Lapis held the door open as we left the three harpies who were still in their pajamas and probably planning to return to their beds once we were gone.
Gabrielle and I headed toward the concrete steps when I turned toward the opened door. “Oh, and Eonza?”
“Yes?” she said, poking her head out.
“Do me a favor?”
“It depends on the favor,” she said dryly.
“If you’re going to continue trying to get pregnant, can you wait until after we’ve fought the Hunters?” I thought about suggesting the use of condoms until then, but then remembered that she didn’t much care for sex.
“Easily done,” she said, closing the door behind her.
Twenty-One
Driving to the Ashville Regional Airport: easy.
Returning the little red rental car: easy.
Getting two tickets to Maine: easy.
Sitting at the gate, waiting an hour for our flight: not so easy. It made me want to lose my mind in the worst way. The bustling airport terminal had taken way too long to access because a woman in the security line had decided to look her best in heeled boots and jewelry she didn’t want to remove.
It was a classic hurry up and wait scenario, and I didn’t do well with those. Waiting turned to thinking, which turned to worrying. Gabrielle had left again to call her sisters about thirty minutes ago, so I sat by myself watching humans rush by.
We had one more visit before I could hurry home and make my plan to retrieve Shawna a reality. Every time I thought of how I’d get Shawna back, I was reminded that I’d possibly rescue my mother as well. Once, when I was little, I overheard my aunt scolding Olivia, using my mother’s disappearance as a lesson for why good little huldra must never behave rebelliously. Later she denied ever saying such a thing, but looking back I assumed she’d been referring to my mother’s affair with the man already claimed by the succubi. I wanted to ask her, why him? Wilds make up such a tiny portion of the country’s population. What kind of luck—bad or good—did this human male have that he’d been the object of affection of both a succubus and a huldra? It couldn’t have been an accident.
With all my worrying and wondering, I’d practically gnawed off my inner lip by the time the flight attendant announced our flight to Bangor would begin loading soon. Gabrielle rushed toward me from who knows where and grabbed her suitcase, which had been sitting on the seat beside mine.
“Ready?” she asked as though she’d been the one waiting for me the whole time.
I stood and stretched my arms. “Let’s go to Maine.”
Other than our two layovers in Philadelphia and Charlotte, the seven-hour flight to Maine proved uneventful. Well, if you didn’t include my little run-in with a man who clearly believed he deserved to use half of my seat on the flight from Charlotte to Philadelphia. Marcus, a Hunter complete with wide shoulders and nineteen-inch biceps, would have been able to fit in his own seat better than the man sitting beside me. I treasured my precious smidgen of space. So when he spread his knees as though he’d been carrying a FedEx package between his legs, I spread mine in response.
It only escalated from there. And for the life of me, as I drove the rental car from the airport, I couldn’t remember anything about the guy’s appearance.
Now that I thought about it, I could have just asked him to scoot over, but in the moment only one alternative presented itself after he scowled at me and refused to budge. I leaned right, toward him, scooched my butt over toward the arm rest between the two of us, and laid my head on his shoulder.
“What’s your problem?” he’d asked, jumping out of his seat. A look of revulsion covered his face.
“Oh,” I said, peering up at him. “I thought we were sharing. It’s your turn to share.”
“No, I don’t want to share,” he said in a thick southern accent.
“Good, because neither do I.” I sat upright and eyed him. “So stay on your own damn side.”
I’d never much liked the scent of entitlement. It reeks of mold, and not the pretty green fuzzy kind—the black putrid stuff. For the rest of the flight I had wished desperately he could one day be on my bounty list to hunt because cuffing him would be delightful. Not that I wanted him to hurt anyone to get on that list.
So when Gabrielle said, “You don’t need to flex your anti-entitlement muscle whenever you’re around men, you know,” while I drove the little black rental we’d picked up at Bangor International Airport, it pissed me off.
Clearly, days of non-stop travel were wearing me down. But that wasn’t really it. Concern ate at me, devouring my patience, my tolerance. I wanted to get this over with and get to the part where I saved my sister, and maybe even my mother.
I stared at the road in silence, thinking better of voicing my response to Gabrielle. The night sky loomed overhead as the car pointed toward Moose Lake and the forest surrounding it.
“I witnessed your exchange with the gentleman on that second to last flight.” She pulled a nail file from her purse and went to work on her nails.
“How’d you get that through security?” I asked, still irritated that I had to throw away my switchblade in North Carolina. I hated traveling by plane, having to leave all my helpful weapons behind. Though, I supposed I could grow branches now and stab with those, so…
“I didn’t. I bought it at a little kiosk while you were in line for the car. The same kiosk you bought your poor excuse for a weapon after you finalized the rental car.” She referred to the only sharp object I could find—a letter opener.
“You already made your opinion on my need for weapons clearly known.” I tapped my finger on the wheel, ready to move on.
“I just don’t see why you cling to trinkets when you can grow real weapons.” She yawned. “Back to what I was saying, though. After your unfortunate behavior on the plane I feel the need to remind you that men aren’t the enemy.”
