The Fourth Man

The was something odd about the large print photograph. Joe moved the lamp in his Cambridge apartment closer, angling it for more light. Four men stood in front of Flannan Isles lighthouse, their oilskins dark against the white tower. December 1900, according to the faded ink on the back. Official records confirmed only three keepers were stationed there that month: James Ducat, Thomas Marshall, Donald MacArthur.

The fourth man stood slightly apart from the others, his face not as clear, refusing to come into focus. Not blurred exactly but somehow resistant to perception, like trying to remember a dream upon waking. It was as if the developer maybe smudged the print.

Joe's phone buzzed. His sister Céleste. He let it go to voicemail.

The collector who'd hired him, a nervous banker named Whitmore, had purchased the photograph at an Edinburgh estate auction. He had heard that Joseph Anderson was talented at solving mysteries of the unusual sort.

"I thought it was just unusual," he'd said, hands shaking as he poured tea in his London townhouse. "But then I woke up three nights running, certain someone was standing at the foot of my bed. Watching. Evaluating me somehow. My wife thinks I'm losing my mind."

Now, alone in his apartment surrounded by books and case files, Joe opened his laptop. The Flannan Isles disappearance was famous. Three lighthouse keepers vanished without a trace on or around December 15th, 1900. The vessel that found the lighthouse abandoned on December 26th reported an eerie scene: clocks stopped, a half-eaten meal on the table, two sets of oilskins missing but one remaining. The captain's log described impossible storms and mounting terror. The final entry was dated December 15th, though the keepers were last confirmed alive on the 7th.

Joe had read about the mysterious case a few times over the years. It had all the elements that appealed to him: a holy day - the Feast of Mary, Refuge of Sinners - isolated religious men, and inexplicable human behavior. However, he'd never found anything in the story that drew him into further research. Until now.

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He pulled up his database of similar cases, the one he'd been building since his dissertation on unexplained phenomena in Catholic historical records. The search parameters were specific: lighthouse keepers, coastal saints' feast days, unexplained presences. The result was seventeen hits.

Joe's pulse quickened. The familiar feeling when pattern recognition kicked in, that gift that was either his greatest asset or early evidence of his mind betraying him. He pulled on his reading glasses, the ones he refused to wear in public, and started cross-referencing.

1847: Skerryvore lighthouse, Scotland. Feast of St. Nicholas of Tolentino, patron of sailors. Two keepers reported a "fourth man" in the tower. One keeper disappeared.

1873: Fastnet Rock lighthouse, Ireland. Feast of St. Brendan the Navigator. Three keepers, reports of a fourth presence. Equipment failure, one death.

1889: Ar-Men lighthouse, Brittany. Feast of St. Corentin. Four keepers stationed, five shadows counted. Two men lost their minds, never recovered.

The pattern went back further with church records from coastal monasteries describing "the Witness" or "the Accountant." A figure who appeared to holy men keeping watch over dangerous waters. Medieval texts called him "he who counts the lights."

Joe's phone buzzed again. Céleste, for the third time. He figured he had better answer it.

"Joseph Anderson, finally." Her voice was tight. "The family is getting together for Christmas." She paused. "Memaw is asking that you come home for Christmas."

Joe closed his eyes. His grandmother was eighty-seven, but still active for her age. She still attended daily Mass at St. John's Cathedral, still spoke to him only in Cajun French, still prayed for his soul every night.

"I’m working on something but let me see about re-arranging some things.” he said.

"Joe." Céleste's voice softened. "I’ve been calling. Where have you been?"

Deep in a case, as always. Deep in someone else's mystery while his own life happened around him.

"Research. I'm sorry. I have a work trip planned for this week, but I'll work on a flight home before Christmas."

"Memaw said you'd say that." Céleste sighed. "She also said you'd likely have a good reason not to come. That you'd have an interesting case as usual. Do you?"

Joe looked at the photograph, at the fourth man's unresolvable face. At his laptop screen full of disappearances and deaths. At the pattern that was suddenly, horrifyingly clear.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, I do."

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The last living descendant of Thomas Marshall lived in a care facility outside Stornoway. Joe took the red eye to Glasgow, then the island hopper to Lewis. He still had a few days before his flight to Louisiana and wanted to talk to this person about the case sooner rather than later.

Mrs. Fiona MacLeod was ninety-three, mind sharp, eyes sharper. She studied Joe in the facility's garden, noting his weathered hands, the subtle accent that emerged when he was tired.

"You're not from here," she said.

"Lafayette, Louisiana originally. Long time ago." He showed her a smaller copy he printed of the photograph. "Your great-grandfather Thomas Marshall was at Flannan Isles in 1900."

"Aye." She didn't look at the image. "I’ve seen that a thousand times. So many strangers have come to ask me if I know more than most about him and the lighthouse."

"I'm not a stranger," Joe said gently, slipping into the voice that made people want to confide in him. "I'm someone who needs to understand. I've seen things over the years in my work that I can't explain, Mrs. MacLeod. Things that should be impossible. And in this case, I think your great-grandfather saw them too."

