by Holley Trent
“Who are you?” Tess asked, and realized she hadn’t moved her lips. Neither had the woman, for that matter. The more she thought, she could have sworn she’d heard Harvey saying things when they were in bed although his lips hadn’t moved.
“Is my identity not obvious?”
“I’m not sure I can trust myself,” Tess admitted.
The woman nodded. She moved her hands from Tess’s and pressed them over her swollen belly. “Sometimes, the queen is her own best counsel. Trust your instincts. You know me. In fact, you bear my name, in part. Contessa Tamara. History will tell you that I did not survive this trip. We missed our mark. Ran out of supplies long before touching land.”
“But the baby lived?”
She nodded. “My daughter thrived, but I knew she would. She was born lucky, and on Odin’s Day.”
Right. Odin’s Day. Tess nodded, and committed herself to buying a notebook or something to write shit down. Her memory wasn’t going to hold it all.
“And you died the next day, I’m guessing.”
Ótama nodded. “We were aiming for Greenland, and missed it by a long way. I wasn’t buried at sea. They could not bear it, I suppose. They buried me on land when they finally found some. Canada.”
“I bet you’d like to get back to the sea.” Tess didn’t know where that thought came from, but hadn’t her grandmother said as much? That being so far inland seemed wrong?
Ótama waved a dismissive hand. “It is sweet of you to suggest it, but it is far too late for that. I am but dust. You, though, are flesh and bone. Hearty and hale and with your mother’s courage. You will serve them well.”
“Are you so sure about that? I don’t know these—your—people. What if they don’t respect me? With my past being what it is…”
They sat in silence for a moment, staring at the ocean and the bleak, landless horizon in the distance.
Ótama must have been terrified when they’d set out. Had she even known she was with child when she’d left her home? She might not have made the trip, but how different would things have been if she hadn’t? Would they still be there?
Ótama inclined her head toward the men at the oars. They carried on as if Tess wasn’t there. She remembered that she wasn’t. She was in yet another trance.
Ótama laughed, a deep, full-body laugh that had her grabbing beneath her belly. “Do not try to make sense of the ways of ghosts, child.”
“You can hear what’s in my head?”
“Yes. I will always hear you when you are in this place as this is my playground. I’m gone, but my spirit remains here. It was a favor of the gods that I begged for before I passed.”
Tess scoffed. The gods? She’d had problems getting even one god to give a damn about her, and she didn’t anticipate that changing.
Ótama laughed again and moved her hand from her belly to Tess’s knee. “I can hear every thought of yours. You are going to have to work harder to tie those down.”
“You make it sound like that’s some simple thing. I don’t know how I’m doing this or how to stop doing it.”
“You will know, in time. It will come just like all the other gifts. In the meantime, try to keep your thoughts benign.”
“While I’m at it, I’ll have myself reborn as Sofía Vergara.”
Ótama’s forehead furrowed and lips pursed.
Tess waved a hand, dismissing the reference. “Don’t worry about it. Modern stuff. What are these other gifts you referenced?”
“They vary with each queen depending on the needs of the group, but one thing is always the same. All queens are conduits.”
“My grandmother told me that, but I don’t understand what it means. She couldn’t explain it.”
“It is a difficult concept to master because the very nature of it is fluid. That said, each of our people is connected through the queen. You will be like a psychic transformer, to use one of your modern technologies as a reference. A passive sort of switchboard.”
Tess’s shoulders fell. “That sounds exhausting. No wonder my grandmother looks so unrested. ”
Ótama nodded. “It can be exhausting, but your grandmother has been doing her role and that of her daughter. She should have stepped down a decade ago, but there was no one groomed to step in. Being conduit becomes a built-in part of you that you will learn to ignore unless there is true stress somewhere in the web. It will be like…” She canted her head to the side and tapped her chin with her index finger. “Have you had a cold that kept you from breathing through your nose?”
“Too many times.” Communicable diseases were a hazard of Tess’s lifestyle. She hung out with gross people.
“At first, breathing through your mouth is onerous, but you get used to it after a day. You adapt.”
“I think I get it.”
“Of course you do.” Ótama pointed to her forehead. “You have my brains. Therefore, on some days, you will feel like you have none at all.”
Tess couldn’t help but to laugh, because she knew that feeling all too well. “And I’m supposed to help them? When there’s stress in the, was it web, you said?”
Ótama nodded. “Web. That is what your grandmother calls it. I think it is a suitable description. Yes, your job is to see to their needs. You are the executive. People will do as you command, so use your power wisely. Your grandmother, as matriarch, is the legislator. She’s the keeper of rules and records, like every good mother.”
“Ohhh-kay, so that’s two of the three branches of government covered. You’re missing one.”
Ótama closed her eyes and shook her head. “I am sure you meant that in jest, but there is a person in that justice role, or will be. Your consort. Our males like that job.” She looked off wistfully. “Your grandfather has been dead for ten years, so your uncle and brother have stepped in in a pinch.”
Consort. Tess cringed. Is that what I’m dragging Harvey into?
Did he know and did he want the job?
She was going to make damned sure she asked. She didn’t know a single man who would want to be tied down that way and to have so many added responsibilities.
