightly; its shiny surface was barely covered with a thin layer of water.
Ciana looked at the note for the next instructions. Remember what I said about magic tricks.
She racked her brain, trying to think back to the days in the lighthouse. What was it that he had said?
Letters were starting to form on the surface of the mirror. Invisible ink, Ciana realized. Of course. But what was it that her father had said?
The smoky fog wisped through her vision. She couldn’t see the mirror.
That was it! Smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors. Ciana’s delight lasted only a moment. As the fog faded away, she saw the dark inky letters finish writing themselves on the mirror’s surface.
Let go.
And at once, Ciana understood. Smoke and mirrors. Misdirection. Oh, her father was always so good at misdirection. This was never meant to be a way to find her family. This was only her father’s way of convincing her to say goodbye.
Let go.
Ciana thought of how little she’d eaten, how she’d stayed up in the lighthouse every night, straining her eyes for any sight of them.
Let go.
She remembered the writing on the package.
I hope it doesn’t have to come to this. I hope it won’t end this way. But maybe it will, and you’ll need this. I know you will.
This had been her father’s way to tell them that they weren’t coming back. That they never could.
Let go.
Ciana had been fixated on the idea of finding her family. She had clasped so tightly onto this obsession that she had lost sight of what really mattered.
She let go.
Tears flowing freely, Ciana rowed back to the lighthouse. She felt as if her pulsing fear of the ocean had faded away, like the fog into the dark night. She grieved, and yet she felt freer than she had in a year’s time.
The lighthouse was due to go out soon. If she hadn’t just received the message from her family, Ciana’s blood would have been screaming under her skin, terrified at the thought that the light might go out, at the thought of not being there to light the way home.
They weren’t coming home.
Ciana walked slowly up the stairs to the light room. She let her muscle memory guide her hands to turn on the light, not even needing to think about it. She lifted her head to gaze out the window, as she had so often during the past year, when she was searching and scanning for any sign of her family.
Ciana let her head drop. She’d look back when she was ready, but for now, she’d seen enough of that same old ocean view to last months.
A glimpse of golden light filtered through a corner of her vision, and she went downstairs without looking back.


~~~~~~~~~~~~OLD WRITING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lilian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with birds. Metal birds. Their evil red eyes glow eerily, pairs of red sparks closing in as the sky darkens, the bird flock swelling in size. They are getting closer. They are getting bigger.
There is a storm on the horizon.
Lilian reaches for Anabel’s warm, steady hand, which envelopes her own pale, shaking small one. Already she feels calmer. Anabel traces her fingertips over the back of Lilian’s hand. Together, they can do this.
Lilian turns her head to one side, half smiling.
Anabel nods.
And all at once, they both unsheath their swords. Shing! Shing! Lilian can feel the power and adrenaline and love coursing through her and Anabel, raging like a river, rushing through her veins, radiating off of both of them, as if their deep bond is shielding them from the birds.
But Lilian doesn't have time to focus on that, because a metallic bird leaves the flock and swoops down toward them so fast it’s simply a silvery blur, streaking through the air with a mechanical screeching that twists her eardrums.
All at once, panic surges up from Lilian’s feet, up to her throat, which it grabs in a terrifying chokehold. A strange sense of desperation washes over her, and she finds herself waving her sword around wildly, her sweaty hand slipping, all her technique having flooded out onto the bare plains around her. Lilian’s heart climbs into her throat, pounding harder than she’d thought was possible, thumping against her ribcage, thud, thud, thud. She can’t breathe as the tiny metallic bird closes in with horrifying precision, whirring silver wings, those malicious little red eyes staring into her soul–
And then Anabel places a warm, confident hand on hers, and with a swift, controlled movement, makes her sword slice through the gray sky, aiming right at the bird. Lilian hears an earsplitting CLASH of metal on metal, but she doesn't see what happens, as she’s squeezed her eyes shut. Anabel whispers in her ear, the older girl’s kind, earthy voice soothing Lilian’s tightened muscles, “It’s okay.”
