Reading

The Keeper of Small Lights

You reach the harbour just as the water turns the colour of weak tea. Along the pier stand eleven small lanterns on eleven short posts, and every one of them is dark.

Mira the lamplighter is already there, sleeves rolled, a brass oilcan hooked over one thumb. She has lit these lights every evening for forty-one years, and tonight she has help for the first time.

“Eleven lamps, one hour, and the tide coming in polite for once,” she says. “Pick where we start and I’ll follow you.”