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Hettie
“ A re you sure you’re ready for this?” Mabel asks.
The air is cold on the very edge of Laandia, but the water is colder. I forget how long it would take to get hypothermia in the water, and I also forget how long it has been since I put a toe in the Atlantic.
My sister and I walk along the beach on the edge of town. When people think of Laandia, no one gives the beach much thought. It’s a fishing village—town, these days—and the pier is the heartbeat of Battle Harbour. But it’s on the eastern edge of North America, and where there is ocean, there is beach.
My toes, already chilled from my inadequate boots, itch to walk along the sandy strip. It’s the only beachy beach in all of Laandia; the rest of the coastline is either sharp rocks jutting up from the water, making it disastrous for boats and swimming, or strips of pebbles, worn smooth from the constant waves that will easily knock you down if you go in the water the wrong way. But it’s a beach and I love it. Even though I’ve lived in British Columbia for years, with beaches full of sand and calm water, I still love Battle Harbour’s beach best of all .
I sometimes wonder how the Vikings ever thought this country would be habitable but then I think of the prettiness of the harbour. They must have come ashore in their longboats at just the right spot.
This morning, the first morning in eight years that I’ve been back in my home country, I woke to find all the carefully constructed walls in my mind had crashed and burned. One night in Battle Harbour, and I can’t get away from Bo.
He’s in my mind. He’s all over my mind. Everything reminds me of him—the trees surrounding the town, standing tall and unyielding, the roads we travelled looking for the perfect spot to confess our love, the castle on the hill where he grew up.
The spot behind the high school where he told me we should have never gotten married.
When I woke up this morning, the school was visible from the window, and that was the only thing I could think about. Replaying the moment Prince Bo of Laandia—the man that only a short time earlier had professed his undying love and commitment to me—broke my heart.
I hadn’t even wanted to get married but Bo convinced me. I loved him but my life was far from a fairy tale, and the only place a girl like me got the prince was in a fairy tale.
But I went along with his wild plan because I loved Bo Erickson more than anything.
And still, he broke my heart. Crushed it really. Saying marrying me was a mistake, that he never should have thought it would work out, that we couldn’t be together.
It was like when I was swimming and got caught in the undertow. I didn’t fight or flail because I knew there was nothing I could do but surrender and let it drag me down. Listening to Bo say those things, I let myself be dragged down.
Until Mabel pulled me up.
She dragged me to my feet after Bo. It was Mabel who told me to get out of Laandia. Granted, she had been telling me that all of my life, but this time I listened. And Mabel worked with someone in the castle to help because the press was still swarming after Queen Selene’s death and to see the girlfriend of Prince Bo fleeing town like a criminal would have led the swarm straight to me.
Bo had always hated the press. The lack of privacy. The demands that the people have a right to know more about him, intimate details that he doesn’t want to share.
No one should want to share their first kiss with the public.
I hunch my shoulders, my hands digging into my pockets. Eight years away will make you forget just how brutally cold a March wind can be blowing in from the Atlantic. The sun is bright but offers no warmth. I clearly don’t have enough clothing packed to keep warm during my visit and I never even thought to bring gloves.
I am not ready for any of this. I’m not ready for the cold, I’m not ready to deal with my family, and I’m definitely not ready to see Bo.
“How did you get the job at The King’s Hat?” I ask instead. There were a few surprises when I got back into town yesterday, but one of the big ones was that my big sister Mabel is now the manager of the pub owned by Prince Kalle.
Mabel smirks, well aware of my dodging of her question but always willing to have the attention focused on her. “Edie hired me. She’s going to be queen, you know? Guess there’s not enough time to run a bar and prep for that.”
“Yes, we get news of the royal family of Laandia all the way over in British Columbia,” I tell her drily.
“I didn’t know if you ignore news about them like you do our family.” There’s no bitterness or disappointment in Mabel’s tone. I don’t have much in common with Mabel, and never have, but one thing we can agree on is that we’d much rather be part of any other family than the one we are saddled with.
And she does have a point. I haven’t gone out of my way to search for news of King Magnus and his family since I left, but I don’t turn off the television when there is a story featuring them either.
Like Prince Kalle’s engagement to Edie England. I also watched coverage of Prince Odin’s wedding to Lady Camille and his subsequent abdication.
I couldn’t help thinking about how I would have been at that wedding if things had been different.
“I don’t ignore news about the royals or anyone,” I say.
“You should,” Mabel scoffs. “You’re how far away from here? It’s a lot easier to pretend the fam doesn’t exist from there than be like me and try to hide my head in the sand every time one of our idiot brothers breaks into somewhere else, or starts a fight. Or refuses to pay their pay tab.”
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“So?” she presses.
“I don’t know if I’m ready,” I admit. “But it’s time, don’t you think?”
Mabel snorts. “I think it’s way past time. But why now? ”
I’ve kept in contact with Mabel over the years, but she doesn’t know what the years have been like for me.
I’m not about to get into it now.
And Mabel knows I’m not about to talk about it. “And Abigail came back with you?” she asks instead.
Abigail Locke has been my best friend since I was born, seeing as her mother shared a hospital room with mine. We were born seven hours apart and not a day has gone by where we haven’t talked. When I made the move to British Columbia, Abigail never questioned whether she would come with me—she just quit her job and bought a one-way ticket.
“She did. She’s at her mom’s. I’m staying there.”
“I would.”
The house we grew up in had always been full of tension and toxicity, and the one good thing about leaving had been knowing I didn’t have to live with that any longer.
Mabel wouldn’t let me feel guilty about leaving her behind.
I crouch and pick up a piece of blue glass worn smooth from the waves. Mabel would always bring me here when things got bad at home.
They were bad a lot.
Seven children, Mabel and I being the only girls.
Our father tried, but he is and always has been a fisherman, often heading out in the boat for weeks at a time. And when he wasn’t on the ocean, he was in a bar dealing with the heartbreak of our mother running out on him and leaving all of us, including five-year-old Earl.
She left the day my little brother started kindergarten. She dropped him off and never came back to pick him up .
The two oldest Crow brothers—Hank and Lloyd—had already left home by then, and we heard about them more than we saw them: the fights, the breaking-and-entering arrests, stealing cars. Hank now owns a garage in nearby Mary’s Harbour, but Lloyd is serving a twenty-year sentence for manslaughter.
My other brother Reggie is also in prison for starting a fire that burned down two farms and at least ten acres of forest. It had been expected that he would end up in jail for something.
Mabel was six years older than me and took care of the rest of us the best she could. Earl, the youngest, is now a fisherman like our father and, also like him, spends his free time in the bars of Battle Harbour. Tommy was the one who got away—he lives in Halifax now and we exchange Christmas emails.
“When are you seeing him?” Mabel asks as I slip the piece of glass in my pocket.
Bo, not Tommy. It’s been eight years since I’ve seen my husband.
Husband.
I’ve hidden the fact I have a husband for years. I pull it out now, like a folded receipt you find in an old jacket.
“Tomorrow.” There is a note of determination in my voice that I don’t feel. I’m not about to let Mabel know how much I’m dreading this.
And how excited I am.
How terrified and yet looking forward to seeing him in person. Has he changed? What is he like now?
How does he feel about me?
That, though, is not a question I should ask anymore.
I left, Bo didn’t stop me, and our lives have gone on.
It’s for the best.