She opens her eyes and the bird is lying in metal pieces on the cracked ground. Heaving a sigh of relief, Lilian gives Anabel a quick hug. Then, squaring her shoulders, she presses her slender back against Anabel’s, unsheathes her sword once more, and looks confidently out onto the horizon. Now, she is really ready for the battle to come.

I have some suggestions for your nice story!

26friedland wrote:

Lilian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with birds. Metal birds. Their evil red eyes glow eerily, pairs of red sparks closing in as the sky darkens, the bird flock swells in size.

Metal birds is a fragment, so I suggest doing one of these:
Lillian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with metal birds.
Lillian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with birds. Metal birds with evil red eyes glowing eerily, pairs of red sparks closing in as the sky darkens, the bird flock swelling in size.

TurtleLegos wrote:

I have some suggestions for your nice story!

26friedland wrote:

Lilian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with birds. Metal birds. Their evil red eyes glow eerily, pairs of red sparks closing in as the sky darkens, the bird flock swells in size.

Metal birds is a fragment, so I suggest doing one of these:
Lillian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with metal birds.
Lillian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with birds. Metal birds with evil red eyes glowing eerily, pairs of red sparks closing in as the sky darkens, the bird flock swelling in size.

Thank you for the suggestions. The first one was a stylistic choice, but the second one was something I didn't notice! I appreciate your critique

26friedland wrote:

TurtleLegos wrote:

I have some suggestions for your nice story!

26friedland wrote:

Lilian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with birds. Metal birds. Their evil red eyes glow eerily, pairs of red sparks closing in as the sky darkens, the bird flock swells in size.

Metal birds is a fragment, so I suggest doing one of these:
Lillian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with metal birds.
Lillian watches in despair as the gray sky clouds with birds. Metal birds with evil red eyes glowing eerily, pairs of red sparks closing in as the sky darkens, the bird flock swelling in size.

Thank you for the suggestions. The first one was a stylistic choice, but the second one was something I didn't notice! I appreciate your critique

Np!

lightkeeper

Ciana remembered the first time her father let her work the light. It was four years ago, and the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon.
Her father was the lighthouse keeper, and someday, she would be too.
“See, Ciana,” her father explained, “you have to grab this wheel.” He took hold of her hand, placing it on the wheel. “Turn it three times.”
“It’ll reflect the light onto the lens, which will beam it out to the ocean!” Ciana said excitedly, jumping up and down.
Her father smiled. “Turn it, my little lightkeeper.”
Ciana did. It was an ancient lighthouse – her family had been running it for centuries – and it creaked terribly. Ciana didn’t mind. The sounds it made were the sounds of home. Gears clicked into place, and a bright golden light emerged from the machine.
Ciana dashed to the window of the lighthouse, pride leaping in her chest as she watched her light, flashing across the sea.

Every two hours, Ciana and her father would turn the wheel, rewinding the lighthouse once again.
Sometimes they’d talk about lightkeeping, or their family’s history in the seaside town of Fogshore, or her father’s magic tricks. Ciana would beg to know how he guessed her card, or pulled a penny from an empty pocket, and he would reply, "Smoke and mirrors, my little lightkeeper. Smoke and mirrors.”
Ciana’s mother, Elissa, would say, “Darin, dear, don’t coop up Ciana in the lighthouse when she could be out on the high seas.” Her mother would then sigh and go off to find Adrienne. Adrienne was Ciana’s twin sister, but they couldn’t be more different. The people of Fogshore always remarked on how similar Ciana and her father looked, and the same about Adrienne and her mother.
Ciana had her father’s shadowed eyes, nimble fingers, and dark, wild hair. They both had a burning passion inside of them, for lighthouse-keeping and history and their family’s legacy as the lightkeepers of Fogshore.
