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Don’t push your luck.”
    Ian clenched his fists. It was useless to argue. He was in enough trouble already. He turned and headed down the stairs.
    Clarence stood in the lamp room, listening to the sound of his son’s footsteps retreating down the iron staircase. He heard the door to the sitting room open, then slam shut.
    Moving to the table in the corner of the room, Clarence picked up the bundle of cash and held it at arm’s length. He pondered the money a moment, then, with a scowl, tossed it back on the table.
    The money landed next to the framed picture, knocking it over. Three smiling faces stared upward as rain spattered them from the shattered window.

    As Ian exited the sitting room at the base of the lighthouse, rain immediately began pelting his face. He pulled his coat tighter against his skin, then hurried along a narrow walkway through a courtyard that led, fifty yards down the path, to two identical brick houses. Ian lived in the house closest to the lighthouse, which was customary for the head lightkeeper and his family. The assistant keeper, Mr. Young, together with his family, occupied the second.
    Each house was a square two-story affair, with a red tiled roof and a small porch out front. They sat on a narrow stretch of land cleared of trees from the surrounding forest above the great cliffs. Beyond the houses rose the heavily wooded Minong Ridge, and beyond that, the Greenstone Ridge, the spine of Isle Royale.
    As Ian walked through the rain, he passed the oil house, a small round brick building to the right of the path. This was where they stored the kerosene that the lighthouse burned each night. The building was dug partly into the ground, like a pillbox, and had a wooden roof designed to blow straight up in the event of an explosion.
    The only other structure on the property was a small barn built in back of the houses. Since it was never practical to raise domestic animals, the families used the barn mostly for storage.
    As Ian hurried along, he heard rain gurgling through the system of gutters arranged on each house. The gutters traveled down into basement cisterns, where rainwater from the roof was collected. At least, Ian thought, pulling his jacket tight against the chill wind, he wouldn’t have to haul fresh water up from the lake in the morning.
    The front porch door opened just as Ian turned off the walkway. Collene MacDougal stood waiting on the threshold, a worried look marring her otherwise sweetly expressive face. She craned her slender neck out the doorway and peered past her son toward the lighthouse.
    “What’s happened? What was that noise?” She flinched as electricity raced across the sky. Her sparrow-brown eyes darted left and right in apprehension. Goosebumps sprang up on her milky skin as the wind tore through her worn flannel nightgown.
    “Lightning hit the tower, Mum. Everything’s alright now.”
    “Did I hear your father playing the pipes?”
    “No, Mum.”
    Collene pursed her lips a moment. “Hurry in, then. You’ll catch your death out here.”
    Ian reached the wooden steps leading up to the porch, then halted a moment to look at the neighboring house. He saw a young girl peering at him through a second-story window. She smiled and waved. Ian’s face brightened despite the wind tearing at him. He raised an arm and waved back.
    “Inside now, Ian,” his mother commanded.
    Collene shooed the boy into the safety of the house, then paused a moment to watch the storm lashing the island. She looked up at the lighthouse at the other end of the compound. She could see Clarence up in the lamp room, trying to patch the hole in the window, his silhouette roaming back and forth in the tower, busy as a worker ant. Collene smiled sadly.
    She listened as Ian trudged upstairs to his room. She turned to follow, but suddenly froze as something in the courtyard caught her eye. She squinted, trying to see in the dim light.
    At the edge of the clearing, well hidden by the