“That’s a year and a half away, though.”
“It’s an expiration date.”
Uselessly hopeful, I said, “Maybe she won’t get in.”
Bailey paid that about as much attention as it deserved: none. Waving her hand, she said, “I can’t . . . It’s like saying, okay, I’ll love you for exactly this long, but then it stops.”
I leaned my head against hers. It’s not like she wasn’t making sense. But I grasped for her anyway. If everything was over for me, then that’s just the way it was. For Bailey, I could be the one who punched at the moon and expected to hit it. “You guys are happily ever after. It’s gonna work out.”
“And then they never saw each other again, the end. Some fairy tale.” She wiped away another tear, then stiffened. In an instant, she put herself back together. “There’s somebody coming.”
She had ears like a bat; she must have heard footsteps on the stone walk, because there wasn’t anything to see just yet. Though I tightened with anticipation, I kept my attention on Bailey. Since we didn’t know who was coming, I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I’m not trying to talk you out of it, boo. I just hate it for you, you know?”
“You want to hear something stupid?” she whispered back.
“Always.”
Posed at attention, she watched the walk. “I wish you could talk me out of it. Stop everything at the bonfire, and stay there forever.”
That was the last place I wanted to spend my eternity, but I kept that to myself. The wind kicked up; it made the forest shiver around us. A dark figure finally appeared on the walk. A woman in a Statey uniform approached us, her hips heavy under her gun belt. I knew what she was after, so I stood up.
“What the . . . ?” Bailey murmured.
When the deputy saw us, she moved a little faster. She put a hand on her holster too. I wanted to snort because Bailey and I, we looked real dangerous with our backpacks and school books.
“Hey, ladies,” she said. “Know where I can find Willa Dixon?”
“That’s me.”
Without too much discussion, she checked my ID, then gave me a thick envelope. Since I knew what was inside, I shoved it in my back pocket. Like an idiot, I thanked her—like I was thrilled to get served and couldn’t wait to go to court. But inside, I felt empty, kind of a relief. The struggle was gone. Maybe it was shock, or maybe I was past caring.
“It’s just court stuff,” I told Bailey as the deputy disappeared down the path again.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” Reaching past her, I picked up her pasta salad and stole a couple of bites. “You wanna go sugar Cait’s tank?”
Bailey made a funny sound, amused and resigned. Shaking her head, she leaned back on her elbows instead of reclaiming her lunch. “I don’t know. Ask me after we break up.”
With a look over my shoulder, I asked, “You wanna let the air out of Seth’s tires, then?”
“No, dummy.” She kicked my foot. “Neither do you.”
“Yeah I do. Let’s see him go driving around with Denny on four flats.”
“He’ll just put her on the handles of his ten-speed.”
The mental picture that conjured actually made me laugh. The sound surprised me; it felt strange the way it echoed in my chest. We settled back. Cool wind washed over us again, and we sighed at the same time. We had an expiration date too, but we weren’t gonna discuss it.
Instead, after a long stretch of quiet, I said, “We could steal her brakes for your tru—”
“Shut it,” Bailey said, and squeezed my hand.
After school, I swung by the house to get my worm-digging gear. I tossed my copy of the summons on the table so Mom would know I got it, then headed right back out.
That junk heap in Milbridge was still for sale. It was gonna need a lot of expensive work. Rebuilding an engine wasn’t cheap. Neither was buying a new one outright.
The fog had lifted and the tide receded. Hunched backs lined the horizon, other diggers already at work. The mud closest to the shore was already raked to bits.
I had to hike out a ways to find a fresh patch, the mire doing its damnedest to pull off my boots. The cold cut right through the rubber, sending a chilled ache through my bones.
The lighthouse seemed to hover at the edge of my sight, but I refused to raise my head. It was finally a clear day, and I didn’t want to see Grey standing on the cliffs. If he was there without any mist in the air, I couldn’t call him a hallucination. I’d have to admit he was real. Somehow, it was easier to believe I was losing my mind.
