Lucy at Peace
Book Six in the Undraland Series
An Undraland: Blood Novel
By
Mary E. Twomey
Copyright © 2015 Mary E. Twomey
Cover Art by Humble Nations
Author Photo by Lisabeth Photography
All rights reserved.
First Edition: August 2015
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
ISBN-13: 978-1514692097
ISBN-10: 1514692090
For information:
http://www.maryetwomey.com
DEDICATION
For Matt, Kroi, Maybee and Saxon.
I never knew how lucky I was until God gave me you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This series would not have happened without one maniac who read books one through five of the Undraland series and insisted they needed a spinoff series, then proceeded to sit me down and school me on my own books. Jason Dandy, I blame the bags under my eyes, the mainlining of coffee, global warming, and books six through nine on you.
I hope you’re pleased with yourself.
Special thanks to my editors, Ruth Gross and Bailey Soper, who never roll their eyes at my embarrassing mistakes and constant inattention to detail that they have to remind me of. I can’t believe you still want to be my friend after seeing all my terrible grammatical errors. That’s got to win some sort of humanitarian award.
Thanks to the Write Club: Jen Like, Natalie Rhymer, Jason Dandy, Brian Grant and Matt Gross.
You make me a better writer and a worse critic of my many, many faults.
Thanks for tolerating me and rooting for Lucy.
Special thanks to the Powerhouse Summit.
You know who you are, and you know why.
One.
Pep Talk
“How about this one?” I asked Jens of the brown blouse. It was so much fancier than anything I usually wore, but these were extreme circumstances.
“When did I become your girlfriend in all this?” Jens complained, flopping on the bed and rolling onto his back. “It looks fine. I don’t know why you care so much. It’s like, the twentieth outfit you’ve picked out. I’ll say it again: you look great.” His voice was deadpanned, which made me want to dress him in my brown blouse just to make him understand that people care if they look stupid or not.
“I want Jamie’s sister to like me. It’s important that we get along.”
“Well, what you’re wearing is fine for that. Just be yourself.”
I rolled my eyes at my light blue Transformers t-shirt that hugged me in just the right way to provide optimum comfort and non-annoyingness. “You’re such a guy.”
He threw up his hands in exasperation. “Exactly my point! May I be excused from girl time? You know, I have a sister in the house right down the path from our very home that you can do all this with.”
I frowned, remembering that brown washed me out a little. I threw the blouse onto the pile of discards. “Britta’s nervous enough as it is. She’s the sister-in-law now. This is the big conversation day, and I don’t want to add to the things Jeneve’s upset about.”
Jens sat up, slapping his left hand atop his opposite palm every fifth worth to punctuate his point. “Look, tonight’s going to be fine. We already sent word that Jamie and Britt eloped. They already know. Jeneve’s just invited us to come to hang out. Sure, she’ll be a high-maintenance pill, but so what? She affects our lives zero when we don’t have to go see her. The whole of Undraland affects us zero. It’s one dinner, and then it’s over. Wear jeans and a t-shirt, like me. It doesn’t matter if you get along with Jamie’s sister. Jamie doesn’t get along with his own sister. Just be there for Britta after the fact, and you’re golden.”
“Oh, I have every intention of making Britta look like the gem she is so Jeneve can report back to King Johannes that his son is getting along just swimmingly on our side. I just don’t want to give Jeneve more ammo to hate me. Last time we were there…”
Jens stood and moved over to the large window of our bedroom, looking through the lush expanse of trees in the distance to Jamie and Britta’s colonial that rested on the furthest edges of our shared property. Between us was our garden, a small orchard and enough space for us to feel hidden from the world. Jamie and I had established quite the tether to our psychic laplanding bond, allowing us almost a whole mile of distance before the headache started.
The best part about killing the bear at the same time Jamie did was that, well, we didn’t get eaten by a bear. The worst part was the laplanding nonsense. If there was ever a person who could make the whole business not as terrible as it could have been, it’s Jamie.
We’d had many conversations about how best to give each other space, and had even built up the door between us and stretched it to a whole hallway that we could walk down to hang out with each other or not. Sure, when emotions got intense, they seeped under the door, but Jamie had gotten married and been having sex with Britta. While I could feel the swing of his emotions – and admittedly, heard some of the thoughts and seen a few images I’d not care to discuss – we were handling it.
Jens shoved his hands in his back pockets, pressing his tailbone and stretching his spine as he spoke. “Jeneve hates me for turning down the offer her dad made me of her hand in marriage. She doesn’t want me; she wants what she can’t have. Plus, you’re a queen, and she’s only a princess. Big time jealousy there. She’s never going to braid your hair, Loos. My sister will, though, so that’s the horse you should bet on.”
I guffawed. “Here’s a tip on women from me to you: don’t refer to my best friend as a horse. How about this one?” I asked, pulling out a plain white blouse from the back of the closet. I didn’t dress up often, so those clothes were really just ornamental. “My gloves make it a chore to match an outfit. I mean, in warm weather they stick out like a beacon of weirdness.” My navy opera gloves covered my hands all the way up to my elbows, concealing the siren blood my arms had been scarred with when Pesta died. It was a cosmetic inconvenience, but I despised it all the same. I went to great lengths to hide the shimmering silver stars from the general public.
