by Ruby Sirois
I let them devour me, night after night after night.
I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I just stay in my lair and pray half-heartedly for death.
Weeks pass, and I move less and less. Nothing is worth the effort.
I am half-turned to stone, as cold and heartless as my cave.
A noise behind some piles of golden cups and steel armor. A sharp jingle of coins against rough stone.
A muffled curse.
I raise my head, bristling the spikes of my crest, baring my long teeth.
It’s the most I’ve moved in days, and yet I’m ready to defend my hoard with the last drop of my blood.
Just as I’d defend her, if she’d have me.
Hjalmr steps around several piles of treasure in his human form, limping slightly. He rubs the top of one foot.
“Don’t worry, brother. It’s just me.” He sits on a gilded chest, massaging his bruise. “Can’t you change out of that? I came here to talk with you.”
I relax, bit by bit. It takes a few minutes for my hackles to settle.
With great effort, I drag in my wings, retract my claws, assume human form. Changing is hard—harder than it’s ever felt before.
I wonder idly if I’ll lose the ability soon. Only dragons near death can no longer change.
Somehow, I don’t care.
“Eiríkur told me how you’ve disappeared so I thought I’d see how you are. And I think it’s a good thing I did, Ragnarr. Fy fan, you look terrible.”
“You don’t need to come and babysit me.”
My voice is harsh and guttural with disuse. My dry throat feels full of gravel.
“You’re my little brother. I can come and ‘babysit you’ any time I want. I don’t care how old you are, I’m always older.”
“Sure, rub it in my face.”
He gives me a smile, but I’m too tired to return it. The smile fades. His bright sea-green eyes are worried.
“Don’t you think you’ve been here long enough?”
Hjalmr looks me over more closely. There’s no way he can miss how thin I’ve gotten. How my ribs make gaunt stripes of shadow down my sides.
I feel weak, hollowed-out. I haven’t eaten for weeks.
“Long enough for what?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No matter what I do, I can’t outrun my mind. And what I keep coming back to is how my hatred and fear have ruined everything. They’ve ruined my chances of happiness. And now it’s all too late. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Can’t you talk to her? Explain?”
“There’s nothing to explain anymore. I should have gathered the courage to explain before that damned coven summoned me, but now it’s too late. I lost my temper, and I attacked them. There’s no way around that. There’s no way she can forgive me. She thinks I’m a monster. And she’s right; I am a monster. But without her, I can’t go on.”
“Do you love her?”
I glare at him.
“I knew she was mine the moment I first saw her.” A pause. “But I knew I loved her after our first date. She’s so passionate about her work. Dedicated. She thought she was risking her safety, her very life when she summoned me, but she did it anyway because she’s brave, and stubborn, and only ever listens to herself.”
Hjalmr gives me a look. “So if you love her, why have you given up?”
“I haven’t given up! She told me to leave. She hates me. There’s nothing more I can do. Emelie doesn’t want me.”
“I think you should go to her. Surely she’s suffering too.”
“I won’t. I can’t.”
“Not even if she calls you?”
I scoff. “Don’t be stupid. She won’t call me.”
Then I sigh.
“But if she did, I would come. I would have to come. I wouldn’t be able to stay away. Because I never have.”
27: Emelie
“Em? Emelie?” Linnea calls softly.
“Go ‘way.” My voice is muffled by my damp pillow.
“You haven’t been to work in a week. Have you been very sick? I’m worried about you.”
“Ja,” I mumble. “Sick.”
Sick of my life.
“Don’t you have a bunch of mead batches to take care of? I think they miss you. I do too.”
“They’ll be fine.”
Not ideal to leave them alone, but probably fine… probably. I can’t bring myself to care.
All I want to do is lie here and never get up again. I don’t remember the last time I left the apartment. I don’t care.
Linnea sticks her head in through the bedroom door. Sails in, throws open the curtains, shoves open the creaky window casement to let out the stale air.
I groan, digging myself deeper under the covers.
“Why are you here, Lin? Ugh. Don’t do that.”
“I’m worried about you,” she says again, fiddling with the curtains. “I just want to make sure you’re not dead.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not trying to be.”
“Just leave me alone.”
My hand snakes up, clasps Ragnarr’s disc. It’s still around my neck, hanging there like a ball and chain, but I haven’t been able to throw it away.
Linnea pulls the pillow off my face. I shrink away from the sharp burst of summer sunlight stabbing my eyes. I shield them with one forearm and squint up at her. She sees what’s in my hand, makes a face.
“You still have that thing? No wonder you’re driving yourself crazy, Em. You need to let it go. Why are you still wearing it?”
“None of your business.”
“Here, Em, let me take it. I’ll get rid of it for you if you can’t.”
She reaches for the disc.
“Don’t you touch it!”
I clutch it in one fist, my knuckles turning white around it.
Lin withdraws her hand, offended.
“Gods, Emelie. Don’t freak out. I’m just trying to help you.”
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough? Selling me out to the coven? Driving Ragnarr away? Ruining my life?”
I’ve wounded her, but I don’t care. I want her to hurt like I’m hurting. If I could burn the world down to ash right now, I would.
