Frustration welled up in me and tipped me over the breaking point. I sobbed into my hands as I shivered in the cold water. I was a stereotype. The woman with the abusive husband she swore she could change, but who ended up putting her in the hospital anyway. It was always an accident. She was always the one who tested his temper, and somehow when he damaged her, she blamed herself.
I would not be the Lifetime Movie of the Week. I would not hold out any more hope that Foss could be saved. Uncle Rick may not give a crap about my life, but I wouldn’t go out like this. I wouldn’t be thrown across the room, and I certainly would not…
My head felt fuzzy, like a halfway broken television set you have to bang on the side to get an image to appear. The room started to tilt again. I was so tired. From the day, sure, but also just from life. I washed my face and my arms, but nothing seemed to rouse me.
The world was grim, and just as I suspected, love did not conquer all. Try as I might, I could not make Foss a better man. My love was just as useless as Uncle Rick’s.
My eyelids drooped, and I laid down in the foot of water to get comfortable. I could feel an alarm going off in what was left of my brain, but my body was too weighed down to care.
Twenty-Three.
Head Injury
The weight of the world pressed down on my chest. Over and over it shoved itself into my sternum until… water? Something wet gushed out of my lungs and onto the floor.
The burning sensation I unfortunately was already familiar with scorched my esophagus as I struggled to pull in a breath. As the world came into focus, tears leaked down my cheeks. I had not died. I was still in the stolen house, and stood no chance of checking out of the mission early.
Jens sat me up, face ashen, and held me to his chest. “She’s breathing!” he announced, his voice cracking.
Foss sat up from hovering over Jamie’s body and pulled him upright. His relief was plain as he steadied Jamie. Britta was in a right state as she hugged her fiancé.
“You hit your head,” Jens explained unnecessarily, “and then you both went to sleep and we couldn’t wake you up. I didn’t put it together soon enough. Concussion. Then you went under the water.” His chest contracted with relief and the extreme elation that only comes after you’re released from a paralyzing fear. “Whew! You’re okay. You’re okay.” It felt like he was reassuring himself more than me, the sweet guy.
I became more aware of the situation when the towel Jens had wrapped around me slipped a few inches, snapping each man’s head in my direction. Jens and I both fumbled to cover me, but I was already too wrecked to deal with further embarrassment. I sagged against him and shook my head, the pain still fresh. “I can’t do this,” I admitted. “I can’t be here anymore. Take me home. Please, Jens. Take me home.”
Jens evaluated my besotted expression and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. You’re right. This isn’t safe.” Securing the towel around me, he stood, lifting me off the ground. He addressed the rest of the room’s occupants. “I was hired to watch over her, not to tear down the portals at any cost. She’s done more than enough. I won’t lose my charge for the mission. We’re out.” He ignored the floored expressions and carried me to the nearest bedroom, kicking the door shut behind us.
Twenty-Four.
The New Plan
“I can’t believe I let it go this far. I’m sorry,” Jens muttered as he laid me down on the child’s-sized bed. He kissed my lips, begging for forgiveness and a second chance as he sat on the side of the bed, one arm on either side of me. “I’m the best Tom there is, I swear. Your family hired me for a reason. I don’t know how all that got so turned around. All of it, my fault. We’ll figure this out and take you home.”
“I’m sorry.” I sat up on the bed so I could whimper into his firm shoulder. I could feel the muscle beneath and knew if that bulk couldn’t keep me from concussion in Undraland, nothing would. “I’m so sorry. I want to help. I want to be a team player. It’s just too much. I can’t live like this anymore!” I planted a kiss on his neck as I cried quietly. “And now I’m taking you away from your home. You must hate me.”
The towel covered my front, but it had fallen open in the back. Jens let his hand travel up and down my naked spine as his warm breath heated my neck. “Anytime you want to deliver bad news, always do it dressed in only a towel. For some reason, I’m not disappointed at all.” He mustered up a smirk as I cinched the towel tighter around me with a faux scolding look. He rubbed his thumb over my cheekbone. “But seriously, I shouldn’t have put you in this position. Your parents didn’t tell you about Undraland because they wanted to keep you away from all this. I thought… I was wrong. End of story.”
