The Language of Cherries

by Jen Marie Hawkins

  And your tattoo.

  It’s the symbol for awen.

  Describing its complexity is nearly impossible,

  even if words came easily.

  I take the book from her.

  Tak-nid?

  Symbol.

  What’s this taknid?

  She points at the rock.

  Then, reaching up, she touches my arm,

  the matching tattoo.

  I flinch,

  not letting her linger.

  She pulls her hand away slowly,

  eyeing me for an answer.

  Even if I could talk to her,

  I wouldn’t know how to explain it.

  Silly superstition or not,

  it meant something to my mother.

  So I bit into a leather belt

  while a miscreant tattoo artist

  who smelled like motor oil and whisky

  dragged the burning ink through my bicep.

  Though the English word for rune

  is the same as the Icelandic

  I flip through the book

  for a distraction.

  Brain all scrambled

  by the explosion of adrenalin

  her fingertips left in their wake.

  I point.

  Rune?

  She scrunches her nose.

  Like a pagan thing?

  The rune has always been a comfort to me.

  But under her judgmental gaze,

  I’m just a superstitious hálfviti.5

  Her American religion must be superior.

  Suddenly the life is sucked from everything between us.

  Birds stop singing.

  An eerie stillness falls over the trees.

  We both look around,

  notice the absence of sound

  simultaneously.

  Blink. Blink. Blink.

  When the reality of what’s coming sinks in,

  it’s too late to get back to the barn.

  Blink.

  The ladder vibrates and totters next to her.

  She turns her startled gaze toward it.

  Earth rumbles under our feet,

  at first gentle

  but half a blink later

  a nauseating wave.

  There are a number of things I could yell to warn her.

  Duck, for example.

  Or Earthquake!

  Instead, I dive on top of her

  shielding her from falling branches

  and the heavy wooden ladder

  that whacks the side of my face

  with skull-splitting force.

  Good to know that

  in a pinch

  I sprout Thor’s eistu6

  and save the day.

  ____________

  4: pönk (punk): [Icelandic] punk

  5: hálfviti (hal-vee-tee): [Icelandic] imbecile, half-wit.

  6: eistu (ace-too): [Icelandic] testicles.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Evie

  Everything shook.

  The ground. The sky. Evie’s crumpled limbs. Even the hulking body blanketing her from falling debris tremored, a bone-deep rattle that rubbed against her with enough heat to ignite her clothes. It was an unnerving sort of friction she would definitely appreciate under different circumstances.

  The earth seemed capable of vicious things, like it might gulp them up without warning. Evie had never experienced an earthquake before. Florida’s worst natural disasters were hurricanes, but at least they usually gave notice.

  Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes stretched into some other unquantifiable period of time. When it was over, it seemed to have lasted only a blip. Moments slipped away before she could grab them. Oskar remained completely motionless on top of her, his neck pressed against her chin. Neither of them breathed until something warm and wet and sticky hit the side of Evie’s face. Rain? Bird poop? When it dripped down to her hand, she gasped.

  Blood.

  Oskar looked down and met her eyes for one heart-stopping moment. He was slow to move, and when he sat up and climbed to his knees, Evie freed herself and understood why. The ladder and a heap of fallen branches lay strewn across his back. It would’ve all been on top of her if it hadn’t been for him. That’s when she saw the wound. Above his left eyebrow, a two-inch gash drizzled liquid richer and darker than the ripest cherries.

  “You’re bleeding!” Evie’s voice scraped a layer of flesh out of her throat.

  Oskar shook his head, waving her off, and wiped his brow with his shoulder and arm, which smeared a grisly streak across his tattoo. Like it was nothing. Like the earth got angry and threw things at him all the time. She started to protest, but Agnes’s voice filled the orchard.

  “Oskar!”

  His eyes grew three times their normal size and he grabbed Evie’s hand.

  Grabbed. Her. Hand.

  She couldn’t even process the warmth in her fingers before they were running for the shop’s side door, toward Agnes.

  “Aftershocks!” she said, calm but loud. It was a warning, a declaration—spoken as if from years of experience. Oskar yanked Evie’s hand so hard that a wave of pain ripped into her shoulder. He didn’t let her go even as they darted inside and crouched against an exterior wall, behind the sofa in the sitting area of the shop.

  His fingertips were callused, and their sandpaper texture moved against her knuckles in a nervous rhythm as they hunkered down. She stared at their joined hands before her gaze crept up to meet his. He let go when they did, and an indescribable cold settled into her.

  Agnes dropped down beside Evie. “Are ye hurt?”

  Her lip quivered, but she said nothing, still too shocked to absorb the last few minutes. She shook her head as the building rumbled again. Glass jars jangled against the wooden shelves. Some hopped off into the floor in a burst of crackling glass. Evie curled into the fetal position, thinking of her papá working outside. She whispered prayers to Saint Emigdio that the arctic earth hadn’t pulled him into its grumbling belly. Her teeth chattered as fear and worst-case scenarios played like a horror movie reel on a lonely screen in her brain.

  Rumbles squeezed through the building in waves, rising and falling like a fleeing tide. Evie stayed there for what could have been days, hiding in a dark corner behind her lids.

