The ferry to Marrow Point ran twice a week, and Nora Vale had missed the first one on purpose. She needed a few extra days to decide whether she was really going to do this. In the end, the letter in her coat pocket decided for her. It was creased from being read so many times, and it said the same thing every time: her grandfather, Elias Vale, had left her the lighthouse.
She hadn’t seen him since she was nineteen. Ten years ago he had gone out in his small boat on a calm October evening and never returned. The coast guard searched for a week. Then a court in the county seat declared him lost at sea, and everyone stopped talking about him, as if silence were a kind of funeral.
The ferry captain, a broad woman with a wool cap pulled low, handed Nora’s suitcase across the gap. “Marrow Point?” she asked. “Nobody goes there on purpose.” “I do,” said Nora. The captain studied her for a moment. “Then you’ll want to speak to Dale Pruitt at the harbor office. He holds the key.”
Behind them, the island rose out of the mist, grey and stubborn, with a white tower standing at its tip like a raised finger. Nora gripped the rail and told herself she was only here to sell the place.
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