Clearly, flirting with me, or whatever it had been, was about as noteworthy in his day as breathing and walking upright. Not that I expected anything otherwise. It really should have been a relief. Especially since we’d be in close quarters if he was coming with us to Norway. The last thing we needed was my ridiculous imagination tagging along and making me feel awkward around him.
After loitering in the kitchen long enough that the same person had walked through twice to use the bathroom, I decided to make an attempt to be social. Plus, I knew there was no way Graham was paying attention to the dwindling food situation. I grabbed a tray of sandwiches and made my way down the stairs and into the melee.
“Hold up.” A guy I’d never seen before shifted in front of me. Assuming he was hungry, I extended the tray.
“Want to sit with us?” He motioned toward a group of unfamiliar faces clustered around a table.
“There’s only one chair,” I pointed out, because it was the first thing that popped into my head.
He nodded. Apparently he thought we’d be sharing it.
He had to be from a different school—someone Graham knew from one of the dozen or more after-school activities that had dazzled college admissions officers across the country. From the way that boy smiled at me, he had no idea who I was. Or what Graham would do to him if he tried to sleaze all over me. Not that it necessarily would have stopped someone who had so clearly drowned each and every one of his inhibitions.
“Tempting,” I said. “But I’m busy.”
“What’s the hurry?”
I hesitated. There was no hurry. There was no reason I couldn’t sit and talk to him and his friends. Graham would never know. Except when I turned and finally looked the boy squarely in the face, something in me sagged with disappointment. His eyes were glassy from a day of drinking in the sun, comparing unfavorably to the way Tuck was always sharp, even when you knew he shouldn’t be.
“Want some help with that?” The boy reached for the tray, misreading my hesitation.
“No, thank you,” I said, turning away. “I’ve got it.”
“No, really, let me take it.” He grabbed for the tray again.
Even though he was annoying and harmless, I started to get mad. At myself, for stopping to talk to him. At Graham, for making me second-guess and worry about every little thing I did. And at Tuck, for lighting my nerves on fire in the first place. I could feel my temper snapping, threatening to break free, when the boy’s other hand materialized on my hip.
“Don’t touch me.” My voice was unnecessarily harsh, even to my own ears. I turned to face him, startled by the vehemence of my reaction, by the force of my own anger. But at my words, an odd shadow settled across his face. His eyes were distant and cloudy, like a fog had drifted across his pupils. They weren’t just unfocused like they’d been earlier; instead, they were utterly empty. As I watched, his jaw fell slack and he bobbed on his feet, putting his full weight on my outstretched arm. The same arm that was supporting the tray.
For one terrible moment, I thought he would knock me and all the sandwiches right into the pool. But a steadying hand caught my elbow. The tray was lifted from my grasp. “Can’t take you anywhere,” Tuck said. “Although I guess you had an equally incompetent assistant. Looks like I’m not the only one who appreciated that scotch.”
I shifted my eyes toward the boy, hoping Tuck would catch my plea for help. And of course he did.
Tuck looked at him, a smirk on his face. “Do me a favor and get a water from the cooler over there.”
But the boy just stared at me blankly for a full count of five. There was something unnatural about his lingering, vacant stare; it sent a glacier of ice-cold fear sliding down my spine. Had my rebuff been so harsh that I’d made him catatonic? Or maybe he was slipping into some sort of alcohol-related coma? But just as my panic reached a fever pitch, he snapped back to life, blinking furiously as if waking from a deep sleep.
“Sure,” he said. That boy might not have known who I was, but everyone knew Tucker Halloway. “Be right back,” he added.
“You came down,” Tuck said to me. “Are you staying, or are you catering?” He grabbed a sandwich off the tray. “Thanks, by the way. Famished.”
“Neither,” I said, stepping away and deciding right then to just leave Tuck to deal with the tray of sandwiches if he was gonna be snide.
“Don’t let that jerk chase you away,” Tuck said, following me through the crowd. “I’ll get rid of him.”
