Mistwalker

by Saundra Mitchell

  Back when the world was flat, sailors fell in love with mermaids. They threw themselves into the water and drowned trying to get to them. But those mermaids were just manatees, fat and fleshy. They looked like finned women at a distance, if you’d been out to sea too long, if you couldn’t remember what a real girl looked like.

  Isn’t that what they saw? Manatees? Fantasies? I wasn’t sure anymore.

  Grey slid a mug in front of me. Chocolate dust puffed over the rim when he poured the hot milk in. “Stir it quickly, unless you like lumps.”

  A little bit of hysterical laughter caught in my throat. This was crazy, sitting down having some hot cocoa with the Grey Man, chatting about his past. Suddenly, my heart raced, running so fast I felt lightheaded. Pushing the chair back, I got to my feet and backed toward the door.

  “I musta hit my head.”

  Grey put the saucepan aside. “Then rest.”

  My body recoiled. All my muscles went tight. My spine felt like glass, and my stomach rebelled at the idea of lying down here. Staying here. The music boxes hummed as I hurried past them. “Thanks, but I’m thinking I should go home.”

  Suddenly, Grey was in front of me. But instead of stopping me, he opened the door. Pressing his body against it, he stood there, waiting for me to step outside. When I passed him, I shivered. I felt him; he was solid. But he was cool and soft, too . . . like walking into fog.

  “Don’t you want something from me?” he asked.

  Barely down the steps, I stumbled, then righted myself. His voice was a whisper. It slipped into my ear, twisting through my head. All good days, no bad weather, I thought. I pressed my lips together to keep that wish from getting out. To answer him, I shook my head.

  He didn’t follow. He didn’t even reach for me. The dark smudges of his eyes were wells of sadness, an uncontained grief spilling over. That made his smile, faint as it was, frightening. “Go if you must.”

  The path through the trees opened as I bolted for them. I didn’t know what I was running from. The island or myself; a bad dream. A bad trip. But not him, because somehow, my skin and bones both knew he wouldn’t follow. As I tripped and stumbled my way through the brush, I clapped a hand over my mouth.

  I was afraid I would talk out loud. Ask for magic. Beg for that good season, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. If he was real, he would hear.

  The panic in my head howled, screaming rules for superstition at me. Genies took your wishes the worst kind of literal. Faeries were monsters; I needed a piece of iron. I needed to get myself together.

  When the tree line opened to the shore, I skidded on the stones. My tennis shoes were slick, and I hit the ground hard. Lungs clamping down, I lay there, hurting, not breathing. The ground was so cold, the stones sharp. When I pushed onto hands and knees, a warm ribbon of blood flowed down my arm. Shivering, I raised my head.

  There, in the parted mist, was the boat. Waiting for me. No mistake about it. My name flickered on the stern, kissed by cold October seas. I stood and looked back. The fog had filled in behind me. It was a wall, grey and impenetrable. If he was watching me, I’d never know.

  Except I did know. I felt it. I felt him, a nagging sensation, like a stone in my shoe. Squeezing my eyes closed, I stepped into the boat and prayed all the way home.

  My phone was burning up. As soon as I set foot on the mainland, it chirped for about a minute straight.

  Texts popped up one after the other, and a missed call. Where are you? Are you there? Hey! Are you ignoring me? Those were from Bailey, and then two from Seth that both said, Are you there? Missed call, missed call, then my mom all in caps: COME HOME RIGHT NOW.

  The fog had burned off enough that I could. Haze hung like banners between the houses, but the streets were clear again. My phone said it was almost six, but that didn’t seem possible. I wasn’t gone that long. I wasn’t even gone long enough for a cup of cocoa.

  Shadows stretched long and crept around corners, and as I hiked it toward home, lights went on all down the street.

  They glowed in the mist, some sherbet orange, others sick green. Had to do with the insides of the bulbs, Mom said, the gas they pumped into them. But to me, it looked like a swaying string of faery lights.

