“Tonight?”
“Yeah, why not? Uncle Dalton’s kinda woo-woo, but he’s all right. Since you’re all on a kick, maybe you can ask him about the Grey Lady.”
“I’m not on a kick,” I said. Then I added sullenly, “It’s a Grey Man now.”
“Not the way he tells it.” Bailey added another trap to the stack, then turned to lean against it. “Just come and run interference, all right? You don’t have anything better to do.”
Rasping my leather glove against my brow, I marveled at her. “Seriously?”
“It’s my job to call you on your shit,” Bailey replied. Then she smiled, putting her head down as she reached into the pile again.
It had been hypocrite advice. Because as I watched my best friend work another trap free, all I could see was the space she’d leave behind. College was coming; her life far from here was already starting. In a hard way, giving up her high school sweetheart.
And me. She had to. She’d come back for Christmas and summers, we’d e-mail and call. But it wouldn’t be the same. There would be somebody else to hear her everyday problems. Another place that she called home.
Screw it, I thought. Forcing my fingers into a knot, I kicked a loose shrimp tray in Bailey’s direction. “So what do I wear to a hot date with Uncle Dalton?”
I wore blue jeans and a white T-shirt. And my best fake smile, because things were worse between Cait and Bailey than maybe they even knew. They really were just going through the lines. They laughed in the right places; they held hands automatically. But the softness was gone, the dew eyes and the long looks.
So I made conversation in the truck. I talked about a bonfire we hadn’t planned yet. The formal, even though I wasn’t going. They had dresses already, so that was a good half hour right there. When that started to die, I told them about Seth taking his cousin. That was worth another twenty minutes, and finally, we were there.
The sign said lockwood village, but it was just one building. A little lawn in the front, and I hoped more in the back. It smelled like baked cod and menthol in the front lobby.
Somebody played a piano, and a lot of people were scattered through the rooms. Some played cards; two watery old women faced off over a chessboard. From the looks of them, I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t shed blood over a checkmate.
“Hi, Uncle Dalton,” Cait said. She led us to a window seat by the fireplace. It wasn’t burning. I longed to get down in there and get some embers going. I sat instead, because I was running interference.
Uncle Dalton was made of paper. His hair and lips and skin were all the same dusty shade of pale. His eyes were just barely blue; only enough color to keep them from being eerie. But he smiled when he saw Cait, and patted his knee like he expected her to sit in his lap. Apparently, that was a joke, because they both laughed.
“Maybe next time,” Cait said.
Undeterred, he asked, “What about you, Bailey?”
Bailey sank to sit on the floor by his chair instead. Holding up a hand, she said, “Next time, for sure.”
Cait put her arm around her uncle’s shoulders and nodded toward me. “I hope it’s okay, we brought a friend.”
“Is she pretty?” Uncle Dalton asked. Slowly, he trained his gaze on me, then offered his hand. “I guess you are. Dalton Bowker.”
It made me nervous, but I shook his hand anyway. I was afraid I’d break him, but he still had strength left in his grip. He held my gaze when I replied, “Willa Dixon. It’s nice to meet you.”
“She lives in Broken Tooth like Bailey,” Cait said.
Reclaiming his hand, Uncle Dalton leaned back in his chair. “Haven’t been there for years. Zeke Pomroy still fishing out that way?”
I shook my head. Mr. Pomroy died a couple summers back, and he hadn’t been out for years. It was probably tacky to tell a man as old as Uncle Dalton that somebody he remembered as living was dead, so I didn’t. “His granddaughter has the boat now. Zoe. Everybody says she looks just like him.”
Uncle Dalton nodded. “Better him than the wife. That woman fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
Fussing even though there was nothing to fuss over, Cait kept touching his chair. The armrests, the back of it. It was like she wanted to do something to make him more comfortable, but he was fine. Sitting finally, she settled for patting his hand. “So, Uncle Dalton. I told Bailey and Willa about how you saw the Grey Lady once.”