“I never said they were the enemy. But when someone thinks they’re entitled to half of the seat I paid for, I have a problem with that.” I gave her a quick glance before returning my attention to the road. “If we’re being completely honest, which it seems we are, you’ve had the window seats this whole trip, so you have no room to talk. And I highly doubt you’ve flown or traveled much.”
“I need the window seat. Remember, I need movement or I get non-motion sickness,” she said.
“Oh, I remember,” I answered in irritation. “But next time try experiencing the thing you’re doling out advice for first, before, you know, you dole out the advice. It gives you more credibility.”
She turned in her seat to look at me with her whole body.
I sighed and rephrased my last statement before she could respond. “I really do appreciate what you did for me on the island. And you clearly have more knowledge of our old ways than I do. You’ve been able to hold to the ideals and abilities of our foremothers and that comes with a plethora of wisdom, but you need to realize that the rest of us haven’t been so lucky.”
“I’m not going to apologize for being enlightened past your understanding or comfort,” she said calmly, but with an edge in her voice.
“Fuck you, Gabrielle. While you’ve been off gaining enlightenment, the rest of us have been treated like cattle and tortured.” I gave her a quick look and released the tight muscles along my brow and jaw. “You haven’t dealt much with humans, other than those who know of and revere your kind.”
Gabrielle turned to face the windshield and stared ahead. “You’re right. I haven’t.”
“Then support those of us who have,” I said. “And don’t ridicule us when we get angry over things we clearly ought to be upset about.”
Among the blue-lit interior of the car and the thick fog of silence hanging in the air, Gabrielle’s regret surrounded us with the acidic sweetness of an orange that had been cut open and sat on the counter for too many days.
I moved my hand from the wheel and placed it on her arm. “When all this is done, it may
be your shoal teaching the rest what it looks like to stand in our own power on a day-to-day basis. Mermaid therapists to the Wilds, swimming upstream to make house calls.”
Gabrielle let out a snort. “I think I speak for all of my shoal when I say we’d be more than happy to make house calls. Except, we don’t do stagnant water, so if any of you live near a slow moving river or a lake, you’re SOL.”
I grinned and returned my hand to the wheel. “No, it’s the rusalki who prefer bodies of water filled with algae and fish feces,” I said.
Gabrielle nodded. “The hippy recluses in the world of Wilds.”
Our rental cabin near Moose Lake wasn’t much—a tiny two-bedroom with a kitchen nook, a loveseat, and a table with two chairs. I didn’t want to stay somewhere yet again and waste a precious night in which Shawna was undergoing Freyja only knew what kind of horrors. But we needed the rusalki, and Gabrielle insisted it would take time to find the elusive Wild Women. Especially if they didn’t want to be found.
Our surroundings, a patchwork of pine, spruce, maple, and birch trees as far as the eye could see endeared me to the rusalki for their choice in living environment. Gabrielle had insisted on a two bedroom cabin, saying that unlike with the harpies, she needed her own room to stretch out and refused to stay with the rusalki who live in the forest…not in a house, but in a burrowed-out hole in the ground.
The goddess that their high priestess foremothers served was called Mokosh. The word meant moist mother earth. The rusalki took their reverence literally. It helped them to live off the grid. From what I’d gathered, the Hunters couldn’t know their address because they had none, only a forest they were known to frequent, which spread out beside a large lake.
And it was no coincidence that their home, if you could call it that, sat near a lake. Rusalki were like the succubi in that their abilities were not as physically obvious as the mermaids, harpies, and huldra. They were like the mermaids in that some spent hours a day in the water, or more. They were like the huldra in that they lived in the forests and connected to the plants. The rusalki were a little of all our groups and nothing like us at the same time.
I remembered my lessons about them well. They’d never used modern conveniences because adapting to the changing times was not in their character. They were the most mystical of Wild groups in that their abilities didn’t show on the outside, other than their slightly pointed ears and the way their pale skin glowed in the moonlight. They didn’t have scales or bark or feathers. They were not physically strong or quick. But rusalki were the most deadly of us all. After plucking only one strand of their victim’s hair, they’re able to end the person’s life by cutting that strand in half, or decrease their years by cutting snippets from the ends.
According to my mother’s stories, my huldra foremothers had once tried to reach out to the foremothers of the rusalki coven, to connect over our common affinity for nature and forests. But like mama bears protecting their cubs, the rusalki stood proud and tall, threatening the huldra that if they didn’t leave immediately, they’d cut their lives short or kill them where they stood.
They probably still had bad blood with the huldra, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure how I’d react if they threatened me. They needed a strand of my hair to end my life. I only needed to “branch out” to end theirs. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“Should we approach their dirt hole together, or should we separate and I find their home away from home in the lake?” Gabrielle asked as we trudged through the woods.
Because my last couple days had been filled with energy-depleting revelations, I wanted to rest up before meeting the rusalki. We’d slept through the afternoon and left our cabin an hour ago, as the sun set in reds and purples along the hilly horizon. I could have been going much faster if I tree-jumped, but I didn’t want to leave Gabrielle behind.
“Their ‘dirt hole’ is their house. Why don’t you just call it that?” I asked.
