Astrid's Wings: Varangian Descendants Book II

by K. Panikian

  Then Josephine dropped the shocking surprise. Holding up one note she said, “Grace was pregnant.”

  I gasped.

  “She wanted to get married,” Josephine continued, “and Charlie didn’t.”

  Julian added, holding up his own note. “Amy knew about the baby.”

  I gasped again. Then I blushed. “Sorry. It’s just all so terrible.”

  I started to pace the worn linoleum. “Grace and Charlie were dating. Amy and Charlie were dating in secret. Grace got pregnant and wanted to get married. That meant Charlie would have to break up with Amy. So, Amy wrote a note pretending to be Charlie and when Grace came, Amy killed her in a jealous rage.”

  I whirled around. “Or Charlie wanted her to get rid of the baby so he didn’t have to marry her. When she refused, he convinced Amy that Grace had to go. He wrote the note to meet and then Amy killed her.”

  I finished. “Either way, they both betrayed her. The rusalka took its vengeance on Charlie already, but Amy is still here.”

  “We can’t give Amy to the rusalka to quiet her spirit. She needs to go to jail,” Josephine said sternly.

  “Grace was a modern woman. The rusalka will be guided by what Grace knew in life. In Grace’s mind, vengeance probably means a trial and jail. I don’t think Amy needs to die to free Grace’s spirit.”

  Josephine nodded, relieved.

  Julian gave me a pointed look. He knew I was only speculating. I ignored him.

  “We can’t prove anything though,” Josephine reminded me. “We still have no physical evidence.”

  I agreed. That was a problem.

  I looked at the box of notes, an idea sparking.

  “What if we trick her?” I asked. “We tell Amy we found the note and we know everything. She needs to turn herself in because the police are coming for her. Maybe she’ll confess?”

  “Won’t that taint the police evidence, if Josephine lies to her?” Julian asked.

  “I’m not a police officer,” Josephine answered, shaking her head. “I’m a Village Public Safety Officer, a first responder—I have no authority to make arrests.”

  “It’s still a long shot,” Julian said. “Why would she confess?”

  “Because she’s tormented by guilt and fear,” I answered. “She murdered her sister in order to keep her man, and then the man disappeared. Part of her has to wonder if he just used her to take care of his mess and then left her. She lost everything. She has to have regrets.”

  “And if it doesn’t work? If she doesn’t confess? We have nothing. We can give the notes to the Troopers and hope they come to the same conclusion and lean on her. But that will take weeks,” Josephine said.

  “I think we have to try it,” I answered. “We need to get through that portal as soon as we can. Let’s go talk to Amy again.”

  Chapter 13

  On our way back to Amy’s fishing lodge, as Josephine steered her skiff through the calm lake water, I thought about the expressions I’d seen on Amy’s face only a few hours ago. She’d seemed superficially sad about Grace, and excessively sad about Charlie.

  I wondered if I could use that. How would I feel if I risked everything for a man, a man who I knew was already unfaithful to me, and then he left me to take the blame for a terrible crime? Pretty angry, I decided. But if I didn’t know for sure if he left me or if he died, I would feel conflicted, both furious and distraught.

  Would she be more likely to confess if she thought that Charlie was alive somewhere and pointing the finger at her now? Or if she thought that Charlie was dead and we had evidence that she murdered Grace out of jealousy? If I painted a rosy picture of Grace and Charlie’s love, with Amy as the interloper, would that drive her into proving to us that love was false?

  I thought the latter plan had the best possibility of success. I told Julian and Josephine my thoughts while Josephine tied up the skiff, and then what I wanted them to do and say. “Basically, we’re going to try and hit every emotionally manipulative button we can.”

  That got nods. We were all in agreement.

  Sitting at the same picnic table, I again inhaled the aroma of smoking salmon. My mouth watered; it was way past lunch time.

  Amy made her way across the lawn toward us and, this time, she looked wary. Checking surreptitiously, I saw Josephine and Julian had grave expressions on their faces. Josephine hit the record button on her phone in her lap and then put her hands on the table in front of her. Perfect.

