Nokken

by Mary E. Twomey

  Jamie was a rocket that only needed Britta to launch him into outer space. He leapt to his feet only to tackle her to the ground, rolling around in the grass with abandon. Britta’s bonnet fell off, and he marveled at the dark braids he had been yearning for since he met her.

  Britta allowed herself to be kissed in public. Granted, there was only the seven of us plus Henry Mancini, but it was a big leap for her.

  Jamie’s sudden spring of lust ricocheted to me, bouncing through my veins like a pinball machine. Everything carnal within me flared up, a fire on my insides ripping desire through every artery. I stood, zeroing in on Jens, whose back was to me.

  He turned in slow motion, in shock over his sister and best friend making out in the grass, now affianced. “Can you believe that?” he said, flabbergasted.

  It was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard him say, but I couldn’t tell you why. I jumped up on him again, mashing my lips to his. “I want to paint your body with these tulips.”

  “What the… Loos!” He turned his head after a solid minute of sating my need for him. “Shh. Maybe you should give my two lips a rest for a second.” He gently extracted me from his body, chest heaving as he sized me up. “What’s gotten into you?”

  I twirled around like I used to when I was a little girl until I got so dizzy, I fell. I rolled over onto my back, spreading out my limbs in the green. “I’m in love! My heart’s so happy, I feel like I’m gonna burst with fruit flavor!” I acted out what it would look like if my chest opened up and my heart floated out and exploded all over creation. I’d seen enough zombie movies to do an accurate rendition of the gore. My sound effects were pretty spot on.

  “Nik!” Jens called. Foss and Nik ran toward him, way too serious for my liking. “What did you do, Nik? Did you addle her brains with your songs?”

  Nik looked down on my giddy grin in confusion. “Nøkken songs don’t work on her. You know that. Besides, I didn’t sing anything that would make her ecstatic like this.” He looked around, listening to the other songs that stretched to us. “No one else is, either.”

  “Anything that would make Jamie lose his mind? Or maybe just his inhibitions?” Foss questioned. “They’re laplanded. Maybe it’s affecting her through him.”

  Nik trotted away from my cackling to listen closer to the songs in the distance. “I’m telling you, there’s nothing that would do this to Jamie. It’s all just songs for peaceful thinking, bountiful crops and things of that sort.”

  Jens ran his hands through his tousled hair, his wide eyes watching me do the backstroke in the grass. “Something’s wrong. She’s cracked. I’ve never seen her like this before.”

  Foss, Nik and Jens all bent over me to observe with caution, but I couldn’t stop laughing. When I noticed a tiny streak of white shaving cream under Foss’s jawbone, I laughed so hard, I started crying. I pointed, but was unable to hiccup out what it was that set me off. Even when Foss pushed my head into the grass to hold it still, I couldn’t stop the hysterics. He pried open my eyes and snapped his fingers in my face, which only made me hoot louder.

  Foss. Pretending to care like a doctor would. I’m telling you, anyone would find that hilarious.

  “It’s the Huldra whistle,” Foss ruled. “Dilated pupils and hands like ice. Charles spelled us all back at Nik’s house, but it’s worn off on us.” Foss pressed my hand to Jens’s forearm so he could feel the difference in temperature between his warm one and my freezing one. “I guess she’s just more susceptible to his magic.”

  They were all talking and acting worried, which added to my levity for no reason at all. A few minutes later, I was picked up and hoisted over Jens’s shoulder. We moved forward toward the rendezvous point, but I could not have cared less. My hair bounced and dangled, the curls entertaining me the whole way.

  Twenty-Two.

  Susceptible

  “Okay, it was cute the first ten minutes, but I can’t take much more of this. Where’s Alrik?” Nik complained, looking out from behind a grassy hill that stretched seven stories high. It was one of dozens in this area, and made for a nice waiting spot.

  It was dark out, and Jamie and I were lying in the grass on either side of Britta, looking up at the stars and laughing at the dirty shapes the bright dots made. Britta told us the story of one of the constellations before we lost focus and started making up our own “hilarious” versions. Most of them involved bowel movements at inappropriate times, which could not have made us laugh more. Britta was absolutely crimson, and had given up on shushing us long ago.

