The Puzzle Master by Heather Spiva

rocks.
    “Why you? You’re a girl.”
    “That I’m a girl doesn’t matter. I’m a lighthouse keeper, and I saw the wreck while you were taking a nap.”
    “Taking a nap!” Marshall said, his voice suddenly high. “I don’t take naps, and I wouldn’t take naps if I had a lighthouse like that to watch over.”
    She shrugged her shoulders. “Then what would you be doing?”
        “For starters, I’d be fishing. Someone has to get our food, you know.”
    “And someone has to cook it,” she retorted, answering each of his responses with a sharp recoil of her own. “And I’m not going to just be the cook. I have windows to clean, and so do you. You’ll be cleaning the place as much as me . And of course, theres a garden to take care of,” she said pointing to the grassy inland hill. “Then there’s the upkeep of the lighthouse, like painting and of course we have to watch for visitors.”
    They talked for an hour more about it, deciding who would have to go out to sea with their rescue boat and retrieve the shipwrecked sailors. They discussed sea monsters and figured there had to be one just outside their lighthouse, watching them as much as they were looking for it. They talked about keeping the lighthouse lit, and the grounds taken care of, and the seagulls and salty air, and for a while, they were no longer in hot, dusty Sacramento. They were on water; they were at sea. They were away in another place; a place that neither of them wanted to leave.
    Twenty minutes later, Luke burst in the door with a phone in his hand. The mirage of lighthouse-keeping evaporated and they were back in the dusty city, sitting on a dusty floor.
    “It’s your momma,” he said with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “She’s on the phone.”
    A panicky feeling reached deep inside of Marshall. It felt like he’d swallowed his tongue. What time was it? How long had they been in there?
    “Okay.” He looked at Iris. “Be right back.”
    He held the receiver up to his ear. “Hey Mom.”
    “Marshall, where are you?”
    “I’m here, at Luke’s,” he rolled his eyes. Obviously, she called the store didn’t she? “I told you yesterday I was going to be here.”
    “Your sister’s caught a fever. And Mason isn’t home ‘ cause he’s got football practice. I need you to come home for a bit, you don’t need to spend all your time there.” She sounded fierce, and angry; like she was breathing fire. It reminded him of the sea monster he and Iris had just discussed.
    “Where’s Dad? Isn’t he home?”
    “Your father’s out of town on business. I don’t want my kids out all over the place, when I’m at the doctors. I need you home.”
    Marshal sighed, the tickle in his lungs simmered down into his belly.
    “Your asthma’s just going to get worse in there,” she said. “I don’t like you spending your time around a smoker.”
    “Mom, I’m in a back room,” he hissed. He didn’t care if he was around Luke—it was comfortable. Marshall liked it. Smoke and all. “We’re just doing puzzles.”
    “Marshall, come home,” she pleaded.
    Why did this have to happen to him? Just when things were getting good too. He and Iris were going to clean the windows up in the lantern room on the lighthouse—way out there on the balcony, getting wind-whipped, where the tower stood straight above the rocks like a death-defying trick. It was going to be the biggest task of their light-keeping duties yet.
    “Okay. Uh, would it be alright if Iris comes with me?”
    “Who is Iris?”
    “You know, Luke’s niece? She goes to school with me.”
    “Oh, I suppose,” his mother said slowly. “Just get home quick.”
    Marshall hung up. “Is it alright?” he asked Luke, who was already nodding his head.
    Marshall turned around happy again. She could go to his house; he could show her all of his old puzzles, and everything.
    He jetted to the back. Iris was still looking at the picture. From the door, all he could see was