I had two choices: I could follow his bad example out of spite, or I could rise above.
People underestimate the allure of spite.
Mouth set in a firm line, I let his shaking form inside through the hole he’d torn in the drywall of our shared psyche, removing the bricks I’d stacked up to keep him out.
I’d been dreaming about Jens, so I doubted he wanted a front seat to that particular vision. Jamie made do and sat on the floor next to the bed we’d been making out on – the bed from our freshly burned home, not the rose-decorated one Jens and I were currently sleeping on in real life. Jamie covered his face with his hands and shouted his torment into them. It’s the fog! It’s coming back, and I can’t stop it! Hurry! Put up your wall to keep it out!
We set about fixing the mental wall that had once separated us so that the curse or magic or whatever on the other end wouldn’t follow him over here. I stacked brick after brick, spackling it in as best I could with my makeshift cement. It took up most of the night, but by the end of it, we had a decent enough wall to separate us from the black poison. Mentally exhausted, I sat on a chair in the make-believe room.
Watching Jens sleep was a beautiful thing. Hand slung across his toned belly, lips parted slightly and eyebrows devoid of sarcasm – Jens was a sight, no matter what level of consciousness I possessed.
You love him, Jamie observed, his crying having quieted a handful of minutes ago. He’s not enjoyed much of that.
Doesn’t sound like you have, either. You really screwed things up with Britta. I tapped my fingers on the arm of the wooden chair.
Jamie slumped in defeat, lowering himself to his knees before me. Help me, Lucy. I broke the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t just have a curse, I chose this one. I brought a curse down upon my own head. Forgive me, syster.
I considered this, unable to put my anger and compassion in their proper places. I knew what Jamie’d done had been unforgiveable, but I also knew it wasn’t really him. I pursed my lips when I realized it could have been Jens with the darkness inside of him. I wouldn’t be cool with the group holding him accountable for things he couldn’t control.
It could’ve been me who’d swallowed the poison.
Never again, I warned, my tone stern. Never put me out like that again. If I mess up, we have to work together and figure it out. You can’t get superior on me and cast me out of the inner circle. You hurt me, Jamie. And then making me watch you? Beyond. Just beyond. If you feel the fog coming, you book it into my brain. I’ll share my space with you if it’ll keep you from turning into that monster, but only if you can be cool. I gritted my teeth through the thing I never wanted to confess. You messed me up, Jamie.
Jamie nodded vigorously, taking my forgiveness and running with it. He reached forward and picked up my hands, pressing kisses into my palms. I’ll do whatever it takes to rid myself of the poison and somehow fix the mess I made. I’m so sorry.
I could see his contrition, feel his sorrow and hear the heartbreak in his voice. For better or worse, Jamie and I were fused together. Hurting him further only caused equal damage to me. I sighed as I leaned over and kissed his brown curls. I forgive you, Jamie.
Twenty.
BS over Breakfast
Tucker returned the next morning with breakfast. He burst through our bedroom door with an expectant expression that quickly fell. “Was I not clear enough? No virgins under my roof, Jens. Rise to the occasion, mate.” He looked pointedly at Jens’s crotch.
Jens threw a pillow at Tucker. “Get out. And what if we had been in the throes? You just bursting into rooms without notice doesn’t bode well for my evil plans concerning this one’s virtue.”
I didn’t love Tucker’s influence that brought out Jens’s crappier jokes. I rolled away from Jens, picked up my pillow and shoved it over his face. He jerked around in faux panic, pretending I was strong enough to smother him with the harmless pink object. “Death by flowers!” I declared. “I killed you with a pillow. I win.”
Jens stayed limp even after I took the pillow away.
“I think you actually snuffed him out, käresta.” Tucker wore fitted khaki pants, a tailored slate dress shirt and the same maroon suspenders. His Newsies cap completed the outfit, making him look infinitely more stylish than any of us ever ventured. “Fancy true love’s kiss to wake him?”
“After the crack about my virtue? He can sweat it out a little while longer.” I thanked Tucker for the croissant he handed me.
