The secrets of Silas Thorne

Here is the fourth of 25 stained glass window designs on the Palace Pier which AI and I are using as inspiration for some of these BrightonBeach365 daily posts - see Stained glass window 1 for background. This image depicts a lighthouse standing tall against a deep blue and red-toned sky, possibly representing dusk or dawn. A bright full moon is visible near the horizon, and the lighthouse’s beacon shines in a sweeping beam across the scene. Below, stylised waves and rocky shores complete the coastal imagery. 

Limerick starter

There once was a lighthouse so grand,

In a window, not out on the sand.

Though it shined with great might,

It had one major plight - 

No ship ever saw it firsthand!

The Secrets of Silas Thorne (in the style of John Buchan)

The salt-laden wind whipped at my tweed coat as I stood before the small, circular window in the vestry of St. Nicholas Church. It was a peculiar thing, a stained-glass lighthouse, nestled amongst the more traditional depictions of saints and biblical scenes. The colours, a swirling vortex of deep blues and fiery reds, held an almost unsettling energy, the lighthouse beam cutting through the glass like a celestial sword.

‘Odd, isn't it?’ A voice, dry as parchment, startled me. Reverend Ainsworth, a man whose face seemed etched with the same lines as the ancient stones of the church, stood beside me. ‘Not quite what one expects, is it?’

‘Indeed,’ I replied, my eyes fixed on the window. ‘Do you know its history?’

‘A tale best told in whispers,’ he said, his gaze flickering towards the shadowed corners of the vestry. ‘It was commissioned by a man named Silas Thorne, a notorious smuggler, some seventy years past. He’d made his fortune running brandy and silks along this very coast. But Thorne, you see, was a man haunted by the sea. He lost his son, swept away during a storm, and sought solace in this . . . peculiar offering.’

The Reverend paused, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. ‘They say Thorne believed the lighthouse in the glass was a beacon, a guide for his lost boy’s soul, trapped in the watery abyss. He’d sit for hours, gazing at it, convinced he could see his son’s face in the moonlight reflected off the glass.’

‘A tragic tale,’ I said, my fingers tracing the cold stone of the window frame.

‘Tragic, yes,’ Ainsworth agreed. ‘But there’s more. Thorne was a man of dark secrets. It was whispered he’d made pacts with . . . less than holy entities. The lighthouse, they say, isn’t just a symbol of hope, but a conduit.’

‘A conduit?’ I raised an eyebrow.

‘To something . . . other,’ he finished, his voice barely audible. ‘They say on nights of the full moon, when the tide is at its lowest, the lighthouse in the glass glows with an unnatural light. And if you listen closely, you can hear the faint sound of a boy’s laughter echoing from the depths of the sea.’

The Reverend’s words sent a shiver down my spine. I glanced at the window again. The moon, a pale disc in the stained glass, seemed to pulse with an eerie luminescence. I felt a strange pull, a sense of unease that settled deep in my bones.

That night, I found myself drawn back to the church, the moon casting long, skeletal shadows across the graveyard. The tide was out, the sea a dark, undulating expanse. I slipped into the vestry, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and incense.

The lighthouse window glowed with an unearthly light, the colours swirling and shifting. I pressed my ear to the glass. A faint sound, like the distant echo of laughter, drifted from the sea. It was a chilling sound, a sound that spoke of loss and longing, of something trapped between worlds.

Suddenly, the glass shimmered, the lighthouse beam intensifying. I recoiled, a sense of dread washing over me. The laughter grew louder, closer. I felt a coldness, a presence, pressing against me.

Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. The light faded, the laughter ceased. The window was still, silent. I stood there, my heart pounding, my breath catching in my throat.

I left the church, the salt wind biting at my face, the moon a silent witness to the night’s strange events. As I walked back towards the lights of Brighton, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had glimpsed something beyond the veil, something dark and ancient, stirred by the haunted lighthouse in the stained glass window. The secrets of Silas Thorne, it seemed, were still alive, waiting for the next full moon, the next low tide, to rise again from the depths.