The Usurper's Crown

by Sarah Zettel

  The water was calm tonight, Ingrid noted. The moonlight highlighted only the barest ripples in the night-darkened water. She could just hear the sound of water lapping at the stones under the whisper of the wind through the trees. Grace paused for a moment on the top of the short bluff. In the light of the moon and a million stars, Ingrid saw her sister scan the shore, searching for Ingrid knew not what.

  Then, Grace began to run, down the slope, right down to the narrow strip of sand at the water’s edge. Ingrid peered between the branches of the spindly shrub that sheltered her and watched Grace kneel beside what appeared to be a large stone.

  “I came.” Grace’s voice drifted up to Ingrid on the chill, steady wind blowing off the lake. “I promised I would.”

  “Cold,” answered a shivery man’s voice. “So cold.”

  Ingrid shot up to her full height, uncertain which of the two on the shore she was going to murder first. But even her sudden motion and all the noise of it did not cause Grace to turn her attention from the man beside her. While Ingrid stormed down the hill, every fiber in her tight with fury, Grace just took off her shawl and draped it across the man’s shoulders.

  “Is that better?” asked Grace.

  The man was little more than a collation of indistinct planes and angles in the moonlight, but Ingrid saw him reach out one hand to pull the shawl more tightly around himself. “I never dreamed it would be so cold.”

  “Let me help you,” urged Grace.

  Which was all Ingrid could take.

  “Grace Hulda Loftfield, what do you think you’re doing!” she shouted as she strode onto the sand.

  The sound of her full name seemed finally to reach Grace. She tore her attention from the man. Ingrid planted herself before her sister, hands on hips. Grace stood slowly, her own hands dangling at her sides.

  “Ingrid …” she breathed weakly, as if the strength that had brought her here had all flowed away.

  “The whole family has been an uproar for weeks!” cried Ingrid, flinging her arms wide. “I thought you were ill, and all the while you were just waiting to sneak out to meet some man! Papa will thrash you within an inch of your life!” Ingrid rounded on the man. “As for you, sir …” and her voice froze in her throat.

  The man had also stood up. He was sopping wet. Water dripped from the bedraggled ends of his curling hair. It ran in rivulets from down his naked shoulders and his sodden canvas trousers to puddle around his bare feet. Grace’s shawl clung to his shoulders, soaking up quarts of water. His chest was so sunken that Ingrid could see his ribs.

  But it was not this that robbed her of her voice, nor was it even his hollow eyes or his gray skin. It was the silver sand behind him. Ingrid could see Grace’s moonlit shadow spreading clearly across that sand.

  Beside her, the man cast no shadow at all.

  “What are you?” Ingrid croaked. “Grace, come here.” She stretched out her hand. “Come away.”

  “Ingrid …” said Grace, but she did not move. She just swayed in place.

  “No,” said the man, whatever he was. He knotted the end of Grace’s shawl in his gray fingers. “Don’t leave me, Grace. I beg you.”

  “Come here, Grace,” ordered Ingrid, fear and dawning comprehension giving her voice strength. “Now!”

  Grace slumped her shoulders. “I can’t.”

  The drowned man — against all reason, Ingrid knew that was what he was — clutched Grace’s shawl even tighter. “You promised you would help me. You promised you would not leave me here.”

  “I won’t.” Grace lifted her foot to take a step toward the drowned man, but Ingrid dodged between them.

  “Leave her alone!” she cried. Now that she stood before the ghost, she felt the cold. It rolled off him in waves and bit straight into Ingrid’s bones. It was cold beyond winter, beyond ice, beyond the waters of Lake Superior. It froze her blood in her veins and threatened to reach through to her soul. Ingrid staggered backward, trying to push Grace more fully behind her. Then, because she could think of nothing else that might help, she began — “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name …”

  At the sound of the prayer, the drowned man’s face twisted into a horrible scowl and a light came into the hollows of his eyes that filled Ingrid’s heart with fresh fear.

  “No!” shouted the ghost, and his voice was like the winds of a winter storm. “There is no God where I am! He left me there in the dark but I will not stay! I will not stay!”

