Eighteen.
Acting the Part
They were supposed to be back a couple days after they left, but nearly a week later there was still no sign of Jens and the others. Jamie was getting restless, but at least he was more social. He and Mace spent some time getting to know each other, bonding over making arrows for Jamie’s quiver. It didn’t dawn on me until then that it actually did matter if Jamie got along with my new family member, since the prince and I were stuck with each other.
Brenda motioned me into the kitchen, where Viggo was waiting for me. He greeted me with a bow, which I knew I’d never get used to. “Miss Lucy, Master Foss is taking longer than expected to return, and we’re running low on a few things around the property. With your permission, I’d like to go into town and purchase what we need.”
I shrugged, and then it dawned on me that he needed my blessing to even leave the property. “Sure, V. Do you need anything from me?”
He dimpled at the nickname. “Only to know if you would like anything added to the list.”
“Um, well, I noticed Foss’s boots are wearing kinda thin around the toes and the soles. Is that normal? Or does he need a new pair and is too stubborn to admit the ones he’s got need to be tossed?”
Viggo looked down on me with appreciation. “Excellent. I’ll make sure to pick up a pair for him. If you can get him to actually give up his old boots for the new ones, I’ll believe you’re the siren everyone says you are.”
“Look at you, being a good wife,” Mace teased. He and Jamie were red-faced from corralling the horses outside. “Foss is a lucky man.”
“Indeed,” Jamie joked, donning the only relaxed smile I’d seen on him in days. “This is your chance to get whatever you’ve always wanted, Lucy. Foss is quite wealthy.”
I grinned, tapping my fingers together as I plotted. “I noticed there’re no window dressings in his room, just shutters. Perhaps something in pink? Nice and frilly.”
Viggo shook his head. “I’m certain he’ll have something to say about that.”
“Would that thing be, ‘Lucy darling, those curtains were the one thing missing from my life. Now that my room is all pink, I can let loose my feminine side. Brenda, make me a red dress in my size, so I can match my beautiful wife.’” I clasped my hands together. “Oo! Can you get underwear in his size dyed pink? He super needs those.”
Mocking the master was a scandalous thing for the servants, but since I was the one doing it, they relished in the laughter, as if the joke were something delicious and dangerous to partake of.
I nodded, firm in my rule. “Pink curtains, at least. The girlier, the better.”
The day passed much like the others, and I was actually beginning to relax in Foss’s house. With each day, I became more comfortable with the routine.
On the tenth day, however, I was getting worried. I put on a smile for the staff during dinner. I’d had to force Jamie out of his room, not willing to let him slip back into his depression and distance.
Mace did his usual song and dance of lurking around my room until I kicked him out. It was sweet, but I knew Jens would throw a fit. Plus, I was in love with the giant mattress for just me and Henry Mancini.
Erika stoked the fire for me and unpinned my hair, which she’d fastened up so it gave the appearance I had buckets of tresses, but just pinned back. She’d helped me get dressed for bed, since apparently, that was something that required two people. I wore a red nightgown that was fitted around my breasts, but hung loose to the floor with capped sleeves that were, let’s face it, totally cute.
Erika bundled up my dress from the day to wash when she did laundry next. “You poor thing. Newly married, and Master Foss leaves already. He’s an important man, but still. Probably not the honeymoon you dreamed of.”
“Total bummer.” I tried to look sad, but it was a bad act. I was too comfortable on the huge mattress. It had to have been a California king size, at least.
She sat on the edge of my bed with a conspiratorial air about her as I laid back on the pillow. “Do you think he got you pregnant?”
And just like that, I was wide awake. I sat up and subconsciously touched my stomach. “Probably not. No. Maybe when he gets back.” The feigned sadness was stretching it.
“I know he wants an heir. He’ll try and get you pregnant right away. I’m certain of it. Maybe then he’d pick up his fiddle.”
I swallowed, keeping Foss’s secret about his mother tucked tight inside me. “Foss doesn’t play, huh?”
