Six

Miss Alayna dreamed. No breeze rumpled Fen Bay’s surface, its waters forming a mirror. “You promised to make all my dreams come true,” she said to the image in its surface. One black eye and one clouded eye stared back at her.

It was late afternoon by the time they returned home. Pa hauled Winnie up by her armpits and tossed her over his shoulders, then spun in a circle, sending her into a fit of shrieking giggles. Eliza watched from where she sat on her sleeping cot, a forced smile pasted to her mouth. She couldn’t stop hearing what Pa had said: You have no idea what I would do to find where she went.

Had Pa been lying earlier when he’d said he hadn’t bargained? Had he become so desperate to find Ma that he’d asked Dire for help? She’d been gone for four years. What if he’d bargained away Winnie’s life for a chance to get Ma back?

Worse, how could Eliza believe this of him? He might not be perfect, but he was still her pa. Suspicion and confusion simmering inside her, she unbuttoned her coat and lay it on the bed beside her.

Pa set Winnie down, who stumbled with dizziness before plopping on the floor. He said, “I’m going to the shed.” He ruffled Winnie’s hair, and then disappeared out the Jester’s back door.

This was Eliza’s chance, when she was too upset about what he might have done to Winnie to second-guess the consequences of confronting him.

“Stay inside,” she murmured to Winnie.

“Well I was planning on visiting the moon,” Winnie muttered.

Eliza followed Pa out back. There, partly hidden by a tall row of pines, stood Ma’s shed. Its tin roof sloped at a sharp angle, out of place among the Cape-style homes and their carefully shingled roofs.

She opened the door and was hit by the sharp scent of wood. Of herbs. Of medicine. Of the items that went into creating the sleeping draught that had become more important than his family. Pa’s sadness lived here.

Eliza’s own sadness was wispy. She often tried to grasp hold of it but could never quite dig her fingers in tight enough. Standing beside the bookshelves that lined the wall, she fingered the spines of the books as she waited for Pa to appear from the back of the two-room shed. Secrets of Herbs stood beside Medicinal Properties of Dreaming-Plants, which was propped against Herbs for the Tea Connoisseur and rested near One Hundred Myths of Magic and A Short History of Cape Fen.

Pa had gifted each of these to Ma. In fact, he’d built the entire shed for her right after their wedding. Once, this had been Ma’s special place, though she’d always invited Eliza and Winnie inside while she made sleeping draughts and tonics for the people of Fen. Now that she was gone, Pa carried on her work, though it had taken him over in a way it’d never taken over Ma.

His clomping steps drew near, echoing from the back as he made his way through the workspace. He stood to the side of a barrel, maneuvering cans of some liquid or another. Leaning close, his nose flared as he smelled the contents.

Questions crowded her thoughts: the sleeping draughts he worked on, Winnie, bargains, Dire, Ma.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready to go with your Aunt Zilpha?” Pa said without looking up.

She started. The questions in her mind strewed about as if they were leaves blown away by a sharp, unexpected wind. “Go with her where?” Zilpha was the only Parlett sibling of Ma’s that Pa came close to trusting, if only for the fact that when she was young, she’d moved off the Parlett lands—same as Ma—and had never returned.

“She called early this morning. She’s taking you with her to work this afternoon—she should be here soon. I told you before we headed out.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I’m sure I did.”

“No! I was planning on taking Winnie to the library this afternoon.”

“Well, I told someone that Zilpha called.”

“Winnie? Did you tell Winnie?”

He finally looked up from the pieces of grain he’d counted out in his palm. “I thought I told you.”

Pa couldn’t tell the difference between his daughters. Or didn’t care who was who. Or was too distracted to know. Or was oblivious to the goings on around him. Or…

One, two, three. She held her breath as anxiety slid through her.

Four, five, six. Her lungs strained. Calm spread through her, and—

“Stop!” Pa slammed his grain-filled palm against the side of a barrel.

Eliza’s eyes widened. Her body froze. She didn’t exhale.

Pa pointed at her. “Eliza Tynne Serling, don’t you dare do that.”

Tears trembled onto her eyelashes. Her middle name echoed inside the shed not once or twice, but three times. She knew without thinking that it was the first time in almost four years that Pa had said Ma’s name, and now, he’d said her name in irritation toward Eliza.