I touched my aching head. “I need to take a nap. I’m so tired. Then can we leave?”
Jens shook his head. “No nap for you. You’ve got a concussion. Get ready for a long night of ghost stories and my loud singing to keep you awake. You love country music, right?”
I groaned. “What about Jamie? How can I leave? We’re tied. He’s not going to go along with this.” Depression weighed down on me. So close to freedom, yet always so far.
Jens hugged me, kissed the cap of my shoulder and traced my spine under the towel. “Let me handle Jamie. In fact, let me handle everything from now on. I should’ve been doing this in the first place.” He squinched his eyes shut in shame. “I can’t even count how many times I left you alone. Left you with Foss! You make it so easy to forget my job. It’s that moxie you’ve got. Being with you…” He kissed my throat, sending shivers through my very aware body. “I’ll take care of it.”
He kissed my forehead and released me, warning me with a look not to lay down or do anything that remotely resembled sleeping. “Britt, come keep Lucy company. I need to talk with Jamie.”
Britta stood with her brother in the doorway, whispering back and forth with serious expressions. Jens left us, and Britta set to work doing what she did best – being awesome. She fished out a pair of my clean clothes from Jens’s red bag and helped me dress when I got too wobbly. We did not speak until I was fully clothed and we were both sitting on the bed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, hugging my knees. Jeans felt so good on me. My purple tank top fit me like the glove I needed to breathe properly. I looked more like myself, and therefore, felt more like myself. Funny little system.
Britta shook her head. “We’ll go with you. Jamie doesn’t have anything to stay here for, except maybe me. And I’ll go if that’s what’s best. I haven’t felt at home in Tonttu for a long time.” She fiddled with a thread on the sheet. “I’m worried I’ll have trouble in your world. You made fitting in over here look so easy. I fear I’m not as flexible as you.”
I scoffed. “Well, that’s overly gracious. And a lie. Everywhere I’ve gone in Undra, I’ve stuck out from a mile away.”
Britta managed a weak smile. “I imagine that’s how you were in your world, as well.”
I returned her smile, the sweetheart. “I’ll help you. Don’t worry about that. Uncle Rick will find a way to undo the lapland eventually, and then you and Jamie can go wherever you want.” My face fell. “That is, if Uncle Rick’ll still talk to me after I jump ship on him.”
“He’ll survive. As much as we all believe in the mission, it was his to start with. He’s asked too much of you. I said so to my brother from the start.”
Jens returned, nodding to his sister. “It’s done. Jamie’s agreed to go over to the Other Side as soon as Alrik and Mace get back, and you two feel up to the journey. It’s still a ways through Bedra. Then we’ll have to pass through a portion of Elvage to get to the doorway in Tomten. At least a week’s journey. Can you handle waiting that long?”
“Of course. Thanks.” I breathed for the first real time in ages. “Thank you.” I squeezed Britta’s hand. “Thank you. You’re an amazing friend, Britt.”
She kissed my cheek and excused herself to go keep Jamie company.
“Thank you,” I breathed to
Jens once we were alone. “Thank you.”
“You said that already. You’re welcome for finally doing my job.” He waved off my forthcoming words of gratitude. “Enough serious talk. We’ve got years for that, and you’ve already scheduled us for couple’s counseling, right?”
“Yes. In five years, I plan on giving you a thorough tongue lashing.”
Only Jens would have the gumption to find dirty humor in that. “Tongue lashing, eh? That sounds…” He raised an eyebrow at me and sat on the bed to kiss me. “So we’ve finally got a bed, but we can’t sleep on it.” He played with the spaghetti strap of my tank top and kissed my shoulder, smirking at my shiver. “What could we possibly do to pass the time?”