  Jens was sharpening his knives on a stone while Foss gulped from his canteen, exhausted from carrying Jamie for the better part of a day. “You’re too far away!” I complained to Jens with a giggle, rolling over onto my stomach and propping myself up on my elbows. “I miss you like a warm, fuzzy mitten, you handsome man! Come be my warm, fuzzy mitten.” I gave him my best come hither eyes and my most dazzling grin.

  Jens’s smile returned to me wary. “Keep talking, nympho! I’m staying right here until you get some actual adult supervision.”

  Foss was flabbergasted when I blew Jens a kiss and then stage whispered some very unladylike things to him. He turned to Jens with admiration in his eyes. “You deserve some kind of medal for this. She’s bent on you, but you’re over here with a bunch of smelly men.”

  Jens clapped Foss on the back too hard to be genuine. “What can I say? You’re a lovely bunch.” He took a bite of his apple, looking at me like he wished he was by my side. “I can’t go over there. If I do, I’ll… you can tell she’s not right in the head. I can’t take advantage like that.”

  Nik chuckled from his lookout position. “You’re a good man, Jens.”

  “Yeah. Lucky me. Where the smack is Alrik?” He looked up to the heavens in exasperation. “Great, Mox. Now you’ve got me saying it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “And why didn’t she fall asleep last night with your song, Nik? She’s laplanded to Jamie.”

  Nik shrugged. “You know sleep isn’t connected between laplanders.” He had tried singing a song to calm Jamie down, but it didn’t work on either of us. “Her hands are ice and her pupils are dilated. She’s been bewitched by Mace. It’s the only explanation. The Nøkken song is powerful, but it doesn’t control people. It only suggests. Mace has to undo it.”

  I started reassembling the braids Jamie had taken out of Britta’s hair with fingers that were trembling with jubilation. I could not help but kiss her cheek every few seconds. “I’m so happy for you!”

  Jamie took the responsibility of smooching her other cheek in rhythm with me. “I’m so happy for me! Let’s get married tonight, my love. This very night!”

  “Why wait?” I agreed, high-fiving Jamie, our matching grins making Britta bury her face in her hands. “Oo! I’ve never been to a wedding before!”

  We kept smooching her cheeks until Nik pulled me away. “You are a problem, aren’t you? Worse than your wolf with all your energy.”

  “Oh, Nik! Isn’t it all just so wonderful! Undraland is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen! Nøkken is amazing. Except for all the rapists.” I don’t know why, but this made me laugh so hard, I doubled over on the ground. “Get it? Because rapists, they’re not amazing! Ha!”

  Jamie giggled into Britta’s cheek. “I get it, Lucy! And now they’re dead! Ha!”

  Thankfully Uncle Rick and Mace turned up before we found anything worse to laugh about.

  “You!” Jens called out through the night in accusation.

  “What?” Mace sneered, taking a defensive step back.

  “You did something to her in your whistle. I know you did. What did you make her feel? She’s been out of her mind for two days now!”

  Uncle Rick whirled on Charles after glancing at me. “What happened, son?”

  “Nothing!” Mace’s hands were raised in surrender.

  Jens was in no mood. “What was the third whistle for? I know it was you.”

  Mace shrugged. “Oh, you know.
Just general health and stuff.”

  Jens clenched his fists. “Are you trying to be a bad liar, or are you just trying to get me angry?”

  Tor pushed his hand to Jens’s chest to keep him from lunging. “Easy, boy.”

  Mace eyed Jens in challenge. “Maybe both at this point. Although, I really don’t have to try to get you angry. Seems like existing does the trick well enough on its own.”

  Uncle Rick took one look at Jamie and me on the grass, checked my pupils, touched my hands and turned to Mace. “Undo it, young man. Your spell shouldn’t have lasted this long. Most Huldras’ wear off in a few hours.”

  I pointed and guffawed at my half-brother. “Uh-oh! He young-manned you, Mace! That can’t be good.”

  Jamie pointed to the hill. “Go sit in the corner, young man!”

