Page 14 of Beacon

Despair squeezed my heart at the thought and it was an effort to push it away. I couldn’t entertain the possibility that he wouldn’t return to me.

I tried desperately to cling to my fragile hope, else I was certain I’d drown, but it was like trying to hold water—it slipped through my fingers each time I tried to seize it; my already weak grasp loosened with each passing hour that remained empty of Father’s return.

No matter how endless a night, it eventually faded into dawn. But though it didn’t bring the end of the storm, it brought enough light for me to no longer need to rely on the beacon…which allowed me to finally leave the lighthouse. I went outside and stood along the shore. The ocean still raged, though without as much energy, meaning the storm was nearing its end.

I struggled to control each of my sharp breaths as I stood on the beach, though not close enough for the waves to reach me, not wanting to touch the water else I make the storm worse. I frantically searched the horizon for any sign of a fishing boat coming home to me…but there was nothing.

Please, Ocean, please don’t take my father. But like every other word, my pleas remained trapped in my throat. Even if I could have spoken them out loud, I doubted the sea would have listened, especially when it’d done nothing to protect Mother.

Unbidden, the memories from that day returned like a reoccurring nightmare. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the sight, but with the sound of the churning ocean, it was impossible. But this time the memories were different—rather than a ship bearing Mother being swallowed by the depths, it was a small fishing boat containing my beloved father…

I released a silent sob and sank to my knees to bury my face in my hands. There I remained, unable to look at the ocean or the continuously empty horizon as my grief and despair consumed me…leaving me nothing to do but wait.

And wait.

And wait…all while the sea slowly—ever so slowly—gradually calmed.

The silence following the storm was almost deafening. I waited a moment more before I tentatively uncovered my face to stare out across the water—not only still but glistening beneath the sunlight that had pierced the cloudy overcast, a sight so lovely, it was as if there hadn’t been a violent storm at all.

And still there was no sign of Father.

But surely he’d return. Since losing Mother, I’d felt trapped within a never-ending nightmare I’d yet to wake up from, but to lose Father as well…no, that couldn’t happen. Itwouldn’t.

I spent all day on the various beaches connected to the lighthouse’s different locations, searching every sea, even the ones far from where Father had first set sail. But no matter how long I waited or how fervently I prayed, the ocean didn’t bring him home to me.

The day drifted by, followed by an even longer night. Then the second passed, then the third. With each one, the fear encasing my heart squeezed tighter and tighter until I was certain it’d shatter. But no matter how long I searched for his boat, there was never any sign of it, as if he’d been swallowed by the ocean itself.

It was on the morning of the fourth day while I stood on my secret island that I received any news concerning Father’s fate. Not from the enchanted pool—which despite my every attempt couldn’t show me truth that didn’t come from my own memory. Instead it came from my faithful pet. He swam tentatively to where I knelt on the beach, still overlooking the empty ocean in the vain hope that eventually, I’d finally find what I so desperately longed for.

I glanced towards my octopus…only for my heart to immediately still at the sight of what he gingerly carried.

No.

I could barely see through my tears as Octavius tentatively handed me a piece of wood bearing the first part of a name as familiar to me as my own:Starfish, not only Father’s tender nickname for me but the name of his fishing boat.

For a long, endless moment I could only stare, my disbelief so acute that I could barely breathe, let alone think. I lost all sense of where I was—the rough sand against my knees, the sound of the waves, the surrounding ocean—so that there was only silence, for the first time not comforting but as overwhelming as the sea had been during the storm. This silence dragged me beneath the surface of the despair I’d fought so long to keep my head above.

My hands shook as I traced the name carved in the wood, then across each jagged splinter, a sign it’d been torn apart by a great force, leaving nothing behind except for a jagged piece of Father’s boat, wrecked.

I frantically shook my head at Octavius as he wrapped his tentacles around me in comfort, but the gesture did nothing to change what I held in my hands, revealing the truth of why Father hadn’t yet returned to me that I couldn’t accept.

Shipwrecked. Lost at sea.Gone…leaving me utterly alone. My composure faltered, unlocking the burst of emotion I’d fought to keep inside, and my despair yanked me under.

* * *

A week had passed—thelongest of my entire life, one even more unbearable than the one following Mother’s shipwreck. Then, I’d had Father to anchor me, but now…I was left with nothing, save for a numbness so all-encompassing that I could barely perform the lighthouse duties expected of me. Only the fact that without them I’d be left entirely withnothinggave me the strength needed to go through the required motions. But with each one, my thoughts remained absent, my despair so acute that it’d swallowed all of them up.

Another emotion accompanied this agonizing sense of loss—the all-too-familiar guilt that perhaps I could have done something more to have saved Father. Surely, like with Mother, I was responsible for his loss…only this time I had no more voice to atone for my mistakes.

Logic told me he must be dead while a niggling hope insisted that he might still be alive—even if it was only a small possibility he was marooned somewhere. Every day the part of me still trapped in denial led me to the ocean. I’d spent the first several days following Father’s disappearance searching the ocean for more wreckage while Octavius scoured farther from shore, but we never found any, giving me more reason to believe he’d return.

I spent hours standing along the shore, watching the continuously empty horizon…which was how my uncle eventually found me. I wasn’t sure how he’d received word about the second tragedy that had befallen me, but even if I’d had the words to ask, I couldn’t.

Uncle was Father’s younger brother whom I’d met only a handful of times over the years. He was kind, though withdrawn, almost as quiet as me. He spared few words now.

“The palace informed me—” he began before he swallowed the remainder of his words, ones I was grateful remained unspoken else it’d make them all the more real.

Naturally, I said nothing, only continued to stare across the horizon, still empty.

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