Saundra Mitchell - Mistwalker

With a snort, Seth sighed. “Don’t you know? I’m a damned fool for breaking your heart.”

I went hot all over. “I’m sorry; I didn’t put him up to it.”

“Didn’t think you did,” Seth said. “Everybody’s worried, though. Where have you been lately?”

“Court. Hell. Jackson’s Rock,” I said.

“Bull,” he replied.

“You’d think. It’s true, though.” I raised my head, peering at the Rock in the distance. Grey was in there somewhere, if he was real at all. Despite everything, it was still easy to disbelieve him when I was on the mainland. “I sailed right up to the back door.”

“You can’t. All those endangered birds.” Seth raised a hand to rub his temple. Distracted, his blue eyes went blank a moment. Then he said, “I’m taking Kayla to the formal.”

That was his cousin, and that fact came out of nowhere. I watched his face curiously. “Not Denny?”

Slowly pushing himself up, Seth shook his head. “No. It wasn’t anything. I told you that.”

“No point in wasting the tickets, I guess.” I shrugged. “I’ll probably go to the lighthouse just to get out of town.”

“Nobody goes there. It’s automatic.” Seth grimaced, pressing two fingers to his temple. Then he blanked and veered again. “It was a good thing Dad was down at Peak’s Island last night. He says it was smooth water and clear skies thataways.”

A shiver ran through me. My gaze strayed toward Jackson’s Rock. The lighthouse was nothing but a shadow on a darkening horizon. The timer hadn’t gone off yet; the beacon was still. Nudging Seth, I slid to the end of the tailgate. Then, carefully, I said, “Come with me, I’ll show you the island.”

This time, Seth groaned. He didn’t follow me to his feet. Instead, he pinched the bridge of his nose. There was no blankness, but some of his color drained away. He looked like death. “My head’s killing me. Mom’s probably holding dinner for me too.”

“Seth,” I said. I stepped in front of him, touching his chin. For a moment, I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to climb into his arms and under his clothes. He was the shortcut I knew, to a place I’d already been, but sometimes that was a good thing. Instead I glanced over my shoulder. “Let’s go to Jackson’s Rock.”

“I could go to Seattle. I still want to be close to the water, you know? I could take my guitar and sit on the corner and play for change.”

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t talk about the lighthouse or the island. Realization filled me, suddenly, almost painfully.

My memories were full of blanks and headaches too. I couldn’t think of anybody from Broken Tooth who had ever gone to the Rock. Plenty of people camped on other islands nearby, had parties there, bonfires . . . but never on Jackson’s Rock. My head used to ache when I thought about the lighthouse. Bailey’s, too; everybody’s.

The island really did want us to look away.

I’m ready. Everything is ready. I climb to the lantern gallery just as the beacon switches on for the night. The gears grind, the light hums. It charges the air, not quite like lightning, but full of portent all the same.

The tune from the music box keeps winding in my head. It seems a sign. I’m ready for Willa; she’s ready for me. I’m certain, because she’s thinking of me again. Though I look to the glow of souls all along the shore, all of them out of my reach, there’s only one that looks back.

My anger is shed. My frustration. I’m not Susannah and Willa is not me. I have nothing to tempt her, nothing to recommend myself. But I master the sea. I stand above it, timeless, immortal. I never leave it, and it never leaves me.

This curse will not be a curse for her. It’s her dream. She won’t suffer the solitude of the waves. She’ll embrace it. I have all of this for her. The ocean, eternal. It will always be hers; she’s longed for this magic. Today and a thousand days from today, she will be the Grey Lady, and she will savor it.

There’s no one to hear me, so I laugh. I lean into the wind and let the ribbon slip from my hair. My heart opens and beats; I’m exposed to moonlight and the rush of surf all around me. Soon I’ll walk on that side of the water again. I’ll see faces, hear voices, cut myself shaving. I haven’t bled for a hundred years, and I never would have imagined this: I’m looking forward to it.

I am.

To pain and pleasure, to soup sometimes too hot. To nights sometimes too cold. To breathing. To a body that’s fully real, subject to time and injury and whim. This strange almost-life that I have doesn’t suit me at all. But Willa’s made for it. She’ll flourish in it. Just her and the water and all the time in the world.

That’s all she wants. It’s evident now. Her room is untouched, just as she left it. Nets for a canopy, boats for decoration. Shutters thrown open to the sea, and the slightest bit of magic hanging in the window, incongruous with the rest. There she is, solved and neat. Her destiny in a little turret chamber, her truest heart revealed.

“Come, Willa,” I say.

The sound is lost in the cry of sea birds and the twist of the wind. I have no faith that she hears me, but I believe, truly believe, she feels that call. She’ll come back to this island, and back to me—not with starry eyes but with purpose. I have everything she wants, and I’ll give it to her. She need only ask.

That weekend, Daddy took Mr. Eldrich out to check their pots. Because ropes get cut and accidents happen, every lobster pot has an escape hatch. Can’t let ghost traps destroy the future of fishing. But that meant going out even when the fleet was turned upside down. Lobsters left in a trap too long figured out how to leave.

It also meant Mr. Eldrich and Daddy had to tell each other where they laid their trawls. It was a big thing to give up the secret, best waters they had. That’s all they really had in the world. But they didn’t have a choice.

Me, I stayed onshore with Bailey, untangling the traps thrown free during the storm. It was like the bottom drawer of a giant jewelry box. Ropes and loops and wire knotted together, all different colors, belonging to different boats.

“It’s supposed to get cold this week,” Bailey said.

She hefted a pink-painted trap over her head. Those belonged to Lane Wallace; he said it kept people from stealing them. He was wrong, though. He lost one or two to the summer jerks every year because they thought a pink lobster trap was funny.

Tugging the wrist of my glove tighter with my teeth, I plunged my hand into a nest of rope. “Maybe we should have a bonfire.”

Bailey leaned her head back, letting the wind push her hair from her face. “Yeah, we could. I’m going to Milbridge later. I’ll say something to Cait.”

“Things better?”

“Kind of the same.” Bailey stacked the pink trap with its brothers, then came back to the pile. She had swift fingers, good for working tricky wire free. She should have taken Mrs. Baxter’s class. “We’re going to visit her uncle Dalton later.”

“The rum-smelling guy? Why?”

Rolling her eyes, Bailey shrugged. “She likes him. I don’t know.”

“Why are you go—” I cut myself off. Straightening in the tangle of rope, I tugged at my collar to let some air in. “Never mind. Stupid question.”

Though I’d answered it myself, Bailey threw up her hands. “It’s like we’re in a play now. We both know how it ends, but we’re saying all the lines and doing all the scenes anyway.”