  My front porch glowed silver, a white light pure and diffuse. I didn’t dig for my key. Nobody in Broken Tooth locked their doors. Pushing the door open slowly, I hoped for an empty living room. Maybe they went to dinner. To the police station. To the movies.

  No such luck. My mother shot off the couch, all but dragging me inside. “Oh, look at this. You just stroll in like how-you-do! Where have you been, Willa?”

  “Milbridge,” I said. The lie came out easy. “There’s a boat for sale . . .”

  “And you couldn’t call us?”

  “No signal.”

  Mom’s eyes widened. She stepped back, raking me with a look. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her mouth was pale and tight. “Is that blood?”

  Automatically, I clapped a hand over the cut on my arm. “I fell. It’s nothing.”

  “Where were you really, Willa?”

  Ducking my head, I tried to push past her. “I told you, Milbridge.”

  When Mom grabbed my elbow, her hands were cold and rough. They could be gentle; she was about the best in the world when you were sick. Knew when to pet you and when to leave you alone. Most people don’t get that balance down.

  Right then, though, she was mad. Hauling me into the kitchen, she let go when her feet hit linoleum. Snatching an envelope from the counter, she turned and shoved it at me. When I opened it, a fan of papers unfurled. They smelled like a stranger’s cologne.

  “That’s your summons,” Mom said, reaching for the phone on the wall. “They’re going to serve you at school tomorrow, and you’d better be there.”

  My fingers trembled as I unfolded the papers. I didn’t understand the way it was written out. There were TOs and FROMs and REGARDINGs, but the title made it pretty clear. I had a court date so they could take my fishing license. Even though I’d known it was coming, it felt like a blow.

  Slumping against the wall, I flipped through the pages. The gist was all there. I was accused of cutting off Terry Coyne’s gear, and I had to appear. My date was before his. I had to go to court before he did.

  That’s how it was, huh? Everything moved real fast for cut-off lobster gear. But if you walked out of shadows and fog and shot somebody, you got to lollygag around town, turned out on bail. For months. Maybe forever. I hated him so much.

  “Your father’s been out looking for you in this. And now he’s not answering his phone.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Mom pulled a hand through her hair, then twisted it tight. It smoothed the lines from her forehead but opened her eyes too wide. The whites ringed the irises. She was a deviled version of my mother, brittle and frightening. Swollen with a held breath, she exhaled in a rush. “This family is falling apart.”

  I stood there, stuffing the summons into its envelope again. She wasn’t wrong, and I didn’t know how to fix it. If it even could be fixed. Time wasn’t going to go backwards. Levi wasn’t going to come home. Everything broke at that seam.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I was.

  “You don’t want to hear it,” Mom said, turning away from me. She watched my reflection in the window, meeting my eyes exactly in the glass. “Your dad doesn’t either. But I think you ought to own up to the judge.”

  I managed a wounded sound, but Mom talked over me.

  “The fine’s not that much, and three years isn’t that long.” Bracing her hands on the counter, she stretched between them. “You heard that prosecutor. Bringing up a gear war like she knows something. I can’t have her talking crazy in front of a jury. They won’t do their job.”

  Cold realization wormed through me. I folded the summons and pressed it flat against my chest. “Ma . . .”

  She turned. “If you don’t fight it, if they know you already did the
right thing . . .”

  “How is it even gonna come up?”

  “If this gets to trial, you don’t just sit up there and answer the prosecutor. That man’s lawyer gets a bite, too. He gets to ask you whatever he wants—no, shut up. You just listen this time, Willa.”

  Closing my mouth, I steeled myself. Mom pushed herself off the counter and caught my chin between her fingers. We were the same height, so when she studied me, I saw every light and angle in her eyes. She turned surgical, talking to me like a police dispatcher instead of a mother. It wasn’t cold, it was precise.

  “When you get up there, you need to be broken. They’ve got to see you doing penance. I don’t want one mainlander on that jury thinking, Well, what Terry Coyne did was a crime, but what she did was a sin.”

  It could happen. It had happened on Matinicus, just a couple of years ago. If I went to court and fought the citation, I might keep my license. They knew I worked the Jenn-a-Lo with my dad; they knew we couldn’t afford to lose the rest of the crew.

