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The lantern room was a chaos of sound and light. Wind howled through the broken sections of glass, and rain lashed at their faces as they stumbled inside. The massive Fresnel lens had cracked, but still rotated slowly despite the damage, sending fractured beams across the circular space.
“The window,” Ali said, raising her voice above the storm as she pointed to the southern wall. “There!”
Through the rain and darkness, the stained glass peacock glowed with an inner light. It dominated the southern wall, its jewel-toned feathers fanned in a perfect arc, the lighthouse silhouetted in the background. Despite having climbed these stairs hundreds of times over the years, none of them—not even Ali—had truly seen this window before today. It had always been there, hiding in plain sight, its true nature masked by some force they couldn’t explain.
“I’ve been up here so many times,” Ali whispered, approaching the window. “How did I never really notice it before?”
“It didn’t want to be seen,” Jasper said, his voice distant, dreamlike. “Not until now.”
The five disks in Ali’s hands pulsed with blue light that matched the subtle glow emanating from the peacock’s eye at the center of the window. She held them carefully, feeling their warmth spreading up her arms.
Brett was examining the rest of the lantern room. “There must be something else here—something to help us understand what to do with the disks.”
Jan knelt beside Muffin, who had begun pawing at a section of the wooden floor near the window. “He’s found something,” she called.
Ali joined them, shining her flashlight on the spot Muffin indicated. A small trapdoor was set into the floorboards, almost invisible against the weathered wood. It took her several tries to catch the edge with her fingernails and pull it open.
Inside was a cloth-wrapped bundle. Ali lifted it carefully, setting it on the floor between them. As she unwrapped the faded fabric, they gathered around to see what had been hidden away.
“What is it?” Bett asked, peering at the strange device revealed in the flickering light.
It resembled a toy, circular in shape with a dome-like center, but clearly constructed of the same unusual metal as the disks. Four colored sections formed a circle around a central component, each section a different color: red, blue, green, and yellow. All five spaces were empty, perfectly sized to hold the disks they’d collected.
Cooper examined it with growing excitement. “It’s like a primitive interface of some kind. Similar to those memory games—what were they called? Simon?”
“Simon,” Jasper said suddenly, his expression clearing as if waking from a trance. “I know what this is. I’ve seen it in my dreams.”
They all turned to look at him.
“Every night for months,” he continued, his voice stronger now. “I dream about standing in this room, with this device, pressing the sections in a specific sequence while the storm rages outside.”
“What sequence?” Ali asked, the five keys warm in her palm.
Jasper knelt beside the device, his eyes reflecting its colored glow. “It changes, depending on the tide, the moon phase, the time of day.” He looked up at Archer. “That’s why your tidal charts are so important. The sequence follows the same patterns as the currents around the island.”
Archer quickly spread his charts on the floor, comparing the wave patterns to the colored sections of the device. “You’re right. If we overlay the current patterns with these colored quadrants, there’s a clear correlation.”
“We need to get this right,” Ali said, glancing at the window. “My uncle is trying to reach us—to help us find my father. But the storm won’t hold forever.”
Cooper was still examining the device. “There’s something else,” he said, turning it over carefully. “Look at these markings on the back.”
Etched into the metal base were the same swirling symbols they’d found throughout the island, arranged in a spiral pattern that converged at the center.
“It’s a map,” Brett realized. “A map of the pathways between worlds.”
“That’s why I’ve been dreaming about it,” Jasper said quietly. “Somehow, I’ve been…tuned to these frequencies. Picking them up while I sleep.”
“Do you know how to use it?” Ali asked.
Jasper nodded slowly. “I think so. The disks go into the device first, then the device activates the window somehow. But the sequence has to be precise.”
A tremendous crash of thunder shook the lighthouse, and a bolt of lightning struck so close that the air around them crackled with electricity. Through the broken sections of the lantern room, they could see the storm had formed into an impossible configuration—a rotating wall of water surrounding the lighthouse, suspending them in an eye of perfect calm.
“We’re running out of time,” Ali said, feeling the urgency in her bones. She handed the five disks to Jasper. “If you’ve been dreaming about this, then maybe you’re meant to do it.”
Jasper took the disks, his hands steadier than they’d been in months. The dark circles under his eyes seemed less pronounced in the blue glow of the keys, as if proximity to their purpose was already healing something within him.
“Not yet,” he said, carefully wrapping the device and disks back in the cloth. “The sequence depends on the exact moment. If Archer’s calculations are right, we need to wait for the tide to peak—when all five points on the island align perfectly.”
Ali looked from the device to the stained glass window, seeing the careful craftsmanship that had hidden its true purpose for generations. The peacock’s eye seemed to watch them, aware and waiting.
“How long?” she asked.
Archer checked his data. “Twenty minutes, based on these readings.”
“Then we wait,” Ali said, settling on the floor beside the wrapped device. “And hope my uncle can hold the pathway open long enough for us to activate it.”
Outside the lighthouse, the impossible storm continued its silent rotation, holding the island in a moment between moments, as five friends prepared to bridge the gap between worlds.
“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.
