The formerly waterfront town of Rogue was not the sort of place a witch with any ambition chose to live. Rotten piers were still scattered along the western edge of what used to be the Eprec Gulf, their jagged supports jutting from the cracked seabed. Wooden planks from the boardwalks lay half-buried in the sand, crude paths along the shore. Bored children scoured the sand and silt for trinkets that fell from the pockets of travelers, long before the bisimbi left nothing but a dried up beach in their wake. As the water receded the locals moved Rogue further inland, pivoting their efforts from fishing to farming. Throughout it all the lighthouse and its keepers remained, both watching as the nearest house got further and further away.

A house around an hour’s walk away from the lighthouse was where Dwayne first touched down in Rogue. He took in little of the landscape since he was immediately led into Riel’s laundry shed to vomit in the sink.

“We can go to the lighthouse tomorrow,” Riel passed Dwayne a clean towel. “Ain’t nobody clamoring for that job.”

“No.” He wet the towel and wiped his face down, already regretting this entire move. “I wanna go today,” he said.

“At least sit down for a minute.”

Dwayne shuffled over to the bench by the door and plopped down into it, noticing he could sit up and breathe with no pain for the first time since the attack. He didn’t mind taking a deep breath, taking in the scent of wild flowers that flowed through the room even though the air outside was still and all he saw outside were sparse patches of grass and sand.

“If she doesn’t give you the job, you can stay with me. There’s plenty of room.” Riel had set about hanging up laundry to dry, and forced Dwayne back onto the bench when he got up to help.

“No. The forge always has orders from around here. I could set up shop, split what I make with my folks, find a place.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be a blacksmith.”

“I don’t. But if I have to…” He would, he supposed. It’d be better than staying at home.

Riel moved about the room in silence, dropping another pile of laundry into a basin of soapy water and tapping the basin lip. The water began to churn, the soap frothing but never spilling.

“You ready?” Riel asked.

“No.”

“Then let’s get to it.”

He didn’t go into Riel’s house past the back door, and only to put his satchels of clothes inside. He wanted to move before he lost his nerve.

Few things grabbed his attention on the uphill trek to the lighthouse, and Dwayne wondered if he wanted to consign himself to possibly spending the rest of his life in Rogue. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t leave; the lighthouses weren’t actually used for anything. Maybe they might light the lantern for a festival, but that wouldn’t happen somewhere like Rogue. Every so often he and Riel passed a dilapidated shack, rusted hooks for drying fish still hanging, and boats sat falling apart, some so far gone even the weight of their ores had been too much.

In the distance, Dwayne saw another witch coming back up the road, the road that according to Riel, led only to the Rogue lighthouse.

“I thought you said wasn’t nobody else interested,” he whispered though there was no way the witch could have heard him.

“Only this one guy Tevar, but the Keeper won’t give him the job. He asked at least five times this year.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Don’t know. I never dug into it but everyone around here just say he got weird a few years ago.”

Riel was silent until they got closer to the witch and when Dwayne asked, “Is that Tevar?” she gave a, “Hm,” of affirmation, nothing more.

They passed each other on the road without incident, Tevar looking as nondescript as anyone else, his sandals worn and his cloak a bit tattered. Had Riel done more than given Tevar a brief nod, Dwayne might have asked how his inquiry with the Keeper had gone. Instead he followed his friend’s lead, offering up his own curt nod, and thinking nothing else of it.

But as Dwayne and Riel moved further into the Keeper’s domain, hostility weighed down the air. For a moment Dwayne thought the lighthouse looked further away than it had been just a few minutes before, yet the trees behind him seemed closer. If he didn’t focus the road looked distorted, the path veering off into the sand or into the brush from one moment to the next, only occasionally looking like it led to the lighthouse.

The illusion was easy enough to break. As children, he and Riel spent hours playing around with these kinds of misdirection spells, leading their classmates in circles around the seminary. Anyone who wasn’t paying close attention would find themselves right back at the seminary entrance, confused. So Dwayne stopped walking, knowing he’d most likely end up further away from the lighthouse if he kept moving.

Before he could ask Riel what she knew of the Keeper, whether or not breaking the spell would constitute a faux pas in Rogue, he thought he saw a bridge. Then the muffled sound of water, as though he were on a boat. Again. And then the chains clanking.

Finding the words to break the spell was an unexpectedly sloppy affair and the second time he tried, Riel joined in. When they were done, the lighthouse looked as though it was torn apart at the seams for a moment, sand and dust stirring as the illusion lost its hold. Dwayne didn’t look away until all the dust and distortion had settled, and found that he and Riel were right at the lighthouse steps.

“…I was gon’ say we should prolly just push through with no magic. Mighta been a test,” Riel said, not mentioning his earlier mistake.

“Well. You helped so if she mad, she gon’ be mad at both of us.”

