The minutes crawled by like hours as they waited in the lantern room. Archer kept checking his calculations, adjusting for the storm’s strange influence on the tides. Cooper monitored the frequencies, watching impossible patterns form and dissolve on his equipment’s displays. Bett and Jan took turns peering out at the frozen tempest that surrounded the lighthouse—waves suspended in mid-crash, rain hanging motionless in the air.
Ali sat cross-legged before the stained-glass window, the peacock’s eye seeming to watch her with ancient intelligence. Muffin lay beside her, his head on her knee, unusually still.
“It’s time,” Archer finally announced, looking up from his charts. “The tide’s at its peak.”
Jasper unwrapped the Simon-like device, his hands steady despite the enormity of what they were about to attempt. The five disks lay beside it, their blue glow pulsating in perfect unison.
“I need to place them in a specific order,” Jasper said, studying the colored quadrants. “Red first, then yellow, green, and blue—following the tide’s flow around the island. The peacock’s eye goes in the center, but only after the others are in position.”
One by one, he placed the disks into their colored sections. Each clicked into place with a soft sound like a key turning in a well-oiled lock. As the fourth disk settled into the blue quadrant, the device began to hum, a gentle vibration that they felt in their bones rather than heard.
“Now for the center,” Jasper said, lifting the final disk—the one with the peacock’s eye embedded in its surface.
The moment he placed it in the central socket, the device came alive. Lights raced around its perimeter, following the same pattern as the tidal currents in Archer’s charts: red, yellow, green, blue, then repeating with increasing speed.
“It’s waiting,” Jasper whispered, his expression distant, dreamlike. “For the sequence.”
With deliberate precision, he began pressing the colored sections in a pattern that seemed to flow from his fingers without conscious thought. Red, blue, yellow, red, green, blue, yellow, green, red, blue…
The device responded, its lights matching his input, the humming growing stronger with each correct press. As Jasper completed the sequence, all five sections illuminated simultaneously, and the device rose several inches into the air, hovering above the wooden floor.
The stained-glass window responded immediately. The peacock design began to ripple as if made of liquid, colors flowing and merging in impossible patterns. The lighthouse silhouetted in the background glowed with blue fire, and a resonant tone filled the room—the same frequency they’d been hearing across the island, but clearer, purer.
“It’s working,” Cooper breathed, his scientific skepticism momentarily forgotten.
The air in front of the window shimmered, folding inward like fabric being pulled from behind. Through this distortion stepped a tall figure—Jack, Ali’s uncle, appearing fully in their world for the first time.
His resemblance to Ali was unmistakable, though subtle differences marked him as not quite human. His features were too symmetrical, his movements too fluid, and his eyes—the same shade as Ali’s—reflected light in a way that seemed to capture and transform it.
“Alison,” he said, his voice carrying that strange accent they’d heard through the radio. “At last.”
Ali stood, her heart racing. “Uncle Jack.”
He moved toward her with impossible grace, studying her face with what could only be described as wonder. “You look so much like your mother,” he said softly. “More than you know.”
“Where is my father?” Ali asked, the question that had driven her for months finally finding voice.
Jack’s expression grew serious. “Trapped,” he said. “Between our worlds. He attempted to reach Alitous—your mother’s world, your namesake—using incomplete knowledge. The pathway destabilized.”
“Is he—” Ali couldn’t finish the question.
“He lives,” Jack assured her. “But exists in a state of suspension. Neither here nor there. The connection he formed was imperfect, but it allowed enough of a bridge for me to begin searching for you.”
“That’s why you’ve been appearing around the island,” Bett said. “You were testing the pathways.”
Jack nodded. “Each location corresponds to a junction point between our worlds—places where the veil thins naturally. Your lighthouse has always been the strongest connection, maintained by your family for generations.”
“My father never told me,” Ali said, her voice small. “About any of this.”
“He wanted to protect you,” Jack replied. “Until you were ready. Your eighteenth year—that’s when the heritage begins to manifest. Your mother knew this.”
Jan looked between Ali and Jack. “Manifest how?”
Jack’s attention remained on Ali. “Haven’t you noticed changes? Heightened perception? Dreams that seem more real than reality? The ability to sense patterns others cannot?”
