In the late nineteenth century, twelve-year-old Rhoda investigates her suspicion that a wrecker may be luring ships to their destruction on the Virginia barrier island where her father is Keeper of a U.S. Lifesaving Station. Includes historical notes on the United States Life-Saving Service. It's 1895. Rhoda Midyette has lived all her life on Glenn Island, where her father is keeper of the U.S. Lifesaving Station. But she's never before seen the odd light she now glimpses at night, moving along the cape above Graveyard Shoal. Could it be the ghost of the shipwrecked sea captain who is said to haunt the island? Or is it something just as impossible: an islander-a friend or neighbor-shining a light to lure ships to their destruction on the dangerous shoal?