by A. K. Morgen
Chelle reached out and touched his shoulder.
He lifted his head again and looked at her. Neither spoke as their gazes locked and the wind howled around us. In that moment though, I think they understood one another perfectly for the first time ever.
riving into Smyrna felt like driving into an entirely different time. One when I was ignorant of Sköll, Hati, and the apocalypse, of destiny and what that meant for me. Of Dace, love, and the strength and security I felt when he wrapped his arms around me. And of fear, loss, and those icy fingers of terror gripping my heart in a vise. I felt like we had driven into my past, but somehow, I’d outgrown the things I spent so long wishing for.
Nothing changed since I left. Downtown still seemed picturesque, as if plucked from the set of Pleasantville and dropped into our world. The pole outside Mr. Mason’s Barber Shop twirled. The giant ice cream cone painted on the glass of the parlor next door looked as inviting as ever. And the houses lining the street I grew up on stood exactly like they did in my memories: familiar and welcoming.
Tears pooled in my eyes, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight, but seeing this place again didn’t hurt like I’d expected. On the drive in, I prepared myself to be ripped apart by returning. Instead, being here healed something inside of me. The gaping wound Mom’s death tore through the center of my chest months ago began to close.
When she died, I left Smyrna with so much bitterness and anger. Those poisonous emotions had clung to me all this time, tainting everything with a brittle, jaded edge. Now though… well, now I saw things differently. I could never bring my mom back, and that would never be okay. I would always miss her, and part of me would always grieve for her and for the loss of innocence her death brought me. But losing her and being forced to move on had prepared me in some real way to deal with the battle looming ahead.
Because of her death, I understood loss now. I understood grief, sorrow, and the painful pressure that stung like nettles no matter how many days or weeks passed. The memory of losing her gave me the courage to do what I needed to do to keep my family and friends safe, to keep any of them from ever having to feel the same bone-chilling sense of grief I felt so for so long. Her death gave me the strength to tear my own heart out to save another.
Coming back here made me aware of so much I hadn’t considered, of so many things I needed to see. I ached to call Dace and thank him for giving me this gift. After everything I’d been through―all of the losses, the fear, and uncertainty―having the opportunity to step away for even one night and see things in a different light helped.
I didn’t call him though.
I didn’t know where to begin telling him what this meant to me. Or how much I already missed him. We left so much unsaid between us, and I didn’t know where that left us, but I couldn’t focus on that right now. I didn’t want to focus on that. I wanted to lay my past to rest without thinking of my future, or our future, or any of the thousand concerns that would come with the rising sun tomorrow. For tonight, I wanted to forget, and I wanted to remember.
If I was going to find the courage to move forward, I had to let go.
I think Dace would have understood.
“You okay?” Chelle murmured, turning in her seat to look at me.
“Yeah.” I smiled a little. “I think I am.”
She smiled back.
My old house came into view down the street. Seeing it again felt strange. The grass was a little taller than when I left, but everything else looked the same. I saw it clearly this time though, as if everything I’d endured in the last few months truly had stripped away the anger and bitterness of loss I left with at the beginning of the year and replaced it with a sense of understanding I lacked then.
This house held memories, but I hadn’t left those memories behind when I drove away. They were imprinted inside me more strongly than they were in the house. All the laughter and traditions… those didn’t stay behind in the house. They went with me. The echoes I heard when I walked the halls didn’t come from the house. They came from inside me. They would always come from inside me.
Despite everything, I couldn’t help but feel grateful in that moment for my destiny. Memories faded for everyone. The things that meant so much to a kid dimmed with time until they were eventually forgotten altogether. Because of my destiny, time didn’t quite work that way for me though. When everyone else forgot, I got to remember. Little bits and pieces of this life, of my life, would follow me into whatever world came next, like little bits and pieces of past lives followed me into this one. Flashes, impressions… feelings from so many different times still lived inside of me.
I’d spent so long bitching over not remembering everything, I forgot to be grateful I remembered anything. Because no matter what the future held for me, I was one of the lucky ones. I knew my purpose for living.
Ronan pulled into the driveway and let the car idle.
Fuki pressed his muzzle to the window, looking out.
No one said anything. They were waiting, I think, for me to lead the way.
I put my hand on the handle and pushed my door open.
“Is it weird being back?” Chelle asked, trying to carry our paper plates to the trash and keep Fuki out from beneath her feet at the same time.
“A little bit,” I admitted, looking around the kitchen.
It was late morning, and we were more or less settled in for the day. We were all exhausted, too. Except for the little wolf. He kept making circuits around the house, sniffing random corners as if trying to figure out if they had a purpose. His thoughts were a blur I couldn’t quite catch.
Fuki didn’t seem to mind my inattention though, sensing, perhaps, that I didn’t have the energy to expend on explaining the ins and outs of human dwellings to him when so much else ran through my mind.
I wandered through every room in the house, looking and thinking, while Ronan went for breakfast and Chelle looked after Fuki in the backyard. Aside from the bed in my old room, the sofa and matching chairs in the living room, and the kitchen table, most of the rooms were bare, the furnishings I grew up with long since packed away in storage or delivered to one of the homeless shelters in the area.
