Living on the premises of one of the United States Lighthouses meant that the structure had to be kept in good repair, and relatively tidy. Nora's dad had always interpreted this to mean that they clean up any mess they made after making it, they tidied rooms seasonally to root out areas that had turned into sort of "driftwood" or "catch-all" piles, and they saved the allotted stipends given them for major upgrades and repairs.

The light in their lighthouse was due to be upgraded in their next bout of refurbishment, using the stipend that would arrive sometime in February. Their structure had been outfitted in the 1830s with a standard Fresnel lens, and upkeep in the past had usually meant replacing damaged lenses and prisms, and keeping the intact ones clean and free of any kind of impediment that would stop the light being able to refract as far.

The latest refurbishment would include two larger sized lenses being added, which would replace some of the other refraction lenses in the structure, allegedly increasing the distance that the light would be able to reach; the light would be dramatically more efficient and powerful than their current concentric wick lamp, and visible for 20 miles.

Until these upgrades took place, however, Nora was stuck with her wick-based oil lamp and handy clockwork mechanism and gear box attached to the base of the lens pedestal. The gears were attached to a cable that had to be wound by hand every two hours through the night, in order to achieve the horizontal rotation of the lens assembly, which was a column of weights and counter-weights suspended in mercury and able to rotate 1,500 pounds fast enough to produce a frequent signal.

It was still better than the lighthouses outfitted before the Fresnel lens: they had to rotate the entire light source, not just the lenses.

Nora didn't even need a watch to track the time; she'd been a lighthouse keep for so long, her body naturally reminded her when two hours had elapsed, and that it was time to re-set the weights, which dropped through the hollow mast in the center of the tower using gravity, and made it so that Nora didn't have to spend her entire shift rotating the light by hand.

When she stood to exit the kitchen, Pete followed her out and up the first flight of stairs, through the living area/office on that landing, and toward the next staircase, which she would ascend to reach the next landing, where she would find the gear box and its wheel crank.

"Are you anybody's mother?" Pete asked, with the aplomb of a child who didn't know better.

Nora found herself mentally re-evaluating her estimation of Pete's age. He was younger than she'd thought. Asking after someone's personal life was something older children didn't tend to do. They'd have gotten instructions by that point of the propriety and impropriety of it, as they entered an age where they might start thinking about the rules of courtship and needing to know certain social graces and etiquette.

Pete had obviously been brought up properly, before his parents died. He had table manners and was well-spoken, which spoke of education. Just…not that kind.

Nora scoffed, smiling. "I'm not even anybody's wife," she said, and thought she managed to keep a lot of the bitterness out of the answer.

She was growing more comfortable with Just Nora. It didn't mean she didn't resent the absence of Nora and Paul.

"But you're gonna get married, now, aren't you?" Pete asked.

"I'm already married to this lighthouse," Nora said by way of answer. Which was how she chose to answer impudent questions.

"Who's that?" Pete asked, openly pointing at the portrait she'd made Paul sit for.

Nora started walking up the stairs. "Paul," she admitted. She'd make allowances for him being impudent. She would, because she knew he probably hadn't had leave to exercise impudence in a long time. Not with a family who beat him for missing the bucket while milking the cow. But he was a child! He was allowed a little cheekiness.

"Is he part of your family?" Pete asked, trailing behind her like a duck. Like a child following his mother.

Nora felt the familiar heartbreak come over her at the question. And she answered honestly. "He almost was."

"How can someone almost be part of a family?" Pete responded immediately. All curious. Not meaning anything cruel by it. Just ignorant of the intimacy of his questions.

"We were going to be married," Nora answered a little flatly. She hoped she wouldn't get too grumpy. If she thought she'd snap at him, she might have to ask him to change subjects.

"How come you weren't?" Nora reached the landing, moving toward the gear box with a casual certainty that spoke of having done this same thing many thousands of times in her life. She didn't let herself get frustrated at Pete. He was just curious. He'd grow sick of the topic soon.

"Well, as far as we know, his ship was headed for a storm. They were never heard from again. That was a year ago," she said resignedly in answer to his question. And every storm she saw, now, lacked the beauty it once held; the sea was always beautiful, perhaps more so when it was tempestuous than when it was calm…but it was that unpredictability that had taken Paul away from her. And what was beautiful about that?

