A long the cove of Venus, a brave family lived and worked on top of the rocky landscape tending the lamp of the ancient lighthouse, seen far into the turbulent waters out to sea.
Many a ship passed the cove of Venus, on towards the great ports of the west, the cove the final passage for many towards home after many months of sea. The light reflecting timelessly the first reminder that home is near for many a lovelorn sailor. As melancholy turns to a brief passing of joy, as home was near.
The lighthouse keeper was a family man, the grim landscape and often chilly weather led to him bedding his practical, homely wife. And as his firstborn a daughter was born, he had dreamed of having a boy, someone he could fish with on good days, and teach the secrets of the lamp, that he lovingly tendered.
The ships passed, often unseen, as the keeper of the lamp, grew wearier, and his wife had borne three fair maidens, but no boy. So he resigned himself as a man in a household of women would, raising three fair and beautiful daughters, on the cove of Venus.
Storms would pass, good days would turn to turbulent ones as the unpredictable seas around the mighty cove would beat against the rocks, as winds howl with misery and with anguish.
Out to sea, mightier freighters would pass, and a new breed of seamen would gaze into the darkened nights, often in dread and in solitude. Foreigners, adventurers, men of no home but the ships they sailed on. Each with their own story, and own dream, as the light from beyond the darkness shone onto the sea, and they stared out into the dreamy light.
Many of a seaman's tale becomes lost, for seamen have no love of the pen or paper. Words are spoken, but barely remembered, as crews change, and dreams forever change. Ports grow, others decline as the ships simply pass. But Labia, the first daughter of the keeper of the light, was a strange child.
As she grew she would hear voices, the voices of often strange, and differing tongues. She remained silent about this, as her parents tended the home, and the lamp as usual, but as she entered her tiny windowless room, she would write.
Their would be the tales of far off lands, with names she had never imagined, of brief loves, and tragic fights. All put to paper, as her loneliness was put to paper, as she noted the images and words. Ar first light she would awaken, as if from a dream, and their on her wooden desk, besides the half burned candle, lay the pages of some strange tale she would hardly remember.
Once her second sister Angelica, found these papers upon a chilly morning, fluttering on the table as she came to awaken her sister, she sat on the wooden chair, and started reading each page. As she read music flowed in her mind, a timeless music, that changed from word to word, sentence to sentence from the tale.
Angelica brought her harp, and as she read played the tunes of the tale, awakening her sister to the beautiful, melancholy sound of her visions. A sound so sweet, it awoke her Father, astonished her Mother, and they stood by the doorway listening to the melody of Angelica's heart, filling their hearts with passing feelings of hope, and thoughts of different worlds than their own.
The third sister, Katrina, now the apprentice of the lamp, after her Father had dreamt she should be the one who carries its secret, heard the dim, echo of the harp as she tendered the lamp, lovingly cleansing it of last nights spilt oil. Would hum the tune played from her sisters hand, looking into the far off sea, with sparkling green eyes, as if searching for a far off ship.
The three sisters, Angelica, Labia and Katrina now had learned the secret of the lamp, thought their content parents. Both now, content to retire to the downstairs sitting room, were they would spend their hours together, knowing that on the cove of Venus, the secrets of the lamp live on.
And as a ship passes, and the wind catches a sailor gazing towards the light, the memories and hopes of a seaman, would become alight. The hopes, the thoughts, the dreams and the visions, of a stranger whose often forlorn gaze, would enlighten Labias quill, Angelicas harp, as the new keeper of the light, Katrina would hum a solitary tune whilst tendering the lamp, that reflected across the darkened sea.
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