Maleficent with raven on a thigh

She kept a raven called Corbin on her shoulder, and he read the sea for her the way the old women read tea leaves. She had a glass globe the colour of pink sloe wine, and in its glow she could find any boat that had gone missing, living or drowned. The bats came off the cliff at dusk to fetch her things from the harbour, and the fishermen crossed themselves when they saw their black wings against the moon. Nobody liked her, but everybody came to her when the nets were empty.

One November, Tobias Penhallow rowed out under the rocks, because his father's boat was four days overdue and the lighthouse had gone dark with the oil spent. He begged her to find the boat. She held the globe up until it blazed, and she showed him his father bailing water on a skerry with the tide coming in. She said the price was a lamp. Every night, for as long as the keeper lived, Tobias must climb the tower and keep the light turning, though no ship would ever thank him for it, and no one would ever know her name for the flame.

He kept it forty-one years. When they found him on the gallery stair, his hands were black with oil, and on the step beside him sat the globe, cold and grey as a pebble. Corbin had gone. But on a dark night, if you look past the rocks and see a pink glow low on the water, that's her, still counting the boats home. Now pass me that flask, and mind you don't spill any on the rail.