"He'll come back," Pete said brightly, after a beat. Nora was surprised to see a genuine, wide smile on his face. He had dimples tucked into the corners of it, and it seemed to change his whole bearing. He looked…more childlike. The smile belonged there. Not that wary, skittish look of a boy expecting to get hit.

"I tell myself the same thing every day," Nora found herself admitting, turning the crank and resetting the weights, "standing up there watching for ships on the horizon." She waited a beat, unsure of how she felt about the things she'd just said aloud. "Time I should be thinking of other things, so they tell me," she added, wondering bemusedly why she felt it to be an appropriate sort of conversation to have with this child. Perhaps because he was a stranger.

Perhaps because he'd expressed optimism and hope.

Perhaps because no one else ever really had.

"I'll have to ask Elliott about Paul," Pete said conversationally, stepping nimbly down the stairs. "He has a way of knowing things." The robe had fallen open, revealing a pale, skinny chest. It was free of the kinds of marks Nora was watching for, and she filed the information away for later review.

"Who's Elliott?" Nora asked in genuine curiosity.

"My dragon," Pete answered immediately, reaching the bottom of the stairs and turning to look up at Nora.

"Dragon?" Nora frowned. And then gasped, as she realized. "So you're the boy with the dragon!"

Pete seemed proud. "Yup."

Dad had told her about encountering a dragon. And had vaguely said something about a boy, too, right as she'd put him to bed. A boy who'd been with the dragon.

"And you know…And you know what else? There was a boy with it. And he wasn't afraid. This boy…"

"Where is he?" Nora asked, feeling like she was humoring a very young child with an imaginary friend, on one hand.

On the other, she wasn't sure what she thought about Dad's behavior when she'd gone to fish him out of the Tavern. It was one thing for him to have had some kind of drunken hallucination and for his buddies to go along with it.

It was strange, though, that it should be a dragon. That was a strange detail. He'd obviously spoken to Pete. And if Pete was willing to tell everyone about this dragon, it was worth thinking about.

"Down in the cave," Pete answered her question readily enough, matter-of-factly.

"That's interesting," Nora said honestly. "I've never known anyone with a dragon. What does he look like?"

Nora wrote the time in the log that she'd re-set the weights as Pete chattered about his dragon, acting like the young child he actually was. She finished her thought, and then stood to find a nightshirt that might fit Pete. Dad's things were in his bureau upstairs, and he was sleeping. So Nora reached into a different drawer. Things she'd kept of Paul's.

She held up the shirt to Pete, measuring it against the length of his arms, and then reaching to the robe, starting to open it. Pete responded by taking a step back and bringing a hand up to hold the robe closed.

That wasn't abnormal behavior; it was understandable for a boy of his age to not want to be dressed by a grown up, when he was big enough to manage himself. She honestly would have expected similar behavior from one even younger than her revised estimate of Pete's age being 10 or 11. Nora offered him the nightshirt, and then turned away to let him dress in privacy.

She helped him adjust his sleeves, when he was ready for her to look, and showed him the bed he could sleep in, not necessarily surprised when he climbed in and lay on his side, and then settled on his stomach. The one welt that she'd seen was probably an indication of more. Pete probably had a mess on his back. Which explained him wanting to avoid sleeping on it.

Nora continued her paperwork to the surprisingly soothing sounds of Pete's gentle breathing, and allowed herself to wonder what tomorrow might bring.

She already knew if the orphan home had really been so uncaring as to send him to people who hurt him, and then send him back there after he ran away, that she didn't really want to inform them he'd been found. And she wouldn't be able to, anyway, without his full name and without knowing where he'd been travelling from, other than the extremely vague "West of town." There were dozens – if not hundreds – of orphan homes that fit that description, considering you couldn't get much more east in the United States than a lighthouse on the coast of Maine.

She shuddered as she considered another choice she technically had: she could probably locate the adoptive family herself. She had their family name—not very common—that she could conduct a search by. Pay a call; try to get some information without outright asking if they were missing their indentured servant.

No. She would never do that. If she only were able to get more information from the orphan home…If she only had reassurance that disclosing Pete's current whereabouts didn't practically guarantee he would be taken from her and put with his abusers, if not a different family entirely.

