You walk the quiet station like a person who has learned the instrument.

Gallery door: a clink if the latch is lazy; silence if you seat it. Grate on the pier, if you step out: threes with the swell; none if you stand still. Horn hatch: vowel on, vowel off. Basement pipe: Morse on tap, boredom off.

The chimney of the cottage—smaller than the horn, same trick—makes a baby oooo. Air over a bottle. Brains over a blank.

You could put the proof in the log and call the night solved. You could sleep on the couch with the lantern on dim and let Tess find a researcher who knew when to stop.

You end the walk-through at the keeper’s table with the lantern turned down, not off. Darkness is allowed. Unknown is not the same as darkness. You have fewer unknowns. The ones left—what Peck will say, whether Brass wants breakfast, if the van will make the hill—are daytime-shaped.