Thief Eyes

by Janni Lee Simner

  Ari folded up the maps. “I know the way. I won’t screw this up.”

  “You didn’t screw anything up.” I stopped reciting the spell under my breath and looked at him. “Seriously.”

  Ari looked back. For a moment we stared at each other, frozen in place. More than anything, I wanted to take his face in my hands, to convince him without words that he hadn’t messed up after all. Did he have any idea how much harder this all would be without him?

  “I didn’t kiss you when I had the chance. If that isn’t screwing up, I don’t know what is.” Ari turned abruptly toward the harbor. The water was bright beneath the afternoon sun.

  I wanted to tell him—what? That he still had a chance? That he didn’t, but I wished he did? I bit down hard on my inner lip, drawing blood. It tasted coppery and hotter than blood should have.

  I pulled a sandwich from my pack and bit fiercely into it. The taste of blood mixed with the taste of tuna salad and a yellow sauce that was more like mayo than mustard. I read through the spell once more.

  The mead has to work. “Ari, your mom was going to cast this spell. She wouldn’t have killed a fox—would she?”

  Still looking at the water, Ari pulled a Coke from my pack and popped it open. “You’re asking me? I didn’t think Mom would sleep with a married man.” Ari picked up a flat rock and skipped it over the blue water. “You know, when I invited myself to lunch at Thingvellir, I had this idea that maybe you’d figured things out—about my mom and your dad, I mean—better than me. Stupid, really. I don’t know why I thought they’d have even told you when they didn’t want me to know, either.”

  I tried to skip a stone, too, but it sank right into the water. I watched the ripples circle out. Maybe I was the stupid one, for not having figured out what was going on sooner.

  We finished the sandwiches as twilight settled in. Ari stood and handed me the flashlight. I stood as well. He stretched and took a few steps back. “Ready?” A small smile crossed his face. He’s looking forward to this.

  As the sun dipped behind the hills, the smile faded. Ari’s eyes took on a wide, startled look. “You’d think I’d get used to this—” His voice turned hoarse as his jacket began to flow, his face to twist and change, his skin to sprout white fur. Within moments a white bear stood roaring before me. The sound sent shivers down to my bones. Somewhere deep inside I knew I ought to run.

  Ari whirled and ran from me instead, loping away along side the harbor. I raced after him, calling his name. He disappeared into the distance as the sky grew dimmer. I stopped and took a deep breath. He’ll come back. Just like last night. Did he need to remember that he wouldn’t hurt me? Or to wait until it was true?

  “Get back here,” I whispered. I heard a distant roar.

  A streak of white loped toward me through the dimness. Ari stopped just an arm’s length away, sides heaving. He hunkered down and rested his head in his paws, looking sheepish.

  I laughed. “You just had to get that out of your system, didn’t you?”

  Ari lifted his head and tilted it to one side. I could almost see his quirked smile in the gesture. I reached out and rubbed his nose.

  He sneezed, covering my hand with polar bear snot. “Was that really necessary?” I asked.

  Ari stood and gave me a long look down the length of his snout. I wiped my hand on his fur, and Ari nudged my hand away. “Hey! Not my fault you forgot to give me your handkerchief!”

  Ari gave me another look—somehow, I knew he was laughing, too. He crouched down and waited for me to mount. I tightened the straps on my backpack and climbed up.

  Or tried to. I immediately slid from his slick back to the ground. I cursed and got to my feet, brushing dirt and grass from my clothes. Ari turned his head to look at me.

  “You think it’s funny, don’t you?”

  The bear nodded, a human gesture. I swatted him on the nose. Ari snorted, blowing more snot onto my jacket. I rolled my eyes and tried to climb onto his back again. This time I didn’t fall off until Ari began moving.

  It took five tries in all. Finally I got myself up over his broad shoulder blades, leaning forward and grabbing handfuls of the loose skin around his neck to hang on.

  He started slowly, first with a lumbering walk and then, when I didn’t fall off this time, a slow lope. We made our way back through the streets of the town as I adjusted my balance. The water rippled gently behind us.

