by Sarah Zettel
She had been of two minds about making a close to her affairs in Bayfield. The façade would, after all, last only until Francis Bluchard arrived at Lighthouse Point with his tug on the ninth to find the light shut down and Bridget gone. Then there would be talk. Oh, heavens, there would be talk for nine and ninety days.
The money was in part for the inconvenience that talk would cause Mrs. Hansen. Bridget sincerely hoped the bank would not make trouble about getting it to her. Mr. Shwartz was a good man, and had never shown the least reluctance to deal with Bridget. Surely he would see this request was honored.
Which meant there were only two errands left that Bridget needed to see to.
Rittenhouse Avenue was as crowded as usual. Pedestrians and drivers alike had muffled themselves against the cold. Despite her woolen stockings, worsted mittens and two shawls, Bridget had to walk briskly to keep even a little bit warm. She told herself that was what made her hurry past Second Street and the pharmacy. It was not because she was afraid to meet Aunt Grace and hear of her “prediction” again. It was also most surely not because she had second thoughts about what she was about to do.
Bridget found herself wishing she had asked Kalami, Valin, to come with her. She reminded herself that they were now on a first-name basis, a situation Bridget was still not entirely comfortable with. It was, however, the only way she could get him to stop calling her “mistress.” He had confessed himself equally uncomfortable with the designation “mister,” and Bridget was not going to call him by his professed title of “Lord Sorcerer” when Mrs. Hansen and Samuel might hear. So, this was the compromise.
When he was with her, describing the place from which he came and telling her its legends and history, the proposed journey seemed as natural as taking the train to Madison or Chicago. But alone on the streets of Bayfield with the ordinary bustle and clatter of life around her punctuated by the church bells tolling the hour, it was ridiculous. Even the vision she had seen in Momma’s mirror seemed more likely to be a waking dream brought on by exhaustion. Surely the whole notion was nothing more than the airy fantasies of a frustrated, embittered old maid whose own regrets had finally turned her head.
Bridget set her jaw and kept walking.
As she passed Christ Episcopal, Bridget paused. The walk had been freshly swept of the sprinkling of snow. She decided to take this as a sign that Mr. Simons might be inside, which, if true, would spare her the trial of meeting Mrs. Simons.
Bridget turned up the walk and tugged on the handle of the sanctuary door. The door came open at once, letting out the sound of two soft voices, one of which belonged to Mr. Simons.
Bridget pulled back immediately, but it was too late. Mr. Simons had already turned his head and seen her. He instantly rose from the pew where he’d been sitting in close conversation with a sturdy, pale-haired woman. Bridget started, afraid she was seeing Aunt Grace. Then the woman also turned, and Bridget saw the broad nose and triple chin of Mrs. Neilsen, the widow who ran the boardinghouse where Bridget stayed each winter.
“I’m sorry,” said Bridget, beginning to back up and pull the door closed.
“No, no, Miss Lederle,” said Mr. Simons hastily. “This is most fortuitous. Won’t you please join us?” He gestured to the next pew.
Bridget could not help frowning, but she did as she was bidden, and entered the tidy blue-painted sanctuary, pulling off her gloves and unwrapping one of her shawls as she did. The rows of wooden pews and the carved choir screen, she noted, were kept as carefully clean and polished as the gilded altar under its three little stained-glass windows. But for the cold, it remained the welcoming place it always had been.
“Bridget, my dear.” Mrs. Neilsen got to her feet with a soft “oof,” and moved forward to take both Bridget’s hands. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been having a little talk with Mr. Simons about you.”
“You have?” Any sense of welcome Bridget might have felt melted away at those words. She perched on the edge of the pew, ready to rise at a moment’s notice. Mrs. Neilsen let go of only one of her hands, and sat next to her.
“Mrs. Neilsen has been expressing a grave concern, and was not sure how to best approach the matter …” said Mr. Simons, reseating himself.
Bridget felt her lips press themselves together in a thin line. She pulled her hand away from Mrs. Neilsen’s. “What matter might that be?”
