The Occasional Tune

When I was seven, my grandmother used to tell me stories about the old lighthouse on the cliff. She said it was haunted by a keeper who had gone mad, counting the waves in a storm until he couldn’t tell the difference between the sea and his own blood. I never believed her, but I loved the way her voice would crack at the high parts, as if the ghost itself was trying to speak through her. Now I’m twenty-six, and I’ve moved into that lighthouse. The official story is that it’s a quaint bed-and-breakfast, but I know better. I’ve never seen a ghost, never heard a moan in the night, but I’ve always wanted to, the way some people want to see a shooting star.

My partner, Lena, thinks I’m a little off. She says that a lighthouse is just a building, and the only ghosts are the ones we create in our minds. We’ve been here for six months, and the only strange occurrence was the old radio in the basement that sometimes turned on by itself, playing a scratchy big band tune from the forties. Lena said it was a wiring issue, but I found the radio unplugged one evening, and it still played, the melody drifting through the walls like a memory. That was the first time I felt a prickle on my neck, not of fear, but of excitement.

A week later, I was in the tower, polishing the lens that no longer worked, when I heard the tune again, fainter, coming from below. I followed it down the spiral stairs, my footsteps echoing against the stone. The radio was in the basement, sitting on a table next to a pile of old logbooks. The music seemed to be coming from inside the walls, not from the speaker. I knelt down, pressing my ear to the cold plaster, and I could hear someone humming along, a man’s voice, off-key but cheerful. I called out, ‘Hello?’ The humming stopped, and the music faded. Then I heard a sound that made my blood run cold: the sound of a door creaking open behind me. I spun around, but the basement door was closed. I started to shake, but not with terror—with a strange, giddy thrill. This was it. This was the moment I’d been waiting for.

Lena came home that night to find me sitting in the kitchen, a smile plastered on my face. ‘I heard something today,’ I told her. ‘I think there’s a ghost here.’ She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Or maybe you’re just lonely. You’ve been talking to seagulls.’ I didn’t argue. I knew what I’d heard. But I also knew that she didn’t believe me, and that was fine. I’d prove it to her.

The next day, I decided to explore the basement more thoroughly. I found a small passage hidden behind a rotting shelf, barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through. It led to a tiny room, filled with boxes of old records and a gramophone with a cracked horn. On top of the gramophone was a photograph of a man in a Coast Guard uniform, his face partially obscured by the glare of the camera. He was smiling, and there was something in his eyes—a wildness, a hunger for the sea. I picked up the gramophone and noticed a loose floorboard beneath it. I pried it open and found a leather journal, its pages yellowed and brittle.

I sat down on the dusty floor and read. The journal belonged to a keeper named Elias, who had served here in the 1940s. He wrote about the isolation, the storms, the constant ticking of the clock in the tower. And then, on a page dated October 31, 1944, he wrote: ‘I heard a song tonight, coming from the waves. It was the same tune my wife used to hum, before she passed. I went outside, and the sea was calm, but the music grew louder. I walked to the edge of the rocks, and I saw a light beneath the water, like a lantern swaying. I know it is her, calling me. I think I will go to her. This is my last entry.’ The last page was blank, except for a faint pencil sketch of a lighthouse, with the lamp lit, and a tiny figure standing at the base, looking up.

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. I closed the journal and tucked it into my jacket. When I emerged from the basement, the song was playing again, but this time it was coming from the tower above. I climbed the stairs, my heart pounding. At the top, I found the window open, cold wind whipping through the room. The light was off, but I could see a figure standing at the window, silhouetted against the gray sky. It was a man, broad-shouldered, and he was humming that same tune. I took a step forward, and he turned. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollow, and he was dripping wet, as if he had just come from the sea. He looked at me, and I felt a wave of sorrow wash over me, a deep, abyssal loneliness.

‘You found my journal,’ he said, his voice echoing as if from a long distance. I nodded, unable to speak. ‘I’m sorry,’ he continued. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ve been here so long, I forget that the living can see me at times. But you seem different. You aren’t afraid. You’re curious.’ I managed to whisper, ‘Are you the ghost?’ He smiled, a terrible smile, and said, ‘I am what remains of Elias. But I’m not trapped here, not exactly. I’m tethered. To the song, to the lighthouse, to the memory of her. I wait for the day when the lighthouse will be lit again, and I can finally follow the light to her. But no one lights it anymore. So I wait.’ He looked out the window, and for a moment, I saw a light on the horizon, faint and flickering, like a signal. ‘Is that her?’ I asked. He nodded. ‘Every night, she calls. But I cannot reach her. Not without a keeper to guide me.’

I should have been frightened. I should have run and never looked back. But instead, I felt a pull, a desire to help him, to help myself. I wanted to see ghosts, and here was one, desperate and sad. ‘What do you need me to do?’ I said. He turned to me, his eyes glittering like wet stones. ‘Light the lamp,’ he said. ‘Just once, at midnight. The light will show me the way. But be warned: once you light it, the sea will take something from you. It always does.’ I paused. ‘What does it take?’ He didn’t answer. Instead, he faded, and the song stopped. The radio in the basement clicked off on its own.

I told Lena everything, leaving out the warning. She looked at me with a mixture of pity and horror. ‘You can’t seriously be thinking about doing this,’ she said. ‘It’s a legend, a sad story. Don’t let it drag you in.’ But I was already obsessed. The next night, I waited until midnight, then climbed to the tower. The lamp had been renovated, and I found the switch that could illuminate it, even though it was disconnected. I hesitated for only a second, then flipped it. A beam of light shot out into the darkness, slicing the fog. I looked out to sea, and I saw Elias standing on the rocks below, his arms outstretched. He was smiling, and the light illuminated his path. Then, I heard a sound behind me: a low, guttural moan, like the sea itself groaning. I turned, and a wave of darkness washed over me. I felt something cold clutch my heart, and then I blacked out.

I woke up the next morning on the floor of the tower. The lamp was off. Lena was kneeling beside me, shaking me. ‘Are you all right? You’re freezing!’ I looked at my hand, and I saw that my wedding ring was gone. Lena’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh my God, your ring… it’s gone.’ I searched my pockets, the floor, but nothing. Then I remembered Elias’s warning: ‘The sea will take something from you.’ I had given him my wedding ring, the symbol of my love, and in return, he had found his way to his wife. But I had a sinking feeling that the exchange wasn’t complete. The tune started playing again, but this time from everywhere, a haunting melody that seemed to come from the waves, the wind, the stones themselves. And I realized that I had traded my ring for a ghost’s freedom, but the ghost had left something behind: a piece of himself, attached to me. I now heard the song even in my sleep, and I felt a pull towards the water.

Lena doesn’t know the full extent. She thinks I lost my ring in the ocean, and she doesn’t understand why I sometimes stand at the window, staring at the sea, humming that old tune. She doesn’t know that at night, I can see Elias’s silhouette on the rocks, waiting, no longer for his wife, but for me. He didn’t cross over; he just changed. Now he wants company. And the sea is always hungry. I don’t know how long I can resist. The song is getting louder, and my reflection in the glass is starting to look wet.