by Sarah Zettel
• • •
From the window of his small, spare room, Kalami watched his hostess leave. It was plain that she believed him so lost and exhausted that he posed no real danger to her household. It was also plain, however, that she believed him quite mad.
But then, she also believed this was the first time they had met.
In truth, he was exhausted. The freshwater sea that lay at Bridget Lederle’s door had almost swallowed him whole in its wrath. During the passage of the last eight years, he had forgotten the lake was so vast, and his previous two visits had been made in calm weather. A mighty world this was. Kalami shook his head. He would have liked to spend a year or so here, exploring its lands.
Perhaps one day, he thought as he shuffled back to the hard bed. At present, I have other concerns.
Believing him mad, Bridget had most likely gone to fetch some sort of physic to pronounce a diagnosis. This meant he was in danger of being removed from her household before she heard his tale. Who would voluntarily keep a madman under their roof?
As understandable as it was, it did him no good. Kalami lifted and bent his stiff body to sit on the edge of the bed. It was she he needed to speak to, she he needed to make understand.
There was a soft knock at the door. Kalami dropped onto the pillows and threw the bedclothes back over his naked body.
“You may enter.”
The door opened and through it came the big, slow boy, carrying a tray with a bowl full of something that steamed. As the boy walked toward him with exaggerated caution, Kalami smelled the deeply homey scent of oaten porridge and smiled.
During his first visit, Kalami had only needed to understand Bridget, not the world around her. During his second, he had needed only darkness and a soundly sleeping house. Consequently, his knowledge of this world remained sketchy at best. If he was to reassure some learned person of his sanity, he would need to be able to bring the proper words to his tongue.
“Thank you,” he said as the boy, who’d probably been warned not to spill the tray, handed across his breakfast. Now then, my boy, might you have what I need to keep me here?
“You’re welcome,” said the boy, backing away. His pale blue eyes grew wide as he looked Kalami up and down.
Obviously, you have never seen a madman before, and so you stare. Kalami set the tray aside. “Might I please have some water?”
The boy must have been used to doing as he was told. Without question or hesitation, he filled the cup from the jug. While his back was turned, Kalami pulled his reading braid from the bag that hung about his neck.
The boy handed Kalami the water. As he did, Kalami captured his wrist in the braid.
The boy froze. “Uhhh …” he grunted feebly as he tried to struggle, sloshing water onto the floor, but the spell held him fast.
“Shhh …” Kalami touched the boy’s lips with his fingertips, silencing him. He took the cup gently from the boy’s paralyzed hand and set it on the night table. “Fear not, there’s a good boy. I just need a few memories from you, that is all.” This was not the same working he had used on Bridget. There it had been a simple understanding he had sought. Peering at her mind had been enough. Here, he needed something deeper. “You are to remember for me a man, a sound man, a good man. Someone you have seen at work among the boats perhaps. Let me see him … Samuel.” He smiled as the boy’s name reached him through the braid.
Unable to help itself, Samuel’s mind did as it was bidden. Kalami relaxed as the memories drained from the boy into himself. The memories were lost to Samuel now. But the boy had little use for them, and he was so simple that no one else would remark that they were gone.
When he had enough, Kalami unwrapped the braid from Samuel’s wrist and took the cup of water.
“Thank you, Samuel. You may go now.”
Samuel swayed on his feet and stared hard at his wrist, as if trying to remember something important.
“You may go now,” repeated Kalami firmly. “You have told me that your mistress has asked you to salvage my boat. You are to take particular care that you save the sails, and the length of rope you will find tied with the red ribbon. They are most important. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” Still staring at his wrist, Samuel turned and shuffled toward the door. As he moved away from Kalami, however, he began to straighten up, and soon he walked away as if nothing had ever happened.
Kalami smiled as he picked up his spoon and attacked the hot, thick porridge. He could wait now, rest and gather his strength. He had all he needed.
At least, until Bridget returned.
