Rosa and the Keeper's Light

About this story

Rosa carries a covered supper basket up the long spiral stair of the white lighthouse to her father, counting the steps the way he taught her. They eat together on the gallery above the darkening reef, naming each boat as it comes home. Going down, every stair is one step nearer sleep, and the basket swings empty and light in her hand.

The smallness of shared food in a high quiet place.

Supper tastes best where you can see everyone safely home.

Read the beginning

The wind came in off the sea all at once, cold and salt and wild, and it snatched at Rosa's skirt and very nearly tipped the supper basket right off her arm. Rosa was seven, and small, and she held the basket tight with both hands, and tucked down in the warm dark of it, riding along in his little striped shell, was Coco, her hermit crab, no bigger than a plum. Up ahead the white lighthouse stood all alone on the point, and its one great lamp was not yet lit, and far above, on the narrow railing under the racing clouds, Rosa could just see her father, all by himself, watching the storm come rolling in. "Hold on tight, Coco," she said. "Papa has a long night ahead of him, and we are bringing him his supper."

High over the reef, where the water was turning from green to iron-grey, a glossy black raven crossed the darkening sky. It did not hurry, even as the first thunder grumbled far out to sea. It leaned on the wild air, and tilted once around the white tower, and came to rest on the very top of the lamp room, folding its wings the way it does just before a story begins. And far below on the point, small Rosa with her basket, and Coco peeking over the rim, looked up and saw it settle there against the storm.

In the little kitchen at the foot of the point, Rosa's mother had packed the basket full and warm: fried snapper still crackling at its edges, johnnycakes wrapped in a cloth to keep their heat, a jar of hot ginger tea, and a slice of coconut bread saved for last, because Papa always kept the sweet thing for the very end. "Your father must keep the light burning all night in this storm," her mother said, tucking the cloth down snug over the top. "Old Tomas is still out past the reef in his little green boat, and he will need that lamp to find his way home in the dark. Go up and keep your papa company, Rosa. A watch is a long and lonely thing."

Rosa pushed open the heavy timber door at the foot of the tower, and the storm shut itself away behind her, and inside it was cool and dark and it smelled of old stone and salt. Above her the great iron stair climbed up and up, turning and turning into the shadowed height of the tower, far more steps than she could ever count. Coco peeked up out of the basket and waved his small claws at the dark. "It is only ever ten steps at a time," Rosa told him, the way her father had taught her. "Anybody in the whole world can climb ten steps." So up they went into the tower, while outside the thunder came closer.

The higher they climbed, the louder the storm grew. The wind found the little windows and moaned through them, and the whole tall tower seemed to lean and shiver in the gusts. At the tenth step Rosa let the ten go and began again at one, and Coco scuttled up out of the basket and onto her shoulder and held fast to her collar, and she was glad of him there, small and warm against her neck. Rain began to rattle at the glass. Up, and up, and up they went, counting their tens into the turning dark.

The story goes on in the video.