Lucy at War

by Mary E. Twomey

  Jamie snatched up the other glass and poured the liquid down his throat, gripping the table with his free hand as he muscled through his gag reflex.

  I threw up my hands in exasperation. Fine! Do whatever you feel like. I’m just along for the ride. I stood abruptly as my stomach churned. I pushed out my chair from the table and flung my hair over my shoulder in the best huff I could muster. I stomped into the living room and walked out the front door, slamming it shut behind me.

  Twenty-Eight.

  Making Babies in the Alley

  I knew I wouldn’t make it far before someone came after me. I couldn’t get a lick of space from the group, though for months all I craved was someone to stay with me in the darkness.

  Jens came trotting down the steps behind me. “Loos, come on. I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t want you to have to worry about something like keeping me alive. Don’t be like this.”

  I whirled on him, my finger in his face. Don’t you follow me! I said with my eyes.

  “This is a hole of a neighborhood! You can’t go wandering off whenever you feel like having a childish tantrum.”

  I reared back. “Childish?” At the sound of my own voice escaping my lips, I touched my mouth and whimpered with relief. “It worked?”

  Jens gusted out his elation, his shoulders loosening. “That’s awesome! What a relief! I didn’t want to have to pound on Tuck. You want some water?” he asked as I coughed, my voice raspy and hoarse from disuse, but not nearly as bad as one might expect. It merely felt like I’d been sucking on cotton balls, not as though I hadn’t uttered a sound in months.

  I shook my head, recalling my indignation. “No, I’m still mad at you.”

  Jens rolled his eyes at my anger. “Go ahead and use your first words in months to yell at me over something that isn’t even my fault. I didn’t make the rules of the vow, Loos. That’s just how it is across the board.”

  I gestured wildly with my hands as I spoke, forgetting that I didn’t need to use sign language anymore. “We’re supposed to be equals, and you’re still keeping things from me! It never ends with you! Just when I think I know you, the bottom drops out and there’s a whole mess of crap beneath it. Why are you always hiding from me?”

  He bit back, incredulous at my gall. “Why? Because I want you to be happy! And you’re one to talk. You’re secretive too, Loos. Do you think it’s easy being in love with you?” He started gesticulating wildly with his hands, matching my level of frustration. “Everything’s so tied and linked and bonded and laplanded around you – I have to tread lightly. Do you think I want to put more stress on you? If I’m doing my job of keeping you alive, it’s not something you’ll ever have to worry about.”

  “You still should have told me!”

  “What would that have done?”

  My hands fused to my hips. “It would have made you not lie to me! Are you serious with this? What else are you hiding ‘for my own good’?”

  Jens licked his lips. “Nothing. That’s all, and it was just so you didn’t have to worry. Your life’s already linked to Jamie’s. I won’t put more on you like that if I can help it.”

  “You’re still bent on hiding things from me, then! You make me crazy!” I shot at him.

  “Well, you are crazy!” he fired back.

  We stared at each other, steaming and stewing and clenching our fists at our sides as we gritted our teeth in matched frustration.

  I’m not totally sure when we started kissing. I was certainly in no mood and knew I didn’t look any variation of sexy at the moment. It was a mutual attack that led us to the alley between our building and the slum next to it. It was the dirtiest place I’d ever made out in (I hope). I slammed Jens back against the brick, kissing him with all the anger I had in me. Our lips fought as mutual moans and growls escaped us. The passion built to a frenzy, and I found myself backed up to a dumpster as Jens pressed my hands to the metal above my head. I shut the mental door that led to Jamie, knowing he could feel the heat building in my body.

  Jens was the best kisser. Of all his talents, I’m glad I knew that one well, and exploited it at every available opportunity. My knees went weak as our tongues tied us together, and soon I was lying on the ground in the alley, my legs wrapped around his waist as he kissed me for all he was worth. I’m pretty sure my back was fighting the ground for space with a balled-up napkin and an old takeout bag, but my brains were pretty much on a tropical beach vacation by that point, rolling around in the warm sand with my hot boyfriend.

