Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Ipark on the main street in Killick Bay and look around.
The town is right on the water and has the stereotypical East Coast colourful shiplap buildings that I’ve come to love.
It’s cute. Similar to Pleasant Cove, but definitely smaller.
And fishier. There are people set up outside their shops, selling all different kinds of fish, clams, and oysters that were caught this morning, based on the signs they’re displaying.
I don’t really know where I’m going, but I get out and walk around, trying to find anything that might stand out to me.
I spot the general store Dylan and I went into not long ago, noticing it looks different with fresh paint and newer windows. What the fuck? I walk inside and pick up a local newspaper.
Okay, this is getting really freaky.
I turn around to leave and am stopped by an older woman in her seventies.
There’s something familiar about her face, but I can’t quite pinpoint it.
I go to sneak past her, and she stops me, a wild twinkle in her faded blue eyes.
Her hair is long and wavy, and she’s wearing wire-rim glasses, circular frames that magnify her eyes and make them almost appear bug-like.
She holds out her tie-dyed cane and stops me.
“Can I help you?” I ask, trying to sound polite, even though I’m sure my hint of annoyance came through. I’m really not in the mood to talk to anyone right now.
“Lucy,” she says softly. I look into her eyes. How does she know my name? “I’ve been waiting for you.” She smiles, showing crooked teeth, with eyes that appear friendly.
“H-how do you know my name?” I put the newspaper back down on the stand and follow her as she motions for me to come outside.
Once we’re out of the store, standing on the cobblestone streets of downtown Killick Bay, surrounded by tourists, fishermen, and red, blue, and yellow buildings, she tilts her head to the side and looks me up and down inquisitively.
“Let me just get a good look at you,” she responds, ignoring my question altogether.
“How do you know who I am?” I ask again, feeling a little spooked.
“Come, sit.” She walks over to a bench outside the post office.
It’s an old wooden bench that faces the street, with two planters filled with orange and yellow mums in preparation for fall on either side.
She sits down and pats the spot next to her with a wrinkled hand.
It’s covered in silver and metallic rings, and the bangles on her wrists clink into each other as her hand moves.
I hesitate at first, then take a deep breath and sit down beside her, turning to face her old frame. “Okay.”
She leans her cane against the side of the bench. “Iris,” she starts off saying, pointing a bony finger at her chest. “Iris Fable.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Iris,” I say as quickly as I can, hoping to move past the introductions and get to the part where she tells me how she knows me.
“Lucy,” she says then pauses. I’m getting more impatient by the minute with this woman. She waves her hands in the air before getting distracted as a fisherman walks by carrying a cooler filled with fresh-caught fish. “Hmm, probably mackerel.”
“Yes, Iris,” I say again, biting the insides of my cheeks to stop from screaming.
She turns back toward me and places her hands in her lap. “We’ve met.”
“So you’ve said. How? I don’t live here.
Have I served you at Pleasant Coffee?” It’s the only place I can think of where we’d have run into each other.
She certainly stands out, though, in her striking flowy top and flowered skirt with the colourful cane.
I feel like I would remember her if I saw her.
There is something familiar about her, though.
The faded blue, almost grey colour of her eyes.
Like I’ve looked in them before. Recently.
“Ah, it was a long time ago, my dear,” she says, staring off into the sky. “In this town too.”
“That’s impossible. I moved to Nova Scotia a couple of months ago. I’ve never been here before.”
“Hmm, think about what you just said. Is that true?” She gives me a starry look as she waits patiently for me to answer her.
“I was here earlier today, if that’s what you mean?”
Her eyes pop in her glasses, and a small smile forms on her face.
“Now you’re thinking. Only was that today, or was that, hmmm, what is it now…
” She pauses to count on her thin fingers.
“Ten, twenty, thirty, thirty-two years ago, you were first in this town.” She’s beaming now, and I think I might throw up. I can’t handle any more of this.
“Not you too,” I groan, resting my head in my hands and trying to take some more deep, calming breaths.
I could be a yoga teacher with all the deep breathing I’ve done so far today.
“If I pull out my phone right now, it’s going to say 2025.
I don’t know how many times I need to say this.
The fact that we’re arguing over the year doesn’t even feel real to me. ”
“It is 2025,” she responds, and I instantly feel lighter. “But when you were here last, it was 1993.” And now the heaviness is back.
“Iris,” I start. “It’s really nice to meet you, but I don’t have time for this. I thought coming here would make things clearer for me, but everything is a foggy, confusing mess. I’m going to go.” I rise up to walk away.
“Did the change in weather not tip you off?” Suddenly, I’m seated once more and facing her.
I had noticed that. Each time I visited.
Her mouth curls to one side in the smallest of smiles.
She knows she has me. “Did you notice how every time you went inside the lighthouse, the weather felt different? That was the tipping point for me.” She stares off for a moment, playing with a rather thick silver band on her thumb.
