Serpent's Kiss
Page 21
Ingrid got back in, moving up her seat to give Freddie more legroom. “Aw, poor kid!”
“Uh! Don’t feel sorry for him, Ingrid. Mom has done enough of that,” said Freya. “He doesn’t need our pity.”
“True,” said Ingrid. “Can I show you Matt’s house? We can drive there.”
Freya threw her sister a puzzled look. “You’ve got to be kidding me! We’re not going to stalk him. He acted like a jerk. Leave it for now. Maybe he’ll come around.” She put the car in first and pulled out of the driveway, heading inland toward the highway to Napeague, where she would go east toward Montauk.
Ingrid kicked at the floor. “I know. I don’t know why I said that. It just came out. I don’t want to have anything to do with him anymore.” She looked down at herself.
“Good!” said Freya, squeezing her sister’s knee. She was glad the channels of communication had been flowing between them again. She had longed for that for quite a while. It was so good to have Ingrid back, not to have to hide anything from her, and it was especially good to act as a confidante for her older sister’s love troubles. That was a change! Ingrid had always been there for her in that regard, and now Freya could finally return the support, care, and kind words, as well as a little tough love when needed; it had always felt so uneven, always weeping on Ingrid’s shoulder, leaning in toward her gentle, reassuring hands. Now she could offer the same.
Shame on Matt—Freya was furious with him. How dare he! No one should ever hurt Ingrid; it was appalling to even imagine. How could he have been so cowardly as to send the other officers to do his dirty work, arresting Freddie and searching the house. The bastard.
“Maybe it was my fault,” Ingrid added. “I did kind of put a spell on him, but I hadn’t meant to.”
“It was just a harmony spell, Ingrid!” said Freya. “No harm in that. It was for the family. Come, come. We’ll talk about it later. I promise. Let’s take care of this Freddie business for now.”
“All right, let’s,” she said, smiling sadly at Freya.
The sky had tinged pink and orange as the sun set behind them. They needed to leave North Hampton, the pocket. It felt claustrophobic to Freya. Mother had made it so. Her accusation of Killian had been a slap in the face, and she was still smarting from it. She saw Freddie in the rearview mirror looking glum.
The car had already grown warm, and she cracked her window for a little air. Joanna had truly pissed her off. She glimpsed at Freddie in the rearview again. He always looked so innocent; it was hard to have any ill will against her twin. But still, she needed to know if he was truly Freddie and what he had been up to.
“First off,” she said, “you lied to me. You said you never left the Ucky Star, but I saw you when I was taking out the trash at the North Inn. I saw you in that back alley. Now we know the pixies saw you outside, too.”
“Yeah,” sighed Freddie. “That was me. I only left the motel twice and only when it was dark at night. You and the pixies must have seen me on one of those nights. You see, if you’ll forgive me for talking about it, I am very much in love with Hilly Liman—”
“I know that,” cut in Freya.
“Who’s Hilly Liman?” asked Ingrid.
Freddie inhaled a huge breath. “Oh, my god, Ingrid, she’s incredible …”
“Enough!” exclaimed Freya, slapping the driver’s wheel. “Get to the point, Freddie! Don’t distract him, Ingrid.” They had entered a forest, and the trees shadowed the road. Freya flicked on the headlights. A deer was running gracefully along the side of the road, then darted into the trees.
Freddie rearranged himself in the back. “Well, you see, Hilly’s dad is … um … very protective of his daughter. And I really want to marry the girl!”
Ingrid swung around, leaning over her seat. “That’s so great, Freddie!”
“Shh, let him continue. We really need to clear this up,” said Freya, reaching over to her sister to give Ingrid a gentle pat. Freddie had a way of distracting everyone from the point sometimes. He was kind of like the pixies.
He continued. “Mr. Liman, Hilly’s dad, thinks I’m a slacker … a playboy …”
Freya laughed. “He isn’t wrong, is he?” She was driving fast, and she took a sharp swerve on the road, and they all knocked about in the little car.
