Knowing how much facial trauma he’d suffered, she’d steeled herself for a greater change in his appearance. Considering everything, she’d expected his chestnut hair to have been shaved off, but there it was, longer tousled curls combed into some semblance of order. He looked more like himself than she’d expected, and if anything, once the post-surgical bruising was gone, he would be yummier than ever.
“Hi,” she said, fighting to control her excitement and appear cool, calm, and efficient. “Nice to see you awake and out of that bed. I’ve got chocolate chip cookies and apple juice for you.”
“Two of my favorites,” Liam said and smiled, revealing his lack of teeth, “but I don’t think I can eat them. The doctor said something about a light diet.”
Hannah held up the package of miniature cookies.
“No biting required. They’ll melt in your mouth,” she said, her best hospital volunteer happy face in place.
“Thanks. Can you stay a while, or do you have to go?” He reddened. “I mean the only people I’ve talked to in a while are my parents and Erik.”
“I can stay for a bit. You were my last visit.” Hannah’s cheeks heated, and she silently cursed her tendency to blush. “I mean, I left you for last so I could stay … if you wanted me to.”
Way to go, girl. Put both feet in your mouth.
Why was she suddenly so shy? Maybe because the reality was that while she’d imagined they had a relationship, the truth was they’d never even had one date. On top of that, Mrs. H was looking at her as if she were a virus on a microscope slide. Hannah twisted her hands nervously. Could you catch shyness like the flu? She’d spent more time with Erik lately than anyone.
“Here, Hannah, take my chair,” Mrs. Howard said, smiling in that way only adults could—the kind of smile that made you feel as if they’d looked inside you and had seen all of your deepest hopes and wishes. “I’m going to go down to the cafeteria and get myself a cup of tea. Give you two some privacy. Enjoy your visit. He’s got half an hour left before they’ll be here to put him back in bed. I’ll see you then.”
Mrs. Howard stood, kissed her son on the cheek, and left the room. The woman looked better than when Hannah had seen her last week, but she’d aged considerably and the worry wouldn’t go away anytime soon. Liam had a long way to go before he would be independent once again.
“So, how have you been?” he asked. “I haven’t seen much of you since you got back from Norway.”
“I’ve been good, and Norway was awesome,” she answered, glad he’d chosen a neutral topic. “I should bring in my tablet and show you some of the pictures I took, especially the ones from the Akershus slott, the city’s fortress and castle, built in the late thirteenth century. There are a couple taken in one room that are filled with orbs.”
“Orbs? As in the manifestations of ghosts?” he asked, his brow furrowed, his eyes glowing with excitement.
Hannah nodded, remembering how fascinated Liam had been about the possibility that the old Ellsworth house on Main Street was haunted. He’d been one of the boys who’d tried to spend last Halloween night there, but the neighbors had called in suspicious activity around the place, and the police cruiser had discouraged them from pursuing their goal.
“I think so. It was really creepy, if you know what I mean. I went into another room, took a few pictures there, and then went back into the room with the cabinet, thinking it might be my camera. No orbs in the pictures from other rooms, but orbs in both sets from that room. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were restless spirits there. The place was attacked tons of times, but withstood every effort to besiege it. It was modernized in the seventeenth century, to look like a Renaissance castle. You’d love all the twisty passages and stone work. When the Nazis occupied Oslo during WWII, they set up camp in the castle. We saw the Norwegian Resistance Museum on the grounds as well. Hundreds died. It was brutal. Of course, everything has been modernized now—electricity, plumbing, security—since they still use the facilities. The Norwegian army trains and occupies most of it now.”
“That sounds so cool. Does anyone sleep in the haunted room?”
“Not that I know of.” She chuckled. “There isn’t a bed in there. It’s more of an antechamber or waiting room.”
“So where exactly did you go?”
