Lighthouse Keeper Ii the LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER the APPRENTICE Iii

THE APPRENTICE I The Lighthouse Keeper II THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER THE APPRENTICE III The Lighthouse Keeper A Story of Mind Mastery DAVID RICHARDS IV THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER Copyright © 2020 by David Richards All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, at the address below. ISBN: THE APPRENTICE V For my mother Donna, who always believed in me. VI THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER THE APPRENTICE VII THE APPRENTICE VII Contents Prologue ix PART ONE: KEEPER OF THE LIGHT 1 Chapter 1: The Apprentice 3 Chapter 2: Black Eagle 15 Chapter 3: Ill with Distraction 39 Chapter 4: Tempest: A Cry for Help 57 PART TWO: THE STORMS WITHIN 77 Chapter 5: The Monstrous Rogues: The Sea of Regret 79 Chapter 6: The Harrowing Shallows: The Sea of Comfort 100 Chapter 7: The Swirling Angst: The Sea of Anxiety 127 PART THREE: SAILING INTO A DREAM 149 Chapter 8: Compass of the Mind 151 Chapter 9: Pathway to Mastery 162 Chapter 10: The Sea of Dreams 173 VIII THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER THE APPRENTICE IX PROLOGUE rooster’s crow broke the pre-dawn silence. William the Conqueror. That was the name his father had A given the fine black Australorp that ruled their roost. He was a head taller than their remaining eight roosters, with darts of tan and brown the only color in his otherwise ebony cape. His crowing was distinct in that it ended suddenly, as if something had caught in the rooster’s throat. He crowed again. It was soon followed by a gaggle of impatient, agitated clucking. Then nothing. The rooster crowed again. More clucking. Somewhere further away, another rooster crowed its shrill reply. In the next room, heavy feet found their way onto the floor. The feet shuffled a short distance before there was again a brief silence. The silence broke with the sound of one boot and then a second, scraping over the floor IX X THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER THE APPRENTICEPROLOGUE XI as they were put on and laced. The footfalls resumed heavier now, louder, moving with alertness and purpose. He hated the sound of the creaking door. Yet it always came. Day after day, after day. And, he feared, always would come. The rest of his life, the door would creak. Maybe he could oil its hinges for some quiet. And for a time, it would silence the door. But that was only quieting an otherwise unsettling truth. He’d been awake at least twenty minutes, grateful he hadn’t yet heard it and looking for some last morsel of sleep to appease his restful hunger, bitter that the creak would inevitably come. And now, as these heavy boots plodded closer, he felt his pulse race. His imagination, as it so often did when he woke early, raced with it. The door was going to open and it wasn’t going to be who he expected. No. It would be Death. Death, and not a faceless apparition shrouded in a black cloak with a scythe. His Death would be covered in chicken filth, with maggots worming their way down what was left of a ragged, torn face. It would have the face of some rotting rooster; the comb tattered and scarred like the dead sail of a lifeless ship. The eyes black, the black of some infinite foreboding darkness and the beak a hooked, unnatural thing, with wattles that sagged in shredded streams of decaying flesh. He clenched his teeth as the footsteps stopped immediately outside his door. The latch clicked. The door groaned its agonizing note as it opened. THE APPRENTICEPROLOGUE XI “Sam, time to rise,” his father said in a calm, steady tone. His voice was deep, and the words were heavy, like the sound of stone slabs scraping against one another. Without waiting for a reply, his father turned and made his way to the kitchen. Sam Seagrim sat up in his bed, as much to show his father that he was in fact awake as to get himself moving to start the day. He ran a hand through his sandy blond hair then rubbed his eyes and looked outside. A bright moon hung just beneath the tree tops, piercing the night with vibrant blue beams. The rooster crowed again. “Alright.” He said, waving a hand in the empty air and pushing himself off the bed. Breakfast passed with little said between father and son. It was routine. His father cooked: the eggs, the bacon, the toast. Sam fetched the jam and the milk which, on some occasions when the seasons permitted, would be substituted with freshly squeezed orange juice. As quickly as the food was ready, it was eaten. Sam washed the dishes and left them in the drying rack while his father brought in more wood for the fire. All the while, a chorus of rooster cries played in the background, a nagging reminder of the day’s activities. XII THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER THE APPRENTICE XIII With the sun just beginning to paint the eastern sky in soft oranges and pinks, they were outside; he would collect eggs while his father walked the fence line. The integrity of the fence confirmed, the chickens would be freed from the coop to roam and feed. They had just over two hundred birds divided into four chicken houses. The count had been higher, but they’d lost a dozen due to a sickness that had hit the coop early in the summer. A fox had breached the perimeter and gotten one more, but not before William the Conqueror made the sly trickster pay a heavy price. Sam had gotten to the coop first. There were feathers everywhere, even some still floating in the air. William had picked up an awkward limp, and clawed at the ground in obvious irritation. Upon closer inspection, Sam saw that the remains of one of the fox’s eyes was snagged on William’s foot. Even with the losses, it was the largest chicken farm in the county by a good eighty chickens and they made a comfortable living. Most of their hens averaged around ninety eggs a year; as the cooler months came on, they’d select three dozen or so of the younger hens to sell at the market for meat. Egg production always died off in the winter months; his father would take odd jobs around town to subsidize their income. Soon he knew, his father would tell him to do the same. The coops smelled of straw and crap, a stench that was never quite ordinary, despite the mundane tasks THE APPRENTICEPROLOGUE XIII associated with it. The smell was aggravated by the poor ventilation and, in the warmer months, the remains of the previous day’s baking heat. The chickens’ frenzied exit had kicked up a thick dust, which hung in the air, sticking to him and filling his nostrils. Their curious clucks to greet the day were met by the chirping of the chicks, which were kept in a separate, smaller coop a few feet away from the main chicken-house surrounded by wire mesh and given feed to ensure their growth wasn’t left to chance. The eggs collected and stored inside the house, Sam went to cleaning the coops. He swept the poop into a dustbin and from there into a small pail he carried with him. He moved mechanically and with the ease built of habit, the tasks a part of him now, the product of having done them almost daily for the better part of four years. He paused, setting the pail on the top shelf in the main coop and looked at his father. The older Seagrim, having completed the perimeter walk, turned his attention to chopping wood on the side of the house, a chore he preferred to do before the sun was above the trees. That errand complete, he would take the morning’s supply of eggs into town to sell. That left Sam to gather the chopped wood and stack it, taking enough into the house to keep the stove fire burning for the day. That left laundry that needed to be taken down to the creek to be washed, brought back, and hung to dry. XIV THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER THE APPRENTICE XV He would make lunch, eat, then clean the house. As the sun burned its arc across the sky, he would have an hour or two to himself. In the past, he might have gone to the Flannery house, ten minutes’ walk across farmland and pasture to see his friend Sean. But the youngest Flannery would be joining his two older brothers at university. He had other friends, further away in both distance and association. Some, like Sean, would be headed to school. Others found themselves treading on similar ground as he; angling themselves into the family business. He loved his father; they’d grown closer in the years since his mother had died. He’d briefly explored the idea that his father would remarry. It wouldn’t have sat well with him and he was ready to protest though the subject never came up in conversation and, after two years, seemed less and less likely with each passing month as his father found solace at home, and in the company of his only son.

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