Serpent's Kiss

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “Algiz, manaz, laguz,” Ingrid said, listing the names of the runes. “This means that something or someone has been protecting you until now. Shielding you from evil. However that protection, that connection, this divine structure, if you will, has been disrupted, disconnected, and you need to repair it. You’re in danger. That’s your challenge. You need to fix that connection to be safe. As for the course of action you must take to do this … laguz … water—you must travel. But it’s a good thing. The ultimate outcome leads to healing and renewal.”

  Oscar came traipsing in, then rubbed his large eagle’s head against Ingrid’s leg. She patted her familiar.

  Joanna continued to stare at the tiles. “You’re absolutely right. That would have taken me forever. Thank goodness I have smart children.” She explained everything that had been happening lately, how a spirit had made contact.

  “Things were moving around the house? Hmm, that’s not good! Darn it!” Ingrid huffed the latter beneath her breath. “You thought it was a spirit?” Ingrid sounded skeptical and appeared distracted, glancing at the doorway worriedly. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “I think I would know, dear.” She told Ingrid about her experience in the garden, the flowers wilting at her touch, how Gilly had taken her into the woods where they had followed the path to the grave and found these objects laid out on the mound in this formation.

  “You’re right,” said Ingrid, studying the message. “It is a spirit who needs your help. But this is also a code—the Scrabble tiles, the dice … It’s an encryption, a cipher, an anagram, of some sort. The fact that there are Scrabble letters indicates that. Maybe it says something else entirely different from what the runes tell us, something horrible, something ominous, a threat. We need to decode this, and I think you should enlist Dad ASAP. He’s a great help with enigmas.”

  Joanna cleared her throat, feeling a bit peeved that her daughter would think she wasn’t capable of figuring this out on her own. “Well, I’d like to sort it out by myself for now. The message is obviously for me and me alone. I can decode it without Norman’s help. But first and foremost, I think I need to get in touch with this spirit, ‘travel,’ as you say. It wants to speak to me. I think it wants me to raise it from the dead.”

  “I think you are getting ahead of yourself, Mother. You don’t know what this says yet. This isn’t just about the runes. There’s something else here.” She pointed at the line with the dice and upside-down L. “Look, that’s a number. One fifty-seven.”

  “I know it’s a number,” said Joanna a bit too defensively. She realized her daughter was only trying to help. Of course Ingrid was right to caution, but she sensed it was urgent and said so.

  Ingrid shook her head. “You can’t raise a dead spirit before finding out what it wants! Remember the Covenant you made with Helda. You can’t just go around resurrecting everyone! Your sister doesn’t take that sort of thing lightly. Plus, it’s never gone well in the past.”

  “I know. I know. You don’t have to remind me.”

  Ingrid attempted another tact. “I know you feel this spirit needs you, but I don’t think that’s the best way—”

  “This spirit is trying to tell me something important, but the only way I can truly find out is to speak directly to it. Cut to the chase, rather than spending hours decoding this.”

  “But what if it’s evil?” Ingrid said.

  “Well, we won’t know that until I raise it from the dead, will we? I’ve already gone into the first layer, and it wasn’t there.”

  Ingrid sat down in the chair beside Joanna’s desk, resigning herself to the situation. “I guess I’m not going to be able to persuade you to take your time with this, but will you promise to come to me for help if you plan on doing anything drastic?”

  “I promise,” said Joanna.

  “And the Covenant?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Joanna said.

  “Good,” said Ingrid, appearing only somewhat satisfied.

  Now that mother and daughter had reached a resolution of sorts, Joanna thought it might be the right time to ask about the cop boyfriend. “So, how’s that young man of yours?”

  “What young man?”

  “Ingrid—I’m your mother. I know.”

  “What do you know?” Ingrid asked, trying to look innocent.

  “You’re dating that cop—Matthew Good-Guy or something.”

  “Matt Noble!” Ingrid corrected, aggrieved.

  Joanna smiled wryly. “See.”

  “All right. I suppose I am … seeing him, Mother, but you don’t have to look at me like that. I already have to deal with Freya teasing me day and night.”