“Now, then, Bridget, it’s no good you getting your back up,” Mrs. Neilsen said flatly, folding her arms. “You are planning on leaving town with that man up at the lighthouse, and you cannot blame me for being concerned.”
Bridget, however, had no patience for a lecture. “If you are concerned about things which are none of your business — ”
“Fiddlesticks.” Mrs. Neilsen cut her off. “You’ve stayed with me for seven winters running. I knew your mother. I’ve seen how it is for you and I am worried.” She tapped a finger against Bridget’s knee. “You’re a good girl and there’s many in town who are beholden to you for the work you’ve done, even if some of them don’t care to admit it.” She dismissed the entire town with a wave. “I cannot sit by and watch you” — this time the poke at Bridget’s knee was severe enough to jar, even through her flannel petticoat — “make a dreadful mistake because you’re too stiff-necked to forgive those who have wronged you.”
Bridget felt her cheeks burn. Was that truly what she was doing? No. It could not be.
“I am going to Madison, Mrs. Neilsen,” she said. “I have a new post. That is all.”
“Then you are not going with Mr. Forsythe?” asked Mr. Simons, quietly.
“Whether I am or not is my own concern.” Bridget lifted her chin and directed her hard gaze toward the priest to let him know she did not welcome any further questions.
Mr. Simons, however, was not to be deterred. He clasped his hands together in his lap. “Miss Lederle, please. We have been friends, you and I, and you know I only wish to help.” His face took on its familiar, honest earnestness and Bridget felt her throat tighten. She did not want to stay here. She did not want to hear this. She most especially did not want to have to lie anymore to this man who had been so consistently kind to her. “I agree, Mr. Forsythe seems a good sort of man, but to travel all the way to Madison, unattended …”
Mrs. Neilsen evidently had no time for the priest’s circuitous language. “It’s not worth breaking your heart again, my girl,” she announced. “And, right or wrong, it’s not worth the disgrace.”
Bridget stood. She could not sit and listen to this. Let them believe what they liked. The truth was impossible to tell. She should have been prepared for this. She should have realized it would happen.
Bridget dug into her pocketbook and brought out a tiny roll of notes.
“Mr. Simons, this is my donation to the church.” She held it out. “It’s not much, but I wanted to thank you for your many kindnesses, and I was hoping you might see to it that my parents and my … that my family’s graves are kept clean.”
Mr. Simons regarded her, his eyes sad in his kind, horsy face. “Please, Miss Lederle, listen to Mrs. Neilsen. All your future happiness may be at stake.”
“Think carefully, Bridget,” urged Mrs. Neilsen.
“I have heard every word you both have said,” she answered. “Mr. Simons, will you do as I ask?”
“Yes, of course, if that’s what you wish.” His fingers closed around the bills. “May God go with you, Bridget.”
“Thank you.” The words came out in a whisper. Bridget swallowed and did not dare turn to see what expression Mrs. Neilsen wore. Instead, she all but ran from the sanctuary.
Once more in the bright winter daylight, she drew in great lung-fuls of the freezing air, trying to regain her composure. What is happening to me? She fumbled with mittens and shawl, drawing them both back on to shut out the harshest edge of the cold.
She had been so resolved, so certain of what she was doing. Now she was shaking at the thought of returning to Sand Island
where Kalam … where Valin waited in the keeper’s quarters, finishing his painstaking repairs to his sails.
It’s only nerves, she told herself, striding down the walk. She did not want to be caught by Mr. Simons or Mrs. Neilsen running from the church to try again to talk sense into her. This is no small thing I am doing. It is perfectly natural to have second thoughts. Even if I were only going as far as Madison, such feelings would be not be at all unusual.
None of which changed the fact that it was more than cold causing her chin to shake.
I will see this through. She clutched her shawl tightly around her shoulders. I will.
But the hardest task still had to be done. Bridget turned up Washington and began climbing the hill. The very last thing to do was to take leave of her dead.
If I can do this, it will be over. What I do will be my own business. There is just this one, last thing.
