by Sarah Zettel
Whitewashed fire doors separated the lighthouse from the keeper’s quarters, one for each story of the house, and one for the cellar. Bridget kept small tables beside these doors laid out with candles and matches. The tiny flame felt blessedly warm against her skin as she carried the candle up the tight, rust-stained iron spiral of the stairway to the very top and the metal hatch that led to the lamp room.
The lamp room was a cramped, circular chamber. The brass and glass workings of the light took up most of the space, leaving only a thin circular aisle between itself and the windows. The light’s clockwork ticked as steadily as any timepiece, keeping the oil pumping from the reservoir to feed the lamp wicks to send the beam across the lake’s restive waters. Bridget stooped and opened the small brass door under the main lamp to expose the reservoir and check the level of the mineral oil. It was already half-empty, so she topped the level off from one of the oil cans placed there for that purpose. Satisfied there was enough to last the night, she closed the door up and gave the works a few extra cranks to ensure that the pumps continued their function.
Outside, the wind had died down. The lake had ceased to rage and had fallen back on its usual quiet muttering. The light beside her burned evenly, shining its clear beam across the water, warning the ships, warning the world, “Here is the shore, here are the rocks, here are the dangers. Stay back, stay away. Do not come near to trouble yourselves.”
Or to trouble me. Bridget shivered and wrapped her arms tightly around her.
“What have you brought me?” she asked the fading gale. “What is this man?”
But Lake Superior was not prepared to give her any answers. Eventually, cold and simple weariness overtook her. Bridget climbed back down to her room to seek what warmth there was left in her bed.
When daylight returned, there would be time enough for answers.
• • •
Deeply ingrained habit woke Bridget with the dawn the next morning. She was used to long nights and interrupted sleep, and so was not particularly weary when she rose to wash her face and dress her hair and body. Outside, the morning’s first light showed a clear day, but a grey sky and an uneasy lake. She checked the barometer that hung on her wall. The glass was holding steady, for now, at least.
She could hear Mrs. Hansen in the kitchen, making the usual domestic bumpings and singing to herself in Norwegian. The very thought of breakfast and coffee left Bridget weak with hunger, but, as always, the light came first.
Again she climbed to the top of the tower. This time she extinguished all four of the lamp’s wicks and halted the works. She checked the reservoir and the oil on hand. She’d need to bring up several cans from the oil house in the cellar before dark. She shone the lens with chamois leather, although it didn’t really need it. Her father had told her tales of how older lights burned whale oil, which formed a crust of black soot every night. Memory of his stern warnings made her diligent.
“I want you to be able to take over the light when I’m gone, Bridget,” he would say to her, as he was showing her how the pumps worked, or making her help carry the oil cans up the iron stairs. “The job is all I have to leave you.”
He said it more frequently after his bout of pneumonia robbed him of the wind needed to climb the lighthouse stairs. No matter how many times he said the words, though, he never once added, “since you spoiled what good our name had left,” but Bridget was sure he thought it. She certainly did.
When the lamp cooled, Bridget trimmed the wicks carefully so they would be ready for lighting at dusk. Finally, she drew the curtains that hid the light from the sun. Sunlight, focused by the lens, could ignite the oil within the reservoir and set the tower aflame.
Routine made Bridget feel solid and whole. She could deal with anything now. She had faced out storm and tempest, insult and attack. What was left to frighten her?
So, well in command of herself, Bridget descended the tower stairs to the top floor of the quarters. When she reached the stranger’s door, she knocked softly. No sound rose from within.
Bridget pushed the door open. The stranger lay on his back in the bed, one hand hanging out in the cold, one thrown across his chest. Despite its natural clear brown color, his skin seemed pale against the white sheets. Bridget crossed to his side, relieved to see that his chest still rose and fell. She might have her doubts about this person, but they were not strong enough for her to wish him dead. She laid a hand on his brow. He felt neither too hot, nor too cold. It was probably simple exhaustion that kept him sleeping now.