“Not me,” Uncle Dalton said. “My cousin Roy. The Grey Lady was gone by the time I was born.”
Tightening on myself, I curled my toes in my sneakers. Grey had said he had a predecessor. A woman. Uneasy, I folded my hands in my lap and said nothing. Since I kept my tongue, Bailey helpfully filled in for me. “Gone how?”
“Replaced.” Uncle Dalton stretched, then leaned his head against the back of the chair. He looked up, not at anything. Past it. There was a sharpening in his eyes, but not for us.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Cait said.
Brushing her off, Uncle Dalton went on. “The Grey Lady, she used to stand on the cliff and let her hair down. That’s what Roy said, anyway. Nobody else saw her. Girlies, that place was abandoned even then. Gives me a headache just thinking about it.”
Cold drifted over me. The divide I had, between real and Grey, wasn’t so clear anymore. Not so sharp. More and more of his world slipped into mine, and it frightened me. As if I could change a story that was written before I was born, I offered, “Maybe he was just seeing things?”
Uncle Dalton wagged a finger. “My pa said Roy was a bubble off plumb. But I believed him. He meant every bit of that story, down to his blood and marrow. Cait!”
She leaned forward, attentive.
Talking right to Cait, Uncle Dalton said, “He got drunk as a skunk at my thirteenth birthday party and sat me down. Said he’d been in love with a girl named Susannah once, but he had to give her up. That she was poison, and some women were.”
Maybe aware he was telling this story to three girls, Uncle Dalton looked apologetic. “He was just warning me to keep my eyes open. ’Course, I wasn’t concerned about women, even then.”
Cait smiled, and poked him gently. “I’m not seeing how these stories go together.”
“Aren’t you listening, Toots?”
Strangling a laugh, Bailey traded a look with Cait. For a second, they forgot everything was tense. They were there, again, looking into each other like nobody else existed.
Since they wouldn’t, I said, “We’re listening.”
“She called him out to the island,” Uncle Dalton said impatiently. “She asked him if he loved her, and he said yes. Then she asked if he would die for her, and he said not ripping likely, lady. Hightailed it right back to the mainland and never stepped foot in a boat again.”
The first rational thing about the island or the Grey Lady I’d ever heard. With I smile, I pointed out, “Not much of a romance.”
“Nothing romantic about dying. Romeo and Juliet were idiots, if you ask me.”
Her coconspirator again, Bailey murmured to Cait, “I want that on a T-shirt.”
Uncle Dalton shifted, his expression softening. Coming back from whatever place he’d just been in, he sighed. “The next summer, a fella from Boston came through on an ice cutter. Then, one day, he disappeared, and up on the Rock there’s a Grey Man instead of a Grey Lady.”
My smile died a little. “What?”
“You heard me,” Uncle Dalton said. “Don’t you know the story? You get the Grey Lady on your side, and you’ll have anything you wish for. But you have to trade everything you have to get it. Guess he took that deal, didn’t he?”
That wasn’t the story I knew. Ours was bits and pieces. Only the superstition. There were no trades in our version. No exchanges. It was just good fishing, and a faery ally in a lighthouse . . . that no one could think about for long. The wind outside whispered through the trees, but inside my skin, it howled.
Unfolding myself, I asked, “So he took her place? What happened to her?”
“Roy says he saw Susannah in town, one more time. At least, he thought it was her. The opposite of a ghost, because she had black hair and a yellow dress. She looked at Roy like she knew him, then ran out of the store. All gone, never heard from again.”
Bailey leaned her head against Cait’s knee. Her brows knit, she changed the subject gently. “Roy found somebody else, though, right?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, yes. Married Charlotte the day she graduated from high school. Happily ever after, nobody dying.” Shaking his head a little, Uncle Dalton looked at me. “Who are you, again?”
I thawed myself enough to answer. “Willa Dixon. Bill Dixon’s daughter.”
Studying my face, he took a minute. Then finally he asked, “Any relation to Albert?”
