The girl came ashore on a windless afternoon in deep autumn.

She stood at the foot of the lighthouse as the old man sent his last stack of pages from the window. The sea was calm to an almost impossible degree: not one sail anywhere, and the land breeze that should have carried each letter away refused to stir by so much as a step.

She did not speak first. From below she studied the round lit pane for a long while, as if making sure of something, until at last he came down to open the door.

"Master of the tower," she said, "you never keep copies of what is sent away?"

The old man's hand stopped on the cold brass handle. In all his years no one had ever so plainly put a finger on the secret lodged deep in him.

"That's right," he said. "What is given to the wind stays gone."

She lowered her head. "Then what about my father's letter?" she asked. "One that should have arrived forty years ago. He says he handed it to the wind, yet for all these forty years, no one in this whole bay has ever received it."