Light Purchased Twice

By afternoon, Brenda had three barrels of kerosene on the quay and a strip of paper with six figures written down it. She held the paper flat with her thumb while Celia checked the marks she had made for the temporary beacons.

“You said four barrels,” Celia said.

“I said I could find four. One boat turned back at the outer reef.” Brenda folded the paper before the wind could take it. “Three will burn.”

“For how long?”

“Depends how high you set the wicks.”

“That is not a unit of time.”

“Then stop asking a smuggler to do a clock’s work.”

Celia looked across the harbor. Yesterday the lighthouse beam had reached the outer approach, though weakly. Now it barely cleared the inner water. Fewer people had come to donate memories that morning. No one could blame them for keeping what was theirs, but the ships at sea could not see a refusal.

She had placed the oil beacons along two points of the quay and on a rock shelf above the reef channel. Their positions gave an incoming captain a line to steer by, provided the flames stayed high enough to be seen over the swell. In calm weather, three barrels might last through the night. The wind had begun driving spray over the quay before supper.

Brenda watched her pencil hover over the chart. “I pulled my salvage boats off two runs to fetch that oil,” she said. “If you need more, you can ask the sea to refine it.”

“I’m checking the channel.”

“I know what you’re checking.” Brenda tucked the folded paper inside her coat. “Go on.”

Mira came from the end of the quay with two lengths of wire looped over her arm. She had tied her hair back with string, but loose strands stuck to her wet cheek.

“The far basket’s fixed,” she said. “The old hook tore loose when the tide rose.”

Celia put a finger on the rock shelf marked on her chart. “Can you reach it again after dark?”

“If the steps aren’t under water. Why?”

“The wind’s turning.”

Mira glanced toward the reef, then back at Celia’s pencil. “Tell me where you want the light. I’ll tell you if I can stand there.”

That was a fair correction. Celia marked a safer point three yards inland. It made the approach line less exact. It also left Mira somewhere to put her feet.

They hauled the first barrel into position together. Kerosene sloshed against the iron as Brenda rolled it, then caught it with her boot before it struck the stone lip. Celia’s palms took on the sharp oily smell. It clung even after she wiped them on a rag.

Near dusk, a harbor runner brought word of a passenger steamer due from the mainland. It had left before the weather broke and had no reason to expect the lighthouse so dim. Jonah came behind the runner with a notebook under his coat, its corners damp.

“Can we signal it from shore?” he asked.

“If it’s near enough to see us,” Celia said.

“And if it isn’t?”

She pressed the pencil point into the chart. Beyond the outer reef, the safe channel bent east. A captain following yesterday’s lighthouse bearing would turn too early tonight.

“We light the outer basket first,” she said. “Then the two on the quay. It must see the bend before it sees the harbor.”

Brenda took her folded paper out again. She studied it while the runner went to call for hands. “That uses oil faster.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Just wanted to hear you say it.”

The storm came in low and hard. Rain struck the quay sideways. At the rock shelf, Mira braced the basket while Celia worked the soaked wick through its holder. The first match died between her fingers. Brenda sheltered the second flame inside her coat, close enough that Celia caught the smell of singed wool. The wick took, sank, then rose above the basket rim.

“Back,” Brenda said.

They retreated along the narrow path. Behind them the flame bent in the wind but held. At the quay, two dockhands had filled the other baskets. Brenda lit one, and Celia lit the last. A line of fire stood against the dark water, shorter and lower than the lighthouse beam, but pointed along the channel they had marked.

For a while there was only rain. Celia counted the seconds between the sweep of the weak lamp above them and the sight of the reef when waves broke white upon it. The lamp did not show the reef from the steamer’s approach. The oil did, if the steamer came close enough.

A shape appeared beyond the shelf. Then it vanished in the rain.

“There,” Mira said.

“I have it.” Celia raised the shuttered hand lamp they had kept in reserve. Its flame shone pale beside the baskets. “We need them east of that break.”

The steamer’s lamps came back into view. Too far west.

Brenda swore and snatched the hand lamp from Celia. “Hold the shutter open. Don’t flash it.”

“I can hold a lamp.”

“You can hold it steady. I need you to watch the gap.”

Celia took it back and climbed onto a mooring stone, where the wind pushed at her knees. Brenda and the dockhands fed the quay baskets until the flames climbed. Mira stood below Celia with one hand against the stone, ready if she slipped.

The steamer kept coming west. Its dark hull grew larger between bursts of rain. A wave broke over the nearest reef and left a white line where the safe water ended.

“Turn,” Mira muttered.

Celia held the lamp toward the eastern edge of the channel. Oil heat warmed her knuckles while cold rain ran down her sleeves. The vessel’s lamps swung away, then steadied. Not enough. She leaned farther, though it could make no difference to the light’s position.

The steamer turned again.

Its hull passed the white break with room to spare. A horn sounded, long and rough. Mira’s grip closed around Celia’s ankle until the vessel entered the inner channel and the reef disappeared behind it.

On the quay, passengers crowded beneath the steamer’s awning as it came alongside. One woman held a child whose face was buried in her coat. The captain shouted thanks from the deck. Brenda shouted back for him to tie up before he thanked anyone.

By the time the ropes were secured, the outer basket had burned nearly to its bottom.

Celia measured what remained in the barrels while the dockhands lowered the wicks. There was enough for another night at reduced height, perhaps less if the wind held. The steamer had been close enough to follow the beacons. A vessel farther out would still need the lighthouse.

Brenda stood under the lee of the warehouse, studying her strip of figures. Rain had softened the paper at its folds.

“The first buyer won’t wait,” she said. “The second one might, if I give back the advance. The third has already sent another boat.”

Celia set down the dip rod. Brenda’s usual trade had paid for boats, fuel, and the crews who would go where licensed crews would not. These barrels had not simply come from a hidden store.

“How much?” Celia asked.

Brenda named the sum. Celia made herself listen to every figure.

“I can record it,” she said.

“You can. Recording won’t pay my crews.”

“No.”

Brenda put the paper away. Across the harbor, the lighthouse made another faint sweep. “Don’t look so pleased with our little bonfire, Miss Marrow. It worked because a steamer came in on the right bearing, and because I had boats to ruin a week’s business with.”

“I wasn’t going to call it a solution.”

“Good.” Brenda glanced at the passengers filing ashore. Her mouth tightened when the child came down the gangplank, still clinging to the woman’s coat. “It was worth tonight.”

Celia drew a line beside the channel on her chart and wrote down the fuel used. The steamer was safe. Brenda had lost her contracts, and the remaining oil would not carry them far. Above the harbor, the lighthouse burned on memories people were choosing to keep; below it, their beacons burned through what Brenda had chosen to give up.