Jens sat up in exasperation, leaning back on his elbows. “Come on! I need mouth to mouth! It’s so obvious. Way to let the joke die, guys.”
“They’re buttery,” Tucker warned of the pastry. “Practically dripping with the stuff. You might want to take off your gloves so you don’t ruin them.”
I turned my back on him so he couldn’t read my expression. “I don’t mind. Thanks, though.” I tried not to hate my gloves; they were a necessity, and I understood why I had to wear them. I guess I just never realized how much I enjoyed the use of my naked hands until I didn’t have that luxury anymore. Jens kissed my cheek, sensing the internal battle I was struggling to be cool with.
“It’s almost nine o’clock,” Tucker informed Jens. “If you want to do sneaking that doesn’t look like sneaking, now’s your window. You go invisible, and I’ll find some excuse to make them open the backdoor where they keep the orders. Slide on in and no one’s the wiser.” Tucker turned to me, touching his finger to my nose, which crinkled at the too-familiar contact. “You can stay out of trouble if we leave you alone for a measly hour, right, älskling?”
“Well, I assume I’m allowed to burn your house down, since you singed mine. Where do you keep the matches?”
“Ah, that human wit. Hilarious. I did a lot of things I didn’t want to in order to secure this house. I’d like it to still be in one piece when we get back.” He looked at me sideways, and then cocked his head to the left to examine me anew. “Interesting.”
“What?” I straightened my hair under his scrutiny.
“You have so much magic in your blood, but you can’t perform even the simplest spells? Your human gene, is that what you are most, then?”
“Actually, no. One of my grandparents was human. That’s all.” I shoved the rest of the croissant in my mouth.
Tucker frowned. “It doesn’t measure up. You’re mostly Huldra and elf, right? Well, after Alrik’s arv, you’re mostly elfin.” He set down the empty croissant bag and held up his hands this time before putting them on me. “May I? I just want to see something.”
“Um, okay. What are you looking for?”
“Traces of magic.” He pulled me into the rose-bedecked bathroom where there was more concentrated light. His right hand cupped my chin and tilted it upwards. I had to fight hard to resist the urge to jerk away from him.
Jens stuffed his bulky arms into a fresh black t-shirt and stood in the doorway of the bathroom. “What are you talking about? She can’t do magic. Her twin brother couldn’t, either. He was born with the Huldra tail, though.”
“Whistle for me, love.”
I rolled my eyes and batted Tucker’s hand away from my face. “Game’s over. Hilarious, guys. Make me look like an idiot. Well done.”
“I’m not in on whatever this is,” Jens said, hands raised.
“It’s no game,” Tucker explained, and darn it all, I actually believed his sincerity. Perhaps he was just trying to be scientific.
“I can’t whistle,” I admitted. “So whatever litmus test you’ve got going on here, I won’t pass. Totally human and not even a really talented one. My mom’s the Huldra. She’s the one with the whistle.”
“Give it a try, sweetheart. For me.” Tucker was looking intently into my eyes, searching for something like a roadmap to my brain.
“Um, I don’t know you,” I reminded him. “Don’t call me sweetheart. I’m not your girlfriend, and I’m not five. Jens, you want to put a leash on your boy?”
“
Tuck, what are you looking for?”
Tucker dropped my chin. “I would’ve put money on you not being able to whistle. I’m right. You’ve got magic in you, but it’s buried. If you want, I can get it out of you. You’ll have to trust me a little, though.”
I scoffed. “Pass. Have fun on your merry burgling adventure, kids.” I pushed past Tucker, kissed Jens on the cheek and left them to discuss me in ways I’d never thought to myself.
Twenty-One.
Life in the Dollhouse
Jamie was in a permanent funk, so I left him to wallow in the deeds he’d done. The blackness kept taking him and leaving him like waves that moved in and out with the wind. I located some cooking sherry and downed half the disgusting bottle, which numbed Jamie’s more vicious thoughts just fine.