If you can believe it, we managed to fill every minute with enough of our own version of tongue lashing to properly redefine the term.
Twenty-Five.
Thomas Jefferson
Foss had not spoken in two days. It was just as well; no one wanted to talk to him. They all knew his temper was the ultimate reason I was leaving and taking more than half the remaining group with me.
We trudged through the mud, but since the rain had stopped, it all felt less dismal. That, plus I was going home. I respected my uncle’s somber mood and kept to myself for the most part. I did not relish the parting of ways. It was just time. As much as Uncle Rick said he understood that, he treated me different. There was less indulgence in his eye, and he had not called me sweetheart since we left the cabin. Now I was Lucy.
I could accept that. He was Alrik to me now, anyways. He’d stopped being my uncle sometime after the golden boars when he didn’t march me straight home. I didn’t fault him for it, but it was our usual passing friendship. He would come into my life for a weekend and then leave. I’d lasted who knows how long in his world. Mission or not, I couldn’t stay for him anymore.
Charles forsook all pretense of building a cool friendship with me. He held my hand all hours of the day until a meal or sleep forced us apart. I’d given him the option of coming with me, but didn’t fault him if he wanted to stay. I understood, but I wouldn’t purposefully abandon him. He still had yet to make a decision.
We ate in silence that evening, as we had the one before. The small fire crackled in the night air, lending a small bit of luminescence to accompany the blood moon I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to. “I’ll miss that,” I admitted quietly to Charles as we chewed our crumbly biscuits. “That red moon’s a hundred times the size of ours.”
Charles squeezed my hand. “Then stay. You don’t have to go to the Other Side. You can come back to Elvage with us. Live with me. Stay, Lucy.”
It was not the first time he’d begged. It was not the fiftieth. I shook my head. “If you understood the wonder that was chocolate ice cream, you would know why I can’t do that.” I tried shtick, but it fell flat. Jens rubbed my back, and I leaned into him.
Alrik turned in without saying goodnight or even looking at me. Jens noticed the slight and shook his head. “He’ll get over it. Once he comes up with a contingency plan, he’ll forgive you.”
“Forgive me?” I tried not to take offense, but it was impossible. That he might not forgive me for going home was irrelevant. I was still working on forgiving him for putting me in such danger in the first place. “Let’s go to bed.”
Jens kissed me and set on clearing the rocks away from the heat source so we could have a decent place to lay on the damp ground. He hadn’t done that before. Jamie did it for Britta from the beginning, but Jens let me clear my own space. Then it dawned on me that I wasn’t one of the guys anymore. I was a woman.
It was nice.
I told you he’d catch on, Jamie voiced in my head.
Foss went for more kindling as Jens spooned me and the others wound down for the night. I grinned as Jens whispered all the normal things we would do when we got to the Other Side. “Chinese food. Gobs of it. And escalators. Can you imagine Jamie freaking out on one of those?” He sniggered into the nape of my neck. “We can get a killer car and go for drives to nowhere.”
“Blast the radio?” I suggested.
“Not your music,” he amended. “But yeah, music, food and my girl. Not much else we’ll need.”
“A bed,” I whispered, speaking the true desire I had gone my whole life wanting, but never getting. “I want a bed in a house that we don’t have to move from. I want a white picket fence and a friggin’ garden with tomatoes.”
“I can help you with that.” He wrapped his leg around mine, caging me with his body so I was completely embraced. I felt loved, and for the first time, like someone was listening when I spoke. I ached to go home and start a life with Jens.
He kissed the back of my shoulder. “I’ll get you your picket fence. I’ll build you a good life. Promise.”
We both stiffened when we heard Foss’s footsteps running toward us instead of walking. Paradise began to crumble as the immediacy of our current world descended upon us. Jens was on his feet by the time a harried Foss reached the fire that had died down to embers.
“Circhos!” Foss announced, catching his breath. “Everyone up and get ready!”
