CRASH LANDING
CRASH LANDING
GRADY
“Hi, Grady. I think we need to talk,” Abby says.
“Is it really you?” I ask.
She nods, takes a step closer, and I take a step back.
“Yes, it’s really me,” she says, then stares at me waiting for a response I don’t know how to give. I’m not imagining this. Abby is alive and she is here on the island. At least I can be certain of that now, even if nothing else makes sense.
“What the fuck is going on?” I blurt out.
But I don’t sound angry. I sound afraid.
“You don’t look too good, Grady. Do you want to sit down?”
“I thought you were dead .”
“This must feel like a lot.”
“A lot? You disappeared over a year ago. I knew it was you at the pottery yesterday. I don’t understand what is happening.” The words tumble out of my mouth, tripping over themselves. “Why would you trick me like this? Why pretend not to know who I am?”
“Because I don’t know you,” she says, undoing my sanity slowly, like a zip.
“What do you mean?” I stare at her, unsure whether I can believe a word she is saying. “I don’t understand. Do you not remember us? Do you have amnesia?”
“Why don’t you sit down? This must feel like some kind of crash landing—”
“Kitty, your godmother, she’ll know what to do.”
“I think you’re in shock.”
“We should call her. Call Kitty.”
“There are no phones on the island, Grady.”
“Yes, there are. But you’re right, we can’t stay here, we should leave. Call her as soon as we reach the mainland.”
“You can’t leave this island, Grady. They won’t let you.”
“What are you talking about? What is this place? Why are there only women living on the island and what are you doing here? Is it some kind of cult? Have these women brainwashed you? We could go home, pretend like none of this ever—”
“This is my home. Come on, I want to show you something,” she says, walking toward the doors without waiting to see whether I will follow, which I do, but I feel as though I’m in some sort of trance.
The air feels strangely warmer outside and the mist has completely cleared. The night sky is coal-black and it feels close and solid, as though the darkness here is something I can touch. There is a full moon and a thick blanket of stars above us, and everything is still and silent, except for our footsteps. We cross the village green and carry on walking until we reach the pretty thatched cottages with quirky names. Abby stops outside the last one, called Whit’s End, takes out a set of keys, and unlocks the bright red front door. She flicks on the lights and I’m scared of what I might see, but it’s just a cozy-looking cottage. The place is quirky with low ceilings and wooden beams. The front door leads straight into a small sitting room, where there is a fireplace with bookcases on either side, a sofa with a knitted throw, and a sheepskin rug on the floor.
“Nice piano,” I say when I see an old upright in the corner of the room. It’s covered in painted birds and there is a metronome sitting on top of it. I’m surprised because Abby is gifted in many ways, but not musically. She always used to joke that she couldn’t play a triangle.
“Take a seat,” she says, nodding toward the sofa.
“I’d rather stand.”
“Suit yourself. I need a drink, can I get you one?” I shake my head and she raises an eyebrow. “Well, that’s a first.”
She disappears through another door and I decide to perch on the edge of the sofa. I notice the turquoise vase on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. It’s just like all the pottery at Beautiful Ugly and I wonder if Abby made it herself, and whether that part of her story was true. I no longer know what to believe, or think, or feel. She reappears with two glasses of whiskey and puts them on the table.
“In case you change your mind. Gosh, it’s cold in here,” she says, then lights the fire.
I am not cold. I feel as though every part of me is sweating.
“I spent some of my childhood in this house,” Abby says. “Almost sold it a few years ago, but I’m glad we didn’t in the end. I can’t imagine anyone else ever living here, it would feel like letting someone trespass in our history.”
“ Our history?”
“Not ours . I had a life before you, Grady.”
“Apparently you had a life after me too.”
She stares at me and when I look into her blue eyes all I see is a ghost.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Abby says.
“I know that your eyes were brown yesterday and now they are blue—”
She smiles. “They were just contact lenses. I fancied a change. Something different. Something to make you question whether it was really me.”
“I don’t understand—”
“You will.” She finishes her drink and looks serious again. “But first I need to tell you a story about the Children of the Mist.”
“I’ve heard that one. Sandy told me before—”
“Before you left her in Darkside Cave hoping she would drown? None of the islanders thought you would go through with it, but they don’t know you like I do. They don’t know that your books mean more to you than anyone or anything else.”
“That’s not fair. You meant more to me.”
“Some of the islanders didn’t like what we were doing to you. They thought you were a nice guy—including Sandy’s mother, Morag, who I gather was slipping my old newspaper cuttings that Midge liked to collect beneath your door. I needed to show them what you were capable of in order to convince them that what we were going to do to you was fair. Everyone was on board after you left Sandy to drown.” I start to stand. “Sit down, Grady. I told you I have things I need to say.” I do as she asks because it feels as though I don’t have a choice.
“The story Sandy told you was true,” Abby begins, staring into the fire, which has begun to crackle and spit. “Nobody can remember every moment of their own history. Our overburdened minds choose which highlights to hold on to, and which files from our past to delete. But I know the story about the Children of the Mist better than anyone, because I was there that day at Darkside Cave, and what happened to those children was my fault.”