“Eliza.” Worry crumpled the crow’s feet at the edges of Pa’s eyes, but it was too late. Her tears had already begun. “It’s a strange habit, Eliza. Holding your breath is—well, it’s strange. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Eliza finally breathed, a small slip of air through her nose, noiseless so Pa wouldn’t hear. Ma’d been the one to teach her to hold her breath when scared, when worried, when needing calm, and Pa hated that she still kept the habit.

Eliza thrummed with embarrassment. “I’ll get ready for Zilpha,” she said. Then she bolted, running into the Jester to the sight of Winnie standing on her tiptoes to reach the ringing telephone.

“Hello? Oh. Hi, Mr. Filemon’s pa. Okay, bye.” Winnie dropped the receiver to dangle at the end of the cord. “He’s talking to some man,” she said to Eliza and scrambled beneath one of the Jester’s round tables with her wooden owl.

Eliza hung up the phone for her short sister and crouched beside Winnie.

Winnie stuck her head out from under a chair. “You look bad.”

“Gee, thanks, Win.” Eliza scrubbed at her face, trying to erase any tear tracks that might exist. “Zilpha’s coming to pick me up. I’m supposed to clean houses with her today.”

“Pa told me she was coming. I want to go too.”

“Whenever you try and help us clean, you double the work I have to do because you fog up the windows and draw shapes in them.” Eliza ran trembling fingers over Winnie’s hair. The love she felt for Win expanded inside her. She swallowed back her feelings and said, “Stay here and play with your owl. Read to it. Have fun. Promise me you’ll stay inside. You can’t go out at night, not with the Wolf around. Promise you won’t.”

“I’m not scared of the Wolf.”

I’m scared for you, she thought, though out loud, she said, “Don’t go anywhere.”

Eliza kissed Winnie on the forehead, then grabbed her coat and headed into the day where the sun hung low in the sky; the First Frost gathering had run long this year. She stood in the middle of Old Queen Mae with her hands stuffed into her pockets and her chin tucked into the popped collar of her wool coat.

The cough and rumble of an engine rattled down Old Queen Mae Street. Zilpha’s motorcar blasted through the middle of the road just a hair too fast, and when Zilpha slammed on the brakes, the tail of the vehicle weaved back and forth. Eliza jumped out of the way just in time—the back tires slipped and the motorcar slid straight over the point where she’d stood.

“You almost just killed me!” Eliza shouted, heart thumping too hard, as if it wanted to shake loose from her body and go somewhere Zilpha couldn’t run over it. “You almost just killed me, and I can’t go dying, Zilpha. There’s too much to do—keeping Win safe and making sure Pa doesn’t forget to eat and surviving winter and…and…and besides, I can’t remember the last time I dusted the Jester!” she said, thinking of her mother’s stained-glass lamp and the sheen of dust that covered its innards.

“Dusting?” Zilpha Parlett raised her eyebrows. She hung her head out over the driver’s side door, wisps of black hair jutting out from her scalp in every direction. “You in a mood today? Cause that was quite an earful you just gave me.”

“You almost ran me over.”

“Then thank goodness you have such fast reflexes!” Zilpha thumped the side of her car. Her leather driving gloves were covered in a thin film of dirt kicked up by gravel roads. “Are you planning on getting in, or are we going to sit here in the cold? Because if we wait much longer, the motor will stall and you’ll have to turn the crank.”

“I’m not strong enough,” Eliza said, eyeing the place where a hand crank fitted to the front of the car made the engine turn. It was true she couldn’t pull the handle hard enough to start the car, but it was even more true that she didn’t want to die—she’d read in the newspaper that over on the continent, a car had backfired, causing the crank to whack a man right in the head, killing him.

Eliza climbed in the passenger side, boosting herself up onto the seat. She shifted around a bit, avoiding the place on the right side where a metal spring had popped loose and poked against the fabric of the bench. Zilpha slammed one bare foot into the gas pedal. She never wore shoes. Not even in winter. The tires squealed, and they skidded into motion.

Zilpha shouted over the roar of the engine, “Got keys in the glove box to a place I think you’ll find interesting.”

“What house is it?”

“It’s a surprise. I think you’ll like it.”

They flew west on Old Queen Mae, heading through town. They passed by the Hardwicks’ store and the schoolhouse and came up on the place where the road passed by the park and bell tower. A lone man sat hunched in the center of the tower. They drove past, and when he looked up, Eliza saw it was Mr. Chess. Five years ago, Mr. Chess had disappeared, and twelve months later he’d returned, walking across Fen Bay’s beach the day after the First Frost gathering. He couldn’t remember a single thing about the vanished year of his life. Sheriff Olavi had looked into the disappearance, but from what Eliza remembered, nothing was ever discovered. Yet another strange happening on Fen.

