The Lighthouse - 2

        When we moved in, there was one thing that caught my attention before anything else. An odd, not-so-subtle combination lock in the attached garage. I studied it tirelessly, turning its wheels time and time again, hoping for some insight. The lock was built right into the garage wall and had five independently rotating wheels. The first and fifth wheels had the letters A, B, C, D, E, V, W, X, Y, and Z. The second, third and fourth wheels had the digits 0-9. My first approach was to brute force it, though it took many hours. I tried every combination, A111A, A111B, A111C and on and on, looking, and listening, asking for my wife to look and listen for anything unlocking, anything changing in the house, anything suspicious. I diligently exhausted all 100,000 combinations, but to my disappointment it lead to no apparent revelations.

        Then, one day as I was in the kitchen getting a glass of water, something caught my attention. I froze, chills racing through me as water raced out of the fridge and down my hand. Something about the kitchen was strange. My eyes had just passed over it a second ago. My mind had definitely noticed; it was trying to tell me, and I was trying to listen. I closed my eyes. What had I just seen? What had I just missed?

        That night, around 2am, I woke to the rattling as I often did. I sat in bed listening to it. What could make a sound like that? It sounded like the grinding and chugging of a big engine. I rose and shuffled around the house. It seemed to be the loudest in the kitchen. I traveled outside and walked out to the pier. There were no clouds in the sky and the moon was nearly full. I heard the waves crash against the rocks behind me. My eyes peered out across the churning sea. I spotted a vessel way out from the shore. It was a plain boat with tall sails. It had some marking on the mainsail, several symbols traveling from top to bottom, each one surrounded by a circle. It was in this moment that a thought occurred to me. It seemed that every time I came out here on a clear night after being awoken, this sailboat was in sight.

        The next morning I went down to the Kenderville wharf. I found one of the captains and asked him if he knew anything of a boat with symbols on its mainsail traveling from top to bottom.

        He replied at first with a surprised stare. “Where’d you hear about that vessel?” he asked.

        “I’ve seen it in the middle of the night from the pier near my house,” I replied.

        “The vessel is one of the strangest mysteries I’ve ever encountered,” the captain answered.

        “How so?” I asked, my eyebrows raising.

        “Many captains have seen it gliding through the sea in the dead of night. It takes the same route every time,” the captain whispered. “But no one has ever spotted a soul on its deck. No captain. No sailors. Some have sailed up close. Their men have tried to board, but it always eludes them no matter how hard they try or how much they prepare. I think... it’s enchanted,” the captain concluded.