  “Get up now, it’s safe,” Agnes said gently, sometime after the shaking had stopped. “It’s over now.”

  She opened her eyes to the two of them staring down at her. They seemed to know for sure it was done. The ground beneath Evie wobbled still. It was that same sensation of sustained motion she always had after crawling off the big roller coaster at Busch Gardens with what was left of her sanity.

  Oskar stood over her, holding an ice pack to his brow. He looked away as she stumbled to her feet. Mason jars lay ruined all over the floor. A bookshelf hunched on its side. Drawers behind the counter hung ajar. The only thing unmoved was the framed poem hanging behind her on the wall. Somehow, the building itself remained intact in the most un-compromised way.

  “How do you know it’s over?” She couldn’t suppress her teeth chattering, even now.

  Agnes sighed and nodded to Oskar, some unspoken conversation taking place before he took the stairs to the overhead loft. She wondered what lingered past the edge of darkness up there.

  “We don’t, lass. But we’re used to them. The first one was a beastie, maybe close to a five, but the others weren’t so bad.” Agnes surveyed the damage in her shop. “Could’ve been worse. Come on, sit here.” She led Evie around to the sofa with a firm grasp on her elbow. Evie’s legs gave out just before she sank into the plush leather cushions.

  Oskar appeared in the stairwell with a red blanket bunched over his arms. Agnes took it from him and draped it around Evie’s shoulders. It smelled like something vaguely familiar. A tangy scent she remembered smelling at odd times back home—on country roads when they’d driven up to Tampa. In the girls’ locker room at Saint Bart’s, when their fitn
ess instructor had sworn there was a skunk loose in the building. Weed? No matter—it was warm and she was shivering.

  Agnes crouched, bright eyes shimmering with a maternal instinct that reminded Evie of Abuela. “Everything is fine, lass. Stay as long as you like. I need to tend the mess.”

  She nodded, curling against the couch with the skunky blanket. She toured the rubbled shop with her eyes. In the back of the store behind the couch, in the souvenir section, several small paintings sat askew on their easels. Others littered the floor. All of them were landscapes of the Icelandic countryside, each labeled with a location name she couldn’t pronounce even if she wanted to.

  Agnes and Oskar cleaned up the aftermath, dancing around cherry puddles full of glass. Evie stood and gathered the paintings from the floor, placing them on what looked like their respective displays, glancing down at the artist’s signature in the bottom right corner. She replaced books and postcards, keeping her hands busy as she tried to will her breathing to slow down.

  Her distraction stopped working when the rain began pounding the glass doors of the shop. Evie returned to the fear of her papá’s whereabouts. If an earthquake hadn’t interrupted his work, the rain definitely would. She turned her head, focusing on the books she placed back on the shelves. They were a mix of Icelandic guides and volumes of Nordic and Celtic mythology, with a few saga retelling novels tossed in. Once she was finished, she stepped behind the counter with the cash register and began tidying up all the cookbooks and supplies that had fallen.

  When the bulk of the chaos in the shop had been tidied, Agnes commanded Oskar to the sink. He winced as she wiped his brow with a wet cloth, cleaning dried blood out of his eyebrow and hair. Evie peeked at them from the corner of her eye, not missing the tenderness in the way Agnes took care of his injury.

  Why had he jumped on top of her like that?

  She tried to remember that moment exactly, when she’d looked up at him. The sunlight made a halo around him—an Oskar-shaped eclipse towering over her—before he climbed to his knees and they both stood.

  Oskar must have felt her watching him, because his gaze met hers with sudden determination.

  “Hold still, ye difficult boy!” Agnes grumbled.

  Evie risked another glance at him. The moment she did, he looked away.

  Agnes smoothed a second butterfly bandage over his brow and grumbled something indecipherable.

  As Evie replaced a cookbook with a leather cover, the yellowed pages started slipping out the bottom, and a piece of partially-folded parchment with blackened edges hit her knee. She set the cookbook down and picked up the page.

  That same symbol was inscribed at the top.

  Both symbol and words were a deep, dark red. As if they’d been written with ink made from the cherries themselves. She finished unfolding it and read the words, some of which she couldn’t even pronounce.

  O mór7 Alban Hefín8

  Lend us your draíocht9

  with powers of awen10

  engraved upon rock.

  I scatter these ashes

  on mourning tree roots

  infuse here an essence:

  their spirits through fruits.

  May love here still flourish

  And comfort our loss

  By the otherworld’s link

  With harvest and blás.11

  When sea winds blow gently

  Through midsummer’s veil

  Preserve here the stories

  While cherries tell tales.

  May only the purest

  Inspired eyes see

  The memories kept here

  By the Aisling tree.

  Evie stared at the page, dumbfounded. While cherries tell tales… She read it again, trying to make sense of it. Was it a poem? The more she studied it, the closer she got to making out the word pronunciations with the rhyme scheme.

  Before she could read it one more time, the page evaporated from her hand in one swift jerk. Evie startled and fell backwards on her butt. Agnes looked down at her briefly before folding the page and slipping it beneath the cash register. Evie wanted to ask her what it meant, but based on Agnes’s mood shift, she felt like she should be apologizing instead of asking questions.