The earth of the cemetery had frozen until it was as hard as the granite stones. Snow made mantles for the monuments. It lay in patches at the bottom of hollows and heaped itself into miniature drifts in the lee of the headstones. Bridget tromped past all those silent stones, trying not to see them, trying not to feel the constriction in her chest.
At the edge of the yard waited her own graves under the bare trees. Frost-killed grass poked through the thin layer of snow that covered them. Bridget clamped her jaw tightly closed as she leaned forward to brush away the snow that had collected in the hollows made by the words carved on the unchanging stones. Everett Lederle. Ingrid Lederle. Anna Kyosti.
Anna. Momma. Poppa.
Understand, please understand. He’s offering me life, life! And answers. There are so many questions now, I can’t refuse to find the answers.
The stones made no reply.
“You will be in my heart always,” she told them. “But it’s time for me to make a new decision. I can’t stay here another winter. I won’t survive it.”
Silence, except for the rattling of the twigs overhead. Tension filled Bridget, sourceless, unreasonable and inescapable.
“Momma, you came to me. You want me to go. You showed me those things. You must want me to go.”
But even that declaration did not bring any relief. There was only cold and silence, the smell of winter, and the patient, sorrowful stones.
Bridget couldn’t breathe. The winter cold had paralyzed her lungs, and she could only take in air in choking gasps. Her boots felt rooted to the frozen ground. She could not move, could not think, could not leave. How could she leave? What was she doing? This was her place, here with the dead. Tears spilled from her eyes and she could not even move to dry them. How could she leave?
“Stop,” she whispered, to the stones and the winter wind freezing her tears on her cheeks. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because it is the bones that bind us most tightly.”
The words made Bridget blink. That tiny movement freed her lungs to breathe and her hands to fly to her cheeks, warming the tears and the flesh beneath them.
“Who’s there?” She spun, scanning the graveyard for movement, or fresh shadows.
“I am.”
The voice was behind her. Bridget spun again to face the copse of trees that fenced the cemetery. A man stood there among the grey and brown winter woods. He had dark skin, and a fantastic costume of red and green silks adorned him. A huge black crow hunched on his shoulder watching Bridget with one glistening eye.
Bridget raked the stranger from head to toe with her gaze, trying to put as much iron as she could into the look. Who was this character, this clown? How dare he spy on her? How dare he …
Then she saw that although the winter sun shone brightly, the stranger cast no shadow across the snow. Her eyes jerked back to the man’s face, and she saw he had no eyes, only dark hollows above his high cheeks.
Bridget’s hand rose involuntarily to her throat. “Are you a ghost?”
The stranger considered this for a moment. “Not yet.”
She frowned, suddenly more annoyed than afraid. “Then, what are you?”
That took even more consideration. The apparition’s broad brow wrinkled up as he tried to find the words. “A dream,” he said at last.
Bridget felt her eyebrows lift. “But I’m awake.”
“But I am not.”
It came to Bridget that she should still be afraid. Even by the standards of her life lately, this was a very strange thing. Fear, though, refused to return. Perhaps it was because this man, this waking dream in front of her, seemed so confused. The crow preening its pinfeathers on his shoulder seemed much more calm. Perhaps also, it was because he seemed familiar. His craggy face touched some chord of memory in her mind of something she had seen, and recently too.
Bridget shook her head. “Well, Mr. Dream, what do you want?”
“To see you,” he replied simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“And now that you have?”
“I don’t know.” His brow furrowed yet more deeply. The wind blew hard then, rattling the twigs and the underbrush, yet none of his light silk clothing so much as rippled.
“I think …” The dream man peered closely at her, as if trying to see her through a fog, but he still had no eyes. “I think I want to ask you to stay away.”
“From where?” Bridget wrapped her arms around herself. The cold bit down on her ears and fingertips, at the same time restlessness crept over her. She suddenly wanted very much to be gone from here. “From whom?”
“From my mistress. From Isavalta.”