Erika lowered her voice. “Oh, he has a fiddle, but he doesn’t play it. The Fossegrimen curse runs deep in the master. He doesn’t like feeling… Well, he doesn’t like feeling anything at all. That’s why you being here is so miraculous. I bet you’ll have him fiddling away in no time. Perhaps a son would give him reason to play.”
I stretched and yawned dramatically before Foss Jr. had a chance to haunt my dreams.
“Oh, listen to me, prattling on. I’m sure you’re exhausted. Do you need anything else before I turn in?”
“Nope. You’re a gem. Thanks for everything today.”
Erika grinned. “For the last time, you don’t have to thank me for every little thing. This is what I’m supposed to do. You’re actually letting me off easy.”
I laid down and pulled the red blanket up to my waist, snuggling Henry Mancini to my bosom. “Night, E.”
She bowed, but I heard her whisper, “Goodnight, Mistress L.”
I drifted off a few minutes later with a smile on my face.
Nineteen.
Ablaze
The room was warmer than I remembered when noises outside woke me sometime in the middle of the night. I looked out the window and saw a tiny light flutter by. I smiled sleepily when I recognized the butterfly wings of the eld fjräril. So pretty. I recalled the chief saying something about them being attracted to fire, and I wondered if Viggo had started up a bonfire in the clearing.
Henry Mancini started barking and nipping at my hand. “Ouch! Careful, buddy.” I rolled from my side to my back and looked up at the ceiling as distant shouts filtered in and brought coherence to my hazy thoughts.
There were horses riding around and men shouting. I bolted upright and noticed smoke coming in from under the door. I ran to the window, watching in horror as men from Olaf’s camp rode around the property on their black horses. They carried torches and were setting fire to the crops. One touch, and the vineyard was ablaze, the spark traveling so fast, I could scarcely make sense of it.
The wood floor was heating up, and I wasn’t sure where the fire was at in the house. I slipped on my gold sandals, scooped up Henry Mancini and ran to the door, grabbing the handle with my gown.
The fire was coming from the front of the house. The walls near the front entrance were covered in orange and white as the house began to burn. I screamed and ran to Mace’s room, banging it open and yelling for him to get outside. Jamie met me at the door, terror washing over him as the new reality set in.
People react in all sorts of ways in times of extreme danger. When I get too sad, I shut down. Apparently, when my house is on fire, my mind works like a freaking ninja.
“Jamie! Grab your bow and arrow and get outside! Go invisible and pick off Olaf’s men as fast as you can.” When he looked like he could not understand his own name, I shouted. “Now, Jamie! Run!”
Mace met us in the hallway, looking around the house in confusion. His eyes landed on me and widened. “The servants’ entrance in the back!” he called, grabbing his pack and bolting toward me. He took a struggling Henry Mancini from my arms and ran after Jamie out back.
In the fog of confusion and fear, my eyes fell from the fire on the wall of the front of the house to the floor. Orange and white licked the wood like so many zealous tongues. All that Foss had worked so hard for was bedecked in heat and dangerous light. I took a step toward the inferno, entranced for the moment beyond my capabilities to make rational decisions.
Then I saw
it. There, in the middle of the dining room, wrapped in a blanket was Foss.
The moment it registered he was there, the blanket caught on fire. “No!” I screamed.
I forgot about my safety and ran past the blazing red tapestries to Foss. His mouth had blood trickling out of it, and I could tell he’d been on the business end of a bad beating, but until I was sure he was dead, I would not leave him in the house like this.
Stop. Drop. Roll. Stop. Drop. Roll. Thank you, Fire Department people that visited us in school. I got on my knees and rolled Foss away from the blaze until the fire on his blanket was extinguished. Then I unraveled him from the blanket, revealing so many large cuts and bruises on his naked torso, I didn’t know where to grab him.
Foss coughed as the fire crept around the dining room, building our own personal inferno, proving that at least for now, he was alive. I grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him to the hallway entrance that was now a ring of fire.
