“Maisie!”
She hears the voice calling from a distance, and knows that it can only be the voice of her mother. But she is so taken by what she is seeing that she just needs to look for another se–
“Maisie! I'm serious now, come back!”
Maisie sighs and turns back toward home. She was running now, as she did not want to hear her mother yelling her name in that accusatory tone anymore. “I’m back, I’m back,” she says, panting.
“Maisie, where have you been? I have been worried about you all day. Were you visiting that girl again?” her mother asks, eyebrow raised in a gesture that was as accusatory as it was inquisitive.
“Well yes,” Maisie said slowly, knowing that lying would not work against her all-knowing mother. “But mom! She’s a human, and she’s drawing me in her studio! I know she is, I can tell she’s drawing me! The character has my stripes and the other minks don’t have those stripes, not even you! She sees me mom, I'm telling you she looks out of her window sometimes and she sees me, I know she does. And when she does see me she gets really still, like she doesn't want to scare me away, and as she stares at me, pencil-in-hand, I know she only wants to draw me.”
Maisie spoke a mile a minute as she explained her interaction with this young girl to her mother. Her mother shook her head, and without a response she started away. “Mom, why is that a bad thing? I know you said that it’s not safe near humans but she doesn't want to hurt me, I can tell she just wants to draw a picture of me.”
Her mother sighed again and met her naive daughter’s eyes with her own. “Honey, I know that you believe that, but it just isn't true. She can't possibly see you. She can't see any of us. It's just not possible.” Maisie’s mother said this gently in an effort to avoid the thick of the issue, not wanting to crush Maisie’s childhood innocence beyond what was necessary for her safety.
“But why–” Maisie started, and her mother could tell that this time Maisie would not rest until she was satisfied with her mother’s answer. Maisie’s mother thought for a moment, then said, “Come sit with me for a while, under the warm light. I want to tell you a story.”
And so they walked to the side of the old lighthouse that acted as a beautiful beacon on these chilly nights, these chilly nights where the breeze was filled with the sea. Together, they sat under the light, and Maisie focused intently as her mother began.
“Humans hurt us. They want our fur, and they take what they want.” Maisie looked at her mother with confused eyes, just as her mother expected. “In the past humans would take our fur to make clothing, scarves, and other garments.”
Holding onto a now-sad hope, Maisie interrupted her mother. “Well everyone can change. You say they used to do that, but they don't anymore mom, they are better now!”
“You’re right, they don't take our fur anymore. They don’t take our fur anymore not because they’re better because there is no more fur to take.”
Maisie’s hopeful expression was replaced with pure confusion. She looked down and tugged on her fur. “Huh?” she questioned, looking at her mother.
“Maisie, did you ever wonder why the people don't interact with us? For that matter, they don't interact with this lighthouse that we call home either?”
For the first time since she began talking to her mother, Maisie did not have an immediate response. She sat puzzled for a moment and then began to argue. “But my girl, the artist girl, she strolls down here all the time and sits on that old bench and draws our lighthouse. I swear she is, she’s looking right at it and drawing it in her sketchbook, I can see it mom!” Her voice rose to a childishly high pitch now as she now clinged onto strands of hope with desperation.
“Coincidence sweetie. It really is just a coincidence. I’m so sorry.” Her mother stroked her as she apologized.
Confusion replaced with anger, Maisie began to yell at her mother. “How could you know? I know my girl sees me, even if you don’t believe it. She sees me, she just doesn't want to scare me away so she doesn't interact with me but she sees me, I know she does.”
“Maisie… we don't exist anymore.”
“What do you–”
“We are gone. We are ghosts. We exist, but also we don't exist, at least not in their world anymore. This lighthouse does not exist there either. I know I never taught you to read, partially because there was no purpose in our world but much more because I didn’t want you to read this.” Maisie’s mother considered for a moment, then seemed to conclude her consideration with acceptance. She turned her gaze to the sign beneath the lighthouse. “I didn’t want you to read this sign because it’s a reminder of pain that I never wanted you to feel. It says ‘HERE LIES THE PLACE THAT THE BALLAST POINT LIGHTHOUSE ONCE STOOD AS A NAVIGATION TOOL TO GUIDE TRAVELERS THROUGH THE NIGHT.’”
“You’re lying, it doesn’t say that,” Maisie said, tears streaming down her face.
“It does Maisie, I'm sorry and I wish it didn’t but it does. They hunted us and they hunted us and they would’ve kept hunting us if they didn’t run out of us to hunt. We are ghosts.” She continued, “but that is why you are so special Maisie. Your father and I were both once living in their world, but you were never in their world at all. You were born here - born a ghost - and that’s a wonderful thing. I didn’t want you to be disappointed by your artist girl, as we all were disappointed by so many humans before her. Even if she doesn’t want your fur, they’re not good for us Maisie. The way they live can only bring us harm.
“You’re lying. This isn’t true, none of this is true!” and she took off running to the girl, her girl, Maisie felt. Her mother yelled after her but Maisie did not stop, she only ran faster. She heard her mother running behind her and faster she ran, faster still until she reached a large glass window with warm light pouring out of it.
Her mother stopped behind her, and while catching her breath she could now see that this girl was no more than seven years old. What Maisie referred to as the girl’s studio was no studio at all. This was a dining room in a small house. The young girl sat on the floor of the room, sketchbook in hand, and she was indeed drawing what appeared to be Maisie. Coincidence, her mother thought, and as she did a certain and solid sense of doubt began creeping into her mind, as the drawing didn’t just resemble Maisie, it was Maisie, wasn’t it? It had her one-of-a-kind stripes, the stripes that could only be borne by a creature from another world. And those eyes, those telling eyes. They were Maisie’s eyes, of this her mother was certain.
But just as she was certain that those eyes were Maisie’s, she was also certain that it was impossible for this girl to draw her daughter. Her focus on this increasingly bewildering paradox was abruptly interrupted by Maisie tapping on the glass of the window.
The little girl looked up and smiled, waving a hand in their direction. Maisie’s mother tapped the glass, and the girl did not seem to notice. But when Maisie tapped it again, the girl giggled and then began furiously scribbling in her book, looking up once every few seconds almost as if to confirm that which her brain told her was there.
How could this be? How– her thoughts were interrupted by Maisie’s triumphant voice.
“See! See mom, she can see me! She can see me mom, and isn’t that just wonderful? She can see me!”
Her mother didn't reply. She couldn’t reply, not until the shock wore off. Was it because Maisie was different, a ghost that somehow caught the light in a way that this little girl could see? Impossible, her mind told her. That can't be true.
But the drawing… it really did look like Maisie, unique stripes and all. And didn't she wave at them? Didn’t that little girl look up and wave right at them? Could that be true? She didn’t know. But even among all this doubt, even despite the impossibility of it all, Maisie’s mother knew that she was because she saw genuine love in that little girl’s eyes. She saw love for the character that was beginning to take shape in her book. She saw love for a creature that so many of her kind had hurt in the past. And above all, she saw love for Maisie. That was unmistakable.
And if this young girl loved Maisie, maybe the others were capable of love too. Maybe it was possible that the same destructive force that hunted them was capable of change, capable of preventing such atrocities from occurring again. There was no way to undo what had been done, but only time could tell if there was hope for these people of the future, these people who, at least to Maisie’s mother, were represented by this smiling young girl with a pencil in her hand.
She smiled down at her daughter, who would never notice, because she was too busy smiling back at her human friend.
