“Yeah, I’m pretty sure if the Passamaquoddy had magic like that, neither one of us would be standing here.”
Touching fingers to his chest, Grey said, “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.’”
The pines creaked around us, laughing. Their needles fell on bare granite, and I stiffened. It felt like Grey was talking down to me. Calling me stupid. Maybe a slap back for calling him Shakespeare. I didn’t like it, so I pushed him to get to the point.
“That’s real helpful.”
Like he was placating me, Grey reached for me. Then he curled his fingers back at the last moment, taking his touch away so I couldn’t avoid it. “I think there’s something primal about this island. Something we’ve never named and never known. To the beginning of humanity, perhaps.”
This was going nowhere. He knew what I wanted to know, but he kept veering away from it. It could have been I was asking the wrong questions. There wasn’t a guidebook for interrogating a ghost. Or a curse. Or . . . I still didn’t know what he was. Since origins got me nowhere, I tried another way of asking.
“Okay, fine, there’s always been a Grey on the island. Fine.” My fingers tightened on his arm. “So what do you mean, you got tricked?”
Grey slowed as we approached the clearing, the highest point on the island. He let my hand slip from his elbow and turned his face to the sky. With arms spread, he turned a slow circle, his hair wisping around his shoulders.
“I was a fool. I imagined myself in love with an illusion. And like a fool, I offered myself as a sacrifice to that love.”
“In English?”
The edges of Grey’s manners slipped. He scowled, his black eyes cutting past me furiously. “My true love asked if I would die for her. And when I said yes, she kissed me and conferred all the glory you see before you. She walked away in her flesh and left me as nothing but mist.”
The constellations shifted. I didn’t notice it at first. I had more on my mind than tracking time by the skies. I forgot that time moved faster on Jackson’s Rock. That a cup of cocoa could pass an entire day. The forest darkened around us, lights twinkling above as the cold came in.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I circled the edge of the clearing. I didn’t want to sit down with him. Get comfortable. Forget that I came for a reason. Stopping against the shadow of a great oak, I asked, “Why am I the only one who can think about Jackson’s Rock without getting a splitting headache? Why am I the only one who can come here?”
Grey’s hesitation wasn’t uncertainty. The answer seemed to fly to his lips. But he held it there, and I wasn’t sure why. When he said it, he spoke carefully. Like he was afraid he would say it too fast and it would dissipate. “You’ve been chosen. I think; I believe this: you came here because you wanted an escape.”
“Excuse me?”
Warming, Grey approached. His fingers fluttered when he talked; the tips of them evaporated into faint contrails. “The night I pulled you from the water! You couldn’t leave because there was something you didn’t want to face on the shore. In your heart, you wanted to stay!”
My court date, I thought. Out loud, I said, “I don’t think so.”
“This place, this . . . gift. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted, Willa. You love the sea. You love these waters. Not just any beach. Not just any cliff. This place, it’s your legacy. And it could be yours eternally. You could be the Grey Lady. The one who steers the ships home. Or keeps them in the harbor when a storm is coming. You wouldn’t be one girl here for one short lifetime. You’d be greater than your flesh. Mistress of the light, and the lives onshore.”
Silence fell in the forest. Even the wind stilled. Grey was so animated, so excited. He sounded like a brimstone preacher, believing every single word of his gospel. Uneasy, I considered him. Then I asked, “Why would you think that?”
“You told me!” He pointed at the lighthouse. “Your room there, it told me everything. The witch balls in the window—you’ve been longing for a little magic in your life, Willa. And all the rest is the sea. I can give you that.”
My mouth dropped open. That’s how he’d figured it? With a disbelieving laugh, I told him, “Witch balls turn away the evil eye. Like the glass beads in old nets. They’re not about wanting magic. They’re supposed to keep it away.”
Grey’s face fell. “But this is your destiny.”
“Yeah, no, it’s not.” Pushing off the tree, I met him in the middle. “I lost my brother this summer—I told you that. You really think I want to walk away from the rest of my family? From my friends? It’s been a lousy couple of months, but no. Just no.”
Confused, Grey pulled a tiny box from his pocket. It was silver, blue glass laid into its sides. When he turned the key, plaintive notes trickled out. They twisted on a new wind. Each note echoed in its own way; it took me a minute to recognize the tune.
When the fishing was good, Daddy sometimes got on the radio and sang. Just a verse or two—a dirty song about ruffles and tuffles sometimes. Chanteys sometimes. But usually this song. “She Moved Through the Fair,” slow and haunting and dark.
Shining with a light I’d never seen before, Grey smiled when the song wound down. The last note plucked, and he offered me the box. “I wished for something to make sense of you, and this is what I got. It’s a message.”
“You know that song, Grey?”
“I’ve heard it many times.”
“Yeah, but do you know it?” I asked.
The expression drained from his face. “Do you?”
Fear crept through me because I knew something Grey didn’t. I knew all the words; I’d heard the song a hundred times. Uneasy, I glanced back to make sure the dory waited for me at the shore.
Then, I turned to him and said, “She never comes back, Grey. He sees her once at the fair and spends the rest of his life missing her.”
If it was possible, Grey paled. Closing the box in his hand, he stiffened. “She whispers in his dreams.”
“It’s all in his head.” Though my heart pounded, I went on. “Whatever magic that works here, whatever gave you that music box? It wasn’t wrong. Because I’m not your escape.”
He broke. I saw it in his eyes. In the trembling of his hands. It was like he’d been sleeping two sleeps, one of curses and one of fantasies. I’d just shattered the only beautiful one for him.
When he said nothing, I moved toward the path. Still he said nothing, and panic bloomed in me. Until now, he’d never been at a loss for words. If some terrible, devil version of him existed, I didn’t want to see it.
When my feet hit the path, he screamed. A plaintive wail, one that echoed longer than it had lasted. Then he called after me.
“Don’t go! I’m alone. I’m going mad; it’ll take thousands of years to collect enough souls to get off this island!”
It felt like he’d thrown a spear. Like I’d been split and pinned by it. My chest hurt, and my head, too. I knew there had to be something else. There had to be something he’d been sugarcoating. “Souls?”
“I’m not a monster,” he raged. “I could have smothered your village’s fleet a hundred times by now. Lost them all at sea, collected every soul at once, and I never have! I’ve been a boon to Broken Tooth. I’ve kept you all safe! Kept you safe in particular, Willa. The night you and your brother went into the dark, I tried to protect you. To hide you!”
“What do you mean?”