  Amy sat and I placed my hands at my chest in front of me, palm to palm. “Amy, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we’ve heard from the State Troopers in Anchorage and Charlie’s body has been identified. A fishing group found his body last night, washed up on the beach in Kokhanok, on the other side of the lake. He’d been dead for a long time. It’s looking like he died about the time when he first vanished.

  “The Troopers are going with the theory that he committed suicide. He was too distraught over losing your sister, most likely. Everyone talks about how in love they were. He must have been consumed with sadness.

  “I know it must be very sad for you to hear your sister’s boyfriend passed away. The three of you must have spent a lot of time together that summer.”

  There. Amy’s face was white. I sat back as her eyes filled with tears.

  “He’s dead?” she croaked. “He’s been dead all this time? He didn’t leave—”

  Clearing her throat, she tried to swallow, but the tears started streaming down her face. She smiled and then again checked herself.

  Josephine took over. “I told Astrid that it was okay to spring this on you here. I know you liked Charlie as a friend, but I’m sure you thought, like the rest of us, that he was dead. I wanted you to know though, sort of in your sister’s memory.”

  Amy stared at her.

  Now it was Julian’s turn. This was our bombshell. He pulled out his notebook. “We’d like to talk to you a little more about Grace though, if that’s okay. The woman that identified Charlie’s body called herself his wife. Did you know that Charlie was married?”

  Amy gasped. Her tears cut off.

  “In light of that information, we’re taking another look at Grace’s disappearance. We know from the letter we found in Charlie’s trailer that Grace was pregnant. Did you know that?”

  Amy nodded, mute.

  “We found a note in Charlie’s trailer, dated the day Grace disappeared. In it, he asked her to meet him. But he wasn’t in town that day or that night. Someone else wrote the note and someone else met Grace.”

  “You found a note?” Amy echoed weakly.

  “We believe that whoever forged the note is the person that killed Grace. We’re thinking it was the wife. We’ve sent it to Anchorage to be fingerprinted.”

  Amy stood. “Sorry, I just remembered something I have to do. Please excuse me.” She walked quickly up the path toward the lodge, her shoulders hunched.

  Julian exhaled. “Damn. I thought we had her for a second.”

  I watched Amy step off the path and head into the woods. “We still might,” I said. I got up from the table and started to follow.

  WE tracked Amy for a couple of miles through the trees. She moved fast. The guides obviously used this trail a lot—the path was smooth, the undergrowth pared back. Side paths led down to the lake or up the slope into the spruce forest. We stayed far enough behind that Amy didn’t see or hear us. She seemed pretty distracted. I heard both muffled crying and angry mutters coming from her striding shape ahead of us.

  Eventually, Josephine confirmed what I’d been thinking—she headed for the rusalka pond. We hung back a little farther and let her go ahead.

  “What’s the plan?” Julian asked when she was out of sight.

  I shrugged. “She’s obviously returning to the scene of the crime. Maybe to think about things. Let’s keep a camera on her and maybe she’ll think out loud.”

  When we got close to the pond, I hunched down and motioned for the others to fan out. I s
nuck under some low pine branches and crouched at the edge of the clearing. I could see clearly down to the still pond and Amy’s figure as she paced back and forth in the mud.

  She wasn’t speaking.

  I saw no sign of the rusalka.

  I motioned for Josephine to keep her recording going and I stood, walking into the clearing. Amy looked up, her eyes widening.

  “Did you follow me?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Yes,” I told her. “Why’d you come here?”

  She stared at me, frozen in indecision, and then her shoulders slumped.

  “This was the first place I saw them together, when I realized he was sleeping with both of us. I was suspicious but I wanted to know for sure. So, one afternoon I followed Grace and I saw them. No one ever comes here. It smells bad…” she trailed off.

  She kicked a rock into the pond and it sent a slow ripple out across the surface. I held my breath. Nothing happened.