Jens groaned. “I’m gonna die in this room. This is it. This will be the thing that kills me slowly. Give me back the farlig fisk. I’d fight that beautiful sea monster all over again with my hands tied behind my back if it’d get me out of this.”
“If this is you being helpful, you’re not.”
Jens whined like a petulant two-year-old being told to wait while mommy stood in the lengthy return line at the boutique. “I’m not trying to be helpful. I’m trying to get this to end!” He rolled his shoulders back. “She’s here. That’s Stina’s Porsche.”
“How did they even become friends?” That little tidbit still astonished me. Undrans feared the Other Side – otherwise known as my side, where somehow I’d convinced them I was the queen of this universe – because Huldras roamed free. Their mind-controlling whistle got them kicked out of Undraland. It surprised me to no end that Jeneve had only been to the gate that led to our side one other time, and her first friend had been the vindictive Huldra who hated me and wanted Jens. Actually, come to think about it, they had a lot in common.
“Stina hangs out by the gate sometimes and catches Undrans as they come out to the Other Side. Even though Jeneve’s too scared to cross all the way over, they got to chatting
it up across the gate, apparently.” He walked over to me, picking up my hand and kissing my knuckles. “Wear exactly this. Jeans and a t-shirt. It’s you, and it’s what I want. That’s what they’ll hate. That you don’t have to dress up, and you’re still a queen.” He sucked on my lower lip like I was a piece of delicious candy. “I’m wrapped around your cotton-blend sleeve. Let Stina keep her heels and short skirts. Let Jeneve have her fancy court dresses. You own me.”
I don’t know how he could get me to blush time and time again like a little schoolgirl, but Jens was a master at making me do the inner hair-twirl. I tossed the blouse into the pile and stood up on my toes to kiss him. “I stinking love you. You know that, right?”
“You’d better.” He nipped at my lower lip, his hands squeezing my waist, making me feel dainty and treasured. “I just sat through an hour of dress-up Barbie for you. You owe me, Mox.”
I lost my witty response in his kiss, my fingers reaching under the hem of his black t-shirt and tracing my favorite ripple on his sculpted abdomen. The third one on the right side. It was divine and a little ticklish, so I got to seduce him, seduce myself and torture him in the process. It was a solid win all around.
“Let’s go.” I pulled away from him, grinning at his whine of frustration that I’d started up the engine only to kill it mid-motor.
“That was cold, Loos.”
I made my way out of our spacious lavender-painted bedroom and down the hall, attached to his hand. We always came as a pair, stuck in some way like magnets, or the really good kind of Velcro that never gets crap in it when you wash it too much. Jens was permanent, and that fact gave me much solace in our quaint little white picket fence life together. Our property was bursting with green that tasted like love and smelled like freedom.
He squeezed my hand as we neared Jamie and Britta’s home that was laid out the same as ours. Finished basement, big kitchen with a dining room off to the side and a big living room with a fireplace right when you opened the front door. Three bedrooms upstairs, and a whole lot of love filling each crevice and corner.
Britta greeted us at the door. We usually walked right inside with a courtesy don’t-be-naked-please knock and a shout through the house. Her grin was wide and cracked with distress and unhappiness. Her mouth said, “Come on in, guys,” but her eyes said, “What took you so long?” She wore an ankle-length brown maxi skirt, a cream blouse and her signature two brown braids on either side of her head. She was adorable, as always.
I wrapped my arms around her. “Backup’s here, babe. Show me to the ex, and then take me to the sister.”
Britta hugged me tight and held on for four seconds before letting go. “I’m never more grateful for our friendship than when we have to go see Jeneve. I love you. You know that, right?”
I grinned, relaxing at the knowledge that the most important thing in all of this was getting Britta to like me, which she did. “I love you, too. Jamie totally married up. Lucky guy, if you ask me.”
She kissed my cheek and smiled up at her brother, who did his best not to be insensitive. “You look nice, Britt.” His grin turned devious. He always grew in attractiveness to me when evil prank Jens appeared. “Let’s go mess with Jamie.”
His grin died when Stina came around the corner, her short skirt revealing her very long legs that matched her cat-like smile. I wondered at the amazingness of her tuck job that allowed her to consistently wear such revealing clothing without her Huldra tail poking out at random. “Hey, baby. Good to see you again.” She ignored Britta and me, attaching her lips to Jens’s cheek. Then she made it her business to stand in between us, lording her six-and-a-half feet over my five-foot-seven.
“You ready to go?” Jens asked, not bothering to return Stina’s greeting.
“Sure. Thanks for delivering this to Jeneve. I’m just swamped all weekend, so I don’t have time to wait for her to come to the gate.”
“Yeah. What is it?” Jens took the clothing store bag from her and peeked inside. His eyes widened and then narrowed at Stina, and he shut the bag quickly.
