The Lighthouse

CHAPTER ONE A humid breeze whispered across the dunes from the Atlantic Ocean this early morning hour while the world slept. Waves rolled over in gentle curls and collapsed in poetic rhythm, lapping, foaming, bubbling playfully at the shoreline. The infinite silence that veiled the seascape was invaded only by the perpetual rush of water and rustling grasses on the beach. The sun had barely peeked its head above the horizon, brushing the sky in swaths of saffron and peach that cast a soft glow across the shore. This was Nicole Henderson’s favorite time to go for a walk. The day was young, the air pristine, and she was alone in her vista’s sweeping expanse to share in the secrets those surroundings guarded. Her spirits were high as she meandered through the grass, luxuriating in the well-worn path from the cottage down to her favorite place, the lighthouse. Nicole had been drawn to the magical castle by the sea since the first time she’d laid eyes on it five years ago. It beckoned to her with an unseen force that was nothing short of a mystical power. She couldn’t explain it, the hold that this inanimate object had on her, like an emotional chemistry between two people. Logically inexplicable, but definitely present. As always, she stopped and craned her neck back to see the bright red top of its almost one hundred sixty-foot height. The beige masonry of the old tower was solid giving one the sense of permanence, of an everlasting existence. It was both reassuring and comforting to Nicole to be near something that had stood bravely against the fierce wrath of Mother Nature for over one hundred forty years. Curiously though, on this particular morning with the summer clouds dawdling above, it looked almost whimsical, as if it were a cardboard cone under a fluff of cotton candy. Maybe it was her state-of-mind that made it so. A smile blossomed across her face, and she turned and wove through the tall grass, out onto the open sand. She sat down on a gnarled chunk of decaying driftwood that had washed up decades before and made itself at home burying into the dune. Scanning to the left, up the beach, her bright green eyes, streaked with gold spokes from the pupils, watched as waves splashed under the vintage World War II naval artillery bunker that sat at the water’s edge. Time and tide had taken their toll on the relic. It was a curious sight to see tons of cement balanced precariously on exposed wooden pilings. Looking at the remains, Nicole felt a ghastly chill shudder through her, realizing that this country’s enemies had come so close to these shores. In stark contrast, down the stretch of sugar sand in the opposite direction, Nicole turned her attention to Saint Mary’s by-the-Sea, the summer retreat for the sisters of St. Joseph. She spotted two women, visiting nuns she assumed, out on the second-floor balcony walking with their hands clasped behind their backs along the covered porch overlooking the ocean. It was obvious to Nicole that this was the perfect setting for quiet reflection and prayer. As she sat on the driftwood, Nicole witnessed the dawning rays of morning light stream across the water, illuminating the grand old U-shaped building with its red roof and white-washed facade. She garnered a sense of strength and inner peace looking up at the structure perched on a rock jetty safe from the ocean’s constant battering.