26. Helene
Helene
Iache for a kiss that never happened.
I remember the sensation of Nicholas’s large hand on my neck and the almost press of his lips to mine. The tension of waiting to do more than share the same air.
Disappointment isn’t a good look on anyone, and certainly not on me. I’m not sure why it matters.
I remember Wren’s fingers on my waist. How he knew where to touch until I came apart for him.
Or Forest’s mouth, the bruising heat. My body reacting against my will.
My gut tells me something about Nicholas that's probably not correct.
It says he’ll be the roughest, the hungriest, barely restrained and brutal. And when a man who prides himself on restraint finally lets go, everything changes.
He’d smiled at me, almost. Even his face held back. But damn did I want to see more.
My hands shake and spill inkblots of coffee grounds across scratched countertop, resting on white and yellow checkers like evidence. My lack of control is noteworthy.
I feel them, both of them, biting down on amusement and watching me toss grinds into the sink.
Attention lands on my lower back and fixates there until heat curls through my muscles.
There isn’t enough caffeine in the world to make any of this make sense. Not when there are two other enormous men seated around the small, banged up kitchen table that I may or may not have gotten after someone put it on the curb.
A bonafide dumpster diving feat.
Audra rests on the couch within hearing distance while Forest strangles the wine bottle in his massive hands, his legs wide and his presence a bonfire.
“You seriously saved all these? This one is dated 1645, dude! How can it look like it’s brand new?” She buries her nose in a book. "Holy fuckballs, this one is from 1210!"
I focus on java instead of her next gravelly gasp of surprise.
“Magic, warrior girl," Forest says.
“Even the flowers. This peony is still red. Wow. Helene, did you know my name was Dynah?”
“I’m not sure how I’d know, kid,” I mutter. My head spins.
“Because you were my aunt then! This is so fucking cool. They all link together. These symbols...I want to know everything.”
Audra flips pages while Nicholas and Forest wait for me to answer in something other than the monosyllables in my head.
No. What. How? Why?
She laughs. This is the best Christmas present of her life. “How far back do these go, Forest?”
“To the beginning,” he grinds out after a long slug of wine.
The coffeemaker chugs to life with the harsh, bitter scent of burned coffee. I hadn’t washed out the pot earlier but it’s too late now. Fresh brew splashes on top of it and I shake my head.
“Ah. The party’s started without me? I’m heartbroken.”
Shadows at the corners of the room thicken, and Wren steps out of them. One lean leg, then the other, his skin pale beneath the black T-shirt. His Perthro tattoo. His piercings.
I keep my gaze on the floor when my own skin warms.
Forest leans his elbows on his knees. “Took you enough time to arrive.”
"A man's business is his own, bird brain. You weren’t concerned when you fainted and then took off on us, were you?” Wren chuckles. “No coffee for me, pretty monster. I’m on a diet.”
Another round of silence falls.
Clearly they’re waiting for me to die of embarrassment.
The three men take up every free brain cell I’ve got and ask for more, while Audra’s got Forest’s books piled around her like a mini cave.
Correction, her books.
The coffeemaker chugs.
“Ah, awkward. What a delight.” Wren angles against the fridge, inches separating us.
I steal a few more inches on the excuse of getting clean mugs from the top shelf.
“I thought it would be good to share the girl’s journals,” Forest says. “They may prove insightful.”
I turn in time to watch his hand curl into a fist at the center of the table, as big as a hammer.
Wren scoffs. “You brought a bookworm more books. What did you do, swoop down on the estate sales the second the girl died?
Forest shrugs, unbothered by the accusation. “Someone has to do something. This kind of history can’t afford to be lost.”
“I’m not sure how you remembered enough to get them in the first place.” Wren taps his chin. “You barely remember your own name once Helene dies. The memories of her fade within days.”
I wince.
“Apparently some things remain behind,” Forest insists.
“Yes, the agony.”
A shudder has me gripping the side of the countertop to keep steady.
What would it be like to survive, year after year, with nothing but a sourceless ache in your soul? To endure the distress that comes from a broken heart but never receive any relief?
It’s unimaginable.
“Are any of you hungry?”
The shelves inside the fridge are empty. And without income coming in, and me still having to get my last check from Barnes somehow, food shopping is out of the question.
