Lighthouse Granny

White Whale Town in the early morning smelled of fish, bread, and the drowsy sea breeze.

Shanhu, wrapped in Lu Wenchao's scarf, hid behind him as they crossed the narrow streets. She had just learned to walk, and her feet were still disobedient. Every step on the wet flagstones felt like renegotiating terms with the ground ashore. Lu Wenchao walked quickly but had to slow down from time to time, because she kept getting distracted by strange things.

Traffic lights that changed colors by themselves.

Fake fish in the window that couldn't swim.

A bamboo steamer of steaming buns outside a breakfast shop.

Shanhu stopped in front of the bun shop, eyes wide. "What's that?"

"Buns." Lu Wenchao tugged her.

"Is it angry? Why is it smoking?"

"That's steam."

"Can I comfort it?"

"No."

She looked back regretfully. The老板娘 beside the steamer was lifting the lid and stared, caught off guard by her earnest, sympathetic gaze. Lu Wenchao pulled the hood down over Shanhu's head and practically dragged her away.

"Don't stare at people."

"I was staring at the buns."

"There are people next to the buns."

"And there are buns next to the people."

Lu Wenchao closed his eyes.

They passed through the alley behind the fish market. The market hadn't opened yet. Wooden crates were stacked against the wall, hemp ropes soaked in seawater, and a few seagulls stood on the eaves, staring at Shanhu with unfriendly eyes. Shanhu looked up at them and whispered to Lu Wenchao, "They're cussing you out."

"Seagulls don't cuss."

"They do. They said you walk too aggressively and woke up the fish."

"Then tell them to shut up."

Shanhu looked up seriously. "Lu Wenchao says shut up."

The seagulls flapped away, squawking even louder.

Lu Wenchao: "..."

The sound of a vehicle came from the end of the alley. Lu Wenchao immediately pulled Shanhu into a doorway. She lost her footing and hit her forehead against his chest. The pocket watch pressed into her, and a faint clicking sound came from inside.

Shanhu covered her forehead. "It woke up too."

Lu Wenchao looked down at the pocket watch. The lid hadn't popped open, but it was colder than usual. Faint sirens came from the direction of the old aquarium. Qin Yan's people had already begun searching the streets.

"Can you still walk?" he asked.

Shanhu nodded, but her toes curled inside her shoes. "The shoes keep biting me."

Lu Wenchao glanced at her, then crouched down and loosened the laces a bit more.

She looked down at him. The morning light wasn't fully bright yet. In the alley, there was only the grayish-white reflection from the tin roof of a fish stall. Lu Wenchao knelt half on the damp ground, fixing her shoelaces. He moved quickly, not gently either, but when he lowered his head, Shanhu suddenly felt he didn't seem like a hunter.

A hunter wouldn't untie biting shoes for his prey.

"Why are you helping me again?" she asked.

"Because if you walk too slow, you'll slow me down."

"Oh." She thought for a moment. "Then I'll walk faster next time, so you won't have to help as much."

Lu Wenchao's hand paused. He stood up again. "Stop talking nonsense."

At the end of the slope, the lighthouse emerged from the sea fog. Its gray-white tower had been weathered by the wind, like a bone thrust into the sky. The lamp room at the top wasn't lit. Only the fog swirled in circles outside the glass.

Lu Wenchao knocked three times.

For a long time, there was no response from inside.

Shanhu whispered, "Is she asleep?"

"Playing dead."

An old voice immediately came from behind the door. "You little brat, still got a sharp tongue."

The door opened.

Jiang Yue stood behind it, gray-haired, wrapped in an old shawl, holding an enamel mug in her hand. When she saw Lu Wenchao, her first words weren't a greeting but a curse. "Banging on a dead woman's door in the middle of the night. Even your father had better manners than you back in the day."

Lu Wenchao stood at the door. "I brought someone."

Shanhu poked her head out from behind him and corrected him seriously. "Not someone, a mermaid."

Jiang Yue nearly dropped her mug.

She stared at the faint shell-like scale mark on Shanhu's ankle, her face darkening bit by bit. "From Tidefall Bay?"

Shanhu's eyes lit up. "You know my home?"

"I also know you shouldn't be on land." Jiang Yue pulled them both inside and slammed the door shut. "And especially not mixed up with a hunter."

Shanhu looked at Lu Wenchao. "What does 'mixed up' mean?"

Lu Wenchao: "Standing too close."

She immediately shuffled a small step away from him.

Lu Wenchao's face turned even colder.

Jiang Yue watched the scene and sneered. "Moving away? If we're keeping score, you two have reeked of trouble since the moment you walked in."

