The Unlit Window

Mara arrived with a toolbox and an eviction notice. The council wanted the abandoned lighthouse emptied before winter. Inside, she found no furniture, only a brass lamp and hundreds of names scratched into the stairs. When she touched the lamp, it lit without oil. A voice said, "I will be home before the frost." It sounded like her father, who had died at sea twenty years earlier. Mara set the notice down. Outside, the first fishing boat was entering the fog.