In 1929, William Albert Dixon carved his initials into the back staircase at Vandenbrook. WADII, William Albert, the second. His son was William Eugene; Bill Gene’s son, William Jack. That was my granddad, the captain of the boat when my dad still worked the stern. I was the firstborn, so I got the name. The legacy. The one that had just slipped away.
Not that Uncle Dalton cared. And not that I could explain it. So I just nodded and said. “Yessir, that’s my grandfather.”
Sensing I was off, Bailey nudged me with her foot. “You okay?”
“I’m gonna get some air,” I said. I claimed that I would be right back. But instead, I walked into the night; into the cold. And I headed for the shore.
EIGHTEEN
Grey
I wasn’t sure before, how Willa came to the island. I was aware when she landed. Even now, I feel her approach. The facts of it have, until now, been entirely obscured to me. This time, I watch and see a dark marvel.
The mist comes, just a fine haze. It’s a veil drawn, but a thin one—admitting light and detail, making shadows of shapes in the distance. Then at once, the haze swirls, the veil parted by unseen hands.
Introduced by an ornate prow, a boat appears. Skimming across the water, it’s all but silent in its approach. There are no oars, no motor. The prow barely cuts the water. Ripples roll away from it, then melt back into the black sea.
This is magic in the open; I admit, I’m entranced. It could be the very ship that carried King Arthur to Avalon for his once and future rest.
But no, in this vessel comes my salvation. My Willa, her light more formed tonight than it has ever been.
She has a body. Her hair flows over her shoulders. Her eyes are looped with dark brows; her jaw is set. It’s not the intimation. There’s no blurry screen between us. Even the details I took in when I rescued her, it seems they weren’t entirely focused.
Here, I thought I knew all the intricacies of my curse. Even now I learn new details. That the one who will take it from me becomes real again. That I will see more than her light; I will know her flesh. Willa’s face is the first I’ve seen since Susannah’s.
I admit, I tremble. It’s the ache before a meal, when it seems impossible to wait even a minute more. The night before Christmas, when it seems dawn will never break.
It occurs to me that a gentleman would meet her at the shore. The stairs shake more than ever beneath my feet. Perhaps the lighthouse falls to pieces and remakes itself for each new keeper.
It could be the case. I promised to die for Susannah, and with that kiss, everything went white. When I woke, I found myself in a bedchamber fitted with my favorite things. I was alone; she was gone.
Until that moment, I had never been inside the lighthouse. Until that moment, I had thought only that true love called me to the cliffs. All the details—the boxes that come at breakfast, the souls I tally against my curse—those were mine to puzzle out by force and wit.
Willa won’t have to suffer the first years, fogged and confused. She’ll know all I know before I sail away; I wonder if the boat that brings her will take me to the shore. I wonder if I can take any of the music boxes. Or perhaps my glass news box. I rather like that. I’d like to keep it.
If not, I’ll muddle through somehow. My salvation is also my tragedy. Everyone I knew is dead. I have no home onshore, no family. The world has moved on in fascinating ways. From books and newspapers, I’ve caught glimpses of the life that waits for me. There will be so much to learn. So much to grieve.
But everything to celebrate!
The cold gathers, a misty cloak to wear as I hurry to the beach. The shadows stalk on spindling legs, flickering through the blacks and greens of the forest. Shells crackle beneath my feet. They’re proof of ancient inundations; once this island was sea, and the sea, this island.
The path to the shore is direct; it crosses the second-highest point on the island. At the apex, moonlight fills the clearing. In all truth, I would dance here if I had no errand. I’d sing, old songs and new ones. I’d sing, “It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.”
We’ll be celebrating a different sort of marriage entirely. Joining Willa with the island, matching myself to the living, waking world.
Though I hurry, Willa’s already splashing through the surf when I break into the clearing.
Willa’s too impatient for the boat to land. She jumps from it, wading through knee-deep water to get to me. I falter because she’s not an impression anymore.
