Saundra Mitchell - Mistwalker

“You’re telling me you don’t?”

He looked like a storm coming in. He threw his hands up, flashes of lightning, his voice thunder. “It’s cursed. I’m cursed, this place is cursed. Don’t you know an illusion when you see one? You woke up in the room you desired, dressed the way you imagined.”

My mouth gaped. “That wasn’t my imagination.”

“I swear to you, it was.” He turned to me finally. His hands flew, dangerously constrained against his chest. But they trembled; he was furious. “You’re not flesh to me, Willa. I see the life in you that I could collect, but nothing more. You’re a ghost. You’re a lie.”

I probably was all those things. And I was afraid. I glanced at the rocky shore below. I didn’t have my sheet rope now. No matter how many physics classes I missed, I still understood terminal deceleration. It was too far down. I’d never survive. Nobody could survive.

Grey set his jaw and looked away. “Just want to leave and you can. Only one of us is bound here.”

“Yeah?” I spread out my arms. “I’m still here. And I can think of about a million places I’d rather be.”

“You must not want to be there very badly.”

If I’d known him, if we’d grown up together, I might have decked him. Instead, I threw out my arms and said, “Wishful thinking on your part.”

Instead of answering, Grey’s expression darkened, and he looked back to the sea. He was made of marble. Chill pale, with grey veins that pretended he had a pulse. I bet if I touched him, his hands would be stone. His mouth would be ice.

This frozen creature stepped onto the rail. The wind plucked at his hair. It was mist and nothing more. Wild, foggy tendrils that flowed around his head, then pulled straight.

Grey jumped.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look back. Over the side, he plummeted without a scream. There was screaming, though: mine. It tore from my throat. I threw myself against the rail, raw with terror.

Clinging to iron so cold, it bit, I leaned over. I was fast. I saw him hit the ground. Exploding into ribbons of haze, he disappeared. No body. No blood. Nothing left of him.

“As you see,” he said behind me. “Only one of us is bound here.”

My skin crawled. I whipped around, and there was Grey. Whole. Still cold and pale and frightening. But fine as could be, like he’d never jumped at all.

Frigid wind blasted off the water. It pushed me back, and I saw the stairs. I shoved past Grey. My heart was jelly, quivering instead of beating. I almost fell, but I didn’t slow down. Taking the stairs two at a time, I ran. Like if I hurried, the lighthouse would have to let me go.

I needed to be outside. I wanted to go home.

My footsteps echoed in my head. In my ears. If I did fall, I wondered if I would ever stop. The spiral could have gone on infinitely. My body would tear apart. Smaller and smaller pieces, until nothing but blood and atoms stained the steps.

Tinny, discordant notes jangled around me. Music boxes trembled. A soaring wall of them, delicate brass and silver fixtures shivering, strangely alive. Light glinted on them; it was too bright. I caught glimpses of my face, bent by spiked wheels and shimmering gears. A thousand fun-house mirrors, all playing their own eerie songs. So many sharp edges.

I ran past them and crashed through the door.

Pushing through, I clapped a hand over my mouth. By force alone, I strangled a laugh or a sob. Maybe both. Because when I passed through, I didn’t find myself standing on the stone cliff of Jackson’s Rock.

I was at home.

I stood on my own front step, staring at the front door my mother liked to paint a new color every spring. I reached for the knob and yelped when it turned on its own.

Daddy stared at me, uncomfortable in a suit. His face looked like putty, the color off and the shape of it just a little wrong. Lips parting, he smoothed a hand over his head. Then, without softness, he demanded, “What happened to you?”

My body wouldn’t let me admit any of it. Losing the Jenn-a-Lo felt just as imaginary as the Grey Man.

Since I didn’t answer, Daddy rolled his eyes at me and went back inside. He called to my mother, “She’s back!”

I was. I was home. And I had a court date.

She thinks I’m a monster.

It was evident in her eyes and her accusations. Though I have my own motives, I can’t think of a thing I’ve done to deserve that kind of reception. I’ve been kind; I’ve been gentlemanly. I’ve told her the truth all along—most of it, enough of it.

It makes me wonder what kind of world really runs on the other side of the sea. There have always been passions and madness. Murders and cruelty and all manner of evil in the world. I’m not so naive; I was a fool for Susannah, but not unworldly. Things were no better when I walked free; I could argue they were worse.

But Willa thinks I’m a monster. As if I would take advantage of her in all her helplessness. As if I could be so ungallant—I’m not made that way. I’ll tell her what I want from her, very clearly.

I’ve promised not to lie, because she shouldn’t swallow everything with bitterness when she takes this post. A thousand years or a thousand souls, it’s an eternity to suffer alone with your regrets.

I wonder if I shouldn’t have collected her last night. Given up on the possibility that she would take my place here. I can’t seduce her. I can’t sweeten her with words. My music boxes frighten her.

I frighten her.

It must have been so much easier for Susannah. She tilted her pretty eyes, and I fell. I imagined I loved her before a single word passed between us. She was nothing more than a figure on a cliff. Her mystery lit my blood; all the rest I’d invented. I’d done all the work. By the time I found my way to her shore, she but had to wait for me to say the words. I volunteered them! Of course I would die for her. Kill and steal and lie for her.

How easily I gave up my heart, my freedom. My flesh.

Willa won’t be so easily persuaded. I worry she won’t be persuaded at all. Other sins can be rectified; if I had been short with her, or angry, or inconstant. Those could have been cured with apologies. But fear is base. Innate. It’s impossible to convince people they aren’t afraid.

But—and isn’t there always a but—she’s the one who thought of me. Who came to me. Who broke through the barriers and landed on my island. She’s the one. She has to be the one. I know that she’s wounded, but this morning above all proved she will not surrender.

Wonders and magic don’t entice her. The eerie beauty I wear on account of this curse does nothing to delight her. I can’t beat against her; she is no shore to be softened by persistence. Tricks will buy me nothing with her. I think, to win her and my freedom, that I have just one course.

I’ll have to understand her.

My mother sat in the front seat, pressing her temple against the window. Her voice was glass, thrown at me. “You feel like telling us what happened to your face?”

“There was a storm,” I started. They had to know there was a storm. Daddy would have been at the shore at daybreak. He knew the Jenn-a-Lo was gone. He probably knew I was the one who lost her. I was sick in my soul with it. Like if somebody cut me open, I’d be nothing but green bile inside.

“There’s a news flash.” Ma had a gift for sarcasm when it suited her.