  Ingrid snatched at Grace’s hand and turned to run, but her sister might have been a block of marble for all Ingrid could shift her. The ghost now gripped Grace’s shawl in both fists. “She promised,” he said grimly.

  “I did.” Grace’s voice was as pale as her cheeks. “I promised. Under the water.”

  “She’s mine.” The ghost slid closer.

  “No.” Ingrid stepped back between them, trying to stiffen her spine against the all-consuming cold. “Jesus, Joseph, and Mother Mary, help me. You shall not have her.”

  “She’s mine by her own promise. We made a bargain. No name can keep her from me.”

  The ghost reached out and Ingrid pressed back against her unmoving, unmovable sister. Her heart beat wildly in terror at the idea that the apparition and all the cold he carried might reach straight through her and engulf Grace as if Ingrid were not even there.

  A flash of movement caught Ingrid’s eye. A fresh shadow dashed headlong down the beach. Moonlight glinted on metal as the new shape leapt forward. Ingrid opened her mouth to scream as the knife blade came down. With all her strength she threw herself backward, knocking Grace to the sand. The ghost’s cold rushed over them, and for a time, Ingrid knew nothing more.

  Ingrid woke to the scent and sound of a fire. She lay on her side, her back against the bracken-covered slope that led to the shore. A smoky blaze smelling of pine and moldering driftwood burned on the sand and a man’s form sat beside it. Stiff with cold and damp, Ingrid pushed herself upright immediately. As she did, she saw Grace, also lying on her side, her fair head pillowed by her own arm.

  Ignoring the man, Ingrid crawled to her sister, laying an anxious hand on Grace’s throat. Fresh relief washed through her as she felt the warmth of Grace’s skin, the beat of her heart, and the slow draw of her breath. Only then did Ingrid lift her eyes to meet the gaze of the man beside them.

  The moon had set and the morning sky filled with clouds, so she had only the fire to see him by. The resinous, red-gold light showed her a lined face with a hawk nose and deep-set eyes. She could not make out their color. The hair swept back under his fisherman’s cap was a dark gold, and his hands, although tanned, showed themselves to be surprisingly long-fingered and delicate as he reached for a fresh piece of driftwood. He broke the branch easily in two before tossing it onto the small fire and raising a fresh shower of sparks.

  Ingrid was suddenly extremely conscious that she was rumpled, and half-covered in sand. In the next heartbeat, she cursed herself for such ridiculous vanity, especially at such a moment.

  “Thank you for your help and company, sir.” Ingrid attempted to gather her composure and her manners. “My sister has not been well, and …” She dropped her gaze to the fire, intending to find some sort of lie to explain how two young women came to be out on the shore after dark. As she did, she saw the scraps of knitting among the ashes of the fire and realized that they belonged to Grace’s shawl.

  The man followed her gaze with his own. He gave a tight smile that was at once amused and grim. Before Ingrid could recover herself, he asked, “How long has this haunt plagued your sister?”

  Ingrid opened her mouth and closed it again. She had absolutely no desire to speak of this to a total stranger. In truth, she had no desire even to remember it. She felt her mind scrabbling for explanations that were other than what had happened. She knew she could give in to them quite easily. There had been tricks of shadow and moonlight. Grace was simply more ill than anyone had realized. She needed the doctor ag
ain. She needed a rest. That was all.

  The only problem with any of those thoughts was that Ingrid knew they were all lies. “About two months,” she made herself say. “Why did you burn her shawl?”

  “The ghost touched it,” said the man as if it were the simplest reason in the world. “If it was not destroyed, it could be used as a talisman against her.”

  Ingrid felt her throat tighten. “Grace touched the … ghost.” Say it. Call it what it is. It is ridiculous. It is impossible. It is also the truth.

  The man nodded, all trace of the smile gone from his face. “I thought she might have.”

  Ingrid brushed Grace’s hair back from her cheek. Grace did not stir at all, even as Ingrid stroked her shoulder and arm. “Will she be all right now?”