  But it wasn’t until then, with my mother close enough to share my breath, that I realized keeping my license could ruin us in a worse way. It made me sick to think about that man going free. Getting to fish again. It was my fault Levi got shot. So getting justice for him, that was my responsibility. A cold, hard shell formed around me and I nodded.

  “It’ll be all right, Ma,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  She smoothed her hand against my cheek. Her steel peeled away to velvet, and she murmured, hushed, “Maybe you can go to college with Bailey.”

  It was too much to think about right then. Every single thing I’d planned for myself was over. Trying to figure out what to do instead . . . I may as well have been planning to go live on the moon. Bumping my forehead against Mom’s, I squeezed her arms, then slipped away. “I’ll worry about that later.”

  Drifting upstairs, I slid my shoulder along the wall. It hissed and filled my ears up with comforting white noise. It sounded like the wind on Jackson’s Rock, and falling into white sheets was like disappearing into the mist. An entire day had passed there in an hour, it seemed. As I slipped into a hard sleep, I couldn’t help but wonder: what would a hundred years feel like?

  TEN

  Grey

  Sunlight breaks through my window, and that’s what wakes me. Last night, I left the fog to do as it willed, and today, it’s decided to dissipate.

  The sky is unmarred, a perfect shot of blue. It’s so clear that at the horizon it reflects the ocean, just as the sea reflects the sky. The edge of the world is exquisite and endless. Everything gleams—the ashes and oaks aren’t cloaked in ordinary shades. Today, they’re scarlet and bronze, flickering and dancing on the wind.

  Rushing my ritual, I dress, I shave. And today, I pull a grey ribbon from my armoire and pull back my hair. I loathe the length of it, not to mention the way it coils and snakes around my shoulders. I’m an albino Medusa, and scissors alone fail me.

  For the whole of 1950, I sheared myself. Each morning, I shaved my scalp smooth. I was horrifying.

  The first thing I’ll do when I’m free is get a proper haircut. Barbers are fine talkers; I’ll listen to anything. Reports of foreign wars or agricultural accountings. Complaints of lumbago, lies about fishing. It won’t matter. It will be another voice. Another face. A new place, so much better than this one.

  I hurry down the stairs, nearly running. I move so fast, the enchantment lags. My music boxes glimmer, and I laugh—I laugh! Aloud!—when they melt away to reveal the high curtained walls of the dining room. Breakfast will be soft-boiled eggs and toast, sausage and biscuits. Orange juice, grits, and everything I need to know about Willa.

  That’s what I wanted instead of gears and springs. I asked the air at bedtime: I wish to know her.

  My plate is stacked high. Aside from breakfast, there’s a bounty. Unwrapped, this once—perhaps even magic has limits. It matters not.

  Before me, I have two yearbooks from the Vandenbrook School. I flip through those impatiently, then set them aside. Too much searching. Beneath them lie better resources. Much better—photographs. Color photographs! They’re magnificent.

  Willa’s so small in the first, buck teeth and a crooked collar. She stands next to a boy who resembles her little, but for the shocking shade of his hair.

  They cling to the rail of a boat, the darkening sky behind them. In the shadows, I see a hint of my lighthouse, and when I flip the photo over, there’s handwriting. It’s inelegant, artless, but it tells me so much:

  Levi & Willa, 4th of July.

  I marvel over my bounty. Yellowed scraps of newspaper announce her birth, her second-place finish in a fishing contest, her survival of her grandparents. Grainy copies of photographs show her on that boat with her brother, with her father, with people gone unnamed. She holds a huge lobster over her head; she’s older, wearing a gingham apron, sitting on a front porch.

  Spreading the bits and pieces, I find secrets. There’s a crumpled scrap of paper with a string of numbers written in one hand, and SETH!!!!! written in another beside it. Doodled boats sail the margins of a mathematics quiz.

