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Welcome back to our weekly continuing story! In Chapter 1, we met Ali Blacksmith, the young keeper of a mysterious New England lighthouse. And then in Chapter 2, Ali investigated a mysterious figure near the treehouse and then discovered something unusual. Chapter 3 sees the gang gather for their traditional Friday Pizza Night at Ms. Greco’s house where Ali and Jan share their strange shadow sightings.
The story continues here.
The library’s back room smelled of aged paper and secrets. Ms. Greco flipped a hidden switch behind a row of encyclopedias, revealing a panel of brass knobs that hadn’t been touched in years. The disk in Ali’s hand pulsed brighter as they followed the librarian through narrow aisles of reference materials that none of them had ever been allowed to access before.
“Whoa,” whispered Cooper, as his equipment beeped frantically in his pocket. “The frequency just tripled.”
“I always wondered what was behind that ‘Staff Only’ door,” Brett said, eyeing the heavy oak door at the end of the reference section.
Ms. Greco’s hands trembled slightly as she sorted through an impossibly large ring of keys. The door opened with a reluctant groan, revealing a circular room Ali had never imagined existed within the small island library.
“How is this even possible?” Jan asked, her voice hushed. “The library isn’t big enough to contain this room.”
Archer’s scientific mind was already calculating the architectural impossibility. “It’s like the room exists in a different spatial dimension than the rest of the building.”
Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, but these weren’t ordinary library books. Leather-bound volumes with strange symbols embossed on their spines stood alongside scrolls in glass cases and tablets inscribed with writings that seemed to shift when viewed directly.
In the center of the room stood a pedestal of polished stone, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight from a circular skylight none of them had ever noticed from outside. The disk in Ali’s hand now thrummed with energy, the blue glow intensifying as she approached the pedestal.
“For generations,” Ms. Greco said, her voice steadier now as she moved into the familiar role of librarian and historian, “the women in my family have served as keepers of knowledge. Not just regular knowledge – the kind that gets written down in ordinary books – but the knowledge that exists between worlds.”
“Between worlds?” Jasper echoed, suddenly alert in a way Ali hadn’t seen since his dreams began. Ms. Greco nodded, moving to a glass-fronted cabinet behind the pedestal. “Your father knew, Ali. Not everything, but enough. The Blacksmiths have always been guardians of the light, just as my family has been guardians of the knowledge.”
She removed a large, ancient-looking book from the cabinet, its binding worn and pages visibly torn in places. The cover featured an intricate design that Ali immediately recognized – it matched the peacock in Ms. Greco’s kitchen clock.
“That disk you found is a key,” Ms. Greco continued, placing the book on the pedestal. “One of several scattered around the island. Your father… he was looking for them before he left.”
The hum that had plagued them all day seemed to emanate directly from the book now. As Ms. Greco opened it, the pages appeared to glow with the same faint blue light as the disk.
“I don’t understand,” Ali said, her voice small in the vastness of the impossible room. “What does this have to do with the shadow person Jan and I saw? Or with my dad’s disappearance?”
Ms. Greco’s expression softened. “Everything, my dear. Everything.” She gestured toward the book. “Come see.”
The group gathered around the pedestal, their faces illuminated by the book’s strange glow. The pages were covered in symbols and diagrams, some recognizable as constellations or mathematical equations, others completely foreign.
“These markings,” Archer said suddenly, pointing to a series of wave-like patterns along the margin of one page. “They’re identical to the tidal anomalies I’ve been tracking near the north cave.” He looked up, excitement breaking through his usual reserved demeanor. “I thought it was just unusual current patterns, but these are clearly intentional markers of some kind.”
“The lighthouse was never just for ships,” Ms. Greco said quietly. Ali’s breath caught. Her father’s words echoed in her memory: A keeper’s duty isn’t just to the light. It’s to all the secrets it protects.
“It’s a beacon,” Ali whispered, the truth dawning on her. “But not just for sailors. It’s been guiding… something else. Or someone.”
Ms. Greco nodded. “For centuries, your family has maintained not just a light for this world, but a pathway between worlds. The stained glass window in the lighthouse – the peacock design – it’s more than decoration. When light passes through it at the right angle, with the right frequency…”
“It becomes a door,” Cooper finished, his engineer’s mind rapidly connecting the pieces. “That’s what my readings have been picking up. Energy fluctuations that don’t make sense in normal physics.”
