Arun moved away from the table, surprising me once he was standing next to me. I had to look up more than I’d expected. I’d been wrong at the truck stop—he was probably a couple of inches over six feet. “It is a strange thing to ask someone, but I sort of have this sixth sense where people like us are concerned. It’s like a kind of electricity that makes my skin prickle. See?” He slid the sleeve of his blue sweater up, and I could actually see the blond hair on his arms standing at attention.
“Does it stay like that?”
“Nah. It’s only for a little while. It’s like my body has to get used to being around someone like us. It won’t happen again after a few days. Should have seen the hair on my head the day Tyrone showed up here from Kansas. Couldn’t tame the spiky Mohawk no matter how much gel I used.” He nodded toward the door. “Tyrone is that big guy you saw outside.”
“He’s one of us?” And like that, I jumped on his crazy train. Years of keeping quiet, of never talking about the magical part of my life just flew out of the window. “There are more here?”
He nodded as the sound of snow on the plastic roof and walls grew louder. Wincing, he looked up. “It’s getting worse. And so many have been coming lately. We worry that some will get lost in the woods.”
“Who’s we?”
“My family. My mother, her brother and his wife. They started these greenhouses when I was a baby—when my mother first realized what was going on. She was raised on the stories of Ragnarok. When she realized I carried Freyr’s soul, she and my uncle Axel got the first greenhouse going.”
He just threw out the name Freyr. The word Ragnarok. So matter-of-fact. Like they were normal words—words that were a part of anyone’s usual daily conversations. I’d known who he carried the second I’d seen the tabloid article, and my suspicion had been confirmed when I had seen how absurdly good-looking he was. But suddenly I wanted to know so, so much. “I’ve never met anyone other than my sisters who carries someone’s soul. Does he squirm around in your chest? Make you feel crazy emotions? Cause pain?” I stopped, chewed on my lip. “Does he make your life a living hell?”
He frowned. “You can feel yours moving? Nobody has said they can feel theirs.” He shuddered, horror darkening his expression. “No wonder you’re so prickly.”
Prickly? Prickly? I glared. “I have two sisters, and they both feel theirs, too. If you can’t feel yours, how do you know he’s there? How did your mother know?” I pulled the tabloid article from my pocket and smoothed it out because I’d stuffed it in there when the cashier at the truck stop had made me angry. “So this stuff is true? You make crops magically appear?”
He took the paper, stared at it, then shook his head. “This is what brought you here? Imagine that. Finally something cool from this stupid article. And no, it’s not true. This thing caused us so much trouble. For a year after it came out, we were dealing with the craziest people showing up here at all hours. We got hundreds of Bibles in the mail. Hundreds.” He held up the paper. “I can’t believe this is why you came here.”
“So if it’s not true, how did your mother know?” Of course, I didn’t know how my mother knew about the one prophecy she’d drummed into my sisters’ and my heads our entire lives. The one about the future warrior with dark eyes and light hair who would kill us.
Arun stared at me for a few moments, then pointed to a leaf next to my head. It was partially brown and shriveled. He slowly reached out and stroked his finger over the leaf, caressing it like one would a small pet.
And as I watched, the brown part of the leaf fell off while the rest perked up. The attached vine lifted, thickened, as a healthier green color spread rapidly to the center of the plant.
Dark, dark eyes stared hard at me as my mouth fell open.
“Wow,” I breathed. “I tracked down Swamp Thing.”
Chapter Three
“Which one?”
I stared at the now perfectly healthy plant. It wasn’t like magic was new to me. I had it with my rune tempus. My mother had it. Even Coral had a little extra something. But his was just so...so...cool.
“Which one?” he repeated.
“Huh?” I blinked up at him.
He chuckled. “Which Swamp Thing? There was more than one. The first couldn’t even talk.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Does it matter?”
He leaned against a support beam and crossed his arms. Intriguing muscles popped along his upper arms. “Swamp Thing is my favorite superhero.”
“Felt a kinship with him, did you?” I touched the healthy plant. Swamp Thing was one of my favorites, too. Well, until recently when I spent too much time gagging at some of the new graphic images. I didn’t share that, though, as I tried not to be obvious about checking out his biceps. And I was leaning toward the version who had more muscles. I bit back a grin. “So your mother saw you do that...that thing to a plant?”
“When I was a baby, my mother was carrying a sick potted flower in one arm when she came to check on me. I grabbed it and gave it health.”
“Touch something else.”
He blinked at me as one corner of his mouth turned up. “What would you like me to touch first?” His voice dropped a whole octave with the question.
He could not have meant that the way it sounded. I stared, trying to read his expression and failing. When he started to laugh, I narrowed my eyes, then pointed to a dead plant.
Arun shook his head. “I can’t bring it back to life. Once the energy is gone, there isn’t anything for me to boost. That’s all I do. Give already existing energy a spring in its step.”
“Can you heal people?”
“I wish. No, it only works on plants.” He picked up garden shears and snipped off a few leaves.
“You must be really popular around here, then.” I watched him run the pad of his thumb over one of the smaller leaves, erasing the white spots. He clipped the next one off. “If you can heal the plants, why are you cutting parts off?”