“Can you tell me anything about my kidnapping? And all the others? Who took us and why?”
“No, I cannot.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Ótama straightened her spine and looked over the shipside for a moment, saying nothing. Tess didn’t think she was going to answer at all, but then she said, “Cannot. I would if I could, even if I thought you needed to learn the lesson on your own. What I see of your world now is through a very narrow lens. I suppose the gods believe I would meddle, and they would be right.” She laughed. “I had a reputation for being meddlesome when I was alive. What mother is not?”
That, Tess couldn’t answer. She certainly didn’t have any hands-on experience with parenting, and she had no independent memory of having parents herself.
“I do not know what challenges you’ll encounter in the coming days,” Ótama said, “but you have already mastered your first one. That is why we are speaking now.”
“What was the first challenge?”
“Trusting your intuition. First with your family, and then with your mate. The queen’s mind is quiet until she takes her mate.”
“Harvey? Or anyone I trusted? Because that seems kind of bogus to me. He could turn around and betray me tomorrow.”
Ótama turned her hands over. “But he will not. He will be disinclined to do so because his wellbeing is now wrapped up in yours.”
“Because I’m going to be the conduit.”
“Yes.”
“Does he know that?”
“About the link? Yes, that is common knowledge. About your mind opening after consorting with him? No. That is knowledge only for the queen, but you may share it with him now. He deserves your trust.”
“So that’s what my grandmother meant when she told Nadia there were things she didn’t know about being queen.”
“Yes, child.” Keeping one h
and on her round belly, she tugged at one of Tess’s curls, smiling broadly at the way it bounced. She whispered, “So much like my April’s, but dark.”
“I wish I’d known her.”
“I wish I could replace her for you, if only for a time.”
Tess nodded. She couldn’t afford sentiment. Sentiment had always made her weak, and yet she’d been drowning in the stuff since arriving at Norseton. “Will you…check in on me?” Tess asked. She grabbed the woman’s hand and held it tight. She was a specter, but to Tess, she was just as real as flesh and bone. Not just a branch on her family tree, but the thick root that dug the deepest. It seemed very important that she be there and that Tess could count her amongst her supporters.
When Ótama’s shoulders drooped, so did Tess’s heart.
“Such is not an easy thing,” the ghost said.
“I…I guess I understand.”
“You do not. I would call to you all the time if I could. Now it is up to you to come to me.”
“If I can figure out how.”
Ótama pressed a hand to either side of Tess’s face and put their foreheads together. She sighed, and let the little bit of knowledge she could pass on—their history up until Ótama—convey in a gentle psychic relay.
Tess saw Ótama’s struggles with the Vikings in Iceland. The fighting. The devastation and theft of her land. Tess learned of Ótama’s wishes for her daughter Sævör—that she’d thrive though her mother had starved.
That there’d be peace for her. That her gifts would be celebrated, and not looked upon with skepticism and malice.
Things any mother would want for her child.
“I’ll try,” was all Tess could say.
She was wholly unqualified for the job. She had the pedigree, but not the composure. But, because she was Ótama’s, she’d try. It was the queen’s duty to try.
“Do not be afraid to lean on those you trust and give trials to those you are uncertain of,” Ótama said, and she began fading around the edges.
Tess reached for her, wanting to hold on tight as if that’d keep her close, but she couldn’t.
“All is well, child. Never forget my love for you. Always act from love.” She was but a voice now, and all Tess could see was gray. “Love will make you wise.” The ship was gone. The horizon vanished. Tess was left naked, again, shivering.
“Tess?” came a deep, familiar voice Tess knew belonged in her reality and not in her many-times great-grandmother’s makeshift realm.
“Come on, sweetheart. Come back to me. Fuck, she couldn’t handle the sensory overload. Vanilla from now on.”
“Hmm?” Pushing her eyelids up was an unexpected chore, but somehow Tess managed it and her vision focused on Harvey leaning over her, his face fixed with consternation.
He brushed her hair back from her face and pressed a cool cloth to her forehead. “I’m sorry, Tess. You passed out. If I had known—”
She shook her head, and peeled off the clammy rag. She was cold enough as it was. “I’m okay. It wasn’t your fault. I kinda…left my body for a moment.”
His brow furrowed. “Left your body? What do you mean?”
“I mean I…” Her jaw flapped silently for a few beats before she closed it. She didn’t have the words to explain it. “Um.” She sat up and pulled the covers up over her breasts, fidgeting with the satin trim of the adobe red sheets.
“You’re hiding from me. That’s not good.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to pull my thoughts together.” It’d been hard before, and still was, but for different reasons now. The full barrage of the Afótama web hadn’t hit her.
Fuck, it is.
She screwed her eyes shut and concentrated on pushing the buzz to the back of her head like Ótama said.
That wasn’t working. She could still hear the discordant, wordless chatter of too many people speaking all at once. Given the late hour, they must have all been dreaming.
She rubbed her eyes. “God. Or gods. Whatever.” Maybe the best she could do until she spoke with her grandmother was to try to ignore it.
She pressed her fingertips to his cheek and concentrated hard on the sound of her own thoughts and sought out the sound of his.
