Mistwalker

ONE Willa

The hope was used up; all we had left was superstition.

That’s why Seth Archambault took my place on my father’s fishing boat. That’s why I stacked egg-salad sandwiches in a cooler instead of pulling on my oil clothes.

“Bad luck to have a woman or a pig onboard,” my father told me over dinner the night before. Mom didn’t blink; she knew it was coming.

“Which one am I?” I asked.

Dad didn’t answer. He drained his coffee, then drifted from the table. His weighted steps shook the floor as he jammed a baseball cap onto his greying head. Last summer, his hair gleamed copper, the same watery shade as mine.

Old-time navy tales said it was supposed to be bad luck to have redheads aboard too, but we Dixons had proved that wrong for years. Like a bunch of Down East Weasleys, we’d always been ginger. Even the black-and-white pictures in Gran’s albums showed generations of freckles on milky faces and waved hair too in-between to be blond or brunet.

And let’s be honest. We were moored when my brother, Levi, got shot.

He fell onto the boat. Into my arms. And he died on the dock. So, technically, our bad luck lately had nothing to do with redheads, pigs, or women onboard the Jenn-a-Lo.

But it wasn’t an argument I wanted to have before sending my father and my boyfriend into new October seas. That’s why I got up with a dawn I couldn’t see and made sandwiches I didn’t like. Leaving through the back door, I kicked Levi’s boots out of my way and headed for the water.

The fog cloaked me in dewy silk. It tasted cool and beaded in my hair. I moved through it uneasily. My walk was familiar, but the world was hidden—I held my hand out to touch everything I could to guide me.

At the end of my walk, the Jenn-a-Lo slept where she always did when we weren’t fishing her. But she was a ghost in the mist; we all were. An unseen harbor bell called, answered by the sleepy bump of boats against their slips.

Conversations drifted in the air, disconnected from breath and body. But I recognized the voices—Mr. O’Toole wanted to know if Zoe Pomroy still had his coffee grinder. Mal Eldrich asked if it was cold enough for Lane Wallace, which got him soundly cursed because it was the 275th day that year he’d asked it, and he’d no doubt ask it for the remaining ninety.

This was Broken Tooth before fishing started for the day: the wharf alive with ordinary, daring men and women. They laughed and cussed and got ready to sail on seas that would be just as happy to swallow them as feed them.

More likely than not, this had always been Broken Tooth. For the Passamaquoddy who fished here first, then for the English and French and Scots-Irish who drove them out.

Funny thing was, it never used to be this foggy. We’d have some, but everybody talked about how Broken Tooth didn’t get blessed much, but we got blessed with clear waters. Not anymore; seemed like it hadn’t been clear since Levi died. It was our shroud.

With a heavy sigh, I hurried to the Jenn-a-Lo. At first, just the red script of her name floated up in the fog. Trailing my hand along the rail, the boat took shape. She wasn’t new; she wasn’t beautiful. I loved her all the same.

Thankfully, in the pale of a frosted morning, I couldn’t make out the shadow of Levi’s blood, stained into the warp of the wood dock. Before I could think about it, a hand reached out of the mist to take mine.

“Egg salad?” Seth asked.

“What else?” I said, and stepped onboard. Putting the cooler down, I slid it across the deck with a firm shove, then turned to find him. He was a shadow in the haze, then suddenly a boy. My boy.

In my orbit, Seth touched me with hands just as certain as my steps toward the shore had been. Brushing my lips against his jaw, I curled closer to him so I could slip toward his mouth. His skin was cool; at first, he tasted of coffee and Juicy Fruit.

The second kiss, though, tasted like nothing but want. That was the beauty of a silver morning: it was possible to steal away with someone without moving at all.

When I broke the kiss, I pressed my brow to Seth’s temple. “You better be careful.”

“Always,” he said.

“Make Dad eat,” I went on.

Seth’s breath spread heat across my cheek. “I’ll ask him to, anyway.”

“Don’t feel bad if you’re just changing water in the pots,” I continued. “Or pulling seeders and v-notches. That’s just fishing this time of year.”

I felt him smile. “I’ve got this, Willa.”