  “Ghosts!” a voice shouted. I looked up. The girl from the gas station stood beside the road, holding her bicycle with one hand. She laughed and waved. I smiled, wondering why she could see us. Maybe it was like she’d said—some people just could. Just like some people could turn into bears, and others got caught by spells they didn’t expect. Maybe the world was just a strange, strange place, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

  “Run, ghosts!” the girl called, laughing still. Ari broke into a faster, springier run.

  Wind whipped past me, fast and fierce, blowing my short hair from my face. I held on for dear life—hands clutching fur, legs pressed down against those shoulder blades—but then I laughed, too. Ari’s spine coiled and uncoiled as his paws hit the shoulder of the road, and he seemed to spring forward—to fly forward—rather than to run. “Wow,” I said. “Just—wow.”

  Ari ran faster, leaving Holmavik behind as he returned to the main road. The wind got down beneath my jacket and up inside my sleeves. It cut through my jeans, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even care that it was the fire inside me that kept me warm. Running had never been anything like this. When I ran, I always knew I wasn’t really flying, that my feet could only leave the ground for too-short instants.

  We flew past barren rocks and windblown autumn grasses. The road wound around to follow a broad bay. Pavement gave way to dirt, dirt to more pavement. The moon rose and the stars came out, impossibly bright. The horizon began to shiver and glow.

  I stiffened, remembering dreams of fire rising from the earth, but this fire wasn’t orange. A curtain of shimmering light rose from the edge of the sky, unearthly ripples of red and green. “An aurora,” I whispered. The northern lights, so beautiful—the laughter caught in my throat. Dad would love this. Mom, too.

  Ari stopped and looked up. In the sudden stillness we watched the curtain blow across the sky, as if in some unfelt wind. Too beautiful—tears streamed down my face. I suddenly missed Mom more than anything. I buried my face in Ari’s fur, which smelled faintly of the sea. When I looked up again, the light was fading, the world turning silver with moonlight.

  Ari took off again, sticking to the shoulder of the road when he could, running on pavement when he had to. The road veered inland along a deep fjord, wound back out to sea, then followed a second fjord. The hills turned lower and gentler. A horse with a shaggy mane and big brown eyes whirled and ran from us, whinnying a warning. Like the girl in Holmavik, apparently the horse could see ghosts.

  We entered a deeper, broader fjord, this one filled with thin fog. At an intersection Ari slowed a moment, then chose an unpaved road over a paved one, following a river valley away from the water. The fog stayed with us, not as thick as last night’s fog, and the land grew flatter. Ari began breathing harder, slowing down a little. I leaned toward one of his small ears. “Do you need a rest?” I asked.

  He nodded his shaggy head and slowed to a stop. I slid from his back. My hips were sore from stretching across his shoulders, and my hands ached from holding on. I walked to keep from cramping up, stretching my fingers one by one and rubbing my palms. Ari lumbered close beside me, a comforting presence.

  I turned on the flashlight. Mist made the blue light eerie and strange. Farmhouses dotted the land, their windows dark. Signs by the road named the farms as we passed them: Hornsstadir, Hoskuldsstadir. At a bend in the road, just past the sign for Hrutsstadir, an old man stood alone, gazing into the dark. His hair was white, his gaze sharp. He wore a belted shirt and leather-wrapped pants, just like Svan. I stared at him, and like the girl
he looked right back at me.

  “I know your eyes,” he said.

  “What?” Mist curled between us. “You can see me.”

  “You and your tame berserk, yes.” The man chuckled, but then his face grew grim. “I see many things, and little good comes from most of them. I saw you when my niece was born, though I did not know it at the time, and so I said she had the eyes of a thief. But your eyes tell me that you see things, too. Seeing the future runs in our family.”

  Ari tilted his head, as if he’d figured something out, but the words meant nothing to me. Not until the man added, “You are heading to her home. In the south.”

  I backed away then. The last thing I wanted was to get tangled up with another one of Hallgerd’s uncles.

  “Truly, Haley, I mean you no harm.”

  I stopped short. How did he know my name? He stepped forward and reached for me, but his hand went right through mine, just like Hallgerd’s once had. Ghost. Which of us was the ghost here?