His hair, she noted, had dried into a curling black mane in severe need of a trimming. Black stubble obscured his strong jawline and square chin. She would have to hunt out Poppa’s old razor and strop as soon as the man was well enough to attend to himself.
She tucked his hand back under the quilts. He did not shift at all.
Bridget went down to the winter kitchen and the smell of biscuits, bacon, coffee and frying eggs. Mrs. Hansen tended the stove on which breakfast sizzled so deliciously. Bridget reached around the housekeeper for the coffeepot and poured herself a mug of steaming, black brew.
“Did our visitor stir last night, Mrs. Hansen?” she asked, sipping the hot coffee.
“I heard nothing, nor did Samuel,” Mrs. Hansen answered, her square, sun-browned face stern. “But I’ll tell you this, I’m not easy with him in the house.”
“Well, when he wakes, we will have an accounting from him.” Bridget set the mug down on the kitchen table.
“If you’re determined to wait then, you’d best make good use of your time and see to the chickens.” Mrs. Hansen fastened her gaze severely on her cookery, as if worried about what she would say to Bridget if she looked up.
It was going to be one of those days. Bridget suppressed a sigh. Nominally, Bridget was in charge of the house, but neither of them could forget that Mrs. Hansen had helped care for Bridget since she was a little girl. When the widow was worried for Bridget, or uncertain for her future, she seemed to forget Bridget had ever grown up and took to ordering her about as if Bridget were still ten years old.
“Yes, Mrs. Hansen,” answered Bridget obediently as she stood. Her answer was a wave of the hand, shooing Bridget out the door. Bridget made her way to the back door with a small smile that faded rapidly. Mrs. Hansen was right to be concerned about the stranger. Bridget knew what her housekeeper was thinking. If the man upstairs could not give good account of himself and his strangeness, there was going to be talk and, no matter what he said, if Bridget didn’t move him into Eastbay or Bayfield as soon as could be, that talk would spread. Her gruffness this morning was only worry, for Mrs. Hansen knew how badly Bridget had been harmed by rumors before.
There was, however, nothing either of them could do about it now, and no reason to disturb the morning’s routine. Bridget wrapped her shawl around her head and shoulders against the sharp November cold and picked up the egg basket from its place by the kitchen door. Outside, she crossed the frostbitten, scrubby yard. The wind blew briskly off the lake, stinging her nose and finger ends, but promising nothing more dire this dim day than a deepening of the late-autumn cold. Below the blunt cliff, she could see the wreck of the stranger’s boat rocking gently with motion of the waves. That would have to be salvaged soon, or the lake would have it all.
Bridget fed the chickens scratching in their patch of gravel and then filched their eggs from the laying boxes in the coop. As she passed the barn, she praised Samuel, who was busy working on the woodpile with saw and ax. She brought the eggs into the kitchen, just in time to sit down and consume the hens’ work of the previous day, with plenty of bacon and hot biscuits spread thickly with honey. Mrs. Hansen and Samuel ate their portions with gusto, and all seemed to agree that conversation should be held to remarks about the weather and the small gossips from Eastbay.
At last, Bridget drained her coffee mug. “I am going to take the boat around to Eastbay and the tug to the mainland, if it’s going,” she told Mrs. Hansen.
“Is there anything we need from Mr. Gage?”
“Some salt would be useful, if you please,” replied Mrs. Hansen. “And some coffee.”
“A keg of tenpenny nails, if you please, miss,” added Samuel. “And a bucket of whitewash.”
“Thank you.” Bridget noted the requests down on the back of a used envelope with a stub of grease pencil. “I’ll be back before nightfall.” She reached across the table and touched Samuel’s arm to make sure she had his attention. “Samuel, if you can do it safely, I want you to go down to the stranger’s boat and see what you can salvage. All right?”
Samuel, his mouth full of bacon, swallowed hastily. “Yes, miss.”
“Thank you.” Bridget patted Samuel’s hand and turned back to his mother. “I’ll just go look in on our guest before I go.”
“Do you want me with you?” asked Mrs. Hansen gamely.