Freddie came back up and leaned forward. “Well, Hilly thought that if I got a good job, her dad would think more highly of me. One night she hooked me up with her dad’s partner. It was supposed to be on the down low; her dad didn’t even know about it yet. She drove me to the French restaurant, where the partner was having dinner. He met me in the back alley, we talked about the job, a kind of meet and greet, and then Hilly drove me back to the motel. I went back a second time to see the fellow to sort out some loose ends. He seems to like that particular restaurant.”
“Okay,” said Freya. “But what did you mean when you said to Hilly, ‘It won’t be long now’?”
“You heard that? Jeez!”
“I was spying!”
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” asked Freddie. “Hilly?”
Freya exhaled a sigh of frustration. “Freddie!”
Freddie continued. “What I meant was the guy had offered me the job, and it wouldn’t be long till I started working for him and that her dad would approve of me more, and Hilly and I could be together soon—without having to worry.”
Ingrid spoke. “What kind of job?”
The little car exited the forest and the left side of the road gave way to a silvery beach. Freya pulled up on the shoulder and abruptly stopped the car, pulling the safety break.
The man was a sea captain, Freddie explained, and the job entailed going on a last tuna run. Freddie had always been enamored of the sea and sailing, so he was quite excited about it. The boat was leaving in a fortnight, but apparently there were still some arrangements to be made, a contract of some sort that required signing before Freddie departed.
The motor of the car clicked as it cooled. Suddenly this little nook felt like a respite to Freya. All right, so Freddie had lied, but only because he was in love and Freya of all people was very familiar with that feeling.
“I have another question,” Ingrid piped in. “Who was the lawyer who came to the precinct?”
“Good one!” Freya glanced at her brother in the rearview to find him checking himself out in the mirror. Still vain old Freddie. If anything it just confirmed it was her brother in the car and not Loki.
“Hilly sent that lawyer. Mom gave me her cell when they took me away, and the first chance I got, I called Hilly, and that lawyer helicoptered in from the city—just for me. Cool, right?”
“I guess,” said Freya flatly.
They got out of the car. Freya and Ingrid threw on their coats, while Freddie shivered. Freya checked the trunk, found one of Killian’s sweaters, and handed it to her brother. The three of them walked toward the beach, Ingrid in the middle, and she reached out for their hands. Once they were all connected, Freya sensed the magic running through them like an electrical current. For a moment, she felt whole and carefree. She tugged at them and ran ahead on the beach, still holding hands. She felt like they were kids again, and all their troubles seemed to suddenly dissipate in the open air. It was going to be all right. Freddie and Killian were both in the clear. The pixies had seen to that. Freddie had been set up, but not by Killian. Even Ingrid began to laugh as they ran.
They all plopped down in the sand, one after the other, laughing, and looked out at the glorious sky, pink bleeding into orange, slate blue above and, below, indigo waves splashing down with an unstoppable force.
Freya looked over at Freddie: he was trembling and looked vulnerable. She felt a twinge. She wanted Freddie to be happy. She wanted her siblings to both have love as she experienced it with Killian. They ran back to the car together, with a better feeling between them.
“How do you know Killian is innocent?” Freya said to her twin as she steered the car back to the road.
Freya nodded. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for months.”
“But there’s something I need to tell you about Killian …” he said, his face pale.
“Just spit it out, Freddie,” Freya said. “Now that you’ve come around you want Killian to be your best man at the wedding?”
Freddie cleared his throat. “I know Killian is innocent, as I said. But I didn’t before. I spied on you, too, Freya. I know about the trident mark. I overheard you talking about it, saw him showing it to you in the greenhouse. I don’t know why he has it. He had to have had the trident in his possession at some point; that’s the only way. When I saw it, I still believed in his guilt—”
“So you went and told the Valkyries …” concluded Ingrid.
Freya pulled over and stopped the car. She swung around to face him.
“I had to clear my name!” Freddie protested. “I was convinced he did it! He had the mark!”