Comprehension flared brightly inside Bridget’s mind. She now knew perfectly where she had seen this face, this man. He had been shown to her in Momma’s silver mirror. “Sakra. You’re Sakra.”
But Sakra did not seem to hear her. His mouth kept moving soundlessly and his face screwed up tight in concentration. “He uses you,” she heard at last. “He will use you to death, if you let him.”
Bridget shifted her weight, stamping each foot in turn to try to force some feeling back into them. It was so cold. Too cold even for this day. “If you are trying to scare me, I call this a feeble attempt.” There’s more to fear from the cold than from you. Bridget felt herself frown again. What made her so sure of that?
“No. I wish you warned, not frightened. I think …” Sakra’s fingers grappled with nothing but air, as if seeking to pluck the right words from the ether. “I think there is good you may yet do me, but you must be warned. I am not the only one who does not want you here. I am indeed the weakest of them all.”
Bridget could not think what to say. This apparition was Kalami’s enemy. He was a dangerous magic worker. Yet, here he stood, as confused as a child and vague as a lost memory.
“I do not want to hear any more of this,” she told him, pulling her shawls as tightly around her as she could.
“She brings the cold, she holds the bones,” said the dream man, and the shadows deepened in the hollows where his eyes should have been. “She holds you too, by obligations of the blood, and wishes you to stay away so her grip on the land will not loosen.”
Cold and confusion seized Bridget’s mind, too painful to stand any longer. “Stop it!” she screamed. “Get away from me! Get away!” Her arm swept through the air in front of her, trying to knock the apparition sideways, but she could not touch him. All that happened was that the crow cocked its head toward her, and for one instant, Bridget felt the wild intelligence behind its black eyes. Then, it gave a harsh croaking that sound like deep laughter and spread its wings. The crow launched itself into the air, and the man was gone.
Bridget shook herself, unable to take in the suddenness of the change. Her limbs began to tremble, from cold, from shock, from too many feelings to be named.
Ludicrous. This was ludicrous. Worse, it was insane. She needed to stop this. Now. She must have been insane to agree to Valin’s plan. All that had happened since … No. She could not go through with this. She’d go back to the bank a
nd give Mr. Shwartz new instructions, she’d talk to Mr. Simons, she’d …
New movement in the trees caught her eye and Bridget scrambled backward, her heart hammering hard in her chest.
But it was only a fox, bright red against winter’s grey and white. Its green eyes twinkled and its jaw dropped open, as if it laughed at her fear.
Only a fox, with bright green eyes. Summer waited in those eyes, and all the warm secrets of the woods and the wild places. Those eyes saw so much and they drank it all in. They drank so many sights and held so many memories. So many memories all drunk up like wine. Drunk, drained, gone away into the green summer woods with all the other secrets.
Then the fox sneezed.
Bridget blinked and pressed her mittened hand against her eyes. What was she doing standing here freezing herself to death? It must be getting late and she had to get back down to the quay. The tug would not wait forever to take her back.
“Good-bye,” said Bridget to the stones where her family slept. “I’ll keep you in my heart always.”
By the time she reached the quay, Bridget did not even remember having seen the fox.
• • •
Sakra dropped hard and suddenly into wakefulness, his eyes wide open and staring about him, trying to understand where he was. There should be woods, and markers for the dead. There should be a woman with auburn hair and rough clothing. Instead, there were men yawning and scratching, splashing their faces in a water barrel, slapping themselves to restore their circulation in the chill, or pulling off their woolen shirts and shaking the hay out of them before putting them back on.
Gradually, dream separated itself from present reality. The dim, grey light of morning filled the hay barn. He had lain down here last night to continue in his role as one of the masquers, and he had dreamed … and he had dreamed …
Sakra’s gaze lifted to the shadows that still clustered around the roof beam. He dreamed a crow had come to show him where Valin Kalami had gone, and that the crow had carried him across the Land of Death and Spirit to the far shore. There, it had shown him a woman with bright eyes looking on the shade of his dream-self without fear, yet without understanding.