She studied him for a long moment. "You do have the look of someone who's seen too much. My husband had that look after the war. Haunted, but still searching." She reached into her cardigan pocket. "I've been carrying this for sixty years, wondering if someone worthy would come asking the right questions."

The letter was yellowed, creased from decades of folding and unfolding. The handwriting was cramped, urgent:

December 14, 1900

My dearest wife,

If you receive this, know that I chose to stay. We all did. He comes to count the lights, the souls keeping watch over the dark waters. Every lighthouse, every beacon, must have its keepers. Three is the sacred number, the Trinity reflected. But sometimes three isn't enough. Sometimes the darkness is too great, and someone must remain.

He showed us what we guard against. The deep places where light has never reached, where things that should not exist wait for the beacons to fail. We are not victims. We are volunteers. We will keep the light.

Do not mourn us. We are the three. We remain the three. We will always be the three.

Your loving husband, Thomas

Joe's hands trembled as he photographed the letter. "Mrs. MacLeod, has anyone ever reported seeing…"

"Every forty years," she said knowing what he was going to ask.

"Local fishermen see three figures maintaining the lighthouse. It's been automated since 1971, but they're still there. Still keeping watch." She looked at him directly. "Whatever darkness they were keeping out, Mr. Anderson, they're still there doing it."

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Following his visit with Mrs. MacLeod, Joe pulled strings, called in favors with the Scottish Maritime Heritage Board claiming it was urgent research, and was able to obtain approval to stay the night at the Flannan Isles lighthouse. It was December 14th. The caretaker left him at sunset with a flashlight and a radio, clearly thinking he was mad.

Maybe he was. Maybe Harvard had taught him to see patterns that didn't exist, to find theology in tragedy. Maybe he was just a boy from Lafayette who'd learned too much to go home and was now chasing ghosts on a frozen rock in the Atlantic instead of sharing in the joyous season with his family.

The lighthouse stood white against the darkening sky. Joe had his camera, his journal, his mother's rosary in his pocket. If this was delusion, he'd document it. If it was real…he didn't let himself finish that thought.

As midnight came, the wind of the Atlantic cut through his coat. Joe stood where the photograph had been taken, 125 years ago almost to the day. Then he saw them.

Three translucent figures moving through the familiar choreography of lighthouse keeping. One trimmed a wick that no longer existed. One checked equipment that had been removed decades ago. One stood watch at a railing that wasn't there, scanning dark waters for ships that would never come.

Joe's breath caught. Donald MacArthur, the youngest keeper, turned slowly and looked directly at him.

Their eyes met across time, across whatever boundary separated the living from those caught in perpetual service. MacArthur's lips moved. Joe, who'd learned to read lips during his forensic training, understood perfectly: Don't let it go dark.

Cambridge, December 20th. Joe sat in his apartment staring at the photograph, at the fourth man who was now somehow more visible, more present. As if being present at the lighthouse had given him substance.

The demolition notice had arrived that morning: Flannan Isles lighthouse would be removed to make way for an automated navigation station. The light will go dark permanently on December 15th, next year. One year from the night he'd seen them.

His phone rang. Céleste.

"Memaw wants to know when you're coming." his sister said.

"Yes, I am booking my flight home for tomorrow." Joe said.

"She said something strange when she woke up yesterday. In French, you know how she gets." Céleste paused. "She said, 'Tell Cher that some lights must not go out. Tell him he'll understand. Tell him I'm praying for his choice.'"

Joe's hands went cold.

"What does that mean?" Céleste asked. "What choice?"

He looked at the photograph, at the fourth man. At the figures who'd chosen eternal vigilance over rest. At the pattern he'd discovered earlier that month.

"I don't know yet," he said quietly.

He pulled out his journal and wrote in Cajun French, the way he always did when writing to his mother:

Maman, some mysteries solve themselves. And some mysteries are the solution. I've found something that should be impossible. Three men who chose to stay, to keep watch, to guard against darkness that most people will never know exists.

The lighthouse is scheduled for demolition. December 15th, next year. When the light goes dark, what happens to the keepers? What happens to what they're keeping out?

I don't know if I'm losing my mind or finding something sacred. I don't know if I'm seeing patterns that aren't there, or patterns I'm the only one who can see. But I know this, if I'm right, someone needs to stop the demolition. And if I'm wrong, I'm just a man trying to save three ghosts who don't need saving.

Either way, I have a year to decide.

Pray for me. Or pray for them. I'm not sure which of us needs it more.

He closed the journal and looked at his laptop. Emails from Scotland Yard, from the Vatican Archives, from a dozen clients with mysteries that needed solving. He knew this work would take him away from life, from family.

But he also knew he had a gift to see a pattern that no one else could see. A way of solving mysteries that might have the answers to questions humanity had forgotten to ask.

Joe went to his laptop and booked two tickets. One to Lafayette for Christmas, and one to Scotland for next December.

Some mysteries, he thought, are worth the cost of solving. And some costs are worth paying, even if you never know whether you chose right.

Outside his window, Cambridge glittered in the winter dark. All those lights, all those keepers, all that faith that dawn would come.

He sat in the space between certainty and doubt, between home and exile, between the living and whatever those three lighthouse keepers had become.

He wondered what he would choose, when next December came.