“I believe I can take care of myself,” said Bridget. “If not, you can be sure you’ll hear my shout.”
Rising from the table, she climbed back up to the stranger’s room. Her knock brought no response, so she pushed the door open. He lay still as death in the narrow bed, and did not stretch or shift when her footsteps caused the floorboards to creak. Bridget lifted his belt from the sill where she’d laid it the night before. The gold buckle glinted in the grey light filtering through the curtains. Bridget peered more closely at the artifact. Fine threads of gold had been twisted together to make thicker strands, and those strands had then been braided and coiled to make a solid oval. Bridget hefted it in her hand. It must have weighed at least a pound. She hesitated. She did not want to take so valuable an object without permission, but she also did not want to wake the exhausted stranger. The workmanship of the buckle was so curious it might give some clue to his origin if it could be recognized. Someone might even know the owner, and so might know if friends or family could be telegraphed.
Momentarily undecided, Bridget ran her thumb across the buckle.
And she saw a woman, well past middle age, in a gown of burgundy velvet embroidered all over with gold. The woman handed the buckle to the stranger.
She saw the stranger in a forest clearing, offering a wine flask to a fox.
She saw the dark man she had seen before standing in front of a patch of ice, and on the ice stood a monster with red skin and horns on its head and a terrible mouthful of fangs.
Bridget staggered against the window, barely getting her hand out in time to catch herself against the low sill. What is happening to me?
The visions had never come so fast or clear before, not even during the worst of storms, and those had always been comprehensible. She had always seen plain, honest men and women, in some form of trouble — stormwreck, or broken band saw, or perhaps a fall of rocks in the quarry, something of the kind. Very occasionally she’d been able to see the future happiness or heartache of a woman being married, or if a baby would be male or female.
But the things this man caused her to see … these were scenes from fairy tales. They were not possible. She pressed her hand against her forehead, as if she thought the gesture could somehow hold back her confusion. The single consolation of her visions had always been that she had known what to do about them. She had to speak out. Even years ago, when people had not yet believed her, she had to tell them about the ships that were in trouble, or the bridge that had been washed away. She had been certain since childhood that God, if no one else, wanted her to speak aloud about what appeared to her mind’s eye.
But these new visions were not the familiar kind. These brought no compulsion, no certainty of purpose. They brought only fear.
This cannot continue. Bridget straightened up, leaving the belt on the windowsill. She could not keep this man here, pressing on her mind and distracting her thoughts. I have work to do.
“What did you see?”
Bridget whirled around. The stranger regarded her calmly from his bed. Only his head protruded from under the quilts, and for a disconcerting moment, he appeared to be disembodied.
“What did you see?” he asked again. His voice was soft, but harsh, as one might expect from a throat that had no lungs connected to it.
“I am glad you’re awake.” Bridget shoved aside her ignorant fancies. She walked briskly to his bedside and poured water from the wash jug into the cup she’d brought in last night, holding it out to the stranger. His hand stayed steady as he accepted the cup, and he drank the water off in three swallows.
“Thank you.” He gave her the cup and she set it back on the nightstand.
“How do you feel?” Bridget asked, smoothing down her apron. “Are you dizzy at all? Does your head ache? Is there fever, or a pain in any of your limbs?”
“None of these, thank you, mistress.” With a small grunt, he pushed himself up on the pillows, proving that he did indeed still have a whole body. “But that I am a bit weak and extraordinarily hungry, I am well.”
“Very good.” Bridget nodded. This again was familiar territory. However foreign or exceptional, this was a half-drowned man who needed care, nothing more, and nothing less. “I will speak to my housekeeper directly about a meal for you. Plain porridge with a little milk would be best at present, I think. If that agrees with you, a more solid meal can be provided later.”
He inclined his head. “Whatever you consider best, mistress.”
Bridget blinked. Not one fisherman in a thousand would calmly accept porridge when the scent of bacon still lingered in the house. Still, I should be grateful for small favors. She folded her hands in front of her. “May I ask your name, sir?”
