Chapter 3: The Rules Agnes Left Behind
The journal was hidden inside the base of the lens cradle, behind a brass panel held shut by four screws. Mara found it only because one of the screws had worked loose, and she had spent the morning searching the lantern room on her hands and knees for anything that might explain what she had seen.
The first page was a list, numbered and underlined.
One. The light guides the lost, not the living. Two. Write down every name you hear, so they are not forgotten. Three. Never answer. A voice that hears its name called back will try to come ashore, and the sea will take someone in trade.
Mara read the third rule several times. Then she turned the page and found the story behind it, written in a younger, shakier version of Agnes's handwriting. In 1974, Agnes had answered. She had heard her brother calling from the water and had shouted his name before she could stop herself. The next morning, her brother was sitting on the beach, cold and confused but alive. That same morning, a fisherman named Leonard Hale went out on calm water and never came back.
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