Toma was halfway up the snowy path to the point when he saw the smallest lighthouse begin to blink.
It was the little lighthouse with the short round tower and the brass lamp room that usually sent out one steady beam, slow and sure, over Driftwhistle Harbor. Toma knew that light as well as he knew the creak of his own boots. He had checked its shutters every winter since he was young enough to need help tying his scarf.
But tonight the beam did not stay steady.
It flashed once, then twice, then paused as if listening. A thin fog was already sliding in from the bay, soft as wool, and when it touched the cliff, the lighthouse flashed back at it. The fog gave no answer anyone could hear, only wrapped itself tighter around the point.
Toma stopped beside the rope rail. His brass key ring tapped against his coat. Below him, Soren had also stopped, one hand lifted to shade his eyes.
“That’s not right,” Soren said at once. He leaned forward, narrow and sure, as if he could pin the trouble down by staring hard enough. “A lighthouse should not do that.”
Mira, who had dashed ahead in her red hooded coat, spun back in the lane with snow on her boots. “It looks like a message,” she said. “Or a game.”
Toma looked from one face to the other, then back to the blinking light. If the lighthouse was speaking, he needed to know why before the fog reached the cottages. But the flashes were broken up now, hidden and shown again, and Soren was already braced for something bad.
Toma could go closer to the point, where the light was easiest to watch. Or he could stay with Soren and try to make sense of the pattern from the path. Or he could send Mira down toward the harbor lanes to see whether anyone else had noticed the signal.
What happens next?
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