Zilpha increased her speed. A glass panel blocked the wind at the front of the motorcar, but no wraparound closed in the rest of the vehicle, which meant that the cold whipped around them. Zilpha stuck her arm out the driver’s side door, cupped one hand, and let it take the flight of a bird in the wind. Eliza tucked her hands inside her coat and hunched down to stay warm, the air cutting straight through her skin.

After about ten minutes of driving, the road split. Old Queen Mae continued west and crossed over the bridge that connected the Cape to the continent, and beneath it ran a small channel that ships sailed through. The left fork of the road turned into Highway 24 which curved back east along the southern coast of the Cape. This road was what vacationers called a “scenic highway,” running thirty miles all the way from the Cape’s shoulder to its bent elbow and up to the very tip of the peninsula. Zilpha drove toward the split, drawing near to the place over which Fenians couldn’t cross. Mainlanders thought Fenians odd, that they didn’t leave because they chose it, when the truth was much worse; this was as close to the mainland as Fenians could get, and even this nearness to the bridge became painful.

Eliza braced herself. The first wave came in a pinching of her lungs. The second in a narrowing of her vision. The third in a fuzz at the back of her skull. The world smelled of the lightning storm three years ago, when bolts struck Fen, setting sections of town ablaze.

They didn’t cross the bridge. Zilpha clutched the wheel and pressed harder on the gas pedal. They flew, taking the left turn that led them back east along the highway. Pain zipped through Eliza, and her chin fell to her chest. This wasn’t like holding her breath—she was good at that. This was like having the breath sucked from her, stolen from her.

Little by little, the farther Zilpha drove from the bridge, Eliza’s thoughts flooded back.

“We couldn’t have taken the back roads?” she said when she felt able to speak without gasping.

“This way’s shorter, and I like driving the pavement better than the gravel.”

“The other way doesn’t want me dead,” Eliza said, grumpiness making her tongue sharp.

“You’re just like your mother. She always complained about this route as well. It’s never bothered me to be reminded of exactly how trapped we are.”

Eliza’s toes curled inside her shoes and fingers curled into fists, and she turned away from Zilpha to look out the window.

“You are like her, you know. I miss her too,” Zilpha said. “It’s all right if you miss her. Sometimes, I wonder if we might see her again.”

Eliza squashed flat the dream of seeing her mother again and said, “Never.” She already knew the answer to the question of when Ma might return.

The flat, rich earth, deep woods, and rock-strewn beaches of lower Fen gave way to rolling hills, sharp cliffs, and blue-pebbled beaches of upper Fen—a place people liked to call Rio. Mansions rose out of the late afternoon gloom, lining up close to one another and overlooking the rough ocean. During the winter, Rio was a ghost town, just like the old mining towns in Colorado Eliza had read about but would never have the chance to visit.

During summer, Zilpha ran a taxi service for the rich people who needed to be driven around on their vacations, but in winter, she cleaned the empty mansions of Rio while their owners were away. Often, she asked Eliza to help, paying her five whole pennies for an hour’s work.

They drove through Rio, heading toward the easternmost edge of the Cape where surf spray clouded the sky. Here, they didn’t face Fen Bay, but rather faced the wide-open ocean that stretched to the east. Eliza sat up in her seat, ignoring the broken spring in the cushion even though it poked against the back of her leg.

At last, Zilpha brought them to a stop.

“Oh,” Eliza said. “Here? We’re cleaning here?”

“Lighthouses need cleaning too.” Zilpha parked the motorcar and peeled off her driving gloves, exchanging them for a key stashed in the glove box.

Eliza got out and gazed up. The white-and-red-striped structure came to a point at the top, and there, a cone of clear-paned glass glistened. Since the lighthouse had been abandoned years before, no keeper currently lived in it.

“Stop gawping and get your gear.” Zilpha swung out of the motorcar and reached into the back seat to pull out a case of cleaning supplies.

Eliza reached into the back too and carried out a second, smaller set. She held the case by its handle and clenched her hand tight, trying to still the nervous jitters that ticked through her fingers.

“You coming or no?” Zilpha already had one foot in the front door of the small home that was connected to the lighthouse. Her pants were rolled up past her calves, revealing her bare feet that disappeared inside in the next moment.

“But this is—”

The front door slammed behind Zilpha.

“Baron Dire’s lighthouse,” Eliza finished.