This is the conclusion of the story.
For a prelude to this story, listen to S2E1 of the Brewing Fiction Podcast for an ‘interview’ with the protagonist Grace Wight.
Though the places in this story are real, I have taken liberty with some of the details to fit the story. All other names and details are fiction.
Six months after Grace published the blog post, a group of teenagers from Deer Lake drove out to Main Dam on a Saturday night. They’d heard about the Ghost Light and about Grace Wight’s story, and they wanted to see for themselves.
They parked where Grace had parked and walked the same uneven ground toward the bunkhouse.
The building looked smaller than they’d expected. The siding was weathered and peeling. It looked more sad than scary. And the window where the Ghost Light had burned for nearly a century was dark.
“Maybe the bulb finally burned out,” one of the girls said.
“Or maybe the power company finally shut it off,” her boyfriend suggested.
But the oldest of them, a boy named Michael whose grandmother had grown up in Deer Lake, shook his head. “My nan said the light never went out. Not in storms and not in power outages. She said it was waiting for something.”
“Or someone?” another girl said quietly. “I think that’s what the reporter said.”
They stood there for a while, looking at the dark window and the empty bunkhouse. It wasn’t menacing or haunted. It looked old and tired.
One of the teenagers took a photo on her phone and posted it to Instagram with the caption: “The Ghost Light isn’t burning anymore. She finally found him. #DeerLake #GhostLight.”
Grace saw the post three days later when someone tagged her in the comments. She stared at the photo for a long time, at that dark window where Martha had sat for so many years. She thought about Martha and Sam walking away together, finally free. She thought about Ellie bringing Sam’s son to the Waterford, and Martha just a few feet away from her grandson. And about all the stories that get buried, forgotten, and erased from official histories because they’re inconvenient. Finally, she thought about how sometimes telling the story was enough. And that made her smile.
Grace opened her laptop and checked her email. Clara from the Waterford had sent her another message.
Hi Grace,
I thought you should know there is a record of an Eleanor Ryan in the 1935 census, living in Bay Bulls with a son named Samuel, aged ten. I haven’t been able to find anything further.
Clara
But it was something. It was a thread Grace could pull. Though the Ghost Light had gone dark, Grace knew there was more of a story to tell.
She opened a new document and started writing.
THE END (is sometimes just the beginning.)
| Keith M. Leonard © 2026. All rights reserved. |
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.