Chapter Two
Bayfield, Wisconsin, was large, muddy and noisy. The harbor sprawled under the watchful gaze of the rich stone houses on the bluff. Grey steamers and worn fishing boats lined the docks, where the air stank of fish and oil, sawdust and pitch, despite the continual breezes off the lake. Shouts, swearing and banging filled the air from the men and boys loading stone, fish and timber into the steamers and unloading finished goods. The constant noise pressed in on Bridget, who was used to the silence of Lighthouse Point. She set her jaw and picked her way up the dusty boardwalk, past the cooperage and the transfer depot, to join the traffic, both foot and cart, on Washington Avenue. The day had cleared a bit and the sun shone warm on Bridget’s shoulders. The crowds of workers and errand runners flowed past her without recognition, allowing her the freedom of anonymity that usually enabled her to relax, if only for a moment. But today, she had no choice except to go where she was known and face all that meant. However, she first had an errand of her own to run.
Bayfield possessed two cemeteries, which faced each other across a dirt and gravel track just over the crest of the long hill. Bridget had never set foot in the ground reserved for the Catholic dead, but she knew the other graveyard well. She made her way across the frost-burned grass, between the slablike granite markers and the more fanciful marble memorials, to the far side, where the yard ended and the woods began. Here, the noises of the docks and the town were faint. The roots of an ancient oak made a hollow in the grass. Beside it waited two modest, plain grey stones. The first was Momma’s, bearing the words INGRID LOFTFIELD LEDERLE, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER, MARCH 12, 1848 — OCTOBER 15, 1872. The second, of equal size, was Poppa’s. EVERETT LEDERLE, BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER, JULY 19, 1845 — FEBRUARY 27, 1892. Bridget passed both these by, brushing her fingers against the tops of the cool stone to signal her silent regret. The third stone in the hollow was smaller than the other two, a piece of white marble graven with the words ANNA LEDERLE KYOSTI, AUGUST 2, 1891-AUGUST 28, 1891. BELOVED DAUGHTER.
Two brown oak leaves had fallen onto the stone. Bridget brushed them away.
“Good morning, dear heart,” she murmured to the stone that marked her daughter’s grave. “I’m sorry I’ve nothing for you today. It’s autumn again and the flowers have all gone to sleep. I have some business at the church, but I wanted to stop by to say hello.” She bent down and pressed her lips against the cold marble. Tears pricked her eyes. Eight years had passed and gone, but the fact of her infant daughter’s death could still strike her like a blow to her heart. “Mama loves you, Anna,” she whispered. “I’ll come again soon.”
Bridget stood there for a time, blotting at her tears with the back of her hand. When she was sure her eyes would stay dry, she made her way back between the more prestigious graves, gathering her composure with difficulty as she walked. So much lay under that white stone, she thought some days it would all drag her straight into the ground. Anna had been the result of a single night. Bridget had been nineteen then. She could still remember all too well, some nights, the passion she and Asa had shared in the darkness by the lake. Asa had met her without a word, and left her just as silently. She had thought he would return. She had believed he loved her. Before that moonless night, he had said that he did, and she had believed. Then, when he did not return, she had thought Anna would be her consolation, but Anna had died before her first month was
up. Even now, Bridget could see the harsh, unforgiving eyes of the women who crowded the gallery at the coroner’s inquest, eager to see if “that Lederle woman” would be found to have caused the death of her newborn, illegitimate, child. She remembered their murmurs weaving through the unrelieved heat of the courtroom, passing back and forth the old stories — how she was possessed of the second sight, and was wicked enough to use it, how Everett Lederle was not her real father, how her mother had disappeared when she was young, only to return a year later, probably already pregnant and most certainly grieving for some vanished lover.
Bridget had heard most of those whispers since the day she was old enough to hear anything. They made a constant background for her life, fencing her in the way the lake fenced in her island home.
Lost in her thoughts, Bridget failed to note she was not alone, until she heard the gruff sound of a throat being cleared.
