Mistwalker (24 page)

“Does Daddy know?” I asked, rocking with her and digging my fingers in.

He didn’t. Not yet. But he would.

Twisting braids into my hair, Bailey sat on the top porch step, and I sat on the bottom. Her knees framed my shoulders. With every new knot, she made my head bob. I was her marionette, and I sort of wished she could just stay in charge of me.

After the shock, all I had was despair. My legs didn’t want to support my weight any more than I wanted to stand. If I had, I might have walked into town. I might have seen Terry Coyne buying a box of chew and sucking on a bottle of root beer.

Bailey dragged another lock into place. There were too many obvious things to talk about. When my father would be home (soon). How he had reacted to the news (badly). Whether Mom should have told him in person instead of over the radio (nope).

Instead, Bailey kept my buzzing head full of things that didn’t matter. Mental sandbags against the coming flood. “I heard Amber was chasing Nick around, angling to get invited to the winter formal.”

“Good luck with that,” I said.

“I know, right?” Bailey tipped my head the other way. “Cait got her dress, did I tell you?”

“Uh-uh.”

“It’s blue, with silver lacy stuff on top. It matches that bracelet you made.”

“Hope they sew better than I string beads.”

Cranking my head all the way back, Bailey looked down at my face. “Not really. It’s all ragged at the bottom, and it’s only got one shoulder. It’s like Picasso in real life. I’m not sure how any of the parts match up. I’m afraid too much is going to show.”

Grim, I smiled. “Mean.”

“Truth.” Bailey let my head go, then made a soft, worried sound. “There’s Dad’s truck.”

In a way, I expected him to screech up to the house, tires smoking and brakes protesting. Instead, the old pickup glided toward us. Smoke filtered from the window; Daddy wasn’t even trying to hide his cigarettes now.

My stomach went bitter. The memory of ash in my mouth was vivid; I felt the roll of the boat again. The ache in my head from hitting the glass—it was all brand new. One of Bailey’s hard tugs brought me back to the present. Daddy pulled into the driveway, but he didn’t kill the engine.

He got out and walked straight for the house. The blankness on his face matched the eerie certainty of his steps. Possessed by something, he moved slow and deliberate. I was halfway to my feet when he reached the porch, but he didn’t even look at me.

Brushing past, he left the door open when he went inside. Untangling myself, I started after him. Just then, my mother cried out.

“Bill!” she shouted. “Bill, you stop it right now.”

Panic rippled through the air. I burst inside, then plastered myself against the wall. Daddy dropped the stock of his shotgun against his shoulder. Buckshot shells rattled as he dropped them into his pocket.

I wanted to say something, but my throat was stuck. It was too much, everything was too much. Frozen, I ground my shoulders against the wall and watched in horror.

Putting his head down, Daddy moved like my mother wasn’t tearing at his shirt. Like he didn’t hear her, see me. Bailey jumped out of his way, her face drained of all color. Cracking the brittle tension, I forced myself to follow.

Our dooryard wasn’t that big. Bleak, thorned rose vines clung to the gate trellis. Scattered with fallen leaves and long shadows, it looked like a cemetery. Mom dug in her heels, scattering the leaves. She tripped and hauled herself up. Wild and feral, she flung herself at Daddy.

“You can’t do this, Bill,” my mother sobbed.

She struggled against him, pounding his back with her fists. The blows fell away; she may as well have punched a wall. When he turned, I was afraid he would hit her. Instead, he pulled her hands off his flannel and held her at arm’s length.

Behind me, Bailey chanted, “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” less a prayer than an exclamation. Struggling against my reluctant body, I jumped the steps and ran toward the driveway. I reached the truck just as Daddy slammed the door closed.

He reached out the window to shove my mother away. Even in that he was gentle, but he was firm. It was terrible, a slow-motion severing.

For a second, everything seemed to float. A snapshot of a moment: my mother catching herself on the fence, my father hanging out the window. I would have sworn that time stopped—no, skipped. A blank flicker when Daddy met Mom’s eyes and said, “Goodbye, baby.”

Slumping on the fence, Mom started to sob. Daddy threw the truck into reverse and tore out of the driveway. When time started again, I moved with it. I ran after the truck, like I might actually catch it. Arms windmilling when I realized I couldn’t, I twisted around.