I can’t explain how I was able to drag a man of Foss’s size out of the encroaching blaze, but I managed it just before the circle closed in and trapped us in the dining room. I tugged and grunted with all my might, and managed to heft him halfway down the hall before the flames realized they’d been remiss in their duty to follow me wherever I went. Orange danced on the top quarter of the walls on either side of me, creeping to the ceiling and climbing slowly down the wall toward us.
Foss opened his eyes and shouted his physical and emotional pain. “No!”
I tugged as hard as I could, but my pace was pitiful. I’d never fully appreciated how big he was until I was in charge of moving him to safety, which at the moment seemed miles and miles away.
“Leave me!” Foss called in anguish. “Let me burn with my house!” I could tell this was not an attempt to save my life. I recognized losing the will to live in a heartbeat, as it was so close to what mine had been when I lost my family.
“Get up!” I urged. “I don’t know if I can get you out before it all goes up in smoke. Please, Foss! Get up!” I continued to drag Foss, but the flames on the ceiling were heating the hallway so much; Foss felt hot to the touch without his shirt on.
I heard an ominous creaking overhead. One of the sconces was ablaze and pulling away from the top of the wall. I yanked and tugged, but I knew I could not pull Foss out of the way in time. Without really thinking it all the way through, I dropped Foss and threw my body over his.
“Lucy, no!” Foss bellowed into my belly, the red fabric muffling his protest.
I screamed when the heavy wooden sconce sliced through the air and cracked me on the small of my back before sliding off me. It would have cut Foss across the neck, doing some real damage for sure.
I could feel that my gown was on fire, so I threw myself backward and smothered it in seconds. It burned my flesh, but I decided to worry about that later. There would be plenty of time to feel pain once we got to safety. “Get up! Foss, try to walk! I’ll never get us both out in time!”
He shook his head. “Save yourself, you stupid girl! I’ve got nothing left!”
I pulled at him with all my might, the burn on my back impeding my burst of gorilla-like strength. “I won’t leave without you, so either we both get out, or we both die in here!”
Charles tore back inside for me, terrified when he saw the fire almost completely painting down the walls on either side of me. “Lucy, run!”
Relief like I’d never known flooded through me. “Foss is hurt! Mace, use your water and start putting out the flames! Help!”
“Lucy, I don’t have enough in me to put out a fire this big. I can only control water. I can’t create it! You have to go now!”
Mace, beautiful Mace grabbed under one of Foss’s shoulders and towed him with me the rest of the way. With his help, it was easy to drag him down the hall, then through a second corridor and down the two stairs that led outside.
The night air was like a punch in the face. I looked up and saw the shed was on fire. I heard a sound so horrible, I instantly was drenched in a new downpour of alarm.
Voices. The servants were trapped inside. I saw a piece of wood barred across the double handles and opened my mouth to scream.
Mace’s hand went over my mouth and pointed to Olaf’s men on horses. They had not seen us from their distance, and that was our only advantage.
One man fell off his horse with an arrow in his neck. I tracked the trajectory of the weapon and located the invisible Jamie. I shoved Mace’s hand away from my mouth. “Mace, can you shoot a bow and arrow?”
“Not as well as Jamie, but yeah.”
“Come on, then!” I yanked on his sleeve and ran to Jamie, touching his back when I reached him so I would disappear from view.
“Get to the boats!” Jamie ordered, aiming an arrow and sinking it into another evil man. “I can hold them off long enough for you to escape, I think.”
“We’re not leaving the servants to burn like that! Give Mace your bow, and you stay invisible and unlock the shed.” Then an idea occurred to me. “Mace, can you do your whistle thing and tell the horses to run far away or something?”
Mace’s eyes darted from side to side, counting up the animals as Jamie shoved the bow and quiver into his arms. Jamie took off toward the barn, leaving Mace and I exposed. We hid behind the nearest thick tree that had not yet caught on fire.
“I can’t control that many animals with so much chaos.” He shook his head, his hand wiping his sweating brow. “I’m not even a full Huldra. I don’t have it in me.”