The bookstore is going to be out of commission for the next week until he finds someone to get the crater in the front fixed. The ropes around me tighten further.
“We’re fine, monster.” Wren is the only one to answer me. “Thank you.”
If any of them mark my strangled sigh of relief, they ignore it.
The second the machine clicks off, I bring the entire pot and a beaded heat protector over to the table. I set it in the middle, forcing Forest to drag his wine down to his lap.
Multiple mismatched mugs follow along with the last of the milk and a container of sugar stuck in chunks.
The three of them are a unit, it’s obvious. They are as different as dark and light. They shouldn’t all go together but they somehow do. Their connection is written in their past and the lines of their faces. None of them would ever pass for older than thirty at the most.
My fingers itch to grab a rune from the bag and see what kind of message appears in the stones. To see if this is a fluke, a misdirection, or if I’m better off running away.
There’s nowhere for me to go, though. The car won’t make it through the snow, not with bald tires. And I can’t leave Audra behind when we’ve finally gotten her disease under some semblance of control.
Wren thickens his shadows and seats himself, patting his lap to offer his body as a seat. “Stop skulking and sit with us, monster.”
I shake my head. “I’m fine here. As long as I’ve got coffee I’m good to go.”
I lean against the cool expanse of counter, clutching a mug of my own. Wren arches a brow at my defiance.
After what happened with us the other night—
“Carry on. It’s clear you guys have information to share.” I can’t look at him. “I’m here for it. This is some magical quest along a trail of breadcrumbs.”
Why am I still here, entertaining this? Why am I willing to hear them out, and worse, trust them?
“I went to The Fenlight in Boston,” Nicholas grinds out. His voice is rougher during the late hours. Or when he’s aroused. “The gods are stirring. Freyja and Loki are on the board now, if certain parties are to be believed.”
“You think it has something to do with Odin sending the servants of Kari into action?” Forest presses.
“I think word is reaching every branch on the tree. Things are moving faster now.” Wren taps his fingers on the table.
Everyone ignores my coffee.
My cup is a lifeline, and the pit in my stomach opens wider.
“No one could shed any light on Audra’s visions or why, this time...the Norns are speaking through her directly.” Nicholas angles his head away from the window, his hand crushing ceramic unconsciously.
His black eyes find mine. Again, the thought. Run. Wren’s shadows bite deeper like they sense it.
I sit up straighter. “Hold on. It’s never happened before? I thought those journals were full of revelations she’s had?”
I glance at Audra but she’s not paying attention. Her eyes have blurred, gone unfocused, her face angled toward the opposite wall and the shelf of books and plants and rocks we’ve collected over the years. The jumble is disorganized and random to anyone who isn't us.
She’s a ruined rose with her curls wild around her face, lost in thought, her arms resting on top of the blanket. Both are muscled and strong and a direct contrast to her matchstick legs.
“She’s always been gifted,” Forest explains gently. “It’s true. Her power of Sight sharpens each time her body declines.”
“You mean she’s...” There’s no delicate way to say it.
Nicholas looks at Wren, Forest, the floor, and his lips thin. His mug cracks further. No one acknowledges it.
Coffee slides over his knuckles in narrow brown lines while his black eyes stay fixed on anything but me.
Here's my confirmation.
I scrub absently where my watchband usually rests, over pale skin that refuses to tan.
“Her dedication to Freyja only grew what came naturally,” Forest adds. “She’s always had the voice of foresight, and a conscience to ground herself against the chaos. At first, we thought her promise to you would be a lifeline. Now it’s more of a guide. A way to bring us back.”
My sister has been through a great deal. Her entire life has been a delicate coexistence with pain, her stability an emotional counterbalance when I wanted to drown in it all.
But how much can a person take and still remain optimistic? A believer in reason and fate?
“Leave her out of this for now,” I urge. “I don’t want to add more pressure to her.”
“I’m fine, Helene,” Audra replies, still lost in thought. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it handled.
“The Norns communicate through her. That makes her important.”
“Thank you for the reminder, Nicholas, I appreciate it.” My voice is bitter and black.
He glares at me before saying, “It doesn’t matter now. No one else had insight for me. If we believe the talk, it still leaves us in the same place.”
“How many people did you speak to?” Forest wants to know.
And through it all, Wren is conspicuously silent.