A white boat drifted in the distance, probably my dad. I couldn’t make out the details that far away. I just had a feeling.
Lots of boats were white, but this one idled near where I dropped our pots when I was out. Someone moved on its deck, then ducked inside. The boat sped a little ways, stopping again.
That had to be him, fishing alone. Slowly, he disappeared into the island’s shadow.
I rubbed the knot out of my throat, then got to raking. Icy flecks of mud spattered me, stinking with decay and dead fish. It was harder than usual. Like I didn’t have my usual strength or stamina. Sure, the mud was cold, but except for the dead of summer, it always was.
My rake cut smooth but uncovered nothing. Sandworms, some mussels, but that was about it. I picked up my gear and moved farther out. Just as I bent to work another row, a man called out. “Hey, Gingham!”
Glancing at my apron, I straightened. The guy yelling at me was thin and gangly, his chin so narrow, his blond goatee hung from it like moss. I didn’t recognize him at all. “What?”
“How about you move on? Some of us are working for a living.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
He pointed his rake at me. “You got a lobster license, dontcha?”
“Excuse me?”
“I seen you in the papers,” he said. Casually, like most people got their picture in the Bangor Daily. Holding a worm up to the light, he inspected its pale pink body before looking at me again. “Get real territorial when it comes to your money, am I right?”
Stiffening, I muttered, “Whatever.”
The tide only stayed out so long. The guy bent over again, back to work raking, but talking, too. “It ain’t right. I can’t go hop your boat and start pulling traps. So what are you doing down here in my kitchen, huh?”
My mouth was dry, and a sour taste came up in my throat. I wanted to throw things at him. Yell until my voice blew out, because what did he know? I wasn’t going to be lobstering for a long time.
All my confidence that a jury would let me keep my license was for nothing, because I was giving it up. Cutting off my own hands. So if I wanted to dig worms or clams or ghost shrimp, what was it to him, anyway?
“Got nothing to say for yourself?” he asked, pulling another worm as long as his forearm. “Not even a how-you-do?”
“Working, same as you.”
He snorted, dropping his bounty in his bucket.
I swung my rake hard. When it cut the mud, it sang. One high note, again and again. Grey turned black, turning heavily, revealing nothing. Moving down, I tried yet another spot. Every so often, that bigmouth would yell something at me.
The other diggers moved away from him, because he was breaking an unspoken agreement. This job, it was supposed to be quiet. Nobody telling you what to do. Heads down, rakes flying, worms adding up—if bait catching had a factory, it was the mud flats, and it wasn’t for socializing. Or being a dick.
“How many you got, Gingham?” he called.
Finally fed up, somebody else yelled at him to shut up.
Lapping back in, the tide washed around my ankles. It brought fog with it, the thin, hazy kind that swirled when you stepped through it. I wanted to lay down and let the mud swallow me, the water cover me. The mist would be a pale blanket; it might even be peaceful.
My bucket was mostly empty, and suddenly, I was too tired. I splashed back to shore, heavier with every step
.
A hot shower washed the mud away, but not the rest. I opened my bedroom window to let in the cold, then fell into bed. Nobody moved downstairs, my father still on the water and my mother back on night shift.
I listened for the creak from the stairs. If Levi had been coming home, I’d have heard it. One long, drawn-out creak and then my doorknob rattling. I wanted it so badly. I wished it hard, throwing it to the wind like dandelion fluff.
A beam of light swept through my window. The lighthouse had kicked on; the lighthouse of impossible geometry, where Grey lived. Where he was waiting for me. Rolling off my bed, I went to the window and stared at Jackson’s Rock.
I couldn’t remember seeing it from my house before.
Before I thought too hard about it, I put on my coat and my boots and headed for the shore again. I twisted my wet hair into a messy knot and fixed it with a pencil from my pocket. The fog wasn’t heavy; the boats coming back to the wharf were clear enough. I saw bodies moving on the pier, the cut of gulls through the air.
