Then it gets louder, and it calls me off the porch into the night. I’m awake. Not sleepwalking. But I still have to go. I feel that pull so hard. It’s like being hooked under the ribs. If I don’t go, my skeleton will be ripped apart.

I make my way through the fog toward the light of the farmhouse porch, just across the little field. The distance seems as wide as the ocean. I count my steps out loud—one thousand—two thousand—until there are so many I lose track of the number somehow. I’m still trying to get to the farmhouse. I see the porch light burning in the fog. But something’s stopped me. I can’t go any farther.

I feel the rough wood of a rail fence under my palms. I run my hands along it and hiss in pain as a splinter slices its way into my skin.

“Shit,” I mutter. My mind is trying to make sense of what I’m feeling, but it sputters and stalls. Shuts down. Because nothing about this makes sense.

And there’s something else. An odor that’s almost unbearably strong in the night air. That manure smell again, but different from the barn. Thicker. More pungent.

I hear the grunting then. Not far away. From somewhere just on the other side of the fence.

Pigs.

I remember what Jude told us the night of auditions. How this used to a be a real working farm, back in the day.

But how long has that been?

Twenty years?

Thirty?

At least.

The whispers rise up in the night air again. I can hear them so loud now, even over the squeal of frightened pigs. They urge me on. Call me into the night.

So I feel my way down the fence until I come to where it turns a corner. Then I stumble across the field until I finally reach the farmhouse. The lights are all off, and a pair of boots sits beside the door, the mud and manure still fresh from the day’s work. I wonder—if I climbed the front steps and crept inside—would I find Glory’s reception desk—or something else? A straw hat on a peg? A basket for gathering eggs, maybe?

That thought scares me bad enough to get me moving again. I work my way around the side of the house until I’m standing at the bottom of the sea porch steps. And there’s a break in the fog just then. It gets blown away by the wind off the sound, and I see the sparkle of moonlight on the waves. The shimmer of water in motion.

Something is missing, though. There’s no lighthouse standing sentry just offshore. It’s gone tonight. I start to shake. And I wish for the lighthouse back. Because I’m badly in need of a beacon.