“I did find it odd,” I mutter to myself. “He was always preparing for a storm or talking about how I didn’t know how to dress for the weather. But it was usually sunny on those days when I went over.”
“Mhm,” she hums.
“Say for a minute you’re right. Are you telling me that when I go inside the lighthouse, I’m going back in time?” I laugh nervously as those words come out of my mouth. Anyone listening in on this conversation would think we’re nuts right now.
She looks up at me with wide eyes and nods her head slightly.
“B-but we went outside. We both came outside.”
“What door did you go out, dear? Not the red one, I presume.”
She’s right. We used the back cream-coloured door behind the stairs. I’ve only entered and exited by myself from the red door in the entry room. “So are you saying the red door is some kind of, like, portal or something?”
“Something like that,” she muses softly.
I think back to the notebook, the flower, and the piece of paper he gave me with his number. How none of those objects made it to their destinations. “Is that why I keep losing certain things that I bring in or out of the lighthouse?”
Her eyes light up, and she nods. “Any objects brought with the intention of changing time or gifting to someone are rejected, it seems. Anything you bring that is trying to cross a line between the two times is not allowed or won’t work.”
“Why?”
“Well, you can’t change the past, my dear,” she says with a defeated look in her eyes.
“How do you know all of this, Iris?” I find myself reaching for her hand that anxiously plays with the chunky silver band.
“I discovered the portal a long time ago. Back in my twenties,” she says.
“I was out exploring around the area, and there was a bolt of lightning that came out of the cloudless sky. A bolt from the blue, I’ve learned the phenomenon is called.
I watched as lightning cracked down all around me—even on top of the lighthouse.
I ran inside to duck for cover, and that’s when I met him.
” She stares out in front of her again, eyes filling with water.
Blinking them back, she continues. “His name was Grant. Grant MacDonald. We fell deeply in love. Once we both figured out what was happening, I would go back and forth from his time to mine. We had a beautiful relationship.”
“I saw that same thing! The lightning bolt from the blue sky. It also hit the lighthouse, then I went inside. Just like you.”
“My guess is that’s how the portal opens. Do you feel a mild shock every time you enter?”
“Yes! I thought that was because the metal was old or something.”
“Nope.”
“Why didn’t he come into your time?” I ask, leaning in toward her.
“Ah, it doesn’t work that way, dear. The portal lets you go back and forth, but the person from the past can only go one way. If he were to come out through that red door with me, I don’t think he would have been able to go back.”
“How do you know?”
She chuckles softly. “Oh, we made a few attempts at the start. But the one thing he noticed whenever he tried to open the door with me was something he described as a ‘magnetic pressure.’ A severe tingling sensation throughout his whole body. He tried to push past it one time, as we were trying to enter the present, but he started to feel like he was getting pulled away—like he knew he couldn’t come back.
” She wipes a lone tear that has fallen.
“Sorry, it’s been so many years, but it feels like yesterday to talk about it.
” She sniffles and then continues. “We never tried again after that day.”
“Why didn’t he want to leave his time and come with you? Were you not in love?”
“Oh, we were madly in love. But he couldn’t leave the past.” She plays with the ring once more.
“He had a daughter. Milly was her name. Beautiful girl. She was ten. He had separated from his wife when she was eight, and she stayed with him every other week. He couldn’t leave her. And I couldn’t ask him to.”
“I see.” I stroke her back affectionately, the heartbreak still painted across her face even after all the time that has passed.
“Eventually, it just became too hard. I didn’t belong in the past. I had my own responsibilities here.
We said our goodbyes one day, and I never saw him again.
I couldn’t leave, though. I always stayed close.
I learned he died back when he turned forty-five, so there was never a chance I would even see him in my time.
His daughter moved to the West Coast. That’s all I know.
” Tears are falling down her frail face.
She wipes them away and then pulls out a fabric handkerchief from her skirt pocket and very loudly blows her nose.
“Thank you for telling me all of this, Iris.” None of this feels real. But everything is starting to make sense. Why my phone wouldn’t work. Why he thought my outfits were odd. No Wi-Fi— “How did you and I meet?” I ask her.
“Well, you saw me earlier today.” She smiles. “I would have been in my forties, and we crossed paths in town. You had quite the fall, if I remember correctly; I hope you’re alright. We see each other a few more times as well.” Her face widens into a full-on grin.
“So I go back?” I ask, already knowing I will.
“We’ll see.”
Dylan. Dylan Hart. “But Dylan,” I start, panic rising once more in my chest. “He’s the lighthouse keeper who disappears. Who dies.”
“He is,” is all she says somberly.
“But that’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair, dear.” She rises to stand. “But you get to make a choice here. You either keep going and see why that lighthouse chose you. Or you walk away now and never go back. There’s no wrong choice. I understand both sides. Sometimes I wish I had chosen the latter,” she says wistfully.
“I still have so many more questions, Iris,” I plead with her. But she’s already up and walking away.
“My dear, I’ve told you all I can tell you. The rest is up to you now.”