The Ever After

by Amanda Hocking

  Bryn swallowed her mouthful. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Because I really don’t remember much, and what I do remember is jumbled and confusing. And…” I took a deep breath, trying to define exactly why I’d held back from the Korva. “I don’t mind talking to you guys about it, but I don’t want to share a bunch of scattered, intense memories with strangers, especially before I get it all sorted out.”

  “You did the right thing,” Pan said quietly, his dark eyes resting thoughtfully on me. “Not telling him. I never trusted Ragnall farther than I could throw him.”

  “Why would you throw him?” Dagny asked from the couch.

  “No, I wouldn’t. It’s a figure of speech.” Pan glanced between us and Bryn shrugged. “Do trolls really not know that expression?”

  “No, it’s nonsensical.” Dagny snorted. “Ulla could throw Ragnall very far.”

  “Popular slang in the kingdoms takes hold in the strangest ways,” Bryn said. “King Linus made a joke about something being ‘on fleek’ a few months back at a banquet, because Linus hasn’t had any real contact with humans in five years, and now everyone is saying ‘on fleek.’”

  Pan smirked. “I think that was the last time that saying was cool. For a week in 2014.”

  “This doesn’t say much about what Ragnall can do,” Dagny said, and flipped the book shut in irritation. “They made sure to include plenty of effusive praise about his high intellect and visionary leadership without mentioning any actual specifics about his skills or qualifications.”

  “Even if Ragnall can read minds, that doesn’t mean there was anything for him to read in your mind,” Bryn said.

  Dagny let out a loud “Ha!”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that.” Bryn rolled her eyes. “The Älvolk either erased your memory—so there’s nothing there because it’s gone—or they walled off your memory—so it’s still there but with a barrier around it powerful enough that you can’t see through it. That would be very hard for a mind reader to get through.”

  “Well, the directory did really run through the thesaurus section on the word ‘powerful,’” Dagny muttered.

  “And the memories are still there,” I said. “They must be if some of them are coming back.”

  “Why do you think Ragnall might be reading your thoughts?” Pan asked. “He asked a lot of questions, but half the Information Styrelse interrogated me and Dagny.”

  “Yeah, you did actually get off easy,” Dagny agreed. “I don’t know how much Ragnall is even interested in Áibmoráigi. When I was looking for him in the directory, I glanced at Amalie’s bio, and hers mentioned that she has championed multiple expeditions to find the First City. It’s clearly something she’s been pursuing for decades, but Ragnall’s bio only talks of vague aspirations like ‘helping the Mimirin Talo achieve even greater excellence.’”

  “He didn’t ask me anything about Áibmoráigi specifically, or how to find it,” I said. “Actually, he didn’t really ask me much at all. He only seemed focused on making sure I was okay and if I remember anything.”

  Bryn narrowed her eyes. “He was making sure you don’t remember anything?”

  “No, not like that.” I shook my head slowly. “I told him that I didn’t remember anything, and he didn’t believe me. And then … I felt the buzzing—” I moved my hand around the back of my head. “—and the song came back.”

  “The bird and the flower one?” Dagny asked.

  “Yeah, it only lasted a few minutes, and it sounded dull and far away,” I elaborated. “But yeah, it was definitely while I was in the Korva’s office.”

  “Starting to feel left out because I’m the only one without this jaunty tune in my head,” Bryn said dryly.

  Dagny snorted. “It’s definitely not jaunty.”

  “You’re okay now, right?” Pan asked, and his eyes were solemn even though his voice was light.

  I nodded and smiled to ease his worry. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me or anything. I was just a little weirded out after.”

  “Good,” he said with a thin smile.

  “On the good-news front, Elof said he thinks he’ll have the results of the familial blood testing for you guys tomorrow,” Dagny said.

  “Good,” Bryn said. “It’ll be great to start getting some concrete answers.”

  We all talked a bit more, with the conversation turning to lighter subjects like Pan’s reunion with his dog, Brueger, and then he got up and stretched.

