Every morning in Echo Bay begins with the sound of gulls arguing over the docks and the sweet, toasty scent that drifts from your family's small bakery. You carry a tray of poppy rolls still warm from the oven, pushing the door with your hip as the bell jingles. Steam fogs the glass. Outside, the harbor is a sheet of metal-gray, calm enough to hold a perfect picture of the sky. On the hill beyond the last cottage stands the lighthouse, white as a bone, with its glass eye facing the water.
You have always loved that tower. On days when chores are done quickly and homework is light, you walk up there and press your ear to the iron railing, just to listen. The sea says different things each time, and sometimes, if you hum softly into the wind, the air seems to carry your tune away like a kite string being paid out.
“Juno, can you take a bag to Mrs. Peretz?” your mother calls from behind the counter. You pass the rolls over, accept a quick kiss to the top of your head, and slip back outside with your scarf tucked under your chin. The world tastes of salt. A gull’s wings flash white like flung paper.
At the docks, benches are wet with last night’s mist. Fishermen smoke their thin morning cigarettes and check ropes and buckets. You wave to Noor, who is tying her hair under a cap. “You coming to soccer?” she asks, bumping your shoulder with hers.
“Maybe later,” you say. Your gaze has already slid back to the lighthouse. A curious itch starts behind your ears, like the hush when a song is about to begin. You whisper a note into your scarf, just to see. The lighthouse is silent, stones patient as ever, but you imagine its metal ribs holding the sound for a breath.
You keep humming under your breath as you walk the hill road. Raspberry canes rattle in a garden; someone hangs out laundry and shakes the cloth like a flag. The lighthouse widens as you climb, and you can make out chips in the paint and the spiral iron of the steps leading to its door. You pause at the fence, fingers curled through the wire.
That is when it happens: a faint tremor, so small you might have missed it if you hadn’t been humming. The glass up top winks. Not the ordinary blink of sun-glare, but a small, shy pulse, answering your note. Your throat goes dry. You try a different pitch, lower. The pulse responds, slow and thin as an old person’s heartbeat. No breeze moves. Even the gulls seem to pause, as if listening.
You stop humming and the lighthouse light settles into ordinary brightness once more. The hum sits inside your chest, waiting. You can keep this to yourself, you think. Or you can tell someone. You decide to carry it a little longer, like a secret pebble in your pocket.