8. Helene
Helene
An unnatural call to the rune stones hounds me through sleep.
I tossed and turned for hours, the fight relived behind closed lids.
The troll lunges, swinging the club in a hit designed to demolish everything in its path. I jump over it, muscles warming, blood singing. There. An opening to the left. Barely noticing the way the massive raven pursues the troll. The way it flies to peck out the final remaining eye.
The way the raven suddenly becomes a man.
I woke with my heart hammering and sweat plastering my tank top to my skin.
The raven was Forest. And then we’d sat around the salvaged dinner table like a family out of a fucking sitcom.
Why hadn’t I asked him more questions?
Why hadn’t I paid better attention to his answers?
I slap a hand to my forehead. I fed the man crusts of bread. Fucking hell, what am I doing?
Having a well-deserved menty b.
Well-deserved or not, the timing is poor, and I can’t get my breathing under control. Glancing at Audra, still sleeping, I tiptoe from the bedroom.
Sunlight barely pries through the thin curtains over the living room windows before I’m reaching for the bag. No.
Those are Esmerelda’s fair and square. I sold them and bought...damn, I don’t know. It was right after we moved here, and Mom...
She—
And in my shower, longer than the one last night, my fingers twitch, ready to pull a rune I should not.
Thurisaz had been spot on the money.
A troll, seriously.
My heart kicks into high gear, and I slap a hand to the wall until the water goes chilly.
The world has always been a place where mysteries lurk and the unsolved fascinate. I know better. We’ve seen most of the sacred spots on the west coast, lived there and left as soon as we memorized the strange energy of every new location.
Now we’re here, and we’ve settled, and something extraordinary has happened in a way I can’t ignore.
Audra still isn’t up by the time I’ve finished making coffee.
Now, the bag stares at me, the cords looped over each other like accusations. A thief. They’d belonged to my mother, not to me.
My leg bobs underneath the table and I snake my hand out to grab the strings of the satchel. I’ll take them right back to Esmerelda. She’ll forgive the slight.
She’s always been nice enough to us.
Audra balanced on her metal legs, working the crutches to hop forward. “What do you have?”
“Mom’s runes.” There’s no sense in hiding it from her.
“I thought you—”
“I did,” I’m quick to interrupt. “I saw them at the festival and put them in my underwear when the troll attacked. The Spanx held them in, I guess.”
She sets her crutches aside and balances on unsteady legs as she maneuvers in the chair. “Sneaky. I never thought we’d see them again.”
I tap out an uneven rhythm with my fingers until Audra groans.
“Do it already instead of staring at them.”
She’s right. I’ve been putting this off.
The leather bag, the contents, they’re too much of a memory.
Unwinding the strings will unleash our Mom and the way she used to weave flowers into crowns.
The way she’d stretch a can of Spaghetti-O's into two meals for two of us, never herself.
Hers was a life forged in mistakes and misfortune.
But these runes, she treasured. They moved with us through each new adventure.
Audra’s pulse ticks on the side of her neck, her long curls secured in twin braids. Her dark gaze meets mine.
With her watching, I untie the strings and unfasten the bag, centering myself. I close my eyes before reaching inside the depths and stretch my breathing into something slow and methodical.
I’m not my mother. She found her answers in the crystal and bone.
I never had.
Why would today be different?
If anyone inherited her gift of insight, it’s Audra, not me.
The living room windows are open, the fresh cool breeze pushing away the age in the apartment.
I’m centered and calm. I ask my higher self to answer for me now, and to give me the solution I seek for the highest good of all.
I pull another rune like I used to, the way my mother taught me, clutching the piece in my hand. It’s crystal this time. I know from the sharp edges and corners of the cut.
“What is it?” Audra asks. Her voice is distant.
I slowly uncurl my fingers and resting on my palm is Perthro (? ).
Sadness wells, slick as oil. “Chance,” I explain, turning it over in circles. “Mystery, fate. Destiny. The unpredictability of life.”
Yeah, no kidding.
Uncertainty is our bread and butter.
I changed schools so many times I can’t count a single friend I made who’s stuck with me. Only my sister, and she has no choice. Even college hadn’t been an option after what happened.
“It can also signify hidden knowledge or secrets, or the need to adapt to ever-changing circumstances.”
“Or, hear me out,” Audra puts in. “If you interpret it positively, it can point to taking control over your own destiny. It was upright. Not reversed.”
