Saundra Mitchell: Mistwalker

Bailey drummed the steering wheel. “You could kneecap him.”

“You can’t dance in casts, dude.”

“Like you care about the fall formal,” Bailey said.

“Seth does. I think he bought a ring.”

She cut a look at me, her brown eyes sparkling. “You’re going to say yes, right?”

The weight of the air changed around us. Finally, I said, “I don’t know,” and leaned against my window. Instead of saying something useless, Bailey raised her brows and nodded, focusing on the rough road.

It was junior year, the deciding year. I’d planned to take the SAT with Bailey, just to lend her moral support. College had never been in my plans. I was going to marry Seth and fish with my father until he was too weathered to go out. Then the boat would be mine, then my kids’, then theirs . . . It was a good life, a beautiful inevitability.

And it was gone.

A little farther down the road, Bailey asked, “Why not?”

“I can’t.” I said. “I’ve been paying the mortgage, Bay. Dad hasn’t been out since Levi died. What if he never gets back out there proper?”

“He’s fishing today.” Bailey threw her shoulders back. “Okay, I know, with Seth. But if he won’t take you out, buy your own boat. Pay their mortgage and yours, too . . . oh.”

“Hey, look,” I said, plucking my roll of apron and rake off the seat. “Mud flats.”

Bailey dropped out of gear, then put all her weight onto the brake. We rolled to a stop on the gravel shoulder. The engine shuddered, making the whole truck shake before it finally went silent.

The old girl was a junk heap, and Bailey would have been better off buying a new one. But she was saving for college. Finessing another four thousand miles out of a Ford that should have been put down was a matter of pride.

We had that in common.

I got to the back first, unhitching the thing to get to our digging gear. The tailgate fell, rusty flakes fluttering to the ground as we pulled on rubber waders and tied each other’s aprons. The former were necessary, the latter an in-joke.

They were our freshman home-arts project: uneven gingham monstrosities that would have made our grandmothers roll in their graves. Our aprons were thin and threadbare. Even if they weren’t, fact was, nothing was going to keep us clean.

Snatching up our rakes and buckets, we started down the rocky incline to the shore. Low tide had taken the water out, leaving a gleaming expanse of grey mud. Thin-boned pine trees sheltered us from the wind; this cove was a good place to go digging because of that. With the tree break, the cove stayed a little warmer a little longer. If we were lucky, we’d have until the end of October.

Mussel shells decorated the flat, black and white bouquets that could cut as clean as a knife. Bailey walked down a few yards so we wouldn’t get in each other’s way, and we got to work. Piercing into the mud with my rake, I flipped it and reached in with bare hands. Nothing. Breath frosting in the air, I moved up and started a new row.

“First!” Bailey cried.

I looked over, and she held a bloodworm high, presenting it to me with a smirk. The little monster twisted on itself, trying to get its black teeth into her wrist. Bailey dropped it into her bucket and said, “That’s what you get for changing the subject. I win, you lose.”

“I like how classy you are,” I replied. “All class, that’s you.”

Slapping her own butt, Bailey left a handprint. “Kiss it, Dixon.”

I flicked a handful of mud in her direction, then went back to digging. Bloodworms didn’t look like much, but on a long low tide, we could each pull three hundred. At a quarter apiece, that added up. For Bailey, her college fund. Lately, for me, the bills my parents couldn’t manage.

“So . . .” Bailey dared again, because she was my best friend and knew she could get away with it. “How far out are they gonna have to go, do you think?”

“A ways.” Cutting mud and pulling worms, I didn’t lift my head, but I did raise my voice so Bailey could hear me. “Looks like those mokes on Monhegan aren’t the only ones on winter lobster this year, I guess.”

“You remember that one girl?” The from Monhegan was implied.

I pulled a worm, dumping it in my bucket. “Yep. Crazy like everybody else out there.”

“You ain’t lying,” Bailey replied.

And then, because I could, in the middle of a mud flat, just the two of us and nobody else, I dared to say a wish out loud. “After this summer, we need a good season.”

Bailey hauled her boots from the mud and moved to a new patch. Invoking casual magic, she said, “Ask the Grey Man. It can’t hurt.”

A ghost, or a revenant, maybe a cursed sailor or faery—who, or what, the Grey Man was was up for debate. People couldn’t even agree that it was a man. Some of the old-timers insisted it was a Grey Lady.

But we all agreed that he lived in the lighthouse on Jackson’s Rock, and if you could get him on your side, you’d have the best fishing of your life.

It was a lot like the Norwegians biting the head off a herring, or throwing the first catch back for luck. Chewing on anise and spitting on the hooks. Leaving women behind and never setting sail on a Friday. Old rituals we kept to guarantee the impossible: all good weather, no bad days.

But in our bones, we knew it was blizzards and nor’easters and squall lines that sank ships. Draggers and trawlers and people from away stealing our catches and leaving nothing for our pots. Government dopes making us trade float line for sink line, twice as expensive, lost twice as much.

In lobstering, nothing was certain—except the lighthouse on Jackson’s Rock. And that was automatic and empty. If there was a Grey Man, he had lousy taste in real estate. No one went to Jackson’s Rock and likely no one ever would. Just thinking about it made my head hurt.

Then again, maybe he was right where he meant to be—where no one could ask him a favor. Where he’d never have to grant one. Like most faery stories, the price was probably too high. My family had paid enough for our calling this year.

We couldn’t spare anything else.

After selling my catch at the worm cellar, I wasn’t ready to go home yet. The ocean flowed with new colors, crimson and gold. Sunset transformed the shore. It called the sailors and the fishermen home.

Pushing my hands into my back pockets, I walked down the dock. It was easy to tell who’d gone far out, past the island, halfway to Georges Bank. Nothing held their berths at the pier but short, choppy waves. No sign of Daddy and Seth yet either.

Lobsters liked warm water—that’s why summer fishing was easy. As the seasons changed, they marched to the depths. They were safer away from shore. The rest of us, not really. Cold, open waters, waiting for drowning storms . . .

I wasn’t gonna think about that. Once everybody came home safe, that would be the time to think dark thoughts.

Lifting my face to the wind, I walked over warped wood. Maybe it was crazy, but I loved the way it tilted beneath my feet. Being able to walk over it without looking filled me with a strange sense of pride. Like it was proof I belonged there. That this was my place and my destiny.

“That you, Willa?” Zoe Pomroy asked.

I couldn’t see her, but it was easy to follow her voice. Turning down her slip, I approached the Lazarus, following the scent of coffee to the teal and white boat all the way at the end. That was the only place it fit.

Zoe had one of the bigger ships in our fleet. Fifty foot, with what amounted to an apartment inside. She had a kitchen and a head, a cabin and a guest room. When the weather was good, Zoe lived aboard. Daddy liked to give her hell about fishing from a yacht, but I admired her.