“Isn’t that what you just did?” I stopped and turned to face him.
“I mean for good.” The alcohol on his breath was surprisingly sweet, as was the look in his gray eyes. But I wasn’t going to be tricked a second time.
“I don’t want murder on my conscience, if that’s what you mean.”
“It’s not,” Tuck said. “Even I have my limits.”
“Good to know. Tucker Halloway’s limit is just shy of manslaughter,” I said. “Maybe we tie him up and stash him in the pantry instead?”
Tuck laughed. Usually that would make me feel ten thousand feet tall. But even his smile wasn’t enough to shake off what had happened. The memory of the boy’s vacant face had triggered an ominous, jittery feeling in my limbs, and it was building by the second. I wanted more than anything to be alone, away from the party.
“How about we tell him who you are?” Tuck said. “Unless you want an afternoon to be someone else. Graham’s too busy to play dad.”
Ordinarily I might have considered his offer. Or at least paused to ponder what Tuck would exact from me in return. Tuck never sided against Graham.
But I was too confused and distracted to navigate whatever maze Tuck was coaxing me into. I shook my head, looking up to find Tuck watching me closely. Testing and quite possibly trapping me.
“Did you notice anything weird about that guy a minute ago—about his eyes?” I asked.
“No, but I wasn’t the one gazing into them,” Tuck replied. It was my prompt to smile, to play along. And when I missed it, he surveyed me like a surgeon deciding where to cut. “You okay?” Concern creased his forehead. “You look weird right now. Did that guy do something to you?” The edge in his voice was a reminder that as reckless as he sometimes appeared to be, Tuck was every bit as intense as Graham. Protective vibe and all.
“Yes … I mean, no … I’m fine,” I stammered, wanting to get away. For so many reasons. “I—I left the oven on. I have to go.”
“Odd, given that none of the food I’ve seen requires heat.” He arched one eyebrow but let me go without another word. Still, I knew he was following my every move as I wove through the party.
My feet felt far away as they carried me up the deck stairs and into the house. The boy’s white pupils filled my mind. As did the way his face had fallen slack, empty, as he tipped right into me.
Once in the safety of my room, with two inches of solid oak protecting me from the world outside, what had just happened was easier to rationalize. It wasn’t like I’d wanted to join the party in the first place, and while there, all I could do was worry about Graham and whether I’d embarrass him. Or if he’d humiliate me by acting like my parent. Last Friday night, he had dragged me to a party, only to kick me out a half hour before my curfew. In front of everyone.
Either way, it was starting to seem like a good thing that I was leaving for the summer. If I was hiding in my room during the party of the year, and quite possibly hallucinating, it was a sign I needed a break from all the chaos and pressure of Graham’s world. Eight weeks in Skavøpoll, Norway, would give me just that. Graham’s shadow couldn’t possibly reach all the way across the Atlantic—at least not until he arrived and took over that town, too. But I would have a week to myself before he’d join me, while he stayed home to complete the circuit of graduation parties. And even when he did get there, there was only so much excitement he could stir up.
After all, there was no quieter place in the world than Norway. Nothing ever happened the
re.
2
The trip to Norway was thirteen hours in the air, with a layover in Newark. After a cramped eight hours sandwiched between the tallest person I’d ever seen and the fattest, I arrived in Oslo. There I switched to yet another plane for the short flight to Bergen, where my grandmother would pick me up at the airport. By the time the captain announced our approach and imminent landing, I was dying to get off the plane. Even the rinky-dink town of Skavøpoll would be a welcome sight after that epic bout of confinement.
My grandmother was waiting for me at the baggage claim. At six foot two, she was easy to spot. Even in a country where everyone was astonishingly huge and fair, she was striking. Her bobbed bright white hair was a beacon, guiding me through the sea of heads and right to her side.
“Elsa,” Grandmother said, kissing both cheeks. “You’re getting so tall. Almost as tall as me.” Graham and I took almost completely after her side of the family, resembling not only our father but also his mother, Hilda Overholt—I realized it more and more every time I saw her.
