The Last Gaslight

My family has owned the old lighthouse keeper’s cottage on the Maine coast since my great-grandfather bought it in 1911, just four years after it was built. The original lighthouse, decommissioned in the 1950s, still stands nearby, its lamp long extinguished, but the cottage remains, a stubborn relic among the modern summer homes that have cropped up along the shore. Most of those newer places are empty now, their owners having fled inland years ago, but our cottage endures, held together by salt, tar, and stubbornness.

Last July, I went there with my cousins to help clear out the attic before the roof gave way. I’d slept in the cottage many times, but this year, because my cousin Daniel had just married and needed the room I usually took, I was assigned the old servant’s quarters at the back of the house. The room was small, with a single window that looked out onto the rocky beach. The first night, I felt a strange unease, a heaviness in the air, and the sensation of being watched. I chalked it up to the unfamiliar surroundings and the creaking of the old house, but the feeling lingered.

The second night, I woke abruptly at 2:30 AM. The room was pitch black, save for the faint glow of the moon through the window. I heard a sound, a soft, high-pitched giggle, like a child’s laughter. My heart hammered. I thought it might be my youngest cousin, Lily, who was eight and often sleepwalked. I slipped out of bed and padded to the room where my aunt had set up a cot for her, but she was fast asleep, her breathing steady. The giggle came again, from somewhere behind me, back in my room. I returned, and as I stepped through the doorway, I saw a flicker of light, like a gas flame, dance across the far wall. Then it vanished.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. At breakfast, I asked if anyone else had heard anything. My cousin Leo shrugged, saying the house was old and made noises. But my grandmother, who was visiting, looked at me sharply and said, ‘You slept in the servant’s room, didn’t you? That was the nursery once, but no child ever played there happily.’ She told me that a little girl, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, had died in that room in 1915, a victim of the Spanish flu. Her name was Edith, and she was known for her infectious giggle, which the keeper swore he heard echoing in the tower long after her death.

That night, I couldn’t shake the story from my mind. I lay in the narrow bed, listening to the waves crash against the rocks. At 2:30 again, I heard the giggle, closer this time, as if it were right beside my ear. I bolted upright, my skin prickling. The room was dark, but I could see a faint, phosphorescent glow forming near the window, coalescing into the vague shape of a small girl. She was transparent, her hair in braids, and she was smiling. She pointed at the wall, and I saw a tiny door I’d never noticed before, half-hidden behind a heavy dresser.

I approached, my legs trembling. The door opened onto a narrow, dusty staircase that spiraled down into darkness. The girl’s shape glided ahead of me, and I followed, my bare feet cold on the worn stone steps. The staircase ended at a heavy iron door, rusted shut. The girl pointed to it, then faded. I pushed with all my strength, and the door creaked open onto a hidden chamber beneath the house, a room that wasn’t on any of the blueprints. It was filled with old trunks and crates, but in the center, there was a small, child-sized rocking chair. And on the seat, a faded photograph of a little girl, the same girl I’d seen. On the back, in shaky handwriting, were the words, ‘Edith, 1915. She waits.’

I heard the giggle again, but this time it came from behind me. I spun around, and there she was, solid as a living child, her eyes black and hungry. ‘You found me,’ she said, her voice like the wind through dry bones. ‘Now you can play with me forever.’ I tried to scream, but my throat was frozen. The room grew cold, and the gaslight in the corner flickered, casting strange shadows. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was her hand reaching for mine.

I woke up on the beach at dawn, my clothes soaked, as if I’d been dragged through the surf. The tide had come in, and the hidden door was now buried under sand and rock. I never stayed in that cottage again, but sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear a faint giggle, and I know that Edith is still waiting, and that her playroom is never truly sealed.