Three

Eric Seven sat in the Cross House with Tor and the others who had met him at the ferry. Except Merle.

“Where were you thinking of staying, Mr. Seven?” Tor had asked, as they walked down the island, south from the quay.

“Please. Call me Eric.”

“Where were you thinking of staying, Eric?”

“I don’t know.”

Tor smiled.

“We don’t have a hotel. As I said, we—”

“—don’t get many visitors,” Eric finished for him. “But there must be some kind of guest house, perhaps?”

“No,” Tor had said. “There is nothing of that sort. But don’t worry. We will make some arrangements for you. In the meantime, you are welcome at my house. We can take tea while the arrangements are made.”

They’d walked along the narrow lane, called Homeway, gently curving from time to time, but always heading south down the island, with pretty gardens and sweet houses on either side, some right on the track, some set back on little rocky cliffs among the trees. Now and again, side roads head off; even smaller, twistier paths. The paths have tiny white-on-blue signs: The Bend, The Backbend, The Green, The Crook.

All very, very beautiful.

As they’d walked, Eric saw people sitting out at tables in their gardens, enjoying the evening sunshine, taking a glass of wine, or even supper. Everyone had waved and called to Tor, who’d nodded back, smiling.

After ten minutes they’d arrived at a crossroads, where Homeway crossed another track of the same size, called Crossway.

“My home,” Tor had said, indicating the largest house on the island that Eric had so far seen. Set back on a low hill of its own, Eric saw a big black wooden house dominating the crossroads. It was a slightly different style from the others, less pretty, more … Eric searched for the word. More serious.

“This is the center of the island, Eric. Welcome.”

*   *   *

Eric sat in Tor’s house, his hands around a pottery mug of black tea.

The two women were introduced as Maya and Jane.

Younger than Tor, older than Merle. Both were quiet, but seemed friendly enough as they’d made the tea in Tor’s large kitchen. The other man is called Henrik, again younger than Tor, though it’s hard to be sure. Eric guessed they get a lot of weather living on an island like Blessed.

Maybe the rumors are true, he thought. Maybe these people are living forever, maybe Tor is a hundred and twenty, the others spring chickens of ninety-eight.

“If there’s any way we can help you with your article, anything you require,” said Henrik, “you only need ask. We are the Wards of Blessed, and…”

Tor coughed, so quietly it was hard to believe that it was a signal, but Henrik stopped and corrected himself.

“Tor is the Ward of Blessed. We”—he nodded at Maya and Jane, and pointed to himself—“are the other wards of the island. So you only need to speak to one of us and it will be arranged.”

“Thank you,” Eric said. “You are all very kind.”

He wondered where Merle had gone.

It’s not even as if she is beautiful, not in the way people usually mean. She’s more than pretty, that’s what he can say, but it’s not that that has caught him. It is simply her face, her eyes. The moment he saw them something clicked. He suddenly realized what it was. He recognized her face. As if seeing an old friend, long forgotten, and that triggered something else inside him. A thought that bothered him.

His head swam.

“I’m tired,” he said. “Excuse me. I’m tired, but I think I could do with some air before bed. Could I…?”

“But of course,” Tor replied. “Why don’t you explore the lanes and we’ll come and get you when your house is ready. Don’t go far.”

*   *   *

Eric stands at the top of a small but steep hill known as the Outlook, looking to the west, watching the sun fail to set, thinking about Merle. The path he has taken is an odd one—it is well made, as well made as any he has seen so far, but it stops at the top of the hill by a thicket of bushes, and goes no farther. He has taken a few steps off the path on to a rocky outcrop, from where he can see over the treetops of the woods, to the west.

Tor’s questions about his parents come back to him, and he realizes that it’s been many years since he thought about them. Almost as if they were dead. And though they’re not dead, they may as well be. He hasn’t seen them or spoken to them in years. Not really since he was old enough to leave home, and go out into the world by himself.

Tor. What is it about the man? His eye is a little unsettling, maybe, but Eric knows there’s something else. The man has been nothing but helpful, so what is it that makes Eric feel wary of him?

He brings back to mind the thought that bothered him at Tor’s house. He recognized Merle’s face.

Recognized. But that’s not possible, because he has never seen her before.

As if to check, he pulls out his device, and is about to tap on OneDegree again, when he notices another oddity; he has no reception.

Of course, he’s heard of places that have no signal, but he’s never been to one.

A quiver runs through him as he realizes that the device that runs his whole life has just turned into an expensive little box of plastic, silicon, and glass.

