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 get 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.”