“Well, about four inches shy,” I replied, amazed that my grandmother still looked so young. Despite her white hair and old-lady spectacles, only a handful of wrinkles creased her face, and they were only visible when I searched for them. Grandmother Hilda was gorgeous.
“You’ll get there, sweetling,” she said, linking her elbow through mine. “Taller, that is. Then we’ll see you in those fashion magazines.”
“Right,” I muttered. The last thing I needed was to be even more freakishly tall.
“Or tearing apart Tokyo?” she suggested, towing me through the crowd toward the exit. “Don’t worry, Ellie, Godzilla still has an inch or two on me.” She clucked her tongue. I’d forgotten how she did that when she was teasing. And that she’d always been able to read me too well. I had to laugh, pushing aside my jet-lagged crankiness.
Suddenly, I saw the two months stretching in front of me in a whole new light. Not that it wasn’t always fun to visit her, but last time I’d been here was the summer before I started high school. I’d been just a kid. This time, things could be different. Grandmother Hilda had always been cool. She let me wander through town at all hours, no questions asked. That was never permitted in LA, under my mother’s ever-watchful, all-seeing eyes. Even Graham would have more freedom in Skavøpoll, with the nonexistent drinking age.
That line of thought opened up a whole world of unwelcome anxieties, like whether Graham would loosen up. And how on earth I’d share a roof with Tucker Halloway for two weeks straight. But I knew I’d manage somehow. I always had.
MY GRANDMOTHER LIVED on the top of a hill a mile outside of town, in an old gray farmhouse nestled at the edge of a pine forest and surrounded by gardens that would put most professional landscapers to shame. A stone fence taller than Graham traced the property line, surrounding all two acres, making it feel almost magical, like we were set apart from the rest of the world. The calm and quiet of her house were so consuming that the day before Graham arrived was really the first time I ventured out for anything other than a morning run through the surrounding fields.
The morning was bright and warm, and after my run, I decided to explore the town. Not much had changed during the two years since I’d last visited Grandma Hilda. Downtown Skavøpoll was still a long row of family-owned shops lining a narrow main street. One side of the road backed into the water, while the other was built along the base of a slope that stretched up behind the town, dotted with homes and farms until it disappeared into the mountain. The stores along the water’s edge were scattered, fading into docks and rickety fishing sheds.
I wandered toward the wharf and waterfront, where the fishing crews were unloading their morning catch. With every step I thought about my grandfather, who had taken me down to those same piers each morning when I was young. We’d buy warm croissants from the bakery and watch as salmon the size of German shepherds were wrestled out of the cargo holds and tossed ashore.
The fishing crews had been up since the early hours of morning, hauling in nets full of fish, and it was amazing to see how much work they’d already done. While the rest of the country was still rubbing the sleep from their eyes, the fishermen had already unpacked their wares and were preparing the fish to be frozen and shipped all over the world.
The men patrolling the decks and hauling on ropes and pulleys were every bit as barnacled and battered looking as their weather-beaten boats.
Or so it seemed.
As I leaned forward over the metal railing along the dock, watching the work progress, I felt someone watching me. So I turned. A boy, an older boy, was on the deck of a boat farther down the pier.
Words utterly failed me. Except “wow.”
Disheveled blond locks peeked out from beneath his baseball cap. He grinned when he caught my eye—a flash of pearly white in an otherwise tan face.
I looked down, wondering if I’d been staring or if he had. Even though he’d seen me first, I’d definitely given him more than a casual glance in response.
I started to walk away, down the pier, but I heard a deep voice behind me, slightly out of breath from jogging and saying something incomprehensible. My stomach dropped, but I managed to look composed as I turned to face the blond boy. He smiled expectantly, waiting for me to reply to whatever he’d just said.
“I—I only speak English,” I said, ashamed that most of the Norwegian I’d picked up over the years was food related. I was hardly going to ask that boy to pass the bread.