Adri, as Ciana called her sister, had the enthusiasm of her mother, the rebellious grin and the uncontainable energy. The sisters would play on the gray beach, make-believing they were pirates. Adrienne loved these games. Ciana didn’t – the thought of being out on the sea, away from home, was immensely scary to her – but her sister ached at the confinements of the lighthouse, so Ciana played.
Ciana’s father would tell her stories in the lighthouse, stories of his life as a traveling magician. He had met his wife when she was on a pirate ship and raided his small travel vessel. Elissa was hooked by his shyness and his adeptness for magic tricks. He, in turn, was overwhelmed by her energetic presence.
Together, they went to Ciana’s father’s ancestral lighthouse home on Fogshore and started their family. Elissa, Ciana’s father would tell her, thought that the lighthouse seemed confining. She was unused to the darkness.
And one day, she left. Ciana had never seen her father so despondent. His eyes were pools of shadow. It was an unusually sunny day, she remembered. Fogshore was usually engulfed in wisps of dark mist, the sea roiling, and the wind scraping the gray sky, but not on that dreadful morning.
Ciana remembered how Adrienne's hand clasped tight around Ciana’s. Her sister’s green eyes, wide and longing, were like round mirrors, reflecting the ocean.
She remembered watching as her mother crossed the horizon, as the all-consuming sea swallowed her up like she was nothing.
Her mother was gone.
From that day on, Ciana was truly afraid of the sea. Her lungs felt tight when she thought of her sister’s eyes that day, the way they were drawn to the waves.
One day, Ciana woke to find the old boat floating in the water.
She spotted her sister's red hair in her peripheral vision. “Adri, why is the boat out?” Ciana hadn’t taken her eyes off of the vessel. Her low voice, normally lost in the roaring wind, cut through like a knife.
“Ci, I'm sorry…”
She whirled around to face Adrienne. “What didn’t you tell me?” Ciana’s eyes were tinged with desperation.
“My little lightkeeper.” A hand weighed down her shoulder. “We have to leave.”
“No!” Ciana screamed, the primal sound tearing through the air.
“Your mother…” Her father’s voice shook. “Your mother is out somewhere on the seas. I need to find her.”
“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stay in this lighthouse. I have Mother’s spirit. I belong…” Adrienne paused. “Out on the sea.”
Ciana dropped Adri’s hand. “You can’t! I can’t lose you!”
“You could come with us,” Adrienne suggested.
“Okay,” Ciana said in a small voice, shoving the ever-looming fear out of her mind.
Adri and her father climbed into the boat, but Ciana stood at the edge of the sea, water seeping into her shoes and soaking her socks. “I…” Ciana choked out. The waves' crashes echoed in her mind. Crash, crash, crash. She couldn’t think.
The wind whipped her long dark hair, tangling it around her pale neck. The waves and the wind were getting stronger. She watched, horror spreading through her skin, as the boat slipped away. “I can’t,” Ciana whispered beneath the wind.
The boat was gone.
Ciana screamed.
She screamed for her mother and her father and her sister. She screamed into the fog and the sky and the sea.
But there was nothing she could do. She pelted down the beach, hair tangled, eyes wild, racing up the stairs into the lighthouse, the waves’ crashes still repeating in her head. Crash, crash, crash.
She had to find them. She had to. She couldn’t get the image out of her head, of her family in the boat, at the cruel will of the ocean as they faded into the fog.
A sob wrestled its way up through her throat. Her father was gone. She was the only lightkeeper left, her father’s little lightkeeper.
Through the tears, Ciana noticed a package on her dresser. That had definitely not been there this morning.
Ciana's heart leapt into her throat when she recognized her father’s spidery handwriting on the paper.
My little lightkeeper, it said. If your sister and I are not back from the seas in a year, open this. Please don’t open it earlier. I hope it won’t end this way. But maybe it will, and you’ll need this.
Ciana's breath caught. She could open it now, but then she would be dishonoring what her father wanted. That was the last thing Ciana would do.
Weeks passed, slowly turning into months. Ciana could think nothing but of her sister and her father. She barely ate. When she ventured into the town of Fogshore, the villagers whispered to each other as they passed. Ciana knew they were staring at her tangled hair and gaunt figure and sunken, insane eyes. She didn’t care.
