Life was rough on Rook Island. Its inhabitants took whatever opportunities they could to celebrate. So it happened that for the second time in the span of a single week, the inhabitants of the island got together for a feast in the midst of winter, a reminder of the cycle of life amidst the seemingly endless deluge of ice and darkness.

The first celebration had been Ai’kalak’s marriage. The second was Grandfather’s funeral, though they did not use the word “funeral.” They called it instead a “remembrance day.” Of course, the tribespeople did not refer to him as “Grandfather,” as Charlotte did, but shortened his proper name Michael to Mika, as they shortened Charlotte to Challa.

Upon this remembrance day, Charlotte herself was the guest of honor. Though most of the inhabitants of Rook Island had barely known Grandfather, if at all, that didn’t matter much when it came to inviting guests. All took the opportunity to celebrate a long life and the slow transition of one generation to the next. It was all very strange to Charlotte. She had attended nearly a dozen of these not-quite-funerals at Ai’kalak’s behest over the years, and they had always seemed disrespectful to her.

This tradition was one aspect Charlotte did not envy in the Rook Tribe. When a person died, Charlotte had always been taught, it was respectful and proper to be somber, to think of the good that person had done through their life and mourn that they could do no more. She had been raised in this tradition her whole life. It was the way in which Grandfather spoke of her parents and his own friends and family who had long passed, and how the women, young and old, whom Charlotte worked beside in the mainland kitchen likewise spoke of those who passed on.

Though this feeling, that Grandfather ought to be remembered with solemn severity, did not completely leave Charlotte’s heart: Yet, as she sat before the long table heaped with feasting foods, Ai’kalak to her right and Mother Ke’a to her left, listening to the toasts made for Grandfather now and again, Charlotte felt she understood, a little better, the mindset behind this unfamiliar tradition.

It filled her heart with unexpected warmth to hear her friends and their neighbors praising Grandfather’s legacy. “Glory to the man who raised such a wonderful young woman all on his own! How many men would do the same? More often, you hear of men leaving their own families for lives of carefree vagrancy, so glory to Mika!” And then all would cheer and raise mugs and drink deeply of mead, whether they had known Grandfather in life or not.

Grandfather’s life had been so absent of joy in his final years that it bewildered Charlotte to see his life framed in such a manner. She gained a new perspective toward Grandfather, one more distanced and objective, as she listened to Father Po’ke praise Grandfather’s long career as a Memory. Pokey compared Grandfather to a noble sheepdog who had served his flock and people his whole life, and this seemed to resonate with even those who were unfamiliar with the Grandfather personally.

Charlotte did not speak for much of the remembrance, but at a certain point to Ai’kalak leaned close to her and said that as the remaining family of the deceased, it was Charlotte’s job to give a toast that would overshadow all the others.

“Bad memories can stick in your head forever,” she said. “The good ones need a little help sticking. This is for your sake more than anyone else’s, Challa. Don’t cheat yourself out of it.”

So, Charlotte, flushed and tipsy from perhaps a couple too many mugs of the tribe’s excellent meed, stood and raised her mug high. She bellowed her toast in a voice that mixed with the happy throng of celebrants and proclaimed her happy memories for all to hear.

“Grandfather told me about my family,” she said. “He told me about my mother and my father and helped me imagine who they were, the wonderful people they were, even though I never met them. He just wanted to live alone on an island, but he took me in and raised me all my life. He rowed me and walked me to town even though he really didn’t like it, and he gave everything he could to me as long as he could, up until the very moment he couldn’t take it any longer. For years he sacrificed for everyone else, and then, even after he earned the right just to think of himself, he thought of me.”

The familiar bitterness, the ever-present frustration still whispered in her heart, but in this moment, Charlotte fiercely pushed it away. “To Grandfather!” she shouted. “To Mika!”

“Let us never forget him!” everyone roared in ritual unison. There were more cheers, the pouring of more drinks, and another pig was produced and jointed to feed the guests.

As she sat back down, Charlotte folded her arms upon the table and rested her head upon them. She didn’t cry, nor did she feel sad, exactly. It was a strange emotion she felt, something like the pain of isolation, something like fear, but not properly either of them. It was the feeling of letting go, she decided. With her speech, she had let Grandfather be somebody else, a reason for the crowd’s joy.

He was no longer the burden of Charlotte’s life, the person she always had to care for and to consider. She no longer had to work long hours just to afford fuel for his fire, or live on a lighthouse without another human being as far as the eye could see because he couldn’t stand to live around other people.

Grandfather was gone. Those three words echoed throughout her head. Their best years together had passed long ago, and now the worst years were behind them as well.

Mother Ke’a put a hand on Charlotte’s back and rubbed it. “It’s all right, child,” she said. “Let the emotions come. That’s what this is all for.”

The remainder of the funeral passed in a smudge of laughter and singing, of words which came from an old dialect which was no longer spoken by the tribe but still remembered in their songs. Charlotte had no part of this. It was a cruel reminder, despite the circumstances of the day, that she was still an outsider.