But an alley still opened in it, and the boat with my name drifted to shore. I stepped inside and didn’t look back.
ELEVEN
Grey
I meet her when she lands.
This time, I felt the walk open from shore to shore. This time, I see the boat she thinks I sent for her. It bears her name, just as she claimed. A bit of unexpected magic; the curse working in my favor for once.
Offering her my hand, I say, “You’re in time for dinner.”
The shade where her eyes should be is brown. Now, there are shades of gold in there, hints of black, but mostly, brown. She’s still no more than a smear of colors. When she looks at me, I wonder what she sees.
When I set eyes on Susannah, I was wrecked. Every ethereal thing about her enchanted me. Nonetheless, feminine beauty is hardly the same as masculine appeal. I could be unnerving, to Willa. Perhaps terrifying. I squeeze her hand and tuck it in the crook of my elbow.
“I’m glad you came back.”
“I don’t even know if you’re real,” she says.
“In what sense?” I look to her as I lead her through the darkened forest. The leaves have started falling, promising the end of the season. They whisper as they flutter, and their bared trees arch above us, a skeletal canopy.
Willa digs her fingers into my arm. How could she doubt my existence? She’s touching me. And then I draw a half-hitched breath, because she’s touching me. It’s been a hundred years since anyone’s touched me.
There’s no chance she realizes the import of her hand on my arm. She doesn’t consider me, not even with a sideward glance. Her light wavers as she speaks. I wonder if she’s rolling her lips. If they’re full or chapped . . . if they’re in need of a kiss.
“In the sense of, you’re a ghost. You’re a story people tell. If you can get to the Grey Man, he’ll give you the best fishing you’ve had in your life.”
“You want me to help you fish?”
She barks with laughter. “I’m saying that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
It sounds vaguely familiar. But there are constraints to the wonders I can work. I wish for things to appear on my plate at breakfast; I call and dismiss the fog. I collect the souls of those few who die beneath the reach of my lamp. It is a limited palette, I admit. Mostly shadows and shade. Still, I’ve read her life, every bit that’s been recorded.
Covering her hand with mine, I say, “Let us agree to always tell each other the truth.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, frowning. “What?”
I move in front of her, stopping her just at the edge of the woods. There’s no moonlight to play on me here. I am as ghostly or as real as she wishes me to be, I suppose. “I won’t lie to you. From my lips, to your ears, I swear—it will always be the truth.” Perhaps it was too ardent a promise. She takes a step back, wary. I must do something to keep her. I must entice her, and she’s not so simple as I was. She wants more than a pretty siren on a cliff, promising her love.
“I know you’re suffering,” I say. More truthfully, I can guess that she is. She has to be; I read all the newspapers with her name in them. Until this summer, she was entirely ordinary. But this year, this summer, is a tapestry, and I alone see the threads in its weave. I understand more about her than she can possibly know. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
Her light hardens, the shades ceding to white as she becomes steel. “I don’t wanna talk about Levi.”
“Is that strictly true?”
The fog fills around us, capturing strange lights in its depth. It glows, draping the forest in its ephemeral shape. Willa turns, staring at the path behind her. It’s still clear. If she wishes to take to the boat again, to steer herself home, I won’t stop her.
I think it’s plain by now. If she’s a romantic, it’s the secret sort. I won’t win her by force or insistence. Instead, I ask again, an intimate murmur made for her alone.
“Is it, Willa?”
“I killed him, you know.”
Reaching out, I brush my fingers against her light, where her shoulders should be. My words I select with care—the sentiment she wants to hear, not the truth she may need to. That’s what her family and friends are for. It’s hardly my fault they’re failing.
I slip closer and say, “I know you did.”
Like frost, she melts.
TWELVE
Willa
Grey listened.