Will he volunteer his information? About who he met? My gaze narrows. Shadows tickle the space between my socks and my pants, a reminder. Of course. I ignore them.
“As many as possible.”
I glance at Wren to find him watching me.
“The cycles have repeated themselves too many times to count,” Nicholas says for my benefit. “This time is faster. It means something.”
“A new weaving, perhaps?” Wren supplies with uncharacteristic coyness.
Forest’s stare sharpens. “What? Where did you hear that?”
“It would make sense, wouldn’t it?” Excitement animates his black eyes. “Why even Frejya would stir from her ivory pedestal? Why the leaks are happening between worlds?”
The knot in my chest tightens. “What do you mean, a new weaving?”
Lights flicker, a low drone in the air, louder with my question.
Wren lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. “It’s nothing for you to worry about—”
I’m on my feet. “Tell me or I’m out.”
His shadows tighten around my ankle.
Audra’s scream cuts through the roar in my head. Piercing, shrill, sudden. It’s the blare of a horn. Panic blasts through me and obliterates everything else.
Nicholas is the first to follow me to Audra, to help, Wren and Forest on his heels.
Her body bows up from the couch, mouth wide, eyes blown open. The lovely chocolate of her irises is obliterated by white. Her spine arches, and frantic kicks knock blankets aside. Her tiny legs, those skeletal limbs—
The room narrows to coffee and books hitting the floor.
Audra howling.
Nicholas says something—no, he shouts it from far away.
I pin her arms, but I’m clumsy. “No, no.” Spilled coffee decorates the front of my shirt. “Audra, come on, kid. It’s okay. You’re fine.”
The words are a song I’ve sung a hundred times. The meaning is lost, though. She’s always come out of it before. This is different.
Wren grabs Audra’s legs this time as her body bows between us. Forest grabs a pillow for her head to make sure it doesn’t slam against the back of the couch.
Soft moans claw up her throat, like a bird trapped in a chimney.
Fear sends railroad spikes of iron into the chambers of my heart.
My grip slips, palms sweaty, vision narrowing.
I hold her down, her body writhing, and my fingers vising around her wrists to keep her from hitting herself or me, to stop her from taking wedges of my skin beneath her fingernails in a seizure she can’t control.
“Audra.” Her name is a plea, a prayer. “Kid, you’re okay. You’re fine.”
The word is a mockery.
Fine fine fine. All lies. All shallow.
Meaningless as she jerks and spasms. Three immortal men can’t contain her. The power of her next kick knocks the air from Wren’s chest.
Forest’s massive hands frame her face but the expression there is pure nightmare fuel.
Her eyes slide open and they’ve gone chalky white, wide and cold and seeing far more than the room. The chill from outside sneaks through my bloodstream.
“Audra?” I manage her name, and the rest fails as she flings herself to the side.
What can I do to fight? How can I armor myself against this stark realization of my sister’s condition? She’s dying.
Sweat plasters wild ringlets to her forehead as her back bends harder.
A tremor passes through her, and her arms go rigid at her hip. Her head rocks, mouth opening. When she stops shaking—
The voice rumbling through her throat isn’t hers. The first syllables land like the brush of death, the same eerie inflection as before.
“The choice is yours, daughter of fate.”
I’m hooked. The moniker is mine.
“You can run.” The echo of three distinct female voices rings through the words.
Young. Old. Motherly. Potent.
“Run, but the cycle will remain unbroken.” Audra cranes her face toward me. “Run and the repetition is threaded into the world again. Or stay, fight. Break the key with the locks, and end the cycle of mortality.”
My gut churns, knots, sickens. I bite down on my lip, and my fists clench tighter than a vise, the knuckles white as her eyes.
The Norns speak through her again, the weavers of destiny. They hold mine in their hands.
The choice belongs to none of us. I’m not sure if it ever has before, if the gods are playing games. If I actually believe what everyone tells me.
I’ve given away my personal power for long enough, any shred of it I’ve got left.
Fear slicks my tongue.
“End the cycle of death. Find the keys. Break the locks. Make the sacrifice, and this time, perhaps, you’ll taste victory at last. Sacrifice to gain. Lest the offering is pure, Asgard wins."
The world spins, vicious, cruel, and uncaring, and Audra remains at its center, her milky eyes an anchor through the rolling.
It feels like falling. I know I’ll land hard. And I know, before the crash, one of us will die.