Chapter 28 #2
It was grueling work. Elias had come up with dozens of exercises that required her to both conjure and levitate at the same time, each one more difficult than the last. At two a.m., she accidentally sent Bjorn flying out of his rocking chair and into a tree.
At three, she fell from the sky while trying to hold herself ten feet off the ground and pull a coffee mug out of thin air.
Shortly thereafter, trying to conjure her Valkyrie dagger while running at full speed across the lawn, she accidentally grabbed its blade instead of the hilt; if the dagger weren’t spelled to never cut her skin, it would have left a nasty gash.
But by four, the moon was gone, her energy drink was empty, and she was finally starting to get it. To really get it. The currents within her were violin strings, and she no longer needed to play only one at a time. She could play many, could make chords, could pluck or strum or bow as she pleased.
At six, Elias clapped his hands twice. “Time to go. We need to get you home before your mom wakes up.”
Charlie rolled her shoulders, which were knotted up from six hours of clenching. “It’s a bummer that we didn’t make it to dredging,” she said, sighing. “It feels like all of this was for nothing.”
“For nothing?” Elias laughed. “Are you nuts? In under forty-eight hours, you basically mastered two different types of magic. That’s insane. You should be proud of yourself for what you’ve done, not bummed about what you couldn’t.”
He was right. She was buzzing. Overjoyed. So filled with adrenaline that she almost didn’t process the importance of the compliment Elias had given her. Of the emotion behind it. The genuine pride.
Something was changing. He was changing.
Were his emotions returning? Or did it just feel that way because they were on the same side now?
And since when had she started to believe that they were on the same side?
Charlie’s mind swirled with questions as she zipped up her backpack and shouldered it. Henry scampered over, climbing up her body to sit on her shoulder, little legs dangling down her clavicle. She looked at Elias. “Drive me home?”
“Of course, madam.” He turned around to face the porch and gave the Vikings a salute. “Gentlemen, I’ll see you when we’re back from the trip.”
“Bring more ale when you do,” said Bjorn, raising his mug. “It’s hard to come by when the people at the grocery store can’t actually see you.”
Elias laughed. “Noted.”
After waving good-bye to the Vikings, Charlie and Elias started toward the convertible. For a while, they walked together in comfortable silence. Charlie didn’t feel the need to fill it with anything. Not even a carefully crafted insult. She was perfectly happy just to walk at Elias’s side.
She realized then that she hadn’t thought about her plan for revenge in almost two days. That she didn’t even want to think about it. That should have scared her, but instead it was like a weight lifting from her shoulders. She was floating through the forest.
They could do this. They could save this town.
They were halfway to the car when Elias came to a sudden halt.
When she noticed his absence, Charlie stopped and turned. “What’s up?”
“I, um…” Elias looked away, scratching the back of his head. Briefly, she thought his expression was nervous, but that couldn’t be right … could it?
He looked back at her. “I don’t really know how to say this.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t like where this is going.”
“No, it’s nothing bad,” he said quickly. “It’s just…” He frowned, looking genuinely perplexed. Like he didn’t possess the words for saying what he needed to say. “Well. You know my thoughts on things like feeling and apologizing.”
“You mean … how you’d rather die than do either?”
He pointed at her eagerly. “Exactly. Exactly that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you have a point, Elias?”
“My point is that you get it. You get … well, you get me, for lack of a better way to say it.” He frowned even deeper. “You understand how my mind works. You understand it better than I do, sometimes. And I’m…” He scratched at his hairline. “I think I might be grateful for that.”
Elias said the word grateful like a gourmet chef who couldn’t believe he was admitting to enjoying a box of Kraft mac and cheese.
“What a novelty,” Charlie said dryly.
“I’m serious,” said Elias, who sounded bewildered by the fact. “I like having you around. You’re fun, when you aren’t being insufferably irritating. It’s almost like having a … a…”
She leaned forward, waiting. When he didn’t go on, she supplied, “A friend?”
His forehead wrinkled with distaste. “Gods. Yes. I guess that is the word I’m looking for.”
She snorted. “Right.”
“No, I mean it,” he said. “I … I think I might actually like you, Charlotte.”
Her breath froze halfway down her throat. She worked to keep the surprise off her face, to hide the thumping building in her chest. He didn’t mean like in that way. He was just throwing around another outrageous, falsely flirtatious set of words, meaningless as confetti.
