Thief Eyes

that. We kept walking, still holding hands.

The wind died down. A sudden burst of tinny music made me jump. It was the Star Wars theme, and it was coming from Ari’s pocket. He fished out his phone and stared at it.

“It’s ringing,” Ari said. “I don’t know the number—” He quickly flipped the phone open. “Hello?”

I bet it’s just some telemarketer. I bet they won’t hear us, either.

Ari listened a moment, and his face grew very strange. “Yes, of course,” he said in English. He released my hand and offered me the phone. “It is for you, Haley. He says his name is Jared, and he says he’d like to talk to you.” 

Chapter 12

I grabbed the phone. “Jared?”

“Haley? Oh God, is it really you?”

My stomach did a little flip at the sound of Jared’s voice. “Yeah, it’s me.” I sat down, right at the side of the road, because I suddenly didn’t trust my legs to hold me up. Ari sat down beside me, keeping a careful distance.

“You can hear me,” I said into the phone. Speaking English felt strange.

“Of course I can hear you. Haley, where on earth have you—” Jared’s voice rose, caught. “We thought you were dead, or kidnapped, or lost in the wilderness, or—”

“Jared.” He was babbling. He always babbled when he got nervous. It made me want to babble, too, to tell him everything, to talk for hours and hours until both our voices were hoarse. But I didn’t know if we had hours, or when Jared might stop hearing me, too. “I’m fine. Really.”

“You don’t sound fine. Where are you? Have you called your dad? He gave me this number months ago, said it belonged to the guy you disappeared with. It kept going to voice mail until today—”

“We’re having—a problem with the phone. Have you spoken to Dad? Is he back home? Is he okay?”

“Of course he’s not okay, Haley.” Jared’s voice sounded like it might snap any second. “And of course he’s not home. He’s in Iceland, looking for you. Haley, where—”

“Do you have his number? No—wait.” For all I knew Jared’s call was a bit of freaky good luck that wouldn’t happen again. “I need you to call him for me. Can you do that?”

“Of course, but—”

“Call him. Please. Tell him I’m all right.” I drew a shaky breath. Whatever Dad had done, he deserved to know that much. “Tell him to tell Katrin that Ari and I are going to Hlidarendi. She’ll know why.”

“Hilda—where?”

“Hlidarendi.” I did my best to spell the name. “You’ll tell them?”

“Haley, what’s going on?”

The worry in his voice made me want to reach through the phone and hold him. But even if I could have, he probably wouldn’t have been able to see me. “Tell Dad I’m sorry I ran. Tell him—” That I forgive him. I couldn’t get the words out, because they weren’t true. “Tell him I’m on my way home, okay?”

“Are you in some sort of trouble? Should I call the police?”

“Please, Jared.”

“Okay, I’ll call your dad. Right now. Just don’t go anywhere. I’ll call you back, I promise. Keep the phone on, all right?”

I let out a breath. “Thanks, Jared.”

“God, Haley, you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice. I’ve missed you so much. Don’t go anywhere—I’ll call right back. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” I said, just like always when hanging up with Jared. Only after I closed the phone did I realize my hands were shaking.

Ari took the phone, his expression unreadable. He opened it and slowly dialed. “Hey, Mom?” he said in Icelandic. He waited a moment, then shook his head. “It’s no good.”

“Jared will call them. And then he’ll call us back, if he can.” I switched back to Icelandic, too.

Ari nodded slowly. “We should keep walking.” He shoved the phone into his pocket and got to his feet, but he didn’t reach for my hand this time. I stood as well, and we walked on in awkward silence. Around us, the hillsides were bright with autumn scrub.

The road headed uphill, then flattened out, hills giving way to barren stony flats, with gray rocks scattered about and a few dead mosses clinging to the spaces between them. The wind picked up. Ari’s phone remained silent.

“It makes no sense,” I said. “Why could Jared call?”

Ari shrugged. “Clearly, the power of your true love is stronger than Muninn’s spell.”

“Don’t joke,” I snapped. What did true love even mean? It had been so good to talk to Jared, but it was good to walk by Ari’s side, too, awkwardness and all. How could both those things be true at once?

“Who says I’m joking?” Ari said. “You have a better explanation?”

Wind blew over the stones, making a mournful sound. I thought of Mom and Dad, and I scowled. “What makes you so sure there’s any such thing as true love?”

“You’ll put songwriters out of business, talking that way. Force us to find honest work.” Ari managed a strained smile. “Seriously, Haley. Of course there’s such a thing as true love.”

I kicked a stone out of the road. “Yeah, well, tell that to my mom. Or yours, for that matter.”

Ari frowned. “I didn’t say there wasn’t a lot of other crap that gets in the way.”

“Tell it to Hallgerd’s dead husbands.” I bet Gunnar thought Hallgerd loved him, too, right up until she refused him those locks of her hair.

Ari gave a bitter laugh. “Yeah, well, there is that.”

I thought of the voices in Muninn’s mountain, of the woman whose lover ran off to Norway without her. I wondered how much true love one would find if one sifted through all the mountain’s memories—all the world’s memories.

Except Freki had said the mountain didn’t have all the world’s memories, only Iceland’s. “That’s why!” I said. “Muninn’s magic is only for Iceland. Jared’s in the States, so the spell doesn’t affect him. That has to be it! Call someone else, Ari. Call them now.”

Ari fished the phone out of his pocket and stared at it thoughtfully. “Who do you suggest I call?”

I gave him the number for Tucson’s directory assistance, because I couldn’t bear to hear a voice I knew and have that person not hear me in turn.

“You’ll run up my bill with all these overseas calls.” Ari gave a wry smile. “The country code is—one, right?” He dialed and put the phone to his ear. “Hello?” he said in English. “I would like to order a medium pepperoni and puffin pizza.” He waited, then shut the phone and spoke in Icelandic. “She said I was very funny. The operator.”

I let out a long breath. “Muninn’s wrong. We’re not forgotten by everyone.”

“No,” Ari said. “Only by everyone I know except you and some friends on the Internet.”

“Oh.” Of course. I could go back to the States, to Jared and my grandparents and my other friends at school, but what about Ari? There was no only Iceland for him—this was his home. “Maybe you could call your mom from the U.S. Maybe she’d hear you from there. We could take the coin away with us.” Would that end Hallgerd’s spell, and douse my own fire as well? Maybe all we needed to do was leave, and everything would be okay. “We could sneak onto a plane. No one would see us.”

“Not until we land.” Ari’s steps crunched over the dirt road. “How would you explain me to U.S. Customs?”

“Well, you’d have to get a passport, but—”

“I have a passport.” Ari looked down at his hands. “How would you explain if I’m not human when we land?