Mom couldn’t stop him, and I couldn’t either. He had his gun, and he was heading up the hill to find Terry Coyne. Something monstrous was about to happen; the last shreds of my family had caught fire. Inside I flailed, but not for long. We didn’t have long.

The clean, black-capped shape of the lighthouse loomed in the distance. Automatically, I turned to it. Like it was my new north star—like it was my last chance. I took a few, wobbling steps and called to Bailey.

“Take care of my mom,” I shouted.

I didn’t wait for an answer or let myself see the fear in Bailey’s eyes. There was no time for it, no second guesses, no hesitations. It took me a few loping steps to get up to speed, but when I did, I burned with it. The untied braids in my hair came loose, and the wind whipped it all around my head.

When I’d had to escape, when I’d needed to get home, I’d hit the front door of the lighthouse running and come out on my parents’ porch. Chest burning and throat raw with every hard breath, I hoped it worked the other way. I prayed and wished, and when I hit the shore, I screamed.

“I want to come back, Grey!” Splashing into the surf, my teeth chattered instantly. The cold gripped, razor sharp. But I kept wading out, salt in my mouth, blood in my throat.

“Grey, please!”

The muck pulled my shoes off; I fought to keep moving. I know I screamed for Grey again, that my voice tore through the clear, clear sky. Then the shallows dropped off, and I plunged beneath the waves. Below, it was frigid and peaceful, until I cut the water with frantic arms.

I sank, and I sank, still screaming.

TWENTY-ONE

I’m in no state to have callers, but Willa bursts through my door all the same.

She’s soaked and maddened, and so exquisitely in focus. Cruelly, wonderfully, I see her in all her details. The freckle in one eye, the hundredshade of her red hair. What a pretty, pretty girl she is—when she’s not raving.

Skidding to a stop, she holds up her hands. Broken music boxes surround her—there’s a chance I lost my temper and smashed them all. Soul jars, music boxes, windows, too. Even the computer, for that was a rather disappointing window indeed.

Once I would have been embarrassed to receive a lady in my current state of undress. But cotton breeches and little else at least nod to my modesty and allow her to witness the whole of me in all my hideous natural state. I’m whitewash poured into a man-shaped glass. My head is—to be fair—not smooth, but quite round now. Quite evidently round, with all my hair shorn.

Her eyes widen as I approach; I frighten her. I
should
frighten her.

“Bring in the fog,” she says. Her voice quavers. Her fingers curl into claws when I get closer. She really is horrified; wonderful! “Please, Grey, please. I’ll stay if you want, I’ll . . .”

I press a finger to her lips. “No, thank you.”

“There’s no time, please. Please. Help me, and I will make it up to you.”

Spreading my arms wide, I shrug. I feel mercurial, just like the wind. The water. The sea, the sky. Flowing through the room, my feet cut a swath through shattered glass and twisted metal. I turn to her, and I would apologize, but there are no apologies left in me.

“It can’t be done. I’m surrendering, you see.”

Her eyes aren’t black. They’re brown, streaks of amber, flecks of green—that one dark spot that distracts me. There’s a light on in there, behind those lashes. She’s thinking, working, then suddenly, she throws herself at me. “Make me the Grey Man.”

“Willa.” I laugh. “That’s fundamentally impossible.”

“The Grey Lady,” she shouts. “You know what I mean!”

She puts her hands on me; she shakes me. Oh, how I longed for that before today, though not like this. Not hard and furious. Would a gentle touch from her have been so very hard to offer? Delicate fingers to trace the illusory veins in my wrists, a loving touch to warm the back of my neck?

Yet, there is a spark. Just as the beacon above comes to life when it’s needed, I feel something within me turn. Catching Willa’s elbows, I seize it—before my muddled thoughts distract me entirely. It’s a faery story after all, perhaps ending happily ever after for me. But this one does not begin once upon a time. It begins—

“Will you die for me?”

Willa shakes her head, stubborn to the last. “Not for you. For my family I will. But not for you.”

It’s within my grasp to toy with her. Torment her as she has tormented me. To hold out hope before her, just to snatch it away. I burn to do it; she’d deserve it. Instead, I cradle her face with my hand—I can be tender. I can be gentle.

