Saundra Mitchell - Mistwalker

“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.