2. Helene
Helene
Ihit the man, sparks flying where our skin meets, and heat flashes up my arms where the feathers of his cloak brush my skin. The collision jolts through my bones despite the inches separating us.
Yeah. Audra is right.
He’s got to be close to seven feet tall and blocks the slim space between the leatherworker’s tents, one selling pouches and belts and another with lines of drinking horns.
Dread knocks against my ribs. I ran over Leif-fucking-Erikson.
I inhale sharply through my nose, and the scent of him brands itself inside. Mint. Salt. Musk.
“What are you, made of iron?” The snark snaps out of me before I clamp down on the words. “You’re a wall of muscle.”
I hadn’t noticed the man, but now that we’ve collided, he’s impossible to miss. And worth more points.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean...the chair got away from me. Are you okay?" I ask.
Wild, dirty blond hair flies in mad waves around his face, peppered through with intricate braids from his temples. War paint streaks intimidating lines across golden skin, emphasizing dark eyes. Against the stark white of the feathered collar, he’s a study of contrasts.
Cloak feathers brush my arm—black, sharp-edged, wrong for daylight—and I’m already blurting out a follow-up apology when his eyes catch mine. They’re steady and perceptive, and the words die in my throat.
I take a massive step in the opposite direction, the seams of my costume creaking. I’m not about to judge his outfit. At least his is realistic. Too realistic. The ax is honed enough to cut a thought.
I don’t know him. But my body reacts like I do.
Something in my chest stumbles, recognition without a memory, and for a beat the festival disappears, even Audra in her chair.
“You’re one of the performers, aren’t you?” I ask. “For the feast at the end of the night. Or one of the rowers on the longship?”
It makes sense, but the trickle of nerves devolves into something else. Something dark. Hot.
I edge myself between him and my sister on instinct. Surprise is a lightning strike when the man laughs.
“Where are you going, little Shieldmaiden?” The rough words come out almost sweet. He stands taller, and my legs tremble.
Deep voice, the kind designed to quiver even the most stubborn parts of a woman.
And the tone, more than a little condescending.
The last tendrils of fear disappear, but the resulting emotion is a mixed bag at a thrift store and I’m not positive what I’ve got. Irritation, sure. Frustration. Repentance. And lust?
Good to know things haven’t shut up shop at the ripe age of twenty-eight, although the years of celibacy have made me eligible for a nunnery.
I glance down at the axe again, then back up to his eyes to find him already watching me with amusement.
His expression shouldn’t undo me, but it does—intense, unsettling, the kind of stare like a claim.
“Shieldmaiden?” Audra eeps in surprise. “You? Helene? You’ve got it wrong. She’s a bookstore clerk.”
“I haven’t heard the term,” I mutter.
“Because you haven’t been paying attention to Mom’s story.”
I’m silent for a beat.
Both of us fixate on the sway of feathers on the man’s cloak and a thud goes through my cold, responsible heart before he tips his head.
“Enjoy your day, ladies. Well met.”
Late, so late, but I stay and mark the moment the man dissolves into the crowd. “Well. Was that weird.”
I mean it as a question but it comes out a statement.
I clear the crud from my throat and throw the wheelchair into motion. “He’s obviously got paint in his eyes. I’m wearing the wrong costume.”
The getup is full on milkmaid, something I’m positive Mr. Barnes bought at least a decade ago from the Spirit Halloween store on clearance. The bust is too steep and the skirt too high, my blonde hair clumped into much cruder and lazier braids than the Viking warrior.
He’s a professional, clearly.
I have to laugh.
“Oh, don’t pretend you weren’t checking him out from top to bottom,” Audra says. “He was objectively hot.”
“Too hot for me.”
But my sister’s on a winning streak now. “He was staring at your cleavage. I don’t think he was too hot for you. I think he would give you a tumble in the hay if you wanted. Wrong costume or not, he didn't care.”
I consider an eye roll and stuff it aside.
How many times had she heard mom use those words? Struggling to laugh through her tears and make light of everything by picking out an actor or singer, a flavor of the month, to pretend fuck?
That’s the thing about struggle. You learn to train yourself to tuck your emotions away rather than wearing them on your sleeve. It’s safer to be heartless.
“Let’s go, Audra.” I don’t ask her what level of points I lost by ogling the man.
He sticks to the corners of my mind like glue until the stall swims into view. Cardboard boxes with the flaps pushed together lean against the sides of the booth, ready for me to unpack.