  The man shrugged, as if used to this. “Time is an uncanny thing, as you know well enough. Have a care in the south. Whatever you steal, be sure to give it back again.”

  Did he mean Hallgerd’s coin? I hadn’t stolen that, but I hoped to give it back, anyway. How much did this man know about the coin? “What do you know about fire magic?” Maybe he could help get rid of the fire in me.

  “I know less than you do, I think.” There was sympathy in the man’s eyes, and also a strange sort of sorrow. “The gift you’ve received will not be cast cheaply aside, but there is no helping that. Good fortune go with you, and with Hallgerd, too. I never meant her harm, either.” He turned away then and walked toward the faint outline of a nearby farmhouse. One step, then another, and he disappeared into the mist.

  Ari nudged my hand with his warm nose. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he shrugged his huge shoulders and knelt down for me to mount. As I did I thought, At least it can be cast aside. That’s something, right?

  The road wound left and south, away from the river and out of the valley. The fog gave way to a cloudy sky that barely let the moonlight through. A few cars passed, and their engines seemed unnaturally loud.

  In the distance, a plume of steam rose from the ground, like the steam I’d seen when Dad and I drove to Thingvellir. The coals in me flared suddenly hot. I forced the flames down—tried to force them down. This time, they didn’t listen, and the fire in me burned cheerfully on. Fear rippled through me.

  We passed more plumes of steam. Heat spread through my chest, my arms, my legs. I couldn’t douse this fire. I fought not to panic instead. The scent of sulfur tinged the wind. I felt the heat beneath the road, the molten underground rivers that fed the steam. I buried my face in Ari’s fur. The fire in me cooled, but only a little.

  We flew past sweeping black hills and alongside rivers. I wondered how Ari could keep running for so long. My arms and hips ached. I shut my eyes a second to rest them.

  Fire roared before me. A flaming arrow—the earth cracked open where it landed. The crack spread, like a tear in a sweater. Molten fire bubbled through it, overflowing into the land around it.

  I felt my grip slipping and jerked awake with a gasp. Ari slowed and turned to look at me. “I’m okay,” I told him. “Just keep going.” Don’t stop now.

  Ari ran on, and I clutched his fur tighter than I needed to. My hands were slick with sweat. The wind burned against my skin. In a distant corner of my mind I saw more arrows, all aflame, landing throughout Iceland—south, west, east, north. I saw arrows flying beyond the island, too, landing in places I knew from maps: Greenland. England and Norway. The northeastern United States. Wherever the arrows landed, cracks spread, tearing the land apart.

  Seeing the future runs in our family. “That’d better not be the future.” I imagined the cracks in the earth spreading all the way to Tucson—all the way around the world. I’d always assumed that whatever happened here, home would be safe.

  Would returning Hallgerd’s coin stop those arrows—stop that future? Or would it only give her more power, like Svan said? What if I needed to get rid of the fire in me to make the arrows stop?

  We topped a rise. I looked down, over a glimmering lake and row after row of blocky stone walls. I dreamed of a tower made of a child’s gray blocks. “Thingvellir,” I said. This was where it all began.

  Where it all ended, for Mom. I clutched Ari’s fur so hard my knuckles turned white.

  I felt once more the fire flowing beneath the earth. I felt the fire burning through my veins. Somehow, I kept that fire beneath my skin. Ari ran faster. Sweat poured down my face. A few figures—ghosts like Hallgerd’s uncle—glanced up as we ran by. We left the lake and the ghosts behind, making our way past fields of gravelly black rock and through farmland broken up by farmhouses and small towns.

  Ari stumbled, caught himself, and stumbled again. I stroked his fur. “Just a little further,” I said, hoping it was true.

  Ari put on a final burst of speed as we left another town behind and headed into a broad valley. Grassy hills rose to our left, and a rocky field stretched out to our right. Ari wove around a herd of sheep that were sleepily crossing the road. Unlike the horse, the sheep didn’t seem to see us.

  The horizon turned gray. Drizzle fell, sizzling as it hit my hot skin. Not panicking, not panicking … The rain rolled right off Ari’s white fur. He slowed down to look at a road sign. I shined the flashlight on it. Ari nodded and sped back up. Several more times he slowed to read signs and squint at the farmhouses beyond them.