Still, the confetti did something strange to her. Set off a flutter in her stomach, a tightness in her chest. A bundle of reactions that she wished desperately weren’t happening inside her.
Elias tilted his head to one side. “Are you all right?”
“What?” she asked, the word coming out high and breathy.
“I said, are you all right? Your fear just spiked way up. It was like getting hit by a tidal wave.” He frowned, glancing over one shoulder. “Did you see something?”
“Um.” Charlie cleared her throat. “No, I just…”
Odin’s dirty stockings, she cursed inwardly. I hate that he can do that.
Think fast.
“I had a flashback,” she said abruptly. “To homecoming. The first time I saw the Fenrir. I mean … the second time, technically, since I saw him out my bedroom window once. I saw his fangs, and his red eyes, and my brother dangling from his claws…” She trailed off, because now she actually was starting to scare herself.
The panic was rising within her, clutching at her heart and threatening to make her breathless for a very different reason.
“Ah.” Elias’s face fell. “Right. Of course. That was … well, you did almost die that night. It makes sense that you’d think about it from time to time.”
Well, that was blatantly ridiculous. “From time to time?” she asked, incensed. “You think I only remember that night from time to time?”
“I mean, maybe it’s more than that,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t kn—”
“No,” she cut him off. “No, you don’t know. You have no idea what it’s like to have gone through that night. To have almost died. To have watched your best friends and brother almost die.”
Her voice was growing louder, angrier, filling with all the emotion she worked so hard to keep at bay. She didn’t want Elias to know how deeply his betrayal had cut her, but she couldn’t help it. The words were spilling from her, impossible to shut off.
“Every morning, I wake up feeling like I’m being watched.
Like there’s someone right outside my window that I can’t actually see.
And every night, when I close my eyes to go to sleep, the first thing I see are the Fenrir’s fangs.
His claws. His glowing red eyes. The nights I do manage to nod off, I wake only a few hours later, panting, covered in cold sweat, convinced I’m seconds from death. ”
Elias’s brow was furrowed. He looked … confused. Lost. His lips twitched, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how.
“And the worst part,” she said, voice shaking, “is that it was all because of someone I trusted. Someone who I believed was on my side, who cared about me, but who was only ever looking out for himself. Looking to get what he wanted.”
He blinked back at her, expression blank.
“Well,” she said, heart pounding as she waited for his response. “Am I wrong?”
Please say yes, begged a tiny voice in her head. Please tell me I’m wrong.
Elias’s lips hung open. For a moment, it looked as if he wouldn’t be able to respond at all. Like a wire in his brain had short-circuited, her lecture breaking something inside of him that she hadn’t known existed in the first place.
But it was only a moment. Then he came back to himself, recovering his ability to speak.
“No,” he said at last. “No, you’re not wrong.”
Charlie’s heart sank. She dropped her eyes to the ground, ashamed that she’d expected anything else.
“But…”
She looked back up.
“What’s that phrase?” He rubbed his jaw, as if thinking deeply. “The one about how time changes everything? Even distractingly handsome, nearly perfect men who are usually right but occasionally make spectacular fuckups and would love to be forgiven for them?”
For several seconds, Charlie could only stare at him.
Then she burst out laughing.
Her laughter was loud and true, startling not only a pack of vibrantly colored birds from the branches above them but also Elias, whose eyes widened at the sound. At first, he could only watch in disbelief, but his face quickly spread into a grin.
“Elias,” she said through laughter, “that sounded suspiciously like an apology.”
“From me?” He gasped, holding a hand to his chest. “Never. Though I can’t be held responsible for any subtext that might be read into my words.”
Charlie tossed her head back and laughed louder. She felt as light as the leaves falling from the trees, as if someone had filled her body with air. It was a bizarre feeling, after so many weeks of barely suppressed dread.
She might very well be making a huge mistake. What was the quote that Lou once told her about insanity? Madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Something like that.
By that logic, trusting Elias after what he did on homecoming was akin to insanity. He had lied to her before. And doesn’t inviting a liar back into your life just open the door to more lies?
Still, as they resumed their walk to the car, the autumn breeze toying with her hair and carrying her laughter up into the trees, Charlie couldn’t help but wonder if she wasn’t giving too much weight to Lou’s words.
After all, which was more insane: repeating an action you’ve already taken, or living your life based on some words your sixteen-year-old best friend found on Instagram?
Maybe it was time Charlie stopped making decisions based on other people’s advice.
Maybe it was time she started deciding right from wrong all on her own.