Freya turned back and stared ahead at the dark road. She tapped on the driver’s wheel, and Ingrid reached out to her but she brushed her older sister aside. “Get out of this car right now, Freddie!” They had so little time, and she’d been clueless. Why had her stupid brother waited until now to tell her? Damn him! If they couldn’t find the real responsible person, Killian would be carted away to Limbo for sure. “Get out!” she cried.
“But—” said Freddie.
“Freya—calm down.”
Freya glared at Ingrid, who reluctantly opened the passenger door and stepped outside to let Freddie out. He unfolded his long frame from the backseat and stepped onto the road.
Ingrid got back in the car. “Come on, you’re being really harsh. We can’t just leave him here!”
“For god’s sake, Ingrid, he’s a god! He can make the sun shine! Let him find his own way home!” Freya snapped, and she gunned the engine, leaving their brother behind in the darkness.
chapter forty-seven
Devil Woman
A crescent moon hung in the sky, as slim as a fingernail clipping. It was a cloudless night, bright with stars. Freya could see all of this from Joanna’s study’s window—the ocean dark as ink, the moon and stars’ reflections glimmering there. Joanna sat at her desk, Freya on the love seat, and Norman in the armchair by the books. He was acting as mediator. A good thing, too, since the holiday season was upon them—it would be Christmas soon—but no one was in the mood to celebrate.
Joanna had been profusely apologizing to Freya for having accused Killian. She explained that Freddie’s return had blinded her, but now she realized the error of her ways. “I’m sorry about Killian. I was just so worried about Freddie, but apparently now I’m suffocating him and my baby boy is pulling away from me.” Joanna sighed.
Freya listened intently and frowned. “Do you realize, Mother, that you have brought the conversation back to Freddie once again?”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Joanna, looking over at Norman for help.
“Okay,” said Norman. “We have that all cleared now. Your mother is very, very sorry, so let’s move on. We have these impending Valkyries to deal with, and there is little time to waste.” He ran a finger along the spines of Joanna’s books. Norman was not fond of conflict—or he simply didn’t like it when his ladies got prickly with one another.
“Yes,” said Joanna. “I want to make it up to you, Freya, and I think I have a solution. I think we need to try a new angle.”
“What’s that?” Freya crossed her legs, picked at a hole in her black jeans, and then pulled at the top of a high-heeled boot.
Norman clapped his hands, as if to mark a shift in the conversation. “Your mother thinks that perhaps this spirit that’s been trying to contact her is a witch trying to help us. The Waelcyrgean believe there are several sorts of spirits. We were trying to understand which kind this is. We narrowed it down to two possible ones. There is the vörðr, or vorder, the warden spirit.”
Dad had launched into professor mode, and Freya loved to watch him at work, how he sought to make whatever topic palatable to the younger folk.
He rose from his armchair and stretched an arm out, leaning against the bookshelf. “The word wraith takes it root from vörðr, and ward and warden are its cognates, actually.” He smiled at Freya. She found her father so handsome, that shock of silver hair slipping over a lens of his black-framed glasses. Ingrid got her delicate, foxy looks from him, as well as her lovely soft pink lips and tall, slim, lanky body. “Anyhow,” Norman continued, “the vörðr is very much like a personal watchdog, a tagalong, so to speak, or a guardian angel if you want to think in Christian terms; it watches over a mortal from birth to death. If it attaches itself to a god, it is present through all of that god’s lifetimes.”
Norman went on to explain that there was another type, and that one was called fylgja, which in Old Norse meant “someone that accompanies.” “But this kind only checks in occasionally,” he said. The fylgjur (plural) were portentous. Aware of one’s fate, they sometimes appeared as an omen of death. However, when they appeared as a woman, as this wraith had, it usually meant that she was warning you and possibly your clan that you were in danger. “What I am saying here is that Joanna and I believe this spirit to be the latter. She wants to tell us something, warn us about something, and she is sending her spirit through time to do so.”