“I know,” Gabrielle said, pushing a bush branch out of her way. “Normally, I try to be respectful. But it’s hard with the rusalki. I mean, we live off the grid too, but at least we know how to be civilized.”
“‘Civilized’ is a matter of perception,” I said, eyeing a fern as I carefully stepped over it, making sure not to damage its bright green leaves. “Or have you met them in person?”
“No. I don’t think any Wild Woman alive today has met a rusalka, other than a rusalka, of course,” Gabrielle said.
With a grimace, I eyed Gabrielle’s feet as she tromped on living plants. I reminded myself to offer the same understanding to her that I urged her to offer the rusalki.
“Is it true they practice divination?” I asked. Brown leaves and dead pine needles crunched beneath my boots as I wove around living things. I yearned to feel the soil beneath my bare feet. But if I wasn’t tree-jumping or running through the woods, there was no reason to remove my boots. Plus, they hid my newest knife beautifully.
So far, Gabrielle and the other mermaids seemed to have knowledge on every Wild group. But this time her knowledge was sparse. “I’ve heard they do. I wonder if they use it on the Hunters.”
I stopped and gave a questioning look.
Gabrielle shook her head and kept walking, clearly not watching where she stepped. “They’re elusive, more so than my own shoal, which is saying a lot, as you know.”
I nodded and then jogged to catch up to the mermaid. An owl screeched. She jumped behind me.
“It’s only an owl.” I laughed.
Gabrielle threw her hands in the air. “I hate the forest. So many animals sneaking around, waiting to eat me.”
Thinking of an owl’s normal diet of mice, I said with a laugh, “Maybe if you had a tail.” Then I remembered she did have a tail sometimes. I laughed harder.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself while we’re out in strange woods, probably being hunted by wolves and bears and watched by rusalki.” Gabrielle turned to walk in a different direction.
“Hey, where are you going?” I ran after her. “I was just joking.”
“The lake is this way. I’m going to search it for rusalki, find them before they find us. And if they’re not in the water, I’ll swim to the far end of the lake. It’ll get me to their hole quicker than walking.”
“I thought you didn’t want to swim in fish poop,” I said.
“It’s better than waiting to be eaten!” Gabrielle stomped off through a line of bushes as she removed her clothes and wadded them together in a ball. Yeah, she was pissed. I’d never seen her treat her clothes with so little concern.
That’s fine. I’d gladly travel alone. I pulled my sharpened letter opener from my boot and stuck it down the back of my jeans, handle side out. I tied my boots together to string around my neck before I took a running leap and landed on the branch of an old fir tree. I grabbed the branch above me and swung my body to the next tree. The fresh smell of pine and crisp night air blanketed me in absolute goodness.
As I tree-jumped through the oldest and tallest evergreens of the forest able to carry my weight, I wondered how Marcus was getting along, what the Hunters were forcing him to do to earn their trust and to pay for his betrayal. For his sake, I hoped it was nothing like what they did to the harpies on a monthly basis. No one deserved that…except maybe the Hunters. Reality smacked me like a thin branch in a wind storm.
Marcus was a Hunter. And whether he held allegiance to them or not, he’d always have their blood running through his veins, their tattoos inked along his shoulders, chest, and back. Being around me for any prolonged amount of time would always trigger his muscles, set off red flags in his subconscious.
Obviously, sex with Marcus blew every other sexual experience I’d had out of the water. But in a couple of years it’d be time for my sisters and me to create the next generation of huldra. And I would never damn my daughter to the bloodline of our enemy—present or past.
I noticed an odd lump in the ground and jumped from a fir tree
to inspect it. Two evergreens stood on one side of it and a patch of birch trees on the other. Between the trees nestled a flat wall of large stacked stones with a small square wooden door. Above this wall was a type of roof with tall grass growing from wooden boards. Animal bones hung at the left corner of the makeshift roof. Flat stones covered the front opening like a patio. Snake shaped branches propped against the rock wall.
I pulled my boot strings from around my neck and set them down beside the tree I’d jumped from. I grabbed my envelope-opener for protection (because old habits are hard to break) and lifted my nose to breathe in the scents more thoroughly.
A scent that was both natural and otherworldly gently found its way to my nose.
“I can smell both of you,” I whispered into the night.
“Then you should also be able to sense your need to leave, huldra.” The female’s soft voice came from above me, but I didn’t look up. I didn’t want her to know that I knew where she perched.
“I cannot do that,” I said, still staring forward at their earthen house.
“Then we cannot keep from ending your life,” the female said.
I had hoped to show my innocent intent in keeping my hair down, that I wasn’t there to cause a problem, but clearly they hadn’t taken notice. I slowly tucked the tip of my makeshift knife in my pocket. I pulled the elastic hair tie from my wrist and brought my hair up into a ponytail and then a tight bun. If a rusalka stole a strand of my hair it meant game over.
“I’d prefer that you talk to me first—Wild Woman to Wild Woman. But if you insist on trying to kill me, I’m warning you now, I’ll stab a branch through your heart quicker than you can run for a pair of birch scissors.” I stuck my hands out in front of me and flexed my fingers.
“You bluff. Huldra haven’t been able to fully use their abilities for generations.” The branch above me cracked as the rusalka moved.
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