I finally looked up to meet eyes that were the breezy blue of a sun-drenched tropical sea, which was ironic in such an arctic climate.
“You’re Hilda Overholt’s granddaughter?” It was more of a statement than a question, delivered in flawless English. He could have been a boy from any town back home, with that Wonder Bread smile. Maybe from a small town in the Midwest where they hold their vowels just a second longer.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m here for the summer.”
“I thought so—I saw you running the other day, up in our neighborhood. I’ve been meaning to stop by. I live just down the road.”
I nodded.
“We met once before. But you were about eight years old. You probably don’t remember.”
I shook my head. It was surprising that I could forget a face like his, even if I’d been just a kid.
“You know,” he said, covering for my awkward silence, “you look just like your grandmother did when she was young. At least, in her pictures.”
I felt warm. Once upon a time my grandmother was supermodel caliber. The pictures on her wall made that more than clear. I didn’t really know what to say. But I rarely did when I was talking to boys other than Graham and Tuck—and they hardly counted.
Fortunately he didn’t seem to notice. He extended one hand. “I’m Kjell,” he said, then repeated it, “Ch-ell,” carefully enunciating the first part, since the Norwegian ch sound is harsher than its English counterpart. “I’m here for the summer too.”
“Really.” I was determined not to blow a chance to make a friend. Better yet, a boy who didn’t see me and think of Graham. So I took a deep breath and forced myself to be bold. “And where do you spend the rest of the seasons?”
He laughed. It was a noteworthy event—his teeth were so straight, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he said he’d had braces twice. But his smile was crooked. It was the best possible combination.
“Oslo,” he replied. “At the university. I’m studying medicine, so eventually I’ll work summer shifts at a hospital. But for now, I’m navigator on my father’s boat. There.” He pointed to a newish-looking fishing boat a hundred feet down the pier.
“That’s not at all impressive,” I said. “I mean, I’ve been a doctor since I was twelve. And nautical navigation? Kid stuff.”
His smile took a playful turn. “I’ve heard you Americans mature quickly.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Given our obvious age difference, it triggere
d an uncomfortable association with the romantic disasters my mother’s art students got into during her summer program in Europe. It seemed that older Italian men also thought that Americans matured quickly. That comment wound away into awkward territory, so rather than replying, I pretended to be interested in the crates being lifted off the boat in front of us.
“Are you free tonight?” Kjell asked rather abruptly. Then, a touch embarrassed, he added, “Some friends are going to a pub. Nothing fancy, but it’s better than sitting around Hilda’s doing nothing.”
“I don’t know,” I said on reflex. Hanging out with a boy, even in a group, meant wanting it bad enough to fight for it. On the one almost-date I’d had that year, Graham and twenty of his closest friends had miraculously ended up at the same movie. As if my bio lab partner had been plotting for weeks to murder me in the dark.
It took a second for it to sink in that there was no one there to stop me. Graham was five thousand miles away. And what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. I felt a smile building inside as I realized I was free to do whatever I wanted. “I don’t usually go out with strangers,” I said, even though I had every intention of doing just that.
“But I’m not a stranger to the rest of your family,” he replied. “Your grandmother used to babysit me.”
Even though it was beginning to sound less like a date and more like my grandmother had nudged him into taking pity on me, I held my smile and said, “Okay.”
He rewarded me with another flash of straight white teeth. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
Before I rounded the corner and he disappeared from sight, I glanced back at Kjell. He was already at his father’s boat, easily stepping over the four-foot span of water that separated the deck from the pier.
He was tall, cute, and smart enough to be in medical school. What more could any girl ask for? I paused to imagine what Graham would have done if he’d been there to witness the whole exchange. If he scowled when I was asked out by boys he’d known since kindergarten, I couldn’t imagine what he’d think if a college boy asked me out—a heart-wrenchingly adorable college boy. Graham’s certain disapproval was a point in Kjell’s favor.
Valkyrie Rising Page 2