Bridget started, glancing reflexively toward the sound. Another woman occupied the track. She was round and pale, with a powdered face and washed-out gold hair that had been brutalized by a poorly done marcel wave. Golden loops hung with coins jangled from her ears. They matched the necklace spread out across her freckled bosom. More gold, or, at least, the semblance of gold, glittered on her hands. Her shawl was a fringed square of black lace, its several holes carefully mended, as were the tears in her green-and-cream-paneled skirt.
Bridget felt her spine draw itself up as straight as it would go. “Aunt Grace,” she said in as neutral a voice as she could manage. “What brings you out here today?” Surely you can’t have come to visit your sister’s grave? Bridget managed to keep herself from speaking that last thought aloud.
Grace Loftfield’s face soured, as if she heard Bridget’s thought, but she pulled her shoulders back, indicating plainly that she was magnanimous enough to forgive it. “I need to speak with you, Bridget,” she declared.
Bridget sighed. “Then do so,” she said, folding her hands over her apron. Her toe tapped the gravel impatiently, but she stilled it.
If Grace noticed the gesture, however, she gave no sign. Her eyes had shifted toward the graveyard. Bridget could not tell what she thought she saw there, but it made her uneasy. “Not here. Come to my flat.”
This time Bridget’s sigh was one of exasperation. I’m in no mood for humoring you, Aunt. “I have business I must take care of and I have to get back to the light before dark.” Bridget brushed past Grace, her shoes crunching on the gravel underfoot. “If you have something to say, you can walk with me.”
Aunt Grace let her walk a few steps, just far enough for Bridget to hope she had decided her niece was not worth the trouble. But the sounds of rustling cloth and jingling coins caught up behind her. Bridget kept her eyes straight ahead, letting the sides of her bonnet shelter her from Grace’s peering eyes.
“Bridget!” Aunt Grace announced finally, obviously at the end of her own patience. “I’ve come to help you!”
“Help me!” Bridget stopped, turning on her heel to stare at her aunt in complete astonishment. “You’ve never offered to help me in my entire life. Why would you do so now?”
Aunt Grace squared her shoulders, lifting her little chin with affected dignity and again showing her nobility and propriety by letting this further slight pass by.
“Bridget, you’re in danger,” she announced. “I’ve seen it.”
Bridget stared at her a moment longer while those last three words sank into her mind. Then, she let out a laugh, a disbelieving bark of a noise. “You’ve seen it? Oh, honestly, Aunt Grace.”
Aunt Grace had moved off Sand Island into Bayfield while still a young woman. Shortly afterward, she set herself up as a spiritual medium and palm reader. The same ladies who drew their skirts aside when Bridget walked up the street crept trembling into Grace Loftfield’s dim parlor so she could gaze into her blue glass ball and tell them what she saw.
Although Poppa had forbidden it, Bridget had managed to sneak into one of Aunt Grace’s séances when she was sixteen. She’d thought that if Aunt Grace really did have the second sight, she’d have an ally. There’d be someone who understood what it was to have reality fade away and be replaced by visions. Maybe Aunt Grace would even take her in so she could live in town, where there were people, instead of out all alone at Lighthouse Point. Maybe she would even talk to Bridget about Momma.
So, Bridget had sat in the dim parlor, the sunbonnet she almost never wore drawn up tight around her cheeks so none of the ladies would be able to see her face, and her hands fidgeting nervously with her apron. Grace had whisked in from behind a lace curtain and circled the parlor, stopping before each one of the half-dozen ladies who sat there.
“Your question shall be answered today,” she said to the first lady. To the second she’d just shook her head. “I’m sorry, but the news you are waiting for will bring a sad reversal.”
Then, she whisked up to Bridget and Bridget lifted her eyes to meet her aunt’s. She knew in a heartbeat that Aunt Grace recognized her.
But all Grace said was “I’m sorry, I have nothing for you.” And she moved on.
Bridget sat cold as stone through the rest of the event, with its invisible tambourine banging, and its restlessly moving table, and Grace rolling her eyes and moaning and gabbling in outlandish voices. As soon as Grace let her head drop forward in feigned exhaustion, Bridget broke the circle and left. Grace Loftfield was a fake. Worse, she did not care one bit for her own flesh and blood.
