My eyes landed on a beaded purple nightgown that I was drawn to magnetically. I flashed Foss’s ring and bought the purple one for Britta and a black one for me. Let Jamie try and forget he’s in love with her in that. I felt Jens’s hand trace my hip, and I shivered.
Foss needed new boots, and I got all the small things he liked that I’d found around the house. His soap, towels, clothing, cheese, and most important of all, a fiddle. They had the garden variety for sale, but when I saw one that had clusters of grapes carved into the sleek body, I knew I had to get it for him. The curves of the instrument were almost sexy, and though I’d never played an instrument before, I wished for the skill.
Most of the merchants did not question my authority over Foss’s estate. Word had spread of the “Guldy” Foss had acquired, and they referred to me as such, staring at me as I went. One of the vendors requested I show him Foss’s ring to verify the purchase. I heard Jens’s strangled whine of fury when he saw Foss’s crest branded on my chest. I stepped back and pressed my heel onto his toe to remind him to keep his cool.
“I’m going to murder that man in his sleep,” he whispered.
“You’ll do no such thing,” I said quietly. “It was an accident from the fire. Chill.”
We finished up and walked back to the boats with the last delivery man, passing several coming back from the ship on the way. Uncle Rick’s eyes were wide at the bounty stacked up in crates all around him. “I guess it’s best you never got yourself a credit card,” he remarked.
“They didn’t have any pink ponies for sale.” I did a good “aw shucks” gesture for his amusement. “Foss told me to max out his accounts. I did the best I could, but I didn’t even make a dent. Kind of a rush, but when you’re thinking someone’s going to set your escape vehicle on fire, it takes a little something out of the thrill. Plus, no heels. What’s a shopping spree without a decent pair of frivolous high heels?”
“It’s the one thing Undra’s missing.” Jens peeked at my scar as he hopped off the plank and into the ship. He untied the line after verifying we had all our stuff, and we were off.
Jens had instructed me to purchase a few hammocks and set about installing them with Jamie’s help. I showed Britta the purple nightgown that really was more modest than most of the dresses Tonya wore, but Britta blushed as she pushed it back into my arms. “I can’t wear that!”
“It’s no more racy than the stuff I had to wear,” I protested. I looked it over. It wasn’t sheer. It was normal dress material that hung to the ground. The only difference was the obvious display of breasts. “You don’t have to wear it, but I highly doubt you have enough clothes. You’ve been switching between that dress and your one from Elvage and the kilt for weeks. Might be nice to have something comfortable to sleep in.” I draped it over her shoulder. “Plus, Foss owes you a few good moments for giving you so many bad ones over the course of this trip. He paid for it, so you might as well enjoy it.”
Britta looked over the thing of scandal and beauty with trepidation and desire. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll wear it and give it lots of use.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I could tell she’d tried it on when we sat down for dinner a few hours later. Her cheeks were pink and she could barely look at Jamie, casting me conspiratorial looks throughout the meal. Half of the group was ravenous; they’d not eaten proper meals on their journey to and from the Fossegrimen portal. We went through quite a bit of the fresh food in one go. I wondered how long the journey would be, and hoped I’d gotten enough supplies for it.
Foss was silent and sullen throughout dinner. He kept his head bowed over his plate and hunched with his elbows on the table. I don’t exactly know how it happened, but I’d somehow become the only person he would interact with. When I noticed halfway through the meal that he hadn’t touched a bite, I nudged the grump next to me, speaking quietly to him while everyone else carried on lively conversations. “Foss, you should eat something. When was the last time you ate?”
He shrugged. “I’m not hungry.”
I placed my hand on his bare back and rubbed soothing circles, taking care not to brush over his many injuries. “The fresh food won’t last long, and then it’s beef jerky till the cows come home.”
He kept his eyes from me and focused on his food. “I hate when you’re nice to me.”
I sat up straighter. “I don’t actually care what you think you hate. Do you care that I think you’re a horrible person who isn’t capable of real growth? No. We’ll get through the rest of the trip however we can. Then when it’s over, you’ll be rid of me. You can be all kinds of happy then.” I took a bite of a tomato and sighed at the purity of the taste. “I have it in my day planner. Destroy portal, be rid of Foss. Step one, step two.”
Foss did a silent snort at my humor, but still did not eat.
I picked up my plate and his, nodding toward a spot near the back of the boat. “Come on.”
I kissed Jens on the forehead before leading Foss off away from the group. I pointed to a spot where we could eat on the floor and see the ocean. When he sat down, I could tell it cost a great effort.
“You sound like an old man,” I commented as Henry Mancini scampered toward me and snuggled onto my lap.
Foss grunted as he shifted next to me, both of us facing out onto the water.
I handed him his plate and continued eating as I talked, using my dog’s back as a table to balance my plate on. “I was never as rich as you are.”
“As I was,” Foss corrected, staring out at the waves with a hard expression, as if he was daring the ocean to give solace neither of them possessed. “I’m dead now with nothing to my name.”
“I didn’t have as much to lose, but I understand a little of what you’re going through.”
He gave me a good “pfft” laced with his superior attitude. “You couldn’t possibly.”
