Wraithsong (17 page)

I lean my hip against the
granite countertop and slump as I think. If I want to get my mom
out alive, I’ll have to get out of this emotional fog and act
rationally. How would a very rational adult act in this situation?
She would forget about herself and do what she needed to do when
she needed to do it. But I don’t know if I have the strength to do
that right now since all I want is to lie down and cry. I think
about my mom and how pained she looked in my dream last night. She
might die if I don’t do something, if I don’t rise to the occasion
and forget about my own pain. I fling open the door and run
downstairs.

Anthony is just about to
leave, and I stop him. He’s clutching a gigantic book in his
arms.

“
What’s that?” I
ask.

He holds it toward me so I
can see. “A book about how to hone one’s Huldu powers.”

“
There are books about that
stuff?”

“
Yeah, they give you books
when you go to the Academy. The books contain writings about our
heritage and education.”

I finally start seeing a
picture of Kensington that I didn’t before. Going there is all
about learning who I am, where I come from, where I’m going and how
to fulfill my life the best way possible. In short, it is a neatly
packaged gift that will teach me how to utilize my powers to the
fullest as a Huldra. The idea of learning all of this intrigues me
and is no longer annoying.

Anthony nears me. “Well,
you’re going to be one heck of a Huldra.” He smiles like he knows a
whole bunch of stuff about me that I don’t know yet. Then he lifts
his hand cautiously and strokes my cheek, and even against my own
will, and against all manner of reason, my knees go
weak.

Chapter 18

Anthony returns a few hours
later carrying bags of clothes. He sets six bags onto the floor in
the foyer, heads out again and brings in five more. I notice that
the bags are all from my favorite stores. “Here’s the rest,” he
says, closing the front door behind him with his foot. It slams
shut. “I even got you some toiletries. They should all be the
brands you like.”

“
Okay, so this might be a
stupid question, but do you really know what brands I like in
toiletries?” I ask, my hands resting on my hips.

“
Of course, I was sent to
spy on you, remember?” He throws his car keys on the round glass
table in the center of the foyer.

“
Yeah, but did you break
into my house or something to find out what soap I use?” I’m trying
to be sarcastic because I don’t want to think he has actually done
it.

“
Well—” he says
sheepishly.

“
You know what, never mind,
I don’t want to know,” I say, grabbing half of the bags, and then I
climb the stairs up to Anthony’s room. He comes behind me with the
rest of the bags and puts them on his bed. While seated on the
sectional, I pull the tags off of my new clothes. They’re all my
size; it’s a little worrying how much he knows about me.

Anthony comes over, holding
his phone. “I just got a text from Maureen for me to call her as
soon as I can. Are you ready to make that phone call with me?” He
takes a seat right next to me.

“
Yes,” I say and set the
bags with the clothes aside. I can’t help but feel nervous about
the call, even though I know I’ll only be listening. Anthony smiles
at me as if to comfort me. Then he dials the number and presses the
speaker button. It rings four times before Maureen picks
up.

“
Hello, Anthony, how are
you?” Maureen says. I envision her cold-hearted face clearly when I
hear her voice.

“
I’m doing well. How are
you, Mother?” Anthony says.

“
How do you think I am? I’m
tired of incompetent people who cannot take orders, and I would
like for nothing more than to just be done with this.”

Anthony blinks slowly and
is face goes limp. “How are the plans coming along?”

“
Everything has gone as
planned so far, I suppose, though far too slowly. Please tell me
you have good news,” Maureen says.

“
Everything has gone
according to plan. I brought the Huldra here with me.”

“
Good, good. At least you
didn’t completely turn out like your father. He could never take an
order. How is the Huldra?”

“
She complains about
missing her mother,” Anthony says, looking at me.

Tears well up in my eyes so
I close them and hold my breath to not make a noise. He squeezes my
hand apologetically.

“
Tell her to quit
complaining or things will just get worse from here on out,”
Maureen says. “Besides, I don’t know why you’re bringing this up;
I’ve already told you to tell her that she’ll have her mother back
once we have her gift. Do I always have to repeat
myself?”

“
What’s the next step?”
Anthony asks. I pull my hand away.

“
I will need a couple more
days to solidify that, and then I will call you back. Keep my
Huldra strong so that she can release her gift when the time is
right.”

“
Of course,” Anthony says.
“How is the mother doing?”

“
The Huldra girl probably
gets her toughness from her mother. Hedda is well, but we have had
to keep her sedated. She has a lot of fight in her.”

“
Sure, sure,” Anthony says.
“The Huldra wanted to know if she could talk to her mother, to make
sure she’s still alive.”

“
Lesson number one in
negotiations, Anthony, is to always stay in control. If you let
your opponent set the rules, you have lost. If you were smarter,
you would have figured that one out.”

If I didn’t know Anthony, I
would have thought that the comment didn’t have any effect on him,
but I’ve noticed that when he’s hurt, his eyes blink faster.
Maureen’s cruelty toward him clearly has a strong
effect.

“
Well, I’m in a hurry to go
get my hair done on the mainland. I’ll call back soon, I promise,”
Maureen says.

“
Good-bye,” Anthony says
and hangs up the phone. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts.
“Are you mad at me?”

“
No,” I say, tears
streaming down my face. “You did what you had to do to make it
sound believable.” I’m surprised by how calm I am. “Are you
okay?”

“
Yeah, I’m
fine.”

I have started to believe
Anthony now and think that he actually wants to help save my mom,
but I still don’t know if it’s the right thing to trust him or if
my trusting him is misdirected.

He wipes the tears off my
cheeks with his hand and gazes into my eyes. I feel that sudden
attraction between us, but try to ignore it because anything else
would be unwise.