He paused for a moment, his wide mouth frowning; then he seemed to reach a decision. “My name is Valin Kalami. I am lord sorcerer and advisor to Her Grand Majesty the Dowager Empress Medeoan Edemskoidoch Nacheradavosh of Isavalta. I sailed through the Land of Death and Spirit at her behest in order to find you.”
Bridget blinked again. “I see.” What knot on your head did I miss, sir?
Kalami, or whoever he was, shook his head. “Forgive me, mistress, but at present you do not.”
“That is neither here nor there.” Bridget drew herself up and tried to sound businesslike. “I will have your food sent up. I would advise you to rest quietly — ”
In response to this advice, the man raised one fine, brown hand. “Will you not condescend to answer my question, mistress.”
“What question, sir?” she asked, already turning away from him and starting for the door.
“When you touched my buckle, what did you see?”
Now it was Bridget’s turn to hesitate, but it was only for a bare instant, after which she faced him fully to show that his question did not disturb her in the least. “I saw a piece of fine metalwork.” She cocked her head. “What should I have seen?”
Kalami dropped his gaze to the quilt and shook his head once. “That is something best known to yourself, mistress. I will not presume.”
In this, at any rate. Bridget felt herself frown. Who are you? What have you heard of me? Who has been talking? Did you believe me to be as mad as yourself? Was that why you came here?
All at once, Bridget felt she did not want to be near this person anymore. She wanted to be anywhere else in the world, anywhere she could be all alone and think, and recover herself. She did not want to be near someone who could see her visions, who could burn her with the light from his black eyes, who spoke to her as if she were a lady worthy of his respect.
“I suggest you rest, sir.” Bridget rounded the bed and headed for the door, hoping against hope that he would not see she was retreating from him. “Wherever you may be from, you have had a rough time of it and need to recover your strength.”
“Yes, mistress,” he said, sounding disturbingly like Mrs. Hansen when she was humoring Bridget.
I am surrounded. Suddenly more annoyed than concerned, Bridget left the room, closing the door firmly behind herself.
Down in the kitchen, Mrs. Hansen was up to her elbows in a basin f
ull of breakfast dishes.
“Mrs. Hansen.” Bridget rested her fingertips on the edge of the freshly scrubbed kitchen table, inhaling the comforting scents of warm water and strong soap. “I believe our guest suffers from some delirium.”
“A madman?” Water drops flew from Mrs. Hansen’s hand as she grasped the cross she wore at her throat.
Somehow, the sight of the older woman’s panic made Bridget feel more at ease. “Possibly he is merely confused, from some blow to the head, or an excess of water in his lungs. Dr. Hannum will be able to say more.” She touched Mrs. Hansen’s arm. “I will return directly with the doctor and news of a safer house where the stranger may be lodged.” She smiled reassuringly at her housekeeper, and reluctantly Mrs. Hansen’s water-reddened hand released the cross. “He is weak still and will most likely sleep. Try to be easy. Send Samuel up with some porridge. There is nothing to fear.”
“If you’re certain.” Mrs. Hansen met her gaze searchingly.
“I am,” she said firmly. “I would know if there were danger under my own roof.” Most of the time, the fact of Bridget’s second sight went unspoken between them, but by now, Mrs. Hansen trusted Bridget’s visions almost as much as Bridget herself did.
But not, it seemed, this time. “Have a care, Bridget Lederle,” she said. “I don’t like this one.”
Bridget grasped Mrs. Hansen’s wet hand and squeezed it briefly. “We’ll see it through, Mrs. Hansen. Whatever comes.” She straightened up. The day was short, and she did not want to be caught on the mainland when darkness fell and the time to light the lamp came. “I will be back as soon as I may.”
Mrs. Hansen nodded once, satisfied, at least for the moment. “I’ll watch for you.”
Bridget paused by the door to collect her shawl and bonnet. She tucked her few pieces of correspondence, which included her quarterly report to the Lighthouse Board, into her apron pocket along with the shopping list and walked out into the morning, taking the creaking stairs down to the jetty where her small boat waited.