Of course he did. I knew he did. But I felt strangely stripped, knowing that I wouldn’t be my father’s sternman today. As fine a fisherman as Seth was, he didn’t know the particular rhythms of our boat. Her quirks waited to catch him, as if winter seas weren’t wicked enough. It was supposed to be clear and cold today if the fog ever lifted, but there was no accounting for the Atlantic’s whim.

“Mind the hauler. It’s sticky,” I told him, and smoothed off his knit cap so I could run my fingers through his hair.

Seth bowed his head, catching me in another needy kiss. Possessive, his hand tightened on my hip, and I twisted my fingers in his hair. Selfishly, I wanted to leave him with an edge, troubled by a hunger he couldn’t satisfy.

That was the one thing I was still sure of, that Seth Archambault wanted me more than he wanted anything else in the world.

Catching his lower lip between my teeth, I tugged it as I pulled away. And then I put my back to him, walking off as quickly as I could.

In my family, we never said hello or goodbye—another superstition. That one came from my mother’s side of the family. Without hello, you couldn’t mark a beginning. To avoid an ending, of course you went without goodbye.

Maybe whoever started it thought they could live forever. All they had to do was trick time into believing their lives were a single, uninterrupted moment.

They were wrong.

Bailey didn’t come to a full stop in front of my house. Instead, she pushed the passenger-side door open and yelled, “Get in, loser!”

Running alongside her battered pickup, I threw my apron and rake inside. The truck picked up speed on the incline, and I lunged for the door. And there I was, hand on window frame, feet off the ground. For a second, I was flying. Then I was rolling like a loose marble into the truck’s cab. I fell against the seat with a laugh.

“What, you’re too good for seat belts now?” Bailey asked.

I made a point of shutting the door before bothering to belt in. “Well, yeah. You’re still too good to get your brakes fixed.”

“Always judging.”

“That’s what friends do,” I told her.

It was easy to smile with Bailey Dyer. We grew up together, literally. We met when our mothers, best friends, had plopped us in the same crib. We entertained each other while they played pinochle.

If you start out sharing a diaper bag with somebody, it’s easy to share everything else. Bailey knew to the minute when I got my first period. She came out to me before anyone else. It’s not like our moms were shocked by either of those developments, but it was still nice to have a secret-keeper.

“So is Seth . . .” Bailey started, turning the radio down. She didn’t finish the thought. It was a blank for me to fill in, offered smoothly.

“Yeah, he’s out there.” I put my feet on the dashboard and sighed. She knew I hated it; she’d listened to me rasp my throat raw over it last night. But that was last night, and by daylight, I had to be practical. “Not a lot to be done about it, you know?”

Bailey drummed the steering wheel. “You could kneecap him.”

“You can’t dance in casts, dude.”

“Like you care about the fall formal,” Bailey said.

“Seth does. I think he bought a ring.”

She cut a look at me, her brown eyes sparkling. “You’re going to say yes, right?”

The weight of the air changed around us. Finally, I said, “I don’t know,” and leaned against my window. Instead of saying something useless, Bailey raised her brows and nodded, focusing on the rough road.

It was junior year, the deciding year. I’d planned to take the SAT with Bailey, just to lend her moral support. College had never been in my plans. I was going to marry Seth and fish with my father until he was too weathered to go out. Then the boat would be mine, then my kids’, then theirs . . . It was a good life, a beautiful inevitability.

And it was gone.

A little farther down the road, Bailey asked, “Why not?”

“I can’t.” I said. “I’ve been paying the mortgage, Bay. Dad hasn’t been out since Levi died. What if he never gets back out there proper?”

“He’s fishing today.” Bailey threw her shoulders back. “Okay, I know, with Seth. But if he won’t take you out, buy your own boat. Pay their mortgage and yours, too . . . oh.”

“Hey, look,” I said, plucking my roll of apron and rake off the seat. “Mud flats.”

Bailey dropped out of gear, then put all her weight onto the brake. We rolled to a stop on the gravel shoulder. The engine shuddered, making the whole truck shake before it finally went silent.