Tomorrow would come, and there would be breakfast and discussions; maybe Nora would offer to buy Pete new clothes, since the ones he'd arrived in were awful. She'd have to set him up doing something with Dad so she could get some sleep, but other than that, they had no pressing plans. No reason why they shouldn't keep a child here, for the time being. Maybe she'd pitch it to Dad as a temporary situation. A week or so.

She thought, then, about this…dragon.

It was so fascinating; Nora wanted almost to dismiss it out of hand as Pete's…way of dealing with a family who'd been awful to him. Invent a friend who protected him. And that was the plausible interpretation of events…had she not also been hearing whispers of dragons and jinxes and a strange boy running around town causing trouble on her way to the tavern to find Dad.

Maybe it was more…a convenience? Pete had someone to blame if he got in trouble, in the form of a dragon. But… Pete really didn't seem like that kind of boy. Not the boy Nora had practically coerced into staying the night. Not the boy who'd actually bowed his head as she said grace and then crossed himself after; a good boy being a good Catholic as he'd been raised.

Granted, she had known him all of 3 hours.

But what she'd seen…was a boy on the run. He had been getting hurt, and Nora lived in this society, too. Children had less of a say in things than women did.

Nora knew of instances of families separating, and judges granting custody of the children to the drunken father they were trying to escape. Because as a man, he would be able to meet the needs of the children better than a woman, who couldn't even own property while her husband was alive to own it for her. Until the children were neglected or killed, of course.

There was a sound from where Pete slept. A rustle of bedclothes as Pete moved in his sleep.

A soft whimper.

Nora's eyebrows furrowed, glancing back toward the boy, obviously still asleep.

Another, longer whimper, accompanied by noisy breaths that sounded like dry sobs.

Nora stood, walking quietly over to where he lay, concerned and sympathetic. "Pete?" she called gently. "It's a dream, Pete. It's not real."

The comparison of the child she'd put to bed a little over an hour ago against the child she saw now was an exercise in stark contrast.

Gone was the peaceful sleep, the adorable yawns, the snuggling into the bedcovers.

This Pete's face was red and tear streaked, breathing erratic, legs tangled in covers that no longer comforted.

And then, suddenly, Pete kicked the covers off his legs completely and sat up, blinking.

"Pete?" Nora tried again.

Pete didn't respond. He turned his head, looking around, seemingly confused.

"You're at the lighthouse, Pete. It's Nora. Remember?"

"I'm mebbe a tarnal scalawag, but it's a cussed sight better'n a randy redneck nancy, Willie Gogan," Pete blurted, wobbling where he sat, blinking slowly, seemingly unaware he'd spoken.

Nora stilled, torn between wanting to be cross with him for using that kind of language and unsure he was even awake, right now.

And yet another part of her wondered what else Pete would reveal, in this state, and found herself curious, if morbidly so.

Soon enough, though, Pete slumped back to his mattress, and Nora came to smooth the covers over him, again.

Dad used to tell tales on Jackie, who'd ofttimes do things like this and never remember it, in the morning. "Never made a lick of sense, the things he'd say. And he denied he did it at all, until I had to wake him once, when he started to try and get up and wander around. Then he was just confused, and asked me a lot of questions the next morning."

She knew he'd asked around about it, too, finding it to be, if not common, then not a rare thing, for this kind of behavior in children.

Nora was awake, anyway, and now knew to keep an ear out, for Pete. She checked the light, occasionally, but noting the calm stillness of tonight's sea, the highest waves would probably come in at high tide and flood that cave from earlier, but there was little chance of any kind of breaker that would be concerning enough to douse the wick.

It was…largely boring to be a lighthouse keeper, in the middle of the night, with naught to do but re-set the weights every two hours. Dad liked to sit up with the light and watch the breakers. Nora usually did paperwork and tidying.

The only other Pete-related incident happened an hour or so before dawn.

Nora had been largely under the kitchen stove, stoking it so it would keep things warm. She'd gotten a splinter, and come back to the desk to retrieve a spare Barlow knife, and seen the tail end of this new nightmare.

This time, Pete appeared to have awakened himself, and the only speaking Nora heard was a low patter of mumbles too soft for her to understand. He rolled onto his side, pulled up the blanket, and seemed to curl back to sleep.