I went poking around Tucker’s house, finding paintings of an old woman in the study. The house looked more decorated to her taste, and I wondered how Tucker knew her. Her portrait had pinned back white hair in a bun fastened with mauve-painted rose clips. She wore a high-necked lacy collar and had a secretive smile like the Mona Lisa. She looked out at me, asking me what exactly I was doing in her house. I couldn’t give girlfriend a straight answer on that one.
The study was still covered in lace, but it had splashes of color on the wall in the form of the woman in various abstract blurs. I could tell it was still her, but there were traces of a younger woman if you looked at it just right beneath the smudges of blue and red that made the picture really pop.
There were a few portraits I could tell were hand-painted with painstaking care to get the details right. I closed the door behind me, marveling at one watercolor that had her sitting under a tree and drinking tea like a proper lady. I smiled, wondering if my life would ever be that peaceful.
Right then and there, I swore to myself that one day I would be a proper lady. I would drink the fanciest teas out of china so exquisite, it would have to hang in a special china cupboard away from clumsy fingers. I would wear elaborately trimmed hats that didn’t have a baseball team’s logo on it. I would find a dress I liked to wear and sit under a perfect weeping willow, sipping tea while I contemplated something so peaceful, birds would gravitate toward me to listen in. Maybe I could wear the plaid ball gown Britta had made me in the Warf. I really liked that one.
So tranquil were my thoughts just wishing for that existence that when I turned around, I actually jumped back at the sight that greeted me. Behind where the door had just been before I shut it was a portrait of the same old lady lying in a sheer nightgown on her four-poster bed, a look of excitement and desire lighting her face in ways not seen in the other renderings of the woman. On his knees toward the center of her bed and looking down at her was a very nude Tucker. His point of male pride was, I’m certain, exaggerated, but the smirk cast over his shoulder toward the painter was not. The age difference was vast. She had to have been ninety, and he looked not a day over thirty-five. I blanched and hightailed it out of the study, shivering at the sight I hoped would be scrubbed from my brain soon.
There was a bedroom none of us were using, so I poked around in there. I was looking for a distraction from the heartache I could feel Jamie suffering through the bond, mixed with the occasional spike of malice.
I didn’t absorb the identical lace curtains and mauve floral decorations that matched the rest of the house; all I saw was the dollhouse.
In the center of the room was an enormous dollhouse as tall as my waist and wider than my wingspan. I gasped when I realized it was an exact replica of the house I was currently standing in. It was gorgeous – ornately carved and pristinely cared for. There wasn’t even any dust on it. There were tiny white shutters with rose cutouts in the center, a pink front door and even delicate window boxes filled with miniature roses. My jaw dropped in amazement. I walked around and pored over the details of the inside, seeing a layout of the entire house. I plopped down on my butt in front of it in utter awe of the exquisite home.
I’d never had a dollhouse. We didn’t get toys that couldn’t be shoved in a duffel bag. The urge to play was so strong; I didn’t even judge my twenty-one-year-old self as I gingerly lifted a tiny vase of porcelain flowers from the dark wood table. Everything was so tiny and perfect. It was a whole life laid out before my eyes where everything happened in a neat little order. The parents would make breakfast, the kids would read together in the study, they would all eat as a family around the table, sharing stories about their normal suburban life. My heart ached for the perfection, just a fraction of it.
All it was missing was a white picket fence.
“Fancy a game of tag next?” Tucker asked from the doorway.
So engrossed was I in the dollhouse that I hadn’t noticed Tucker’s return home or that he’d been watching me. “Oh, hey. Is it okay that I’m in here? This is only like, the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” My eyes were still taking in every nook and cranny on the lavish house.
“You’ve experienced untold wonders in Undraland, plus witnessed me, and this is the coolest thing you’ve ever seen?”
I was quiet in my breathless reply. “It’s all in order. Everything a life should be is here, and it’s perfect. I bet they’re always happy.” I picked up the piece of cherry wood furniture that drew my eye. “Look! They even have a China cabinet. How can they not be happy with a China cabinet?”
Tucker eyed me with amusement. “I can’t imagine anything more impressive than a China hutch with the way you’re eyeing it.”