  “We’re just happy for you, dear,” Joanna said, coming to embrace her girl. “We want you to be happy, you know.”

  “I know,” Ingrid murmured. “Thank you, Mother. I am happy.” She squeezed her mother in a tight hug. “I’ve memorized the code. I’ll think it over, see if I can come up with anything.” Then she released her hold and left Joanna’s office before her mother could ask her any more embarrassing questions or call Matt by some other silly name. Oscar followed on her heels, his nails clicking on the floorboards.

  Joanna was left to herself once again staring at the message. Yes, a cipher or anagram, something of that sort, thought Joanna. That is exactly what I thought. She grabbed a pen and paper and began to scribble.

  chapter nineteen

  When Doves Cry

  Betty Lazar and detective-in-the-making Seth Holding, still going strong, had proposed hosting Friday Night Karaoke at North Inn. Sal had jumped at the idea. That was the thing about Sal. Even at seventy, he was always willing to try something new, as long as it got the joint going.

  “We can call it Fri-a-oke!” he said excitedly, to which Freya had responded, “Eh!” The other bartender, Kristy, put it more bluntly. “Lame! How about just Friday Night Karaoke?” The two bartenders were game and helped Sal purchase the equipment and disks on eBay from a recently shut down bar in New York City.

  Once they set everything up, they saw that most of the songs and accompanying videos appeared to date back to the eighties. The visuals that provided the lyrics featured women with huge hair, dozens of rosary necklaces, pale skin, glossy scarlet lips, and oversize dresses sloping off a shoulder. The men were no better with tight pants and mullets, either business in the front and party in the back or the other way around.

  But this was all very much in keeping with the bar’s shifts in the time-space continuum, so now on a Friday eve at North Inn, one might hear anything from a drunken off-key version of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” to a superbly belted out rendition of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” to Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian” (a drunken group sing-along), AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” songs by Tears for Fears, Billy Idol, the Fine Young Cannibals, 10,000 Maniacs, Duran Duran, Pat Benatar, and Michael Jackson, of course, as well as a slew of other artists who had either died, evaporated into the pop ether, been recently arrested for a DUI in LA, or become healthy, sober vegans.

  The young people of North Hampton and its surrounding environs did not appear to be missing either the tragic Amy Winehouses or the bubbly Miley Cyruses of their generation, and came in droves dressed in Mom and Dad’s old duds to pile into the booths and pore over the song lists.

  There were also the fortysomethings who had come of age during the era of too much cash flow and cocaine, such as smarmy developer Blake Aland, making good with the townsfolk, discussing a bit of real estate he wanted to get his claws into, and recalling the adage of not being able to sing one’s way out of a paper bag. Conversely, Justin Frond, the hip new mayor, had surprised everyone with his perfect pitch and lovely, smooth voice tonight.

  Gay men are the best, thought Freya, spying some visual teasers of the mayor’s private evenings. She saw Frond with his handsome partner, walking along a moonlit beach, pants rolled up, making out in the tall grasses of a sand dune. The mayor had excellent abs, Freya note
d. As for Blake Aland’s midnight trysts, Freya had to blink her eyes to ward off the unsavory images: spiky heels digging into a spine, something involving a tongue, a black patent leather shoe, a glass table, and a panting, frothing Mr. Aland.

  Seth was singing Queen’s epic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which was a strange choice for a police officer, being that it was about a boy who had shot someone, but he was off duty, and Betty was doing backup vocals, neither of them taking their eyes off the other as the crowd began to cheer. “Mama, life had just begun, but now I’ve gone and thrown it all away …”

  “They really are good, those two,” Sal said to Freya. He was working the bar with her. Killian hadn’t come in to help—Freya missed him, but he’d become obsessed with getting the greenhouse just so—and Kristy served drinks at the booths while collecting the slips with song choices and manning the karaoke machine.

  “You don’t know the half of it, Sal,” retorted Freya. Betty and Seth had sex at least three times a day when they could: lunch break in a restaurant restroom, Seth’s police car, an interview room at the precinct (of all the places—they really should be more careful). As she watched them sing, Freya decided to entertain herself beyond casual voyeurism.

