Ethan Greywater's Arc

Chapter 20 of 20

Margaret led now. The compass sat in her palm, and the needle held a steady pull into the gray. Ethan walked at her side. The mist no longer passed through her arm. But he did not know where the needle sent them. The keeper had turned back toward the door long ago. No one here could tell Ethan what waited at the end of Margaret's path. He only knew it was not his. "Do you feel where it takes us?" Ethan asked. "A little," Margaret said. "Like a room I half remember." She slowed. "But I'm afraid of it, Ethan. I don't know what's there." A light flickered ahead. Not the compass. A woman stood in the fog, dark hair lifting around her, faint blue sparks running along her dress. Ethan knew her face. She had drifted the halls of the haunt for as long as he had, another spirit who could never leave. They had passed each other a hundred times and rarely spoken. Seeing her here, beyond the sealed door, stopped him cold. "Elara," he said. "You crossed too." "I slipped through before the door shut." Her voice was low. She looked at the compass in Margaret's hand. "I know that pull. I followed mine here years back." "Then you know where it ends," Ethan said. "Tell us. No one else would." Elara stepped closer to Margaret. "May I?" she asked, and held out her hand. Margaret hesitated, then drew a small locket from the folds of her glow. Its silver was dull and scratched. Inside sat a timeworn portrait of a young woman with pinned hair. "I've carried this since the door," Margaret said. "I don't remember who gave it to me." Elara took the locket and held it toward the needle. The compass turned, then settled, aimed straight at the portrait. "Your path doesn't end in a place," Elara said. "It ends with her. Someone who waits for you, the way you once waited for him." She nodded at Ethan. Margaret stared at the small painted face. Her breath caught. "My mother," she whispered. "She died when I was a girl. I thought I'd lost her name." "She's at the end of your road," Elara said. "The compass has pointed to her the whole way." She pressed the locket back into Margaret's hand. "I can't walk it for you. But now you know what you're walking toward." Margaret closed her fingers around the locket and the compass together. The fear left her face. She lifted her head and the needle steadied again, sure now. "Come," she said to Ethan, and her voice no longer traveled from far off. "I know who's waiting." Elara stayed behind in the mist. Ethan walked on beside his wife. For the first time since the door, Margaret did not lead in blind dread. She led toward a face she had just remembered.