  “Didn’t mean to startle ye, lass. I’ve been looking for that.” She brushed off her apron and fidgeted, not meeting Evie’s eyes. “Oskar’s going to take you back to your place—”

  Evie got her balance. “Oh no.” She stood, stretching herself shy of Agnes’s height. “Really. I can walk myself back. I’m fine.” The lie trembled on her lips. If it happened again, and she was alone… What if the earth started moving the moment she stepped into the orchard again? The fears upended her equilibrium. Some part of her hoped she could just huddle in the safety of the store until Papá showed up to get her.

  “No arguing,” Agnes insisted. “He’ll drive you. It’s become a dreich day. Terribly nasty out.”

  With a reluctant sigh, Evie walked behind Oskar out the glass shop doors, bell clanging behind her. He didn’t so much as glance back at her, which made her feel silly for following. Maybe he didn’t know he was supposed to be driving her back. She could just turn right and head down the road on foot instead. The rain pelted her skin with pinprick stings, and she realized how badly that walk would suck.

  He opened the passenger door and looked up at her then, holding her gaze only a moment before looking away. He walked around and got in on the driver’s side of the gray SUV.

  Okay.

  So he did know.

  Evie climbed in, and the worn vinyl passenger seat chilled her backside. The vehicle was an older model of some Icelandic brand she’d never heard of. Spearmint gum wrappers polluted the cupholders, and the carpet reeked. Maybe the blanket had been in his car at some point, because it smelled just like it.

  “Did you run over a skunk or something?” Evie asked, trying to lighten the mood, even if she was just talking to herself. Anything to call attention away from her rogue nerves. “Do you even have skunks in Iceland? Or are you a stoner?” She giggled nervously, but he ignored her. Being alone with him in an enclosed space was different than standing in the shop or the orchard, especially after The Earth Moving Incident.

  Oskar put the car in gear. Little bits of dried blood flaked in the blond hair on his arm, across the tattoo peeking from under his tee shirt sleeve. Over the hum of the engine and the wet prickle of raindrops on the windshield, she listened to the gentle whoosh of his breathing. She tried to imagine what color his breath would be if she painted it. Green, maybe. Like his spearmint gum. She wished she could place her ear against his chest, so she could hear his heart too. She wanted to know if it was beating as fast as hers.

  Stop thinking things like that, Evie.

  The ride was much quicker than the walk over the hills separating the orchard from Fryst Paradis. “I’m all the way in the back.” Evie pointed down the road into the dreary muck, relieved that her voice didn’t shake. He seemed to understand the gesture. When his car slowed outside the little turf house that huddled in the side of the mossy hill, he nodded to it, eyebrows raised in question.

  Evie gave him a weak smile and pointed. “That’s it.”

  Her stomach sank with heavy disappointment as the car came to a stop. As she gripped the cold metal door handle, she gave herself permission to look at him. Really look at him. Something burned in his stormy eyes—some unrecognizable emotion just beneath the surface. It un-jarred a swarm of fireflies inside her, fluttering down her arms and legs.

  “What you did today—” she paused for a sigh—“that’s the swooniest thing a guy has ever done for me. Better than words. Better than a kiss, even. I know you don’t know what I’m saying, but I just wanted to say thank you.” She stressed the last two words, searching his face for any level of understanding. Surely he at least knew thank you.

  “You’re kind,” she said. Fact. Unkind people didn’t turn themselves into human shields for strangers. Miss Izzy w
as now two for three.

  His cheeks deepened in color, but that could’ve been her imagination. Or the cold. He stared at her with the same disarming intensity for another moment before directing his gaze to the windshield. So much eye contact, but he always looked away first. The reflection of the windshield wipers moved in his pupils.

  A dismissal?

  “Anyway…” She tensed, squeezing the door handle and opening the door. She didn’t look back as she slammed the door and ran to the front overhang. Stupid, senseless tears prickled her eyes as she shoved her key in the doorknob and stepped into an empty guesthouse. She peeked over her shoulder. Oskar’s brake lights turned into tiny red streaks in the distance.

  ___________

  7: Mór (morrr): [Gaelic] great

  8: Alban Hefín (al-bin hef-fin): druid specific word for summer solstice

  9: draíocht (dree-oct): [Gaelic] druid magic

  10: awen (ah-ooo-win): [Gaelic] druid symbol meaning poetic inspiration. Is used as a symbol for the order of druids.

  11: blás (bloss): [Gaelic] beauty through taste

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Oskar’s Journal

  I leave Fryst Paradis and head home.

  But when I see the white oversized truck

  parked in front of the store again

  I pass the barn and keep driving.

  He must’ve come by to check on us,

  make sure we are okay after the quake.

  Though Edvin Jonsson is the only teacher

  who ever tried to understand me,

  the truth of it is,

  my goals aren’t the same as his.

  I’m not sure I even have goals anymore.

  Or if I want them.

  I always make plans

  when it’s too late to execute them.

  If I had just dove over the middle seat

  on top of Ivan that day

  the way I dove on top of the girl,

  he’d probably still be here.

  Sometimes I remember little things