Ms. Greco turned several pages in the book, revealing a map of the island with five locations marked: the lighthouse, the treehouse, the theater, the north cave, and a location in the woods that none of them recognized.
“Five points,” Brett said. “Like a pentagram.” “A transportation system,” Cooper corrected. “Those are the same five locations where my equipment’s been picking up the strongest frequencies.”
Jasper had gone pale. “I’ve been dreaming about these places. Standing at each point, watching shadows move between them.”
“Your dreams, Archer’s tidal observations, Cooper’s frequencies, Brett’s theater symbols, Jan’s animals acting strange – none of it is coincidence,” Ms. Greco said. “You’ve all been sensing what’s happening, each in your own way.”
She turned to Ali. “But you, my dear, are the lynchpin. Just like your father. And your mother before him.”
Ali felt her world tilt sideways. “My mother? But she died when I was a baby. Dad never talks about her.”
A sad smile crossed Ms. Greco’s face. “Your mother didn’t die, Ali. She… went home.” Before Ali could process this bombshell, the disk in her hand suddenly flared bright blue, and the book’s pages began turning on their own, as if caught in an unfelt wind. They stopped on a page showing the lighthouse with the stained glass window in perfect detail – the blue and green peacock that Ali had seen every day of her life.
Beneath it was a message in flowing script:
When shadows walk between worlds, the keeper’s child shall find the key. Blood calls to blood across the stars. The beacon must be lit.
The disk grew hot in Ali’s palm, and she instinctively pressed it against the page. It melded into the paper as if it belonged there, completing a circuit. The room hummed with energy, and the skylight above them briefly showed not the night sky of their world, but another configuration of stars entirely.
Then, as quickly as it began, the phenomenon ended. The disk remained embedded in the page, now looking as though it had always been part of the book’s illustration.
“What just happened?” Jan asked, her voice shaking.
Ms. Greco closed the book carefully. “A message has been sent. And I’m afraid we don’t have much time.”
“A message to whom?” Ali demanded.
“To your uncle,” Ms. Greco said simply. “Your mother’s brother. He’s been trying to reach you, Ali. Those shadows you and Jan saw? That was him, testing the pathways, looking for a way through.”
“My uncle?” Ali repeated, her mind struggling to keep up. “But I don’t have an uncle. Dad never mentioned—”
“Your father’s been gone for six months,” Ms. Greco interrupted gently. “And now I think I know why. He received a similar signal – a call for help. From your mother’s world.”
“Are you saying my mother was… what? Not from Earth?” The words sounded ridiculous to Ali’s ears, yet somehow felt true in her bones.
Ms. Greco nodded. “And now, something’s happened. Something that has your uncle risking exposure to find you. The shadow figure, the humming, the disk – it’s all connected.”
“My dad’s in trouble,” Ali said, sudden certainty filling her. “That’s why the uncle I never knew is looking for me.”
“And why the animals have been acting so strangely,” Jan added. “They can sense him moving between the pathways.”
“The lighthouse isn’t just a building,” Ali said, pieces falling into place. “It’s a door. And I need to open it.”
Ms. Greco nodded. “But first, you need to find the remaining keys. The book shows five, and you’ve found one. The others will be hidden at each of the five points on the map.”
“And we need to hurry,” Cooper said, checking the readings on his phone. “These energy patterns are growing stronger and more erratic. Whatever’s coming through those pathways, it’s getting closer.”
“Or something’s pushing it through,” Archer said grimly. “These tidal patterns I’ve been tracking – they’re not natural movements. It’s like something massive is displacing energy across dimensions.”
Ali thought of her father – wherever he was – and of an uncle she never knew existed, trying desperately to reach her. And perhaps most shocking of all, a mother who wasn’t dead but somewhere among different stars.
“Tomorrow morning,” she said, her voice steady despite the storm of emotions inside her. “We split up. Each of us searches one of the locations on the map.”
Ms. Greco placed a hand on Ali’s shoulder. “The lighthouse has always been your family’s responsibility. Your father protected it until he couldn’t anymore. Now it falls to you.”
Ali nodded, her gaze drawn to the book where the disk now rested.
“Whatever’s coming,” she said quietly, “I’m ready.”
But as they left the impossible room, Ali couldn’t shake the feeling that nothing – not her lighthouse training, not her island life, not even the strange new truths she’d learned tonight – had truly prepared her for what lay ahead.
In the night sky above the island, unseen by anyone, a single star pulsed with the same blue light as the disk, a beacon watching and waiting across unimaginable distances.
“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.
