Beacon

11:11 a.m. Corridor

A girl with bluish hair, her name is Auburn, whirls around and locks the parlor door with a key that she found on the mantle beside her grandfather’s clock, a grandfather clock, that arrived no less than twenty-four hours ago shipboard from the continent. Her grandfather accompanied his clock. Both are quite grand, her grandfather and his grandfather clock. Both are ornate and full of crannies, one chiseled by tool, the other by time, talking and ticking with metronomic precision during a tea-time rant over the state of Grandfather’s affairs on the continent and why his stocks have fallen, and his blood pressure risen, and why he has come alone and not in the company of Grandmother, who would have insisted Grandfather still loved his clock more than his wife.

Auburn spins toward the corridor that leads to the locked parlor door. She twirls back toward the kitchen door, also locked. Her grandfather’s clock chimes eleven. She checks her watch and laughs. Eleven minutes after eleven. Auburn cherishes the time she spends with her grandfather, a third-generation temporal palindromist whose grandfather said of their practice “a craft more aptly described as an art that should be performed with care, as if traversing the down-going stairs that lead up to the top.”

The keys in her pocket jingle as she massages them between her fingers. Auburn cannot resist a key. Unlocked doors compel her to secure them, and locked ones insult her, teasing her with the mystery on the other side. She peers through the kitchen keyhole and twists the knob, but the door is locked. From a jumble of keys spread out on her hand, Auburn grabs the brass one with a lion’s head and slips it into the lock. The doorknob turns. As soon as the door closes behind her, she locks it back again; then drops the key into the silverware drawer.

10:01 p.m. Lighthouse

Auburn pressed her face to the glass. Yellow stars twinkled at the end of the choppy sea, the lanterns on her grandfather’s ship. He had finally arrived, but the lamp in the lighthouse had gone dark. She would have to go down for supplies; there was no light in the lens. On her way around the dome, Auburn jumped as the watch room trap door fell shut. The clank of metal on metal and the mechanism in the lock froze an expression of amazement on her face. She grabbed the handle and pulled. The door was indeed locked, trapping her in the darkened lighthouse dome.

The ship’s stars drew closer turning into twinkling squares, off and on, signaling for the beacon to guide them around the black rocks. She heard the sails on her grandfather’s ship flap about in gusty puffs. Auburn leaned out the window of the lighthouse dome to warn him, but the ocean wind swallowed her voice. She watched with big eyes as a shadowy boat stocked with parcels, a grandfather, and a grandfather clock broke upon the rocks into shards of wood and gears and bones.

10:01 a.m. Lighthouse

The steps to the lighthouse watch room spiraled around a column of stone covered with dewy patches of moss. Auburn whistled her favorite song, “Steam Shovel Cincinnati Blues,” sliding her hand along the stone as she wound up to the dome, up the throat to the ocean’s eye that peered out over the salty splashes eating the rocks below. “Oh,” she smiled and reached for the handle on the trap door, heaving the wooden door closed. She inserted a green copper key into the keyhole, and after a twist, Auburn pushed up on the watch room door to make certain it was locked and skipped back down around the stairs.

11:11 p.m. Parlor

Grandfather, with a grayish mustache that curls up at the tips, caresses the crescent moon, a mahogany moon that waxes up one side and wanes down the other of Auburn’s grandfather’s grandfather clock. “What time is it dear?” he asks, pulling the pendulum chain on his clock.

Auburn checks her watch. “Eleven, Eleven.”

“Eleven, Eleven.” Grandfather positions the hands at straight up eleven o’clock. “How about a cup of tea dear? I’ve had a long trip.”

“What else have you brought for me besides tea?”

He rummages through his bags. “I’ve got some lime and corn cakes from the continent and syrup tapped right from a maple trunk.” He smacks the side of his head. “Oh, and I’ve brought you a book about young girls and lighthouse solitude. We all have our burdens, don’t we dear?”

Auburn stands up with excitement and grabs a key from the mantle, instinctively unlocking the parlor door. When she turns back around, her grandfather is gone.