  “No,” said the man matter-of-factly. “I am afraid after this she will be much worse.”

  The answer sent a stab of anger through Ingrid, but she suppressed it. “What must be done, then?”

  The man turned his eyes from her, back toward the flames. “I don’t know,” he said. “I wish very much that I did.”

  “I see.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. The man appeared to be ready to stare calmly into the fire until Kingdom Come, but Ingrid felt no such composure. Part of her was frightened and angry about this stranger and his pronouncements. Part of her was already shivering from imaginings of what Papa and Leo would do if Grace were caught out. Then there would be the scenes with Mama, and then if Grace got much sicker … Mama might not send for the doctor again, not after last time.

  Yet another part of her was still reeling with disbelief at all that had happened, and desperately seeking a way to deny it, but here she was, in the slowly dying night, and here was Grace all unconscious beside her. She knew a hundred ghost stories, of course. She had entertained all her siblings as they were growing up with stories of drowned men, sunken ships, strange lights, and seers who predicted disaster. She’d heard the men speak of mystic dreams, and of the Indians with their hosts of goblins, the Windego, the Bear Walker and Nanabush. These were part of her world, like Lake Superior surrounding her island home, but not this, this, thing that laid claim to her sister.

  “Who are you?” she made herself ask the man. She had to root herself in the here and now. She could not let the coming daylight lull her into disbelief.

  “My name is Avan.”

  The name struck a chord with Ingrid. She had heard it from her father and Leo. He was a new man, come up for the fishing season. He was good with the boats. That brief statement from Papa was like a soliloquy of praise coming from another man. Leo had thought he was a Finn, although he had been vague about his origins. Papa had gone out with him two or three times now.

  The realization should have been reassuring, but it was not.

  “What brought you out so late?” asked Ingrid.

  “Luck,” he said, poking at the ashes with a long stick, tucking the remains of Grace’s shawl deeper into the coals. “I could not sleep for too much thinking. I walked along the shore, and I saw you and your sister, and the ghost.” He paused, watching the sparks and smoke rise from the damp wood. “That was brave, what you did. It should have worked, but I fear your sister has given this dead man too much.”

  “But you were able to drive him, it, off. I saw a knife.”

  “You did.” Avan reached inside his coat, and pulled out a short-bladed knife that glinted dully in the firelight. Ingrid stared, for she had never seen such a thing. The dark blade was not all of a piece. Instead, it was three separate strips of metal, braided together and twisted into a wicked-looking point.

  “The blade is cold iron,” he said. “Such is supposed to have power over spirits and haunts. I was glad — ” He broke off the sentence, and began it again. “I was glad to find out such sayings were true.”

  “And is the haunt gone then?”

  “Only for tonight. The iron tore your sister’s shawl, which was holding him here despite your calling her and the holy names you invoked. But he himself is not injured, nor could he be by such means.” Avan looked at the blade with an expression of regret, and then tucked it back into his jacket.

  “And how did you come to know so much?”

  “I was well taught as a boy.”

  Which was no answer, and Ingrid saw in his face that he was clearly aware of the fact.

  Before she could ask another question, Grace stirred under her hand. She gasped once, sharply, as if in pain, and her eyelids flew open.

  “Where …” Grace pushed herself upright. Ingrid expected her next words to be “am I?” Instead, Grace stared wildly toward the lake. “Where is he?”

  Ingrid knelt down in front of her sister, putting her body between Grace and the water as she had put herself between Grace and the ghost. “Who is he?” she demanded, grasping her sister’s shoulders. “What has he done to you?”

  Grace’s eyes searched Ingrid’s face without recognition for a long, painful moment. “He is cold,” she said. She spoke slowly, dragging each word from somewhere deep inside her. “He saved me. I would have drowned, but he freed me from the water. I promised I would not leave him alone under there.”

  “Ask her if he told her his name.”

  Ingrid started, almost letting go of Grace. For a moment she had forgotten Avan. She frowned at him.

  He had laid his stick across his knees. “She will not be able to hear me. She is too far gone to hear any but those of her own blood.”

