Ep. 2- Lighthouses, p. 1: The Crest
Two lighthouses on opposite shores. Two rival families. Two doomed lovers.
You know this story.
A bustling town square at dusk, alive with the sights and sounds of a vibrant festival. A band plays in front of the tiled fountain, underscored by the ever-present shush of the sea. The sun slips below the horizon as bonfires burst into life.
It is across these flames that our lovers meet for the first time.
Othelia: bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, hands calloused from years of tending the lighthouse lamp.
Tiernan: quiet, introspective, hair always a little too long, eyes always a little too sad.
They walk the cobblestone streets hand in hand- talking, laughing, falling in love- until they find themselves sitting atop the sea wall gazing at the stars. Tiny bioluminescent air fish flit around them, dancing on the salty summer breeze.
Their first kiss is sticky and sweet with cotton candy. The moment is so tender and true that even the ocean releases a wistful sigh, remembering the first time it kissed the shore.
Alas, the very stars our lovers gaze upon are gazing back, weeping at the tragedy they know will unfold.
An old woman hobbles her way around the village square, a jar of yellowish green powder tucked in the crook of her arm. She pauses before each bonfire, dipping her gnarled hands into the powder and sprinkling it over the flames. One by one, the fires are extinguished.
Othelia gazes into Tiernan’s eyes, and he into hers, with a soft desperation. Neither wants this night to end.
“Othelia!” A gruff male voice slices through the night.
Othelia whips around to face her father.
The final bonfire is snuffed out.
There he is, a dashing silhouette tending his own bright flame.
Othelia’s parents are livid. Horrified. They say a lot of things, but these words they repeat over and over. Her little sister, Adelaide, is sent to bed with ice cream still smeared over her face. She stomps each step all the way up… before creeping back down the stairs to press her ear against the door and listen.
Their parents settle around the old wooden family table. Lighting a lamp, they tell Othelia a tale.
Adelaide’s ears are keenly pricked, but the words are still muffled.
Othelia, for her part, is only half listening. Her head is congested with love.
Something about an ancestral feud; secrets stolen, or stolen back: the details do not matter. All that matters is that she will never be allowed to see her true love again.
But she does see him. Every night, she tends the flame in the lamp room and gazes across the waves to the lighthouse on the opposite shore. There he is, a dashing silhouette tending his own bright flame.
Does he yearn for her as she does for him?
Her answer comes in a parcel tied to the foot of a seagull. Seagulls are surprisingly romantic creatures, and this particular seagull was honored to be chosen as a courier.
Othelia’s hands tremble with anticipation. She fumbles with the knots until, at last, the paper falls away to reveal a silver hand mirror. It is simple, but elegant. The handle fits neatly in the palm of her hand, as if it were made just for her.
Gull and girl peer at their own reflections in the mirror, then at one another, puzzled. In unison, they look up to the other tower.
There he is on the balcony of the lamp room, holding a mirror of his own. He flashes it back and forth, transmitting a pattern of light.
They develop a code. It takes time, but soon they are fluent. They converse in rapid, bright flashes late into the night and early hours of the morning. Some nights, they use their silhouettes to play games or tell stories. They bring props, each tableau becoming more intricate than the last. They send little gifts back and forth with the aid of their winged coconspirator, always mindful that a seagull may have more important things to do than convey lovesick missives.
Truthfully, this seagull would not have minded carrying letters and gifts every night.
After all, the seagull thinks, what cause is more worthy than true love?
Some nights, our lovers do not converse or jest. They simply sit in their separate lamp rooms, each enjoying the company of the other’s shadow.
Othelia does not realize it at first, but she is being watched by someone else.
Adelaide is a precocious eight-year-old who has spent her entire life in awe of her older sister. Othelia is more than a girl to her, more than mere flesh and blood. She is an ethereal creature, a fairy princess from bedtime stories, only better because she is real. She watches Othelia’s glowing love story unfold, transfixed.
On nights when Othelia sneaks out to meet her lover, Adelaide takes her place in the lamp room with a timid reverence. She watches until her sister appears on the shore below. She is only a speck at this distance, but Adelaide would know her anywhere.
And there, that other speck, that must be Tiernan. She watches as they disappear among the rocks and do not emerge for a long, long time.
Some nights Adelaide takes herself off to bed, but most nights she falls asleep right there on the weathered floor of the lamp room. She wakes only when Othelia picks her up and carries her to bed, singing soft lullabies and stroking her hair.
The girls are sleepy-eyed and distracted during the day, and their parents grow concerned. They take their daughters to the doctor, who pokes them and prods them and gives them slimy things to drink. When they do not improve, there is talk of visiting the Haruspex.
The Haruspex is an old woman of great height and stern presence. She is a terrifying figure to a little girl with a head full of fairytales. Adelaide is desperate to save herself and Othelia from a visit to the formidable lady.
Adelaide breaks her silence.
She believes she is helping. She believes it is all a misunderstanding. She believes she can make her parents see reason.
She tells them what she’s seen, what she knows. She tells them it is true love, like in the stories. When they brush her aside, she tells them they are stinkier than fish guts and only half as smart.
She is sent out to clear slimy clumps of seaweed off the pier and, when the sun sets, she is sent to her room without dinner.
Othelia is confined to her room as well while her parents deliberate. They sit at that old family table late into the night, determined to find a way to save their daughter.
