caller.”
“I don’t really drink tea.”
He turned back to me. “Coffee? Cocoa?”
“I don’t—”
“Then come sit by the fire with me.”
When he waved his hand, I saw a doorway I hadn’t seen before. A vibration ran through the music boxes. Ghostly notes murmured, running all the way around the room before stopping. Grey walked away, and the weight melted off me. I didn’t want to be alone in this place.
The lighthouse was like the Tardis: bigger on the inside. It didn’t make sense to have a foyer filled up with music boxes and then a doorway out of nowhere to another round room, but there it was. Warmth poured from it, and it smelled good. Fresh bread and cinnamon. Vanilla.
Neat stacks of dishes glinted from uneven shelves. Brass pots dangled from a rack overhead. On one wall, an old-fashioned stove, black and potbellied, took up the space.
Grey pulled it open with a hook, then threw a couple of sticks of wood inside. He moved like liquid, flowing through the kitchen. His fingers swirled around a dark brown tin. They pooled around a spoon handle.
He was pearly white—not pale pink, not even goth pale. And as weird as that was, what distracted me was his posture. When he stood, he held his shoulders back and his jaw straight. Nobody I knew stood like that. We were all bent over from hauling gear and pulling bloodworms. But even in magazines and movies, nobody stood like that, not that I’d ever seen.
“Two cups or one?” he asked.
“You’re seriously making cocoa?”
From a box along the wall, he lifted a pitcher. Condensation clung to the porcelain. It streamed down the sides when he touched it. Pouring milk into a saucepan, he glanced up at me.
“Am I very serious? I could cheerfully make it, if you like.”
It took me a second to realize he wasn’t joking. Smoothing my hand across the table, I sank into a chair. “How long have you been out here?”
“One hundred years,” he said. He put the pitcher aside and reached for a wooden spoon. “Since 1913.”
It was too precise, that answer. If somebody asked me how long I’d lived in Broken Tooth, I’d have said all my life. Or about seventeen years. Or a while. And he was supposed to be a thing. A creature or something. Maybe a revenant. Fanning my fingers on the table, I said, “Can’t be. My granddad told me about the Grey Lady, and he heard about her from his dad.”
Stirring the milk, Grey raised his eyes to meet mine. They were crazy dark; not brown, no pupils. Almost smudges that went on forever, staring past me, or worse, through me.
“That was my predecessor.” He gestured at his clothes: vest, jacket, tie. “As you can see, I’m hardly a lady.”
My throat tightened. He had rules. Logic. It peeled the soft, curious numbness from me. It hurt, almost, like a skinned knee. I felt too full, trying to make sense out of something that should have been impossible.
Back when the world was flat, sailors fell in love with mermaids. They threw themselves into the water and drowned trying to get to them. But those mermaids were just manatees, fat and fleshy. They looked like finned women at a distance, if you’d been out to sea too long, if you couldn’t remember what a real girl looked like.
Isn’t that what they saw? Manatees? Fantasies? I wasn’t sure anymore.
Grey slid a mug in front of me. Chocolate dust puffed over the rim when he poured the hot milk in. “Stir it quickly, unless you like lumps.”
A little bit of hysterical laughter caught in my throat. This was crazy, sitting down having some hot cocoa with the Grey Man, chatting about his past. Suddenly, my heart raced, running so fast I felt lightheaded. Pushing the chair back, I got to my feet and backed toward the door.
“I musta hit my head.”
Grey put the saucepan aside. “Then rest.”
My body recoiled. All my muscles went tight. My spine felt like glass, and my stomach rebelled at the idea of lying down here. Staying here. The music boxes hummed
“I don’t really drink tea.”
He turned back to me. “Coffee? Cocoa?”
“I don’t—”
“Then come sit by the fire with me.”
When he waved his hand, I saw a doorway I hadn’t seen before. A vibration ran through the music boxes. Ghostly notes murmured, running all the way around the room before stopping. Grey walked away, and the weight melted off me. I didn’t want to be alone in this place.
The lighthouse was like the Tardis: bigger on the inside. It didn’t make sense to have a foyer filled up with music boxes and then a doorway out of nowhere to another round room, but there it was. Warmth poured from it, and it smelled good. Fresh bread and cinnamon. Vanilla.
Neat stacks of dishes glinted from uneven shelves. Brass pots dangled from a rack overhead. On one wall, an old-fashioned stove, black and potbellied, took up the space.
Grey pulled it open with a hook, then threw a couple of sticks of wood inside. He moved like liquid, flowing through the kitchen. His fingers swirled around a dark brown tin. They pooled around a spoon handle.
He was pearly white—not pale pink, not even goth pale. And as weird as that was, what distracted me was his posture. When he stood, he held his shoulders back and his jaw straight. Nobody I knew stood like that. We were all bent over from hauling gear and pulling bloodworms. But even in magazines and movies, nobody stood like that, not that I’d ever seen.
“Two cups or one?” he asked.
“You’re seriously making cocoa?”
From a box along the wall, he lifted a pitcher. Condensation clung to the porcelain. It streamed down the sides when he touched it. Pouring milk into a saucepan, he glanced up at me.
“Am I very serious? I could cheerfully make it, if you like.”
It took me a second to realize he wasn’t joking. Smoothing my hand across the table, I sank into a chair. “How long have you been out here?”
“One hundred years,” he said. He put the pitcher aside and reached for a wooden spoon. “Since 1913.”
It was too precise, that answer. If somebody asked me how long I’d lived in Broken Tooth, I’d have said all my life. Or about seventeen years. Or a while. And he was supposed to be a thing. A creature or something. Maybe a revenant. Fanning my fingers on the table, I said, “Can’t be. My granddad told me about the Grey Lady, and he heard about her from his dad.”
Stirring the milk, Grey raised his eyes to meet mine. They were crazy dark; not brown, no pupils. Almost smudges that went on forever, staring past me, or worse, through me.
“That was my predecessor.” He gestured at his clothes: vest, jacket, tie. “As you can see, I’m hardly a lady.”
My throat tightened. He had rules. Logic. It peeled the soft, curious numbness from me. It hurt, almost, like a skinned knee. I felt too full, trying to make sense out of something that should have been impossible.
Back when the world was flat, sailors fell in love with mermaids. They threw themselves into the water and drowned trying to get to them. But those mermaids were just manatees, fat and fleshy. They looked like finned women at a distance, if you’d been out to sea too long, if you couldn’t remember what a real girl looked like.
Isn’t that what they saw? Manatees? Fantasies? I wasn’t sure anymore.
Grey slid a mug in front of me. Chocolate dust puffed over the rim when he poured the hot milk in. “Stir it quickly, unless you like lumps.”
A little bit of hysterical laughter caught in my throat. This was crazy, sitting down having some hot cocoa with the Grey Man, chatting about his past. Suddenly, my heart raced, running so fast I felt lightheaded. Pushing the chair back, I got to my feet and backed toward the door.
“I musta hit my head.”
Grey put the saucepan aside. “Then rest.”
My body recoiled. All my muscles went tight. My spine felt like glass, and my stomach rebelled at the idea of lying down here. Staying here. The music boxes hummed
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