I cupped his face in my hands and forced him to see me. “Focus, Charles. You can do this, and you have to. If you don’t, when the servants bust out of there, Olaf’s men’ll just slaughter them clean to the ground.” I stared into his silver eyes, willing the power of positive thinking into his brain. “Now tell the horses to run south as fast as they can. Tell them to run until they can’t run anymore.”
Henry Mancini was circling me as he whimpered, so I scooped him up to make sure he didn’t run south with the horses. Jamie! Cover your ears, I warned. Charles is going to whistle those horses out of here!
Mace covered my ears and closed his eyes. He pursed his lips and let loose his most complicated whistle yet. Seven different notes flew out of him simultaneously, wrapping around each other and sending out a message to the horses. I watched around Mace’s body as the animals’ ears pricked. Despite their masters’ commands, they changed direction as one and galloped south away from the property.
“You did it!” I yelled, triumphant.
Mace breathed a gust of relief, pulling me to his chest so he could exhale into my soot-stained hair.
I ran to Foss when Mace released me so he could help Jamie unbolt the door. I knelt by Foss’s shoulder and placed my hand on his sweat-soaked chest. “Foss! Where are the others? Jens? Where are they?” I put Henry Mancini down, and he licked Foss’s wounds for him.
Foss coughed in my face. “Why didn’t you leave me?”
“Where are they?” I repeated, trying to take him with me into the present. I held his cheeks and forced him to look at me. “Olaf’s men are gone, but your place is still on fire. You have to tell me where Jens and the others are, so we can get there now.”
The look on his face was so sad, I wished I could take the time to comfort him. But there would be days for comforting later. Now was the time to move. When he looked into my eyes, I saw Goliath defeated. It was a thing of heartbreak to watch him so conquered.
“The boats. My fishing boats. They’re there now, if they haven’t already left. I was supposed to come back and fetch you guys, but Olaf found me.”
I smoothed the short hair from his forehead and lifted his head to cradle it. “There. Thank you. See? You saved the day. Now we aren’t separated from the group.”
“But Viggo. My servants! Olaf’s killed everyone in my household but you!”
I glanced up as I ran my fingers down Foss’s cheek, resting his head on my lap. “Guess again, p
umpkin. Jamie just busted them out of the shed. They’re pouring out like ants from an anthill right now.” I concentrated on sending Jamie a mental message. The others are in Foss’s fishing boats, so we’ll go there. Flag down Viggo and have him take charge. Send them all to the chief’s house with word that Foss is dead. He’ll take them in. Then come back to me. I can’t carry Foss all the way to the docks.
Jamie answered, Okay. Is Foss actually dead?
No, but he’s not very alive, either. Olaf needs to believe Foss is out of the picture, or he’ll just come back to finish him off. We can’t keep going with a tail on us.
Alright. Sit tight. I’ll be there to help you with him in a few.
A tear trickled down Foss’s face as he watched all he sacrificed and worked for go up in flames. I lifted his torso as much as I could, pulled his shoulders onto my lap and held him.
“You should have left me,” he muttered pathetically with such pain in his eyes, I could not look away.
I pressed his temple to my stomach and brushed clumsy fingers through his hair. “Let’s not think about that now. Take a minute and say a proper goodbye to your home. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
Foss reached up and gripped my hand over his chest as we sat together in silence, watching his life burn to ashes.
Twenty.
Branded
Jamie and Mace acted as crutches for Foss. Jamie used his magic to turn them all invisible. I walked ahead holding Henry Mancini and trying to push out all the bad things until I was at a place where I could have a good breakdown. As it was, the pain in my back and other parts of me I had not realized I’d injured began to seep into my consciousness as we walked through the back roads toward the docks.
Walking was a struggle for all of us. Too much smoke had been inhaled. Even Henry Mancini kept his barks to a minimum. I was banged up pretty good, but it was nothing compared to Foss. He was nursing his side and his left leg, hobbling unsteadily and gritting his teeth through every step.
Fossegrim Page 11