  Then, just as out of nowhere as it started, Jens began to beg off from the kiss, slowing to a stop as he panted above me. “What just happened? What was that?”

  “That was you saying you’re sorry for hiding things from me,” I explained, nipping his lower lip. “And being a total jackfish.”

  His eyes rolled back in pleasure as he indulged us in another few minutes of gentle kisses to replace the attacking ones we’d barely surfaced from. “I don’t think so, Mox. I think that was you apologizing for yelling at me, and then thanking me for keeping you safe all these years.”

  “I do love you,” I admitted. “And thanks for keeping me safe. But don’t hide things from me anymore.”

  He didn’t agree, but his answering kiss scrambled my brains enough to stem my stored-up arguments. His pelvis pressed into mine, and I stopped caring about too many things all at once. After all the chaos that ripped at my life, there was only Jens, and he was such a beautiful thing.

  He kissed me once more, his breaths long and heady. “We should… not in the alley. You’re going to get tetanus.”

  I watched him pull away so I could sit up, and like a gentleman, he brushed the filthy napkin and who knows what else off my back. I felt awkward, but elated at the same time. That’s the thing about losing your head to a really good kiss.

  Twenty-Nine.

  Speaking Up

  I was so unused to the exercise of talking that I was afraid my volume was off whenever I opened my mouth.

  “What? Speak up, babe.” Jens was leaning back in his chair, his arm slung across the back of my chair as we all sat or stood around the kitchen table.

  “I’m just saying that whoever wants to come with me can come. I’m going either way. I don’t much care who believes me and who thinks I’m insane. Linus is my brother. If there’s even a small chance I could get him back, I’ll be jumping on the next train that’ll take me straight to that shot in the dark.”

  Foss ran his hand down his face, exasperated with either me or the late hour, it was anybody’s guess. “Let me get this straight. Your dead mom placed her spirit inside you behind a wall, where she stashes all your Undran abilities? Then she somehow got the most vindictive siren ever to make a fair trade of her life for preserving Linus’s soul? You’ve had his soul on you this entire time in your necklace, but now you need to go back to Nøkken and stuff his soul back in his body to bring him back to life?” Foss stared at me, his black eyes not withholding his clear opinion. “That sounds totally logical. Remind me again why we’re letting the one who’s clearly had her brains messed with make any kind of decision here?”

  “I’m not crazy!” I shouted, disproving my point.

  Foss’s pacifying tone made me murderous. “No. I hear dead people telling me to dig up other dead people all the time.” He turned to Jens. “You’re not actually considering this, are you?”

  Jens folded his fingers over his toned stomach. “I don’t know what to believe, but I know better than to go against Mox when her family’s on the line. At worst, we’ll go there and Linus won’t be buried in Nøkken. It’s a pretty specific spot Hilda told her to look for. Linus was my friend. I’d do the same for any of you. If there was a chance to raise back Nik, Tor, Alrik or --” He stopped short, and we all knew he wished he hadn’t almost brought up Charles Mace. Jens swallowed. “I’d take that chance for Linus.”

  The loss of Charles stabbed me in the heart, renewing my fervor in my quest for Linus. I
would have one brother back, so help me. “He’s there. I’m sure of it.”

  Foss was incredulous, clearly wishing I was still mute. He slapped his palm to his chest, his volume causing me to flinch. “I’m dead in Undraland! I can’t just go walking around the countryside like it’s nothing. And Jamie’s family tried to have him killed or turned insane so they could dethrone him. You really think it’s wise to go traipsing around Undraland with that kind of mark on us?” His eyes trailed to Britta, who remained affixed to her husband. “I made the mistake of travelling with two women before; I’ll not be saddled with a pregnant one.”

  Tucker was leaning against the counter, stroking his left suspender slowly as he took in the tenor of the back and forth. “Is it widely known that Lucy and Jamie are laplanded over there?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jamie answered. “We didn’t lapland until we got to the Warf, and we kept it pretty well hidden. We were good in Nøkken and Fossegrim.”

