Chapter Sixty-Two

A Child of the Bay

I walked to the lighthouse, my footing illuminated by the pallor of the night sky. I walked upon a dense layer of shit dumped by the thousands of cormorants who once flew over this rocky beach. The Winnow Island Light was in sorry shape, indeed, and looked like it might crash to the ground within the year. The tower was listing most unnaturally to the left and from up close I could see that more than half of the roof tiles had long ago blown away. I could only imagine the stench of guano and decay from inside.

“Hello?” I beckoned from the cracked concrete of the front porch. The heavy oak door that once barred entrance to the uninvited now was fragmented and held by no more than a hinge. I peered through the cracks in the door but saw only darkness. Fortunately I was upwind and could smell only the mineral scent of the water and the muted stink of ancient beach guano. Gone, perhaps forever, was the scent of rose that had initially drawn me here.

The sound of footsteps echoed from within the doomed structure. Several seconds later, a child wriggled her way past the small separation of door from jamb. She was a small, tow-headed girl of no more than eight years.

“Is she gone?” the girl asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

She placed her hands on her hips and scanned the beach. Her pose was quite mature, and I supposed she had seen her mother do this long ago. She looked scared and malnourished. She wore a stained dress that at one time may have been yellow. The cloth was too thin to offer protection against the harsh weather. She looked like a child who had learned the hard way that tears do not help in forsaken places. Her presence here confirmed my suspicion that Evenfall knew how to find the children of the bay.

“Do you know how you got here?” I asked.

She looked at me distrustfully through squinted eyes and pursed lips. She must have seen something in my face she had not seen in a very long time. She released the tension from her face and shook her head sadly.

“I’m going to help you find your way home,” I told her.

We walked away from the tower that at one time, in a different world, had been a beacon of light to those passengers who braved the treacherous waters at the eastern mouth of the Door of Death. I turned back to look at the haunted tower. Written upon its dark basement walls was a series of runes. I could sense the jagged lines clawed into the stone foundation like fingernails into wood. This was a dark Pillar.

I wondered if Evenfall knew this.

I also wondered if I could simply light the tower on fire and be done with it. I’d be two for two in the Pillar game. A few moments of introspection revealed attempting an act of stupidity here would be far too dangerous. I dared not awaken a sleeping giant without the full potency of the sun’s path of fire. I was unarmed and overpowered.

I led the little girl to the waterline, letting the crashing swells serve as our auditory guide. The moonlit path was completely gone. So, too, were the myriad other paths Evenfall created. She was gone as well.

I asked the child her name, but she had forgotten it long ago. I told her mine and for some reason that made her smile. I took her hand and told her a story.

I told her about a magical potion made from succulent purple grapes, which were harvested during autumnal sunsets. The juice, I told her, was fermented in magical oak barrels that came from the same place as the purple grapes. The island where they grew stood at the Center of all things, I explained, and the special potion was only bottled after it reached the height of its magical powers. Those who drank this potion, which was called port, stayed connected to Center Island for many hours, even those who didn’t wish to stay connected. This part of the story made her laugh, and I wondered if she knew I was talking about Evenfall.

Isabel had given me three gifts when she sent me away from Center Island. The bottle of port, she promised, would find me in an hour of need and would fill me with more than warmth. Indeed it had.

The aged vintage was infused with the eternal fire that lights the Center of all things. I misled Evenfall into believing the wine had come from a local store. Now she wandered a remote byway, the navigation of which required megalomania and malignancy of spirit. I wondered how quickly she would go adrift once the fruit of Center Island caused her to lose her bearings. I joined the child in laughter.

I searched for the Center or for some feeble remnant of the sun’s dying embers but could see nothing. The path of fire did not reach as far as the Nizad. The child, as children can with uncanny insight, pointed out my mistake.

The magical potion, she informed me matter-of-factly, would work from within but not without. I had simply to search inside myself for the way home. This I did and there it was.

I could now sense the fires cast by the sun over the majestic bluffs of Center Island. I continued to hold the little girl’s hand as I led her away from the Door of Death and toward the place where Isaac and Isabel awaited her arrival.

As we crossed the path, the dark water became jade and we returned to the sun, to the green shores of the Center.