Mistwalker

NINETEEN Willa

He stood there, blinking at me like he was confused. His face was so smooth, I’d mistaken it for soft. Innocent, maybe. I only waited a second. Then I asked again, jabbing a finger at him. “What did you do to me, Grey?”

“This is going to make you angry,” he said, “but in what sense?”

He wasn’t wrong. The way he avoided the subject plucked my last, raw nerve. I was sure he knew exactly what I meant. That he wanted me to drag it out so he could keep me here longer. The only thing I didn’t know for sure was why.

“In the sense of, why am I here? What is this place, exactly? What are you?”

Grey raised his brows. Pleasantly, he nodded. Folding his fingers together, he said, “Of course, in that sense.”

“Well?”

“Will you walk with me?” He saw me shudder, so he was quick to add, “On the path alone. After last time, I think it best to stay out of the lighthouse. I never know what it might do.”

Or what he might do. I looked at the forest; I’d never been afraid of it before. It wasn’t my element, but it was part of my home. But now that the leaves had fallen, the bare branches were skeletal fingers, beckoning. I shook my head. “I don’t want to walk with you. I want you to . . .”

He offered me his elbow. When he tipped his head to me, there was a second when I thought I saw a hazy top hat there. The shape melted, but the impression stayed. If he was gonna insist, I could go along. Just the woods. Just the path. With so many trees bare, I’d be able to see the shore. It was going to be fine.

So I put my hand on his arm, but I didn’t hold it. It was enough of a gesture, because Grey finally started walking.

With an air of thoughtfulness, he was quiet a minute. Then he said, like he was explaining mathematics, “I’m the Grey Man.”

“That part I know.” I led him to the forest path. The one with tiny seashells scattered beneath the trees. They sounded like shattering glass under my boots. “You get presents at breakfast, you can’t leave, I get all that. Why? Why any of this?”

Grey turned a long, slow look on me. “There’s magic involved. You can have anything you want, but you’re charged to be the sentinel in the lighthouse.”

“I didn’t ask for a speech, Shakespeare.”

“I’m explaining it the best I can. I was tricked into taking the position, so it’s been a challenge to work it out on my own. This lighthouse is my post; I choose how to administer it. I can call the fog or send it away, and I, Willa, have spent a hundred years driving it away. I have no dominion over the tides or the winds, the storms or the snow. But I can smother this world if I choose.”

Over and over in my head, I told myself to just go with it. Whatever rules there were on the mainland, in the real world, they didn’t apply here. If he said he was the north wind and Santa Claus combined, I was gonna believe it, for as long as I had to. So instead of calling him a liar, I said, “And you’re not the first.”

“Alas, one of many.” He gestured vaguely at himself. “The latest in a long line of sentinels. I only know what came to me when I woke to it, and I’ve told you, that was a century past.”

Narrowing my eyes, I said, “How many, then? How long has there been a sentinel?”

Grey shrugged. “Ages. Before there was a lighthouse. I think one of the others must have wished for that. Alas, I asked for a full and true accounting of every Grey to stand the post. It was the one thing that never appeared wrapped in ribbon at my plate. Perhaps it’s an old Indian curse.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure if the Passamaquoddy had magic like that, neither one of us would be standing here.”

Touching fingers to his chest, Grey said, “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.’”

The pines creaked around us, laughing. Their needles fell on bare granite, and I stiffened. It felt like Grey was talking down to me. Calling me stupid. Maybe a slap back for calling him Shakespeare. I didn’t like it, so I pushed him to get to the point.

“That’s real helpful.”

Like he was placating me, Grey reached for me. Then he curled his fingers back at the last moment, taking his touch away so I couldn’t avoid it. “I think there’s something primal about this island. Something we’ve never named and never known. To the beginning of humanity, perhaps.”

This was going nowhere. He knew what I wanted to know, but he kept veering away from it. It could have been I was asking the wrong questions. There wasn’t a guidebook for interrogating a ghost. Or a curse. Or . . . I still didn’t know what he was. Since origins got me nowhere, I tried another way of asking.

“Okay, fine, there’s always been a Grey on the island. Fine.” My fingers tightened on his arm. “So what do you mean, you got tricked?”

Grey slowed as we approached the clearing, the highest point on the island. He let my hand slip from his elbow and turned his face to the sky. With arms spread, he turned a slow circle, his hair wisping around his shoulders.

