NINE
Willa
I didn’t have to ditch school again. It was canceled because of the fog.
Thick and cold, it clung to the streets. Sunrise didn’t cut it; neither did headlights. Every thirty seconds, the foghorn blared in the distance. It echoed through the haze, alien and removed. I lingered by the front door, listening to the radio going in the kitchen.
“. . . confluence creating a dew point higher than usual,” a mechanical voice droned.
The Weather Service had a bot, and they could program it to say anything. It was the voice of the fleet—Mom used to call it Dad’s Girlfriend. Dad’s Girlfriend is calling for rough seas today. Dad’s Girlfriend says we’re waiting for a nor’easter, better buy milk and bread.
Calm and certain, Dad’s Girlfriend told me that I had a couple of hours before the fog lifted yet. That I should exercise extreme caution. That if I had no official business, I should stay home. That’s when I closed the door and headed into the haze.
I faltered on the step and hesitated. I really couldn’t see anything. People talked about fog so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It was true; I touched my nose, then reached for the stair rail. My hand disappeared.
Nothing had shadows or depth, and I tripped again on a front walk I’d been running down my whole life. Instead of going back, I closed my eyes. There wasn’t much to Broken Tooth. I pictured it in my head—the steps in front of me, the broken piece of sidewalk two steps from the mailbox.
With a deep breath, I took a surer step. Then another, and then I opened my eyes and kept going. My phone trilled in my pocket, and I pulled it out. Another text from Bailey, wanting to know what was going on. I had a couple more, one in all caps. DID YOU DUMP SETH!?
I wasn’t answering. Not that one, not any of them. There was an ad on Craigslist for a used thirty-five-foot Brewer in Milbridge, and that’s all that was on my mind. It was a junk heap of a boat from the pictures, the hull weathered and grey.
Since it was on a trailer instead of in the water, I wondered what was wrong with it. The listing admitted a blown head gasket; there was probably plenty more. It already had a name in chipped orange paint: Nevermind. Not my style, but it didn’t matter. It was cheap.
The mortgage wasn’t my problem anymore, so I had money to spend. I just had to hitch a ride up that way to get a look at it. And that meant I needed to walk out to the highway, through the fog. Past it. The ground was solid, and it wasn’t that far. A couple of blocks to the main drag, and that would take me straight to Route 1.
But my feet weren’t as sure as I thought they were. I tottered on the edge of the curb before I realized I’d veered off the sidewalk. Just then, I heard the clear call of a harbor bell. Frowning, I stopped and turned. Water whispered in the mist, lapping at the shore, at the sides of our moored boats.
I’d turned the wrong way completely. Instead of walking landward, I’d found the sea. Stretching my hands out, I felt for the familiar wood rail at the wharf. I slid my feet instead of raising them.
Tension wound around me, tight like rope. I couldn’t have gone far, but I was lost all the same. It was hard to take a breath, and the cool burned off my skin in a panicked second.
It was just fog. All I had to do was sit down and wait. Maybe minutes. Maybe an hour or two. But it would lift. The fog always did—no matter how solid it seemed, it was just vapor. A ghost on the water, a cloud too low. It would fade.
I knew that. But my heart still pounded. The world had no shape; I had no idea where I was. There could have been something else in the white. Someone else. Some danger, some evil standing right behind me, waiting. Pulling my sleeves over my hands, I held my breath. I listened.
Another harbor bell sounded, its call twisted. It echoed above me instead of spreading across the water. When I realized I couldn’t trust my ears, I sat down hard. I’d known better, and I was just like the sailors that went fog blind. Lost their instruments, couldn’t trust their eyes, so they sailed by the way they felt.
Sometimes they got lucky, saw a gull or a lighthouse beacon and followed it to land. But there were plenty that turned into open seas and never came home.
An electric wave passed above me. Leaning my head back, I stared into nothing, indistinguishable from the white all around me. Then it passed again, a beam illuminating the sky. The light bounced, glimmering in strange patterns. It didn’t cut through the fog; it shaped it.
Standing, I waited for the beam to pass again. When it did, I turned that way and settled. That way lay Jackson’s Rock. The ocean was in front of me. The village behind me. It wouldn’t take me home, but I felt less alone. There was someone in the lighthouse, reaching to me through the bright.
I swear, I heard the light passing. And this time, it did cut the mist. The fog peeled apart, a narrow strip leading straight to the shore. Water stretched like asphalt into the distance. Hazy tendrils swirled across it, parted by a prow.
A dory had slipped its tether. It drifted against the rocks, bumping quietly as the waves tried to carry it in.
Behind me and beside me, the fog was still thick. It parted just to the water, just to the boat. If it was mine, I would have wanted somebody to catch it, so I started down the incline. I could sit on rocks as easy as I could the sidewalk, holding rope instead of my own knees. When the air cleared, I could sail it back to the wharf and leave it tied there.
