Ethan Greywater's Arc

Chapter 18 of 19

Nothing stood between them now. But nothing lay ahead of them either. Ethan and Margaret held hands at a threshold that opened onto nowhere. The sealed door glowed behind them, dark glass now, useless. In front of them stretched gray mist with no road, no light, no sign of where the dead were meant to go. Margaret pressed close. "We crossed over," she said. "So where is over?" Ethan turned in a slow circle. Mist swallowed every direction. He had spent so long fighting to reach this place that he never pictured it. He had no map. He had no plan. For the first time, the quiet frightened him more than the haunt ever had. Then a small light swung in the fog. It grew, bobbing, until a figure shuffled out of the gray. He was old and short, wrapped in a blue hooded robe stitched with faded gold. One hand carried a lantern that threw warm light across his white beard. He wore sandals. He looked at the two of them and sighed like a man who had done this a thousand times. "Lost already," he said. "They always are, the ones who fight hardest to get here." Ethan stepped in front of Margaret. "Who are you?" "A keeper of the way. I meet the ones who make it through." The old man lifted his lantern toward Ethan's chest. "You carry something. You've carried it since before you crossed. Show me." Ethan reached into his coat. His fingers closed on cold metal, round and heavy. He drew out a dark compass. Tiny green shapes drifted across its face like smoke. The needle spun, then steadied. It pointed into the mist, away from the door. "I never put this here," Ethan said. "No," the keeper said. "The dead don't carry it in. It finds the ones ready to move on." He pointed at the needle. "That doesn't point north. It points where you still need to go." Margaret leaned over the compass. The green shapes shifted toward her when she touched Ethan's arm. "Where does it lead?" "I can't tell you," the keeper said. "I only light the first few steps." He raised the lantern. The mist thinned ahead, showing a faint path through the gray. "The compass does the rest. Follow it, or stand here forever. That's the only choice this side offers." Ethan looked at the needle. It held firm, pulling toward the thinned path. He looked at Margaret. She nodded. "Together," she said. Ethan closed his hand around the compass. He stepped off the threshold and onto the path. Margaret walked beside him. The keeper fell behind, his lantern growing small. The mist closed over the sealed door until Ethan could not see it anymore. For the first time since he died, he was moving forward, and the way ahead had a shape at last.