I settled in for a barrage of his mean behavior and muscled through. “Everything I’ve ever owned was burned to the ground. My few friends think I’m dead, too. When I get back to my world, I’ll start a new life in yet another new place by myself.” I considered this, then amended my statement. “Well, with Jens, luckily. Sound like anyone you know?”
Foss stared at me, finally paying attention to something other than his pain. “I didn’t know that.”
I chewed on another tomato and wished for twenty more. “The things you don’t know about the people around you could fill a book. Just because I’m not important to you doesn’t mean I’m not important.” I sighed, lowering my voice. “I’ve never had a home to live in for more than half a year. And every time I’ve had to pick up and leave, the place behind me was cleaned out or burned up. Sometimes it was ordered by Jens, who I didn’t know at the time.”
Foss said nothing, so I assumed he was still listening. At least he wasn’t tearing me down or arguing. Progress.
“I had two awesome parents and a twin brother who was my best friend. I lost them all on the same day. I know twenty isn’t as young where you’re from, but it’s young for my world. I was on my own, and had to make a decision whether I would wither away or climb out of my depression and claw my way back to the world. You have to make that same decision.” I picked a grape off my plate and put it in his hand. “You’re eating,” I commanded gently.
Without considering his stalemate on food, Foss popped the grape into his mouth, and I could see a small amount of life flicker inside of him.
“I know you don’t think much of me, but I mattered to exactly three people who I would have died for. Every day without them, I’m a little less. Less fun. Less happy. Just… less.” I knew I was treading on dangerous ground, giving the pit bull ammunition, but I trudged onward, knowing he couldn’t really get much more surly, ammunition or not. “I’m sorry you lost Kirstie because of me. I didn’t mean to make her so mad, honest. I know she made you happy, and I would never want to take that away from you. You didn’t
seem like you had a whole lot of happy in your life.”
Foss ate a second grape without coaxing. “There’s more to life than smiling.”
“True. I can’t imagine there’s much of a life without it, though.”
“Your world is frivolous,” he ruled, spearing a tomato with his fork.
“And your world is mean.” I shrugged. “And you can’t go back there. You’ll start a new life somewhere else. Best learn to adapt.”
He nodded, and I took that as a sign that I was finally getting through his thick skull.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you lost your home. It was beautiful, and I could tell you worked hard to make it yours. Your servants loved you, though I’m not totally sure why.” I ventured a glance in his direction. “You seemed less of a prick there, too.”
He did not have anything to say to this, so he huffed at me.
“You don’t know much about my world or me, and if we last through Elvage, you’ll come with me to the Other Side. I gotta tell you, if you push me around, talk down to people or be your usual charming self, you’re likely to get shot if you’re in the wrong neighborhood.”
“I can handle arrows.”
I chuckled. “Oh, lovebug. We have guns, not arrows. Far more deadly. You hit the wrong person, you’ll just up and get yourself killed. It’s your choice, but I thought you’d like the chance to start over. You all never bothered to explain the different cultures to me, and that sucked. You should know what’ll be expected of you.”
“I can’t imagine I’d do well in your world.”
I put down my plate and turned to face him. “Adapt or die, Foss. It doesn’t much matter what you want or how you feel you should be able to behave. Adapt or die, starting with not being such a jerk.” I touched his hand, not letting him flinch away from me. “You have an opportunity for rebirth here. A chance to change. My advice? Take that chance.”
Foss eyed me with skepticism to cover over a heavy heart. “I liked my life. I don’t want to give that up.”
I shrugged. “You don’t have a choice.” I squinted at him. “And I thought you were strong. I adapted in your world. Guess that makes me stronger than you.” I took a grape from his plate and popped it in my mouth. “I figured as much.”
Foss glared at my thievery and I smiled, knowing that was a sign he still had fight in him. If he had fight, there was a chance he could rise to the occasion and someday be a better person.
“Oh! I forgot. You can have your ring back.” I reached for the knot to untie the leather strap.
He placed his large hand over the ring on my sternum. “Keep it until we get over to the Other Side. You and this ship are the only things I still own. Dead or not, my name will help you through Undraland.”
My mouth tightened. “I hate you so much. You don’t own me. No one owns me.”
Foss straightened, his hand still resting on my chest. “I paid for you. Weapons, shoes, clothes, women. I buy it, it makes it mine. I. Own. You.”
Henry Mancini sensed my anger and snarled at Foss until he removed his hand from me. My upper lip curled as I flipped through my mental Rolodex of horrible things to say in response. I landed on taking the high road. Thanks a lot, Martin Luther King. “Well, I tried. And technically, you’re a dead man, so you own nothing. This ship is friggin’ mine, oh darling husband. If I was being a jerk, I’d say the ring is mine, too. And your remains, which means, you. So, technically? Technically, I own you.” I stood and ruffled his short hair. “Suck on that, princess.”
Twenty-Three.
Better Than This
Aside from one “fun family relocation adventure” in the middle of the night once, I’d never been on a boat. Seasickness wasn’t a thing I was familiar with, so I spent a decent amount of time in my hammock when I was not needed, nursing my wounds and pretending I wasn’t green around the gills with the motion of the churning ocean.