“We spent a couple of days in Copenhagen, Denmark, and then Mama and I took a Norwegian fjord cruise. We visited Ålesund, Geiranger, Flåm, and Bergen, but spent most of our time in Oslo. As well as the castle, we saw all kinds of fantastic places, including the City Hall, a couple of open air museums, a Viking ship they found in a burial mound, the Kon Tiki and Munch Museums, and visited a stave church. They’re really something to see, made entirely of wood. We saw one that was built in the twelfth century. There was nothing being built here back then. It’s hard to imagine anything that old still standing today. There was also a Biblical floating museum in town, a replica of Noah’s Ark. Oslo’s full of gorgeous parks and the most incredible statues you can imagine. Everybody walks and the transit system is out of this world. It was great spending time with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, too. We went up to my uncle’s cottage in the mountains. I’d love to see it in the winter. The skiing would be phenomenal. You should see my cousin Frida. She’s a real Nordic beauty.”
“It must run in the family,” he said so softly, she almost missed it.
Her cheeks heated once more. Had he just said she was pretty?
Without skipping a beat, as if he hadn’t set her heart pounding a mile a minute, Liam continued. “What else did you do?”
Drawing a momentary blank, still stuck on the compliment, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I ran a night race while I was there.” Suddenly, she wanted to sink into the floor. He certainly hadn’t meant ‘run’ as in a race. Talking about running wasn’t the topic of choice.
“How did you do?” he asked, without any of the awkwardness she felt.
“I finished fifth. They really take their running seriously over there. My cousin trains at least four nights a week. You should see the track and field locations.”
Change the topic, dummy!
“We didn’t make it all the way to the Arctic Circle, but maybe the next time we will,” she continued, striving for normality. “We stopped for a couple of nights in Iceland on the way back. Parts of it were like lunar wasteland, but others were unbelievably beautiful. We took the Golden Circle tour using a rental car, and visited þingvellir. It’s where the Vikings founded Iceland’s parliament in the tenth century. If you get out of the car and walk in one of the scenic areas, you’ll find most of the rock is volcanic. Here and there, flowering lichens are growing out of lava rock and pumice. When you step on it, it feels like memory foam. That area is one of the few places above the ocean floor where two tectonic plates—the North American and the European—meet. We walked between the two plates. It was absolutely incredible.”
“I can only imagine. Mrs. Gilchrest would love that. Do you remember how she went on and on about rocks in seventh grade?”
“Don’t remind me. To this day, I can’t look at a picture of the Grand Canyon without thinking igneous, sedimentary, or conglomerate.” She chuckled at the memory. “We also visited Gullfoss, Iceland’s most famous waterfall. You have to see it to believe it. In English, it’s called the Golden Waterfall, and it’s part of a river system, but you see the signs and wonder where the heck it is. You can’t even see the river. To get to it you have to go down a massive staircase, and then walk forever on a stone path. The incredible thing is that there isn’t a wall or a fence to keep you from tumbling over the cliff into the water. The falls are fed by the island’s largest glacier, and the water drops more than a hundred feet in two stages into a rough canyon with walls almost twice as high. The day we were there, a beautiful rainbow shimmered over the falls. I took pictures, but it isn’t the same. The whole island is as unspoiled as you can get.”
“Probably. It hasn�
�t been a go-to destination long. Sadly some idiot will try to take a selfie and send himself and a few others over the cliff, and the next thing you know, they’ll build a wall.”
She chuckled. “Maybe, but my uncle said they don’t fence nature off in Norway even though people have fallen off cliffs. They assume Norwegians and tourists are smart enough not to put themselves in danger.”
“I can think of a few tourists who wouldn’t be smart enough for that. Did you see any of the volcanoes or underground caverns on Iceland?”
