The Last Light at Bracken Pier

How it begins

The pier lights went out just as Nora stepped off the ferry. She stood with one boot on the gangway and the other over black water, holding a toolbox that had cost more than her first car.

"Don't move," a man said.

She knew the voice. That was irritating. Twelve years should have been enough time to forget the precise way Daniel Reed made an instruction sound like a favor.

"I was planning to swim," she said.

A torch found the gangway. Daniel held it steady while she put her foot down. He wore an orange waterproof with a patch on the elbow and had acquired a line between his eyebrows that she refused to find interesting.

"Your case is still aboard."

"That's my case."

He looked at the toolbox. "Right."

Behind him, the ferry engine knocked twice and settled. An elderly passenger emerged carrying a supermarket bag full of daffodils. Daniel offered his arm, waited until she was safely ashore, then took her bag without being asked. Nora watched him carry it to the shelter. She hadn't expected the daffodils. It was November.

"Plastic," he said when he returned. "For the church. She brings them back every week to wash the salt off."

Nora found the distribution box by touch. Someone had painted over the lock. She scraped it with a screwdriver while Daniel held the torch above her shoulder.

"Council said you'd be here tomorrow."

"Council said the lights worked."

The lock gave. Inside, a nest of swollen cables leaned against a sheet of rust. Nora stopped reaching for her meter.

"When did this last get inspected?"

Daniel didn't answer. Across the water, the island showed three windows and the red dot of the radio mast. Her mother used to leave the kitchen light on for this crossing. Nora had forgotten how far away a lit window could look.

She shut the box gently.

"Daniel. When?"

He lowered the torch. "I need six more nights."

It wasn't the answer she'd asked for. It was, unfortunately, the sort he had always trusted her to understand.