  “Speaking of Brueger, I should get home and let him out,” Pan said. “He’s been cooped up in the apartment since eight this morning.”

  “Do you mind if I go with you?” I asked, getting to my feet. “I could use the fresh air.”

  “Sure.” He grinned and headed toward the door.

  I turned to Bryn and said, “I won’t be gone too long.”

  “I think Bryn and I will manage without you,” Dagny said.

  It was afternoon, and the sky was sunny and pleasant. Pan and I went down the steps from the apartment and along the soft gravel alleyway.

  “How has everything been going for you here?” I asked as we walked through the bustling avenues. Barrels of potted linnea and lavender aster lined the already narrow roads, and when we had to go single file to slide between the plants and a woman walking a pair of very pregnant angora goats, Pan put his hand on my back.

  “Fine, honestly,” he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the neighborhood sounds—talking, competing music, goats braying, babies crying, and children laughing. “Just trying to get back into the swing of things and make sense of everything.”

  There was enough room that we could fall in step beside each other. I knew we were getting closer to Pan’s place because I could smell it. He lived in a studio apartment above a salmon tannery and only a street away from the giant woolly elk stables. The good news was that it wasn’t quite as busy around here.

  “How about you?” he asked, his voice lower now that it could be.

  “Same.” I sighed. “I just hate the feeling that something bad happened to both of us—all of us—and I don’t know what it was.”

  The sun had been shining brightly, warming my skin, but clouds must’ve rolled in, casting shadows over us and cooling the air.

  “The important thing is that we made it out, and we’re okay,” Pan said. “That’s what I keep reminding myself until we can remember what happened.”

  “I think I remembered something new today,” I told him quietly.

  He stopped short. “What?”

  “It’s not much.” I turned back to face him. “Probably not anything important.”

  “What was it?” he pressed.

  “I was in a room I hadn’t seen before, full of vials and old books and plants.” I closed my eyes, concentrating on the snippet I’d seen in Ragnall’s office.

  —a dark room with high walls that stretched up and up, and the ceiling was a stained-glass skylight. In each of the corners was an ouroboros in dark green, and that’s what I stared up at, what I always stared up at when they brought me there.

  (How many times had I been there? How many times had they strapped me down to that bed?)

  The whole room smelled sickly sweet, of lilies and potent copper. Restraints held me in place. I could feel them chafing my wrists and ankles and stomach, and no matter how much I strained at them, they didn’t give. Panic surged through me—there had been so few times in my life that I wasn’t strong enough to break free. With my strength, I could overpower most snares, but not this.

  I craned my neck toward the voices, catching glimpses of the vials of currant-red liquid and Indu arguing with Lemak, the häxdoktor.

  “This is taking too long,” Indu was saying. “We’re bleeding her dry as it is.”

  “It takes time for a correct ratio,” Lemak protested. “But we’ve never been this close before.”

  “Close?” Indu sneered at the häxdoktor. “Almost? Nearly?”

>   I could see them with my head tilted back all the way, so they were upside down. From this angle, Indu’s nose looked big, too large for his slender face, and his skin was noticeably weathered, with burst capillaries under his cheeks making him look like he was blushing.

  The häxdoktor, Lemak, was thin and tall, a sliver of a man really, with long slender fingers.

  (I had felt them on my skin many times before, probing my arms, his rough fingertips thirsty and demanding as they searched for viable veins.)

  But now he shrank back from Indu, even though he towered over him, and Lemak held his arms up, as if shielding himself from expected blows.

  “If a man dies but is nearly saved, is he alive?” Indu asked him. “If you enter almost all the numbers into a codex lock, does it open?”

  “No, sir, but—” Lemak began to plead.

  “Nej-li, it does not,” Indu interrupted.

  “I can help you,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure that I could. “Please let me go. I will help you.”

  Indu looked over at me, as if he’d forgotten I was there, and he gave me a wispy, sour smile. “Oh, my child, you are already doing all you can.” His smile fell away the instant he turned back to the häxdoktor. “You need to finish this. It’s time to open the lock.”