  “I can’t believe he was married. Everything he told me was a lie. Everything he told Grace.”

  Her voice choked with tears, she turned away from me. “I did it for nothing.”

  “What did you do, Amy?” I asked.

  “Yes,” a voice echoed beside me. “What did you do, Amy?”

  The rusalka was here.

  Amy spun back toward me. “Grace?” she asked incredulously. Her face filled with joy and she took a step closer. Then she stopped, confused.

  “How can it be you, Grace?”

  The rusalka paced toward Amy, her green hair dark and streaming wet down her back. She started to circle Amy. “It’s not me,” she said finally. “You killed me.”

  Amy dropped to her knees and bowed her head. “Yes,” she admitted. “I killed you.”

  “Why?” the rusalka asked, cocking her head. Her long, pale fingers flexed.

  “Because he was going to leave me. You were having his baby. You won.”

  “I … won,” the rusalka said slowly. Then she sent out a peal of laughter. The cackle echoed through the clearing and goosebumps rose on my skin.

  Amy looked up, her eyes frightened. “It was his idea,” she said quickly.

  The rusalka sighed. “I know.”

  She dropped to her knees beside Amy, both of them kneeling in the mud, their heads bent toward each other. Wet, green hair brushed against Amy’s bare legs, making her shiver. She didn’t move away.

  “I’m sorry,” Amy said.

  The rusalka nodded and stroked her back. “I know. It’s okay. I killed him for us.”

  “You did?” Amy asked. “How?”

  “I drowned him.”

  “Why didn’t you try and hurt me too?” Amy whispered.

  “When I killed him, I saw into his heart. I saw his lies, his betrayals, and his manipulations. He was a scared, weak man who didn’t want to grow up. He used your desperate love to try and escape a problem. You’re not innocent, but you’re not wholly to blame either. And, you’re my sister. So, I forgive you.”

  Amy burst into heaving sobs. She tried to grab the rusalka’s arm, but her hand passed through it. She looked at the spirit of her sister, pale and green, and sobbed harder.

  “I think that’s my cue,” Josephine said. She stepped forward out of the trees and helped Amy stand.

  “Come with me, dear.”

  Leading her back the way we came, she patted Amy’s hand and then called over her shoulder to me, “Don’t go through without talking to me. Come to the store later.”

  I waved to her and moved closer to the rusalka, who was staring sadly after her sister.

  She turned to me. “Thank you. I remember everything now. I just wanted her to know that I forgave her.”

  I nodded.

  She stared at me with those hypnotically dark eyes. “Are you sure you still want the key? I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Yes,” I told her. “We need it to do an important task.”

  She shrugged and then dove into the pond. She appeared beside me a moment later and handed me a necklace of thin, white bones. I recoiled and she laughed at me.

  “They’re fish bones,” she said, “not human.”

  I took the necklace from her thin fingers.

  “The bottom of the pond is lined with them. Some open the gate; some do not. These open it. I made the necklace for you.” She looked at me coyly under her eyelashes and then smiled with those dangerous-looking teeth.

  “If you seek the lake monster, it is currently on the other side of the gate. It only comes through every once in a while. It doesn’t like the boats on the water here.

  “If you seek the dragon mountain, it is a long journey to the west. Look for the smoking peak.”

  “Thank you,” I told her gravely.

  “If she asks, tell Amy I’ll see her again one day, on the other side.” Then the rusalka vanished in a swirl of green.

  Chapter 14

  I stared at Julian, still standing beside the rusalka’s pond, or former pond, I supposed. I looked down at the bone necklace in my hand. It appeared to be held together with a shoelace, probably from one of her victims. Grimacing, I handed the necklace to Julian. “You can be in charge of this.”

  He took it from me and folded it gently in a tissue, then put it in his pocket.

  “The bones must be from Terra Novum,” he said. “They must have blasted through in the methane gas explosion and then got mixed in with the biomatter on this side.”

  “The lake monster must know that, also, to travel back and forth like it does.”

  “Any ideas what it could be?” Julian asked.

