Shadows At Gullhaven Light

“Then I withdraw my concern about punctuality.”

Ivy tucked the note cards beneath one arm. Rowan was the lighthouse keeper, caretaker, unofficial weather prophet, and owner of Gullhaven’s least reliable sense of urgency. He had once spent an entire morning searching for his spectacles while wearing them.

“Dr. Vale checked in at nine,” Ivy said. “Mara at the visitor desk saw him take the west stairs. He told her he’d be in his office until noon.”

“And now it’s nearly one.”

“Nearly one-thirty.”

Rowan’s eyebrows rose. “That does put a wrinkle in the afternoon.”

The lighthouse gave a long shudder as wind struck its stone tower. Ivy felt the vibration through the soles of her shoes. The office corridor, usually bright with framed photographs and polished brass plaques, seemed to narrow around them. The fog had thickened since morning, swallowing the lantern room and leaving only the dull pulse of the rotating beam overhead.

“I need to know where he was last seen,” Ivy said. “And I need those notes. His talk at the archive is tomorrow, and half the town has turned up its ears over the wreck records.”

“Perhaps he went to lunch.”

“Without his coat?”

Rowan glanced toward the coat peg beside the door. A dark wool coat hung there, damp at the shoulders. “Perhaps he went to lunch in a determined fashion.”

Ivy tried the office handle. It did not move.

“Locked,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Do you have the key?”

Rowan lifted his ring. “I have keys to the generator room, the lantern stairs, the tea cupboard, and a shed that no longer exists.”

“Not the office?”

“Vale insisted on keeping it himself.”

The corridor lights flickered. From below came a muffled thump, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone saying, “Oh, dear,” in a tone suggesting that something expensive had fallen.

Rowan sighed. “The tour.”

A dozen visitors appeared at the stairwell, led by Mrs. Brindle from the historical society. She wore a purple rain bonnet and clutched a guidebook like a weapon.

“Rowan,” she called, “the western passage is full of fog.”

“It is a lighthouse,” Rowan replied. “Fog is one of our more consistent features.”

“It is inside.”

That silenced him.

Ivy looked toward the corridor windows. White vapor had begun to curl beneath the door at the end of the passage, where the restricted stairwell led toward the old keeper’s quarters. The lighthouse had always leaked in odd places during heavy weather, but this was more than damp air. It moved in slow ribbons along the floorboards.

Mrs. Brindle leaned closer. “Is that normal?”

“Normal is a flexible term,” Rowan said.

The tour group pressed forward despite his raised hand. Their wet shoes squeaked on the stone. One child pointed at the locked office.

“Is that where the ghost lives?”

“No,” Ivy said. “The ghost lives in the accounts ledger.”

The child looked disappointed. Mrs. Brindle looked offended on behalf of ghosts.

Rowan caught Ivy’s sleeve. “We need to get them back downstairs.”

“And Vale?”

“If he’s in the west passage, we’ll find him.”

The fog swallowed the last words.

Ivy had been inside Gullhaven Light during storms, power cuts, and one memorable nesting season involving an extremely territorial puffin. She knew every public stair and most of the restricted ones. The west passage still made her uneasy. It had been sealed for years after a section of railing collapsed, and the old office corridor ended there in a blind turn.

“Stay with the visitors,” she said.

Rowan’s mouth tightened. “Absolutely not.”

“You just said we need to find him.”

“I meant we. As in both of us.”

“Then take Mrs. Brindle down.”

“She will ask questions.”

“She always asks questions.”

“Exactly.”

Ivy took the lantern from its hook. The glass was cool beneath her fingers, and the flame inside trembled as though it knew better than to volunteer. “I’ll check the passage. You clear the tour and call the harbor office.”

Rowan stared at her. “You’re giving orders in my lighthouse.”

“I’m a schoolteacher. Giving orders is the one thing I do before breakfast.”

He glanced at the fog, then at the locked office. “If you find Vale, shout.”

“If I find a ghost?”

“Ask whether it has a key.”

Ivy stepped through the restricted door.

The temperature dropped at once. Damp stone pressed close on either side, and the fog softened every sound except the tick of water falling somewhere ahead. She held the lantern high. Old paint peeled from the walls in thin curls, revealing layers of blue, cream, and a red-brown color that matched the rust stains around the window frames.