  Jens spoke up, his finger in the air to pause us. “Stina knows, and she was in cahoots with Jeneve, so it’s safe to assume Tonttu might be in the know.”

  “Didn’t you use the laplanding card in Elvage when they threw me in jail with, you know… with Mace?” My throat went dry as I tried to shove down the things that they’d all had months and months to deal with, and I was still drowning in.

  “No one would let me through the gate to talk to them. I would have told them, but it wasn’t necessary in the end,” Jamie said, his tone somber.

  There was a heavy silence that fell over the group, interrupted by Tucker’s “charming” mouth. “Who’s Mace?”

  No one spoke for a few beats, leaving it to me to explain what I’d just as soon never talk about. “Charles Mace was my brother who I’d just found out about when I went to Undraland for the first time with Jens last year. My parents left him with Alrik when my mom was banished from Undraland. They thought it would be safer for him than to live as exiles in a world teeming with vindictive Huldras.”

  “They weren’t wrong,” Jens commented under his breath.

  “Anyway, he was a pretty strong Huldra they’d collared to keep any chance of him whistling under control.”

  “A male Huldra? He could control people with his whistle?” Tucker had his studious face on – eyebrows knit together, arms crossed over his chest and no hint of sex jokes in sight. It was hard to recognize him without the sex jokes. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  I shrugged. “What can I say? We’re a weird family. We got his collar off and he helped us a lot. Helped tear down the Elvage portal, which is how he and I got thrown into prison there.” I hated every word that came out of my mouth. I’d been silent for so long, and my words were now being used to cut me in my sore spot. I didn’t want to talk about Mace. I didn’t want to think about it or remember the awfulness. I wanted my brothers back.

  Linus. I have to get to Linus.

  I took a deep breath, my arms banded around my stomach to keep my guts from falling out all over the floor. “Mace revealed himself as a practicing Huldra to the guards, and he told them he controlled me into destroying the portal, which is how I was let go with apologies and an escort by the Elvage Head of the Guard.”

  Jens grumbled under his breath, “That’s not why you got an escort. Kristoffer wants to jump your bones.”

  Tucker shook his head. “But they’d have checked your hands and eyes and seen that he hadn’t controlled you. How’d you get around that?”

  I wanted to answer. Actually, that’s not true. I wanted to run away from the question. I wanted to take a car ride to Nøkken and bust Linus out of the ground so anything could feel right again. My mouth opened and closed several times before Jamie took pity on me and answered.

  Jamie cleared his throat. “She wouldn’t let Charles take the blame for the portal and wouldn’t agree to tell them he’d controlled her. She was set on dying with him. Charles wouldn’t have that. He used his last moments to whistle her into forgetting who he was. Then he confessed his crime to the guard. He was beheaded straightaway. Lucy and I forgot all about him until the sirens jolted it all loose.” He sat straight next to Britta, his arm around the back of her chair. “You’ll have to excuse us; it’s still quite fresh for Lucy and me.”

  Tucker was thunderstruck. “That’s a terrible story. You’re no longer in charge of nursery rhymes.” He shook his head. “Wait. You only just remembered everything in the sirens’ lair? It’s been more than half a year since you came back to the Other Side, right? How’s that possible? Huldra whistles usually wear off in a few hours or days.”

  Jens fielded this one, which was good, since my guts felt like they were hemorrhaging out of my body. “Lucy was more susceptible to him, and Mace had abilities like I’d never seen, apart from his mom.” He laced his fingers together and placed them over his messy hair. “He was Hilda the Powerful’s son. Bound to be some punch behind his blows.”

  The more questions Tucker asked, the worse the knife dug into my tender stomach. “What about this Linus bloke? Is he like Mace, then? What are we getting into when we resurrect him?”

  Jens cracked his neck – a horrible rippling grind that made me cringe. “Linus had a tail, but it was removed at birth. Lucy was born without one. They don’t have any abilities at all. I’m guessing Linus probably has a wall like Lucy’s in his mind, with Hilda keeping his powers tucked away for the greater good. It’s not safe for the public to have a Huldra that powerful unleashed on the world.”