By morning, they have made a decision. Othelia will be sent away.
The final carp caravan of the year leaves in one week. It will take her to a village on the other side of the mountains where she will be taught to tend goats and to weave to forget about the young man who has stolen her heart.
Don’t worry, Othelia, she thinks. Adelaide is coming to save the day.
Adelaide has been very, very good. She feigns contrition and is diligent in her chores. She allows herself, once again, to fade into the background while her parents remain preoccupied with Othelia.
This provides Adelaide a certain amount of freedom- freedom she puts to good use on the eve of her sister’s departure.
She tiptoes up to the lamp room, Othelia’s mirror clutched tightly in her little hands. She has made a study of the lover’s code and thinks she understands it well enough to transmit a simple message.
She flashes it, a little shyly, across the waves. Then she waits. She does not blink once for fear of missing the reply.
A few moments later, a message flashes back.
Adelaide sets the mirror gently on the floor. Her heart is pounding with excitement, but also with a quiet sort of pride.
Don’t worry, Othelia, she thinks. Adelaide is coming to save the day.
Othelia drifts out of her room clad only in a nightgown and slippers.
“Othelia,” Adelaide whispers through the door. “It’s time to go.”
The door creaks open… and there she is.
Her big sister.
Othelia’s hair is unbrushed and her eyes are rimmed with red, but she is still as radiantly beautiful as ever.
“It’s time?” Othelia repeats back, her cheeks flushing with hope.
Adelaide nods. She expects her sister to carry a bag of some sort, maybe even a stick and bindle, but she brings nothing. Instead, Othelia drifts out of her room clad only in a nightgown and slippers.
The sisters walk the rocky shore, hand in hand, savoring their final moments together. It is not until they reach the caves that Adelaide remembers something and pulls her hand away.
“Your mirror!” she cries. “I left it in the lamp room. I’ll run back and get it!”
“No!” Othelia catches her gently by the arm and kneels to look her in the eye. “Addy. Don’t. I don’t need it anymore. I want you to keep it. It’s yours. Take good care of it, okay?”
Adelaide nods solemnly. “I’ll keep it. Until I’m grown. Then I can visit you and give it back.”
At this, Othelia begins to cry.
“Thank you, Addy,” she says, her voice cracking. “That would be lovely.” She pulls Adelaide into a hug, kissing the top of her little head.
They might have stayed there holding one another for hours, were it not for the sound of approaching footsteps.
Tiernan stops a few yards away, giving the sisters time to finish their goodbyes. For Adelaide, this is the last she will see of Othelia.
Tiernan will have her forever.
Othelia leans back and holds Adelaide’s tear-streaked face in her hands.
“I love you, Addy,” she says.
“I love you, too, Telly,” Adelaide whispers back.
“Run home now,” says Othelia. “Tuck yourself into bed and sing yourself a lullaby from me.”
Adelaide watches her sister vanish into the night, her lover by her side and a new, golden life ahead of her.
Adelaide is almost asleep when she remembers the mirror, left all alone on the floor of the lamp room. She is already breaking her promise to Othelia.
Wearily, she drags herself out of bed and up the stairs.
There is the mirror, just as she left it. She picks it up but does not leave. Not yet.
She cannot resist sitting, one last time, in the place where her sister sat and gazing, as her sister did, at the lighthouse across the sea.
She cradles the mirror in her lap and imagines what Othelia’s new life will be like. She and Tiernan will be pirates together, maybe. Or people who catch pirates. That would be even better because pirate catchers don’t get into trouble and get punished like pirates do.
Or maybe they’ll hunt sea monsters together, saving Selkies and becoming best friends with them.
Whatever it is, Adelaide knows it will be full of glamour and adventure, romance and bravery.
She is halfway through imagining her sister swimming with the Seal Folk, who are having a special Sing in her honor, when she sees a movement in the lamp room of the other lighthouse.
There is Othelia, standing at the edge of the balcony. And there, that shadow joining her- that must be him.
They embrace, their silhouettes becoming one.
Adelaide reaches for the mirror to signal across to them.
One final goodbye, she thinks.
Her fingers curl around the handle of the mirror, but before she can lift it, the figures tip over the edge of the balcony and plummet to the rocks below.
Some days, I even forget her name.
Did I know before we jumped that I could not die?
No.
But I had begun to suspect.
There were too many close calls, too many near misses.
A monstrous wave dashing me against an unforgiving cliffside.
A fall from a tree that should have shattered me.
A bite from a venemous fish that never manifested.
I became reckless. I scaled cliffs without fear and plundered bird nests. I swam in tempestuous waters and spied on Selkies. I stood in a field during a storm and waited to be struck by lightning, just for the thrill of it.
But these thrills were cheap. I began to wonder what else I could do, what I could make others do.
Maybe you’re not asking if I knew. Maybe you don’t care. Maybe you’re asking a different question.
Did I love her?
I may have.
I think I did, as much as I can love another. I certainly felt that way at first. But, like all the thrills before her, she lost her luster. She was beautiful, she was funny, she was clever. Could I trick someone so clever into doing something so foolish?
It was an entertaining diversion, but ultimately it was inconvenient. I couldn’t stay after that. How would it look to the village if she vanished and I remained?I left that very dawn, and I didn’t return for a long, long time.
It’s been many years and there have been many others. Some days, I even forget her name.
CREDITS
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