Little Skate Point

Little Skate Point

Had there been no lighthouse perched on the craggy cliffs of Little Skate Point, many baymen would have been dashed against the rocks below those perilous bluffs long ago, their day's catch reclaimed by an uncaring sea as their lungs filled with salt water, sinking them to the ocean's floor.

Had there been no blazing beacon atop that tower, a structure that had weathered the elements for more than a century, the trolling ships that sailed from Oyster Bay would have had no warning of the ruthless rocks lying in wait, hidden beneath the waves.

Had there been a need for such a saviour, a guardian angel observing the unquiet ocean, these things would have mattered, but the days when lighthouse keeper Millie McIntyre had felt useful were buried in the distant memories of her childhood.

Downeasters driven by hardworking men, weighed down with great hauls of stripers and sea-robins, had not sailed the waters surrounding Little Skate Point since her uncle's time as caretaker. It was long past the days when she and her uncle had watched the great ships drift by from the dizzying heights of the observation deck.

Those days had been filled with purpose and pride, learning to service the light while her uncle looked out over the ocean with gentle eyes and, in his low, rumbling voice, sang shanties that he had learned as a boy from his grandfather. The nights were no different, full of hard work and hope, lighting the fire of Little Skate Point to ensure that the men who worked the sea made it home to their families at the end of a long day on the water.

But with her uncle, the last male of the McIntyre line, that hope had died many years ago.

And so Millie was alone.

One night as Millie dozed restlessly in her comfortless keeper's cabin, and a great storm was beginning to whip itself into shape on the water, a strange, unearthly noise drifted into her dreams.

Pulling her knitted cap tight over her flyaway hair, Millie threw open the door to her hut, the old hinges squealing in protest as a powerful gust shook the ramshackle structure. The fog was beginning to roll in like an avalanche from the sea, and the surrounding inlet had disappeared beneath its oppressive, grey weight. The air in Millie's lungs felt as though it was sitting in the bottom of her stomach, weighing her down like she had swallowed stones as every unsteady step brought her closer to her beloved lighthouse.

The steps, long ago cut into the rock by her ancestors, were slick with rain and ran upwards to the base of the stained and eroded tower. As she mounted them, lightning flashed from within the distant fog, and another eerie, scraping moan rose above the roaring of the violent waves.

Millie clutched her raincoat close to her body as the winds of the brewing tempest threatened to toss her over the cliffs into the sea below, and the salty sting of the wild waters lashed any exposed skin like the bittersweet kiss of a whip.

As she arrived at the base of the structure that her family had watched over for generations, it was then that the fog parted, almost biblically, to reveal a horrible sight. While the rough ground shifted underfoot with laboured groans and the grinding of bedrock, the tower, its beacon still burning even in the face of its demise, was beginning to lean precariously away from the bluff.

"No!" Millie shrieked, but there was nothing she could do.

The entire cliff was crumbling into the ocean, cracks in the foundation stretching and widening, bricks and boards coming loose from the tower and plunging to the waters below. The fiery eye of the lighthouse, shining brighter than she could ever remember, swung around the bluffs one final time, staring deep into her soul, before toppling into the ocean with a terrible splash.

A peal of thunder tolled above her head, and the lighthouse keeper let out an anguished scream that was snatched away by the powerful gale. She sank to the ground as the storm pounded at the remains of Little Skate Point, willing it to blow her away as well.

The old light, her only friend throughout her long, lonely years, was gone.

In the midst of the storm, Millie McIntyre put her head in her hands and wept.