Putting his head down, Daddy moved like my mother wasn’t tearing at his shirt. Like he didn’t hear her, see me. Bailey jumped out of his way, her face drained of all color. Cracking the brittle tension, I forced myself to follow.
Our dooryard wasn’t that big. Bleak, thorned rose vines clung to the gate trellis. Scattered with fallen leaves and long shadows, it looked like a cemetery. Mom dug in her heels, scattering the leaves. She tripped and hauled herself up. Wild and feral, she flung herself at Daddy.
“You can’t do this, Bill,” my mother sobbed.
She struggled against him, pounding his back with her fists. The blows fell away; she may as well have punched a wall. When he turned, I was afraid he would hit her. Instead, he pulled her hands off his flannel and held her at arm’s length.
Behind me, Bailey chanted, “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” less a prayer than an exclamation. Struggling against my reluctant body, I jumped the steps and ran toward the driveway. I reached the truck just as Daddy slammed the door closed.
He reached out the window to shove my mother away. Even in that he was gentle, but he was firm. It was terrible, a slow-motion severing.
For a second, everything seemed to float. A snapshot of a moment: my mother catching herself on the fence, my father hanging out the window. I would have sworn that time stopped—no, skipped. A blank flicker when Daddy met Mom’s eyes and said, “Goodbye, baby.”
Slumping on the fence, Mom started to sob. Daddy threw the truck into reverse and tore out of the driveway. When time started again, I moved with it. I ran after the truck, like I might actually catch it. Arms windmilling when I realized I couldn’t, I twisted around.
Mom couldn’t stop him, and I couldn’t either. He had his gun, and he was heading up the hill to find Terry Coyne. Something monstrous was about to happen; the last shreds of my family had caught fire. Inside I flailed, but not for long. We didn’t have long.
The clean, black-capped shape of the lighthouse loomed in the distance. Automatically, I turned to it. Like it was my new north star—like it was my last chance. I took a few, wobbling steps and called to Bailey.
“Take care of my mom,” I shouted.
I didn’t wait for an answer or let myself see the fear in Bailey’s eyes. There was no time for it, no second guesses, no hesitations. It took me a few loping steps to get up to speed, but when I did, I burned with it. The untied braids in my hair came loose, and the wind whipped it all around my head.
When I’d had to escape, when I’d needed to get home, I’d hit the front door of the lighthouse running and come out on my parents’ porch. Chest burning and throat raw with every hard breath, I hoped it worked the other way. I prayed and wished, and when I hit the shore, I screamed.
“I want to come back, Grey!” Splashing into the surf, my teeth chattered instantly. The cold gripped, razor sharp. But I kept wading out, salt in my mouth, blood in my throat.
“Grey, please!”
The muck pulled my shoes off; I fought to keep moving. I know I screamed for Grey again, that my voice tore through the clear, clear sky. Then the shallows dropped off, and I plunged beneath the waves. Below, it was frigid and peaceful, until I cut the water with frantic arms.
I sank, and I sank, still screaming.
TWENTY-ONE
Grey
I’m in no state to have callers, but Willa bursts through my door all the same.
She’s soaked and maddened, and so exquisitely in focus. Cruelly, wonderfully, I see her in all her details. The freckle in one eye, the hundredshade of her red hair. What a pretty, pretty girl she is—when she’s not raving.
Skidding to a stop, she holds up her hands. Broken music boxes surround her—there’s a chance I lost my temper and smashed them all. Soul jars, music boxes, windows, too. Even the computer, for that was a rather disappointing window indeed.
Once I would have been embarrassed to receive a lady in my current state of undress. But cotton breeches and little else at least nod to my modesty and allow her to witness the whole of me in all my hideous natural state. I’m whitewash poured into a man-shaped glass. My head is—to be fair—not smooth, but quite round now. Quite evidently round, with all my hair shorn.
Her eyes widen as I approach; I frighten her. I should frighten her.
“Bring in the fog,” she says. Her voice quavers. Her fingers curl into claws when I get closer. She really is horrified; wonderful! “Please, Grey, please. I’ll stay if you want, I’ll . . .”