  Ingrid nodded once, as if she understood what was happening. She tried to catch Grace’s gaze again, but Grace was stared over her shoulder, searching for the ghost. Ingrid grasped her sister’s chin as if she were still a child, and pulled it back down so that Grace would be forced to look at her.

  “Grace, what is his name?”

  Again, that heartbreaking pause while Grace came at least a small ways back to herself. “I don’t know. I just know I promised. He’s alone. It’s so cold.”

  Grace began to tremble, and Ingrid’s determination to find immediate answers melted away. She wrapped her arms around Grace’s shoulder. “This is no good. I have to get her home. Our family will be … frantic.”

  “Yes.” Avan stood, still keeping hold of the stick. “Can you manage her?”

  “Since she was in diapers,” replied Ingrid. She stood, keeping a firm grip on Grace’s shoulders. Grace struggled briefly, which Ingrid found she expected from the way Grace’s gaze would not leave the shore. But Grace seemed to lack the will to fight for long, and sagged against Ingrid’s chest. “Although, I swear, I wish this were as simple,” Ingrid breathed.

  Ingrid found herself grateful that Avan pretended he did not hear that.

  Avan let Ingrid lead the way, holding tight to Grace and pulling her forward one staggering step at a time. The farther they moved from shore, the weaker Grace seemed to become until Ingrid found herself supporting her sister’s entire weight. She looked toward Avan, intending to ask for help, but then she saw the way he walked, stiff and alert, his arms ready at his side, clutching the stick the way he had clutched the knife. He walked like a soldier, she thought, as if he was expecting an ambush. Perhaps he was. The thought of that sent a fresh thrill of fear through her, and Ingrid kept her mouth closed.

  She had no choice but to stick to the road, although dawn was turning the sky silvery gray and soon the men and boys would come trooping down the rutted track to the bay and the boats. They already thought Grace struck down by madness. They would stare, and they would talk.

  Well, the Devil take them if they do. Ingrid found she felt far more worried about what she would tell their family. It was already too late to disguise the disappearance. If she told what had really happened, Mama would insist on a priest. Under the circumstances, there could be worse ideas. Papa, thought … What would Papa think? He had been raised a strict Lutheran, and it came out of him at odd times. There would be words with Leo, no matter what happened. And what on earth would they t
ell the little ones?

  “You must persuade your family not to try to send her away,” said Avan, as if reading Ingrid’s thoughts.

  “Why not? She’s not safe …”

  “I fear no boat with her aboard would make it across the lake.”

  Ingrid felt her cheeks go pale. The words “is that possible?” hovered on the tip of her tongue. Of course it was possible. If all the other things that had happened tonight were possible, so was this.

  “But you don’t know,” she said, cradling Grace’s lolling head closer against her shoulder.

  “I know she’s being called. I know that in a moment of fearing for her life she bound herself to a dead man. I know that he will not let go that bond easily, and that he is restless under the water.”

  “Then what are we to do? We cannot surrender her to this … thing.”

  “No.” Avan hung his head and was silent for a long moment. Ingrid could not see his face well in the morning shadows, but she felt he was reaching some decision. “Give me a day. I will find an answer.”

  Ingrid looked down at her fainting sister. It wrenched at her heart to see Grace so worn down, and in such a way. Mama had spoken softly of her fear that Grace’s boisterous nature might lead her astray, but this …

  At the same time she distrusted the stranger. There should be a priest, there should be a doctor … but then again it was Avan who banished the ghost.

  “Ingrid? Ingrid!”

  Papa’s harsh voice called from the morning shadows, followed quickly by the sound of heavy boots pounding the dirt road.

  “I will do what I can,” she breathed quickly.

  Papa, Leo, pale Mama, and what seemed like all the men of Eastbay poured up the road.

  “Ach, Gott!” Papa cried, seeing Grace collapsed against Ingrid’s shoulder. He swept his second daughter up in his strong arms as if she weighed nothing at all. Mama laid her hands on Grace’s brow.