Skylights

By Rachel Kimberly Hastings

Skyships weren’t made to be durable. Any wind-wise pilot knew their vessel was subject to rot and decay, gravity and age. The trick was flying smart to avoid disaster—from both inside and out.

Much like a skyship himself, Redge Galloway, lighthouse-keeper of the northmost cliffs, creaked in every decaying joint on the cusp of the year’s biggest stormfront.

“Stiff squall’s on the way,” he confided to Legs, the tripod tabby, his sole companion. “This weather is hell on my knees.”

Purring, Legs stretched to bump her head against those aching knees.

Halfway through his forties, Redge had the pains of a much older man. He’d never fully recovered from his injuries, and the constant bad weather only worsened his misery. The only thing that promised to ease the agony haunted him from the medicine cupboard above the washbasin. The flask inside remained untouched for the five years he’d occupied the cliffside lighthouse. But every time a storm hit, his joints would beg for a shot of that emergency whiskey.

He averted his eyes, looking instead out the small porthole in the lighthouse door. A dark wall cloud raced across the choppy seas far below, on a collision course with the massive cliffs. This place was a deathtrap for skyships even on a clear day—the downdrafts here were unpredictable at best, sadistic at worst, and the weather only compounded the danger. He knew this all too well.

Of course a storm was swallowing the night sky. It wouldn’t be right for the stars to shine on the anniversary of the worst day of his life.

“Forgive me, Eliza,” he murmured, as he had so many times over the last five years. “Forgive me, Benji.”

Lightning flared closer, threatening to send his thoughts back to that terrible night. He was too sober for this. He glanced back at the cabinet that contained his forbidden fruit.

May the sky strike you down, his daughter Clara had said the last time he’d seen her. He’d been injured, drunk out of his wits, overcome by guilt and sorrow. She’d yelled a lot of things, but that was all he could remember.

She was right. It was exactly what he deserved.

An alarm bell clamored in the cramped living quarters, scattering all of Redge’s thoughts. A jam in the clockworks! He ran for his raincoat and hat as Legs puffed up and skittered on three paws to hide under the sagging cot.

The machinery powering the light at the top of the tower needed to be monitored at all times, especially on a night like tonight.

Redge pushed open the door and began to climb the ladder, ignoring icy sheets of rain that stung every exposed bit of skin. A powerful gust swept his hat into the storm clouds billowing around him.

He couldn’t see the surface anymore. The storm hung low enough to envelop the mile-high cliffs, much like it had five years ago. But back then, there had been no lighthouse.

This was his penance: to haunt the place of his greatest failure, constantly tempted by the one evil that had taken everything from him—everything but his own life.

Rung after rung, he climbed through the storm. As he pulled himself onto the tower’s balcony, lightning struck the anemometer on the roof, accompanied by a simultaneous thunderclap that nearly burst his eardrums. Redge fell on his face, trembling.

He was half-inclined to lie there and let the sky strike him down, but managed to drag himself to the rusty door and stumble inside the circular room.

The oil lamps were dim, the twelve-foot-high ribbed lens unmoving. Not good. As he shook rainwater off his coat, he glanced outside. Another flash of lightning revealed a dark shape dead ahead.

His heart stopped.

A skyship. A small schooner, careening straight for the massive cliffs.

“No,” he whispered. “Not again.”

Memories assaulted him, freezing his feet to the floorboards.

He hadn’t been prepared for a storm that night. Redge and Eliza had taken their son out for a joyride to celebrate Benji’s twelfth birthday. Their daughter had been away at university. That had saved her life.

But he’d had too much to drink. He’d always had too much to drink back then.

When a storm came out of nowhere, he’d been careless and flown too close to the cliffs. No light, no warning, no “turn back lest ye perish.” The ship was caught in a downdraft and dashed against the rocks—skyships weren’t made to be durable. Only the drunk survived.

May the sky strike you down.

“No,” he murmured.

That skyship needed the warning he never got.

He jumped toward the hyperradiant lens to trim and relight its oil lamps. His shaking hands extinguished the first match. He lit another and willed the tiny flame to jump to the wicks. Time was running out for that storm-tossed vessel…

The flame took. He scrambled to the machine room under the deck.

“Forgive me, Eliza,” he said, though the storm’s raging howls stole away the sound. He grabbed the hand-crank for the clockwork innards of the tower and strained against the jammed gears. They refused to budge. He thought of the crew out there, unaware of the imminent danger, and heaved with everything he had. “Forgive me, Benji.”

With a clunk, the gears broke free.

He choked on a sob and winched up the counterweights that would keep the lens turning, then crawled back up to the observation deck.

The skyship flashed its signal beacons to let him know they’d seen his warning as they turned for safety. He slumped against the railing and wept with the brilliance of the rotating light at his back, warming his soul.

The next morning dawned clear and bright, and lighthouse-keeper Redge Galloway made the climb to the top of the tower to throw the flask of whiskey into the sea.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rachel Kimberly Hastings spent 10 years as a library assistant, and it shows. Unable to resist a good story idea in any format, she works with animation scripts by day and writes novels by night. When not writing, she’s usually out camping or hiking in the woods, imagining she’s on a fantastical quest of her own.

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