The website clips.com had one page and one line a day. The line came from a lighthouse. The man who owned it hadn't answered an email since 2004.
I had twenty-seven days to buy it.
My name is Nell Ashgrove, I broker domain names, and on the morning of day twenty-seven I had bent eleven paper clips before nine o'clock. Desmond counted. He counts things when I'm nervous. It's his version of my paper clips.
"The lighthouse was automated in 2004," he said.
He had his laptop open on my desk, which he only does when he's found something.
"Spring of that year. The county took over. New lamp, solar panel, no keeper."
"Same spring he stopped answering email."
"Same month."
He scrolled. "The county still owns the building."
"Anyone living there?"
"There's a caretaker listed for the grounds. No name. Just a phone number for the island post office."
"And Ambrose Quill?"
"No phone. No property records. No obituary." Desmond looked pained.
"Which means he's not dead, Nell. Statistically, I'm losing the Ledger."
"You could still win on lawyer."
"Lighthouse keepers aren't lawyers. That's the whole appeal of lighthouses."
I called the post office number. It rang nine times. A woman answered on the tenth.
"Kittredge," she said.
"Hello. I'm trying to reach Ambrose Quill."
"Wind's coming round to the west," she said. "You'll want to bring a coat."
"I'm sorry?"
"If you're coming. Which you are, by the sound of you." I heard a kettle in the background. "Ferry's Tuesday."
"I haven't said I'm coming."
"People who call about Ambrose always come." A cup clinked. "Ferry's Tuesday.
Nine-fifteen from Halloway Harbor. Don't be late. I don't wait, and the tide doesn't either."
She hung up. I sat holding the phone and looking at it, the way you look at a vending machine that has taken your money.
"Well?" Desmond said.
"Ferry's Tuesday."
"Today's Thursday."
"Then I have five days to become a person who owns a coat."
On Friday, day twenty-six, Sterling Mace called.
Sterling is fifty-two and the second-best domain broker in the region. He believes he is the first. He eats almonds during calls and counts them out loud under his breath, as if each one were a billable hour.
"Nell," he said. "Twelve. Thirteen. How's the bakery?"
"Still downstairs. What do you want, Sterling?"
"I want to save you a trip." Crunch. "Fourteen. I hear you're chasing clips.com."
I put my paper clip down. "Who told you that?"
"Nobody tells me anything. I listen." Crunch.
"I've got a buyer too. Garnet Ridge Capital."
"Never heard of them."
"You will. They want the name for a fund. Something about video clips and money."
"For a fund?"
"I didn't ask. Fifteen."
"They want clips.com for a fund. Not for clips."
"My buyer wants a web address because your buyer wants it. That's how money works."
He sounded pleased with himself, which is his natural resting state. "I sent the owner an offer last month. Two million. Paper, envelope, the works."
"Did he answer?"
There was a short pause. No almond.
"He will," Sterling said. "Everybody answers two million eventually."
He hung up. Desmond had been listening from the doorway with the Ledger open.
"He didn't answer," Desmond said.
"No."
"Two million dollars, and the man didn't answer." Desmond wrote something down. "I'm starting to like this lighthouse keeper."
I called Teodora Saturday morning. Day twenty-five.
"There's another buyer," I said.
"There's always another buyer. That's what makes it a market." I could hear typing. "Who?"
"Garnet Ridge. Through a broker named Sterling Mace. They offered two million."
"Did the lighthouse take it?"
"The lighthouse didn't answer."
"Good," she said. "Then the lighthouse has taste."
The typing stopped. "Go there."
"In person?"
"Stand in front of him. People can ignore an envelope. Nobody ignores a woman in a raincoat on their doorstep."
"I don't own a raincoat."
"Expense it."
She paused. "Nell. Twenty-five days. I'm launching the four-letter domain whether you get it or not."
"Five," I said.
"I'm told I count like a founder," she said, and hung up.
Halloway Harbor was a four-hour drive north and then one more hour that felt personal. I arrived Monday night and slept in a motel called the Anchor Arms, which had one anchor and no arms.
The motel had wifi, technically. It worked if you stood by the ice machine and held your phone toward the sea. I stood by the ice machine at 9:20 and loaded clips.com.
Wind south by morning. Ferry runs Tuesday. One passenger, I expect.
I read it under the buzzing light. A man came out of room four with an ice bucket, looked at me, and went back in without any ice.
I texted Desmond a screenshot.
He wrote back in under a minute. Adding a fourth category to the Ledger.
What's the fourth?
Ghost, he wrote. Low odds. But I want it on record.
On Tuesday morning, day twenty-two, I stood on the dock at nine. I was wearing a new raincoat that still had the fold lines in it. I had a box of paper clips in one pocket and a printout of the clips.com page in the other.
The ferry was a gray boat with a blue stripe and a name painted on the bow: PATIENCE II. I didn't ask what happened to the first one.
A woman stood at the wheelhouse door. She was sixty-three, I'd learn, with short white hair under a wool cap and a yellow oilskin jacket. She looked at me, at my raincoat, and then at the sky, in that order.
"You're the one who called," she said.
"Nell Ashgrove."
"Mags Dunleavy. I run the ferry and the post office. And the store, on days the store's open."
She checked the sky again. "Wind's going to swing south by noon."
"Is that bad?"
"It's south," she said, as if that settled it.
She took my twelve dollars and gave me a paper ticket with a hole punched in it. I was the only passenger. There were also four crates of groceries, a bicycle, and a box addressed to someone named Burl.
I sat on a bench in the stern and watched the harbor shrink. I took out a paper clip and bent it. Then another. Mags watched me in the wheelhouse window.
"You knit?" she called.
"No."
"You should. Your hands want a job."
She turned back to the water. "Ambrose used to whittle for the same reason. Never worked. Nothing keeps your mind off the weather out here."
"Is Ambrose Quill expecting me?" I asked as we pulled out.
Mags steered around a green buoy. "Fog's thinner today than it was Saturday."
"Mrs. Dunleavy."
"Mags."
"Mags. Is he expecting me?"
She looked at me for the first time without checking the sky. Her eyes were the color of the water, which is to say they weren't telling me anything.
"Ambrose expects everything," she said. "That's what he was paid for."
Kittredge Island was three miles long and mostly rock. There was one road, a church, a post office that was also a store, and about sixty people. The rest of the island belonged to sheep and wind.
Marrow Point Light stood at the northern tip. It was white with a black cap, and it was taller than I'd expected. Everything is taller when you've only seen it as a line of text.
"Ferry's Tuesday," Mags said, when we docked.
"You said that."
"I'm saying it again. Next Tuesday. Nine-fifteen back to Halloway."
She handed the box to a man who was presumably Burl. "If you miss it, you've got another week of us."
"I won't miss it."
"Everybody says that," Mags said. "Wind's swinging."
I walked the road north. It took fifty minutes. The wind did swing south, right on schedule, and pushed my raincoat around like it had opinions. I had six paper clips bent into hooks by the time I reached the lighthouse.
The keeper's cottage beside the tower was small and white. The windows had curtains. There was a woodpile, neatly stacked. Someone had swept the step.
The door was locked. Pinned to it with a thumbtack was a card, weathered gray at the edges. The handwriting was old-fashioned, all loops and pressure.
NO BUYERS. — A.Q.
Below it, in newer ink, darker and much fresher, someone had added a second line.
This means you too, Mr. Mace.
I stood there reading it while the wind tugged at the card. I looked at the swept step. I looked down the empty road.
Sterling had told me he'd sent a letter.
He hadn't told me he'd come in person.
Up next: The Keeper's Log
Continue to Part 3 →