I grabbed the bow, my boots splashing in the surf. I’d never seen a dory so pristine. It was white on the outside, unchipped and smooth. The inside was honey gold, wood polished to a gleam. There was a brass and brown compass set into the floor, and no rope anywhere.
The dory was heavy, too, pulling like it wanted to glide onto the water again.
Struggling against it, I backed toward shore. In turn, it pulled toward Jackson’s Rock, harder than the tide would take it. Cold water splashed up my jeans. It chilled my hands, and I let go.
There was gonna be an ID number painted on the stern, or a name—probably both. Since I wasn’t about to drown myself in the fog, I’d just spread the word.
But the dory didn’t wash away. It spun lazily in the water, deliberate, like it was orienting itself. I’d never seen anything like it. It was unnatural, just like the perfect alley that split the mist.
Before I could reason it out, the dory finished its turn. I didn’t have to squint to make out the name on the stern. It was a tattoo, icy ink that pricked my skin.
Willa
Humming now, the lighthouse swung its beacon around again. The light sizzled on my skin, crackled in my ears. And the boat waited. It sat on the water like it was anchored, waves lapping around it.
My breath fell heavy as I peered into the distance. He was there again, the figure on Jackson’s Rock. It was too far away to make out a face, but I swore I saw one anyway. Dark eyes turned toward mine. Thin lips pressed together tight.
I had finally lost it. That was the only explanation. I’d gone away in my head to escape the real world. To forget the things I’d done. That’s why I caught the stern of the boat and stepped into it. It’s why I didn’t bail when it started to move, steered toward Jackson’s Rock unerringly.
Since it wasn’t real, I wasn’t afraid.
I landed on the far side of the Rock. My head ached, a distant pain that was easy to ignore. My bones knew I didn’t belong there, but the boat disagreed. It ground against the shore and stopped. It was strange how alive it felt, like it was vibrating. Urging me to get out.
As soon as I put both feet on land, the dory melted into the fog. I turned in time to see the path from island to shore fill. Hazy curtains closed behind me. If there was a mainland, a sea between this land and that, I couldn’t tell. The mist swirled on itself. It parted only for the island, opening up with the slope of the shore.
Pale light filtered through the trees. It wasn’t warmer or colder there, but I shivered anyway. Earth and water and the astringent sweetness of fir filled my nose. The light swung overhead again, heavy and real.
Shoving my hands into my hoodie pocket, I hiked toward an opening among the pines. The lighthouse was on the other side. It didn’t seem like a big island from the water. On foot, it stretched on forever.
As the pines grew thick, I realized the forest was too quiet. No flash of animals fleeing from me. No birds chattering from their nests. Branches shivered as I passed; they whispered behind me. It was perfect, the path strangely clear. If trees fell in this forest, they didn’t fall this way. Granite surfaced through the carpet of needles and underbrush, the island’s bones exposed.
I felt like I was walking through a diorama. Third grade, we all had to pick an incident from Maine history and build the scene in a shoebox. In Levi’s box, a Lego Leif Ericson stood on the Maine shore under a Viking flag.
In mine, snow fell on the Plymouth Company settlement in Popham, little matchstick settlers starving under the pines. My brother got an A; I got a note sent home and two visits with the school counselor.
But that was Maine to me. Beautiful to look at, and dangerous if you didn’t know it. Jackson’s Rock felt dangerous. I only knew its contours from the outside. From beneath the cliffs. Light shone from it, not on it.
The Grey Man is here, my thoughts sang.
And I didn’t argue. How could I? I’d seen him, sure enough. I’d dropped my ass in a bewitched boat and sailed without wind or oars or motor. The hair on my arms prickled, then my back tightened. Nothing competed with my footsteps. They were way too loud.
Walking sideways, I scraped my way down a hill and then stopped. I was small underneath the lighthouse. Up close, it was sturdy and thick, stretching for the sky. It didn’t look delicate anymore.
Gears drove the beacon, and I felt the hum of the light on my skin. It pressed into my ears and made me grit my teeth to keep them from rattling together.
And since none of it was real, I kept walking. At any time, I expected somebody to shake the snow globe, to wake me—to give me the shot that would take me back to the real world. Coming around the lighthouse, I wondered if it was a dream. The kind that dared you to wake up before you fell.
Silver curls of fog crept toward me. Fingers of it, slinking from between the trees. It slipped under my hair, cold against my neck.
The haze sharpened—it gathered. Like milk swirling into coffee, curves formed. Shades and shapes and angles, they became: black eyes, silver hair. A thin mouth, a sharp chin. A hand reached out to take mine.
“I thought you would never come,” he said.
Neither did I. Maybe in storybooks, there’s a right thing to say when you meet someone impossible. Or in dreams, because anything makes sense there. A lighthouse could be your church or your first-grade coat closet. But standing there, I felt his fingertips; they were rough. Real.