  “A couple,” I said.

  We started walking along the path.

  “It could be a bukavac, like you fought in Russia, but they’re so distinctive-looking that I think people would have a better description of it. And I’ve heard nothing about horns or six legs or monstrous screams.

  “Or it could be a vodyanoy. That’s a water spirit with the face and head of a frog, but a body covered in fish scales. It drowns people and then turns them into slaves in its underwater home. It can look like a man or like a fish and it fights with a club.”

  Julian nodded. “I was thinking, when you came through the portal in Russia, you said it went from night to morning. I’d rather not fight a monster at night, so let’s go through the gate tonight and kill it, when it’s morning on Terra Novum.

  “Then we can grab our camping stuff and tell the others that we have a gate and we’re going through.”

  That made sense to me. I felt relief knowing our way forward was clear. We had a gate and a key. Now we only needed to kill the lake monster and find the dragon. Piece of cake.

  “After we go through, we’ll shut the gate on the other side,” Julian said. “It should stay shut, without the lake monster to open it again. That way, when the police drain the pond to find the human bones, they won’t accidentally stumble through.”

  Wandering along the path through the trees, my heart felt lighter, knowing the rusalka was free. “I wonder what’s going to happen to Amy?”

  Julian shrugged. “She’ll probably go to jail. She deserves it, too, if you ask me. Even if the boyfriend manipulated her, she still killed her sister. She should be in jail the rest of her life.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I know it’s not an excuse. I still feel sorry for her though.”

  “You have a kind heart,” Julian said.

  I smiled at him, pleased.

  AN hour later, we met Josephine on the Iliamna dock. She looked tired and older all of a sudden. Her lively eyes were red-rimmed. Still, she spoke cheerfully to us.

  “Amy’s in my cell, nice and tight. I’m not worried she’s going to run away; she’s still pretty shaken up. But I don’t want her to hurt herself. The Troopers will be here tomorrow afternoon to pick her up.”

  We nodded and she continued. “The video worked, sort of. You can see Amy and then you,” she gestured to me, “but you can’t see the rusalka. It only looks like
Amy’s talking to herself.

  “She definitely confessed though, so I’ll give a copy to the Troopers, and they’ll be obligated to give it to her defense attorney. I think there’s a distinct possibility she’s going to make some kind of insanity plea.

  “Probably that’s for the best,” she finished.

  Julian told her we were going to kill the lake monster tonight. “Then in the morning, we’re going through and we’ll probably be gone for a while. Weeks or months maybe. We’ll tell our family what’s going on, so if we don’t come back, eventually someone will come and help you close the portal permanently.

  “For now, you should keep an eye on the police when they drain the pond and dig through the mud. Don’t let them assemble too many fish bones in one spot.”

  I added, “If they ask why so many men drowned there, you’ll have to think of something. Maybe it was a drug hangout?”

  Josephine grimaced and agreed.

  “Grace is definitely gone?” she asked.

  “She’s been avenged. She’s an unquiet spirit no more. She said that if Amy asks, tell her she’ll see her again one day, on the other side.”

  Josephine blinked away a sheen of tears.

  “Do you need anything from me for tonight?” she asked, clearing her throat.

  Julian shook his head. “This is what we’re good at. Killing monsters. Not so much the detective work.”

  Josephine let out a short laugh. “You did pretty good for your first time. Don’t discount that career path yet!” She headed up to her store, waving goodbye to us over her shoulder.

  “Talk to me again tomorrow morning before you go!” she called.

  We waved back in acknowledgment and then climbed into our skiff to return to our lodge.

  On the way, Julian brought up another wrinkle. We couldn’t take the boat out again at night and we couldn’t let anyone at the lodge see us armed. The sun wouldn’t set until 11pm and then it would be up again at 4am. So, we had a short window to hike to the pond, go through the portal, kill the monster, and then get to our cabin again.

  “Super short window,” I confirmed. “Do you think we can do it?”

  Julian looked uncertain. “It’s going to be tight,” he finally said.