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The lighthouse had been dark for years, but every night at exactly midnight, its beam swept once across the ocean. Mara had watched it since she was a child, counting the seconds, waiting for someone else to notice. No one ever did. The town called it a trick of the moon or a fault in her imaginat…

The lighthouse had been dark for years, but every night at exactly midnight, its beam swept once across the ocean. Mara had watched it since she was a child, counting the seconds, waiting for someone else to notice. No one ever did. The town called it a trick of the moon or a fault in her imagination. Still, the light came—once, precise, unwavering—and vanished. On her eighteenth birthday, she decided to climb it. The door wasn’t locked. It groaned open like it had been waiting. Inside, the s