I press a finger to her lips. “No, thank you.”
“There’s no time, please. Please. Help me, and I will make it up to you.”
Spreading my arms wide, I shrug. I feel mercurial, just like the wind. The water. The sea, the sky. Flowing through the room, my feet cut a swath through shattered glass and twisted metal. I turn to her, and I would apologize, but there are no apologies left in me.
“It can’t be done. I’m surrendering, you see.”
Her eyes aren’t black. They’re brown, streaks of amber, flecks of green—that one dark spot that distracts me. There’s a light on in there, behind those lashes. She’s thinking, working, then suddenly, she throws herself at me. “Make me the Grey Man.”
“Willa.” I laugh. “That’s fundamentally impossible.”
“The Grey Lady,” she shouts. “You know what I mean!”
She puts her hands on me; she shakes me. Oh, how I longed for that before today, though not like this. Not hard and furious. Would a gentle touch from her have been so very hard to offer? Delicate fingers to trace the illusory veins in my wrists, a loving touch to warm the back of my neck?
Yet, there is a spark. Just as the beacon above comes to life when it’s needed, I feel something within me turn. Catching Willa’s elbows, I seize it—before my muddled thoughts distract me entirely. It’s a faery story after all, perhaps ending happily ever after for me. But this one does not begin once upon a time. It begins—
“Will you die for me?”
Willa shakes her head, stubborn to the last. “Not for you. For my family I will. But not for you.”
It’s within my grasp to toy with her. Torment her as she has tormented me. To hold out hope before her, just to snatch it away. I burn to do it; she’d deserve it. Instead, I cradle her face with my hand—I can be tender. I can be gentle.
I’ve been honest all along; my honor is mine and it’s intact. Her suffering will come later. I’ve no need to exact revenge now. Not now.
In the end, I was right. She was thinking of me. She came to me. And now she sets me free.
Her lips are stone, but I press mine to them all the same. It’s the only way I know how to give her this gift. At first, it seems I have only stolen a kiss. Then, a spike of light rips through me. My black-and-white world starts to bleed; my insubstantial body becomes flesh.
Dropping to my knees, I wrap my arms around myself to hold in the rising agony. I burst from the mist shell that’s held me all these years. It’s nothing but pain at first. I gasp and fall to my side. Music boxes jangle; they jab my flesh. They pierce me and I gasp. Breath hurts; the light hurts my eyes. My heart lurches into a pounding rage as sweat freshens me.
Writhing, I shudder and collapse again. I gape like a fish and gasp at air, real air, for the first time in a century.
And above me, Willa stands, washed in fog. Though I saw her in all her colors, she’s grey now. White hair, grey lips, black eyes. She’s a fearsome kind of beautiful, her edges trailing away as haze. Susannah was a delicate, fragile ghost. Willa is an avenging wraith—prepossessed and mighty.
She steps over my body, and a staircase appears as she raises her foot. The dregs of my reign melt like wet sugar. The music boxes, the shelves, all the disaster I wrought, fade with each step she takes. And when she disappears, I realize the silence in my head.
The cold on my skin.
The twist of hunger in my belly.
I could no more call the mist than I could fly. There’s a Grey Lady in this tow
er now, a new mistress on Jackson’s Rock. Though I’ve walked its shore a thousand times, my head aches imagining the borders of the island.
Struggling to my feet, I realize I’m no longer bare. Denim dungarees, a blue cotton shirt that clings to me. Shoes with laces, a curious jacket with a hood and zipper. Hunching into myself, I creep to the door. I close my eyes and say a soft prayer before I open it. Please let this be real, I murmur.
Then I step into the real world, a rocky shore that leads to the water—a boat waits for me there. It turns its bow to the distant shore. In the haze, its name wavers and changes. When the letters reshape themselves, it’s then that I know I am free. They read
Charlie
TWENTY-TWO
Willa
It all makes sense now.
When the cold came on me, Grey faded to a ball of light and drifted away. The lighthouse became mine. Its walls shifted for me; the stairs spiraled down to meet my feet. The weight of the fog presses from every direction. It’s like I’m part of it, and it’s part of me.