  “I can help you in other ways,” I said, my voice trembling as I begged. “I have other skills. I’m strong, and I can read six languages.”

  “Ulla?” Pan was saying, and a cold wind rushed over me as I opened my eyes.

  His hands were on my shoulders, and his thick brows were pinched together with worry. Everything seemed so dark, and I blinked to clear it, but it never changed. It wasn’t a lingering haze from the memory—the sky was darkening.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” He looked up at the cloudless sky and the shadow crossing over the sun. “Maybe an eclipse.”

  “I didn’t know there was supposed to be one today,” I said.

  The streetlamps in the city were all kerosene, hand-lit before dusk, but with the unexpected night falling as the sun was blotted out, Merellä was soon going to be submerged in total darkness. Nearby, I heard confused shouts and uneasy rumblings as everyone reacted to the sudden changes in the afternoon sky.

  The giant woolly elk bellowed in the stables, and we were close enough that we could hear them kicking and ramming at the doors, the wood and hinges rattling as their hooves stomped the ground.

  “Shit, the woollies are freaking out,” Pan said. “I should calm them down before they hurt themselves.”

  I took his hand, so he wouldn’t run off and leave me alone in the dark. He squeezed it once, then we jogged through shadows and made it inside the stables just as the total darkness fell.

  “I can’t see anything,” I said.

  “Stay here.” Pan pushed me gently, so my back was against the wall. The raw wood left a few slivers poking me, but I didn’t complain. “I’ll try to find a light.”

  Then he walked away, his stumbling footsteps receding, and he murmured words of comfort to the elk, though it didn’t seem to be helping much. They brayed and kicked loudly. My eyes slowly adjusted in the dark—the outlines of the stacks of hay and stalls taking shape.

  In the center aisles, outside of the stall and only a few meters away from me—closer than Pan, who I couldn’t even see at all—stood an albino woolly elk. It was a massive beast, towering above me with wide, broad antlers, like a prehistoric moose. The antlers and thick fur were pure white, and the eyes of red seemed to glow in the darkness.

  The animal started walking toward me, deliberate strides on long giraffian legs, and as it passed by the stalls on its way to me, the other woollies fell silent. The albino elk had nearly reached me when it stopped and leaned forward, chuffing as it sniffed my hair, and I reached out to pet its nose—

  —and the lights suddenly came on. Pan had flicked them on, and I closed my eyes against the blinding brightness. When I finally opened them again, the albino elk was gone.

  22

  Results

  “There are no albino elk here,” Pan told me with confused dismay, but I honestly wasn’t that surprised. “Maybe it was your eyes playing tricks in the dark.”

  It was a reasonable suggestion, but I didn’t believe it. I had seen an albino woolly elk once before. I had a hazy memory of following one through the ruins of a city as it led me … somewhere I couldn’t quite remember.

  Most of the woollies went out to one of the fields during the day, heading out at dawn and returning late in the evening. The ones that stayed behind were ill, old, pregnant, mothering a new calf, or the occasionally lazy elk that chose to stay in for the day.

  I was comforting one of the calves, giving it a supplemental bottle of enriched formula to help fatten up the little runt, and through the windows, I saw the sun shining again.

  Later, after I’d helped Pan with the rest of the woollies and gone back to my apartment, leaving Pan to take care of Brueger, Bryn told me that she’d timed it, and the eclipse had lasted just under seven minutes. Right after it ended, Dagny had run down to the Mimirin to find out what was going on, because of course she did.

  Unfortunately, when she came back over three hours later, Dagny didn’t have any real answers. They had even checked in with the human news and information from NASA, and while humans had seen it too, their experts were surprisingly mum. The “eclipse” covered an area of nine thousand square miles, and the best guess was that a large meteor had passed by at just the right time at just the right angle.