“Dr. Vale?” she called.

No answer.

She moved slowly, listening. The lighthouse groaned around her as wind worked through the tower. A door stood ajar at the bend. Ivy recognized it as the chart room, abandoned after the electrical system had been updated. She pushed it open with her shoulder.

Inside, a table had been dragged away from the wall. A chair lay on its side. Papers were scattered across the floor, some crisp and white, others rippled from damp. A pencil had rolled beneath the radiator and stopped against a brass button.

Ivy crouched to pick it up. The button bore the faint outline of an anchor.

A sound came from the corridor behind her.

She turned sharply.

Only fog.

The door eased shut with a soft click.

Ivy crossed the room and pulled it open. The corridor beyond was empty, but the restricted door at the far end had swung closed. She hurried toward it and tried the handle.

Locked.

For one absurd moment, she considered knocking.

Then she heard a scrape from the other side.

“Dr. Vale?” she called. “It’s Ivy Calder. Open the door.”

The scrape came again, followed by silence.

Ivy set down the lantern and examined the lock. It was an old brass mechanism, stiff with salt and neglect. Rowan had once told her that the west passage door could be opened from either side, provided one had the key and a reasonable attitude.

She had the second. Not the first.

“Rowan!” she shouted.

Her voice traveled strangely, thinning into the stone. No answer returned. The fog curled around her ankles, cold enough to seep through her stockings.

She tried the handle again, harder. The door shuddered but held.

Then something slid beneath it.

A folded sheet of paper stopped against her shoe.

Ivy bent and picked it up. The page was damp along one edge, and a dark smear crossed the middle. Not ink. Grease, perhaps, or soot. She unfolded it beneath the lantern.

Dr. Vale’s handwriting ran down the page in hurried strokes.

“9:00 - office. 10:15 - lower gallery. 11:00 - keeper’s stair. 11:40 - ”

The final line had been torn away.

At the bottom, he had drawn a small mark: a circle crossed by three short lines.

Ivy knew that symbol.

It appeared in the margins of several old lighthouse inventories, always beside items that had vanished before the records reached the town archive. She had assumed it was a keeper’s shorthand for damaged goods.

Now she was less certain.

A gust struck the tower. The door trembled under Ivy’s hand.

She folded the itinerary and slipped it into her pocket. It was not Vale’s notes, but it was proof of movement, and proof that someone had been here after he left his office.

The key remained missing.

She returned to the corridor and found Rowan waiting with a coil of rope over one shoulder, Mrs. Brindle and the tourists gathered behind him.

“Harbor office is sending someone,” he said. “Mara says Vale never came downstairs.”

“His coat is still here,” Ivy replied. “His office is locked. I found this in the west passage.”

Rowan read the partial itinerary. His face changed at the line marked keeper’s stair.

“That passage is sealed.”

“It was not sealed when he entered it.”

“Who gave him permission?”

“Apparently the sort of permission that leaves a person locked on the wrong side of a door.”

Mrs. Brindle peered over Rowan’s shoulder. “Is that a murder schedule?”

“No,” Ivy said.

“Pity. It would make the talk more interesting.”

Rowan looked at Ivy. “We need to open the office.”

“I know.”

“Vale’s key may be inside.”

“Then we need to find him first.”

A bell sounded below, sharp and frantic. The visitors startled. Rowan’s rope slipped from his shoulder and struck the floor with a wet slap.

Ivy stared at the dark office door.

The researcher had come to Gullhaven Light to study a forgotten tragedy. He had left behind his coat, his notes, and a schedule that ended at a locked passage. Somewhere in the tower, perhaps, he was waiting for help.

Or someone had made certain he could not ask for it.

Ivy tightened her fingers around the damp paper in her pocket.

“Rowan,” she said, “sound the alarm.”

He did not argue this time. He turned toward the stairs, calling for the visitors to stay together.

Ivy remained by the locked office, listening to the lighthouse groan above the sea. The missing researcher had not been found, and the key that might explain where he had gone was nowhere in sight.

From inside the office came one soft, deliberate knock.

End of chapter one. 14 more chapters in the full book.