“I was a fool. I imagined myself in love with an illusion. And like a fool, I offered myself as a sacrifice to that love.”

“In English?”

The edges of Grey’s manners slipped. He scowled, his black eyes cutting past me furiously. “My true love asked if I would die for her. And when I said yes, she kissed me and conferred all the glory you see before you. She walked away in her flesh and left me as nothing but mist.”

The constellations shifted. I didn’t notice it at first. I had more on my mind than tracking time by the skies. I forgot that time moved faster on Jackson’s Rock. That a cup of cocoa could pass an entire day. The forest darkened around us, lights twinkling above as the cold came in.

Wrapping my arms around myself, I circled the edge of the clearing. I didn’t want to sit down with him. Get comfortable. Forget that I came for a reason. Stopping against the shadow of a great oak, I asked, “Why am I the only one who can think about Jackson’s Rock without getting a splitting headache? Why am I the only one who can come here?”

Grey’s hesitation wasn’t uncertainty. The answer seemed to fly to his lips. But he held it there, and I wasn’t sure why. When he said it, he spoke carefully. Like he was afraid he would say it too fast and it would dissipate. “You’ve been chosen. I think; I believe this: you came here because you wanted an escape.”

“Excuse me?”

Warming, Grey approached. His fingers fluttered when he talked; the tips of them evaporated into faint contrails. “The night I pulled you from the water! You couldn’t leave because there was something you didn’t want to face on the shore. In your heart, you wanted to stay!”

My court date, I thought. Out loud, I said, “I don’t think so.”

“This place, this . . . gift. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted, Willa. You love the sea. You love these waters. Not just any beach. Not just any cliff. This place, it’s your legacy. And it could be yours eternally. You could be the Grey Lady. The one who steers the ships home. Or keeps them in the harbor when a storm is coming. You wouldn’t be one girl here for one short lifetime. You’d be greater than your flesh. Mistress of the light, and the lives onshore.”

Silence fell in the forest. Even the wind stilled. Grey was so animated, so excited. He sounded like a brimstone preacher, believing every single word of his gospel. Uneasy, I considered him. Then I asked, “Why would you think that?”

“You told me!” He pointed at the lighthouse. “Your room there, it told me everything. The witch balls in the window—you’ve been longing for a little magic in your life, Willa. And all the rest is the sea. I can give you that.”

My mouth dropped open. That’s how he’d figured it? With a disbelieving laugh, I told him, “Witch balls turn away the evil eye. Like the glass beads in old nets. They’re not about wanting magic. They’re supposed to keep it away.”

Grey’s face fell. “But this is your destiny.”

“Yeah, no, it’s not.” Pushing off the tree, I met him in the middle. “I lost my brother this summer—I told you that. You really think I want to walk away from the rest of my family? From my friends? It’s been a lousy couple of months, but no. Just no.”

Confused, Grey pulled a tiny box from his pocket. It was silver, blue glass laid into its sides. When he turned the key, plaintive notes trickled out. They twisted on a new wind. Each note echoed in its own way; it took me a minute to recognize the tune.

When the fishing was good, Daddy sometimes got on the radio and sang. Just a verse or two—a dirty song about ruffles and tuffles sometimes. Chanteys sometimes. But usually this song. “She Moved Through the Fair,” slow and haunting and dark.

Shining with a light I’d never seen before, Grey smiled when the song wound down. The last note plucked, and he offered me the box. “I wished for something to make sense of you, and this is what I got. It’s a message.”

“You know that song, Grey?”

“I’ve heard it many times.”

“Yeah, but do you know it?” I asked.

The expression drained from his face. “Do you?”

Fear crept through me because I knew something Grey didn’t. I knew all the words; I’d heard the song a hundred times. Uneasy, I glanced back to make sure the dory waited for me at the shore.

Then, I turned to him and said, “She never comes back, Grey. He sees her once at the fair and spends the rest of his life missing her.”

If it was possible, Grey paled. Closing the box in his hand, he stiffened. “She whispers in his dreams.”

“It’s all in his head.” Though my heart pounded, I went on. “Whatever magic that works here, whatever gave you that music box? It wasn’t wrong. Because I’m not your escape.”

He broke. I saw it in his eyes. In the trembling of his hands. It was like he’d been sleeping two sleeps, one of curses and one of fantasies. I’d just shattered the only beautiful one for him.

