Eli kept the lighthouse on Greycap Point, where the sea spent all winter throwing itself at the cliffs. His only companion was an old grinder left by the keeper before him, filled with peppercorns black as wet stones.
On lonely nights, Eli cracked pepper into soup and heard voices rise with the steam. A sailor singing off-key. A child asking whether the light could see the moon. A captain whispering thanks after surviving a storm. Each peppercorn released a memory the lighthouse had saved.
Eli began adding his own. He spoke into the grinder before refilling it: the colour of sunrise, the name of every ship, the way gulls leaned into the wind. Years later, when a new keeper took his place, she found the grinder waiting. She cracked pepper over her first meal and heard Eli say, clear as a bell, 'Keep the light warm.'