How long can it go on? Our lives have stuck, waiting for Maggie to come home. I could stay out on this dock for the rest of my life. Become a statue sitting here. One day Dave won’t bother coming to get me. One day, he’ll just leave, sell the house like he wants, and start a new life somewhere.
He has that luxury. Me, I’ll never have another little girl.
Dave’s gone to town for groceries. He asked me to stay in the house until he got back, but I’ve come to sit on the dock for the afternoon. I’ll get sunburned, and when he gets back he’ll yell at me for it, but I won’t be offended. He yells for other reasons. From helplessness. We’ll hold each other after he yells at me.
My skin flushes and tingles and burns in the sun, and I stay by the water, watching the sun splash flecks of gold on the tiny rippling waves. Shadows grow long, thin, and stretched, the sky turns an impossible royal blue, and the air begins to bite. This is when the mist starts to rise from the water, when the flecks of gold disappear and the water turns pewter, thick like molten metal.
Some birds cry. Bats dip over the water snatching at insects, and fish splash to the surface, doing the same.
And there is splashing, more steady than the fish, rhythmic and purposeful. Oars tucked gently into the water, not fish leaping carelessly.
Both canoes are tied to the dock. No one visits us here. Or if they do, they drive.
Someone is coming over the water, and I can’t be bothered to stand.
Then it appears, sliding out of the mist. Not a canoe but something larger, like a rowboat but stretched. It’s wood, not plastic or aluminum—boards fitted together and sealed with pitch. The bow slopes up and ends in a spiral carving.
There are four hunched figures in the boat, hidden in shadows. Not shadows—they’re wearing cloaks with hoods up. The largest of them sits in the middle and works the oars. The oars creak in the oarlocks, but the figure itself makes no sound. Another figure sits in the back, holding the long, smooth handle of the rudder. Two more sit in the front. One of them leans forward, searching. The other reaches out for her, like he’s afraid she might fall over the side.
I’m not sure why I think that figure is a woman.
I wait because I can’t not wait. Pictures in the mist, is this what Maggie saw? Had she always seen strangers, so that she didn’t think them strange and would follow them, get into their cars and let them take her away?
The boat slides up to the end of the dock. A rope is thrown out, one of the men jumps onto the dock and ties the rope to the post. The woman gets out and runs three steps, stops, stares at me.
Throws back her hood to show her yellow hair, and her face, my Maggie’s face, a little weathered maybe, and I wonder what has made her look tired.
I just stare at her.
“Mom?”
The cloak, pushed over her shoulders now, reaches to her ankles. It might be wool, thick and homespun. She wears a thick leather vest over a long-sleeved brown shirt, belted over leather pants. Her tall boots look softer and more comfortable than her usual stiff black riding boots. There’s a sword hanging from her belt by leather straps. It’s hidden in a scabbard, and seems heavier and more threatening than anything she ever used in fencing class.
She kneels in front of me. I’m hugging my knees to my chest. My muscles are frozen, but my face is wet.
“Mom?” she says again, fearfully, her voice cracking.
“You didn’t run away. I kept telling them you didn’t run away.”
“I had to go, Mom. I had to.”
“Maggie. They took you away from me. They took you away—” I stare at her, my heart bleeding and breaking. She is a ghost and I have gone mad at last.
She puts her arms around me. I fall into her embrace, sobbing like a child, inconsolable. She is solid, my child, not a ghost.
I look over her shoulder at the men I believe—I assume—took her away from me. Masters of some religious cult, or a gang (Were there any boys? the police asked, and like a fool I said no, when I didn’t know anything).
The three of them stand near the boat, watching us uncomfortably. They’re dressed like Maggie, in leather and rough cloth, high boots, scuffed and worn, cloaks with hoods, studded belts and swords.
The largest of them has coarse hair tied back with a piece of leather. He looks over the water, clutching the hilt of his sword. He’s standing guard; the posture is unmistakable. The oldest has short hair the color of fog and a trimmed beard. He watches the third man, who watches my daughter. This one’s face is set in hard lines, his lips frowning, an expression that makes him formidable, yet handsome. Unreachably handsome. I hate him for the way he watches my daughter with such intensity his eyes burn. He has short hair and no beard, and wears a polished red stone on a chain.
This means something. This all means something, but I can’t guess what.
Maggie must sense me staring back at him, because she pulls away and turns to look back and forth between us. “Mom, I have so much to tell you.”
I clutch her sleeves, holding her arms as best I can, my knuckles white. The scenarios playing in my mind to explain what I see before me are muddled.
It doesn’t help when Maggie says, “This is my husband. He’s the king.” King of what? The words don’t make sense.
“They took you away,” is all I can find to say.
“I had to go.” She pulls on my arms, helping me to stand. I feel like an old woman. None of my joints work. But a moment later I’m standing. Maggie is still talking. “They needed me. They still need me. I didn’t know what was happening at first. I came here, something drew me here. I watched the mist over the lake, like I used to do when I was little. This time, the mist spoke to me. Maybe it had always been speaking to me, but this time I really heard it. I was at that point—I didn’t want to go to college, couldn’t train for the pentathlon, and I no idea what to do with my life. So I stepped out. I stepped over the water—and there he was with the boat, waiting.”
“She belongs with us,” the man, the one Maggie said is a king, and her husband, speaks. I’m surprised I understand him—I expect him to speak a guttural Scandinavian language. He sets his shoulders, fisting his hands, like he’s preparing to do battle.
I realize that Maggie isn’t staying.
“Who are you?” My voice is shrill.
“Mom—” Maggie recognizes the tone.
The gray-haired man steps forward. “We are warriors protecting you and your world from a darkness you cannot fathom.”
It’s silly. Words from the blurb on a paperback.
“We called one of you to join us in the battle. For a long time, we called. Almost, she came too late.” He glares like this is my fault. I glare like I don’t believe him.
“Mom, I only have a few minutes. I have to say goodbye.”
“Why? Why call her?”
“Because you did not answer when I called you.” And this wasn’t me failing my duty to his world. I had betrayed him personally. That is what his look says to me. He might have been the prince in his day.
Had there been a time, when I was a girl staying with my family and cousins at the cabin, standing on this dock, when I heard voices in the mist, and ran away because I was afraid?
“Where’s Dad,” Maggie asks. “Is he here?”
I shake my head. I haven’t heard the car return, crunching along the gravel drive. “He’s getting groceries.”
She presses her lips in a line. “Will you tell him I was here? Will you tell him I love him? I love you both. I’m sorry I can’t stay.”
“Maggie.” The word is a sob, filled with desperation.
It’s no comfort that she’s crying too. “There’s still fighting. I have to go.” The thought of her using that sword—a real sword with a sharp edge that draws blood, not a dull flexible rod with a button on the tip that registers hits with a green or red light—makes me ill. The thought of her coming up against such a weapon makes me ill.