The air conditioner in her aging car was giving out,
blowing warm breath-stealing air into Gina's face. If she
could have torn her concentration away from her mission
for even a moment, she would have felt a pang of fear over
what the repair of the air conditioner would cost her.
Instead, she merely opened the car windows and let the
hot, thick, salt breeze fill the interior. She took deep
breaths, smelling the unfamiliar brininess in the air, so
different from the scent of the Pacific. The humidity
worked its way into her long hair, lifting it, tangling
it, forming fine dark tendrils on her forehead. Another
woman might have run her hands over her hair to smooth the
flyaway strands. Gina did not care. After six days of
driving, six nights of sleeping in the cramped quarters of
the car, several quick showers stolen from fitness clubs
to which she did not belong, and eighteen cheap, fast-food
meals, she was almost there. She was close enough to Kiss
River to taste it in the air.
The bridge she was crossing was very long and straight and
clogged with traffic. She should have expected that. After
all, it was a Friday evening in late June and she was
headed toward the Outer Banks of North Carolina, an area
she supposed was now quite a tourist attraction. She might
have trouble finding a room for the night. She hadn't
thought of that. She was used to the Pacific Northwest,
where the coastline was craggy and the water too cold for
swimming and where finding a room for the night was not
ordinarily an impossible chore.
The cars were moving just slowly enough to allow her to
study the map she held flat against the steering wheel.
Leaving the bridge, the traffic crawled for a mile or so
past a school and a couple of strip malls and then perhaps
two-thirds of the cars turned right onto route 12. She
turned left and entered an area the map told her was
called Southern Shores.
Through the open car windows, she could hear, but not see,
the ocean on her right. The waves pounded the beach behind
the eclectic mix of flat topped houses and larger, newer
homes and old beach cottages. In spite of the slow-moving
stream of cars, the Outer Banks seemed open and wide and
empty here. Not what she had expected from reading the
diary. But the diary had not been about Southern Shores,
and as she continued driving, live oaks and wild
vegetation she did not recognize began to cradle the
curving road. She was approaching the Village of Duck,
which sounded quaint and probably expensive, and
interested her not in the least. After Duck, she would
pass through a place called Sanderling, and then through a
wildlife sanctuary, and soon after that, she should see a
sign marking the road to the Kiss River Lighthouse.
Although she knew she was miles from the lighthouse, she
couldn't help but glance to the sky again and again,
hoping to see the lighthouse in the distance through the
trees. Even though it was the tallest lighthouse in the
country, she knew she could not possibly see it from where
she was. That didn't stop her from looking, though.
She had more time to study the little shopping areas of
Duck than she wanted, since the cars and SUVs crept along
the road at a near standstill. If the traffic didn't clear
soon, it would be dark by the time she reached Kiss River.
She'd hoped to get there no later than five. It was now
nearly seven, and the sun was already sinking toward the
horizon. Would the lighthouse be closed for the evening?
For that matter, would it be open to the public at all?
What time did they turn on the light? Maybe they no longer
did. That would disappoint her. She wanted to see how it
illuminated Kiss River once every four and a half seconds.
If people were allowed to climb the lighthouse, she
doubted they would be able to visit the lantern room, but
she would have to get into that room, one way or another.
Only recently, she'd discovered that she was a pretty good
liar. She'd lived her entire life valuing honesty and
integrity. Suddenly, she'd become manipulative, a master
at deceit. She could, when pressed, travel far outside the
law. The first time she'd snuck into a fitness club to use
the shower on this trip east, she'd trembled with fear,
not only at the possibility of being caught, but at the
sheer immorality of the act. By the time she sauntered
into the club in Norfolk, though, she'd almost forgotten
she didn't have a membership at the place. The end
justified the means, she told herself.
So, if visiting the lantern room of the lighthouse was not
allowed, she would find another way to get up there. That
was the entire purpose of this trip. She would talk with
someone, one of the guides or docents or whatever they
were, and make up a reason for needing to see that room.
Research, she would say. She was writing about
lighthouses. Or taking pictures. She touched the borrowed
camera hanging around her neck. It was heavy, impressive
looking. She'd make up something that would sound
plausible. One way or another, she needed to see the
lantern room and its enormous globe of glass prisms, the
Fresnel lens.