At or around 6:30, Nora ascended the stairs dutifully to wake Dad so they could start the process of daytime lighthouse duties. Hopefully, if Dad was of a mind, they could officially switch roles. That usually depended a lot on just how much the previous day's activities were affecting him. (Read: just how hungover he was.)

When he sat up and started to move in the direction of the bathroom to freshen up for the day, she got out a large pot to set some potatoes on to boil. She procured four different kinds of meat from the icebox, eager to treat Pete to a proper New England breakfast. She left these things alone on the stove as they warmed, and set to finishing her pastry crust for sweet pies; she was confident she could turn out an apple and a peach both, and she had enough sugar and cinnamon for a lovely glaze.

Baking pies with fruit demanded more than a hand-raised affair that she turned out for her and Dad. She lined a tin with her dough, weighing it with dried beans so it could bake and firm up before she added filling.

She could distantly hear Dad, two floors up, once he got his boots on, and filled the kettle to put some coffee on. They'd have breakfast, she'd take Pete into town for some new clothes, and then maybe a lunch to bring home so Nora could get some sleep.

It was all going smoothly. Dad slipped in, pecking her on the cheek and wishing her good morning, asking about the weather and the tides. He reached for a cup for coffee, and then stopped himself.

"Where's mine?" he asked, opening a few cupboards, looking for a specific cup. He usually preferred a small white one that had belonged to his late wife.

"Just take a new one, Dad," Nora laughed, cutting up bits of butter to put in with the potatoes, recently liberated from their boil; the water was dumped into a special bucket; nutrient-rich water, like the kind that was left after boiling potatoes or vegetables, was good for lots of things, and wasn't wasted.

"No, I left it up by the lens. That's. That's sloppy. The cup will get forgotten about if we leave it up there. That belonged to your mother. No, that doesn't do. No, no," Dad objected, and disappeared back up the stairs to fetch his cup.

It was a little after 7:00 when Nora pulled the pies from the oven and nearly dropped them in shock because—Dad was screaming.

What on earth?!

She hurried up the stairs, not sure what she'd find. Was he hurt? Had he fallen?

"Dad! Dad, what is it?" she called in fear, seeing him at the head of the stairs. He looked scared out of his mind.

Dad obligingly raised a hand, pointing. "The boy with the dragon."

Pete, poor dear, looked confused and maybe a little closer to being asleep than being awake.

Nora laughed a little in relief. She'd thought he was hurt!

"I know, I know," she said soothingly. "Now just take it easy." She hadn't had a chance to explain, yet. All that had passed in the night had passed while Dad was sleeping. She patted his arms reassuringly, and he jerked a little, turning to her suddenly, eyes wide and serious.

"You saw it. You saw it?" He grasped one of her hands in both of his.

"Well, I didn't actually see it, but I know what it looks like," Nora said, rubbing her free hand on his back, trying to encourage him to be calm.

Pete was watching them both carefully. His hands were at his sides, feet hanging off the bed, probably startled by Dad screaming.

"Well, but—" Dad shot Pete another look, this one…almost fearful.

"We'll talk about it later," Nora said firmly. She didn't want to get into this before breakfast. She was tired and didn't want to be cranky, too.

"Oh, well, but—o-one thing I-I must know," Dad addressed Pete, now, stepping up to him, taking one of Pete's wrists in his hand, but releasing it when Pete made a motion to free it. "It isn't in the lighthouse, it it?" Dad pointed at the ground, eyes still on Pete, still very intent and fearful.

"No, Elliott's down in the cave," Pete assured him, pointing in the general direction he thought the cave was, and earning a relieved sigh from Dad.

"Oh, Elliott…" Dad nodded, and then did a double-take. "Elliott? It—It even has a name." He offered a half-chuckle, looking at Nora, who'd moved to stand behind him again, ready to interfere if he got too agitated. Dad was harmless, he would never hurt anyone, but she knew his…boisterousness could be off-putting. And it was very different from the atmosphere she'd carefully cultivated for Pete, trying to encourage him that he was safe. Screaming bloody murder and demanding answers to questions wasn't what she wanted Pete to be around.

"There's nothing to get upset about," she said firmly, trying to catch his eye.

Dad, however, only had eyes for Pete. She was relieved to note, though, that he no longer looked afraid. He sounded much calmer when he replied, finally looking at her.