  “Time out for you, young man!” I giggled on the grass even as Mace knelt next to me. “Get it? Because he’s mad at you, and you’re a boy! You’re in trouble!” I teased, grinning up at him. “You know what else has tails like you? Comets! You have to help me find one!”

  Charles smiled forlornly at me. “Look up at the stars, beautiful girl. Find my comet.” Then he pulled me onto his lap while I giggled at the sky, searching for any sign of a comet to report and make my joke complete.

  He pressed his lips to my ear, and more laughter bubbled out of me like a fountain filled with cola. “Uh-oh! You’re kissing my ear again. Jens is not gonna be happy about that. Big trouble… young man!”

  This set Jamie off in hysterics again.

  Mace whistled a slow, steady note in my ear. At first, I was grinning so wide, I thought I might split my face. As the note progressed and mutated, my smile wilted. My eyes drooped as my muscles began to loosen from the tension built over the course of two days spent laughing. Before I knew it, my whole body was jelly, and I flopped back lifelessly in my brother’s arms.

  Twenty-Three.

  Humiliation and Hubris

  I awoke to a fire crackling I don’t know how many hours later. I opened my heavy lids and saw four skinned kanins roasting over the spit. Jens’s back was to me, and his arm was around his sister, who was staring with a far-off expression into the flames. I was on the grass next to a snoozing Jamie, alerting no one of my awaking.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Jens asked quietly. “I’m sorry you were proposed to like that. It’s not fair to either of you.”

  Britta offered her brother a soft smile. “I never thought Jamie would ever ask me to marry him. It was a dream come true. Even if it has to go back to just being a dream, I’m glad it happened.”

  Jens kissed her forehead. “You know he would if he could.”

  “I do now,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “It’s fine, Jens. It was a beautiful dream, and I don’t regret having it, however brief.” She nudged his ribs. “It must have been nice to have Lucy so taken with you.”

  I caught a glimpse of Jens’s grin. That gorgeous mouth I so often wanted to both smack and kiss was every bit as alluring as it had ever been. “It’s always nice when she’s not hating me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you. She’s young still. Full of life and fight. Be careful you don’t let her slip through your fingers by being… you know, you.”

  Foss poked one of the kanins with a stick to test its doneness. “Go tell Nik dinner’s ready,” he ordered Mace.

  Charles stood with a morose expression.

  “Don’t give me that look,” Foss grumbled. “It’s your fault I had to carry his royal pain for two days straight. You’re lucky I don’t roast you on this spit. You’re the errand boy until I say otherwise.”

  Charles left the circle to find Nik without a word.

  I sat up, drawing Uncle Rick’s eyes from the fire. “Lucy! Darling, how are you?” His gray beard could not mask his smile.

  The others turned around, but Jens was on his feet and moving toward me. “Hey, you’re awake. You feeling okay?”

  I nodded as I sat up slowly, my neck stiff from sleeping on the ground. “Did all that really happen, then?”

  Jens nodded, his dark eyes dancing with concern as he checked me over, looking at my eyeballs and testing the temperature of my hands. “When Mace gave you his Huldra whistle back at Nik’s house, he put a command in there for you to feel elated. Happy.” He kissed my forehead. “In his defense, he said he was worried about you after the Nøkkendalig and didn’t want you to check out again. He’s a little stronger at that whistle than he realized, or you’re more susceptible to him or something. You were giddy until he put you to total relaxation, knocking you and Jamie both out until the first whistle wore off.”

  I pulled my knees up to my chest and shoved my head into my hands, totally embarrassed. “I didn’t dream it, then? Was I really throwing myself at you like that?”

  Jens nodded, his smirk unable to stay maturely hidden.

  “That’s so humiliating! I’m sorry, Jens.”

  “Maybe humiliating for you, but I’m pretty much the man over here. But how about the next time you want to sing a song about my muscles, stop calling them Jemima.”

  “Oh, jeez. I’m so sorry.”

  “You made it up to me by composing a dirty poem about my manhood. That was pretty entertaining. You even made Foss smile once. Didn’t think that was possible.”

  I leaned forward into his shoulder and groaned. “Please forgive me. All of it. I’m so embarrassed.”

  Jens kissed the top of my head. “Oh, no. I’m holding you to everything for a long time. There’s no end to the teasing you’re getting for this.”