The rest of the festival started without us, thanks to Audra’s earlier episode.
Mitzi Jones needs no announcer with her hot pink track suit. She’s already got cell phone in hand, punching out numbers and staring down a long, hooked nose at me with a pointed expression.
Barnes will hear about my tardiness.
What else is new?
“I got it from here, okay?” Audra rests her palm on mine. “I’ll go search for the spare battery while you do what you do. And once I find it, I’m checking something…”
“What?”
She swivels left to right then lowers her voice and mumbles, “A clue in mom’s journal. There’s a pattern to what she highlighted. It’s a map.”
“Audra…”
“Who knows. It might have something to do with why we moved here.”
I flash her a grateful grin before tottering on wooden legs to the job I said I’d get done an hour ago. “Grab the battery, okay? It’s buried in our stuff somewhere.”
“Hey, I’m sorry.”
I huff out an irritable laugh. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault. The thing was working yesterday and had a full charge. I'm not sure what's wrong with it.”
"I don't mean the battery. Hel. I mean...my bully."
Easier, always, to label her disease a bully. Naming it only leaves me fuming and helpless and Audra unsettled.
This festival, this potential for extra income, isn’t dead in the water yet with our tardiness. There’s still time to make it work.
She arches perfect chocolatey brown eyebrows toward the rogue curls on her forehead.
I don’t see her. I see our mother, the rueful way she used to watch the two of us like we were somehow a blessing and a burden at the same time. Too much imagination, Mom always said.
A hint of me peeks through in Audra’s face, though. Only the freckles. Those are the one roadmap of genetics we share.
“We would have been fine if your battery hadn’t blown,” I reply, already exhausted. "It's not your fault."
Her owlish eyes call me a liar.
Life warped my bones and made an old maid of me. When do the struggles curl up and die, like a bug on a hot sidewalk? When is the money going to do something rather than stretch like a contortionist at a circus?
When will I be able to stop making two cents out of a penny?
The costume stretches uncomfortably against all my soft places but within fifteen more minutes, the setup comes together, much to the amusement of the crowd churning between tents.
Barnes is an eclectic prick. The bookstore in town isn’t the dominant draw of Nightshade Hollow but he’s turned it out today with books, vintage odds and ends, and some local crafts with a Scandinavian or Norse flair.
I step back with my hands on my hips. “Handiwork admired, check. Square fully charged and connected to Wi-fi, check.”
Audra snaps the new battery back in place and wheels forward with a discordant buzz. “Are you sure you want the purple table runner?” She strokes the frayed edges. “Camille donated it with so much other crap after her Aunt Velma died.”
“It’s got these cool runic patterns near the fringe. It will work.” I tug the tablecloth to pull the fraying fabric from Audra’s pinched fingers. “It’s still attractive.”
A few adjustments and the offending corner is hidden where none of the customers will see unless they bend down with a magnifying glass, and if they do, good for them. That’s dedication.
A raven circles the tents across the muddy aisle from me. I click my tongue at it before it flies away. The one I noticed earlier?
I like to think so but animals have never really liked me. Not like Snow White. I don't have the gift.
The stench of damp and musty air carries the echo of the festival-goers through the tent. A sneeze tickles the inside of my nose.
I hold my breath while the sensation passes and grab a headband, clenching it until my skin smarts.
Within the hour the field is packed with bodies. Sounds and noise and sales.
I rub my hands together working my thumbs free of any kinks or taut tendons, as I’d done for the past sixty minutes. The aches aren’t a surprise.
People inch forward and form shapes in the horde, searching booths for mementos and keepsakes of their time with us.
It takes another thirty minutes before the lull in the thinning crowd lets me breathe again. The air thickens with shadows and cloud cover, night coming sooner with the changing season.
“Hey, you hungry, kid?”
I toss a headband at Audra and she snaps it up, pushing her curls away from her face, framing her scowl.
“Twenty-two. Not a kid,” she says.
It doesn’t matter if she’s old enough to drink or not.
She’ll always be kid. She has to be because it’s the cutesy label Mom called her, and when so many loved ones are ghosts, at least the name hasn’t died yet.
I won’t let it be buried with the woman who used to hold Audra’s hand and skip her through Joshua Tree National Park.
A yell rings out from the river and at the docks, the audience lifting their arms in a unanimous cheer as the first longboat pushes through the murky water.
Brown and silver currents hide the whirlpools, but the men on either side muscling the oars cut through them.