The light that signals her life still glows, but from within a physical shape now. Like a boy, she wears trousers. Like a little girl, she lets her hair hang loose. Something silver flashes at the curve of her nose; silver crawls down the curve of her ear.
My hunger trembling has force now. If I had no control of myself, I’d leap at her. Clutch her freckled hands, press against her curls—put my mouth to hers, not for a kiss, but to draw out her breath.
Fully revealed, she’s beautiful. She’s alive. She’s everything I want. I hold out my hands to her and start to speak. She slaps them away; she cuts me off.
“What did you do to me?” she demands.
NINETEEN
Willa
He stood there, blinking at me like he was confused. His face was so smooth, I’d mistaken it for soft. Innocent, maybe. I only waited a second. Then I asked again, jabbing a finger at him. “What did you do to me, Grey?”
“This is going to make you angry,” he said, “but in what sense?”
He wasn’t wrong. The way he avoided the subject plucked my last, raw nerve. I was sure he knew exactly what I meant. That he wanted me to drag it out so he could keep me here longer. The only thing I didn’t know for sure was why.
“In the sense of, why am I here? What is this place, exactly? What are you?”
Grey raised his brows. Pleasantly, he nodded. Folding his fingers together, he said, “Of course, in that sense.”
“Well?”
“Will you walk with me?” He saw me shudder, so he was quick to add, “On the path alone. After last time, I think it best to stay out of the lighthouse. I never know what it might do.”
Or what he might do. I looked at the forest; I’d never been afraid of it before. It wasn’t my element, but it was part of my home. But now that the leaves had fallen, the bare branches were skeletal fingers, beckoning. I shook my head. “I don’t want to walk with you. I want you to . . .”
He offered me his elbow. When he tipped his head to me, there was a second when I thought I saw a hazy top hat there. The shape melted, but the impression stayed. If he was gonna insist, I could go along. Just the woods. Just the path. With so many trees bare, I’d be able to see the shore. It was going to be fine.
So I put my hand on his arm, but I didn’t hold it. It was enough of a gesture, because Grey finally started walking.
With an air of thoughtfulness, he was quiet a minute. Then he said, like he was explaining mathematics, “I’m the Grey Man.”
“That part I know.” I led him to the forest path. The one with tiny seashells scattered beneath the trees. They sounded like shattering glass under my boots. “You ge
t presents at breakfast, you can’t leave, I get all that. Why? Why any of this?”
Grey turned a long, slow look on me. “There’s magic involved. You can have anything you want, but you’re charged to be the sentinel in the lighthouse.”
“I didn’t ask for a speech, Shakespeare.”
“I’m explaining it the best I can. I was tricked into taking the position, so it’s been a challenge to work it out on my own. This lighthouse is my post; I choose how to administer it. I can call the fog or send it away, and I, Willa, have spent a hundred years driving it away. I have no dominion over the tides or the winds, the storms or the snow. But I can smother this world if I choose.”
Over and over in my head, I told myself to just go with it. Whatever rules there were on the mainland, in the real world, they didn’t apply here. If he said he was the north wind and Santa Claus combined, I was gonna believe it, for as long as I had to. So instead of calling him a liar, I said, “And you’re not the first.”
“Alas, one of many.” He gestured vaguely at himself. “The latest in a long line of sentinels. I only know what came to me when I woke to it, and I’ve told you, that was a century past.”
Narrowing my eyes, I said, “How many, then? How long has there been a sentinel?”
Grey shrugged. “Ages. Before there was a lighthouse. I think one of the others must have wished for that. Alas, I asked for a full and true accounting of every Grey to stand the post. It was the one thing that never appeared wrapped in ribbon at my plate. Perhaps it’s an old Indian curse.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure if the Passamaquoddy had magic like that, neither one of us would be standing here.”
Touching fingers to his chest, Grey said, “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.’”
The pines creaked around us, laughing. Their needles fell on bare granite, and I stiffened. It felt like Grey was talking down to me. Calling me stupid. Maybe a slap back for calling him Shakespeare. I didn’t like it, so I pushed him to get to the point.
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