The wildlife reserve seemed to go on forever, but at least
the traffic had thinned out, as cars turned onto the roads
leading to the houses near the beach. The remaining
traffic moved briskly, and the road was, for the most
part, straight. Gina could examine the map easily as she
drove. The sign indicating the location of the lighthouse
should be somewhere along here, she thought. The road to
Kiss River would run off to the right, cutting through the
red oaks and loblolly pines, although it was possible that
the landscape had changed since the days of the diary.
Given the size and newness of many of the houses she had
passed, it was possible the trees were completely gone by
now and the road lined by more of the touristy homes.
Finally, she spotted a narrow road heading east into the
trees. She pulled to the side of the main road, as close
to the trees as she dared in order to get out of the way
of the cars behind her, and studied her map. There was no
street sign, no hint at all that anything special lay down
that road. But from the map, this had to be it. She could
see the way the land jutted out from the road on the map.
There was no river at Kiss River. It was little more than
a promontory with a whimsical name and a towering
lighthouse. And surely that lighthouse was a tourist
attraction. So why was there no sign?
She wondered if she should continued driving up the main
road to look for another, more promising, turn, but shook
her head. This had to be it. The sign must have blown over
or been struck by a car. Trusting her map, she turned
right onto the road.
Instantly, the road jogged to the left, surrounding her by
trees. The macadam was rutted and poorly maintained, and
the road twisted its way into near darkness. The air was
dusky, the trees so thick that little light could cut
through them. Through the open windows, she heard the
buzzing of crickets or frogs or some other critter, and
the sound grew louder the deeper she drove into the
forest.
The road ended abruptly at a small cul-de-sac in the
woods. Stopping her car, she turned on the overhead light.
Her map clearly showed the cul-de-sac, with a smaller road
leading from it out to the lighthouse. Looking to her
left, she spotted the road, which was more of a narrow
gravel lane with a heavy, rusty chain strung across its
entrance. A sign hanging from the chain read in bold red
letters, NO TRESPASSING.
This could not be right, she thought. Even if the
lighthouse, itself, was not open to the public, the
grounds surrounding it and the keeper's house certainly
should be.
She checked the map again. There were no other roads like
this one, ending in a cul-de-sac. This was it, whether she
wanted it to be or not. She looked up at the gravel lane
beyond the chain again. It was foreboding, dark and
shrouded by trees.
She did not consider herself a brave person, although
these last few months she had found courage in herself
she'd had no idea she possessed. Getting slowly out of her
car, she locked the door behind her. She did have a
flashlight in her trunk, but the batteries had died
somewhere in Kentucky, so she carried only her map and the
camera around her neck as she walked across the cul-de-
sac. One end of the chain was attached to a tree, the
other padlocked to a post. Skirting the post, she started
walking down the gravel lane.
Even if this was the wrong road, she told herself, what
harm could she come to by walking down it? True, she could
break an ankle in one of the many ruts or trip over one of
the tree roots that raised the gravel in a disorderly
veinlike pattern. More likely, though, the worse that
could happen was that she'd come to someone's tucked away
home. She would apologize, ask for directions to the
lighthouse. But then she remembered the horses. There were
wild horses out here. And wild boars. They could be
dangerous, she remembered reading in the diary. She
imagined climbing one of the stubby trees to escape them.
She wasn't much of a tree climber, though. Her heart
pounded, and she listened hard for the sound of horse
hooves or breaking twigs and realized that, this deep into
the woods, she could not even hear the traffic. Only the
thick, strange buzz of those crickets or whatever they
were. It suddenly occurred to her that she would have to
walk back through these woods again, and it would be even
darker by then.
How far had she walked? It couldn't have been more than a
quarter of a mile. Stopping on the road, she peered hard
through the trees. The road looked quite short on the map,
and surely she should be able to see the top of the
lighthouse by now. She walked a bit farther, and then
heard a whooshing, pounding sound that took her a minute
to recognize as the ocean. It sounded close. Very close.
Ahead of her, the road turned slightly to the right. The
vegetation was thinner and she could see light between the
branches of the trees. Quickening her step, she suddenly
broke free of the forest and found herself in a small,
sand-swept parking lot. Had this been the visitors'
parking lot for the lighthouse? One thing she knew for
certain by now: for whatever reason, the Kiss River
lighthouse was not open to the public.
Through the trees and shrubs surrounding the parking lot,
she saw the curved white brick wall of what had to be the
lighthouse, and she knew instantly that something was
wrong. There was a narrow path cutting through the trees,
and branches scratched against her bare arms as she
followed it. A few steps later, she stopped, staring in
horror at what stood in front of her.
