Free Gifts from the Sea by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock Page B

more steps and was able to hook one end of my driftwood under the rope.
    Once I was back on solid footing, my knees shook so, I almost fell. I stared at the odd bundle. I tugged at the rope, but I couldn't loosen it, so I picked up a sharp-edged rock and sawed away at the rope until it let go. My heart thudded fast as I pulled away the top mattress … and then I was pounding up the steps, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Papa! Papa! Papa!”
    Papa met me at the cliff top, wild-eyed and shaken by my screaming. He grabbed my shoulders.
    “Quila, what is it? What's wrong?” And before I could answer, a high, thin wail rose from below.
    “A baby, Papa!” I whispered. “I found a baby.”

e named her Cecelia, which means
a gift from the sea,
but we called her Celia, and before long, we couldn't remember what life had been like without her.
    Papa rowed to the mainland and brought back a goat so we'd have milk for her. I cut up an old sheet to use for diapers and had to keep water hot on the stove for washing them out. How I wished Mama were here to show me what to do and how to take care of her, but I did the best I could. I fed her, bathed her, rocked and sang her through bouts of colic, and told her stories of mermaids and selkies, those seal-like creatures thatspirit children off to the sea, though it seemed this time that the selkies must have brought Celia to us.
    For months after Mama's death, it was Celia alone who could bring a smile to Papa's face. He carved her a cradle from one of the ship timbers that washed ashore, but I'd often find him cradling her in his arms instead, crooning lullabies to her, and she'd gurgle something back at him that only he seemed to understand.
    On nights when Celia refused to sleep, I carried her outside to show her the stars.
    “There's Cygnus, the swan, and Pegasus, the flying horse, and that one over there, that's Aquila, the eagle.” I remembered Papa holding me up to the stars, pointing out the one that had the same name as I did. I'd thought he'd put it up there just for me.
    Papa appeared in the doorway.
    “You should be asleep,” he said. I wasn't sure whether he meant Celia or me.
    “I was showing Celia the stars. Remember how you used to bring me out here?”
    Papa acted as if he hadn't heard me. He lifted Celia from my arms.
    “It's late,” he said. “You go on to bed.”
    “She needs changing.”
    “I'll do it,” he said. When I didn't move, he added, “I know how to change a diaper, Quila.” Papa had never been snappish before Mama died.
    “I know,” I said. “It's just that …” I didn't continue. How could I make him understand that the Papa I'd known all my life had disappeared and I missed him, almost as much as I missed Mama? I'd always loved being his helper—“Papa's shadow,” Mama had called me—and he'd seemed to love my company as much as I loved his, but all that was in the past now.
    Papa slept so little that he often fed Celia at night so I could sleep, but mostly I took care of her so Papa could take care of the light.
    There is a lot of work to “keeping a light.” The lens has to be cleaned and polished, the brass casing of the lens and all the brass fittings polished, too, the reflectors cleaned of soot, the oil lamps cleaned and filled, the wicks trimmed, the floor and the stairs dusted with a hand brush, the windows of the lantern room washed, and all of that done every day. Papa climbed the stairs to the tower at least three times a day: at sundown to lightthe lamps, at midnight to check the oil supply and trim the wicks, and again at sunrise to blow the lamps out. In bad weather, he might go days without sleep. Every evening, the log had to be written up, recording weather conditions and any equipment problems or repairs, and every year, Mama and I helped Papa paint the lighthouse, a clean, shining white that took my breath away. Papa always said you had to tend the light like a baby because people's lives depended on it, and