"You're right. Right, there's nothing to get upset about. Nothing," he smiled, looking back and forth between Nora and Pete. "No, why should I get upset? I should be happy," he said quickly, and walked to the other side of the room; he was an active speaker, gesticulating with his hands. "I—I should be happy. I'll go down to the saloon and I'll tell the boys, I'll say, "Boys, here it is." And then hear the apologies," he offered a theatrical chuckle, gesturing to Pete, still sitting in the bed.

"Elliott'll be happy to do it for you, sir," Pete said accommodatingly, as Nora scoffed. She'd had to walk Dad home because he'd been so drunk he couldn't remember how to get home. And if he went to the saloon, she'd have to take his shift, tonight. She was not liking this plan.

"Good boy," Dad said, coming back to Pete, taking his hands, gripping them enthusiastically. "Good lad. Just you and me and Elliott. We'll go into the saloon."

Pete nodded minutely, and then, almost as an afterthought, Dad pointed at him. "Oh. Elliott. He won't—He won't start to scratch, or—or fight or set anything on fire, will he?" Dad gesticulated with his hands, approximating first claws with his fingers, followed by fists that boxed in a fight, and finally wiggling his hands as if to imitate flames in the air.

"Well," Pete said slowly, considering, "He's sort of…"

"Sort of what?" Dad asked immediately, hanging on his words.

"Unpredictable," Pete finished.

Dad seemed to consider that, opening and closing his mouth.

Nora saw her chance. "Now, don't do anything with Elliott. Why—why don't you leave him where he is? It's too dangerous to take him into town." She eyed Pete, trying to communicate her thoughts to him, and didn't get any arguments.

"Dangerous," Dad murmured.

"Now I don't want either one of you to say a word about Elliott to anyone. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Dad answered, and Pete just looked at Nora, nodding minutely.

"Until we've talked this over," Nora clarified. Then, gratefully changing the subject, "Now let's all have breakfast. The lamp has to be polished, and the lens cleaned," Dad took her hands in his, nodding, agreeing with her words. "And I want to take Pete to buy some new clothes," she added.

"Yes, we'll clean Elliott and eat the lamp," Dad said agreeably. And then shook his head. "I mean, ah, we'll clean—clean the lamp."

Nora, seeing her victory at the successful redirection, led the way back downstairs to grab Pete's things, which were awful, but cleaner, and drier, now that they'd been left overnight.

"Elliott!" Dad said again, as if in reminder. "The name's Elliott. Did you hear that?"

Nora affirmed that, yes, she'd heard Pete's Dragon's name, and got him settled at the table, giving him a new cup to put his coffee in, assuring him she'd get Mom's cup –the instigator of all of this – from where he'd dropped it, upstairs.

That was Dad, set.

More and more she was feeling the strain of being his caretaker, more than just his daughter, anymore. It was…wearying.

She took a deep breath, centering herself, and then fetched Pete's clothes from where she'd pulled them off the lines a few hours ago, ready for her next task of getting Pete ready and downstairs to enjoy his New England breakfast feast.

She brought the clothes up to Pete, who had managed to make his bed, and stood next to it, twisting his fingers absently. The nightshirt dwarfed him ridiculously and made him look even younger than he was.

"Sorry about that, Pete," she greeted him, holding out the clothes, which he took, hesitantly. "Good morning! How was your sleep?"

"I. Um. It was fine," Pete stammered. "I didn't mean. Um. I mean. I hope I didn't upset him," he continued, and Nora shook her head.

"You didn't upset him, I promise. He's not even really upset. Just…loud," Nora smiled.

Pete offered a small smile in return, and looked at the clothes, the smile dropping. "I'll. Um. I'll just change, and I can. Um. I can go."

"Nonsense!" Nora said, in the tone of one scandalized. "You can change, and then come down to breakfast! I cooked it just for you! I made an apple pie!"

"Oh," Pete said, obviously surprised. "You. You didn't have to go to so much trouble."

"No trouble," Nora insisted. "I love cooking for people besides my dad."

Pete's eyes widened. "Oh. I didn't know he was your dad."

Nora grinned mischievously. "Don't we look alike?" Pete shook his head, which made Nora laugh outright. "Well, you're right about that. Hurry up and change! I'm starving!"

Pete nodded vigorously. "All right!"