I kept my gaze on the kitchen set that was far fancier than any we’d ever cooked in. The damage my mom could’ve done in there. “I saw the portraits of the lady whose house I’m guessing this is in that room down the hall. Where is she?”
“Gladys passed away five years ago. Died peacefully in her sleep, the sweet thing.”
“Was she your grandmother?” I asked, though I knew the answer to that.
He tsked me. “I thought you said you saw the portraits in the study. You very well know she’s not my grandmother.” He crossed the room lazily, sitting down on the floor in front of the dollhouse next to me. “Gladys was a dear friend, and we had many good memories together in this house. She left me her estate when she passed, with wishes it be left as she had it.”
“And you kept your word. That’s nice,” I offered, though the ick factor of the painting was fresh in my mind.
“I don’t fancy being haunted.”
I chuckled. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, though it’s good you’re doing what she asked.”
“You believe in garden gnomes and elves, but ghosts are ridiculous to believe in? I’d like to know where you get logic like that.”
I shrugged. “Easy. I’ve met a garden gnome and my uncle was an elf. And my dad, I guess.”
He gave me a calculating stare, as if measuring my sum total of worth. “Yes. And yet you have no magical abilities. I find that very…”
“Normal?” I suggested. “I’m human, too. It’s normal for regular people not to fiddle or whistle or elemental their problems away.”
He tilted his head to the side. “I wasn’t going to say normal. I find the fact that you have no magical abilities impossible. An impossibility I’m willing to help you correct, if you choose.”
His assumption was surprising, and even more so was his offer of help. “Um, I guess we could give it a try. Is it a whole big thing, or is it just like abracadabra and I’m Gandalf?”
Tucker laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling with something that almost resembled kindness. “Somewhere in between, if I can manage it. You’ve got a lock in you set deep.”
My brows furrowed. “Huh.” I turned my body to face him. “Okay, so what do I do? How does it work?”
“Patience, käresta. First, the block has to come down. I think your keeper might want to be there for that, in case something goes south.”
“South? What might go wrong? If you’re going to give me a seizure like Elsa did when she tried to get infor
mation out of me, I’ll pass.”
Tucker reached into the dollhouse and took out a tiny vase of… you guessed it. Pink roses. He examined the intricacy of the dainty petals and then handed it to me. “I’ll do my best to leave you in one piece. Huldras are powerful, but they aren’t always smart in their execution. Hack with a chainsaw when a scalpel would work best. It’s the hubris that comes with too much power.”
My nose scrunched in disbelief. “And you’re loaded with humility?”
He grinned at me like the sly dog he was. “Well, I never said that.” He sniffed my shoulder. “You’ve found my liquor cabinet.”
I winced at being found out. “No. Just your cooking sherry. I didn’t want to steal your good stuff.” I tapped my temple. “Jamie’s having a bad day. It numbs the bond.”
“Interesting.” He straightened his suspenders and stretched. “I’m off, little human. Don’t break my valuables. And if you want to feast your eyes on more saucy paintings, I recommend my bedroom.” He shot me a wink laced with too much purposeful cheese. “My room’s perfect for all kinds of saucy behavior.”
I gagged dramatically. “Just go. And bring Jens back in one piece, will ya?”
“Which piece?”
I pretended to consider this. “Mm, not the mouth. Talks back too much. Maybe the left elbow.”
“Consider it a belated wedding present, Tribeswoman,” he teased, standing.
“What’s your fascination with my marriage? Up until two days ago I was #5603 to you. Why don’t we go back to that?”
“I think anyone who can get Jens to settle down is fascinating. Add to that, catching the eye of one of the four powers? And that you divorced him, but yet you still draw breath? You’ve got magic in you, whether you can access it or not. You’ve bewitched two very strong men.”
I pursed my lips. “Yes, because the only way I could get a boyfriend is with a potion and a cauldron. Honestly, is this your first time talking to a woman?” I scratched my head as I searched for the tiny dog that was sure to match the doggy bed in the little boy’s room. “‘Be gone, before someone drops a house on you,’” I said, quoting one of my favorite movies.
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