His sharp inhale told her he understood the point of the connection, and he grabbed her wrist and pressed her hand tighter to his face. “There you are.”
She nodded. “There’s…there’s so much noise.”
“I imagine there is. It’s always been there for me. It just got a little louder when I came here. In time, it’ll become a part of you.”
Did she want that?
She pulled his hands onto her lap and squeezed them.
When she’d been with her grandmother, she’d thought being at home—finally—was no big deal and that she was ready for whatever the people threw at her. She’d wanted her chance to be reborn as someone more powerful and important than before—someone worth respecting. When she’d left Ótama, she’d been certain she could be that woman she’d been born to be. But, now that she was back in the real world with her brain feeling like an overblown balloon, all that confidence seeped away.
“Yeah,” she said, unconvincing even to herself. “In time.”
CHAPTER SIX
Oliver Gilisson avoided sleep the same way some people avoided saturated fat and alcohol. It was bad for him; however, it wasn’t his body suffering from overindulgence, but his mind.
He couldn’t sleep without her popping in for a dreamtime visit…and he hadn’t even known who she was. She’d been haunting him for six years, even before his wife, Kristy, died. He would have felt guilty about the carnal nature of his dreams, but he wasn’t the one controlling them. How could he be, when he’d never seen the woman in his life? Besides, the only good things that had come out of his marriage had been his sons. Everything else added to the heartache.
Kristy had been broken. She was an aberration amongst people programmed to mate for life—to not inflict emotional harm on their lovers. She’d put on a good act, and he thought he’d felt her love for him. But, she’d turned out to be a psychic liar. She’d clouded her own thoughts and emotions and projected what she wanted people to hear and feel, and not what was the truth.
When she’d had her accident, he’d had a hard time finding any tears for her.
He knew he shouldn’t think ill of the dead, but she’d undermined his trust with what amounted to a throwaway lover. And then did it again. Again. And Again. He lost track of just how many others there were, and what made it all worse were the calls on the landline phone from men asking for her.
Matt just hung up on them, but Lyman was only twelve. He didn’t bounce back so well when folks asked for his dead mother. Ollie had finally decided to change the number, which created quite the administrative clusterfuck for his motorcycle repair business.
Jeff, owner of the Fallon, Nevada bar frequented regularly by their kind, pushed a shot across the bar at Ollie. “What’s crawled up your ass today? I’m getting a lot of mental static from you.”
Ollie pulled the shot of vodka closer and stared into the clear liquid as if the surface would give him answers. “You know what today is?”
Jeff grunted. “How can I forget? The lead-up’s the same every year. You act like everything’s okay, but then I don’t hear shit from you for two weeks because you’re at home feeling sorry for yourself, and then you finally drag your ass out on the anniversary to drink your sorrows away.”
“Am I that predictable?”
He caught Jeff’s shrug in his periphery. “If it were me, I might be the same way. That’s why I don’t fuck with our women anymore. Life’s easier that way. There’s something wrong with the women out here. You notice it? They all seem defective like that.”
“I honestly haven’t paid too much attention.”
“Think about it.” Jeff leaned in close and pretended to scrub a stubborn spot off the gleaming oak bar. Telepathically, he projected, “You ain’t been so tuned in, but
it’s happening more and more. Bunch of cheats, the lot of them. I don’t know if it’s them being led by example, or if it’s something in the blood.”
Ollie found that observation interesting. “Matt’s girlfriend dumped him last week. Confused him. At that age, they’re pretty much guaranteed to stick.”
Matt was nearly eighteen. That was usually when they paired off—when they felt the pull to find their mates. That’s when Ollie had taken his, but maybe he wasn’t such a shining star example of matrimony.
“See? They’re not sticking like they used to, and I ain’t gonna let none of them chew me up. No fuckin’ way.”
Ollie chuckled and picked up the shot glass. “You’re getting old,” he said, switching back to normal speech. He tossed back the shot and gestured for another one.
Jeff poured it. “Same age as you, motherfucker. Maybe I’m just not cut out to do the daddy thing. By the time I get around to having them, gods-damned arthritis will probably have set in and this beautiful Nordic mane of mine and the matching carpet will have gone gray.” He gave his long blond braid a sassy flick over his leather-clad shoulder and wriggled his eyebrows.
Ollie groaned and poured the second shot down his throat. Most of the men of a certain age in their crew liked keeping their hair long enough to braid, but Ollie preferred having his short. It was probably a leftover tendency from his Air Force days. He hadn’t even been out all that long.
“Nah, I’m good. I gotta…” Ollie clamped his lips and pushed the glass at Jeff. “You pegged me on one problem, but I have a bigger one.”
“Oh, shit. Hold on. Let me deal with this fucker waving an empty bottle at me.” Jeff moved to the other end of the bar, and Ollie turned his hands over and stared at the set-in stains from motorcycle grease and the scars from his handling of bladed weapons. His old man had been big on tradition and had Ollie sparring with an axe long before he bought him his first gun.
Ollie’s ex-wife had hated his rough hands. She apparently liked her men pretty, so what had she wanted with him in the first place?