Stina laughed. “It’s just some stuff from our side that she might like. The few times we’ve talked across the gate she seemed cool, so I thought I’d send over some lacy thongs, good bras and things she can’t get in Undraland.” She put her hand on Jens’s bicep. “Oh, Jens. You’ve seen my thongs before. You can’t be that embarrassed.”
By nature, I’m not a violent person. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact every time Stina opened her lipsticked mouth. I wasn’t sure why or how we’d become friends with her again. I’d gotten into a fistfight with her smug smile a while ago. A few apologies to the group, a few times helping us with her Huldra whistle, and Stina was back in our lives. Yay.
“Fine. Whatever. Jamie can give them to her.” Jens shouted through the house. “Jamie, you ready?”
I answered for my laplanded buddy. “He’s trying to find his garden gnome hat.” I shouted up the stairs. “I saw you put it in your second from the top drawer last time. It’s probably buried under your socks.”
“Thanks! Found it,” Jamie reported, and then stumbled down the stairs a few seconds later. He was in full Undraland mode, wearing beige pants, a white shirt and his red garden gnome hat. He’d even shaved with a razor that morning. I knew because he’d nicked himself, and by proxy, nicked me. Have I mentioned how much I love being laplanded to my boyfriend’s best friend? That’s probably because I don’t love it. I threw up my wall so I could have a mini freak-out when I felt the small slice. Then I stopped the tiny prick of blood and shoved the image of the sparkle from my mind before Jamie caught wind of it.
Pesta, the evil siren, had put her arv on me, which meant that I now had siren blood running through me, mixing with my genetics and making me, in part, her daughter. The thought was horrifying, so I made it a point never to think about it. No one knew, and I hoped to keep it that way for as long as I lived. That’s realistic, right?
Jamie and Britta slid into the backseat after loading a couple bags in the trunk, while Jens pried Stina’s red painted claws off of him and shut himself into the driver’s seat.
I was in the front passenger’s seat, belted in place with a demure smile on my face. “So, how’s your girlfriend?” I asked in a sugary sweet voice.
Jens palmed my face as he shuddered. “I’ve never called her that before, so don’t you start. Jamie, if I haven’t said it before, Jeneve’s got terrible taste in friends.” Then he looked in the mirror to his sister, who was twiddling her thumbs nervously. “So if Jeneve doesn’t shine to you this time around, it only means you’re doing it right.”
Britta nodded, and Jamie placed his hand on hers to stay her nerves.
I loved watching them be sweet to each other. When Jens removed his hand from my face and started up the car after Stina drove away, he knocked the outside of his fist to mine. It wasn’t quite the same as handholding, but it was Jens, and I would take it.
Two.
Slitch
When we arrived in Tonttu, it was much different than I remembered it. The rolling greens were somehow less lustrous, and now had whole patches of death marring the pastures. The farmers didn’t have their usual town gossip, but kept their heads down, almost as if in fear. They all bore the hunched-shoulder marks of a people oppressed, though I didn’t understand why. There were no kids running around. Actually, there was no one at all who was just hanging out. Everyone worked hard, barely looking up from their gardening tasks to see their beloved prince’s return to his hometown. The gardens weren’t bursting with color and life anymore. It was as if they’d taken on the weighted hearts of the garden gnomes who tended them. The vines appeared burdened by life.
Dinner was made with love, and tasted like it, as Britta’s cooking always was. The chicken Jamie butchered upon our arrival to his old home in Tonttu was seasoned with fresh herbs from their garden and made the whole house smell like a rustic feast. The windows were open, letting the lovely late summ
er air waft into the house with the sound of birds applauding us at our pleasant conversational skills.
Of course, all of that took a backseat to Jeneve’s thin-lipped whiny mouth. Everything she uttered came with a note of annoyingness to it, grating on my usually unruffled nerves. “This chair is too hard. I don’t understand why we couldn’t have lunch in the castle. Why are you living like this?” Her pinched nose looked around the sizeable home as if everything smelled like rotten eggs, or looked like it was crawling in bugs.
Jamie was patient. “You know I don’t want to live above the people. I want to experience Undraland for all it’s worth. This is a normal house. Actually, it’s quite a nice one.” He observed his sister’s discomfort as he chewed. “Tonttu sure has changed since I last saw it. I gather by the doomed look of the people and the overworked land that father’s raised the taxes again?”
Jeneve was uninterested in this line of conversation. She smoothed out a wrinkle in her deep purple velvet dress to make sure the fabric never creased. “Uh-huh. When the Guldy’s husband died, his land was all burned up, so the Isle of Fossegrim needed more crops exported. Foss’s land was the one that grew most of their food. The Grimens have need, so we’ve doubled requirements for produce output and tripled the requirements for all grains so we can meet the demand. Fossegrim can’t get enough. At a premium, of course.”
“Of course,” Jamie replied darkly.
She cast me a devious smile, as if we were somehow in cahoots. “When they complain that the fee’s too high on the food, we let them trade in lavender powder.” She giggled like a junior higher. “Tonttu’s never been so fun as it is when you’re lousy with lavender powder.”
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