I’ve been honest all along; my honor is mine and it’s intact. Her suffering will come later. I’ve no need to exact revenge now. Not now.

In the end, I was right. She was thinking of me. She came to me. And now she sets me free.

Her lips are stone, but I press mine to them all the same. It’s the only way I know how to give her this gift. At first, it seems I have only stolen a kiss. Then, a spike of light rips through me. My black-and-white world starts to bleed; my insubstantial body becomes flesh.

Dropping to my knees, I wrap my arms around myself to hold in the rising agony. I burst from the mist shell that’s held me all these years. It’s nothing but pain at first. I gasp and fall to my side. Music boxes jangle; they jab my flesh. They pierce me and I gasp. Breath hurts; the light hurts my eyes. My heart lurches into a pounding rage as sweat freshens me.

Writhing, I shudder and collapse again. I gape like a fish and gasp at air, real air, for the first time in a century.

And above me, Willa stands, washed in fog. Though I saw her in all her colors, she’s grey now. White hair, grey lips, black eyes. She’s a fearsome kind of beautiful, her edges trailing away as haze. Susannah was a delicate, fragile ghost. Willa is an avenging wraith—prepossessed and mighty.

She steps over my body, and a staircase appears as she raises her foot. The dregs of my reign melt like wet sugar. The music boxes, the shelves, all the disaster I wrought, fade with each step she takes. And when she disappears, I realize the silence in my head.

The cold on my skin.

The twist of hunger in my belly.

I could no more call the mist than I could fly. There’s a Grey Lady in this tower now, a new mistress on Jackson’s Rock. Though I’ve walked its shore a thousand times, my head aches imagining the borders of the island.

Struggling to my feet, I realize I’m no longer bare. Denim dungarees, a blue cotton shirt that clings to me. Shoes with laces, a curious jacket with a hood and zipper. Hunching into myself, I creep to the door. I close my eyes and say a soft prayer before I open it. Please let this be real, I murmur.

Then I step into the real world, a rocky shore that leads to the water—a boat waits for me there. It turns its bow to the distant shore. In the haze, its name wavers and changes. When the letters reshape themselves, it’s then that I know I am free. They read

Charlie

TWENTY-TWO

It all makes sense now.

When the cold came on me, Grey faded to a ball of light and drifted away. The lighthouse became
mine
. Its walls shifted for
me;
the stairs spiraled down to meet
my
feet. The weight of the fog presses from every direction. It’s like I’m part of it, and it’s part of me.

Every single thing Grey told me swirls in my head—he wasn’t wrong. This does feel primal. Old as the earth, old as time. Old as the sea and all its slumbering gods and goddesses, all its unknown and unnamed monsters and miracles.

As I hurry to the lantern gallery, I see flickers of rooms to be. The library is there, but now with more maps of the ocean. Globes and telescopes, star charts and barometers—and gleaming in the middle of the room, a beautiful brass sextant. The stairs rattle under my feet; I keep going.

The room I woke in before is here too, and a bathroom with a clawfoot tub and a harbor view. It’s all crazy pretty, and I’ll explore it later. Part of me wonders what the kitchen will look like when I walk into it. Do I have a microwave? Can I watch TV?

Petty, unimportant thoughts. And I’ll have forever to figure stuff like that out. Right now, I have to save what’s left of my family.

Throwing open the gallery door, I don’t catch my breath. I don’t feel the slightest waver of mortal fear when I look down at the rocks. Already the tides in my body have turned. I’m not Willa Dixon anymore. I won’t bleed. I can’t leave. I’m the Grey Lady, and I’m all right with that.

Since it seems like I should, I raise my hands. Inside me, the push and the pull struggle for control. I choose pull. I yearn for it, thick blankets of white to spread over the water. Throughout Broken Tooth. Past my house and the church steeple. Between the stones in the graveyard. Beyond the Vandenbrook School and Jackie Ouelette’s house on the hill.

On the far shore, there are so many lights. I understand that now too. All those lives, bobbing and dancing. Can’t tell one from the other; all I know is that some are bright. Some are dim. But slowly, all of them are consumed by the wave of mist that I spill on them.