Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled The Mystery of the Missing Spark, Part 1 of this week's series: The Lighthouse Keepers of Lunar Bay. The town of Lunar Bay wasn't famous for much, which, as far as seventeen-year-old June Delphine was concerned, was its chief charm. It was a place of quiet, predictable rhythms: the groan of the fishing boats heading out at dawn, the smell of salt and old coffee from the dockside diner, and, most importantly, the reliable, sweeping pulse of the Lunar Bay Lighthouse. That lighthouse was Lunar Bay's one claim to glory, standing on a jagged outcrop a mile offshore, a sentinel against the relentless gray sea. June lived on the mainland, close enough to the coast that the light was her nightly wallpaper, a friendly, rhythmic flash through her bedroom window. But the keeper of the light was her Grandfather Silas, a man who smelled perpetually of sea-salt and beeswax, and whose voice held the low, comforting rumble of distant thunder. Silas was an island unto himself, much like the tower he kept, and June was his only regular visitor. She took the little dinghy, the Sea Urchin, out to the rock once a week, bringing fresh bread, new books, and local gossip—all of which Silas treated with equal, mild skepticism. This week, though, the routine was shattered. June woke up, not to the familiar light-flash, but to an oppressive, inky blackness. She blinked, checked her clock—4:00 AM—and looked out. The light was out. Completely. Lunar Bay Lighthouse, the star of their small world, had gone dark for the first time in fifty years. The town, when she finally got there, was in an uproar. Fishermen were tied up at the docks, glowering. The diner was a frantic buzz of speculation. The mayor, a portly man named Mr. Crumb who sweated anxiety, was pacing near the payphone. “June! Thank heavens!” Mr. Crumb mopped his brow. “Your grandfather… is he alright? Did he call?” June felt a sudden, cold dread. “I just woke up. I was coming to ask the same thing.” She didn’t wait for his stuttering response. She grabbed the Sea Urchin’s worn oars and pushed off the minute she reached the dock. The sea was choppy, the waves whispering secrets against the fiberglass hull. As she drew closer, the lighthouse looked like a gigantic, silent stone sculpture. She found the outer door unlocked, which was the first oddity. Silas locked everything. Inside, the tower was immaculate, but empty. The circular staircase, the heart of the tower, spiraled upward, dusted with silence. She climbed, the air getting colder, the silence heavier. The living quarters were untouched: Silas’s favorite worn armchair, his half-finished crossword puzzle, a mug cooling on the small table. He hadn't just left; he had vanished. June reached the lantern room, the colossal lens assembly looming in the center like a sleeping metal beast. It was here, in the chamber responsible for the town’s guiding light, that she found the real anomaly. The colossal clockwork mechanism, which drove the rotation of the enormous prism, was still and perfect. The mercury bath that allowed for frictionless rotation was undisturbed. But the actual light source, the powerful central lamp—it was gone. Not broken. Gone. In its place, resting on the empty lamp pedestal, was a small, perfectly carved wooden raven. Its eyes were two tiny, polished pieces of obsidian, glinting in the faint morning light filtering through the glass. And tucked beneath its wing was a folded piece of paper. June’s hands trembled slightly as she unfolded it. It wasn't Silas’s spidery handwriting. The script was elegant, almost florid, and deeply unsettling: “The Keeper has misplaced his Spark. Without it, the Watcher sleeps. To find both, the blood of the Raven must be traced. The first feather points toward the deep; the second, toward the high.” June leaned against the cool metal of the lens housing, the message burning in her hand. The blood of the Raven. Silas wouldn’t have left a riddle. This was a message for him, a challenge he had been forced to accept. Silas was gone, and something—or someone—had taken the light. June looked at the wooden bird, then out at the gray, indifferent sea. She wasn't just bringing groceries anymore. She had a mystery to solve, and her first clue was a cryptic warning and a silent, wooden raven. The first feather points toward the deep. The deepest thing she knew in Lunar Bay was the abandoned, waterlogged mine shaft at the end of the old railroad tracks, a place Silas had always strictly forbidden her from visiting.
