Chapter 11 #2
I cross the street to go and meet him. “You should take a break, Dr. Coalstone. You’ve been working all day and night.”
“Margaret,” he greets with that deep voice that causes butterflies to take flight in my belly. “No, I can’t stop. My job is to watch all the instruments and keep in contact with Molten Lava.”
I stare at him, remembering how it felt to be so close to him, last night, in the hallway.
I thought for a moment that he was going to kiss me and then I regained my sanity and told him to step back, for the both of us.
Vows intact. It was basically one of the most difficult moments of my life.
I literally deserve a medal for pushing that Hyrrokin away, instead of pulling down his pants and getting on my knees, right there, in the hallway.
“How’s it going out along the back wall? ” I manage to ask with a level voice.
“It’s on automatic right now. I’m here because I thought it would be a good idea for me to take a short break and see the lay of the land out here.”
“You haven’t seen anything unusual yet?”
“No, only Yarik Vail again, but that’s because he’s out here studying the alignment too.”
“Hmm.”
Then he looks at me properly for the first time. “Are you wearing a costume?”
“I am,” I laugh. “But not everyone realizes it’s even a costume and none of them recognize it. Avery is the only being in this community who understands what it means. I suppose this is why we are such close friends.”
“I only see you dressed in a long outer layer and you have that word pinned to your fabric. Believe. What does it signify?”
“It’s from a show,” I say. “A black market show I watch from Earth, the original planet of my species. There were these two highly effective investigators, a male and a female who eventually became mates, working odd cases and one of them believed in everything and one of them was a skeptic who believed in nothing, and they worked every case together for years, and the one who believed had a sign on his wall that said Believe.”
Vidar considers this. “Did they resolve their disagreement?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“Not really, but it did not affect the longevity of their relationship.”
“Then it was still a functional partnership,” he says. “And possibly the best kind.”
And I have to look at the sky for a second, so I don’t wrap my arms around him and kiss him right there, in front of everyone.
“The alignment is in approximately one hour,” Vidar comments. He’s watching the moons. “Full dark is the window every account describes and it is the entire reason I am on this planet.”
“I’m coming with you,” I say.
“No. I still need to be alone out there tonight. Every sensor on that line is calibrated against one heat signature, which is mine. A second body in the field changes the baseline. If something registers tonight and there are two of us out there, then a Fellow reads my findings in six months and says there was an unaccounted signature in the field and the entire night goes in the bin. The second reason,” he says, taking my hand in his.
“Is that I need to focus and with you nearby, I cannot focus.”
“Okay,” I sigh.
“Margaret, when this is all over, even if it is ten months from now, I’m going to take you to my bedroom and we will lock the door and spend an entire week in bed together. But right now…”
I hold up both hands. “You’re right. I’ll remain here, with the kids.”
Something in his face eases. “Thank you for understanding.”
“But Vidar. When it’s done,” I say, wagging a finger at him, “you come find me. I don’t care what hour it is.”
“I will come and find you,” he promises.
Halloween winds down slowly.
The little ones go first. Sela’s been asleep on Hannibal’s shoulder for an hour with her felt horns squashed sideways. Mitry hits the wall in the way four-year-olds hit walls — sugar-drunk and furious about being tired, sobbing with rage in her mother’s arms about a pumpkin that isn’t even hers.
Riley finally stops the live stream and stands in the middle of the drive with her tablet at her side and looks up at the sky like a woman who has accomplished something important.
The gourds are burning down. Some have gone out. The ones on the lake are still going, reflected, all the way across the water.
And the moons are nearly touching now.
They cast an unusual glittering, pink-red across the land. The houses and landscaping, the paths, and the faces of the beings around me, all of it washed in something between silver and rose. There are no shadows anywhere, because two light sources at that angle cancel each other out.
Beings have stopped pretending to do anything else except watch in awe at the alignment above them. They’re just standing along the drive that circles the lake, which has the best view. Some beings are in their yards and others on balconies. All of them with their heads tipped back.
“Have you seen Dagr?” Avery questions, casually, from beside me.
“Not for a while.” I scan the drive. “The last I saw him, he’d left Mitry with you and was with Kari and Loge.”
“Kari and Loge are over there.”
I look and see two small Hyrrokin still dressed as humans in pale cloth, faces powdered gray, eating candy on the community center steps.
“He probably walked somebody home.”
“Yeah.” Avery’s already turning. “Riley! Have you got Dagr on your map?”
Riley checks the live route map and lets her know that she does not have Dagr tagged on it anymore.
And now we’re concerned because how is that possible?
It goes wrong in stages and each stage is worse than the last.
Somebody saw Dagr near the community center, but that was twenty minutes ago. No, actually that was an hour ago. Chloe thinks he came past the dragon house, but she was handing out treats and it was busy. Bestla says she saw him but then realizes it was another teenager who looks similar to Dagr.
Avery calls his comm but doesn’t get an answer.
She calls it again.
“He never turns it off.” Avery frowns. “Margaret, he never turns it off because the whole condition of him being out here tonight was him having that on.”
Avery strides over to her husband and tells him the problem. Team Molten Lava is instantly activated.
That’s all it takes. Bergelmir is on comms, and Skoll is scouting for the teen, and then Idun joins in the search. A security vehicle lights up at the far end of the drive. The whole vibe of the night changes so fast half the community is still standing in the road looking at the moons, unaware.
And I am not panicking yet because I truly believe they will find Dagr hiding out somewhere he shouldn’t.
But then somebody checks the back gate to the preserve.
I hear it come over the comm at Hannibal’s shoulder, tinny and flat, and I am close enough to hear every word.
“Cap. Rear gate’s standing open.”
Bergelmir’s voice: “Say again?”
“Rear gate. Open. Not forced.”
“And the wulver’s gone.”
My stomach sinks.