The Wrong Way Home: Chapter 6

There are lots of blue clothes. But they’re not the soft blues of robins’ eggs or the deep navy of natural indigo. They’re bright and sharp and unnatural.

We all share the load. Sometimes you’re on laundry, other seasons you’re assigned to dish duty in the kitchen or compost shoveling. We take care of each other, together.

The Ranch doesn’t have books like this, or the kind I remember from when I went to school, with their bright colors and pages full of illustrations and cartoon-like pictures. Not that those books are banned at the Ranch—he’d never put down a rule like that. It’s more that the Ranch’s library is practical, filled with books about permaculture, carpentry, animal husbandry, and some about making your own essential oils, natural cleaning supplies, and body products, and other stuff like that.

Dr. Ben says most books have mainstream society’s misguided ideas about how a life should be lived written right into the fabric of their stories. Even if the stories are fiction. Even if they’re about wizards and witches or other magical stuff. And because of that, he says it’s better to avoid them altogether.

Dr. Ben says most books have mainstream society’s misguided ideas about how a life should be lived written right into the fabric of their stories.

Dr. Ben says most books have mainstream society’s misguided ideas about how a life should be lived written right into the fabric of their stories. Even if the stories are fiction.

I draw three boxes, and divide those into smaller boxes, until I have a makeshift three-month calendar. I number the days and count them up. Seventy-two. I have exactly seventy-two days until the spring equinox. Seventy-two days to get us back home.

There can’t be too many sustainable futurist communities in New York State called the Ranch, so I feel like that part should be easy.

The idea of talking to a random stranger makes me nervous, but it does seem like the safest option.

There’s a clothing shop that, according to its colorful sign, sells “knickknacks and accessories.”

As we walk, one shop in particular catches my eye because it’s so…pink. The building itself is painted bright pink, and it has a pink sign in the shape of a teapot that says BIRDIE’S TEA SHOPPE on it in white cursive.

Mom’s eyes don’t leave the shop’s wide front windows. “Because I want to show you something. There’s a pretty path back to the motel that goes all along the ocean.”
“Okay,” I say, relenting.

“Gosh. I’d forgotten about this,” Mom says, her eyes scanning the words on the plaque. “The Spirit of the Sea. It’s a big deal around here.”

“The Spirit of the Sea. It’s a big deal around here.”
“What is it?”
“A local myth. Or mystery, I should say.” She clears her throat. “ ‘This bluff is the haunting ground of the Spirit of the Sea,’ ” she reads.

She clears her throat. “ ‘This bluff is the haunting ground of the Spirit of the Sea,’ ” she reads.

Mom clears her throat. “ ‘If you’re lucky, you might see her in her white dress, with a flickering lantern held aloft, on the very top of the bluff. Some say it’s the ghost of Amelia Lester, the lighthouse keeper, who died in the fire that burned down the lighthouse in 1903. Locals say she was so devoted to her job that she continued it in the afterlife...."

Some say it’s the ghost of Amelia Lester, the lighthouse keeper, who died in the fire that burned down the lighthouse in 1903. Locals say she was so devoted to her job that she continued it in the afterlife....

Some say it’s the ghost of Amelia Lester, the lighthouse keeper, who died in the fire that burned down the lighthouse in 1903. Locals say she was so devoted to her job that she continued it in the afterlife....

"...The story goes that her spirit moved to higher ground to better cast her light, which is said to beckon the souls of drowned sailors back to land, so they can finally make their way home, and find peace.’"

“It says that locals claim she appears on particularly dark, foggy nights on top of the bluff, which is inaccessible by foot. If I’m remembering correctly, lots of people have tried to prove that someone is faking it, but no one’s ever been able to figure out how they’d get up there. We should keep our eyes peeled for her.”