  She closed her eyes and focused, and when she opened them again, dry ice smoke enveloped Betty and Seth. When it dissipated, they had undergone a costume change and were now in tight white satin one-pieces à la Freddie Mercury. The expert performers and hams they were, they didn’t blink, and the crowd only cheered and whooped louder.

  Freya joined the hooting but stopped when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. It was Killian, and she asked Sal if she could take the call in the back room. Killian sounded distressed, but she couldn’t hear him over the din. She stepped into Sal’s cramped office, with its heavy mahogany desk, card table for poker nights with the local geezers, dart board, and old, scratched black file cabinets.

  “You need to come to the Dragon right away,” Killian said. “We need to talk.”

  The need to talk phrase never went over well with Freya. She was almost like a dude in this sense. The words filled her with dread and unease. Had she done something wrong? Was Killian mad at her for some reason she couldn’t remember? Everything had been going so well lately. Their sex life was back to normal (giving Betty and Seth a run for their money) and they’d succeeded in avoiding the topic of Freddie altogether.

  “It’s really busy. You know, that new karaoke night thing,” Freya said. “Well, it’s more like eighties night.”

  “Try to get off. I really need to talk to you. Please.”

  Sal had always been good at wrangling impromptu help, and one of his buddies soon joined him behind the bar. Freya was already at the wheel of the Mini Cooper, speeding toward the parking lot by the beach that led to Gardiners Island. When she got to the Dragon, Killian was outside on the deck. He helped her jump on board. Inside the boat, she saw that he had ordered some takeout—there was pasta in foil containers—and had opened up a bottle of red wine, but his plate of food looked untouched and the wine hadn’t been poured.

  Freya crossed her arms, not quite knowing what to expect. The sense of dread had sunk to the pit of her stomach, and she felt queasy and faint. What did he want to talk about so badly?

  “Have a seat,” said Killian. “You want a glass of wine?” Invariably, Killian followed his words to Freya with a term of endearment—my love or babe or darling—but there was none of that, which frightened her even more.

  “I’ve had enough to drink for tonight,” she said.

  “I’ll get right down to it,” he said earnestly. “I know we’ve been ignoring the subject lately, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t done a lot of thinking about it—what you said Freddie told you about me.” His back against the granite galley counter, with his face tilted at an angle and his dark lashes batting, he looked even more handsome than was allowed.

  God, my man is gorgeous, Freya thought, and she hoped that whatever he had to say to her wouldn’t stop them from rocking the boat tonight.

  Killian exhaled. “Here’s the thing: I don’t remember what happened that day.”

  Freya stared blankly back at him. “What day?”

  “The day the Bofrir bridge collapsed. Freddie might be telling the truth,” he continued. “I don’t understand. There are holes in my memory. I try to remember, but then I hit a wall, and I just can’t recall how it all went down. All I know is that there were three of us on the bridge that day. Fryr and Loki were punished, but I got away scot-free. The gods have always looked upon me favorably, but what if, what if …” His words trailed off.

  Freya didn’t know what to say or think. What if Freddie were right? What if her brother were telling the truth all along? What Killian said was true: the gods loved Balder; he could do no harm in their eyes. He was Frigg’s favorite son. Nothing in all the universe was allowed to touch him, to harm him. He was Balder the Blessed. Balder the Beloved.

  “I don’t know what happened, but I want to come clean, Freya. I was there. I saw the bridge destroyed, and I remember holding something that didn’t belong to me when it was over. But that’s all I remember.”

  chapter twenty

  Sharp-Dressed Man

  She was a vision as she walked along the beach: a tall, voluptuous goddess, long golden-brown hair lifting in the wind, silhouetted by the sun. She tugged her coat around her curves, and even from far away Freddie could see the smile forming on her lips as she spotted him. He had sensed her the moment she stepped onto the sand, before he saw her from atop his dune, where he had been waiting for her to come to him, trusting she would as he surveyed the beach, squinting at the sky, watching the waves.

