That’s when I knew. That’s when I knew she’d had the key all along—had it since before I’d even discovered the antechamber; since she’d found it on the hook next to the lighthouse door—and that she must have planted it on the keeper only recently, possibly even the previous night.
And then I was turning the knob and the door was opening—just swinging in as easy as could be—and my shadow had fallen across her bed which was piled with blankets and clothes; after which, sweating and trembling, I looked at the lighthouse door—and saw that it was lazed open.
And began to move toward it.
––––––––
I saw it even before I saw her—a spearpoint-shaped thing, an impossible thing, a thing blacker than black yet giving off light—which levitated straight as an arrow at the center of the Fresnel and s
