Night Without Lantern Oil

Tobin had the old lantern cellar open and was kneeling beside the stacked oil casks when the last scoop came up dry.

He frowned and tipped the ladle again. Nothing but a black shine on the bottom of the barrel. Around him, the stone steps of the cellar breathed cold salt air. Above, through the open hatch, he could hear the harbor waking for the longest night: mooring ropes creaking, gulls calling from the cliffs, and waves tapping harder at the pier legs as the tide climbed.

“Try the next one,” said Mira, from the stair, her yellow raincoat bright even in the dim. She was holding her boots close together so she would not slip on the wet stone.

Tobin pulled open another cask. Empty. He opened a third. Empty again.

Pip hopped right onto the rim of the nearest barrel and gave a sharp little peep. “There should be oil here. There always is.”

“There was,” Tobin said, very quietly.

That was the trouble. The harbor’s usual light was meant to come from these casks, and the casks were bare. Without that oil, the warm lanterns along the shoreline path could not be filled in time for the last ferry.

Tobin looked up through the hatch toward the darkening water. He could already picture the ferry’s small light out beyond the harbor mouth, waiting for the path to guide it home. The cellar had no answer for him now. He could keep checking the empty casks, or he could leave them and find another way before the night got any darker.