When Pete stepped quietly into the kitchen, feet bare, Nora indicated the empty place set for Pete, across from Dad and next to her, and he slid into it with murmured thanks. Nora eyed Dad and asked that they say grace. Pete crossed himself furtively, and Nora stared Dad down when he opened his mouth to say aught about it, and finally just put his cup down. Nora said a prayer over the food, asking blessings for the present company and a special blessing for "our friend in the cave," which, when the prayer was over, earned her a strange look from Dad, and a wide smile from Pete, who performed the mechanics of crossing himself once again before tentatively reaching for the dish nearest him, full of scrambled eggs.

When no one moved to stop him, he served himself a meager spoonful, which Dad boisterously objected to. "No, m'boy. You're too skinny, you need more than that! Eggs—they're good for you!" He made a gesture, like 'keep going,' and Pete offered a small smile and added another small helping of eggs to his plate, which made a generous serving, when combined with the other small helping, and then Nora offered him sausages, and for a minute, they were all taking food, serving themselves, and asking for other things to be passed to them.

Nora watched Pete's face for a moment, as he ate, and felt warm inside; pleased that he was enjoying her cooking.

Dad started telling a story; one of his fishing stories, if Nora wasn't mistaken, and she ate in polite, quiet contemplation, making encouraging sounds in the correct places.

When the tale was over, Pete was appropriately amazed, and even clapped a little, which made Nora chuckle. "The story gets more outrageous each time he tells it, Pete, don't encourage him."

Pete laughed, and Dad gently pounded his fist on the table in mock outrage. "Dishonoring my character. Why it's slander, I say. You ask anyone. You ask Sheriff Brown, he was there. He'll say, "Oh, but Nora, Lampie's right," and then won't you feel foolish?"

"Is. So, is Lampie your name, sir?" Pete asked, then, and Nora laughed.

"I'm sorry, I've been calling him 'Dad,' so of course you didn't know his name, Pete. I'm so sorry, I've been remiss in my duties as a hostess. Dad, this is my good friend Pete. Pete, this is John Lambert, called 'Lampie.' Keeper of the Passamaquoddy Bay Lighthouse."

Dad, bless him, offered a small bow from his seated position, the way he'd been taught when he was a boy, though bowing wasn't really the social custom, anymore.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir," Pete returned with an uncertain nod.

"Y'know, I named my son—Nora's brother—John, and we called him Jackie when he was small, but it really didn't suit him. And we didn't want any confusion, so I decided to change," Dad said cheerfully, hands gesticulating with a piece of bacon. "I'd given him my name already, so we thought he should start using it, and I started going by my last name. But then John's daughter, Olivia, started getting confused, calling me 'Grampy' when everyone else was calling me 'Lambert,' so she started. Started calling me 'Lampie.' And it just. It stuck," Dad chuckled, not stretching the story any, just leaving it alone.

Pete had cleared his plate, meanwhile, and was glancing at the pies, which hadn't been cut into, yet. Nora wordlessly took up one in her hands; the dish was quite cool, now, and indicated the other with a nod of her head. "Dad, you open up that one, we can all have a slice of each."

Nora's turned out to be the apple, and the lovely scent of baked apples with cinnamon was just about the nicest thing that had happened that morning.

"I had apples for breakfast yesterday, too!" Pete said, smiling. Dad stood from the table and disappeared to the icebox, coming back with a pitcher of cream.

"Dad, are you sure? That was supposed to be whipped up for a special occasion," Nora protested, but Dad just shook his head, pouring a little over his pies before offering to do the same for Pete, whose eyes were huge, and made no reply. Dad chuckled and offered his service at last to Nora, who nodded eagerly.

Nora was about to ask which was better: the apple or the peach pie, and then had to swallow her words in a laugh at the delighted expression on Pete's face, decorum abandoned in the face of two pieces of pie.

It was perhaps 7:30 in the morning, and it had been a long night, for Nora, but…

It was looking to be a wonderful day.

' E

Lots of love (*cough research cough*) went into this chapter! I actually had it written as two shorter chapters, but then decided I didn't like that! So you get one chapter with a big line in the middle and I'll try to make chapter length more consistent!

If you ever have questions about the subtle differences between Nightmares and Night Terrors, Orphanages in Maine in the 1850s-1930s, The "Orphan Train," or random facts about lighthouses, hit me up, there's lots of info that didn't make it into this chapter.