Fog Magic (3 page)

TWO GIANT boulders stood where the old Post Road left the plateau and began to wind down toward the sea. The road had insisted on squeezing between them when it might just as easily have gone around. Greta had often traced the scorings on their inner surfaces, the straight lines that marked the years of travel. The rocks loomed ahead in the fog. It was exciting to think of dashing between them behind these brisk horses. She gripped the side of the surrey and leaned forward. The woman beside her gave a short laugh and reached for the whip.

“Never fear, child. We'll make it,” she said. “They're the sentinels that guard Blue Cove. None passes but has a right there.” She paused. “But
they
pass safely,” she added.

 

“Have
I
a right there, do you think?” Somehow the question had to be asked. The woman turned to look down squarely into the girl's face.

“You've no cause to worry. You've the look of one that was always welcome there,” she said curtly. Then the horses took all her attention. The boulders were upon them, dark shadows in the mist. The horses lunged through, then settled quietly again to a steadier pace.

Greta knew what this part of the mountain was like in clear weather. To the south of the road there was still unbroken forest—scarred here and there with burned patches, but otherwise dark, mysterious, treacherous, with unexpected chasms. Along the edge of the road to the north a high protective hedge of spruce and alder had been left, cut here and there with entrances. Beyond the hedge lay a clearing that sloped gently toward the sea. And dotting this clearing were cellar holes. Smooth little depressions they were; covered with the quick-springing growth of the pasture. It looked almost as if the homes of the departed inhabitants had sunk quietly into the earth.

Greta had often played in these cellar holes. It was fun to imagine where each house had stood, where the doorways had been, where the single street had led. Sometimes the shape of the depressions gave a clue; often a flat stone marked a doorstep. Once she had dug up a tiny spoon in a cellar hole. A salt spoon it was, with a strange name engraved on the handle. Her father said it was the name of a packet that had gone down off the Islands, years and years ago. The little salt spoon was one of her most treasured possessions, kept carefully hidden under the handkerchiefs in her dresser drawer.

Suddenly the woman pulled the team to a stop. They were opposite one of the entrances to the clearing. “You'd best get out here,” she said abruptly.

Greta climbed quickly over the wheel. In front of her an archway, hung with its curtain of fog, opened into the clearing. But did it lead into the familiar pasture? Or did it lead to something very different? For the first time in all her wandering in the fog she hesitated. She turned back toward the surrey for reassurance. The woman was smiling at her now, kindly, all her grimness gone.

“Go on,” she said gently. “In the second house you'll find Retha Morrill. You two will pull well together.”

She touched the horses with her whip. Greta watched the surrey disappear into the thicker mists below. Then, with a pounding heart, she stepped through the arch of spruces.

Her feet crunched on gravel. She was walking on a neat path. At her right loomed a big barn. Beyond she traced the outlines of a house—small, neat, gray-shingled, —and another, and another. A smell of wood smoke was in the air. Something brushed against her ankle. She looked down. A gray cat, the largest she had ever seen, was looking at her pleasantly.

“You beauty,” Greta said to her and stooped to stroke the long hair. But it was one thing to greet a guest and quite another to be touched. Without loss of dignity, without haste, the gray cat was simply beyond reach. But she was leading the way, her plume of a tail erect. Where the second neat path turned off toward a house the cat looked back to be sure that Greta was following. Suddenly a door banged. Around the side of the house and down the path a little girl came running. She stopped when she saw Greta and gathered the cat into her arms. The two girls stood looking at each other.

“I'm Retha Morrill,” said the Blue Cove child slowly, “and I think that Princess must have brought you.” She smiled and took Greta's hand. “I'm glad you've come. Let's—let's go in to Mother.”

Greta could think of nothing to say. She could only smile back and follow. But she knew, and Retha knew, that as the woman had said, they would pull well together. At the doorway Retha dropped Princess on the wide stone before the steps.

“Please wait here,” she said. “I'll find Mother.” Greta nodded. She still wasn't sure of her voice. She watched Princess curl into a graceful heap on the stone —gray stone, gray fur, gray mist, gray shingles, all softly blending and blurring before her eyes. She knew that stone well. It had strange markings on it. She had often traced them with her finger where it lay in the empty pasture beside her favorite cellar hole.

There was a brisk step inside the house and a tall woman stood in the doorway. “Come in, child, come in,” she began. Then she stopped and looked long at her visitor. And Greta looked up at her. She had never seen such blue eyes in all her life before—nor such seeing eyes. They were eyes that would always see through and beyond—even through the close mist of the fog itself. The woman put out her hand and drew Greta inside before she spoke again. Her voice was a little unsteady but very gentle.

“You are from over the mountain,” she said. “I can tell. And I'd know it even if this were the sunniest day in the year.”

Greta didn't quite know what the words meant but she knew somehow in her heart that she and this strange woman would understand each other without words. In just the flash of a moment they had traveled the longest road in the world—the road that leads from eye to eye.

“I am Laura Morrill,” Retha's mother continued quietly. “Retha shouldn't have left you standing outside—not such a welcome guest. Now turn toward the light and let me look at you. Humph! Yes. You
must
be an Addington. Would your name be Greta, now? Yes?” She laughed. “So I guessed it right the very first time! Well, you have the Addington look and the Addington eyes, and there's always a Greta among the Addingtons! Yes, and there's always a child among the Addingtons that loves the fog it was born to. You're that child, I take it, in your generation.” Her laughing face grew sober and she gave Greta a long, steady look. Then she smiled again quickly and smoothed back Greta's hair with a quick stroke of her hand.