“It’s better to cut back some of the leaves so more of the plant’s energy goes to the fruit.” He worked quietly for a few moments. “So what exactly was that magic you did in the truck stop?”
“What?” I grabbed his arm. “You know I did something there?”
He nodded, set the clippers down and patted my hand. “Don’t get upset.”
“Dude, don’t pat me, and don’t patronize me. I may look twelve, but I’m eighteen and don’t have a lot of patience.” I saw movement outside the greenhouse but ignored it. “Which part of my magic did you see?”
“All of it. You sent the world into a spin, stopped time and wrote a message in runes with ketchup. I watched you do it all. I even sneaked a peek when you went into the bathroom. Music on the lake is about this place. Means you’re supposed to be here, not running back to...Where was it? Oklahoma?”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand. It’s a family thing, and nothing is more important to me than my family.”
Arun stared at me, his arms crossed, his expression like the school counselor’s I’d had in the last year I’d been allowed to go to school. The one determined to find the reason why I’d defaced the cafeteria wall with maple syrup.
Apparently, I had a thing for condiments.
Wait, is syrup a condiment?
Because he continued to stare and because it made me feel like I’d just jumped on a roller coaster, I redirected his attention. “That guy you were with—that big guy—who is he carrying?” I knew. Of course I knew when I saw his missing hand, but I wanted it confirmed.
He flashed a white-toothed grin. “The guy in the cowboy hat is carrying a soul. He didn’t know which one until he met a Valkyrie who told him his is Tyr—the war god.”
“The one who lost his right hand to the wolf, Fenris,” I muttered. “I knew it.” A drop of sweat slid down my temple.<
br />
“You should take your coat off before you overheat. We’re keeping the houses extra warm lately to make up for the upcoming long winter.”
“So you know what’s going on? You believe this is Fimbulwinter?” I was talking about the three years of harsh winter we were supposed to suffer during Ragnarok. Some writings referenced one summer happening during the long frozen stretch and others said none. Whichever one—it was supposed to suck.
“Don’t you?” He held out his hand for my coat and draped it over his on the chair after I gave it to him. “You have incredible magic. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
I shrugged. “A lady in the restaurant told me that she’s heard music on Yellowstone Lake, so it could be something about that.” Frowning, I scratched the back of my hand, which was splotchy from the prickly stems. “Though, my norn usually gives me future messages.”
He nodded. “That’s what’s been bringing the others here. Some hear it. Some don’t. The ones who can’t are being brought in by Valkyries.”
“Valkyries,” I said, grinning. That was a bit much. I was leaning back toward the weirdo thing again.
His gaze flicked down to my mouth and his own twisted in response. “Tell you what. Grab your coat and I’ll take you on a tour. Introduce you to my two best friends and maybe a Valkyrie.”
The cold hit hard and fast, but I waited until we’d walked a ways before I put the coat back on. The snow had picked up. Luckily, the greenhouses blocked the wind, which made howling noises as it swept down into the valley. He’d talked about introducing me to people, yet I didn’t see any. The place was eerily quiet other than the weather. He opened doors to the greenhouses, pointed out the vegetable and fruit plants. They even had fruit trees in two of them. My stomach growled when I saw the luscious red apples.
Arun grinned at me. “Heard that. Tyrone will be back with the sandwiches soon, but here.” He walked inside, grabbed an apple and washed it in a sink before handing it to me. “We don’t use chemicals, so you can eat them right off the trees, but sometimes there’s dust.”
I bit into the apple and managed to not moan. Perfectly crisp and juicy, it immediately settled my stomach.
A girl with bright red hair walked past us, a taut scowl on her face, her arms full of heavy bags of fertilizer. I lifted my eyebrows. Three heavy bags of fertilizer. I couldn’t carry all those at once. “Is she one?” I asked after the girl disappeared inside one of the greenhouses.
He was frowning pretty hard. “She’s upset about something. Again.” He looked down at me, chuckled. “You’ll have a lot in common with her. She’s prickly, too. When she showed up, she had no idea what was going on, just that she can tell the future and her future was in these greenhouses. Her parents kicked her out when she was sixteen, so she came here. To the place she kept seeing in her visions. We think she’s carrying the soul of Gullveig.”
I tried to remember what I’d learned about that goddess, but all that came to me was prophecy and fire. I wanted nothing to do with someone associated with that particular element. “She was kicked out at sixteen?” Harsh. Yeah, my sisters and I had to pretty much raise ourselves, but Dru had never kicked us out, had never left us physically. Well, not until recently.
“She won’t say why they kicked her out, but we think it had something to do with the visions. Tip. She hates the word witch. It sets her temper off.” He chuckled. “And trust me, she got the fiery personality to go with that hair. You’ll get along.”
I ignored the dig, thinking about the fertilizer bags. “She’s strong, too, isn’t she?”
“We’re noticing that a lot of us are stronger than usual. But not everyone with a god soul is. You?”
“No.” And that was so not fair.
“Well, I saw you stop time. Actual time. You might have more power than any of us.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I muttered. Not if I wasn’t in control of it. I waved my hand at the spread of greenhouses. “This is impressive. So, you sell the vegetables?”
