The Lightkeepers. Abby Geni
underage stepson to fashion the Farallon Islands out of some lesser brand of clay.
At my side, Captain Joe was shouting into a walkie-talkie. A crackling voice responded. I had spent the past five hours on board the ferry. I was disoriented, in desperate need of a shower. The boat slid up one side of a wave and down the other. I squinted against the sunlight. We were moored alongside a sharp cliff. Rock against clouds. Something was descending over the edge.
It looked like a deflated birdcage. There was a heavy iron disc at the bottom. Ropes and netting swung against the sky. This, I knew, was the Billy Pugh. (The origin of the name is unknown. I asked and got no answer.) Captain Joe was giving instructions. Someone on the other end of the walkie-talkie replied, the voice garbled by static. The ocean was inky, capped with slimy bubbles.
I would be transported to shore by crane. There was no dock on the Farallon Islands. No marina. No semblance of normalcy. The ferry was twenty feet from the cliffs and could come no closer without being broken open on the reefs below the surface. The Billy Pugh landed on deck with a clatter. Without ceremony, Captain Joe guided me inside the network of ropes. He arranged my feet on the base: a metal circle, scratched and scarred. Above my head, the mesh was gathered and synched around a hook. Above that, a steel cable snaked upward. Somewhere at the top of the mechanism was a crane. A shadow against the clouds.
I turned to Captain Joe.
“This is safe, isn’t it?”
“I’ll send your luggage up after,” he said.
The ground lurched under me. I gasped, knotting my hands into the ropes. The Billy Pugh did not look secure enough to hold me. I was moving fast, rocketing upward. Ten feet. Fifteen feet. I could hear the whine of the steel cable. The disc shifted beneath my feet. I tried to keep my balance as the Billy Pugh swung like a pendulum. The ocean fell away, the ferry distorted, Captain Joe reduced to a foreshortened cartoon. I thought I saw a dorsal fin in the distance. I thought I saw three of them, moving in unison. I thought I would throw up.
There was a bang. The Billy Pugh had landed. I pushed my way through the gap in the ropes and collapsed onto the Farallon Islands.
What followed was a blur. I lay on my back. Proud that I’d passed my first test. Waiting for the nausea to subside. The granite was cold on my skin, uneven beneath my spine. I could see the crane better now—a rusted spar that lunged over the water. The Billy Pugh was descending again. Someone close by must be operating the thing. I did not know who had transported me to the islands, who was on the other end of Captain Joe’s walkie-talkie. There were six permanent residents here. Six biologists lived in isolation and wildness on the Islands of the Dead.
The crane’s mechanism was perched on top of a nearby hill. Someone was inside, but from this distance I could not make out any distinguishing features. All I could see was a human silhouette. The winch rotated, the cable unspooling. The Billy Pugh dropped out of sight. I watched a seabird pass. I inhaled the odor of mildew and guano. The islands were pungent enough to singe my lungs.
My luggage followed me on the same perilous trip. By the time I got to my feet, the Billy Pugh was sitting beside me again, stacked with my suitcases. The ferry was already leaving. The prow was pointed to California, the wake a churn of gray sludge. I could not see Captain Joe. He had descended into the deckhouse without so much as a goodbye tip of the hat. It did not do to linger in these waters.
I looked around for my unknown assistant. But the silhouette in the crane’s window was gone too. Whoever had been there, operating the machine, had not seen fit to introduce himself, to help me with my bags, to welcome me to the islands. There was a lump in my throat. For now, I was on my own.
It took me a while to make my way to the cabin. Dragging my suitcases. Panting and sweating. It was early afternoon, cold and clear. A seabird winged by in the distance, braying its harsh cry. The ocean boomed. White spray rose above the cliffs. The lighthouse stood sentinel against a hazy sky.
On the porch, I felt like the victim of a shipwreck. The cabin appeared abandoned. There were cracks in the windowpanes. The boards sagged beneath my weight. There was no doorbell. I was still winded from the labor of my walk. My luggage was strewn around my feet. I remember steeling myself to knock. I remember arranging my face into a pleasant, oh-how-nice-to-meet-you expression.
But before I could move—before I could blink—the door was yanked open from within. I stepped back, startled. Two men lunged into the doorway.
One was old, the other young. Perhaps it was the influence of my sea-addled gut, but they both struck me, in that moment, as otherworldly. The elderly one could have been cast in a movie as Poseidon—a thatch of silver hair, a weather-beaten face, an air of gravitas. The younger man was as slim as a sapling. He had calloused, muscular hands. A minor deity, perhaps. A sprite with limited but surprising powers.
Now, of course, I know their names: Galen (old) and Forest (young). At the time, however, I had no idea. I took a deep breath and grinned.
“Hello,” I said.
“Get your tail in gear, or we’re going to miss the whole show,” Forest said. It took me a moment to realize that, although he was facing in my direction, he was addressing the man behind him. I just happened to be in between his interested gaze and the sea.
“Fine, fine,” Galen grumbled, cramming a hat over his white bangs.
“Hi,” I said, louder. “I got off the ferry a few minutes ago. I’m—”
Forest pivoted, smiting himself on the brow. “I forgot the damn camera. Can you believe it? I forgot the damn—”
“Too late,” Galen said. “We’ll have to make do without it.”
They barged onto the porch, and if I had not moved aside, Forest would have collided with me. He was zipping up his coat. Galen scanned the shoreline with a pair of binoculars. I opened my mouth and closed it again. My nerve failed me. I could not attempt to announce my presence to them a third time. I watched mutely as they stepped over my suitcases and darted down the stairs.
For a moment, I actually wondered if I might be dreaming. It did seem a bit like an anxiety nightmare: the dreadful boat ride, the massive waves, a horrible mesh cage, a soupy ocean, distant dorsal fins, mysterious figures on the landscape, no greeting, no assistance with my suitcases, no surety, no safety.
Both men trotted off down the path. I watched their figures receding. They had almost reached the crest of the hill when Forest finally turned.
“Oh, of course. You must be Melissa,” he yelled. “Welcome! We’d stay and chat, but—”
Galen took over the sentence, finishing the other man’s thought.
“—there’s a feeding frenzy in the West End Cove,” he shouted. “Get into the house. Don’t go outside. This place is tricky.”
I could not bring myself to bellow back that they had my name wrong. They were already out of sight, dashing away like kids after the ice cream truck.
THIS LETTER, LIKE all the others, will never be mailed. In the past, I have found all kinds of creative solutions for the letters I write to you. I’ve burned them. I have buried them in the ground. I have shredded them into confetti. While hiking in the mountains, I have folded my messages into origami flowers, hanging them in the trees. When I took a rafting trip down the Mississippi during a long summer, I would fashion the pages into boats, which I set on the current, watching them drift like water lilies, darkening slowly, sinking when my back was turned.
I have been writing to you for almost twenty years. But none of these missives have ever reached you. None of them have ever been read. After all, I wrote my first letter to you the week you died.
THIS IS WHAT I remember:
Your exit from the world was sudden. You kissed Dad on the cheek, went to work, never came home. I was at school when the accident happened. I heard the