“It's the things you were born to that give you satisfaction in this world, Greta. Leastwise, that's what I think. And maybe the fog's one of them. Not happiness, mind! Satisfaction isn't always happiness by a long sight; then again, it isn't sorrow either. But the rocks and the spruces and the fogs of your own land are things that nourish you. You can always have them, no matter what else you find or what else you lose. Now run along and let Retha show you the village. You two must get acquainted.”

“May I leave my pail here?” Greta asked her. “I picked quite a few berries for Mother, coming over.”

“Of course you may,” Laura Morrill told her. “But that reminds me! You must be hungry. We're through our dinner long since but I'll get you something. I dare say you left home early.”

“I brought a sandwich to eat on the way,” Greta told her. “Only there hasn't been time.”

“Sit right down and eat it here, then. Retha, you fetch a glass of milk and I'll get you a piece of strawberry pie. Retha went berrying early this morning, too, and I made my first wild strawberry pie of the season.”

After Greta had eaten she and Retha went out to explore the village. Its single street followed the curve of the shore line. There were houses on only one side, with patches of gardens behind white fences. Across the road in a narrow stretch of meadow, cows were grazing. Thick spruces hedged the meadow in at the lower side where there was a sharp drop, almost a precipice, to the shore. But the street was high enough so that Greta knew on a clear day you could look from the houses straight out to the open sea.

It was pleasant walking slowly up the street with Retha, but Greta couldn't find anything to say. To ask questions might break the spell. She might find herself back again in the empty clearing. And Retha knew that it would be impolite to question a stranger. They reached the end of the street before either spoke.

“There's our school, and there's our church,” Retha said. She pointed out the little white building across the end of the street next to the neat church with its steeple.

“The shore curves in here, and there's another bay down there where you can find all sorts of things to play with. Our church is nice. Sometime maybe you'll be here on a Sunday so you can see it inside. There isn't any burying ground,” she added. “It's all rock here and we can't have our own. When folks die they have to go over the mountain to be buried. Now let's go back to the Post Road and I'll show you the shore and the wharf and the fish houses and the stores.”

In one of the door yards two very small children were playing. As they came near Greta saw that there was a man seated on the ground, his back against the fence. One child tripped and sat down heavily, jolting out an indignant wail. The man reached out a long arm. He set the small thing on its feet again as you would set a ninepin, and gave it a comforting pat. The wail died suddenly and the man slumped back. Greta laughed.

“He must like children,” she said, “or they must like him. Why, he didn't even have to speak to that one.”

“Sss-h,” Retha warned her. “He can't speak, but we —we don't quite know—for sure—whether he can hear.”

Whether he heard or only felt their approaching footsteps, the man turned suddenly and looked up at them between the pickets. A lean, dark, strange, and foreign face. The eyes were piercing, searching. Greta found she was standing quite still, giving this strange man a chance to look at her. Retha didn't seem to think it unusual. She was smiling at him and saying slowly,

“Anthony, this is my friend Greta Addington. She's from over the mountain.” Then she pulled Greta gently away. The man turned to watch until they faded into the fog.

“But, Retha, you said he couldn't
hear,
and then you
spoke
to him. And he looks almost—almost savage. And still he was minding those babies.”

“I said we don't
know
whether he hears or not. Or whether he could speak if he wanted to. But he's not savage. He only looks that way when he sees a stranger. I guess it's because he's always trying to find someone —someone he knows, I mean. But, Greta, did you see his—his legs?”

“I didn't see anything but his eyes. And anyhow, he was almost hidden in that clump of monkshood. What about his legs?”

“He—he hasn't any,” Retha said quietly.

“Hasn't any
legs?”
Greta could only stare in horror.

“They are gone just above his knees, so all he can do is crawl, and mind babies. But no matter how fierce he looks, they understand him. And he's always gentle.”

“But what happened?”

Retha hesitated a moment. “We don't talk about him much. I'd like to ask Mother first if I should tell you. Let's go down to the wharf now.” And Greta had to be content.

When they reached the Post Road, Retha pointed toward the shore. “See! The fog's lifting a little. You can see the end of the wharf from here and you couldn't see anything an hour ago. Come on.”

Greta stood still. She couldn't explain it even to herself, but suddenly she knew how Cinderella felt when the first stroke of midnight began to sound.

“I think there isn't time to go down today, Retha,” she said. “But I'd like to go next time I come. I must go home now. It'll be late when I get over the mountain.”

“Your berries! You left your pail at our house,” Retha reminded her.

They ran back to the house. In the doorway Mrs. Morrill stood holding the pail.

“The fog's lifting,” she said quietly and held out the pail. “I put a piece of strawberry pie on top of your berries, but I don't think it'll crush them any. And come again, child. We'd like to see you often; that is, if your mother doesn't worry. You're like a visitor from another world.” Then she added as an afterthought, “Coming as you do from over the mountain.”

Greta thanked her and took the pail. Retha went as far as the Post Road with her. They said good-by hurriedly. Greta left without daring to turn back and wave.

It was almost clear when she reached home, but late. Her mother greeted her with relief. Father had finished milking and sat reading the paper. Greta's conscience hurt her. She hadn't once thought of the mail and someone else had gone to the post office. She held out the pail to her mother.

“There's a surprise in it, Mother,” she said. Gertrude opened the pail.

“I
am
surprised,” she said. “I never dreamed you'd find so many. It's early yet tor strawberries.”

Greta stood very still. Then she stepped over and looked into the pail. There were the berries she had picked.
But there was nothing else in the pail!

Suddenly she wanted to cry, but her father was looking at her over the top of his paper. He was smiling at her just with his eyes, but he looked as if he understood.

“Fog thick at Blue Cove today?” he asked.

“Heavens, child, have you been way over there?” asked her mother.

How did Father know she had been to Blue Cove? Greta no longer wanted to cry. She could look back at Father and almost smile.