The bridge was in much better condition than the roads—surprising in no-man’s-land like Korena. I pulled on the empty stretch and tried to beat the storm as the winds buffeted. I flew down the lane, the guardrails blurring to the sides, but never passed another soul. The sea to the east was murky, but waves rose and thrashed the road from the ocean side, threatening to flood the pavement. The setting sun blazed pink and orange beside the raging storm, a strange mix of darkness and light over the ocean. Holly watched the blur of rain over the water, glancing back and forth from the road to see if we would make it in time.
From a green speck on the horizon, the island of Ibys rose up. The mountain towered over the water like a titan’s crown as the first sprinkles hit the windshield. My heart ached at the sight.
I squinted through the shower before it whited out the scene. Try as I might, the distance and rain hid what I was looking for in the verdant mountainside.
The town of Two-Seas spread along the coast as we neared, snuggled into what little land there was in the southern foothills. Weatherbeaten warehouses and a mangled pier on the ocean side battened down for the coming deluge. Colorful if bedraggled houses and the few businesses the town could support lined the east, pressed against the beach.
I didn’t recognize any of it.
The rain poured as I turned off the bridge and into town. I coasted along the shore-side drag, but couldn’t get my bearings. Two-Seas was as haggard as I remembered, but I couldn’t get the lay of the town I’d spent most of my childhood roaming.
It might as well have been in the middle of the night as dark as the storm made it. Within minutes I could hardly make out the buildings we passed, let alone remember my way back after a decade away. Nothing was familiar.
Holly tugged my arm. She pointed to a figure strolling by, ambivalent to the howling wind and rain. They held an umbrella that couldn’t have made much of a difference. I hadn’t realized I stopped before they tapped their cane on my window.
“You look lost, stranger,” she said over the rain and thunder.
The woman smiled at us through large, yellow-tinged glasses. She wore a nice suit that was soaked through, but the umbrella kept her gray-streaked head dry. Given the weather, she looked completely unhinged.
Something about her choked the words in my throat. I wasn’t sure if it was the odd behavior or something behind her eyes, but I felt like a mouse staring down a cat.
“Manse,” was all I managed to get out. I pointed uselessly at the mountain hidden in the rain and dark.
Her smile widened.
“Lovely place! Oldest structure on the island made by humans—built hundreds of years ago!”
There was a pregnant pause as she smiled at me. My skin crawled, equal parts unsettled and confused.
She gestured with her cane down the road that hugged the beach.
“Keep heading this way until you pass the last building in town. Take the seventh left and follow the trail.”
I mumbled a thank you, but her cane remained on my door, keeping me from rolling up the flooded window. She knelt to my level and craned her head to the side to get a better look at us. Her smile seemed to touch her ears. I couldn’t breathe.
“Do you know what the best thing about strangers is?” she asked.
Holly, who hadn’t made eye contact with anyone but me since she stopped talking, couldn’t look away from her.
For one hideous second, I knew what rabbits felt like with a fox at their burrow.
Holly shook her head.
“That they don’t have to stay strangers.” Her head cocked to the side to look at me. “Have a fortunate day, my friends.”
And she was walking down the street again, oblivious to the maelstrom around her. Despite the thunder and downpour, I could have sworn I heard her whistling a tune.
I felt like I swallowed a cotton ball. Holly looked as bewildered as I felt.
“That was weird, right?”
She nodded.