“You always hated him. You must be dancing for joy. Congratulations, Lin. You won.”
“Emelie,” she says, voice quiet. “I know you’re in pain right now, but I’m not the one you should be lashing out at.”
“And who should I be lashing out at? I’ve already been torturing myself for days for being such. A. Fucking. Idiot.”
“Honey, you’re not an idiot.”
She sits down on the bed next to me, strokes my arm. I pull it away.
“Thank you for your wise words, oh wise one. Oh, thou who hast two kids and a divorce, impart upon me thy sacred wisdom. Since you obviously are so much better at relationships than me.”
“I know you’re in a dark place, but you don’t need to be cruel.”
“Lin, you think you’re helping but you’re—not. Please. Just go.”
Linnea sighs. Stands up.
“I’ll come back tomorrow. Have you even been eating? Do you want me to order you some food in the meantime?”
“Just leave me alone.”
I pull the pillow back over my face. It’s wet with cold tears and feels like acid against my skin.
I expect a retort, but when long minutes pass and she doesn’t answer, I take an experimental peek.
She’s disappeared from the bedroom. I hear the faint snick of the front door closing.
I don’t know whether to feel relieved, or even more abandoned than before.
The bar is crowded. I’m almost done for the day, but before I get ready to go, I haul a fresh nineteen-liter keg through the mass of people. I slip behind the bar to change it out before rush hour hits so the bartender doesn’t have to stop what she’s doing.
“So cute!”
I glance up. A pair of pretty twenty-so
methings are fawning over Whimsy, who sits on a barstool like he’s a person. He’s really eating up the attention, just hamming it up for his fans.
“I just love his big old ears with those pointy black lynx tips.”
“And his giant fluffy tail! Look, it’s almost as long as my arm and just as thick. I want to wear him around my neck like a feather boa.”
“That adorable teddy bear face!”
The clicking of camera phones. More cooing. The rattle of a self-satisfied purr.
“I have to post this one right away,” says one. “He’s too sweet, my followers will just die. What was that Instapic hashtag again?”
“I’m not sure,” says her friend, scrolling through her phone. “Here, let me check.”
“Hashtag magicmeadkitty,” I say, screwing the lines tight and adjusting the gas feed.
All this business with Instapic was Valerie’s idea, and I have to admit it was a brilliant move. She’s been promoting Whimsy online as our mascot. He’s got half a dozen of his own social media accounts under the name Magic Mead Kitty. Now he’s trending, well on his way to going viral. Masses of people come to take pictures with Whimsy, then they stay for the mead.
Overall, it’s genius on Valerie’s part.
“You can also add hashtag somoteitbee,” I add, pulling a glass of strawberry-rhubarb melomel from the new keg to flush the air out of the line. “That’s ‘bee’ with two e’s. And if you show the posting with those tags to your bartender, you’ll get ten percent off the appetizer of your choice today.”
I pour the glass of foam down the drain, fill another until I’m satisfied with how the tap is working.
“Got it, thanks! Lucky you, getting to work with this handsome little heartbreaker every day. I’d never clock out if he were my work hubby.”
She scratches his chin. Whimsy scrunches up his long whiskers, gold-green eyes half-slitted in bliss.
“Does he live here? It seems like he’s always here.”
“Whimsy lives with me, but he kind of comes and goes as he pleases. He really likes attention, so he usually goes where he can find it.”
The vain thing, he loves this. Sure, it’s great for business, but right now everything just gets on my nerves.
I take a deep breath.
I finish installing the keg, make one last adjustment, then heft the empty to take back upstairs.
“Enjoy your evening, ladies.”
They’re back to snapping photos with Whimsy, posing with glasses in hand and making silly faces.
I can’t escape the bar fast enough.
Stockholm in the summer, with its long days of sunshine and bright blue skies, is usually the best time of year in Sweden. It’s hard to be depressed with twenty hours of sun a day—but lucky me, I find a way. Oh, do I ever.
Week after week, I hide up in my production rooms, lost amongst my flock of fermenting buckets like a mountaintop hermit. Time both flies and flows like mud. I have no idea what day or date it is. Even my many projects and experimental batches can’t make me feel better.
The blub-blub-blub which normally brings me such joy grates on my ears. Every keg, every box I lift feels twice as heavy. The stairs feel three times as high, and more often, I have to stop and rest halfway to catch my breath.
Everything is a chore, and even food and drink have lost most of their flavor.
My life feels like it’s covered with sheer gray cloth, clinging, choking. I have to slog through its sharp threads to get anything done.
I stop going downstairs to chat with customers if I can avoid it, even though business is booming now and I usually enjoy hearing guest feedback.
But now, the laughing of strangers is galling to me. I can’t stand hearing other people happy when I’m so miserable. It feels like the world is taunting me. Everyone else is light-hearted, drunk on summer sunshine, and I’m left behind to wallow in my despair.
I can hardly keep up with production as it is, and it’s become much worse lately. Linnea’s been bugging me yet again about an assistant, but I just can’t stand to think about that now. I go about the motions as best I can while feeling completely dead inside.