  I kept my eyes trained on the tabletop. “Mom said a byproduct of her spirit inside me was my blonde hair.”

  Britta turned her head toward me. “Linus is sort of blond, too.” She was a good friend to remember that. Jens had shown her a few pictures of Linus he’d taken on his phone. “Darker than Lucy’s hair, but still not Undran.”

  I nodded, putting the obvious puzzle together. “Then I guess you’re right about Linus having her spirit inside him, keeping his abilities tucked away from use.”

  Tucker’s gaze stared at the top of my head and trailed down to the tips of my hair that desperately needed a trim. “That explains how we got a blonde Undran with no abilities whatsoever.”

  I was tired of talking. I wanted my brother. “Jamie has to come with me to get Linus, but no one else needs to go. I want you all to come if you can, but I get it. Britt, Foss and Tuck don’t even know Linus. It’s just a little trip to Nøkken, and we’ll be back before you know it with Linus 2.0. Easy-peasy.”

  “You know I’m going. I’m your Tom, and Linus was my friend.” Jens pounded his fist twice on the table – not in an angry way, but to signify that he was in.

  Jamie sighed. “Of course I’m going, but if we could make it a short trip, that would be preferable. I don’t relish the idea of my child being born in Undraland with my father so greedy for his throne, and set that I should not be a part of it.”

  Britta was quiet, but firm as she spoke. “I’ll not be going.”

  Jamie was the only one surprised at this news. “You’re not? Surely you’ve forgiven me for how I acted when I was drugged by Jeneve!”

  Britta softened, her hand resting on Jamie’s. “I’ve put that out of my mind forever, since it wasn’t you. I know you, Jamie, and I don’t hold any of that against you or Lucy. I’m not going because I’m pregnant. It’s several weeks’ trek to Nøkken and back, which will be a far longer journey if I’m there. If Johannes is bent on murdering you, I won’t let him near our child. I can hide here and wait for you to return.”

  Of course I wanted Britta with me everywhere I went, but girlfriend was in the beginning of her second trimester. Ain’t no way we were going to let her hike through the mountains and sleep on the ground.

  “Then I can’t go, Lucy,” Jamie ruled. “Linus can wait until after the baby’s born.”

  Thirty.

  Baseball Bats and Fire

  I stood so quickly, my chair toppled backwards. I glared at Jamie, leaning my fists on
the table. You will not take this away from me! Every day that goes by is a day someone might discover his remains! I’ve been without my other half for too long! I’ve let you escape your curse by coming into my dreams. I’ve done everything I can to make sure you can be with Britta without our bond getting in the way! You owe me, Tonttu! I slapped the table in my fury, glaring at him with my upper lip curled in a sneer.

  Jamie slowly stood, taking his time to tower over me and give me the full effect of his older-than-me status. You will not throw your kindness in my face as leverage. What you’re asking is much, syster. You had nineteen years with your brother. I will not miss a day of my child’s life!

  Would that I could breathe fire. Nineteen years? Nineteen years?! You try being a twin! You try losing every person in your family, then getting a new brother only to lose him a few months later! You lose everything you love, and then tell me what you wouldn’t do to get one of them back! I don’t care if I give us an aneurism! I’m going to get my brother, and I’m leaving tomorrow – with or without you!

  Jamie growled aloud. You don’t get to make decisions for the both of us just because you’re the bigger child!

  I let out an audible screech of indignation and rounded the table to pound on him.

  Jens stood, intervening in our silent feud. “Okay, okay. Why don’t you two try talking out loud so the rest of us can help? It’s getting a little intense.”

  I yelled, not caring how unbalanced I sounded, and pointed at Jamie. “He’s trying to keep me from Linus! He doesn’t want to leave Britta, so he’s saying I shouldn’t need to get Linus back now. That I should wait until after the baby’s born. He’s cracked, I’m telling you! I’ll wait out the night here, but I’m gone by morning! My brother’s rotting away in Nøkken as we speak! Linus needs me, and I need him!” I pounded my fist to my chest, my voice breaking without my permission. “I can’t live like this anymore! I need my brother!”