Though Charlotte wanted to leave early, it was not permitted. “You just have to endure it,” said Mother Ke’a firmly. “Don’t imagine every one of us, when we lose someone, is as gay as all of her guests. Remaining host to the celebration is a burden and a duty, and you’ll be a better person for completing it.”

Hours later, as Charlotte curled under quilts in the chemists’ back room, listening to the heavy breathing of Ke’a and Po’ke nearby, she thought back to those words. Was she a better person than she had been that morning? She didn’t feel different, except for the brutal exhaustion which clung to her like a leaden anchor. A dark question loomed over her: Had the remembrance celebration been a way for the chemists to honor Grandfather for his own sake and the sake of Charlotte’s friendship, or as a way of begging forgiveness for having failed to save him? She tried to put it out of her head, and only succeeded when she fell asleep.

The next morning, Charlotte woke early and prepared to leave Rook Island before most others were awake. Father Po’ke accompanied her, and she wondered again at his activity despite the horrific wounds he had sustained on that night.

His recovery was seemingly miraculous. Though Po’ke wore a patch over his destroyed eye, and that whole side of his face was a mess of scabs, he had shown no sign of weakness nor of crippling injury as he went about his work for the past few days. Charlotte had seen the strain of pain upon his face now and then, but never heard him complain.

Now he stood beside Charlotte and her tiny craft. Without visible effort, the towering man heaved the chest full of gifts from Grandfather’s remembrance guests into the skiff, setting it bobbing. He did this despite Charlotte’s protests that she could lift it just fine, that she lifted heavier things than that on a regular basis, both at the lighthouse and on the mainland. She was no flimsy little girl.

“I know,” said Po’ke. “I just wanted to do one last thing for you before you go.” He looked out across the vast distance toward the lighthouse, squinting his one good eye at the sunlight which danced, orange-golden, on the crests of the waves. “I hope you’ll come back,” he said. “I won’t insult you by saying I hope you realize this is the best place for you, because even I don’t really believe it. Ai’kalak certainly does, of course.” He chuckled. “That poor girl. I feel so helpless about all of these things happening, Challa. Every day it seems like I understand the next generation less and less. Twenty years ago, I could never have believed a woman could set off to make a life for herself all on her own, but you’re looking at such a future without flinching, as though it doesn’t bother you at all. What changed between my time and this?”

Charlotte put one foot up on the lip of her skiff and turned toward Po’ke. “I have to imagine though your daughter isn’t the first girl in your tribe to marry because she found her belly growing.”

The man laughed uneasily. “No, of course not, but, well... I just never thought that’s the life she would choose.”

Charlotte nodded. “Me neither.”

Her skiff’s mooring line having been already detached, Charlotte shoved her craft further into open water, stepped into it, and, not at all bothered by the wobbling, began rowing for Lighthouse Island.

It was good to be rowing again. It was good to break into a sweat under the unusually clear and bright sun, to lean into the waves’ resistance and to be consumed by the rhythm of exertion. For the whole of the blessed journey home, Charlotte simply forgot her troubles and contemplated the ocean.

But when she ran aground on Lighthouse Island, Charlotte could not escape the reality that the island was no longer her home.

Grandfather’s remains had been buried on Rook Island, out of respect for his friendship and Charlotte’s, so even those did not remain here. And, as Grandfather had told her long ago, Charlotte’s parents’ bones were buried on the mainland. They lay in a family plot in a town Grandfather had always promised they would visit one day. Charlotte did not even know its name.

So what remained here? Nothing but Charlotte herself, the destructive leavings of Grandfather’s madness, and…

Whatever lay in the pit beneath the lighthouse.

The lighthouse door remained open, and in Charlotte’s several-day absence, snow had drifted several feet inward. Charlotte entered, shivering, for the Sun tempered the cold air outside, yet that Samsung did not penetrate the lighthouse’s stone walls. She had removed her furs partway into her voyage, letting the sweat steam off her skin in roiling wisps of fog, but now she wrapped herself up again.

Charlotte moved to the edge of the pit, wrinkling her nose at the stench of oil smoke which still clung to everything on this first floor. The chimney ordinarily pulled smoke away when they burned oil in the fireplace, but in their haste, Charlotte and her rescuers had made the lighthouse itself into a chimney.

Charlotte put her hand against the tremendous stone block which Grandfather had torn up from the ground and slammed beside the resulting hole. She had seen with her own eyes how Father Po’ke and the boys he had wrangled had been unable to budge the stone.

A chill far worse than that brought by the winter cold passed through Charlotte’s body. “Oh, Grandfather,” she whispered. No, she couldn’t focus on the horror anymore. That’s what the funeral had been for, right? She was supposed to have put all that behind her now.

On the other hand, was it proper to leave it behind? Grandfather had left secrets behind, secrets tied to his life as a Memory. Charlotte was the daughter and granddaughter of Memories. It had to be in her blood to uncover them, to learn why he had kept them hidden all these years.

Yet the darkness of the pit was not exactly inviting. Nightmare visions flash through Charlotte’s mind, images of pelted monsters with gleaming teeth and claws lurking a thousand years in darkness and waiting for prey to foolishly present itself to them.

That was silly. At any rate, light would banish the darkness.

