In Her Shadow

The storm is eternal. Waves hammer the rock and the wind circles the tower like a wounded animal, clawing at the glass, rattling the metal doors until they scream. Inside the lighthouse, though, the darkness is worse. It gathers in the corners like pooled ink, untouched by the lantern’s sweeping eye. And she is always there, waiting inside it. In my first month here, I could hear water dripping next to me, where ever I was and I had assumed it was just the sea threading its way through stone. By the second month, I could see her. I’m making repairs in the lantern room, the light switched off for only a moment. She’s there, pressed into the farthest corner, she is naked and she is still. I freeze. My wrench clatters to the floor, and the sound startles me. My pulse goes wild in my throat. When I flip the lamp back on, she’s gone. “Who are you?” But she doesn’t answer. The lantern turns, and I’m alone again, except I’m not. Something lingers in the shadows, pressed close, threading its fingers through the seams of my thoughts. She’s always there, no matter the hour. I test it once, standing in the kitchen at noon when the sun manages to shoulder through the storm. Where the light can’t reach, she stands. She is soaking wet, she is stunning and she is naked and unmoving. She stares at me with a patience that feels... I don’t know. I guess it feels like a patience that doesn’t belong here. The darkness inside her seems to reject daylight; it writhes behind her like a slow tide. I try not to look at her, but her gaze is attached to me. It follows me from room to room, and into every minute, like a presence hung on a hook behind my mind. I’m terrified, I tell you. I keep to the center of rooms, crowding myself with candles and lanterns, pretending their glow can protect me. But fear bruises into something else over time. The lighthouse is lonely, and she is constant. She doesn’t speak and her silence feels like listening. She doesn’t move, yet her stillness feels like a hand resting just close enough to touch. Slowly, unbearably, I begin to depend on her. I talk to her. At first, it’s small things: the weather, stories of my life and the repairs I must maintain. I find myself confessing pieces of my life I’ve never spoken to anybody. Bad thing’s I’ve done. Things I wish I would have done differently. She never gives me anything in return, but her presence never wavers. I begin to crave it. The lantern starts to feel like a nuisance. Every time its beam passes, she slips away, just an inch, and only for a blink. It steals her back into the dark where I can’t quite see. When the light sweeps through, I’m abandoned. I resent the lantern for taking her. I resent the storm for making it necessary. I stop sleeping all together and I sit in the corners with her. The storms outside become distant rumors. The world shrinks to her shape alone. She is all that matters now. Last night, I made up my mind. The lantern turns above me, its mechanical heart ticks like it counts down to something I can’t refuse. I follow the beam to the top of the tower, and stare into its blinding eye. I hate it. I hate that it takes her from me. I pick up my hammer and swing. The glass bursts outward, scattering into the wind, and the lantern’s rhythm dies like a severed pulse. Darkness floods in. It is thick and alive and wraps the tower, the rocks and engulfs the sea. She is there, I knew she would be. She isn’t hiding in the corners anymore, she doesn’t need to. She fills the room and encloses me. She touches nothing, yet presses close enough that I can feel her, cool as saltwater on my skin. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t blink. But she is mine and I am hers. The storm still rages, but I no longer hear it. There is only her now and there is only the darkness of the sea.