Lady Charlotte

I climb the old lighthouse. Rough stones cut my fingers. Whitewash flakes. Waves crash, wind whistles. The lighthouse is not large, and I reach the top in minutes. Wrapped tight in wool knit, I lean back against the stained, grubby glass. Cold steel grating burns through my trousers. I shift, adjust.

Three boats on the horizon. Oil tankers. I gaze at them with passing interest, until they blur into blue haze. My phones buzzes. I ignore it. My eyes feel heavy, lids pulled down by the rhythm of waves and the soft caress of evening sunlight.

· · ·

“The Eagle was wrecked on a clear night,” Mum would say, wrapped up in blankets at the other end of the couch. “October 18th, 1952. Your grandfather worked at the post office, the place that’s a café now? The lighthouse was operating as normal, a steady flash – he was just locking up and could see it in the window. Barely a cloud in the sky, he would say. No reason for a ship to be anywhere near the shore, especially not a big liner like The Eagle. But he saw it, as he walked home, looming over the rocks, edging closer. Nothing he could do by then, of course, except listen as the ship ground into the jagged teeth of the shore, rending itself open.”

“What did Grandpa do?” I would whisper, my hands clutched around a mug of hot chocolate. Couldn’t let dad see me with that.

“He went and rounded up the men from the houses and they went off to help the poor crew. The Eagle had run aground so close the village and it was easy for them to clamber aboard from the rocks.” She fell silent.

“What did they find”

“Nothing,” mum would say, her eye lowered and shadowed. “There were no souls aboard The Eagle wreck. Lost to sea.”

· · ·

My eyes open. The sun has set. An orange-pink scar traces the horizon. The ships are hidden, or long gone. I fumble for my phone, quickly snatch it up when I almost drop it through the walkway. Black screen. Dead.

Just enough twilight to see by. I stand, and the lighthouse blazes to life. I stumble back, bruising my back against the rail. My eyes squeezed shut, rainbow twinkles and swirls tracing the void. The brilliance dims, fades, disappears. Momentary darkness, then blinding light.

· · ·

“The Smoking Devil is a different story.” We would snuggle up in a pillow and blanket fort, with a stash of lollies and chocolate. “It was a pirate ship.”

“But mum, pirates are only in the Caribb –“

“Hush, there are pirates anywhere and everywhere.” She would always run her fingers through my hair in our pillow forts. We would have to pack it away before dad got home. “They were pirates who preyed on the fishing boats, taking their catch and selling it at different markets. One night, Smoking Devil was late home – they had taken too long to find a worthy prize, and now they were navigating by a single dim spotlight. The captain searched desperately for the lighthouse, to get his bearings, but the lighthouse never shone. If you asked them, everyone in the town would swear that the lighthouse was operating as normal, but the captain never saw it. They had to blindly follow their compass and hope their spotlight would serve them well.”

“What did they crash into, Mum?” I would ask, helping the story along.

“The reefs out at the entrance of the bay. Tore their ship apart. In the morning, the town people saw the wreck but recognised it and they didn’t want to go help the pirates who had stolen from them.”

‘So what happened to them?”

“Well the wreck is now part of the reef. The fish have made their homes amongst their bones.”

I would cry then.

· · ·

I clamber downwards, urgent. The light flares above me. Staccato rhythm, senseless morse-code. My fingers cold, my grip unsure. A hum vibrates through my fingers, some machinery inside the lighthouse. The tide is swallowing the rocks, and the small shelf leading to the lighthouse. I slip down the last couple of metres.

Salt-water seeps my socks. Feet slip, my knees grazed. The light strobes faster, my eyes still blinking starbursts away. Waves suck and swirl, the shore – safety – stretches away. Salt clings to my lips, tongue, burns my nostrils. I can swim, but the water is dangerous, menacing. Merciless.

Something groans behind me. Heavy, old, thrumming up my bones. Turning, slipping, every footstep a splash. The lighthouse looms, its light intense, bold, constant. I am frozen, my legs awash, my eyes wide, dazzled. I blink and so does the lighthouse.

· · ·

“The Lady Charlotte still haunts the seas,” was mum’s favourite story to tell. I would only let her tell it in summer, when the sun was shining and dad was on a long trip away. The best times. “Way back when, the lighthouse still had a keeper, who would fill the lamp with oil, lighting it every night and keeping the machinery which spun it operating. Back then, the town was barely even a village, more of a tiny dock so food could be delivered to the inland farmers. So the keeper was lonely. One evening, he was watching the passing Lady Charlotte with a telescope, and that name made him imagine all sorts of scenarios – you’ll understand better when you’re older – because he wanted a wife and thought Charlotte was a beautiful name. The ship was a tea cutter, one of the fastest. Well, the keeper was so deep in his imagination that he didn’t hear the machinery get jammed, and the light got stuck in one position, pointed straight at the ship. He only noticed when the ship made a sharp turn, and headed straight toward him!”

“Why didn’t the ship captain realise what was happening?”

“No one knows, but a ship must obey the lighthouse. What we do know is that the keeper had to run down all the stairs and turn the light by hand, but that meant he couldn’t watch the ship. And because he couldn’t watch the ship, he couldn’t see that no matter how hard or fast he turned the handle, the light didn’t move. It stayed fixed on the ship.” Mum would always pause here, prompting my question.

“What happened then?”

“The sailors sank their own ship. Something about the light did something to them. They took up axes and smashed holes in the hull, until the ship filled with water. Some of them threw themselves overboard. It sank, and they all drowned. But every so often, the lighthouse will still malfunction – you remember last winter, when we had to call the coast guard? – and when that happens Lady Charlotte will rise from the depths and haunt the bay.”

My dreams would fill with ghost ships and skeletal sailors.

· · ·

I struggle in the sea. My limbs thrash, frozen, all at once. I see a light, then darkness. A tower, and then deep, dark abyss. A leering face, blurred, then a hunk of seaweed, matted. Waves rise and fall, roar filling my ears, my mind, my thoughts. Foam chokes down my throat. A shape in the water. Shark? Whale? Lungs burn, my clothes pull me down.

The shape resolves. A ship, rotten, twisted, scuttled. I settle on the deck. Fingers scratch wood, nails torn, blood clouds. An abstract of scarlet and midnight blue. A single point of light, far above. Unreachable. Bubbles swarm above me, then burst. Oxygen, gone.

Light, gone.