It took nearly a quarter of fumbling around, but finally Charlotte gathered together enough working supplies that she was able to fill and light a mostly intact lamp. She moved to the edge of the hole, lowered herself to her stomach, and held the lamp down as far as she could reach it.

It provided little illumination.

Charlotte stood and rooted around in the mess until she found the remnants of the rope she had used to bind Grandfather and which he had broken with his inhuman strength.

At last she found the pieces, three of them. She tied the portions together with figure eight bends, shortening them somewhat, but making them usable as a single length once more. It was one of the many things Grandfather had taught her well from a young age.

Charlotte tied the rope around the great stone block beside the hole, attached her lamp to the end, and lowered it slowly to the ground beneath. It seemed to be about a fifty-foot drop. self did not reach that far, between the reduction of its length from the knots and the fact that so much of it had been spent securing it to the stone block.

Charlotte hesitated only a moment before moving outside, dragging her little craft further onto the shore, and removing its mooring line. She returned inside and used the mooring line to lengthen the rope until it clearly reached the floor below.

Then she removed her furs, put a belt around her waist to which she attached Grandfather’s dirk and an empty sack, and then made her way down the line. It was not difficult. Ai’kalak had in fact taught Charlotte this skill, not Grandfather. It was how they had explored cliffs and coves many years ago. Ai’kalak’s instruction now let Charlotte descend into darkness without fear of falling compounding her fear of the night.

At the bottom, Charlotte untied the lamp and held it high, looking uneasily around her at the alien sight.

The lamplight revealed stone columns which were seemingly all one piece with the stone floor below. The floor itself seemed formed of rough stone at first, but Charlotte noted as she moved that her boots scuffed up a thick layer of dust from the ground, revealing stone polished to a sheen underneath.

The pillars which rose from the floor were likewise polished. Their bases were carved to look like drawings of tiny, nude people who held up the pillars with their shoulders and backs. More carvings of these people danced on every side of the pillars, and each seemed to hold a spear in its right hand.

There were deep claw-marks in the stone beneath Charlotte, no doubt Grandfather’s doing. This was difficult to tell at first, for the residue of the burnt seal oil lay all around her. It was impossible to escape stepping in it when she descended on the rope, and so her boots and ankles were covered in stinking, greasy soot. And, of course, the reek of oil was far stronger down here than it had been up above. As she followed the claw marks in the ground, Charlotte pulled the fabric of the empty sack over her face, wrapping it around and tying it behind her head. It formed a kind of mask that reduced the stench to bearable levels.

Pillars rose all around Charlotte, seemingly identical to one another, and beyond these pillars polished walls of the same stone rose from seamless corners to the full fifty-foot height of the chamber. It seemed that Grandfather’s claw marks lead to the center of the chamber, a raised block of polished stone into which some text was carved. Charlotte squinted, but she could not make out what it read she approached.

A ring was carved into the ground, and the claw marks stopped just outside it. Cracks lay in the stone outside the ring, as though a tremendous weight had crashed down upon it, but the cracks themselves did not extend to break the carved ring. Charlotte stooped, bringing her light closer to the ground, and discovered that additional text was cut deeply into this ring as well. Though written in the same script she had always used in her everyday life—or one very close to it—the words made no sense to her. She decided they must be written in a different language to her own.

Charlotte touched the carved ring, and a tingle passed through her hand and forearm. She pulled away her hand, and the sensation vanished.

She looked up and saw that atop the stone block was a smaller object which appeared to be made of a very different kind of stone. Squinting, Charlotte made out a line or a seam three quarters up the side of the object and realized it must be a box. She was kneeling before a pedestal or an altar, and upon it rested a box.

Grandfather had sought out this box, Charlotte was sure of it. Surely he had torn away a secret portion of the floor and descended into this pit for the express purpose of getting at it. Yet, it seemed as though he had been incapable of passing the stone ring. It must have been some mechanism of the Memories.

Though Charlotte found it impossible to believe the Memories had dug this chamber, not in the time since Grandfather had lived here. Such a task, to carve a chamber from solid stone, must have taken decades, if not centuries. She could not even imagine the scope of it.

Whoever had created the place, the carved circle had stopped Grandfather, and it sent a tingle through Charlotte’s arm when she touched it. Would it allow her to pass at all?

Only one way to find out. Charlotte held her breath, braced herself—and stepped over the ring without trouble. Yes, a shock went through her body as she broke the invisible barrier, but it passed, and did little more than make the hair stand up on her skin. Not a pleasant sensation, but not a torment, either.

Was the block now before her, carved with the same alien writing as the ring, rigged in some similar way? Charlotte hesitated only a moment before touching the box with her free hand. A heavy layer of dust covered the top, and it was cool to the touch, but she felt no other strange sensation.

She held her breath and raised the lid.

Within, surrounded by no cushioning or decoration of any kind but only polished granite, lay a glass vial filled with liquid as viscous and red as a crushed tomato, a liquid which pierced Charlotte’s soul and sang to her a haunting melody.

In an instant, for a terrible moment that passed with her very next heartbeat, Charlotte felt she understood what could have driven Grandfather to his madness.