Every single thing Grey told me swirls in my head—he wasn’t wrong. This does feel primal. Old as the earth, old as time. Old as the sea and all its slumbering gods and goddesses, all its unknown and unnamed monsters and miracles.
As I hurry to the lantern gallery, I see flickers of rooms to be. The library is there, but now with more maps of the ocean. Globes and telescopes, star charts and barometers—and gleaming in the middle of the room, a beautiful brass sextant. The stairs rattle under my feet; I keep going.
The room I woke in before is here too, and a bathroom with a clawfoot tub and a harbor view. It’s all crazy pretty, and I’ll explore it later. Part of me wonders what the kitchen will look like when I walk into it. Do I have a microwave? Can I watch TV?
Petty, unimportant thoughts. And I’ll have forever to figure stuff like that out. Right now, I have to save what’s left of my family.
Throwing open the gallery door, I don’t catch my breath. I don’t feel the slightest waver of mortal fear when I look down at the rocks. Already the tides in my body have turned. I’m not Willa Dixon anymore. I won’t bleed. I can’t leave. I’m the Grey Lady, and I’m all right with that.
Since it seems like I should, I raise my hands. Inside me, the push and the pull struggle for control. I choose pull. I yearn for it, thick blankets of white to spread over the water. Throughout Broken Tooth. Past my house and the church steeple. Between the stones in the graveyard. Beyond the Vandenbrook School and Jackie Ouelette’s house on the hill.
On the far shore, there are so many lights. I understand that now too. All those lives, bobbing and dancing. Can’t tell one from the other; all I know is that some are bright. Some are dim. But slowly, all of them are consumed by the wave of mist that I spill on them.
I reach until I feel my edges thinning. I pull; it’s like a song. Like I have a new pulse—one that answers to the elements instead of my heart. Mist twines around my wrists and ankles; my hair is braided with it, my clothes woven from it. I master it, and it enslaves me. The push. The pull.
When I was lost in the fog, it took me only a few steps to realize I couldn’t keep going. When I heard water, I knew I’d gone the wrong way. That’s the kind of mist I call tonight. Thick and physical. The kind that leaves beads in your hair and a damp kiss on your skin. I’ll hold it ’til dawn, though I’m not sure my dawn will be the same as the village’s. Time passes differently here.
Still, I pull. More mist. More haze. In my veins and on the streets of Broken Tooth. I murmur with the song. I twist with it. As the beam cuts on behind me, the horn starts to call. I feel the waves pass through me, both light and sound.
Somewhere, Daddy’s Girlfriend is theorizing why a day so clear turned so foggy all at once. Somewhere, I’m hoping—I bet my life—that my father pulled to the side of the road. It’s not fit for ships or F-150s now. People are closing up their windows and doors, locking them tight. They know it isn’t natural, this much fog, rolling in the wrong direction. This is everywhere, thick as flesh. It feels wrong, I know. But they don’t have to worry.
I don’t want to collect their souls. I don’t want them to suffer. I don’t want anyone to die tonight. Not even Terry Coyne.
My father knows what it’s like to live by the sea. He’s been in bar fights and regular fights; he’s ridden out hurricanes and nor’easters. All these years, he’s survived. No matter the hardship, he’s survived and kept going, and kept our family going. And he’s going to survive tonight, whether he wants to or not.
He doesn’t realize it yet. It’s a hard thing to truly understand. It doesn’t matter if someone stands right in front of you and shouts it in your face. There are some things you have to realize. Internalize. More than understand—comprehend. Now that I have, I hope I’m giving my father the chance to understand it too.
It’s not July twenty-third anymore.
TWENTY-TWO
Charlie
I didn’t excel in my grammar studies, so I couldn’t say it was ironic. But it did seem apt that the boat bearing my name cut through the mist to the other shore and left me stranded in the fog.
On hands and knees, I felt my way up to the boardwalk. Stones cut my palms. Rubbing the bright pain against my knees, I managed to warm myself as well. The hooded coat I woke with barely held the October cold at bay.