I fall further and further behind.
“Well, I for one am glad all that business is over with.”
Mom picks the crust off her dry whole-wheat toast and nibbles at it. A low-carb egg-white omelet is congealing on her plate, half-eaten.
We’re at our usual weekend lunch spot. I hadn’t wanted to come, but she’d nagged me until I agreed. I’m already regretting it.
“Ja. It must have been really hard for you.” I don’t bother keeping the sarcasm out of my voice.
I take a big bite of my fresh-baked brioche, piled high with butter and ginger-rhubarb jam, but it’s not as delicious as I remember. I set it back down on my plate of bacon and eggs, take a sip of black coffee.
“Honey, I have only ever wanted you to be happy. You could never have built a life with someone like Ragnarr Thoringr. You can’t build anything with someone like him. A dragon was not going to make you happy—let alone a dragon like him.”
“Wasn’t he?”
There’s nothing I enjoy more than having my love life mom-splained to me.
“You’re a witch, he’s a dragon. You can’t have thought it was going to work. You’re so much smarter than that.”
She pokes at her omelet with her fork.
“But at least you got away, no harm done.”
“No harm done,” I echo. “Ja.”
Except for the smoldering pile of ashes that are all that remain of my heart.
“Your cousin’s getting married.”
“My cousin?”
“Smilla. On your father’s side.”
“Oh, right.”
“They have three children already, and decided to get married on the same day that they’re baptizing the youngest.”
“That’s nice.”
I guess the whole world has better relationship luck than I do. It feels like Mom’s rubbing it in.
“Do you have something nice to wear? It’ll be a formal dress code. I hope you can find something flattering.”
Flattering.
What she really means is, something that makes me look less fat.
Something that hides my body.
Hides my shame.
I think of the stunning red gown Ragnarr bought for me. Of the expanse of thigh it revealed, of how my breasts looked amazing in it. Of how beautiful I was in it.
Mom would hate it, but even so—I wouldn’t wear it again if it was the last piece of clothing on Earth. It’s just too painful.
“I’ll go and buy something.”
“Pernilla said she knows someone that might be good for you.”
“Good for me?”
“To start fresh with. He’s a nice man, smart and well-off. I guess you like rich men now, but it’ll probably be slim pickings for you.” She gives my plate of crispy bacon and cheesy eggs a pointed look.
I ignore the jab, pick up the biggest piece of bacon just to annoy her.
“Oh?” I say, crunching loudly on the fatty meat.
I know it’s supposed to taste delicious, but it tastes like dirt. I eat it anyway.
“And why would she want to set me up on a blind date?” I am suspicious. “What have you been telling her about me lately?”
“She’s a very caring person. I’m sorry you don’t get along, but she wishes only the best for you.”
Not exactly my memory of my ex-mother-in-law, also known as the Harridan from Hell, but okay.
“What sort of abomination has she found for me? An incubus? A troll? Or Lucifer himself, perhaps?”
Mom glares at me. “And you wonder why you’re single.”
“Actually, I don’t wonder why I’m single.” I know exactly why.
Because Ragnarr never really loved me, no matter how much I wanted to believe he did. Because all I was to him in the end was a means to an end. A means for revenge.
/> And I’m a gullible fool who thought someone could love me for me, no matter what.
“I wish you’d just accept kindness from the people who care about you instead of getting sarcastic and angry all the time. Emelie, you can’t exactly afford to be picky.”
It’s obvious what she means by that. Too fat to be loved. Too fat to be beautiful.
“So I heard that this man, he’s a very nice person, it’s someone she works with. Pernilla says you’ll get along, that you’re his type. And he’s recently divorced, just like you. ”
“Not that over five years is exactly recent, but whatever.”
It’s not worth arguing. I don’t really care either way. Easiest just to take the path of least resistance.
She gives me a Mom-look.
I sigh, resigned. “Fine. Sure, Mom. You’re probably right. I may as well give it a shot.”
It’s not like I have anything else going on.
“Hi, are you Pelle?”
He’s the only man in the café who half-fits the description Pernilla gave.
Not as good-looking as she made him sound, though. Not even close, in fact.
I can’t help comparing him to Ragnarr, who makes this guy look like a lumpy sack of potatoes. Not that most men don’t look like a sack of potatoes next to Ragnarr, who might as well be a Greek statue—but this guy is just a bit extra potato-ey.
“That’s me,” he says with a warm smile. “Emelie?”
“Ja, hi.” Trying not to sound disappointed, I take the seat across the table from him.
He slides a cinnamon bun on a plate my way.
“I hope you like pastries. I got you this.”
Okay, I’m being ungenerous. I should at least give this whole thing a fair chance.
I square my shoulders and give him a smile.
“Thanks, that was sweet of you.”
I take a bite. It’s delicious, yeasty and rich with butter and cardamom, but his eyes on me are a little too avid.
I put it back down and wipe my mouth with a napkin.
“It was nice of Pernilla to set us up,” he says.
At least someone at this table isn’t disappointed, by the way he’s eyeing me up and down. I pull the edges of my cardigan a little closer around me.