The fog never truly departed Basalt Point; it merely shifted its weight from the brine-slick rocks below to the iron railings of the gallery deck. For thirty-two years, Captain Jonathan Morrow had wound the clockwork weights that spun the four-ton Fresnel lens.
Every evening at five minutes before sunset, he struck a phosphor match against his boot, touched it to the pressurized kerosene mantle, and listened to the familiar combustion thump that meant another night had begun. Below him, three hundred miles of black ocean breathed against the cliff.
On the night of the winter solstice, however, the barometer fell with a suddenness that made the needle groan against its brass spindle. Morrow paused on the spiral staircase, oil can in hand, feeling a strange vibration in the iron risers—not the deep thud of breakers, but a rhythmic, high-frequency hum that set his tea mug dancing.