The lighthouse was piled high with old nautical charts, dried seaweed, and strange glass bottles. A row of wind chimes hung on the wall—not made of shells, but of small copper pieces, each engraved with a different tidal date. The moment Shanhu stepped inside, the copper wind chimes rang twice without any wind.

Jiang Yue's expression worsened.

"Sit."

Shanhu looked around and finally sat on a wooden crate. A rustling sound came from inside the crate, and she immediately jumped up. "There's something in there."

"Dried seaweed," Jiang Yue said.

"Is it still alive?"

"If you ask again, it will come alive and smack you."

Shanhu obediently shut her mouth.

Jiang Yue poured her a bowl of seaweed soup. The soup was dark green, with a few strands of grass floating on top that looked thoroughly resentful. Shanhu picked it up and sniffed it. Even her tailbone wanted to flee back to the sea.

"Drink," Jiang Yue said. "If you stay away from the sea too long, your scales will dry out."

"Is this punishment?"

"It's to save your life."

"If it's to save my life, why does it taste so bad?"

Jiang Yue gave a cold laugh. "Life doesn't taste good to begin with."

Lu Wenchao had no patience. "She knows Lu Qi."

Jiang Yue's hand stopped.

All the copper wind chimes in the lighthouse fell silent at once.

"He said he's at the bottom of the sea." Lu Wenchao stared at her. "What do you know?"

Jiang Yue didn't look at him. She walked to the window. Outside, the sea fog churned. In the distance, headlights swept past the aquarium. She was silent for so long that Shanhu thought she'd fallen asleep.

"The entrance to Tidefall Bay appears during the seventh high tide before the full moon," Jiang Yue finally said. "Miss it, and you wait another year."

Shanhu quickly asked, "So can I go home?"

"You can," Jiang Yue said, glancing at her. "If the sea still recognizes you."

Shanhu didn't understand. "Why wouldn't the sea recognize me? I didn't owe it any shells."

Jiang Yue stepped closer and lifted a corner of her scarf. On Shanhu's neck was a pale blue clan mark, like a small whirlpool. The moment Jiang Yue's fingertip touched it, the mark glowed, and the copper wind chimes in the room let out a faint tinkling sound.

The old woman's eyes were complicated. "Tidekeeper lineage. No wonder Lady Bai wants you."

Lu Wenchao asked, "What does that mean?"

"Her song can open doors, and it can close them too," Jiang Yue said. "Ten years ago, your father went to close a door and never came back."

Lu Wenchao clenched his pocket watch tightly.

"Which door?"

Jiang Yue looked at him. "When you were a child and came to the lighthouse, you loved asking questions. Your father was different. He knew that some questions, once asked, cost you your life."

"Don't use him to pressure me."

"Pressure you?" Jiang Yue knocked her pipe against the table. "Lu Wenchao, your father pulled you out of the guild's mess. Not so you could grow up and jump right back in."

Lu Wenchao's voice turned cold. "He didn't pull me out of anything. He just disappeared without a word."

The room fell silent.

Shanhu held the seaweed soup, looking from one to the other. She didn't understand everything, but she understood "disappeared." Things disappeared in the sea too. Waves carried shells away, tides erased footprints. But if someone kept remembering the name, then it wasn't really gone.

She said softly, "Lu Qi still remembers Wenchao."

Lu Wenchao and Jiang Yue both turned to look at her.

"When he was asleep, he said that name." Shanhu tried hard to recall. "Wenchao, don't enter the door. Wenchao, don't listen to the bell of White Whale Town. Wenchao..."

She stopped.

"What else?" Lu Wenchao pressed.

Shanhu frowned. "The rest was eaten by the black tide. I only heard him knocking on the door the whole time."

Jiang Yue closed her eyes, as if struck by something from the past.

"The Crack Tide," she said. "That door is called the Crack Tide. It's not a sea gate—it's a crack. Whatever's behind the crack mimics the sound a person wants most. Some hear wealth, some hear youth, some hear the dead calling them to turn back."

"What did you hear?" Shanhu asked.

Jiang Yue froze.

Lu Wenchao also looked at her.

The old woman picked up her pipe, then put it down. The wrinkles on her face deepened in the dim light. After a long while, she said, "I heard someone telling me not to wait."

Shanhu didn't understand. "So did you wait?"

Jiang Yue didn't answer. She just walked to the window. The sea fog pressed against the glass, like an old dream that couldn't be wiped away.

Lu Wenchao asked quietly, "What was your relationship with my father?"