“I know you believe you are the only one gifted with sight,” said Grace. “But let me tell you, you’re not the first our family who — ”
Which was simply beyond the pale. “Please, Aunt Grace,” Bridget held up her hand to stop whatever else might be forthcoming. “You can peddle your wares to the ladies of this town, but you cannot expect me to buy them. I’ve seen what you do and I don’t think much of it.”
The flesh under Grace’s chin quivered. “I do not have to explain myself to you, young woman,” she snapped.
“No, you don’t. In fact, nothing requires you to say a single word to me.” Bridget snatched up her hems and strode down the lane, eyes determinedly pointed forward.
Behind her, Aunt Grace’s voice cried, “There’s a man at the lighthouse. He means to take you away with him.”
Despite herself, Bridget stopped in her tracks. For a moment, all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing and the rush of the wind through the trees.
I will not be tricked. I will not be overawed. She made herself turn around. “What could you know about what happens at the lighthouse?”
Grace walked up to her, one slow step at a time, as if she were a cat who meant to pounce as soon as she reached her prey. “You get him away from you, Bridget.” Grace’s voice was fierce, and Bridget could not help noticing that her face had gone pale. “He’ll take you away, like …”
Too much, Aunt Grace. This is far too much. “Like what?”
But Grace had shut her mouth and pulled herself up primly. “Like a sack of sugar in that little red boat of his.”
It was not possible. Aunt Grace was a fraud. But how did she know about the oddly painted boat? Rumor moved quickly from Sand Island to Bayfield, but no one except Mrs. Hanson and Samuel had seen the stranger yet.
Her aunt’s face softened with what might have been real concern. “I just don’t want to see you in trouble, Bridget,” she said softly.
Bridget found her hands had knotted themselves into the ends of her shawl, twisting the fabric together as if she meant to tear it. “Why are you doing this now?” she asked, ashamed at how shaky and hoarse her voice sounded. “I have been in all manner of trouble, and you’ve never cared before.”
But Grace did not even have the decency to look apologetic. “I make my living off the ladies of this town,” she said steadily. “They expect eccentricity from me, but there are things they will not tolerate.”
With those words, the moment broke. All the distant sounds of Bay
field blew back on the wind and Bridget knew again with absolute certainty what her place among them was. “Such as your being seen with a bastard and murderer?” she inquired.
This time, Grace did look away, an angry sideways slip of her eyes, while her arms crossed over her corseted bosom. “I’ve never said you are either of those things, Bridget.”
“But you’ve never denied it either, have you?” Grace had not come to the lighthouse when Bridget was sick after her labor. She had not come to the inquest when Bridget stood accused of killing her child. Yet she came here, of all places, to tell Bridget what to do.
“You aren’t the only one who has had to live as best she can, Bridget.” As if that were explanation enough for years of silence. “Perhaps I have made a mistake in waiting until now to speak with you. But here I am.” She spread her fat, beringed hands. “And I am doing my best. You are in danger from this man.”
Bridget resisted the urge to snort. She would sacrifice no more of her dignity to Aunt Grace. “And what am I to do about this danger, then?” she asked, disentangling her fingers from her shawl. “Did your vision tell you that?”
Grace hesitated. It was a split second only, but there was no mistaking it. “Get him away from you. Live your life. Make do as you have done.”
“As I have done.” Bridget let the words go with a sigh. “Well.” She adjusted her shawl and looked up to see how far the sun had climbed over the trees. “I suppose I should thank you for your advice, Aunt. Now if you don’t mind, I really do have business to attend to.”
But Aunt Grace had one shot left. “Your mother would want you to listen to me.”
That was the final straw. Bridget rounded on her. “How dare you suggest you know what my mother would want?” she said, her voice low, and her words even and distinct. “According to Poppa, you did not even come to her funeral. Good-bye, Aunt Grace.”