The Lighthouse at Summers End

The town of Greyhaven sat quietly by the sea, where the cliffs met the wind and the waves sang to the shore. It was a place where time moved slowly, where fishermen mended their nets by the harbor and the smell of salt hung in the air like a memory.

Mara returned there every August, always at the end of summer, when the sea turned gold under the setting sun. The lighthouse still stood on the edge of the cliffs, tall and silent, its white paint cracked by years of wind. It was where she had met him once, long ago.

His name was Eli.

He had been the keeper of the light, a man with eyes the color of the ocean and hands that smelled of salt and oil. She had come to Greyhaven that summer to escape the city, to find something she had lost inside herself. She never expected to find him.

It began with a storm. The sea raged for three days, tearing boats from their moorings and flooding the lower streets. When it finally ended, she walked to the cliffs and found him repairing the railing outside the lighthouse.

“You should not be out here,” he said. “The wind still bites.”

“I wanted to see the sea after the storm,” she said. “It feels different now.”

He smiled faintly. “Everything feels different after a storm.”

From that day on, she visited often. Sometimes she brought him coffee, sometimes silence. He showed her how the lamp worked, how it turned slowly through the night to guide the lost back home. They would sit by the window, watching the horizon where light met darkness.

“Do you ever get lonely out here?” she asked once.

“Only when the sea is quiet,” he said. “That is when I start to remember.”

“What do you remember?”

“That the light keeps shining, even when no one is looking.”

As weeks passed, the town began to whisper about them, about the woman from the city and the man who kept the light. But Mara did not care. She felt peace for the first time in years, and Eli looked at her as if she were something sacred.

Summer drifted toward its end, and with it came the letter she had been dreading. Her company wanted her back. The city, the job, the life she had left behind were calling again.

On her last night in Greyhaven, she climbed the path to the lighthouse. The sea was calm, the sky painted in soft blue and pink. Eli was waiting at the door.

“You are leaving,” he said. It was not a question.

“I have to,” she whispered. “But I do not want to.”

He stepped closer. “Then do not.”

She looked at him, her heart breaking with the weight of two worlds pulling her apart. “Eli, if I stay, I lose everything I have built. But if I go, I lose everything that matters.”

He said nothing, only took her hand and led her to the lantern room. The glass walls glowed with the last light of day.

“Look out there,” he said. “The sea, the sky, the light. They will all still be here when you come back. So will I.”

She wanted to tell him she loved him, but the words felt too fragile to survive the wind. So instead, she kissed him. It was soft, salt-sweet, and infinite.

The next morning, she was gone.

Years passed. The lighthouse still burned every night, steady and bright. The town changed, the people changed, but the light did not.

Every August, at the end of summer, a woman in a blue coat would arrive in Greyhaven. She would walk up the path to the cliffs, stand by the lighthouse, and look out to sea. Sometimes, when the evening fog rolled in, locals swore they saw two figures standing together by the glass, watching the horizon side by side.

They said the light shone brighter on those nights.