Even so, little pieces of my life here remained in the small holes in the walls where pictures once hung, in the pencil lines on the door frame where Mom and Dad measured me as a little girl… even in the splatter of wax dribbled across the bottom step from a long-ago incident with a candle. Seeing the house so vacant felt odd, but it didn’t hurt though, not really.
This wasn’t home anymore. The girl I was now didn’t fit here.
I wasn’t really sure where that left me, but maybe that was for the best.
“I thought it would hurt more,” I said as Chelle dumped our plates into the trash bag looped over a cabinet door. We didn’t have anything except the bare necessities with us, but we were making do. We didn’t plan on being here long enough to justify a shopping trip, anyway. This was a pit-stop. I was here to say goodbye and to sleep. Nothing more.
Fuki rose up on his hind legs to sniff at the bag and then quickly wandered off, not interested in the greasy remnants sticking to wadded up sandwich wrappers and paper plates when his belly was full of the raw steak Ronan brought back and presented to him without a word.
Chelle rinsed her hands off in the sink and then leaned her elbows on the counter, surveying the room. “It’s a lovely house,” she said.
“Thanks.” A yawn cracked my attempt at a smile. I was so tired, but I didn’t really want to sleep. I wasn’t sure what waited for me when I did, and I wanted to say my goodbyes to my past before I tackled the problems of my present again.
Ronan’s chair scraped the floor as he pushed it back and rose to his feet.
Chelle and I both looked at him.
“I’m going outside to look around,” he said.
I frowned. He’d gone out to look around four times already.
“You should sleep.” I tried to convince
him.
“I will later.” He turned on his heel and exited the room without another word.
Fuki trotted after him, the call of the outdoors far more powerful than his curiosity over being indoors.
“What’s Ronan’s deal?” I asked, looking at Chelle in confusion when the door closed behind them.
She shrugged, her face scrunched up as if to say she didn’t have a clue. She yawned loudly. “I don’t know,” she said, her eyes watering. “He’s been abrupt all morning.”
“I noticed.” Not that he was usually verbose or anything. He had just been… less talkative since he returned from the grocery store.
“He’s probably worrying over whether we were followed.” Chelle closed her eyes, and tipped her head back. She sighed heavily. “Great. Now I’m going to be wondering the same thing.”
“You should get some sleep,” I said, refusing to even contemplate the issue. If Ronan wanted to worry about being followed now, he could have at it. As for me, I chose to believe our exit from town went unnoticed. Dace wouldn’t have let us come here if he thought we were in immediate danger, which meant I had a full day before I started looking over my shoulder again.
“You should, too,” Chelle pointed out, rolling her neck and stretching her arms over her head. She yawned again. “Do you need help tackling the stairs?”
My legs were stiff from being cooped up in the car for so long, but I thought I could master the stairs on my own. “No, I think I can handle them this time.” I shot her an appreciative smile. “Thanks for offering, though.”
She smiled back and then grabbed her bag from the pile in front of the backdoor. “You sure you don’t mind sharing the bed? I can sleep on the floor.”
I waved her off. “It’s fine. The bed is plenty big enough for both of us.” Not to mention a lot more comfortable than the floor. No reason for her to suffer unnecessarily.
“Okay.” She paused on her way into the living room. “Yell if you need anything.”
I nodded, watching as she trooped into the living room. A few seconds later, the sound of her footsteps on the stairs echoed through the empty house. I settled back in my chair with a sigh and looked around again.
A thin film of dust covered the windows and the cornice above the top row of cabinets. Little specks hovered in the air, too, caught in the sunrays trickling through the small cracks in the blinds. I couldn’t remember ever seeing so much disarray in the house before. Mom was always an impeccable housekeeper, and dust the enemy.
“I miss you, Mom.” I whispered.
My heart ached dully. Probably always would.
I reached into my pocket and dug my cell phone out. My fingers twitched above the keypad, the desire to call Dace―to hear his voice―swelling, but I dialed my dad’s number instead. I wasn’t ready to talk to Dace yet. I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to him. And the thought of saying any of it over the phone didn’t appeal to me.
Dad picked up halfway through the first ring. “Ari, baby!” He sounded excited and relieved at once.
“Hi, Dad,” I said, squeezing the phone. I missed him so much.
“How’s it going, hon? You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m good. We’re at Mom’s for the night.”
“Dace told me.” He paused. “You sure you’re okay?”
I glanced around the kitchen again. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”
He sighed into the phone, relieved, I thought.
“How is everything there?” I asked, twisting my take-out cup of coffee around in my hands.
“Everything is fine here. I’m doing some research.”
“Anything new?”
“No.”
I expected the answer, but it still bummed me out a little. Why hadn’t Dace or I written anything down about Sköll or Hati in at least one past life? Having notes like that would have helped tremendously.
I thought about the possibility for a moment, and then sighed.