Freya rose and walked to the window, where she made an impression on the vapor with her fist. Then she drew the letter K, like a teenager. “So what am I supposed to do about all this?” she said, turning to her father.
Joanna rose and walked over to her daughter, then stood behind her. She placed her hands on her shoulders, and Freya flinched, but then reached a hand to her mother’s. She wanted to forgive her. She was still angry, but there was no use holding on. Her mother had apologized and said she wanted to help Killian now. They needed to work together, and if her parents thought they knew how to resolve this, then she was willing to do whatever it took. She trusted their knowledge and experience.
Joanna squeezed her daughter’s shoulders. “Someone needs to go back in time and find this witch before she is hanged. She will draw us to the correct time and place and help us, and we might in turn be able to help her. I’m too old to make the journey. I tried, but the portal wouldn’t open for me. It requires youth and vitality, which I am not sure I have.”
Freya turned to her mother, her eyes shining. Perhaps it was because she had been straining to see Gardiners Island. Killian was there, and she wanted to be with him. “I’ll do anything to help Killian. If you think this is how we need to proceed, I’m willing,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
“Good, good!” said Joanna. “There is much preparation to be made, and we need to get right to it. I need to brief you, and you also need to change into the proper attire.” Here a distasteful look crossed Joanna’s face. “We’ll dress you like a good Puritan, cap and all. I’ve already put the costume together.”
Freya frowned. Such clothes brought back awful memories, and she had grown so very fond of her twenty-first-century clothes. There was something to be said about Lycra.
“We’ll do the ceremony on the beach. It’s a perfect night for it. Isn’t that right, Norm?” Joanna said, turning to her husband, still by the bookshelf, and he nodded gravely at his wife.
The waves were tumultuous, crashing hard upon the shore, and the wind lashed at her white cap and beige blouse, too tight at the neck, the large collar flapping in her face. Joanna had tied a shawl around her daughter’s waist and sewn a pouch full of gold coins into her skirt. Inside a circle in the sand, Freya pressed the heavy dark mauve skirt against her legs, one hand clasped around the runes that the fylgja had placed on the grave. As part of the ceremony, Freya needed to be touching something the witch’s wraith had made cont
act with to make it all work.
“Look up, darling,” Norman shouted. “It should be relatively painless.”
“In godspeed!” cried Joanna. “I love you, my sweet!”
Freya looked up into the darkness pierced by stars. Something was pushing through, like an enormous weight on the other side, dropping toward her, sagging through the cloth of midnight-blue sky. The wind began to spin around her as if she had been swept inside the eye of a twister, a centrifugal force, the sand lifting and hitting her in the face like birdshot. She bent over, protecting her head and cap with her hands.
“Painless, my ass!” she muttered, and the words seemed to be sucked out of her by a vacuum, pulling at the inside of her throat, clasping it shut. She felt as if every molecule of her being were being disassembled, pried apart, and it hurt, a physical pain, but also an excruciating emotional one, like losing someone deeply loved, a death.
Freya awoke from a deep, dreamless sleep. Her entire body ached. Something wet lapped at her face. She felt heat, the sun beaming down hard upon her side and back. She smelled the ocean. She lay on something uneven, hard, and gritty, and what were those sounds? She heard bleating. Again she felt a swipe of wetness across her face. She opened her eyes. A black dog was panting at her, wagging his tail. She put a hand in front of her face to shield her eyes from the sun. She lay on an outcropping of rock, tall grasses swaying about, sheep everywhere. She was surrounded by them, grazing in the grass, stepping onto her stone. Then she saw the runes scattered on the rock and quickly scrambled onto all fours to gather them.
“Ragbone!” a boy’s voice cried.
Freya rose to her feet, batting the sand off her skirt, setting her cap to rights. She unwrapped the shawl from around her waist and threw it over her shoulders, then was happy to feel the coins hidden below the waist of her skirt. The dog watched her, cocking his head. The boy, around eleven years of age—a shepherd she deduced—ambled toward her with his staff.