Brilliant blue waves flowed rhythmically over the stony beach, the water sounds accompanied by smooth limestone and granite cobble gently clattering together. Over eons they would add to the sand, littered with sparse grasses and sharp zebra mussel shells, a few yards further inland. And then there came the upland, held together by the roots of hardy wildflowers, and taller beach grasses, and the even some of the mixed evergreen and deciduous forest that grows in the far northeast of lower Michigan. And in an area where the trees had been replaced by tame, manicured lawn, there was a lighthouse.

It was a bright clear day at the lighthouse. The lighthouse itself, far from majestic, was a boxy, red brick building, practical and comfortable. Part of it did serve as a home for the keeper of the bright, reliable light. The rest was a museum, as was the boathouse, and the grounds both rested on. Really, it was more of a park than anything, a safe and popular destination for tourists and locals alike.

Today, though, only one family frolicked on the beach. Three children, clad in bathing suits and water shoes to protect their feet from the stones, splashed in the cool water as their parents looked on, perfecting their tans. Lake Huron was calm this time of year, and a welcome haven in the midsummer heat. There were no undertows to worry about at this beach, so long as the children didn’t go too far from shore. There were no giant waves on a day so fair that only a few sparse white clouds drifted in the azure sky. There were no dangerous creatures to worry about so long as Laila, the five-year-old, didn’t try to put one of those sharp little shells in her mouth. Seagulls screeched over the water, more melodic land birds sang from the inland direction, and distant sailing vessels seemed to fly silently along the horizon.

Then came the deep drone of a horn, startling everyone from their beach hypnosis. There, in the near distance, closer than the ships on the horizon, was a vast, long, steel-hulled shadow, creeping through the waves. It seemed to be traveling through a sort of mist. Perhaps it was a cloud of accumulated vapor from the smokestack near the bow. It made the ship seem translucent, whatever it was. This was no ferry and no barge. Nothing the beachgoers really recognized. The children and their parents all stared slack-jawed. They couldn’t believe their eyes.

Then Ellen, the eldest at fifteen, decided, “I think it’s a pirate ship.”

“No it’s not,” Eddy, the middle child, retorted. “It doesn’t have sails! Or cannons!”

“Somali pirates don’t have those.”

“Those aren’t real pirates.” Eddy, who had developed a Jack Sparrow fixation years before, and had even stolen his mother’s best eyeliner for the purposes of play-acting, had very definite ideas about buccaneers. The TV news had nothing to do with them.

“Are too!”

“Are not!”

“Big boat!” added Laila, pointing, even as she felt her father’s protective hand on her shoulder.

“Yes, it is a big boat,” Jeff, the father agreed.

“Oh, that’s the SS Missaukee,” said a weather-roughened voice, approaching the family from behind. He was a short stocky man, with an equally weather-roughened face, and he talked through a thick, graying beard. “It was 1915, and she was hauling limestone to Chicago, like she usually did. But she hit a bad squall up by Bois Blanc Island, and crashed ashore near Pointe Aux Pins. About thirty men died. Real tragedy.” He adjusted the collar of his red flannel shirt, his eyes sparkling with barely hidden emotion. “She attempts her run once or twice a year now. It always ends the same. Rare treat to see, though.”

The family turned around stared in curious silence. Who was this man? The lighthouse keeper? He didn’t look like a lighthouse keeper.

Then, after the long silence Laila asked, “What’s a limestone?” She imagined citrus fruit sculpted from shiny green rocks.

“I’ll explain later, honey,” replied Susan, ushering her daughter away.

“I told you it wasn’t pirates.”

“Can we go to Mackinac Island now?”

“Let’s go back to the hotel and get cleaned up first, okay?” said Jeff, nodding his thanks to the old man as he herded the kids back to the bright red mini-van. His wife rushed between children, wrapping them in bright rainbow towels and brushing off sand in an effort to preserve some of the vehicle’s interior. It was a losing battle.

“Yay, fudge!” the kids cheered, anticipating the ferryboat ride and forgetting all about storms and limestone. Whatever that was.

The old man watched them go, and wished them the best.

--

As the van drove off onto the meandering coastal road, the old man turned back toward the lakeshore, then looked up at the patient little lighthouse. “Kids today,” he lamented, shaking his head, “just don’t appreciate a good, honest ghost ship.” And then he disappeared.