Alrik gathered up his things and pulled out a sword, making my heart thud unevenly in my chest. “Head inland to the water! It might still be deep near the center of the plains!”
I knew better than to ask questions. I could read Foss well enough to know that Circhos equaled big scary bad guys. Anything that frightened Foss was enough to get me on my feet and running alongside Jens.
“We’re too late!” Britta exclaimed, pointing past the thicket to our left. She drew her dagger from her apron. “Jens! Your knife! Jamie, grab your bow!”
Jens turned, ripped open his pack and tossed his sister a second dagger (yes, tossed. OSHA would’ve thrown a fit). He stood with a sword in one hand and a curved knife in the other. I wanted to ready myself, but I had no idea what was coming, and no one thought to give me a weapon. I stood behind Jens and tried to make myself invisible.
I looked up and saw a sight so strange and horrifying, it scared the scream straight outta me. A… something came staggering out of the woods with a bloody bowling ball in his hand.
I didn’t think there was anything short of a troll that could be taller than Foss, but there he stood. Fresh from the Michael Jackson Thriller video was a ten-foot tall WWE wrestler. His skin was charcoal black, but in the moonlight I could make out intricate red etchings all over his naked body. They weren’t tattoos. The red marks were under the black layer, like the charcoal skin was a bark on the tree that was his deformed crimson body.
Jamie shot him with an arrow, but it only made his janky walk more off-center without slowing him down at all. The Circhos ripped the arrow out of his bicep like pulling off a stray hair. His left arm and foot were small, almost my size, while the other side was appropriately proportioned for his body. He walked like a zombie, but when he growled, he showed off fangs that were too long for even a vampire.
He stalked forward, ignoring the arrows ricocheting off his armor-like scales without causing more than a nuisance to him.
In my large assortment of monster movie viewings I’d participated in over the years, my dad always teased me for my emotional state afterwards. I got a chill, sure. But I was more upset about the monster. He was usually the only one of his kind, and everyone wanted to murder him. People screamed when they saw his face, and he never got a word in edgewise. Who knows? Maybe the monster was an excellent chess player or had a flair for restoring old automobiles. We would never know, though, because all we saw were the layers of makeup that convinced us he was no good, and that fear was a viable option when confronted with something different. Maybe that’s why I had patience with Foss, and why it hurt so much when I gambled on the monster and lost.
The poor mess of a giant zombie came at us with determined precision. He sucked on the bowling ball and whined out a growl that made the hairs on my arm stand up.
Then it hit me. Britta was
nearest me, so I grabbed her sleeve and tugged her to the gathering of trees to our left. “I need a squirrel or something.”
“A what?” Britta asked, her face pale.
“An animal. Something! Get me something he can eat. That’s all he wants. Give him some meat, and he’ll be happy.”
Britta shook her head, trying to aim her focus in one direction. “I, but there’s nothing around here. Critters know to scatter when a Circhos is around. Plus, there was just a flood! I can’t just summon one, Lucy!”
“Brilliant! We’ll summon one.” I kissed her cheek and ran back to the mayhem. Alrik was spraying the Circhos with hot water that shot out of his palms, while Jens and Foss were wrestling it. “Mace!”
Charles closed the distance between us, and I could see the terror in his silver-black orbs. “Go! Run with Britta along the path. We’ll catch up.”
“Can’t you whistle him down?” I asked, jerking my head to the bloody scrap of men and beast.
“Circhos don’t have ears.” His head whipped back to the fray. “Run, Lucy!”
I held his hand to focus him. “I need a pig or a bunny or something. Can you summon one of those?”
“What? Lucy, go!”
I shook my head. “First get me an animal. Something easy to kill. Can you do that?”
His frustration with me was so rare; it was hard to recognize at first. He wiped sweat from his brow and tried to focus. “Fine, but then you run.”
“Like the dickens,” I agreed. Britta moved between us and the beast, though we were a safe distance away for now. Mace whistled two simple notes, and I could tell in the succinct tune that he was scared.
Elvage Page 13
