The real estate agent had called it “atmospherically isolated.” Clara called it the edge of the world. Blackwood Point Lighthouse was a stone sentinel, a defiant finger of granite pointing at a perpetually furious sky. For a month, it was to be her sanctuary, her studio, her escape from the cacophony of city life and the suffocating sympathy that followed her breakup. The sea gnawed at the cliffs below, a constant, hungry sound that vibrated through the soles of her worn boots. It was perfect.
The caretaker was not part of the brochure.
He emerged from a low-slung cottage nestled in the lighthouse’s shadow as her beat-up car sputtered to a halt. He was tall, built with the kind of wiry strength that comes from fighting the wind and tide his whole life. His dark hair was a mess, whipped by the salt-laced gale, and his eyes, the color of a stormy sea, were narrowed, assessing her with an unnerving intensity. He looked less like a caretaker and more like a man who had been shipwrecked here decades ago and simply decided to stay.
“Clara Mayhew?” he asked. His voice was a low rumble, like stones shifting deep beneath the earth. It was a voice that belonged to the cliffside.
“That’s me.” She forced a smile, pulling her thin jacket tighter against a wind that felt personal. “You must be Julian.”
He gave a short, noncommittal nod, his gaze flicking from her to her car, laden with canvases and art supplies. “Everything’s ready. The generator is fussy and the water pump groans like a dying man, but they both work. Most of the time.”
“Charming,” she said, her attempt at levity falling flat in the face of his stony demeanor. “Adds to the rustic experience, I suppose.”
He didn’t reply, just turned and led her towards the keeper’s quarters, a circular set of rooms built into the base of the tower itself. His silence was as vast as the ocean before them. Clara found herself chattering to fill it, talking about her drive, the weather, anything to keep the oppressive quiet at bay. Julian just grunted in response, his shoulders set in a way that discouraged conversation.
He pushed open a heavy wooden door, and the air that rolled out was thick and cold, smelling of damp stone, salt, and something else… something faintly floral, like long-dead flowers pressed between the pages of a forgotten book. The space was sparsely furnished, but clean. A sturdy wooden table, a couple of chairs, a bed tucked into a curved alcove. A large, thick-paned window looked out onto the churning, grey-green sea. Despite the palpable chill, she felt a flicker of the inspiration she’d been chasing. She could paint here. She could lose herself in the violent beauty of it all.
“The tower itself is off-limits,” Julian stated, his back to her as he stared out the window, his reflection a stark silhouette against the churning waves. “The lamp mechanism is a century old. It’s delicate.”
“I understand,” she said, setting her bags down. “I’m just here for the solitude.”
A strange, humorless smile touched his lips for a second, a fleeting expression that was gone as soon as it appeared. “You’ll get plenty of that.” He gestured to a small stack of firewood near a pot-bellied stove. “Keep that going. The damp gets into your bones out here.” He turned to leave, pausing at the door. “My cottage is just there. If the generator dies, yell loud. The wind eats most sounds.”
And then he was gone, leaving Clara in a silence that was suddenly deafening. The only sounds were the roar of the sea and the creaks and groans of the old structure. She spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking, arranging her paints and canvases, trying to carve out a space for herself in the old stone room. As dusk bled across the sky, painting it in shades of bruised violet and angry orange, the lighthouse lamp hummed to life above her. A rhythmic, sweeping beam of light cut through the gloom, a reassuring pulse in the growing darkness.
That night, the solitude felt less like a comfort and more like a weight. The wind howled, a mournful cry that seemed to have a voice, a personality. It clawed at the window and whispered through unseen cracks in the stone. Clara huddled under a thick wool blanket, sketching the violent waves in her notebook, trying to capture their chaotic energy.
That’s when she heard it. A soft, rhythmic tapping. Tap… tap… tap.
It wasn’t the wind or the rain. It was coming from the wall that connected her quarters to the base of the tower. It was too precise, too patient. She held her breath, listening. The sound was faint but clear. She told herself it was the old building settling, the water pump Julian had warned her about. But it sounded deliberate. It sounded like a fingernail, tapping patiently on stone from the other side.
She tried to ignore it, turning a page in her sketchbook with a hand that trembled slightly. The tapping stopped. A wave of relief washed over her, so potent it made her feel foolish. It was just an old building. She was just a city girl spooked by unfamiliar sounds.
Then, a whisper, so faint she thought she’d imagined it, slithered through the howl of the wind. It was a single, possessive word, spoken in a breath of impossible cold that seemed to materialize right beside her ear.
Mine.
Clara shot up, her heart hammering against her ribs. The room was empty. The fire in the stove crackled, casting dancing shadows on the curved walls. The wind shrieked outside. There was nothing. No one.
It had to be the wind. An acoustic trick of the old stone, the storm playing with her frayed nerves. But she couldn’t shake the feeling. The cold spot where the whisper had been lingered on her skin, and the single, possessive word echoed in the sudden, ringing silence of her mind. She didn’t sleep much that night, watching the lighthouse beam sweep across her ceiling, a lonely metronome counting down the seconds in the dark.