“
I’m really sorry for all
of this,” he says. “I feel like it’s all my fault.”

I’m afraid to rely on him
completely, but something in my gut tells me that I can. I lean my
head on his strong shoulder. “Well, you can’t take credit for all
of it.” Am I actually being kind to him?

“
No, but I could have
warned you about Maureen and Olaf earlier.”

“
Can’t we just go to
Wraithsong Island now and rescue them?” I say, sitting
up.

“
We could, but we’d never
find the island. I’ve never been there, and I have no idea where it
is, and one can’t see it until one is on it. Maureen is going to
have to come pick us up in her yacht and take us there. It’s best
if you stay and graduate this weekend and then she’ll probably be
ready for us. And your eighteenth birthday’s coming up soon, isn’t
it?”

“
Yes, Sunday.” I don’t feel
like celebrating and think it would be almost blaspheming to
celebrate anything until my mom has been found safe and sound and I
absolutely don’t want to go to prom anymore either. I wish I had
just listened to my mom about prom in the first place, instead of
trying to force her hand into letting me go.

“
So we’ll both graduate on
Saturday,” Anthony says.

“
Yeah.” Even graduation
seems so unimportant now, compared to trying to save my mom’s
life.

Chapter 19

More than anything I want
to stay locked up in Anthony’s room and cry, but I know I can’t do
that, and force myself to go to school. I arrive late, during the
third period. It’s challenging to keep up appearances and pretend
as if everything’s normal—especially to Ashley. Fortunately I don’t
have any classes with her today or she would have noticed my
melancholic mood, and at lunch she flirts with another senior and
doesn’t seem to pick up on my nervousness, which I am thankful
for.

Waiting for Maureen’s call
is like waiting for a blind snail to make its way around the
world—twice. I carry my phone close at all times, checking it
obsessively in class and between classes, just in case Anthony
calls, which of course, he never does. I’m relieved to find that
Savannah seems to have vanished and I no longer need to check my
seat for tacks or be afraid I might run into her in the hallway. I
do, however, see Tyson a couple of times in passing, but luckily,
he doesn’t see me.

After school, I head
straight back to Anthony’s house again. Right as I pull in to the
driveway, I see him handling on a few guns in the garage. I step
out of my car and approach him with caution.

“
I’m going to train you how
to use a pistol this afternoon, and a rifle and a couple of other
things tomorrow,” he says, throwing a small silver suitcase into
the trunk of his car.

My heart drops into my
stomach. A gun? I can’t imagine aiming a weapon at anyone, not even
to save my own life. Thinking about it, I wonder if I would be able
to shoot someone if it meant saving my mom’s life. Hopefully it
will not come to that.

“
Don’t worry, you’ll get
used to it, I promise,” Anthony says.

I almost blurt out ‘I doubt
it,’ but bite my tongue, knowing that the comment won’t be helpful
to him or me. He gets in the car and I follow his lead. We drive
out of his subdivision and head east, toward the country. I think
of the next few days ahead with dread. I was so excited to graduate
and to go to the prom and was eagerly anticipating attending our
after graduation party, but what I looked forward to just a few
days ago is now just another distraction, another
burden.

“
We don’t have to go to the
prom to keep up appearances, do we?”

“
Did you want to go?”
Anthony asks, his hands clutching the steering wheel. He’s driving
way too fast.

“
No, but you said you had a
date so I thought you were going.”

“
I’m not going,” Anthony
says.

I don’t dig into his
reasoning any further. He probably never had a date; it’s more
likely that it had been part of his earlier lies.

“
I’ll be teaching you how
to use a weapon instead, will that suit you?” he asks.

“
Sure,” I say. Me holding a
gun—it sounds like the most unlikely thing in the world.

When we arrive at the
outdoor twelve-lane shooting range, Anthony tells me to wait in the
car while he goes inside the one-story annex and pays the fees.
When he comes out again, he drives us over to the wood stalls at
the end of the dirt road and fetches the silver suitcase he stashed
in his trunk earlier. Stepping into a wooden stall, he places the
suitcase on the rectangular wooden table and sits down on the
bench. A few other people are practicing their shots, but from what
I can see, most of them missing horribly. This is going to be
interesting.

Red, green, and white
circular targets wait in the distance, and I estimate that they
stand around one hundred yards away. Shots go off at random. The
day is warm, but not hot, and the sky has patches of white
clouds.

“
Here.” Anthony hands me a
pair of orange and black ear guards and clear protective glasses.
“Put the ear guards on your head, but leave one ear uncovered so I
can instruct you.”

I follow his
directions.

Opening the silver suitcase
and pulling out a pistol, he says, “This is a Beretta 93R. It’s a
selective-fire machine pistol, meaning you can select whether you
want to fire either a three round burst, or a single fire.” He
hands it to me with the barrel pointing down. “With your fingers on
one side of the grip, keep your middle, ring and pinky finger
curled around the trigger guard like this.” He shows me. “Your grip
around the pistol needs to be really tight. This gun isn’t an easy
one to aim, but any Huldra has a perfect aim.”

“
Really?” He can’t mean me,
I’m sure—I’m just a beginner.

“
Yes, didn’t your mother
tell you anything about the Huldra’s ability to never miss a shot?”
Anthony asks, checking my grip on the pistol.

“
No.”

“
You read up on Huldras,
didn’t you? There are quite a few stories on the internet about
Huldras blowing on a man’s weapon, and that weapon never missing a
target again.”

“
I didn’t get much of a
chance to read the stories.” Mom was always encouraging me to read
the other Norse myths and I think she was trying to protect me, but
sometimes protecting someone too much can make them
weak.