“Sadly, not an active volcano, but we did see, Strokkur, the geothermal geyser that erupts every five to seven minutes with a plume of water that shoots into the air anywhere from sixty-five to over a hundred feet high. The water is this gorgeous milky turquoise color. There are at least a dozen smaller geysers in the area, too, as well as Geysir, the largest one. Just like at the waterfall, there aren’t any big obstacle to stop you from getting too close to any of them. There’s a rope about two feet high, but that’s it. It’s just weird when you consider how uber worried we are about stuff like that here.”
“Yeah. I saw Old Faithful, in Yellowstone National Park, and believe me, they keep you far away on a fenced boardwalk.”
“I’ve seen pictures, but the weird thing is unlike Old Faithful that gushes out of a mini white volcano created by the particulates in the water, the Icelandic geysers are flush with the ground. I’ll bet when the Vikings first visited the area, they lost a few men in there. There’s a strong smell of sulfur, but that’s the only warning they would’ve gotten.”
“How hot is the water?” he asked.
“I remember the guide saying it was boiling at the surface, but it gets hotter farther down.”
“Ouch!” Liam screwed up his face. “It would’ve been quick, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah. Boiled Viking. Yuck! As far as active volcanoes go, we didn’t get a chance to see any, but the one near the waterfall erupted only ten years ago. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the caverns, which is why I want to go again someday. We did get to the Blue Lagoon on our way back to the airport. Can you imagine soaking in a spa with three or four hundred people? Most of them walking around with blue goo on their faces?”
He laughed. “I would pay to see you in blue goo.”
“Not going to happen,” she said and giggled. “Although I did bring back a silica mud mask. Do you realize they have their own breed of horses? The Icelandic ponies have heavier coats than most horses I’ve seen and they have a different gait, too. It’s illegal to use tack on them that’s been used on other breeds. Keeping the strain pure is a really big deal.” Her cheeks heated at the way he gazed at her. “Here I am running off at the mouth like a guide on fast forward, when I’m supposed to be visiting you.”
Liam chuckled. “Hey. I’ve always admired how smart you are. For the record, you are visiting me, and I am enjoying the conversation. Watching you describe everything makes me want to go there and see it for myself. Right now, I wish I had your energy level.”
She smiled shyly, biting her lip in the process. “Maybe someday you will. What did you do all summer?” She should get him talking about himself. Guys liked that, right?
“Nothing as exciting as what you did. I helped out with the cows and trained.” He shook his head. “Kind of a waste of time as things have turned out.”
“Don’t say that,” she cried angrily. “Papa said you’ve got feeling in your legs. You will walk and run again. I know it.”
“I wish I had your confidence, too. I thought the scariest thing was getting the bandages off, but now…”
“You look very handsome,” she said quietly, wanting to kick herself. “I mean you looked handsome before, but…”
What is this? Find a way to humiliate myself time?
“Hannah, relax,” he said and chuckled. “They fixed my broken nose—among other things—so it’s all good. I probably don’t snore now.” He lifted his hair off his forehead. “Got a bit of a scar here, but from what the nurse told me, that doctor worked a miracle. What do you think of the beard? Mom says it makes me look older.”
“It does, but I like it. You look like a hockey player—beard, no teeth.” She laughed, relieved he didn’t think she was some kind of ditz.
“I should have teeth by the end of the week,” he said, trying to speak with his mouth as closed as he could.
“That’s good. I seem to recall you like apples, but you look fine just the way you are, so don’t go getting all shy about it. I have enough of that with Erik.”
“Erik? I didn’t realize the two of you were friends. Neither Mom nor he will talk about it, but do you know what happened to me? I’ve lost more than a month of my life, and when I try to think about it, I get nothing but images that make no sense.”
Hannah bit her lip. “I don’t know how much I should tell you. Most of what I’ve heard is gossip.”
“Then can you at least tell me what people think happened? I keep wondering if somehow I’d been thrown by my new horse.”
“You’ve got a new horse?” she asked, unable to tamp down her interest, grateful for the momentary reprieve.
“Yeah, a palomino named Thor. Mom and Dad gave him to me for my birthday. He’s eight years old. One of the farmers Dad met at a dairymen’s association meeting was looking to find him a new home.”