  Already conspiracy theories were going around. The humans suspected an enemy nation, an alien ship, or a publicity stunt by a big tech company or the new superhero movie opening in a couple weeks. Trolls suspected the humans, other tribes, or maybe a small group of very powerful trolls.

  “What do you think it was?” I asked Dagny. We were sitting on the couch, with a bowl of cloudberries and a cup of sweet honeyed cream between us, and we munched on the berries dipped in cream.

  Bryn had put Halsey on Dagny’s laptop, and she’d moved the bistro table and coffee table to the side of the room so she could use the space to shadowbox. She liked to work out when she was stressed or bored or anxious.

  “Maybe a meteor,” Dagny said, but she sounded unconvinced.

  “But you don’t think so?” I pressed.

  “Honestly?” She glanced over at Bryn, bouncing around and punching the air. “I don’t know if I should say.”

  “You can trust Bryn,” I said defensively.

  Bryn lowered her fists but seemed mostly unfazed. “I can keep my mouth shut. But I can also go out for a run if you’d like more privacy.”

  “No, no, I don’t mean you.” Dag shook her head. “I mean…” She sighed and lowered her voice to a whisper. “The Ögonen. I don’t know how much they can hear or see.”

  The Ögonen were the trollian beings that served as the guardians of Merellä. They were tall and sinewy with strange semi-opaque skins. The most alarming thing was that they had no mouths, but they had powerful psychokinetic powers that they used to cloak the citadel and hide it from the humans.

  “Why don’t you want them to hear?” I asked quietly.

  “Because I think they’re the ones that did it,” she said. “Look, I’m not saying they did anything wrong per se. But I don’t know why they did it, so I’d rather them not know that I suspect them until I figure out why.”

  “Why do you think it’s them?” I asked. Bryn had gone back to fighting the air, and when she kicked quickly not too far from my head, I flinched.

  “I don’t know,” Dagny admitted. “It’s a feeling I had. There’s something strange going on with them.” She popped a handful of berries in her mouth and stared off as she thought, absently touching her half-burnt eyebrow.

  “What do you mean by strange?” I asked.

  “I’ve lived in Merellä for a long time, minus the Lost Month, and I hardly ever saw them around,�
� she explained. “If they were outside their roof atriums, they’d be in groups, maybe five or six of them, and they’d be walking from the Mimirin to the edge of town where they live. They never socialized or tried to communicate, and I always thought that was because that’s how they liked it, since it’s difficult to communicate. They don’t have mouths, and they eat sunlight.

  “Elof and the troglecology department aren’t really allowed to study them, but Elof suspected they might be something like a sentient plant,” Dagny said, then quickly added, “a sentient psychokinetic plant.”

  “It sounds like they were strange to begin with,” Bryn muttered between punches.

  “Right, but their behavior is different. They’ve changed,” Dagny persisted. “Now I’m seeing them all the time, wandering around town on their own. Hardly ever in groups. And when I pass by, they stare at me. They’ll turn so their eyes follow me. And it’s not just the one I met, the one that tried to recover my memories. That was Mu, and they’re on the short side for their kind.”

  “They probably have a hive mind,” Bryn said. “No mouths; they’re telepathic. Some aspens have thousands of trees in a single organism. It’d make sense that if one of the sentient plants knew something, they could all know it.”

  Dagny frowned. “That’s kind of disturbing.”

  “All of that does sound odd and maybe unsettling, but I don’t see why you think they’re connected to the eclipse,” I said.

  “On the map of the area that had total darkness during the event, Merellä was dead in the center,” Dagny said. “Like the eye of the storm.” She whispered again when she said, “The Ögonen are the most powerful beings in the citadel. If they worked together, they could easily pull off something like this. Maybe the eclipse was a side effect of something, or maybe they did it as a distraction, or maybe they wanted the cover of darkness.”

  She exhaled. “Or maybe they just wanted to blot out the sun.”

  “But if the Ögonen are as all-knowing and all-seeing as you think they are, how did Eliana sneak in?” I asked. “How could there be such a breach in the security?”