Mistwalker

EIGHTEEN Grey

I wasn’t sure before, how Willa came to the island. I was aware when she landed. Even now, I feel her approach. The facts of it have, until now, been entirely obscured to me. This time, I watch and see a dark marvel.

The mist comes, just a fine haze. It’s a veil drawn, but a thin one—admitting light and detail, making shadows of shapes in the distance. Then at once, the haze swirls, the veil parted by unseen hands.

Introduced by an ornate prow, a boat appears. Skimming across the water, it’s all but silent in its approach. There are no oars, no motor. The prow barely cuts the water. Ripples roll away from it, then melt back into the black sea.

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.