“I’ll bet he’s gorgeous, I love palominos, but no, you didn’t get thrown from a horse.
“What then?” The frustration in his voice tore at her heart. He deserved an answer.
“You were out running and got hit by an SUV or a truck. No one knows for sure. Most of them are hoping you did. Don’t you remember anything?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Just bits and pieces that honestly make no sense. Do the police have any leads?”
Hannah shrugged, wishing she had more to offer him. “What exactly do you remember from that day?”
“Not much. School, I think. We had a math test, and I went to the weight room at lunch. It was a long weekend, right?”
Well aware of the fact anything she said could seed a false memory, she sighed. Anything she knew was basically hearsay, amplified by Erik’s theories. “Yeah the teachers had meeting in Augusta. Do you remember the weather?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I’m not sure I do because when I think about it, I see snow, which makes no sense since it wasn’t even the end of October.”
“You aren’t imagining it,” she said, relieved he did remember something. “We got the tail end of a hurricane, but because of polar winds coming down from Canada, we ended up with snow and freezing rain instead of rain. It’s all gone now. The temperature has been mild ever since, and we had low sixties on Halloween night.”
He scratched his head. “Guess I missed trick or treating this year.”
“You probably haven’t done that in years anyway. As I recall, you tried to defy the spirits last year at the Ellsworth house.”
He grinned. “That’s right, but the police wouldn’t let us. Probably just as well. Erik was scared shitless.”
She giggled. “I’ll bet he wasn’t the only one. I didn’t trick or treat either, although I did take Mallory around for Mrs. Silmser since she was in the hospital. She had her baby—a boy.”
“That’s good. I do remember something about the day of the accident. I was hoping to ask you to the haunted maze event the 4H club was holding that weekend. If that worked out, I was going to go for the Halloween dance, too.” He looked at her with eyes that pleaded not to get shot down.
Hannah grinned so broadly, it was a miracle her face didn’t split in two. “If you’d asked, I would’ve said yes to both.” She bit her lower lip.
Liam’s grin revealed his missing teeth once more, but his face shone with joy. He reached for her hand, and she twined her fingers in his.
“Maybe we can plan on the Christmas one,” he said. “I was never much of a dancer. Who knows I may improve by then, or you can sit o
n my lap, and we can spin around to the music. They’ve promised me a wheelchair. As much as I’m going to hate being confined to that chair, at least I’ll be able to get around until I can walk again, and I will walk and run again.”
She smiled at his determination and nodded. “You will. I know it. As far as the Christmas dance goes, it’s a date.”
“You’re on. I get to move to another room tomorrow. Not sure when I can go home, but we’ll need to figure out a way for you to get to the farm. You don’t drive yet, and I don’t want you walking along that road … especially if I’m here because someone hit me.”
“Not to worry. I can take the commuter bus to Mina’s and ride my horse cross-country from there. Snowflake’s sure-footed, even in the snow and ice, and there’s a trail through the trees that Mina and I ride all winter long. If we get too much snow, I can always ski over and get Mama to pick me up on her way home.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He frowned. “I’m so sick of being in here. I feel as if the walls are closing in on me. I can’t wait to go home—although those walls will probably be worse than these. Not sure where they’ll put me. It’ll be a while before I’m climbing stairs.”
“I can imagine, but I’m sure your parents are working on something. I heard my aunt talking about it the other night. They hired Gunther’s Renovations.” She smiled. “Maybe my father will let you go out on the terrace assuming it stays mild.”
“I hope he does. I’m going stir-crazy.”
She licked her lips nervously. “You know, Erik has a theory about your accident.”
“Erik has theories about everything. He and Fox Mulder, from that old X-Files program he loves, would get along well. He sees conspiracies all the time.”
“I can certainly believe that,” she said and sighed. Sitting here like this was heavenly.
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