"The lighthouse keeper and an irritating little hunter," Jiang Yue said.

"Jiang Yue."

It was the first time Lu Wenchao hadn't called her Grandma Jiang.

Jiang Yue turned to look at him. In her eyes was a quickly suppressed pain. "He saved me. He also lied to me. He said he was just going to close a door and would be back before dawn to have soup. I made a pot of seaweed soup—it was terrible—and waited until morning. No one ever came to drink it."

Shanhu asked softly, "So that's why your soup has always been this terrible?"

Jiang Yue glared at her.

The tense atmosphere cracked open at that remark. Lu Wenchao didn't laugh, but the biting cold in his eyes loosened for a moment.

Jiang Yue snorted. "Terrible is what saves lives. Good-tasting things make you forget you're still running for your life."

Shanhu looked at her. "Then why is Lu Qi there?"

Jiang Yue didn't answer. She just pushed the seaweed soup toward Shanhu. "Drink."

Shanhu secretly pushed the bowl toward the edge of the table, but Jiang Yue's glare stopped her. She picked it up and took a sip. The bitterness shot straight to her crown. Her whole face scrunched up like a little shell.

"Like bad sea urchin boiled in water," she said hoarsely.

The corner of Lu Wenchao's taut mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door downstairs.

Three knocks.

Slow and unhurried.

Jiang Yue blew out the lamp.

Lu Wenchao pulled Shanhu behind him, a silver hook sliding into his palm. Shanhu was about to say "don't stand too close," but remembered someone was outside and quickly shut her mouth.

From outside the door, Qin Yan's gentle voice came through the wooden planks. "Good morning, Grandma Jiang. We're looking for a lost fish."

Shanhu whispered, "Is he talking about me?"

Lu Wenchao covered her mouth.

Jiang Yue said quietly, "Upstairs, into the lamp room. Don't touch the red switch."

Shanhu blinked.

"What kind of red?"

Lu Wenchao: "Don't touch any kind of red."

Jiang Yue pulled an old copper staff from beside the fireplace and knocked it against the stair railing. A row of hidden compartments popped open on the inside of the railing, stuffed with dried seaweed, old keys, and several yellowed tide talismans. She slapped one against Lu Wenchao's chest.

"Keep it close to your body. Hunters have too much blood scent. The lighthouse will reject you."

Lu Wenchao caught it. "The lighthouse picks and chooses?"

"It has better taste than you."

Shanhu leaned in curiously. A curved blue line was drawn on the talisman, like a sleeping little fish. She reached out and touched it. The blue line immediately swam to her fingertip, circling her affectionately.

Jiang Yue's expression shifted. She quickly pulled the talisman out from under Shanhu's hand. "Don't touch things recklessly. Right now you're like an uncovered lamp—everything wants to throw itself at you."

"Will I catch fire?"

"It's worse than catching fire." Jiang Yue looked at her ankle. "You've been away from the sea too long. Tidefall Bay will find you through the clan mark. If it finds you, that's good. If it looks for you too urgently, that's a death sentence."

Shanhu looked down. Beneath her long skirt, the shell-shaped scale mark was faintly warm. She suddenly felt a little homesick. She missed the starfish lanterns hanging at her grandmother's cave entrance, the coral blossoms that slowly opened and closed in the nights at Tidefall Bay, and the little fish that said her tail was too rowdy.

But then she glanced at Lu Wenchao again.

He was standing in the shadow of the stairs, listening to Qin Yan's voice outside the door, hand pressed against the silver hook, back held very straight. Shanhu thought, if she went home now, Lu Qi's door would keep knocking. And would Lu Wenchao continue to hear nothing at all?

The thought was like a grain of sand that fell into her heart—very small, but it chafed.

"I won't touch anything red," she said seriously. "And I won't go home just yet."

Lu Wenchao turned around. "No one asked you to choose that."

"I chose it myself."

Jiang Yue looked at her, her eyes as complicated as the sea fog.

Just as they stepped onto the stairs, the top of the lighthouse suddenly lit up on its own. A red light swept across the sea—and across Shanhu's ankle.

Her clan mark split open with a fine crack.

The pain was slight, like a small hook passing beneath her skin. Shanhu looked down and saw a blue light seeping from the crack. The blue light didn't spread outward—instead, it was drawn away by the distant sea.

Jiang Yue's face changed drastically. "The sea has already begun to find her."

Outside the door, Qin Yan was still smiling.

"Grandma Jiang," he said, "if you don't open the door soon, I'll have to assume this lighthouse is hiding a tide-song it shouldn't."