She had started by turning on the lighthouse when it got dark, like she was supposed to, but as the time passed, Ciana worried that they would be sailing back and she wouldn’t see them. She spent more and more time up in the lighthouse-working room, staring for hours and hours on end.
If Ciana didn’t see their boat in time to turn on the lighthouse so they would see the right place to land, she would never forgive herself.
Ciana had to find a way to get them back. If she didn’t, she didn’t know how much longer she could survive, racked by memories and drowning in an ocean of regret.
When the day finally came, Ciana ripped the package open and pulled out the object inside.
It was a mirror.
Ciana was shocked to see a glimpse of her face in the mirror. The girl within was such a different person from the one she remembered. She went to search for another note – why was this mirror so important? – and found a slip of paper hidden inside the wrapping.

If you’re reading this, I love you. We’re twins, and even though we’re not identical, I hope you can see me in your reflection.
Love, Adri

My lightkeeper Ciana. This mirror is for you. This will be hard for you, but I ask you to go to the storage room and get out the spare rowboat at the back. If you’re thinking of going to look for us, it will certainly not hold you that long. Take the rowboat and sail out, but make sure you can always see the lighthouse so you don’t get lost. Remember what I always said about magic tricks, Ciana, and drop the mirror in the water.
Love, Father

Tears pooled in Ciana’s eyes. She raced around the back of the lighthouse and spotted the spare rowboat. Her heart clenched in her chest. Could she ignore her fear?
Ciana had to do it. She climbed into the rowboat, holding tight to the mirror. She untied the rope, and then she was floating in the endless sea.
Fog blanketed the ocean like a thick layer of smoke, and Ciana could only see the water in little dark patches. Wind tore into her skin and shrieked in her ears.
When the smoky fog was thick and she couldn’t bear to go any farther out, Ciana stopped.
She looked at the mirror, and saw herself. She saw insanity in her eyes, and her wind-tangled hair, and her hunger-gaunt frame. She saw what the time without her family had done to her.
She dropped the mirror in the water.
The smoky fog parted as it fell in with an anticlimactic little splash. It sank only slightly; it was barely covered with a thin layer of water.
Ciana recalled the next instructions: Remember what I said about magic tricks.
What was it that he had said?
Letters were starting to form on the surface of the mirror. Invisible ink, Ciana realized. But what was it that her father had said?
The smoky fog wisped through her vision. That was it! Smoke and mirrors. As the fog faded away, she saw the dark inky letters finish writing themselves on the mirror’s surface.
Let go.
And at once, Ciana understood. Smoke and mirrors. Misdirection. Oh, her father was always so good at misdirection. This was never meant to be a way to find her family. This was only her father’s way of convincing her to say goodbye.
Let go.
Ciana thought of how little she’d eaten, how she’d stayed up in the lighthouse every night, straining her eyes for any sight of them.
Let go.
She remembered the writing on the package.
I hope it won’t end this way. But maybe it will, and you’ll need this. I know you will.
This had been her father’s way to tell them that they weren’t coming back. That they never could.
Let go.
Ciana had been fixated on the idea of finding her family. She had clasped so tightly onto this obsession that she had lost sight of what really mattered.
She let go.
Tears flowing freely, Ciana rowed back to the lighthouse. Her fear of the ocean had faded away, like the fog into the dark night. She grieved, and yet she felt freer than she had in a year’s time.
The lighthouse was due to go out soon. If she hadn’t just received the message from her family, Ciana would have been terrified at the thought that the light might go out, in case her family came and she wasn't there to light the way.
They weren’t coming.
Ciana walked up the stairs and lifted her head to gaze out the window, as she had so often during the past year.
Ciana let her head drop. She’d look back when she was ready, but for now, she’d seen enough of that same old ocean view to last months.
A glimpse of golden light filtered through a corner of her vision, and she went downstairs without looking back.