Then, as the sun began to dip below the horizon, I was led toward the building’s imposing arched door, where the mayor confessed that my official duties weren’t over yet, that there was one last job he wanted me to complete.

“Our lighthouse needs to do what she was designed to do, Amy. This little project of yours won’t truly be finished until we fire up the lamp and her light shines across the bay. It’s all set up and ready for you.”

“Oh my . . . but I don’t think I can possibly make it up those stairs.”

“We’ll take as long as you need, and I wouldn’t worry about the crowd—they’re not going anywhere.”

Ascending the twisting staircase was painfully slow, but with the help of the mayor’s steady hand, and a few breaks along the way, we made it to the top.

Like the rest of the building, the lamp room was a sight to behold. An authentic Fresnel lens sat in the center, exquisitely refurbished, glass prisms sparkling, brass polished to a golden finish, while to the west, framed against the tall windows, was the most staggeringly beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean, laid bare in all her shimmering splendor.

To be standing in a room I had gazed upon nearly all my life, a place that for so long had been impossible to reach, left me humbled and awestruck. But that wasn’t all I felt, for as I made my way around the lens, running my fingers across the bumpy ridges of glass, something else crept over me, a most peculiar sensation, a tingling that spread from inside my chest all the way to the ends of my fingertips.

“Amy, is something the matter?”

The mayor, who had just returned inside from delivering a speech via megaphone to the expectant crowd below, picked up on the fact that my mind was elsewhere.

“This might sound strange,” I began to say, “but I swear I’ve been in this room before.”

“I know what you mean,” he joked. “We’ve all been staring at sketches and studying old photographs for so long that everything about this building now feels very familiar, doesn’t it?”

“No,” I said, feeling awfully lightheaded, “it’s more than that . . .”

The mayor put his hand on my shoulder and asked if I was okay, but his voice was starting to fade. So too were the sounds of the crowd, their cheers becoming more and more distant. Soon I couldn’t hear them at all. Even the sound of the wind, quietly whistling through the windows just a moment ago, vanished.