The Potential of a Day

Chapter 21: A Beacon in the Dark

A Beacon in the Dark

          Despite the hour, when we get to the old, blue and white lighthouse, there are still tourists about; which is odd, since there aren’t ever all that many of those around here. One car stands parked by the lighthouse, the trunk open; I see it filled with camera equipment. Oh. I’ve certainly seen that before, amateur photographers come to get some sort of photo off the point, or of the lighthouse; can’t say I see the attraction. Truly, I’m not sure what interests them so much about; it isn’t even working at the moment. It takes me a while to realize what an issue that is; without the lighthouse functioning as it ought to, ships off the coast might not realize how close they’ve gotten. It’s kind of pathetic really, that I don’t notice, I mean, the light is a lighthouse’s whole purpose, isn’t it? But it’s one of those things that you never really notice, until it’s gone; just a light, sweeping the horizon every night, a noble saviour that no one will ever thank.

          “That’s not supposed to happen,” Leo mutters, spinning the car to stop, rather disconcertingly close to the edge of the point.

          And without saying anything else, Leo throws open his door, and launches himself out of the car. I’m undoing my seatbelt frantically, with a plan to follow him, when Kurt reaches forward, touching my shoulder and says, “don’t; you won’t catch up with him. He’ll come back soon, don’t worry.”

          “What was with that? He just took off,” Abby demands, craning in her seat, looking out into the dark as if she could perhaps still see him.

          “He used to hang out here a lot; he’s kind of got like an emotional attachment to it I guess, I don’t know. I think he probably thinks he knows how to get it working,” Kurt scoffs.

          “Why the heck would he hang out in some creepy old lighthouse?”

          “I don’t know,” Kurt shrugs, and then, quietly, mutters something under his voice, something that sounds somewhat like, “a beacon in the dark.”

          “What?” Abby questions.

          “Nothing, just what Leo always used to call this old place,” Kurt shrugs. Apparently he sees something, something I don’t catch; then he’s undoing his seatbelt. “Where are you going?” Abby calls after him.

          “Leo wants us to come in for something; I don’t know.”

          Once my two companions have moved themselves out, I force myself clamouring out of the vehicle. I squint my eyes towards the lighthouse, trying to find what it is that Kurt saw to tip him off. To my dismay, I find nothing. Briefly I wonder whether the boys have some sort of psychic connection, or perhaps Kurt simply knows him so well that he is able to…

          Suddenly Kurt is wagging a portable phone in my face. “I have this amazing connection with Leo called a cellphone.”

          “Oh,” my voice is an odd mix of disappointed and bashfulness.

          “Come on,” Kurt sighs, and the three of us start towards the old lighthouse. Truth is, I’m not entirely certain as to what it is Leo has a planned for us to do in the lighthouse. The door to the place is heavy, and emits an echoing boom as it falls closed behind my friends and me. Once again, Kurt pulls the cellphone out of his back pocket, “all the way upstairs, apparently.”

          “What exactly is it that your cousin wants us up there for anyway?”

          “He wants us to fix the spotlight,” Kurt sighs. According to the exasperated tone in his words, I expect Leo’s run off to fix lighthouse spotlights before. “Uh, sounds…interesting. And how exactly do we go about getting upstairs to do this, uh…light fixing?”