Chapter 2 #2
It was upon Charlie before she even knew it was coming. The terror. The lightheadedness. The sense of doom, of danger just around the next tree. It grasped Charlie without warning, squeezing her chest so tightly that she found it hard to breathe. She clapped one hand to her breastbone.
Not this, she thought, dizziness overtaking her. Not again.
Her hands trembled. Her heart pounded unnaturally fast, the sound thumping against her eardrums. She no longer had control over her own body, and it was terrifying.
This wasn’t the first time she’d had one of these episodes since homecoming night.
They came with disturbing regularity, creeping into her body whenever she thought too closely about the danger they were in, or the situation with Mason, or what the Fenrir looked like when she sliced nearly all its teeth off, or the expression of pure shock on Loki’s face right before he vanished.
That entire night had been an exercise in repression. Repressing the terror, the anger, the cutting betrayal. She’d just needed to get through the night alive. To make sure the people she loved came out on the other side.
Once they did—when she was finally safe in her bedroom after arguing with Mason—there was finally time for everything to come crashing down.
And it did.
It had been awful. She couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think. The room had tilted sideways, and a roaring filled her ears.
She couldn’t hear anything but that roar and the hammering of her heart.
It was beating so hard, so fast. Too hard.
Too fast. It couldn’t be healthy. What if it beat so fast that it gave out entirely?
Is that what’s happening? she’d thought. Is this a heart attack? Am I dying? Did I fight off a draugar and a gigantic wolf and monster made of shadow only to die of a heart attack in the safety of my own bedroom?
She’d fumbled with the skirt of her torn-up dress, extracting her cell phone from one of its many hidden pockets. The screen glowed too brightly when she turned it on. She squinted against the light, opening a browser and typing the words can you have a heart attack at sixteen. She hit Search.
Pages and pages of results loaded. Links to WebMD, the Mayo Clinic, Quora, Reddit.
Charlie couldn’t read a single one. They blurred together, a mass of blue and black words on a bright-white background.
Her heart pounded. Her hands shook. She had no idea what was happening to her. Death was surely imminent.
The closest Charlie had ever come to this feeling was right after Sophie “died.” Back then, she’d felt crushing grief, like a river set to drown her, every ounce of joy suffocated from her body, skin bloated with sadness. It had been unbearable. She’d wanted to shut it all off.
And she had. By focusing every bit of her energy on learning close-up magic, she’d done just that.
She knew, as her back pressed to her bedroom door and her heart threatened to slam its way out of her chest, what she had to do.
Magic had saved her from her grief by providing a distraction.
That was exactly what Charlie needed: a distraction to save her from whatever awful thing was happening inside her brain. She needed a plan.
And there, on the floor of her bedroom, she made one.
First, she would enlist Bjorn’s and Vidar’s help to teach her and the people she loved how to fight. How to defend themselves from the creatures that lurked in the woods.
Then, once she was strong enough, she would carry out the next part.
I will kill Elias, she thought, her heartbeat slowing with every delicious word. I will make myself strong, and I will kill him. And once I do, I will never trust a boy with my heart again.
From his place on her shoulder, Henry poked Charlie’s neck. She jolted, shaken from her thoughts, and glanced down. Henry made little circles with his arms, then pointed to Charlie’s chest.
She knew what he was getting at. Not only could Henry tell whenever she was in danger, but he could also tell when her body thought it was in danger—even if there was no threat in her direct vicinity. Every time one of these episodes clutched at Charlie, Henry showed up at her side.
He was reminding her of what she needed to do. Of the three tricks she had to take her focus off the darkness swelling within her, to keep it from swallowing her entirely:
Research, train, recite.
Research meant taking out a book or her laptop and diving into her studies on Norse mythology.
Train meant grabbing the spatula hidden in her bedside table and using it to practice the Vikings’ sword-fighting techniques, the closet mirror her only opponent.
And recite … recite was the distraction she could use anytime, anywhere, no props necessary.
As she walked through the trees, she closed her eyes and recited the words:
You will make yourself strong.
You will find Elias.
You will kill Elias.
You will never trust a boy with your heart again.
It was her mantra. A version of the promise she’d made to herself on homecoming night. A prayer that she recited whenever the terror threatened to close in, to dunk her beneath its water and drown her, as surely as the tide itself.
Now, she could feel the mantra working its power. Could feel her heart slowing down, her breath lengthening, the trembling in her hands starting to recede. She was okay. Her friends were okay. There was nothing in the forest trying to hurt them.
She exhaled in relief.
They were okay.
With that comforting thought in mind, she reached out and pushed aside a cluster of pine branches, ready to lead the way back to the old house …
Only for her eyes to land on two dead bodies splayed out on a bed of fallen leaves.