That’s what he had going for him; he listened and didn’t argue with me. I followed him to the lighthouse, and we sat in chairs that weren’t there last time. The music boxes quivered around us. I was afraid they might start playing on their own.
It felt like confession, telling him everything in my head. Every place where I could have stopped. Changed my mind. Every bad decision that added up to Levi breathing his last on the wharf. Right then, nothing else mattered, not the stuff that happened before or everything that came after.
I said everything out loud. Finally, all of it, even down to wishing Dad hadn’t quit smoking. I didn’t know how much that bothered me, until I said it out loud. My lips burned, and I looked up at Grey.
“You think I coulda said something useful,” I told him. “I froze up. In all the ways that count, Levi was alone. He died alone.”
“I suppose he did,” Grey said. He sat quietly, watching me. Waiting.
It unnerved me when nothing else came out. He didn’t try to comfort me, and I had nothing else to say. Silence spread inside me. I was tired of myself, hashing it all out. Standing, I looked for the staircase—I knew I’d seen one. It was a lighthouse; it had to have one. “So you live here?”
Rising, Grey touched my shoulder, turning me like he knew exactly what I wanted to see. And he did, because when I came all the way around, the staircase was there, spiraling up and away.
My breath sputtered; it was impossible. But it didn’t feel like a hallucination anymore. Not a dream or a break from reality. It was another place, for sure. But not an imaginary one.
“Let me give you the tour.”
He took the rail and started upstairs. He was something to look at from the front or the back. But from behind I saw the marble smoothness of his neck. It was stone white, his silvery hair restrained with a ribbon just a shade darker. His clothes were crisp, that collar looking starched as anything.
And I had touched him. He had shape, and weight—not warmth, not really. But he felt real enough. Just cut out of translucent silk.
“This is my library,” he said.
It was smaller than the room below, but rich. Lamps with stained-glass shades glowed, casting two circles of light that met in the middle. A leather chair gleamed, but it was the chaise that looked like somebody used it. The upholstery was shiny in places, covered by a crumpled blanket.
Books filled the walls, just like music boxes did in the room below. Some—a lot—were the old-fashioned, leather kind. The ones with thick spines and gold bands. But underneath the raile
d ladder, a whole section was paperbacks. Cheap and battered, they smelled sharp when I touched one.
Casually, Grey trailed his fingers along the hardcovers. “I have a fondness for dime novels.”
A Princess of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes and Motor Girls on the Coast. Yeah, he did. When Grandpa Washburn passed, I’d carried four or five boxes of books just like these to the donation pile. It was a weird connection to make. I had to stop, pushing The Liberty Boys of ’76 back onto the shelf. “How old are you?”
Opening a fat, black volume, Grey smiled. “If I say seventeen, will you ask me how long?” Ghostly brows dancing, he raised the book he was holding so I could see the cover. White hands clasped a red apple.
I stared at him. “Are you for real?”
Amusement played on his face. It lifted the curve of his brows and the curl of his lips. He approached me, closing his finger in the middle of the book. “One hundred seventeen, more or less. I’ve been dead for the last hundred, so I can’t accurately account for them.”
I took Twilight from him, turning it over. It was the real thing. It had a signature in the front, looping across the title page. It made no sense at all. Waving it at him, I asked, “You get to the bookstore real regular?”
“No. I can’t leave the island.”
“Then where’d you get this?”
It wasn’t right, something real and new being here. I looked at the shelves again, and yeah, he had his dime novels and the fancy leather classics. But other sections bristled with brand-new books. He had The Hunger Games and Freedom, right next to a copy of The Devil in the White City and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Slipping his hands into his pockets, Grey came to stand beside me. His shoulder brushed mine, and he slipped Middlesex from the shelf. His fingers drifted through it, pale ghosts on the pages. “I can have anything I want, Willa.”
It sounded like a curse the way he said it. Like it was a knife pushed between bone and dragged hard through his fleshy parts. Shivering, I put the book down and considered him. “How?”
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