  “Shut up and kiss me,” I begged, meeting his lips with a tender stroke to replace the needy ones I’d showered him with earlier. “That feels a little better. Like us.”

  “For the record, I liked being attacked by you. I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing.”

  I laced my arms around his neck and exhaled my regret as we hugged each other. The fire was warm, and so was he. “I love you, you know.”

  He pressed his lips to my cheek. “You should. Not many guys’d be able to be a gentleman in that situation. I’m holding you to every dirty thing you said about me.” He smiled into my cheek when I shivered. “After all, I’m the perfect man, according to you.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  He tapped under my chin and raised my face to place a tender kiss on my lips. “I love you, too. I’m glad you’re back.”

  “I’m glad you’re you.”

  “Come on,” he said, pulling me gently to my feet and leading me toward the fire. “Let’s give Jamie a little more time to sleep it off before the best day of his life shatters.”

  “Oh, Britta!” I fretted, worried all over again. Jens lowered me carefully next to his sister as if I was just getting out of the hospital, and we held each other immediately. “I’m so sorry!”

  Britta laughed softly, her hug tender and filled with her genuine love for me. “You didn’t do anything to me to be sorry for. You were positively adorable. I’ve never been kissed that many times in my life.”

  “Not that. Well, yes, that. But the proposal! He finally let himself go, and it was like that? That’s not how you pictured it.”

  Britta rubbed my back before releasing me. “You remember it, then? There’s a chance he’ll remember, too?”

  I nodded, not looking forward to that conversation. “It feels like it all happened at a distance, but yeah. I remember everything.”

  Uncle Rick cleared his throat. “Lucy, I’ve already reprimanded Charles.”

  I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees and cradled my face with my hands. “What’d I miss while I was out?” I was too ashamed to make eye contact with any of the guys. I’m pretty sure I did a provocative dance to a Britney Spears song. No one should ever do that under any circumstances.

  Uncle Rick pulled out his sack and fished through it. “Charles and I secured a vatten liv. It’s a weed that helps you hold your breath for longer underwater. Hard
to find, but not impossible with the right persuasion.” He nodded to Jens. “It’s been decided that Jens will take Nik down into Lugn River. The portal is at the very bottom, which isn’t a problem for Nøkken. They can hold their breath upwards of twenty minutes underwater. But we would like Nik to remain unseen, so Jens will vanish him while he destroys the portal. The weed will solve the problem of Jens not being able to hold his breath that long.”

  “Oh, that’s great!” I still kept my face hidden in my hands and facing downward, too embarrassed to take in the damage I’d done.

  “What, no song with our supper?” Tor teased. “I specifically remember ya promising me a song. Something livelier than tha one ya sang about Jens’s eyebrows.” He snapped his fingers to urge me to action.

  Jens scratched his five o’clock shadow, giving me a sideways smile. “You went through a pretty vocal eighties hair band phase. Apparently I ‘shook you all night long’.”

  I acted out dying of embarrassment, falling over in the grass.

  Jens yanked me up. “Come on, Cherry Pie. Get some food in you. You keep missing whole days of eating. I don’t like it. I like my baby with back.”

  I paled. “I didn’t.”

  Jens laughed. “Oh, but you did. The whole rap. It was pretty impressive, actually. It’s been a while since I’ve heard you sing that whole song. Luckily I was carrying you over my shoulder at that point, so you couldn’t do your pop and lock.” He stood up and did a perfect imitation of my best booty shaking, to the amusement of the crowd.

  Nik’s glimpse of lust was only caught by me, and he stuffed it back down before anyone could comment on it.

  “Take it off!” I hollered, waving around my invisible dollar bills. Jens was a thing of beauty, shaking his backside to a beat only the two of us heard. I adored his sculpted physique, his heart that seemed cold at first, but was actually warm and open once you pried off the locks. That night, it was his smile that did me in. I wondered how many moments he watched me from his unseen places, matching his smile to mine even though I never knew he was there. How lonely he must have been after Linus and my parents died. To watch someone going through the exact same thing, but not be able to commiserate with them must’ve been terrible.