Reversed would make more sense for us. Inverted indicates bad luck, or disillusionment.
“It’s fine.” I slip the rune into the pocket of my jeans. “It’s a good omen for the day. Which is great because I have to head into work. Those bookshelves aren’t going to arrange themselves alphabetically.”
Not to mention, Barnes will want a full catalog of the inventory lost under the stampede.
I push away from the table to the tune of Audra’s groan. “You know it’s better to do it by genre,” she replies.
“You know how Barnes is.”
The glyph burns a hole in my pocket through breakfast, oatmeal and frozen strawberries. The freezer section is our best friend because I find things on sale and save them for later.
At least something in our apartment works. The fridge might go too warm at times and too cold at others, but the freezer is great.
I bend to kiss Audra on top of the head even as she pushes me away. “You good?”
“Yeah. Laverne is coming to help me get to therapy today. She’ll pick me up at ten.”
Audra’s weathering the troll disaster better than I am. Her shoulders are thrown back, a healthy glow on her dusky cheeks, and her eyes bright.
I can’t ask for more. “God bless Laverne.” Sometimes our landlady did good. “Text me if you have any issues. Or if you want to talk.”
“Are you okay, Helene? I know you like to pretend there’s nothing wrong, but our lives changed yesterday.”
She folds her hands around her mug of coffee, graced with more creamer than a diabetic can dream of.
“For the sake of my sanity, I’m going to brush the troll incident under the rug,” I reply.
Is it safe to go outside?
Audra sighs. “Then I guess I’ll see you after my appointment.”
Should I let her?
I stop in the doorway, fingers frozen on the overloaded hook, our winter coats draping to the floor. “Hey, kid? Why are you so casual about all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, anyone else with half a brain would run screaming and not look back.” My tongue knots.
“You’re not running,” she says with enough snark to pickle an onion.
“Apparently I should be.” There’s still time. Right?
Audra shrugs. “It means I’m right, Hel. It means Mom was right all those times she felt like it was time to run. There’s more out there than we know what to deal with. ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’"
I scoff. “Don’t spout Shakespeare at me. We have a big problem, and if I make it through the day…”
“I know. It’s on the calendar. Big talk. You and me.”
“Love you big,” I add before shrugging on my coat.
“Love you bigger.”
Laverne Anderson owns the rickety Victorian but stays in a neat new build on the other side of town. Fortunately for us, she keeps the rent reasonable and also helps drive Audra to her therapy appointments at Lewis Gale, because unlike us, Laverne has herself a nice minivan.
I jog down the front steps, squinting in the scalding light and patting the rune in my pocket like I would keys. Then the potent scent of roasting coffee hooks me straight through the nostrils, and I stop in my tracks.
How bad would it be to treat myself to a basic bitch designer coffee? It’s pumpkin spice season, after all. And the cafe does a mean oat milk latte.
My gut grumbles, settles, and if I’m going to face Barnes I’ll require fortification more than frozen strawberries can provide.
“Course correction.”
I glance both ways then jog across the street between cars. I don’t need chia seeds from the grocery store. It’s a trade I’m willing to make as I push open the door and step inside my own personal heaven.
Of course, The Hollow Grind already has a line snaking toward the sidewalk. It’s too good not to be the most popular spot in town. This close to the start of the working day, neighbors and tourists have the same idea—caffeine before commitments.
“Screw it.” My stomach gives an unholy yowl at being deprived its dopamine fix.
Instead of turning around to give into its demands, I purposely stomp in the opposite direction, shrugging my jacket higher.
The wind tugs loose hairs free of the messy braid winding along my spine. I slide my hands in my pockets, purse hitting against my leg with every step.
Joggers hunch against the wind, two of them in bright neon pink and orange, working their arms in time with their legs. “Did you hear what happened at the Longship Festival yesterday?”
My gut takes a deep dive off a short plank and I stop to let them pass. And to eavesdrop.
“Yeah, some kind of earthquake?”
“I heard they’re calling it a problem with one of the gas lines.”
Their voices fade when they prance out of view but I gawk after them. What kind of fools would call a troll throwing a tantrum a gas line problem?
I shake my head, hands in my pockets.
There were plenty of other people there to see the same thing I did. Witnesses might not be credible but put enough of them together and no matter how you stretch the blanket of mass hysteria, it amounts to the same thing. A crazy, insane, ludicrous, and somehow miraculous truth.
Gossip buzzes between businesses opening up for the day.