“But I’m not the one tryna get a job from her…”

Riel wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t have time to sift through illusions the proper, polite way, to let his mind be toyed with to prove a point. Not two weeks ago he learned what all could be accomplished in a split second of indecision. In his case, it ended in a hospital trip wherein both his parents seemed to spiral afterwards. And maybe the Lighthouse Keeper wasn’t trying to kill him like the simbi had been. But that was not a chance he wanted to take. Once he’d heard the chains clanking, he couldn’t.

“What are you doing?” Riel asked as he went up the lighthouse steps.
At the fourth step, he paused. Before going any further he surveyed the lighthouse.

He’d read about the old oceans in Eprec and the reverence people still carried for them, and that reverence extended to the lighthouses. It looked pristine almost, as though it had not changed since the water receded so far back the Rogue docks were unusable. Great effort was made to keep the stone steps smooth, the patch jobs seamless aside from the slightly darker stones. Sparse patches of grass littered the cliff, same as everywhere else, but there were also desert plants he knew weren’t native to Eprec.

When towns began to move inland, the Lighthouse Keeper was always the last to leave, and often only did so when they were near death. Two years at most, though the books never explained how they always seemed to know.

Dwayne went further up the stairs, the pulse he felt radiating through the lighthouse stronger with every step. He didn’t have to knock on the door; the Keeper opened it, a frown etched onto her face. She addressed Riel first.

“You work in the morgue but you,” the Keeper pointed at Dwayne, her bony finger nearly to his chest. “Why are you here?”

“I came for the job.”

Dwayne knew the keeper was not to be trifled with, and thought it best to speak plainly. The illusion spell had been difficult to break; he didn’t want to be caught in one if he had to turn tail.

“And why should I give it to you? Because you asked?”

Any other time, Dwayne would have just answered, “Yes.” She was the one looking for a replacement; why not at least give him a chance? Not like she lost anything if she didn’t like him and said no.

“No,” is what he actually said. “What do you need to see?”

“Come this way,” she went to the staircase that went around the side of the lighthouse. “You’re welcome to join us, undertaker.”

“That’s alright,” Riel declined politely. “I’ll see you back at my place in a bit.” She didn’t look back as she set back down the road, leaving Dwayne to his own devices with the keeper.

Dwayne followed the Keeper up to the lantern gallery, the late afternoon sun not providing enough warmth, yet the Keeper was unfazed. She was barefoot, in only a simple dress. How was she not cold? His confusion and suspicion only grew when he saw the key. Why on earth was she unlocking the lantern gallery with a key? Only children bothered with keys, and only until they could seal things off with magic.

“You’re going to protect this place. Not the walls, not this door. You.”

She finally cracked something like a smile when she saw how taken aback Dwayne was. It was uncouth in Orikimeri to poke around people’s thoughts, even at the very surface level like the Keeper had done. At least he hadn’t been thinking of the attack, or his father, or the clanking chains…

“Don’t worry. I doubt I’ll bother looking in there again.”

The insult aside, she waved Dwayne into the gallery. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but a fire pit surrounded by glass was not it. It was too…simple.

“You’re a blacksmith, no? Fire should be no issue.”

“How-”

“Word travels, even to me. Now light it.” She crossed her arms, waiting.

He knelt in front of the fire pit, unsure of what to do next. The perpetual fires he put in the glass bulbs were minuscule in comparison. All the confidence he’d mustered was gone.

“This isn’t like anything I’ve had to do before,” he said quietly. And before he could think of how to phrase what he’d say next, she asked, “Are you asking for help?”

Dwayne wanted so badly to do as he’d always done, to say, “No.” But he had not the time to hole up in his mother’s library to find the spell he needed, and come back when he was somewhat certain he could control it. No, he had to act now.

“I am,” is what he managed to get out.

“Must you sound so anguished…?” the Keeper sighed as she knelt next to him. “Like this.”

She walked him through the spell, the cadence and rhythm seemingly the opposite of what he was used to in Chrysallis. Four times he tried and failed to light the lantern, each attempt after the first not even yielding a brief spark.

“Give it one mo’ ‘gain.”

On the fifth try, it worked. He hadn’t suddenly understood her instructions any better; he had them memorized by the second try. The way she phrased it-“one mo’ ‘gain”. He’d heard it before, and only ever within the confines of the Smith house.

He didn’t move, nor did he look away from the flames. They gave off no heat; if he touched them, he wouldn’t burn.

“I’m not here by accident, am I?” he asked, knowing she wouldn’t give him a straight answer. No one over the age of twenty-five seemed to be able to give a straight answer, in his experience. Or maybe he’d just spent too much time at home.

“No one comes to Rogue on a whim.”

The Keeper stood, brushing the dirt off her dress before offering a hand to Dwayne. She was lithe, but far stronger than she looked.

“Go rest.”

“Do I have the job?” he asked, his voice hardly carrying. He didn’t want her to say no. Not now. But he had to ask.

“Come back tomorrow evening.” She tapped the edge of the lantern and what was left of the late afternoon sun reclaimed the room.