Sect Year 4 · fifth month · night of day 2 · the thirty-seventh life: Gannet Point light, her thirty-ninth year
“Keep the light lit until the boat is in.”
“Second Breath.”
The wind came off the Reach at dusk and threw spray at the tower windows like thrown grit. Odda heard it strike the glass before she reached the foot of the stair. She put her hand on the iron rail, which was wet and very cold, and began to count under her breath, as her uncle had taught her to count everything on a night like this.
One. Two. The rail hummed under her palm each time a gust hit the stone. Seventy-two steps, her uncle had said, and every keeper before him had said the same. A keeper lit the light and kept it lit until the boats were in, and that was the whole of the trade. A man who lost his count on the stair could lose his footing, and a keeper who fell did not light anything again. She had climbed the stair every dusk for six years and had never once lost the number.
He had taught her that, too. She had asked him once, on the first night she climbed, who would keep the light when he was too old for the stair. “You will,” he had said. “I’m eight,” she had said. “Then hold the rail,” he had said, and he had walked her all the way to the top with…
