‘Can you see it?’
Laura peered through the storm, as lashing rain struck at the thick glass windows of the Wilkins lantern room. Twenty-one small, fragile lamps shone out brightly through their polished reflectors, despite the weather. Well-kept machinery moved steadily, taking the light through its five-minute rotation—fifty seconds of light and fifty seconds of darkness. Every lighthouse was unique in its clockwork movement and this one belonged to Benevolence. The granite lighthouse tower had stood solidly atop rocky cliffs for over thirty years, and it still felt strong and safe, even when the world outside was chaos.
Her father pointed again, shouting to be heard above the screaming wind and the pounding waves that had come with what had started as a westerly gale. Not uncommon at this time of year, but the gale had turned into a raging storm.
Laura caught a glimpse of a small ship. Close to the rocks that stretched out from the base of the cliff below the lighthouse. A faint light blinked as the crests of the waves gave way to troughs.
‘There!’ she shouted back.
Leo Webster nodded, his teeth clenched around the stem of his pipe. It was not lit. It had gone out hours ago. ‘They’re too close,’ he said. ‘They can’t see us.’
It was an unfortunate fact that the lighthouse on Benevolence Island, standing at one thousand feet above sea level, had been built too tall. In good weather, its warning light could be seen for close to thirteen leagues, all the way to the Victorian coast. In bad weather, however, when clouds or fog hung low over the island, it was often invisible…
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