THE KEEPER'S SHADOW

Everyone says my older brother died, but I can still see him signaling some nights from the lighthouse.

I ask my mother about it, pointing out the window at the lighthouse that rises like a sentinel at the edge of the sea. Its light sweeps across the dark waves, steady as ever.

“It’s not him,” she warns, her voice brittle, a little like a promise, a little like a prayer.

Her hands tremble as she speaks, knitting themselves together as if she’s warding off the idea that it might really be him after all. She stares past me, out the window.

But I know better. I’ve been watching the lighthouse for weeks now, slipping out to the cliffs at night while the others sleep. It began as a desperate attempt to feel closer to James, my brother, lost to the sea in a storm so violent, we never even found his body. It seemed unreal to me, burying an empty casket, pretending he was gone, while the sea still roared and the lighthouse still spun its light. I needed to be near it. Near him.

The first time I saw him, it was a cold, windy night. The sea was restless, pounding the rocks below like it was angry too. I looked up at the lighthouse, expecting to see the beam sweeping its usual path. But there, in the window just below the light, I saw him. James.

He stood at the glass, pale and distant, his hand raised in that familiar wave we used to share, as if nothing had changed. As if he hadn’t drowned, hadn’t disappeared into the maw of the storm.

I froze, the breath knocked out of me, my heart thundering in my chest. This wasn’t possible. He was dead—months dead—and yet, there he was, as real as the salt on the wind, signaling to me like he always had when I would watch him from the shore.

I ran home that night, breathless, unsure if I had seen a ghost or simply my own grief taking shape in the dark. But it wasn’t just once. The next night, and the night after that, he was there again. Always the same: waving, signaling, but never leaving the tower.

I tried telling my mother, but she refused to hear it. “It’s not him,” she repeated, clutching her rosary like it was the only thing keeping her sane. “The lighthouse misses him, that’s all.”

I didn’t understand what she meant, not at first. Then I started to notice it: the way the light seemed to pulse in time with the sea, as if it was alive, reaching for something long gone. It’s true, the lighthouse had always been more than just a structure. It was James’ second home, a place where he spent more hours than anywhere else. The way he used to talk about it, you’d think it had a soul. He loved it, in his quiet, steadfast way, the same way he loved the sea. And maybe, in its own strange way, the lighthouse had loved him back.

But love isn’t always enough to bring someone back from the dead.

One night, I stayed out longer than usual, watching the light sway and bend with the wind. And when he appeared at the window, I saw something different, something that made my stomach twist. His face was there, but it wasn’t right. The outline of him seemed blurred, like the edges of a shadow stretching too far from the light. He waved again, the motion stiff, mechanical, as if something was forcing him to do it.

I took a step closer, my heart pounding. “James?” I whispered into the wind. But there was no answer, only the low moan of the foghorn in the distance.

That’s when I realized. He wasn’t there. Not really.

The lighthouse, in its loneliness, had tried to recreate him. Like a pet lingers by the grave of its owner, it had held onto the memory of its keeper. The tower missed his hands, his face, his voice, and in its endless longing, it had formed this, this shadow of him. It wasn’t a ghost, not exactly. It was something less, and something more. The lighthouse had poured everything it had into bringing him back, but in the end, all it could produce was this. An echo, a reflection cast by the light it housed.

I backed away, my breath coming in short gasps. The waves crashed below, the wind howled through the rocks, and the light kept sweeping across the sea, steady and relentless.

He waved once more, the motion slower now, as if he knew I was starting to understand. He couldn’t leave. He would never leave.

And I couldn’t bring myself to wave back.

Some nights, I still go to the cliffs, but I don’t stay long. The others—those in the village—they whisper about the lighthouse, about the strange flickering light they sometimes see. To them, it’s a ghost story, something to be feared or laughed about, depending on the teller. They say it’s cursed now, ever since James died, that the light is haunted by the soul of a keeper lost at sea.

But I know better.

It’s not a haunting, not really. The lighthouse just misses him, that’s all. It loved him, in the way that only a thing made of stone and light could. But even the greatest effort can only create a shadow.

And sometimes, late at night, I wonder if that’s all any of us are, shadows of the people we’ve lost, shaped by memories, flickering in the light, waiting for something that will never return.

The waves still crash, the wind still howls, and the light still sweeps across the sea. And on some nights, if you look closely enough, you can see him, standing at the window, waving to someone who will never come.