  Abruptly the pavement ended. The sky was brighter now, and I didn’t need a flashlight to see the sign at the roadside: Hlidarendi, it read. Ari turned left and headed up a steep gravel lane, damp with rain. Around us, yellow and orange grasses were dotted with dandelions gone to seed. Raindrops clung to their fuzzy white tops. We passed another farmhouse, rounded a bend, and headed toward a small red-roofed church. On the slopes beyond it I saw more farmhouses.

  Bright light broke through the dripping gray clouds. Ari staggered, and his fur rippled beneath my hands. I lost my grip and slid to the ground, even as Ari shrank, fur withdrawing into skin, head and arms and legs all pulling back, reshaping themselves into a human face, human limbs. In moments Ari’s white hair was all that remained of the bear he’d been. He crouched on all fours, looking at me. I couldn’t tell whether his skin was drenched with sweat or rain.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I guess you’ll have to walk—the last few meters—” He tried to stand, but crumpled to the ground.

  “Ari!” I knelt beside him, ignoring the fire that burned on in me, ignoring sore hips and aching hands and the rain that continued to fall. His eyes were closed. I leaned close to his lips to make sure he was breathing.

  Ari’s eyes fluttered open, and he gave a shaky smile. “Don’t tempt me, yeah?” He slowly sat up. “I’m okay. Just—a little tired.” His breath came out in gasps.

  I remembered Svan talking about berserks. Strong enough during a change, not much use after. “Can you stand?”

  “I can,” Ari said. “But I—would rather—not if—it’s all—the same to you. Gunnar’s home is somewhere—past the church, I think. You should be able to make it—the rest of the way—on your own.”

  “Hell no. We got this far together. I’m not ditching you now.”

  “Being ditched doesn’t sound—so bad. Just give me a few minutes.”

  I rubbed my arms. Through the nylon and fleece, I felt the heat from my skin. How long could I wait?

  Something must have showed in my face, because Ari nodded grimly and draped his arm over my shoulders. His legs wobbled as I pulled him to his feet. He shivered in the thin light. “Your skin is burning, Haley.”

  “I know.” I unzipped my jacket. The fire burned on, sweat plastering my T-shirt to my skin. Ari looked at me, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I continued up the hill, dragging him with me. The path was steeper than it looked. My thighs
ached as we climbed. Ari’s legs trembled.

  “What you did,” I said as the rain kept falling around us, evaporating when it hit my skin. “That was amazing.”

  Tired as he was, Ari grinned. “It was, wasn’t it? I think I could get used to being a bear.” He stumbled; I caught him. “Only the hangover the next morning? That part sucks.”

  The gravel ended at a parking lot behind the church. From the roof, I heard chittering. A half dozen black-capped arctic terns were lined up there, staring at us through tiny eyes.

  We walked faster, across the parking lot and up the hillside. Ari panted as we climbed through grasses slick with rain. Sheep grazed on the slopes above us. A stream trickled downhill a few dozen feet to our right, and a small wooden bridge arced over it. “I’m supposed—to go—here on—a class trip—next year. I don’t know—the exact spot—where Gunnar and Hallgerd had their house. But there’s a tourist sign.” Ari gestured up the hill. “Maybe it’s—close enough?”

  The gray sky was bright, sun turning the clouds gold around the edges. I took a few steps toward the stream, stopped short, and looked around. “Here,” I said.

  “How can you know—”

  “I know this hillside. I stood here in my dreams.” Heat rose in me as I remembered—blocks falling, fiery arrows striking the ground—this ground. I released Ari’s arm to take off my backpack. He staggered and fell to his knees.

  I knelt by his side. “You sure you’re all right?”

  Ari gave me a long look. “As sure as you are.”

  “Right.” I tore off my jacket. Wind blew through my sodden T-shirt, but it felt hot as the desert wind back home. I drew the spellbook from my pack and laid out the ingredients for the spell: The mead. The bowl. The claw. The rock, which was softer than it looked, flaking at the edges. I left the knife in the pack—I didn’t plan to use it. At last I reached for the coin. Its heat felt good against my burning skin, like a warm caress. I pulled it out.