"No," she said aloud. "Oh, no."
The lighthouse rose high above her, but the top portion of
it was missing. The lantern room was gone, and the entire
tower could not have been more than three quarters of its
original height. Craning her neck, she could make out
several steps of the steel staircase jutting a few yards
above the jagged opening at the top of the tower.
She stood numbly, consumed by a distress that went far
beyond disappointment. No wonder no one else was out here.
It must have been the sea that destroyed the lighthouse,
because now the breaking waves swirled around the base of
the tower, and it was apparent from the packed, damp sand
beneath her feet that it was not even high tide. A
storm ,she thought. This was the work of a damned storm.
Panic rose up inside her. She'd driven all this way. All
this way. For nothing. For dashed hopes. Shutting her
eyes, she felt dizzy. The sound of the waves cracking
against the base of the lighthouse filled her ears, and a
spray of salt water stung her face.
Taking a few steps closer to the tower, a house came into
view thirty or so yards to her left. The keeper's house,
she thought. Long ago abandoned, most likely, although she
noted the windows were not boarded up and two white
Adirondack chairs graced the broad porch. Odd.
She looked up at the tower again, then took off her
sandals. Dangling them from her fingertips, she stepped
into the shallow water. It was colder than she'd expected,
and she caught her breath at the unanticipated chill. The
sand sucked at her feet and the water rose nearly to her
knees one moment, only to fall to her ankles the next.
She climbed the five concrete stairs leading to the foyer
beneath the tower. Despite her disappointment over finding
the tower damaged beyond repair, she still felt a thrill
at finding herself inside it. She knew this place. Oh, how
she knew it! She knew, for example, that there had once
been a door at the foyer entrance, although there was no
sign of one now. She knew there might be birds inside the
tower, and indeed, when she took another step deeper into
the foyer, she heard the flapping of wings above her.
She was in the cool air of a circular room. The floor was
covered with octagonal black and white tiles, and on the
chalky white brick wall across from her, the steel stairs
rose at a diagonal. Walking across the room, she dropped
her sandals on the floor near the first step, and began to
climb.
The stairs had a woven texture and she could see straight
through them, to the purply-gray sky high above her, and
as she climbed higher, to the dimly lit floor below. The
spiral of stairs gradually narrowed and she quickly grew
breathless. She'd never been great with heights, and she
hugged the cold, white brick wall as she rested on the
landings. Through the wavy glass of the tall, narrow
windows at each landing, she could see the keeper's house.
Then she'd return to the stairs, clutching the railing, no
longer daring to look down as she climbed higher. The
stairs rose several yards above the opening of the
lighthouse, right up into the evening sky. Gina leaned
against the brick wall, her heart beating more from fear
than from exertion as she contemplated climbing those last
few unprotected steps. She could sit on that top step, she
thought, and look out at the ocean. Maybe she'd discover
the lens was directly below her in the shallow water near
the base of the lighthouse.
She forced herself up another step, then another, holding
onto the railing with both hands, and when she reached the
top step, she turned and gingerly sat down on it. She was
above the world here. The ocean was spread out in front of
her like a huge, deep purple rug, fringed with white. The
thick wall of the lighthouse looked as if it had been
chewed off by some huge monster, leaving the jagged edges
of the brick behind.
What was she going to do now?
Afraid of losing her balance, she carefully leaned a bit
to the left and pulled the small photograph from the rear
pocket of her shorts. Pressing it against her knee, she
studied the image. A little girl. Much smaller than she
should have been for being a year old, her age when the
picture was taken. Skin the color of wheat. Very short,
jet black hair. The hugest, darkest eyes. Sad, hopeful
eyes.
Gina shut her own eyes, feeling the sting of tears behind
the lids. "I'll find a way, sweetheart," she said out
loud. "I promise."
She sat very still for a long time, watching the last
traces of daylight disappear in the sky, her mind only on
the child in the picture. She did not think about how she
would manage to climb down the spiral staircase in the
dusky light, or walk back to her car through those
darkening woods, or find a room on a Friday night in a
place overrun by tourists.
She must have moved her head just a fraction of an inch to
the left, because something caught her eye and made her
turn around. And what she saw then caught her breath in
her throat. Every window of the keeper's house glowed with
stained glass.