Anxious to run, I bounded a few steps, then stopped. Though I had mastered the fog for a century, it ignored my will now. At an arm’s length, my fingertips were obscured by it. In me, there was an awareness of the village, that there were buildings quite close, but I couldn’t see them.
As much as I longed to flee this coast, I sat instead. There was no use in escaping if the first thing I did was walk off a cliff. Besides, I had plenty to experience even without my eyes for the moment.
The air smelled different on this side of the water. Rotting bait, raw wood, salt water. There were other scents I couldn’t place. Heavy, oily, greasy—and one I sensed not at all. With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and inhaled—but no, it wasn’t there. The sweet tang of wood smoke eluded me entirely.
The last time I walked on real land, most homes kept a wood-burning stove for warmth and cooking alike. Though it was mainly imaginary, I’d had one in the lighthouse as well. Black and fat, radiating heat through its sides and issuing its smoke to wind around the lighthouse outside.
I had to wonder what the citizens of Broken Tooth had instead. In 1913, they were a poor, proud lot. Had they blossomed in a century? Willa always seemed so distracted among my things. Her world was a novel creation to me. Soon, I’d explore it all.
Settling in for a wait, I savored my curiosities and discomforts, for they were finally temporary. The wood dug into my backside. My back ached to sit without support. Hunger gnawed through me, and I felt distinctly gritty. Situations soon to be solved.
When the fog lifted, I’d find a chair, an inn, a public bath if there was no private one to be had.
Proof that I had been insubstantial before, I had a full head of hair once more. Instead of silvery white, it was brown again; I wondered if that meant my eyes were blue again. Stroking my own cheek, I sighed. I bore barely a day’s stubble. My father’s beard had never been particularly full either. No magic could change that destiny, it seemed.
I dug at the lump in my pocket and found a leather portfolio. It was no bigger than my hand, though thick. Flipping it open, I shivered. My eyes—indeed, blue—and my face as they once were stared back at me.
Thrusting a finger into the pocket that held it, I struggled to free the portrait.
The card was thin, pliable. Printed with green, grassy swirls and an etching of a mountain—it claimed my name was Charlie Walker. Which was true: Charles Leslie Walker. Named for neither grandfather; my parents hadn’t cared for them.
I’d forgotten my birth date. The year was wrong on the card, 1995 instead of 1896, but the month and day . . . I could barely catch a breath. Vertigo left m
e unsettled. Stomach contracting, I felt as though my head were a bowl of well-stirred soup.
How could I have forgotten such an intimate detail? Why did it feel like such a blow to recover it?
As I thumbed through the rest of the folio, I listened to the ocean and the harbor bells, and the horn in the distance. It was rippingly fantastic to hear that sound from a mile away instead of right inside my own home. I was free. I was free! Cool wind enveloped me; the fog bathed me.
And I had, it seemed, one hundred seventeen dollars to my name. A princely sum—the bills strangely smooth, the portraits not quite familiar. Less green, more writing. They were smaller than the tender notes I remembered. Lifting them to my nose, I inhaled.
That was the same, at least.
I had no idea how long I sat on the boardwalk. I picked at my toes and leaned down to follow the progress of a line of ants. Once more through the portfolio in my pocket, then I stood and stretched. It seemed to me that the fog finally thinned, peeling away to reveal a hint of night.
The lighthouse beam swung over my head. It was like seeing a forsaken sweetheart. There was so much a part of me in that light. But that was over, a chapter completed. It made no difference to me how far it stretched, for I no longer needed to account for the souls beneath it.
The village slowly took shape. Lampposts soared above me, their bulbs glowing slightly orange. The poles buzzed; when I pressed my ears to them, I heard it distinctly. Electricity! For my mother’s birthday, my father had installed two electric lights in our house. One in her kitchen, the other in the sitting room. Those lamps were dim compared with these creations.
Angled roofs and steep chimneys cast shadows within the haze. Windows glowed steadily—more electricity, I guessed. Absorbed in wonder, I walked up to a motorcar. That’s what it had to be. It had wheels and glass lights, and curves like a jungle cat.
Mistwalker Page 19