Mistwalker

THREE Grey

There she is again, thinking about me.

I transfer my calipers to my left hand and peer at the music box on my desk. The coils are tightened, the clockworks pinned. Nothing rattles when I lift it to my face.

Turning the copper key, I hold it—master of time, the god of the figures trembling on top of the box. If they dance, it’s because I wish it. If they hang forever in anticipation, that, too, is within my grasp.

But I let the key go, and it slowly unwinds. The “Maple Leaf Rag” is more a waltz at this pace. The figures circle each other, their copper skin glinting with each mechanical turn. Placing it in the window, I watch them sway against the line of the horizon. Tonight’s sunset is red and bright—sailor’s delight.

And mine, too, for she’s thinking of me. She must be realizing, as I once did, that something lives on this rock. Tomorrow I shall stand on the cliff and wait. I will be the pale star that blinks on the horizon. I will be ethereal and tempting.

If there is any balance in the world, any justice between the heavens and the earth, she’ll see me. Is that not the true nature of this curse? I’ve no chance of collecting a thousand souls. Nor did Susannah, nor any other Grey to stand on this island. The only escape is through another. A willful, if stupid, choice—she must say yes. She must choose this mantle.

I do believe she’ll come. I could wish for it, for her to appear at my breakfast table the same way my books and toys and oddments do. But the bindings of the curse are clear: anything that I want will be mine.

Only by happenstance and the slightest shift of fog can I get what I need.

Tomorrow I’ll hold back the mist, arrange myself handsomely. The wind will finger through my hair while I stand and wait. If there’s any justice at all, I’ll meet her eyes across the water and become her fascination.

Already she’s thinking of me.

Now I just need her to come.