I knew why we hadn’t. Dealing with the entire destiny thing was a big enough ordeal without having to relive it through journal entries. Besides, I couldn’t really see any version of Dace risking those journals falling into the wrong hands. I didn’t remember a lot of who we used to be, but I remembered enough to know that past-Dace had guarded our secrets as closely as my Dace.
Turning over every little detail about us and our failing power to Sköll or Hati would be a disaster. If they didn’t already know we were fading away―which I doubted―I didn’t really want to give them a play-by-play.
“Maybe Dr. Michel will know something,” Dad said, trying to sound hopeful.
“What do you know about him?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. I’ve never met him, and Norse mythology isn’t my area of expertise. He seems to know his stuff though.” Dad hesitated. “Sounds like Dace knows him fairly well.”
I swallowed back the little flutter hearing Dace’s name sent rippling through me this time. God, I missed him. “Is…. How’s he doing?” I whispered, my hand tightening involuntarily around my cup.
Dad sighed. “He misses you. So do I.”
“I miss you guys too.” So, so much.
“He’s okay, Ari. He’s been quiet, but he’s thinking about going back to work.”
“He is?” I straightened up in my seat at this bit of news. “Really?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled sharply, beyond glad. “That’s good,” I said. Maybe being there without me really was what he needed to snap him back into reality.
Was it wrong that the thought hurt as much as it helped?
“When are you going to go back?”
“Soon.”
“Dad.”
“Ari,” he said, mimicking my disapproving tone.
“You promised to go back to work,” I reminded him.
“And I will go back, but I have a few things to finish up before I do.”
“What things?” I didn’t want him home alone with no one to watch out for him. He would be safer on campus, or at the Inn with Melinda, his girlfriend.
“Research things,” he said, far too vaguely.
I frowned. “What research things?”
I almost heard him thinking through the phone.
“Looking into Sol’s lineage got me thinking,” he said, picking and choosing his words carefully.
“About?” I prompted. He and Dace spent way too much time together. They both made me pry answers from them.
“Gods and their progeny, specifically Norse gods,” he said. “According to the myths, Sol and Mani weren’t the only ones who mated with humans. By all counts, the Æsir were about as discerning as their Greek and Roman counterparts when it came to who they slept with.”
I couldn’t deny that, though I did blush a little. Talking about sex with my dad, even god-slash-mortal sex, was about as awkward as watching Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze get it on in Ghost the first, and only, time we watched the movie together. Dad might have been pretty open-minded about sex and dating, but that didn’t mean I wanted to talk about the former with him.
“Maybe some of their descendants are still wandering around,” he continued. “There are plenty of people out there who claim the lineage.”
“You think they might be right?” I asked, surprised. I never really considered the prospect before. It made sense though. If Sol and Mani had living descendants, why couldn’t Odin or Loki or any of the other gods?
“Possibly. I’m not sold on their claims just yet, but maybe some of them stumbled across evidence that will help us locate Sol’s descendants, or Sköll and Hati. I figure it can’t hurt to at least look into their claims, see if I can’t shake loose a few leads.”
“It’s worth a shot,” I agreed. “What does Dace think?”
“Haven’t told him. He has enough on his mind.”
Guilt twisted through me. “I’m sorry,” I said, speaking softly.
“You did the right thing, hon,” Dad promised me. “He’s
worried about you.”
“I wish he’d worry about himself more. We’re fine here.”
“He knows. Ronan called him earlier.”
“He did?” I blinked.
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
Dad sighed. “Promise not to shoot the messenger?”
I groaned aloud. In the history of the world, I doubted anyone had ever started a single piece of good news that way. When it came to Dace and Ronan, I doubted there was good news to report. “What happened?” I asked, bracing myself for the worst.
“Dace told Ronan he would hold him personally responsible if you or Chelle suffered so much as a scratch while you were with him. I don’t know what Ronan said, but Dace almost broke the phone. He stormed out a few minutes later.”
“Have you seen him since?” I asked, instantly feeling panicked.
“Calm down, hon,” Dad said. “I think he went to see those wolves of yours.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Dace was fine. I had to believe that.
I groaned again, shaking my head. At least now I knew why Ronan was in such a pissy mood. He and Dace were fighting. Again. “Tell Dace to stop threatening him. Ronan isn’t responsible for us.”
“Sorry, kiddo, but I side with Dace on this one.” Dad’s tone brooked no arguments. “I want you safe.”
“I am safe.”
“Make sure Ronan keeps it that way, hmm?”
I rolled my eyes. “At least tell Dace to stop threatening Ronan. Ronan is doing the best he can. Besides, he didn’t have to come with us in the first place.” I wasn’t really sure why he decided to come, and part of me still wanted to send him back to Beebe to keep an eye on Dace. But the other part appreciated having him here. At least Chelle and I had some protection if Sköll or Hati followed us.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Dad said. “Love you, Ari.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
The phone beeped, signaling the end of the call. I sat staring at it for a minute and then I sighed and climbed heavily to my feet to go apologize to Ronan for Dace’s behavior.