He thinks about OneDegree, how it finds other lives, across the ether, and wonders if that can be done without a machine.

He looks out at the horizon again.

He has never been here, yet he feels he has met Merle before, and then, there is that other feeling, that somehow disturbs him even more.

Why, he thinks, do I have the feeling that I have come home?

*   *   *

“I don’t think you’ll find that works.”

He jumps, and spins around to see Merle approaching from the path.

He puts it away, feeling stupid. He takes the chance to look at her as she approaches, wishing he had more than these few moments to work out what it is about her. He fails.

“I think you’re right,” he says as she comes up to him. “But how do you get by? Without devices?”

“We get by just fine,” says Merle, laughing. “We simply do things differently here.”

“Like having no cars?”

“I believe we are not the only place that has no need for cars,” she says.

“I don’t know about need,” Eric says, “but yes, since gas became so scarce, there are many places that use alternatives.”

He wonders why he can’t find anything better to talk to her about than gas. Cars. Devices. They are alone now, for the first time. He can almost feel her body heat, she’s standing so close.

“You came here by our steamboat, of course.”

Eric nods.

And before that, he thinks, I flew in a good old-fashioned plane, chewing thousands of gallons of aviation fuel. And a ticket with a price that proved it.

Still, if he gets this story, his expenses will be well worth it.

“This is a small island, and a small community. There is no need to rush. We walk. If matters are really pressing, one can usually borrow a bicycle.”

Eric tries to suppress a laugh. He doesn’t mean to be rude, but the serious look on Merle’s face amuses him.

She doesn’t seem annoyed, or if she is, she doesn’t show it.

“Look,” she says, pointing into the sky. Not down near the sun, but up, the moon is visible, a pale pink disc against the dark blue heavens. “It’s the flower moon.”

“The what?”

“It’s the old name for this month’s moon,” Merle explains.

“The flower moon. Do you see how pink it is?”

“That’s quite a sight,” Eric agrees.

They say nothing for a while, just staring at the moon, ancient, as old as time, and unknowable. Mysterious. Powerful.

Merle whispers, some lines from an old song. “And none of you stand so tall, a pink moon gonna get you all.”

She stirs herself.

“Your house is ready,” she says. “It’s late. I’m sure you’re tired.”

Eric is very tired.

“Thank you,” he says. He means it. “It’s generous of you to offer a whole house for me to live in.”

He thinks about his expenses again.

“A room is all I need really,” he continues, “and of course, I can pay you for your troubles.”

“That won’t be necessary. The wards have offered you a house, by the meadow. It’s comfortable, but you must let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”

They walk through the lanes, and Eric keeps trying to remind himself it’s nighttime, which is hard because it’s almost as bright as day.

“Doesn’t it mess with your sleep?” he asks. “The constant day?”

“You have no idea! But we have ways around it. Thick curtains, black-out blinds. That helps. And tea, that tea you had will help you sleep. Here.”

She stops, and points to Eric’s new home.

It is small but stylish, a blue wooden house, with its own garden, neatly cut grass, heavily blooming rose bushes.

Honeysuckle climbs the wall and over a window on the second floor. Other flowers whose names he does not know.

The name of the house is painted at the gate. The Claw.

“Strange name,” Eric muses, half aloud.

“It’s from the old dialect. It refers to a type of fishing boat, I believe.”

Suddenly Merle wrinkles her nose, and sneezes.

“Grass pollen,” she says, and sneezes again.

“Bless you.”

Merle looks at Eric.

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t say that here, on the island. We think it’s … bad luck.”

“That’s strange.”

“Just another one of our little differences,” Merle says.

She smiles, and turns to leave. Eric fights the urge to say something to Merle. Something meaningful. But he cannot think what.

“Good night, Eric Seven,” she calls as she goes. “The house is unlocked.”

She stands for a moment more by the gate, and then is gone.

Eric imagines that he sees her lips move. He imagines that she says one word to him.

You.

He wonders what he would have felt if she really had said it.

*   *   *

Eric opens the door to his house, and finds his way to the bedroom. By the time he gets there, he is feeling lousy, his head swimming, from tiredness and being somewhere new, and the scent of those flowers, and he can taste the tea in his mouth.

He passes out on the bed, his thoughts tumbling down a deep, deep chasm that has opened beneath the place where his mind sits.

One final thought comes to him as he goes, and then is lost in the tumbling storm of his mind-stream.

He has been on Blessed for several hours. He has met a few people, and seen many more. But he has not seen a single child.