Anna clung to her grocery box and shivered slightly. “What a terrifying story. I keep hearing of a lot of dark tales since we moved to Jupiter last week.” Deep in thought, Anna tossed back her red hair.

Her eyes squinted in the Florida sun as she peered at the lighthouse across the water. Anna Elizabeth Dekker seemed to be a melancholy creature. Her daddy was a preacher, like Mr. Burl, but he’d left the pulpit and signed up to go to war. He was killed in a battle . . . Bull Run or Antietam or something . . . and left her mother with no means of support. About three years after the War Between the States ended, they were forced to move here; they’d used every dollar to buy a run-down house next to Mrs. Dekker’s sister.

Mr. Burl pushed back his hat. “And do you like your new house, Miss Anna?” he asked.

She turned toward him and shrugged. “It’s fine for a start. Mother knew it would need repairs when she bought it from my Aunt Nel. A few of the windows are broken, and the chimney is clogged up so much that we can’t use it, but we’ll fix it when we save up a bit more money. Mama is over in Coastville with a tailoring job this week, and I got this delivery job just yesterday. Now, tell me. . . .” She put the box in the boat. “You’re the only preacher in this whole town?”

“‘Tis true,” he said as he eased himself into the boat and held out his hand for her. “For more than 30 years now, serving the Lord and raising a farm on the edge of town. Orange groves, mostly. So now you have some groceries to deliver to our mysterious lighthouse on the tiny island, eh? Come on then, rowing is the only way to get there. Bannister and his son work on the lighthouse.”

“Isn’t that scary for them, Mr. Burl?” She took his hand and stepped in, still staring at the tall structure across the water.

“Demonic talk terrifies me.”

He took up the oars. “Now, Lass, I’d think that a preacher’s daughter such as yourself would know that God will not allow the kingdom of darkness to do harm to His children.”

Anna stared into the water as they pulled away from shore. “I’m not sure what I know, Mr. Burl. I’ve been a Christian since I was 7, but lately I feel my faith is stale. Unchallenged.”

“Mmm,” he said, pulling on the oars.

She dipped her finger in the water. “I see evidence of God, but I can’t see Him working in me personally.” She looked up. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“As you wish, Lass.”

Anna looked up and squinted. “That lighthouse is more than a hundred feet high, I’ll bet.” She shielded her eyes from the sun. “I see someone working at the top. A young man.”

Mr. Burl nodded as he rowed. “Ah, you’ve got good eyes. That would be Raleigh Bonaparte Bannister.” We came to the shores of the little island. “You’ll need to deliver the groceries up to the top of the lighthouse, since Ral’s pa goes out fishing during the day, and the house is locked. Are you afraid of heights?”

“No, Sir. Not if it means I lose this delivery job.”

He chuckled. “Good answer. Go, now. You’ve got quite a climb. That’s a pretty tall lighthouse. Go through that stand of trees and you’ll see the doorway.”

Funny . . . or not?
Well, Anna carried those groceries and climbed that reddish tower of more than 150 feet in hardly any time at all. She stopped at the top of the stairs and saw Ral as he slowly wound the steel cable around the lighthouse mechanical spool, his thick forearms bulging with the effort.

Ral alone bore the backbreaking work of winding the cable of the 250-pound lead weight around a cylinder. He had to do that so the weight could drop slowly and keep the light rotating.

Ral’s strength was nearly equal to any man’s along Florida’s Atlantic coast. He had the chest and shoulders of a man much older and stronger.

“Hi. I have your groceries,” Anna said, placing the cardboard box on the floor.

Ral turned around quickly. “You got our groceries? Good. Watch this,“ he said, grinning as he ran over to the box.

Slowly, Anna went to the railing and looked down. She saw a small cluster of men at the base of the lighthouse, chatting and smoking pipes. When she looked back, Ral was carefully handling an armload of eggs.

Anna reached out her hand. “I don’t think you should—“

But it was too late. Ral had lobbed the half-dozen eggs into the air.

He watched the trajectory of the eggs carefully. “I gotta throw them just right so they don’t hit the side of the lighthouse.”

Anna saw the eggs splatter with surprising force on and around the clutch of men below. They leaped and yelled in surprise before looking up and shaking their fists. Ral leaned against the railing, laughing helplessly.

“I suppose you think that’s funny,” Anna said. “But where I come from, you don’t waste good food on some foolhardy joke.”

Ral laughed and wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve. “Yeah, well, I don’t know where you come from.”

Anna shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I meant to say, wasting good eggs during these hard times is wrong. Those eggs could have fed a family.”

“Well, that’s your view of things,” Ral said, still chuckling as he went back to the steel cable. “But around here, you take advantage of a good prank.” He grinned at her. “That’s the view from Jupiter.”

Anna smiled thinly. “The town or the planet? Either way, it’s stupid.”

Ral shrugged his shoulders, gripped the cable and started to pull. “Whichever you want to figure. It’s my decision, and as a matter of fact, this is my property.” He nodded his head toward the stairs. “So why don’t you take your red hair and gangly legs and get out of here?”

Anna spun on her heel and stomped every step on the way down the lighthouse. As mad as she was, though, she stopped when she saw the moldy, rotted-wood casket propped just below the last steps of the staircase. Part of it was chopped open. She ran without turning back.

What’s Happening?
Anna didn’t see Ral until the next week, when she had to make another delivery. She stepped out of the boat and saw him and his father talking with some men. Anna approached them from the eastern side, figuring she could just leave the groceries at the bottom step and go, but she was unnerved by that broken casket. She snuck into the stand of trees near the doorway, put down the box and peered through the branches.

Anna saw two large men, one bald and one with yellow hair. “We heard you was still selling ‘shine,” said the yellow-haired man.

Ral’s eyebrows rose. “Not here, Sir.”

Pa stepped forward. “Hush, Son. It’s me they want to talk to.”

Anna retreated back deeper into the trees as she saw Ral shake his head. “Pa, this ain’t right—“

The yellow-haired man sneered. “Sonny Boy, best you shut yer mouth. Children are see’d and not heared.”

Pa looked up and set his jaw. “Mister, you watch your talk or there’ll be consequences.”

The yellow-haired man’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, old man, you got some drink or not? We boated a long ways to get here.”

Pa shook his head. “I don’t play that game anymore, boys.”

Ral stepped forward. “Sir, you need to leave.”

And that’s when the yellow-haired man balled a fist and caught Ral on the side of his head with a clout so hard it knocked Ral clean off his feet. The other man laughed while Ral lay there, shaking his head and blinking his eyes.

Pa lowered his head mournfully. “Mister, I sure wish you wouldn’t a done that. Now you’re gonna have to pay up.”

The yellow-haired fellow turned and stuck out his chin. “Who’s a’gonna whup me? You, old man?”

Pa shook his head. “Nope.” He pointed at Ral. “He is.”

The man turned and looked at Ral getting up slowly and setting his feet level again. The man bellowed out a laugh, but it was the last laugh heard from the man while he was on the island.

Anna gasped as she saw the young man fly into those men with locomotive force. The bald man was sent spinning into the wall of the lighthouse. Shocked, Anna stepped back and her heel bumped against a crate hidden within the branches. She looked down, expecting to see bottles or jugs.

But she didn’t find liquor. What she did see made her scream.

Read Part 2.