Chapter 7: The Day Without Wind

The old man invited the girl into the tower. The lamp still burned in daylight, like a star unwilling to admit it had become unnecessary.

The girl's name was Lin Chaoyin. Her father had once copied sea charts, marking reefs and homeward courses for every vessel in the bay. Forty years before, he had given the lighthouse a letter containing only one sentence: If the wind is willing to forgive me, let her know I did not leave.

"Who was she?" the old man asked.

Chaoyin looked out at the sea, pale with stillness. "My mother. She waited all her life. Before she died, she said the wind must simply have lost its way."