Welcome back to our weekly continuing story! In case you missed the other chapters… You can find them here.
The story continues here.
The lighthouse basement trembled as thunder crashed overhead. Ali, her friends, and Muffin had barely escaped the rising water in the tunnel connecting to the underground chamber. Now they huddled in the relative safety of the old stone foundation, catching their breath as the storm intensified above.
“Whatever’s happening out there, it’s getting worse,” Cooper said, checking his equipment. The screens flickered with readings that made no scientific sense, frequencies overlapping in impossible patterns.
Muffin shook his wet golden coat, ears perked toward a section of the basement wall. The dog’s eyes reflected an unusual awareness as he padded over to what appeared to be solid stone and began pawing at it purposefully.
“What is it, boy?” Ali joined her dog, running her hands over the rough stones. She noticed faint markings etched into the wall—swirling patterns similar to those they’d found in the cave. The four disks in her backpack pulsed in response, their blue glow intensifying.
“These are the same symbols from the north cave,” Archer said, tracing the patterns with his finger. “They match the tidal charts I’ve been studying.”
Ali pressed her hand against the center of the pattern. The stone felt warm, almost alive beneath her touch. Suddenly, the wall trembled, and a section slid away to reveal a narrow passageway.
“How did your dad keep this secret from you all these years?” Brett whispered as they peered into the darkness.
“He always said some lighthouse secrets weren’t mine to know yet,” Ali replied, leading the way into the hidden corridor. “I guess now I understand why.”
The passage opened into a circular room that defied the lighthouse’s known dimensions. Their flashlight beams revealed walls covered in the same swirling patterns they’d seen throughout the island—the writing system from Ms. Greco’s ancient book.
“Look at this place,” Jan breathed, her voice echoing slightly. “It’s like a control room of some kind.”
In the center stood a large work table, cluttered with maps of the island, star charts unlike any constellation pattern they recognized, and what appeared to be technical drawings of the lighthouse itself. The stained glass peacock window featured prominently in these sketches, with annotations in that same strange language.
Cooper’s attention was immediately drawn to an object on a shelf against the far wall. “Is that… a radio?”
It resembled an antique radio set, but with components none of them recognized. The casing was made of a silvery metal similar to the disks, with the same swirling patterns etched across its surface. Dials and switches of unusual configuration covered its face, and where a normal radio would have a speaker, this one had what looked like a small version of the lighthouse lens.
“This is incredible engineering,” Cooper said, approaching it reverently. “The design principles are… I don’t even have words for it. This is beyond cutting edge—it’s like something from another century. Or another world.”
The strange radio emitted a soft hum, the same frequency they’d been hearing throughout the island. As Ali approached, the four disks in her backpack began vibrating violently.
“It’s responding to the keys,” Archer observed. “Like they’re communicating somehow.”
Cooper carefully examined the radio without touching it. “There’s something inside. Look at this seam—it’s not part of the original design. Someone modified it to hide something.”
As he pointed to a nearly invisible line in the metal casing, the building shook with the storm’s increasing fury. A deep boom of thunder rattled the foundations, and dust sifted down from the ceiling.
“This lighthouse has stood for generations,” Ali said, her voice steady despite the chaos around them. “It’s weathered every storm the Atlantic has thrown at it. It will stand through this one too.”
Cooper nodded and began searching for a way to open the radio casing. “There must be a release mechanism somewhere.” He ran his fingers along the edge until something clicked, and a small compartment popped open.
Inside lay a disk identical to the other four, but with the peacock’s eye at its center—the final key.
“That’s it,” Ali whispered, reaching for it. The moment her fingers touched the metal, the disk glowed with brilliant blue light. The other four disks emerged from her backpack on their own, hovering in the air around the fifth.
For a heartbeat, they hung suspended, then all five disks aligned in a perfect pentagram formation before settling back into Ali’s outstretched hands. The combined warmth felt strange yet familiar, like a memory she couldn’t quite place.
“Now we have all five,” Jan said. “What do we do with them?”
Before anyone could answer, the building shuddered violently. From above came the sound of shattering glass.
“The lantern room,” Ali gasped, already moving toward the door. “We need to get up there now!”
They raced up the spiral staircase, the lighthouse trembling around them. With each floor they ascended, the sounds of the storm grew more distant, though they could see through the windows that it was intensifying. By the time they neared the top floor, the island was barely visible through the wall of rain and wind.
Despite the storm’s fury, Muffin bounded ahead with unwavering confidence, as if he knew exactly what needed to be done and where they needed to go.
When they reached the top landing, they found the lantern room door jammed, buckled in its frame by the building’s movement. It took all of them pushing together to force it open.
“This is all starting to seem like a dream I had,” Jasper said quietly, his voice almost lost in the wind as the door finally gave way.
“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.