Ali thought of her intuitive understanding of the lighthouse, her connection to the disks, the way she’d always known exactly when a storm was brewing, long before the weather service announced it.
“I thought it was just… growing up here,” she said. “Learning the island.”
“It’s more,” Jack said. “You’re more. Half of our world, half of this one. A bridge, like the lighthouse itself.”
He turned to the Simon device, still hovering above the floor, its lights pulsing in steady rhythm. “Your friend’s creation is remarkable,” he said to Jasper. “You’ve been receiving impressions from our world in your dreams. It’s rare for a human to be so receptive.”
“Can you help us find Ali’s dad?” Cooper asked, getting to the heart of the matter.
“That’s why I’m here,” Jack confirmed. “But we must move quickly. The convergence that allowed me to cross over completely will not last long. When the storm breaks, the pathways will shift again.”
“What do we need to do?” Ali asked.
Jack gestured to the device. “This will guide us, but we need to take it to the exact spot where your father attempted his crossing.”
“Where’s that?” Bett asked.
Jack’s expression grew solemn. “The north cave system. Six months ago, your father received a signal—a call from your mother’s world. He told you he had found work off-island…”
“That was a lie?” Ali asked, her voice small.
Jack nodded. “A necessary deception, to protect you until you were ready. He knew attempting to cross between worlds would be dangerous, but the signal from your mother was urgent. He couldn’t ignore it.”
“So, there was never any job,” Ali whispered, pieces falling into place. “But I’ve received messages from him. Updates about his work…”
“Those were from me,” Jack admitted. “Or rather, through me. Your father left instructions on how to maintain the illusion if something went wrong. He knew I would be searching for him if he became trapped.”
Ali gripped the edge of a nearby shelf to steady herself. “All this time, I thought he was just… working. That he had abandoned the lighthouse—abandoned me—for some job.”
“He would never abandon you,” Jack said gently. “He went to find your mother, to reconnect what had been severed when she returned to Alitous. He believed he had decoded enough of the ancient pathways to make the journey safely.” Jack shook his head. “He was close, but without all five keys, without this device your friend created…”
“He’s been trapped between worlds for six months,” Cooper said, his scientific mind trying to process the implications.
“In a state of suspension,” Jack clarified. “For him, very little time has passed. But the longer he remains there, the harder it will be to bring him back.”
“But the cave’s flooded,” Jan reminded them. “We barely escaped it earlier.”
“The storm has frozen time outside this lighthouse,” Jack explained. “Including the water levels. But this suspension won’t last much longer.” He looked at the window, where the peacock design continued to ripple with inner light. “We have perhaps an hour before the convergence ends.”
Ali took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the truth settling on her shoulders. Her father hadn’t abandoned her for a job—he’d risked everything to reunite their family. And now it was her turn to bring him home.
She looked at her friends, these five people who had stood by her through every step of this impossible journey. Then at Muffin, who gazed up at her with complete trust.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Show us how to find my father.”
Jack smiled, a strange, beautiful expression that transformed his not-quite-human features. “You truly are your mother’s daughter,” he said. “And beyond that—you are Alitousian. A keeper of pathways, a guardian of light.”
He gestured toward the stained-glass window, which had begun to change again—the peacock’s feathers spreading, shifting, creating what appeared to be a doorway of pure light.
“This way,” Jack said, moving toward the glowing portal. “The Simon device is the key that will stabilize his suspension long enough for us to pull him back.”
As they gathered their things, preparing to follow Jack through the portal, Ali caught sight of her reflection in a fragment of the broken lighthouse lens. For an instant, her eyes seemed to reflect light differently—the same subtle otherworldliness she’d noticed in her uncle.
The truth of her heritage was finally revealing itself, along with the true purpose of the lighthouse that had been her home all these years. It wasn’t just a beacon for ships lost in worldly storms, but a bridge between worlds, guiding travelers across a very different kind of ocean.
“Dad,” she whispered, facing the portal. “I’m coming.
“Shadows of the Keeper” is written by Julie D’Aloiso in collaboration with Anthropic’s Claude AI. Each chapter is crafted through creative partnership, combining human storytelling with AI assistance.
© 2025 Julie D’Aloiso All rights reserved.