I was awake, and it was real. So all I had to fall back on was the memory of my mother teaching me manners. Once upon a time in Broken Tooth, when I was knee-high, meeting people she knew on the street. She taught me to shake hands.
She taught me to say, “Pleased to meet you.”
NINE
Grey
Suddenly, I have to make decisions.
Inwardly, I tremble. It’s too much emotion for my uncertain skin. I feel like I’m nothing but seams and cracks, waiting to break. On my plate at breakfast, I had no box, because I’d wished for a way to end it.
The magic that drives the curse ignores wishes that undermine it. In the beginning, I tried bargaining with it. Every day for a year, I wished for someone to come to the island, all for nothing. I’d written messages and put them in bottles, only to see the bottles melt to fog when they touched the water. I wished for freedom. Death. Anything.
Funny how literal magic can be—last night, I wished to end it. Nothing arrived on my plate. Instead a mistwalk from the island to the shore had opened and let her come to me. She came to me!
She’s on my island, and I finally see her the way Susannah saw me. Escape. She’s a door to unlock, and how best to do that?
It startles me that she’s not just light anymore. Across the waves, down in her boat, she is shaped light. But as I loop her arm in mine, I see every shade of her. She’s autumn in watercolor, hair and lips and eyes.
Cruelly, I will never know her fine details. This is yet another delight delivered by my curse: complete isolation. There will be no familiar faces for me, either at a distance or within grasp. I see Willa as if she stands on the other side of greased glass. She’s a shape. Colors. Impressions. Nothing more.
If she’s beautiful, I cannot discern it. Perhaps a blessing; if she’s ugly, I don’t know that, either.
“Come in,” I say, and she nods.
She’s no delicate thing in a wispy gown. She wears breeches and boots and doesn’t trail behind me. I know things have changed in a century. I’ve seen glimpses through strange windows, but she’s here. She’s real. She’s framed in the doorway to my lighthouse, letting her arm slip from mine.
Looking to me, she smiles curiously. “So who are you, anyway?”
That’s a question with too many answers. I’m a wraith that haunts the lighthouse. A son with no parents. A lover with no heart. There must be a right answer, so I wait for her to step inside. Let my home speak for me.
She stops in the foyer and tips her head back. My shelves climb the walls, filled with music boxes. They gleam and quiver. Each has a key that wants turning. Just like her.
Gesturing to my collection, I say, “Choose one.”
But she’s not biddable. She faces me, a shadow crossing her brow. Though a glow surrounds her, I make out freckles and a silver scar through her eyebrow. Pursing her lips, she says nothing, then says everything. “What’s your name?”
I haven’t forgotten. A hundred years isn’t that long. I can’t remember my mother’s face or what it was like to walk in the sunlight. There are songs that I know the tunes to but not the words. But a hundred years isn’t so long to forget who I once was, no matter who I’ve become. I close like a clam around my name; that’s mine.
“Don’t you know?” I ask her. “I’m the Grey Man.”
She takes a step closer. “So if I wanted to write you a letter, I’d start it with ‘Dear Grey Man’?”
I haven’t had a letter in so long. It hurts to want one, so suddenly, so completely. She has no idea what she’s doing to me. What she means to me already. So I force myself to smile. “I suppose that’s a bit formal. ‘Dear Grey’ would do.”
“Huh.”
When she turns back to my collection, I resist the urge to plunge my hands into the autumn glow that must be her hair. My cold and numb flecks away, ice slipping from frosted walls. She’s warm, and I want to be warm too.
This is what Susannah felt, when I was flesh and she was fog. No wonder she let me kiss her. No wonder she swore she loved me too. I will say anything right now to get this girl to turn around and touch me again. Should I be a beast or a prince? It’s so hard to decide.
Finally, I say, “You have mine now. Tell me yours.”
“Is that how it works?”
I nod, because it’s easier than choosing a part to play.
She trails a finger on the shelf, then stops in front of a heartwood box. I laid gold threads into the lid, loops upon loops that catch the light at certain angles. I can’t remember what it plays, and she doesn’t wind the key. It seems like she wants to touch it, but she restrains herself. Concentration marks her; she doesn’t look at me, but she does, finally, part her lips.
“You should know. It was on the boat.”
Was it? I’m still not sure what has changed, but I’ll have plenty of time to puzzle it out. She’s here now. She wants an answer; she wants something from me, and I have to give it to her. Reaching past her, I take the box and lift its lid. A few notes linger in the drum. “She Moved Through the Fair,” of course. How could I forget?
“I want to hear you say it,” I tell her, and offer the box again.
Wary, she doesn’t reach for it. Much wiser than Persephone; she knows not to take gifts from the Underworld. But my curse isn’t contained in gifts or pomegranate seeds. She gives me what I need anyway, the first turn of the key. Something personal. Her name.
I will make her love me.