Mistwalker

FOURTEEN Grey

I don’t know. Usually I don’t know.

I see one of the human lights floundering beneath my beacon, and I thrill. Who it is matters not. It’s a mystery I can’t solve, and I don’t try. I snatch a jar from the cabinet. These vessels whisper and rattle, so alive in my hand. Into the elements, I rush.

Though I stay there most of the time, I’m not bound to the lighthouse. It’s the island that contains me. Thus, I can run to the shore when it’s time to add to my collection. When someone breathes his last, his soul rises to the beacon road. I open my jar, and his essence coalesces in it.

The whole spark of a human being is a beautiful thing.

I tremble in anticipation as I take my jar and rush to the water. A storm and stars, lighting and a full moon. It’s an extraordinary night! One more silver, swirling vial of life to line the shelves. One more tick off my immortal clock.

But when I reach the shore, I see autumn colors instead of an indeterminate glow. Copper hair, dusky mouth, I see her. This time I know her name. The shape of her hand. I recognize the essential parts—this isn’t another light, this is Willa.

I drop the bottle. Its bulb shatters on the rocks, and I wade into the water. When I go too far, I peel apart. I’m red-hot strips of agony, then nothing in an infernal cold. Then I form again on the shore, whole. Complete. Watching her go under.

This can’t happen. One more out of a thousand is not enough: collecting her ruins everything. She’s my hope. My escape! She’s walking on the far shore this year instead of a millennium hence. She comes to me and touches my things. She’s real and alive; I need her to stay.

There are no mannerly waves tonight. They roll and crash, making walls of driftwood, pushing them ever closer to the wood that shadows my rock. I can’t get closer. My agonizing insubstantiality persists. There are borders to my curse, a gate through which I cannot pass.

So I call the mist. I wind it around the island, wool on a spindle. I hope that it will calm the seas, just enough to bring her to shore. Not just her soul, but the whole of her.

Since the curse has been so very accommodating, I wish. On my breakfast plate, I want proof that she’s well, that she more than survived the night. The curse will grant it; a wish like that couldn’t be more contrary to its desires.

The waves roar yet, now blanketed in haze—but I see her light. With each surge, it flows toward me. I hold out my hands. To catch her; perhaps to call her. As if I’m some saltwater god and not a monster in a tower.

She can’t be lost. I’ve waited too long. I’ve been too generous, too careful, too kind. Despite my strange-made flesh, I’ve been so very human, and it’s time. I deserve this. I deserve her, deserve the chance to kiss her. To make her love me enough to die for me. All these things should be mine.

I wade in again, the island sure beneath my feet in spite of the inundation. The next wave crashes through me. There’s a trembling, the curse threatening to shear me to pieces again. I’m almost too far out. My contradictory bones ache from the cold, but, oh, lucky hand! I catch a length of what must be her hair.

Winding my wrist in it, I drag her into the air. It’s brutish, but it works. Once I’ve pulled her from the surf, I can better grasp her. I can even be gentle—scooping my arms beneath her, hefting her sodden shape off the ground. Her edges trail like seaweed.

Suddenly, her edges sharpen. She’s less a haze of light and shape, and more a girl.

No, she’s a mermaid made real, cradled in my arms and breathing! Gloriously, wonderfully breathing. Her face is battered. Bruised and swollen. Her skin cast in faint shades of blue. A vicious shudder rolls through her, and though she’s stiff with cold, she curls toward me. Catching my shirt with one hand, she clings to it.

Usually I don’t know the names or faces that belong to the souls in my bottles. Like the lights on the shore, they’re no more than the flickering of fireflies, single keys to try in the lock of my cage.

But this time, I looked out and knew it was Willa, and I thrill at her exception. She’s special; it must be destiny.

My curse’s end must be near!