Don't Look for the Ceiling Light

Chapter 1: Black Night

The first strange thing was the lamp.

It stood on the wall beside the bed, an ordinary brass fixture with a yellow shade and a small black switch underneath. But every night before we went to sleep, our host, Daniel, reminded us where it was.

“If you wake up and need anything,” he would say, pointing to it, “don’t look for the ceiling light. Use this one.”

He said it lightly, yet he repeated the warning each night.

I was twenty then, newly married and still learning the private habits of another person. My husband, Michael, and I were staying with his old friends in West Palm Beach. We had little money, so a free room near the ocean felt like a gift.

The house was small and sun-faded, built in the 1950s. Its terrazzo floors stayed cool even in August. During the day, sunlight filled every room, and tiny lizards rested on the window screens. At night, the air conditioner rattled like an old machine struggling to breathe.

Our room had once belonged to Daniel’s grandfather.

There was nothing remarkable in it: a bed, a narrow closet, a wooden dresser, and the brass lamp. Above the dresser hung a photograph of a serious-looking man wearing a pale shirt. Sunlight had bleached most of his face away.

Daniel’s wife, Claire, apologized for the picture.

“We keep meaning to take it down,” she said.