The Dragon and the Lighthouse Keeper

Far out on a cliff, where the sea and the sky met, there stood an old white lighthouse. It was not very tall, but it was sturdy, and it had stood there so long that even the gulls counted it as part of the coast. Inside the tower lived the lighthouse keeper Ingrid, a calm woman with weather-worn hands and a thick woolly jumper knitted by her grandmother. She had tended the light for many, many years. When the storms came in the evening she lit the lamp, brewed tea in her old copper kettle, and pulled a blanket over her knees. She was never quite alone, even though the nearest house was far away. For Ingrid had a secret friend who came to visit every time the sky grew dark and the wind began to pull hard across the water.

That evening the air smelled of salt and rain, and below the cliff the waves hit the stones with a deep, drumming beat. The gulls had already flown home to their cracks in the rock, where they hid under the overhangs and peered out with bright black eyes. Ingrid set the water on in the copper kettle, filled her teapot with dried chamomile, and dropped two lumps of sugar in her cup. Through the window she watched the sky turn orange-red in the west, then plum-purple, and the first fat raindrops begin to slap against the glass. The foghorn out on the farthest pier called from far away, two long notes that rolled across the waves. She smiled toward the window. 'You will be here soon,' she whispered. Then she climbed the narrow spiral stairs, lit the great lamp at the top of the tower, and its yellow beam began its slow sweep across the darkening sea.

The wind took hold of the cliff with both hands, and the sky turned deep blue, then grey, then almost black. The rain began to drum softly on the windowpanes, first like small fingers, then like a whole hand. Inside the tower it smelled of lamp oil and wet wool, and Ingrid pulled her jumper tighter around her. She stood by the eastern window with her teacup in her hand and looked out across the waves. Then she saw what she had been waiting for: a long shadow moving beneath the water, calm as a cloud crossing a field. The shadow grew larger. A back of glittering scales broke the surface, water running off it in two bright rivers, and then came a head as big as the hull of a fishing boat, with kind yellow eyes glowing softly in the dark. It was Glimmer, the sea-dragon.