“We do. But we’ve also been preparing for the three-year winter. We’ve canned enough food to feed a lot of people for a long time.”
“Aren’t you worried some will try to take this place? By force?”
“Got a pretty negative view of people, don’t you?”
“You grow up in campgrounds and see how you feel. Yeah, there are some hippy-dippy granola types, but a lot of those survivalists...Well, I live in the real world—I see real people in it.”
“Yet you carry the soul of a goddess inside you. Must be awfully confusing in your real world then.”
He had a point. I hated that he had a point, so I glared at him.
“Look,” he said. “I could tell you think all that stuff I said about Valkyries is bull. You said you have two sisters. I’m guessing triplets. Triplets who can stop time and write messages in a very old language. You have a norn. Do you have any idea how important that is?”
“I don’t have her willingly.” I managed not to wince when she twisted in my chest, but I put my hand there out of reflex.
His eyes narrowed and he straightened. “You really can feel her,” he murmured. “You can actually feel her inside you? That has to be awful. No wonder you’re so grumpy.”
“I’m not grumpy.”
He merely lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m not. This is my normal personality.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “So what makes you smile?”
“Really? You really want to have this sort of conversation right now?” I felt like pulling my hair out, but instead I gave him my best “get to the point” glare. “So, if you saw that I wrote runes earlier, what do you think?”
“I think you needed more words. But then you would have needed more ketchup.”
Wow. I kind of wanted to hit him. Hit him and see if the muscles bulging in his upper arms really were as strong as they’d looked when he’d had his coat off. Gods, he had me all jacked up. “I don’t hear any music, so I have no idea what that message meant, but she does that—gives me obscure messages. I think she likes to mess with me.”
“Do your sisters get the same thing?”
I nodded, thinking of the one Raven had told me about that morning. In violence conceived. I’d actually been thinking about it often. The possibility, the horror, of what it could mean popped up in my head like a jack-in-the-box on speed. I wanted that message to be about someone else—not me and not my sisters. So I kept pushing that stupid little doll back into his box. Maybe duct tape would help. I’d done that to a broken one we’d had as kids. That thing never sprang out at the right moment, and I hated surprises.
Raven’s message was a surprise because it meant that maybe, just maybe, Dru had a reason to be crazy. Not an excuse—there would never be excuses enough for the way she raised us—but maybe she had a reason.
“Hey,” Arun said softly. He took a step closer to me. “Where did you go?”
I cleared my throat, schooled my expression. “Nowhere.”
“Nowhere looked very sad. Here.” He pulled me into the closest greenhouse, took my hands, faced them palm up together, then put a small fragile plant on them. “This will make you feel better.”
Gods, he was strange. “Uh, I don’t have your affinity for plants.” Yet I stared at the slivers of baby leaves, the delicate stems. Tiny roots peeked from the clump of dirt at the base. The proof of life in the palms of my hands. “I’m afraid I’ll break it.”
“It’s stronger than it looks, which I’m starting to guess is a good description for you, as well.”
“Never underestimate a small package.” I handed the plant back to him, then watched as he buried its root ball in dirt. “My sister Coral should have picked you. She likes plants, too. You would have really hit it off.”
“Because sh
e likes plants? Takes more than that for two people to hit it off. Common ground is always good.” He reached for a rag and wiped his hands as he turned to face me again. “So is chemistry.”
Flustered, I had to look away from him. For a teenager, he had the stare of a man with more experience than years. I didn’t really know how to take him, where to compartmentalize him. I didn’t know that many teenage boys, but none of the ones I met were anything like him.
Of course, none of them had the soul of a Norse god and could stroke health back into a plant with his fingers. My gaze dropped to his fingers, and I had this sudden image of him sliding them along my neck as he bent to kiss me. Startled, I cleared my throat and closed my eyes, pretty sure I did not like the twisted and weird feelings he raised in me.
“Hey, Kat, don’t go back to Nowhere, okay?”
My eyes flew back open at his soft tone.
“What’s Kat short for?” he asked, watching me as he continued to rub his hands with the small towel. “Kathy? Katherine?”
I shook my head. “Katriel.”
“Pretty. My mom chose the Hindi spelling of my name so it would mean sun—or the colors of it.” The corner of his mouth went up again. “She did that even before she knew about Freyr. What does yours mean?”
I sighed because lately the meaning of my name had meant something terrifying with all the nightmares my norn had been giving me. Dreams of my head being on fire. “It’s stupid. It means crown of god.”
He startled me when he reached out and pulled off my hat. My hair spilled all around my face.
“The name fits. I had a feeling your hair was going to be something. It’s really long.” He picked up a strand and rubbed it between his fingers. “Soft.”
The heat crawling through my body had nothing to do with the greenhouse temperature. I stepped back.
He dropped my hair. “Sorry.”
Arun didn’t look sorry. He looked curious more than anything, and the way he looked at me made me feel so strange and fluttery, I was pretty close to taking off. He must have sensed it because his next smile was gentle, calming. Kind of like the one my fourth first grade teacher had given me when I’d shown up terrified with only one month of school left in the year and a reading problem not even my sisters had known about.
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