  There’s a list of words in her hand, I’m sure of it. Her letters slope, pencil slashes so pale they’re nearly shadow. They make no sense at first. Acionna, Mazu, Galene, Tiamat. But I recognize Amphitrite—Poseidon’s consort, a goddess of the depths. Then Thetis, one of the fifty Nereids, and I think the list is solved. Deities, every one, rising from the primordial sea.

  I find a note from an instructor:

  “Willa needs to participate more. Her interests seem limited to boats, fishing, and the ocean. She has so much potential. We’d like to see her try new things next semester.”

  There’s another, mechanically printed, that ends with “All things considered, we feel the jewelry-craft class will be less emotionally demanding for her during this difficult time.”

  As I clear my plate, it fills with breakfast. Between bites, I create a timeline. Trailing papers and pictures from one end of the table to the other, I study this recorded history. This proof of her, this trove of details to teach me the role to play with her.

  When I finally step away from the table, I’m full with her. My head pulses, expanding to make room for Willa, whose last name is Dixon, whose birthday comes eight months after her parents’ anniversary. And who, according to an essay she wrote for ninth-grade English, wants to live and die on the water.

  I can grant that wish.

  ELEVEN

  Willa

  The only reason I went to school was to get served. I waited until the last minute and walked there alone. I kinda hoped they’d find me before first period. Partly to get it over with, partly because I didn’t want people talking about it. Looking at me. Whispering about me. Vandenbrook was tiny and full of people I didn’t want to see.

  They fell in and out of my orbit, Seth in my English class, Nick with his locker near mine. I kept catching flickers of gold hair, Denny Ouelette floating through the halls a split second ahead of me.

  The only person I wasn’t avoiding was Bailey, and she caught up with me between classes. She had her hardheaded look on. Usually, she broke it out when something had to get done. I think in another life, she was probably a drill sergeant. I wondered what she thought she needed to do with me.

  Pulling out the Milky Way bracelet I made, I offered it to her. “It’s done. You can have it.” I didn’t give her the chance to say anything. If I talked fast and talked first, she wouldn’t get to lecture me. I was about tired of getting corrected. I was tired of everything, to be honest. “Or give it to Cait. You know. Whatever.”

  Bailey frowned, rubbing the beads between her fingers. “I’ll keep it. Thanks.”

  “I’m going to sit out front for lunch. You want to come?”

  She fell into step with me, still bothering the bracelet as she walked. It was an absent touch, the same way she rubbed the hems of her sleeves when she was thinking. I threw the do
or open, walking into the crisp cold. The wind tasted clean, and it swept the extra heat from my skin.

  Best of all, I couldn’t see Jackson’s Rock. I’d almost convinced myself that the boat, that Grey, was a vivid dream and nothing else. Seeing the lighthouse would ruin that; it was too real to ignore.

  Sitting on the top step, Bailey dug into her backpack for her lunch. “I texted you about a million times yesterday.”

  I took my place next to her and stole a stick of her celery. I had my own lunch, but for some reason, Bailey’s always tasted better to me. “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. It was a messed-up day.”

  “Mine too,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Cracking open a plastic container, Bailey stirred her pasta salad with a fork, then sighed. “You have enough going on.”

  “So? Talk to me.”

  She hesitated. And I realized she was fighting with herself about this. That she had something eating at her and she didn’t want to say. I felt bad, because she was my best friend. She needed somebody to talk to, too, and I’d blown her off completely. Twisting around, I nudged her. “Bay.”

  “Cait’s up and decided she’s going to apply to USC,” she said. She stabbed her pasta, then put the container aside hard.

  Surprised, I said, “I thought you guys had a plan.”

  “Yeah, me too.” The bitterness in her voice clung to her. Eyes flashing, she picked up her lunch again just to abandon it. “She says it’s a better school for what she wants to do. And I’m, like, why didn’t you say something before?”

  “Why didn’t she?”

  “She didn’t want to hold me back.”

  Slinging my arm around her, I slid in close. “So you broke up?”

  “No, but we’re going to.” Bailey swiped a knuckle across her cheek, then looked into the distance. She was so far away in her eyes, and she looked painfully small. “I’m not stupid. Three thousand miles apart is too much.”