When night fell, Jens hoisted himself into my hammock, and I tried not to ralph all over him. “Ugh. Don’t rock me too much. I’m not used to this.” He’d slid a bucket next to us that Henry Mancini was sniffing.
Jens scooted his body underneath mine so I could rest on him and have a little stability. “Better?”
“So much. I wish I knew more about boats so I could be useful.”
He ran his fingers through my hair. “Once you stop barfing like the adorable little puke machine you are, I’ll be sure to put you to work swabbing the deck like a good pirate.”
“Thanks, Captain Crunch. What’s the bucket for?”
“In case you toss your cookies again.” He kissed my blonde tangles. “You’re so cute when you’re gross.”
“Ugh. Don’t say cookies.” I exhaled contentedly atop his chest. “I miss cookies. I took chocolate chunks for granted. And you smelling like a big old batch of them doesn’t help matters. I miss a whole slew of things.”
“Me, too. I miss those orange circus peanuts. Undra doesn’t have processed food.” Henry Mancini curled up under our hammock and Jens lowered his hand to scratch behind his ear.
My nose wrinkled and I groaned. “Oh, no. You’re disgusting. And five, apparently. What self-respecting adult actually eats those? I knew you had to have a flaw. Well, at least now I know. Out with it. What else you got?”
He chuckled, and the sound warmed me from my bare toes to the tip of the ear he was tracing with his forefinger. The air coming off the ocean was getting chilly as night fell, but Jens was my warm towel fresh from the dryer. “I taught Linus how to hotwire a car, which is how you learned.”
“Then I blame you for the grounding of the decade when we got caught.”
“Who do you think turned you in?”
I gasped. “You evil, evil man! We got in so much trouble!”
“Good. You should. You were only fifteen.”
I lifted his shirt and placed my cold hand on his stomach, tracing the muscles that tensed as I slowly teased them. “Tell me more about human you.”
He stretched the arm that wasn’t wrapped around me over his head, hooking his hand under a few of the hammock’s loops. “I have a thing for black licorice.”
“Now you’re just making things up. No one’s that nasty.”
“Hmm… Let’s see. Things about human Jens. That red Partridge Family t-shirt Linus bought you? It was from me. He wanted to get you AC/DC.”
“Aw. A commendable second choice.”
“I played on the soccer team with Linus during the summer sophomore year. Your parents were worried about him breaking bones, but didn’t want to treat him like a sick kid, so I helped keep him from getting hurt.”
“Huh? I was at every one of Linus’s soccer games. I never saw you.”
“No one saw me. I was invisible.”
I kissed his cheek. “It’s so strange that he knew about you and I didn’t. That the whole family did. How could they keep something like that from me? They were all in on it. You two were friends. You hung out and shot the breeze with my parents.”
“There was talk about telling you. I wasn’t opposed, but your dad didn’t want you to know about me. He knew I had a little thing for you and wasn’t willing to box you in like that.”
“Box me in?”
“Yeah. It’s a sports term. It’s when one player –”
“I know what it means. I just don’t know how that would box me in.”
Jens was silent for a minute as he stared up at the wooden overhang that shielded us from the elements. “Think about it. I’m assigned to your family. If we break up, you’re still stuck with me. I’d have to watch you be with someone else. Marry some rich tool. Guard him and your kids. It’s a lot to take. Your dad wanted me to wait until you were twenty-one to introduce us.”
That sure knocked the wind out of my sails. I didn’t know what to say to the pressure that put on our relationship, so I stuck with shtick. “I end up with a rich guy, huh?”
“I’m a rich guy. He’s a rich tool, just to clarify.” He
wound his finger around one of my curls. “You’re deflecting, which means you’re secretly freaking out. Talk.”
“Oh, you think you know me so well. As it happens, I was thinking about what color pony I was going to make you buy me for Christmas, Moneybags. I’m leaning towards purple.”
“A double deflection? Excellent defense, babe. We don’t have to talk about it right now.”
“Good.” I buried my face in his shirt, inhaling the sugar cookie smell of him that chased away the trout-ish scent of the ocean and the fishing boat. Jens chased away a lot of the things that plagued me. We grew quiet as the boat rocked our little hammock. There had been so much danger and fear; it was odd to have whole minutes strung together that held nothing but peace. “Jens?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“When there’s no more danger and Pesta’s good and dead, will you still love me like this?”
He gave a short, soundless laugh. “No. I’ll love you much better than this. We’ll go on actual dates to normal places. We’ll have a house, not an apartment, with that white picket fence you’ve always wanted. We’ll have a garden. Not as good as mine in Tonttu, but good enough to brag to the neighbors.” He kissed my lips, and I could feel emotion swelling in him. “We’ll go to concerts and join a bowling league or something goofy where we get to wear weird shirts but still look totally normal.” His fingers laced through mine and he kissed my knuckles. “No, baby. I’ll love you much better than sleeping on the ground and letting you live in fear.”
I could tell there was more he wanted to say, but I let him keep his secrets. I let him keep me in his arms. I let the waves rock us to sleep. I let myself fall even more in love with my constant protector and most faithful friend.
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