When he said nothing, I moved toward the path. Still he said nothing, and panic bloomed in me. Until now, he’d never been at a loss for words. If some terrible, devil version of him existed, I didn’t want to see it.

When my feet hit the path, he screamed. A plaintive wail, one that echoed longer than it had lasted. Then he called after me.

“Don’t go! I’m alone. I’m going mad; it’ll take thousands of years to collect enough souls to get off this island!”

It felt like he’d thrown a spear. Like I’d been split and pinned by it. My chest hurt, and my head, too. I knew there had to be something else. There had to be something he’d been sugarcoating. “Souls?”

“I’m not a monster,” he raged. “I could have smothered your village’s fleet a hundred times by now. Lost them all at sea, collected every soul at once, and I never have! I’ve been a boon to Broken Tooth. I’ve kept you all safe! Kept you safe in particular, Willa. The night you and your brother went into the dark, I tried to protect you. To hide you!”

“What do you mean?”

“Come with me,” he said. He held out a hand. It was pale, and in the moonlight, it looked skeletal. Suddenly, he was a long, gangling thing. Bones and angles, and it made my skin crawl. But I followed him, because I had to know. Because he had something inside his head, and it had to do with me, and Levi, and I had to know.

It wasn’t the music-box room when we went through the door of the lighthouse this time. Not the kitchen, either, or any of the rooms I’d seen. It looked like a pantry, sort of. Wood doors lined the walls. A bitter smell wafted on the air, like old paper, or an unused closet. Grey opened one of the doors.

Row after row of glass bottles lined the inside. Each hung in its own nook. Corked, they were empty. And they didn’t make sense. The jars weren’t much bigger than my thumb. They didn’t look like test tubes or like they were for spices. Light reflected on their rounded bottoms. I tightened my arms around myself because a chill came on.

“I could have collected you the night of the storm,” Grey said. “I risked myself. I tore myself to shreds to get to you, to save you! I am not a monster.”

The jars tinked, shaking in their neat slots. It was like they were alive. Or something bigger than all of us was subtly shaking the lighthouse. My heart decided to quiver too. I felt sick and uneasy, but all I could do was ask questions.

“How’s that, Grey? It doesn’t even make sense.”

Closing one door, Grey opened another. Tilting his head to the side, like he was admiring art, he considered the three uppermost jars. They glowed, like each one had a firefly caught inside. When I stepped closer, Grey pressed himself between me and his precious jars.

“There are two ways off this island. The first? Collect a thousand souls. Anyone who dies on the water, beneath my light . . . a tally in my book. This is a century’s worth.”

All my blood drained away. I felt raw and cored, and I wanted to fall to my knees. If this was the truth, if any of it was real . . . My head split; it felt like Grey had dropped an axe instead of some words. Too many questions. Too many possibilities.

My hand shaking, I pointed. “What is that?”

“All that remains.”

I lunged past him, trying to grab the bottle. It was like hitting a wall. Icy, immovable. When I lunged again, the pantry shifted. It was there, then I took a breath, and it was gone. All that was left was music boxes. All of them, keys ticking. Notes playing. Each one played a different song, none of them in tune. In time.

Throwing myself at Grey, I grabbed his shirt. I shook him. “You let my brother die!”

“No, Willa,” he said, newly, coldly calm. “You killed your brother. I only kept what was mine.”

I tasted bile, but I wasn’t gonna turn myself inside out for Grey. For that thing. For all I knew, it was a hallucination. Another lie. There was nothing left of Levi. He was dead and gone. Gone.

Shells and stones ground beneath my feet, because I walked away. I ran. Putting my back to him, to that lighthouse, I dared him to do something about it. I wasn’t gonna be a part of this. Everything on the Rock would become myth again for me, I hoped forever.

“I promised to be honest with you, Willa! You can’t hold the truth against me. Your brother was one more toward a thousand, it’s true! But he was a happy accident. One I tried to prevent, one you engineered!”

Biting my own lips, I held in a reply. I held in everything: my gaze, my voice, my churning belly. If I could have made it a mile in icy water, I would have swum home instead of getting into that cursed boat.

Instead, I sat at the bow, staring into the sea. Staring at the shore. Looking everywhere but behind me.

I was never going back to Jackson’s Rock, not even with my eyes.