The letter sat in the empty crate, weighted down with a stone:


    "Mr. Walsh -


    The deliveries arrive precisely. You know my needs before I do.


    I need to understand why.


    - M. Chen"


    Marcus watched the tide rise, waiting to see if the crate would vanish as mysteriously as it had appeared. The morning sun cast his shadow long across the rocks, a stretched-out thing that barely looked human anymore.


    His mother had wanted him to be a doctor. "People need healing, Marcus," she''d say, arranging flowers in their tiny Brookline apartment. Instead, he''d chosen physics, chasing theoretical frameworks while she tended her garden and tried to understand her son''s obsession with the abstract.


    The crate remained as the water rose. No response. Just like the twelve letters before it.


    Back in the lighthouse, his automated scripts scraped the internet for traces of Harrison Walsh. Property records showed the lighthouse transfer, but the documentation ended there. No social media presence. No academic history. No birth records. Like trying to photograph smoke.


    He''d written algorithms to monitor any mention of Walsh''s name across the web. Set up email accounts under false identities to contact town halls, local newspapers, historical societies. Each response came back empty or contradictory. One clerk insisted Walsh had been a woman in her eighties. Another claimed Walsh had been dead since 1987.


    The desktop speakers hummed faintly with a Tchaikovsky piece he''d set on loop. Music felt distant now, like something from another life. Like the model rockets he''d built as a kid, dreaming of NASA while his mother reminded him to eat dinner.


    His screen flashed – another automated response:


    "Re: Historical Property Records Request


    No individual named Harrison Walsh associated with lighthouse property prior to your purchase. Previous owner listed as Maritime Historical Trust (dissolved 1998).


    - County Records Office"


    He added it to his growing Walsh database. The contradictions mapped like stars in a constellation that refused to form a pattern. His own purchase documents listed Walsh clearly as the seller, but every official record showed a different story.


    The morning''s delivery sat unopened by the stairs. He''d started leaving them untouched for hours, studying them like archaeological finds. Today''s crate contained replacements for equipment that was starting to wear – protective gloves growing thin at the fingertips, backup drives approaching capacity.


    Six months ago, he would have called it prophetic. Now it felt like a choreographed dance where he could never see his partner.


    A childhood memory surfaced: his father teaching him chess, explaining how to think five moves ahead. "Life''s the same way, son. Always know your next moves." But his father hadn''t planned on the heart attack that took him when Marcus was twelve. Some moves couldn''t be predicted.


    The speakers crackled with static. Bach''s Toccata and Fugue in D minor emerged, though he hadn''t queued it. He''d stopped questioning these musical intrusions. Started documenting them instead, mapping their occurrences against other lighthouse anomalies.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    His latest attempt to trace Walsh had led him to a nursing home in Maine. Their response arrived through one of his proxy emails:


    "No resident by that name. However, our records show a visitor matching your description signed in last week asking the same questions.


    Please do not contact us again."


    He hadn''t left the lighthouse in months.


    The desktop calendar showed his mother''s birthday next week. He''d written a card three weeks ago, using a remailer service to forward it through six different countries before reaching her. The same way he handled all external communication now. No direct contact. No real connections. Just algorithms and proxies and careful distance.


    Her last email sat in one of his monitoring inboxes: "The garden misses you. The roses bloom but no one explains to them why light bends the way it does."


    He''d almost broken then. Almost picked up the phone. Instead, he''d written another letter to Walsh and left it with the empty crates:


    "The lighthouse knows things it shouldn''t. Like you did.


    What am I missing?"


    No response. Never any response.


    The delivery manifests showed perfect anticipation of his needs, down to the brand of soap he''d switched to after developing a rash. He''d started requesting obscure items through encrypted notes left in the crates. They arrived without fail: rare books, specialized tools, specific components that shouldn''t exist yet.


    Each delivery felt like another move in a game he didn''t understand. Chess pieces advancing while he struggled to see the board.


    His mother had sent him a bishop piece on his eighteenth birthday. "For my future doctor," she''d written. It sat on his desk now, a reminder of paths not taken. Of the child who''d wanted to explore space instead of ending up in this tower, chasing shadows through data.


    The latest Walsh lead had dead-ended at a defunct law firm in Boston. Their archived records showed the lighthouse purchase, but listed the seller as a corporation dissolved in 1876. The dates didn''t align. Nothing aligned except the deliveries themselves.


    He''d started mapping his own movements through the lighthouse. Tracking patterns in his daily routines. Looking for correlations between his behavior and the increasingly precise nature of the supplies. The results suggested something impossible – the deliveries didn''t just anticipate his needs, they anticipated his realizations of those needs.


    The thought triggered another memory: his first telescope, assembled on their tiny balcony. His mother bringing hot chocolate while he searched for Saturn''s rings. "Sometimes," she''d said, "the most beautiful things are the ones we can''t quite reach."


    Static crackled through the speakers again. The music shifted to something older – a Russian lullaby his grandmother had sung, though he''d never downloaded it. He added it to his documentation and continued working.


    The next delivery would arrive in six hours. He''d left another letter for Walsh:


    "You knew what this place was. What it would show me.


    I need to understand.


    The patterns in the data match the patterns in the deliveries.


    What am I part of?"


    The lighthouse creaked. The beacon kept its rhythm. Below, waves erased his footprints from the rocks, leaving no trace of his vigil over empty crates and unsigned letters.


    His mother''s roses would be blooming now, bending toward light they couldn''t comprehend. Like him in this tower, searching for understanding just beyond reach. The next chess move hidden in noise and silence.


    He logged another day''s data. Documented the music. Mapped the impossibilities.


    And waited for Harrison Walsh to make the next move in their one-sided game.


    The bishop sat on his desk, watching. His mother''s garden grew without him. Somewhere, in nursing homes and county offices and dissolved corporations, Harrison Walsh existed and didn''t exist, like light behaving as both wave and particle.


    The next delivery would come soon. Maybe this time, there would be a response.


    Maybe this time, the letters wouldn''t go unanswered.


    Maybe this time, the game would make sense.


    The beacon swept its arc. The waves crashed below. And in his tower of data and silence, Marcus Chen continued his search for a man who might never have existed, guided by deliveries that shouldn''t be possible, while music he hadn''t chosen played songs he''d tried to forget.


    The bishop watched, remembering other dreams, other paths.


    Other moves in games long abandoned.