The old girl was a junk heap, and Bailey would have been better off buying a new one. But she was saving for college. Finessing another four thousand miles out of a Ford that should have been put down was a matter of pride.

We had that in common.

I got to the back first, unhitching the thing to get to our digging gear. The tailgate fell, rusty flakes fluttering to the ground as we pulled on rubber waders and tied each other’s aprons. The former were necessary, the latter an in-joke.

They were our freshman home-arts project: uneven gingham monstrosities that would have made our grandmothers roll in their graves. Our aprons were thin and threadbare. Even if they weren’t, fact was, nothing was going to keep us clean.

Snatching up our rakes and buckets, we started down the rocky incline to the shore. Low tide had taken the water out, leaving a gleaming expanse of grey mud. Thin-boned pine trees sheltered us from the wind; this cove was a good place to go digging because of that. With the tree break, the cove stayed a little warmer a little longer. If we were lucky, we’d have until the end of October.

Mussel shells decorated the flat, black and white bouquets that could cut as clean as a knife. Bailey walked down a few yards so we wouldn’t get in each other’s way, and we got to work. Piercing into the mud with my rake, I flipped it and reached in with bare hands. Nothing. Breath frosting in the air, I moved up and started a new row.

“First!” Bailey cried.

I looked over, and she held a bloodworm high, presenting it to me with a smirk. The little monster twisted on itself, trying to get its black teeth into her wrist. Bailey dropped it into her bucket and said, “That’s what you get for changing the subject. I win, you lose.”

“I like how classy you are,” I replied. “All class, that’s you.”

Slapping her own butt, Bailey left a handprint. “Kiss it, Dixon.”

I flicked a handful of mud in her direction, then went back to digging. Bloodworms didn’t look like much, but on a long low tide, we could each pull three hundred. At a quarter apiece, that added up. For Bailey, her college fund. Lately, for me, the bills my parents couldn’t manage.

“So . . .” Bailey dared again, because she was my best friend and knew she could get away with it. “How far out are they gonna have to go, do you think?”

“A ways.” Cutting mud and pulling worms, I didn’t lift my head, but I did raise my voice so Bailey could hear me. “Looks like those mokes on Monhegan aren’t the only ones on winter lobster this year, I guess.”

“You remember that one girl?” The from Monhegan was implied.

I pulled a worm, dumping it in my bucket. “Yep. Crazy like everybody else out there.”

“You ain’t lying,” Bailey replied.

And then, because I could, in the middle of a mud flat, just the two of us and nobody else, I dared to say a wish out loud. “After this summer, we need a good season.”

Bailey hauled her boots from the mud and moved to a new patch. Invoking casual magic, she said, “Ask the Grey Man. It can’t hurt.”

A ghost, or a revenant, maybe a cursed sailor or faery—who, or what, the Grey Man was was up for debate. People couldn’t even agree that it was a man. Some of the old-timers insisted it was a Grey Lady.

But we all agreed that he lived in the lighthouse on Jackson’s Rock, and if you could get him on your side, you’d have the best fishing of your life.

It was a lot like the Norwegians biting the head off a herring, or throwing the first catch back for luck. Chewing on anise and spitting on the hooks. Leaving women behind and never setting sail on a Friday. Old rituals we kept to guarantee the impossible: all good weather, no bad days.

But in our bones, we knew it was blizzards and nor’easters and squall lines that sank ships. Draggers and trawlers and people from away stealing our catches and leaving nothing for our pots. Government dopes making us trade float line for sink line, twice as expensive, lost twice as much.

In lobstering, nothing was certain—except the lighthouse on Jackson’s Rock. And that was automatic and empty. If there was a Grey Man, he had lousy taste in real estate. No one went to Jackson’s Rock and likely no one ever would. Just thinking about it made my head hurt.

Then again, maybe he was right where he meant to be—where no one could ask him a favor. Where he’d never have to grant one. Like most faery stories, the price was probably too high. My family had paid enough for our calling this year.

We couldn’t spare anything else.

After selling my catch at the worm cellar, I wasn’t ready to go home yet. The ocean flowed with new colors, crimson and gold. Sunset transformed the shore. It called the sailors and the fishermen home.