  Freddie stood and waved, then quickly scaled down in his bare feet, moving toward her. Hilly Liman. It wasn’t quite love at first sight, for Freddie Beauchamp had already toppled during their fervent epistolary courtship. Hilly had materialized for him through his laptop—her vibrancy, her warmth, her little quirks (how she sucked the water out of her toothbrush or made little dolphin-like sounds at the back of her throat when it itched)—and he could recognize her anywhere. His goddess.

  They stopped a few feet apart, his eyes tracing the lines of her face, her square jaw, strong cheekbones, a beauty mark beneath an eye, the long, dark lashes of her almond-shaped hazel eyes that stared unwaveringly at him.

  Freddie took a deep breath. “You’re just as I thought,” he said.

  “Really? How did you know?” she said with a laugh.

  “What about that little hug?” he said.

  She nodded. He took a tentative step toward her and she took a more assured one. He hugged her, exhaling a lungful, a release of everything that had been pent up inside him until that moment. Hilly was real, and all he knew was that he loved and wanted her.

  She looked up in his face. “I’m glad I’m here,” she said. “I’m glad I’m finally hugging you.”

  They let go of each other and stood apart. “Me, too,” he said.

  “I can’t stay long. It was a long drive from school, and now my parents are expecting me at the house in the city for the weekend.”

  He was devastated, feeling as if something would be ripped from his skin as soon as Hilly left him. But instead he smiled, and she smiled back.

  “I wanted to meet you in person to make sure it was real. You never know with these things,” she said. “There could be a lot of projection.”

  A seagull squawked overhead.

  “And …?” he asked.

  “It’s real,” she said.

  “I know.” He looked toward the Ucky Star, lifting an arm to encompass the slanting beachside motel with its broken neon light, partly obscured by dunes and reeds. “My palace,” he declared.

  Hilly turned in that direction, looked back at him, and they both laughed.

  “Listen, if we’re going to be together, you need to meet my family,” Hilly said nervously. Her forehead creased and her countenance darkened. “My dad
’s sort of strict. He’s old-fashioned. I guess I am, too.”

  “Anything,” replied Freddie. He understood from the beginning that Hilly wouldn’t be going back to the motel room with him for some sexual gymnastics. Not that he had expected it anyway. Where Hilly was concerned, he wanted to take his time. Freya had warned him about this girl, that he wasn’t acting like himself. But Freddie didn’t care. So she wanted him to meet her dad. He could do that. Dating. What an odd concept! Did that mean just kissing? Anything for Hilly, though, even if it meant coming out of hiding to meet her father just to be able to gaze longer at her.

  “Can you come to dinner tomorrow night?” she asked.

  “Sure!” said Freddie, thrilled that he would be seeing her so soon again.

  “I’ll e-mail you the details,” she said. “I really like you, Freddie.”

  He wanted to reply, I love you, Hilly, but instead he nodded. “Ditto.”

  For the trip to New York City to meet the Limans, Buster morphed into a black Porsche convertible, the same exact model Freddie had been admiring online. The taglines described it as “driving magic.” Freddie thought he would see about that. So far, it was divine, as if the car were an extension of his body, responding to the lightest tap of the gas or the brake, then defying gravity altogether by taking off to the skies. They arrived over Manhattan, where lights twinkled like so many jewels in the dusk, and landed in Central Park by the Turtle Pond, kicking up turf as they alighted and swerved to a halt. Buster turned back into his regular form and now was snuffling about fallen leaves, keeping out of sight until Freddie returned.

  Freddie didn’t like the city. Buses and taxis spewed toxic fumes, nearly running him over as he made his way to the doorman building on Central Park West, wearing appropriate attire—the gray suit and tie from his “serious” profile picture. The problem with such magical clothes was that they came with a short shelf life, an expiration hour, so to speak, and now he was very much in the same predicament as Cinderella. He hoped he would be out of there before the suit and polka-dot tie faded and he was back in his T-shirt, ripped jeans, and black Converse.