Chapter 1 of 3
A light across the water
Meera closed her little stationery shop at seven, just as a light appeared across the harbour. It shone from the upstairs window of the old signal house. That house had been empty for twenty years. Everyone in town knew it, because everyone had a different idea about what it ought to become.
The light blinked twice, paused, and blinked once more. Meera watched until her tea went cold. The following evening it did exactly the same thing. She wrote the times on the back of a receipt, alongside the times of the departing ferry.
On Thursday she took the long way home, across the footbridge. The signal house door was locked, but a bicycle leaned against the wall. A scrap of yellow paper fluttered from its basket. On it someone had written: "Please keep the window clear."