Pushing my hands into my back pockets, I walked down the dock. It was easy to tell who’d gone far out, past the island, halfway to Georges Bank. Nothing held their berths at the pier but short, choppy waves. No sign of Daddy and Seth yet either.

Lobsters liked warm water—that’s why summer fishing was easy. As the seasons changed, they marched to the depths. They were safer away from shore. The rest of us, not really. Cold, open waters, waiting for drowning storms . . .

I wasn’t gonna think about that. Once everybody came home safe, that would be the time to think dark thoughts.

Lifting my face to the wind, I walked over warped wood. Maybe it was crazy, but I loved the way it tilted beneath my feet. Being able to walk over it without looking filled me with a strange sense of pride. Like it was proof I belonged there. That this was my place and my destiny.

“That you, Willa?” Zoe Pomroy asked.

I couldn’t see her, but it was easy to follow her voice. Turning down her slip, I approached the Lazarus, following the scent of coffee to the teal and white boat all the way at the end. That was the only place it fit.

Zoe had one of the bigger ships in our fleet. Fifty foot, with what amounted to an apartment inside. She had a kitchen and a head, a cabin and a guest room. When the weather was good, Zoe lived aboard. Daddy liked to give her hell about fishing from a yacht, but I admired her.

Leaning over the rail, Zoe grinned down at me. “I got something good today.”

“What’s that?” I asked, already climbing aboard.

Lamps illuminated the cabin. Everything inside gleamed, dark wood polished to a sheen. From the stern, I could make out the galley and the table. The rest of Zoe’s floating condo required an invitation.

“I’ve been pulling traps for damn near thirty years,” she said, opening a cooler on deck. She reached inside, hefting a lobster out with her bare hands. Its claws were already banded, so the worst it could do was wriggle at her. “And I’ve never seen one of these.”

In the dimming dusk, it was hard to make out what kind of wonder she had. The lobster was kinda big, but nothing special.

Then Zoe dipped him into the light that spilled from the cabin. A spark of excitement raced through me. He was blue. Not kinda sorta, if you squint at a green lobster, you might see some bluish spots. No, this was a deep shade, halfway to navy. Midnight freckles and powder blue joints, even his eyes were a hazy shade of midnight.

“Hot damn, Zoe, that’s something else.”

“Isn’t it?”

More than a little irritated—he’d probably been passed around to half of Broken Tooth by now—Old Blue the lobster curled his tail under. Flailing his claws, he wanted to pinch me. He just couldn’t. I trailed a finger down his segmented tail and hefted him in my hand. He was eight pounds, easy.

“You taking him back?” I asked.

Nodding, Zoe leaned against the rail. “Yeah. He’s bigger than legal, but I wouldn’t have kept him anyway.”

She didn’t have to explain. Lobsters like these, we shared them. Took pictures, handed them around. Then we gave them back to the ocean. It balanced things; it reminded the water gods and the universe that we appreciated all of it. That we weren’t so greedy to keep every last creature we pulled in our traps.

And it meant somebody else might find him later. Nobody knew how old a lobster could get. In fact, left alone, they might live forever. Every year, they shed their shells and grew a new one. Nothing limited how big they could grow.

Up in Nova Scotia, they found one that weighed forty-four pounds. Forget losing a finger to a lobster—that thing could break arms with its claws.

So if we gave back the big ones, the blue ones, the ones that were special, there was a little bit of immortality attached to it. In two days, or two hundred years, somebody else might haul it up. Take pictures, pass it around. Past to present, lobsterman to lobsterman.

I watched Zoe put Old Blue back in the cooler. “You see Dad and Seth out there today?”

“This morning,” she said. Straightening, she dried her hands on her jeans. Nodding toward the cabin, she invited me inside. “Past the Rock, heading on out. You want some coffee?”

Back home, the house sat empty. Mom was at work, and Daddy was still out. There was nothing in that house but unnatural quiet, so I took a cup of Zoe’s coffee, and another one after it. Just to stay on the water a little longer.

Just to be close to the sea.