Thief Eyes

said—some people just could. Just like some people could turn into bears, and others got caught by spells they didn’t expect. Maybe the world was just a strange, strange place, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

“Run, ghosts!” the girl called, laughing still. Ari broke into a faster, springier run.

Wind whipped past me, fast and fierce, blowing my short hair from my face. I held on for dear life—hands clutching fur, legs pressed down against those shoulder blades—but then I laughed, too. Ari’s spine coiled and uncoiled as his paws hit the shoulder of the road, and he seemed to spring forward—to fly forward—rather than to run. “Wow,” I said. “Just—wow.”

Ari ran faster, leaving Holmavik behind as he returned to the main road. The wind got down beneath my jacket and up inside my sleeves. It cut through my jeans, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even care that it was the fire inside me that kept me warm. Running had never been anything like this. When I ran, I always knew I wasn’t really flying, that my feet could only leave the ground for too-short instants.

We flew past barren rocks and windblown autumn grasses. The road wound around to follow a broad bay. Pavement gave way to dirt, dirt to more pavement. The moon rose and the stars came out, impossibly bright. The horizon began to shiver and glow.

I stiffened, remembering dreams of fire rising from the earth, but this fire wasn’t orange. A curtain of shimmering light rose from the edge of the sky, unearthly ripples of red and green. “An aurora,” I whispered. The northern lights, so beautiful—the laughter caught in my throat. Dad would love this. Mom, too.

Ari stopped and looked up. In the sudden stillness we watched the curtain blow across the sky, as if in some unfelt wind. Too beautiful—tears streamed down my face. I suddenly missed Mom more than anything. I buried my face in Ari’s fur, which smelled faintly of the sea. When I looked up again, the light was fading, the world turning silver with moonlight.

Ari took off again, sticking to the shoulder of the road when he could, running on pavement when he had to. The road veered inland along a deep fjord, wound back out to sea, then followed a second fjord. The hills turned lower and gentler. A horse with a shaggy mane and big brown eyes whirled and ran from us, whinnying a warning. Like the girl in Holmavik, apparently the horse could see ghosts.

We entered a deeper, broader fjord, this one filled with thin fog. At an intersection Ari slowed a moment, then chose an unpaved road over a paved one, following a river valley away from the water. The fog stayed with us, not as thick as last night’s fog, and the land grew flatter. Ari began breathing harder, slowing down a little. I leaned toward one of his small ears. “Do you need a rest?” I asked.

He nodded his shaggy head and slowed to a stop. I slid from his back. My hips were sore from stretching across his shoulders, and my hands ached from holding on. I walked to keep from cramping up, stretching my fingers one by one and rubbing my palms. Ari lumbered close beside me, a comforting presence.

I turned on the flashlight. Mist made the blue light eerie and strange. Farmhouses dotted the land, their windows dark. Signs by the road named the farms as we passed them: Hornsstadir, Hoskuldsstadir. At a bend in the road, just past the sign for Hrutsstadir, an old man stood alone, gazing into the dark. His hair was white, his gaze sharp. He wore a belted shirt and leather-wrapped pants, just like Svan. I stared at him, and like the girl he looked right back at me.

“I know your eyes,” he said.

“What?” Mist curled between us. “You can see me.”

“You and your tame berserk, yes.” The man chuckled, but then his face grew grim. “I see many things, and little good comes from most of them. I saw you when my niece was born, though I did not know it at the time, and so I said she had the eyes of a thief. But your eyes tell me that you see things, too. Seeing the future runs in our family.”

Ari tilted his head, as if he’d figured something out, but the words meant nothing to me. Not until the man added, “You are heading to her home. In the south.”

I backed away then. The last thing I wanted was to get tangled up with another one of Hallgerd’s uncles.

“Truly, Haley, I mean you no harm.”

I stopped short. How did he know my name? He stepped forward and reached for me, but his hand went right through mine, just like Hallgerd’s once had. Ghost. Which of us was the ghost here?

The man shrugged, as if used to this. “Time is an uncanny thing, as you know well enough. Have a care in the south. Whatever you steal, be sure to give it back again.”

Did he mean Hallgerd’s coin? I hadn’t stolen that, but I hoped to give it back, anyway. How much did this man know about the coin? “What do you know about fire magic?” Maybe he could help get rid of the fire in me.

“I know less than you do, I think.” There was sympathy in the man’s eyes, and also a strange sort of sorrow. “The gift you’ve received will not be cast cheaply aside, but there is no helping that. Good fortune go with you, and with Hallgerd, too. I never meant her harm, either.” He turned away then and walked toward the faint outline of a nearby farmhouse. One step, then another, and he disappeared into the mist.

Ari nudged my hand with his warm nose. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he shrugged his huge shoulders and knelt down for me to mount. As I did I thought, At least it can be cast aside. That’s something, right?

The road wound left and south, away from the river and out of the valley. The fog gave way to a cloudy sky that barely let the moonlight through. A few cars passed, and their engines seemed unnaturally loud.

In the distance, a plume of steam rose from the ground, like the steam I’d seen when Dad and I drove to Thingvellir. The coals in me flared suddenly hot. I forced the flames down—tried to force them down. This time, they didn’t listen, and the fire in me burned cheerfully on. Fear rippled through me.

We passed more plumes of steam. Heat spread through my chest, my arms, my legs. I couldn’t douse this fire. I fought not to panic instead. The scent of sulfur tinged the wind. I felt the heat beneath the road, the molten underground rivers that fed the steam. I buried my face in Ari’s fur. The fire in me cooled, but only a little.

We flew past sweeping black hills and alongside rivers. I wondered how Ari could keep running for so long. My arms and hips ached. I shut my eyes a second to rest them.

Fire roared before me. A flaming arrow—the earth cracked open where it landed. The crack spread, like a tear in a sweater. Molten fire bubbled through it, overflowing into the land around it.

I felt my grip slipping and jerked awake with a gasp. Ari slowed and turned to look at me. “I’m okay,” I told him. “Just keep going.” Don’t stop now.

Ari ran on, and I clutched his fur tighter than I needed to. My hands were slick with sweat. The wind burned against my skin. In a distant corner of my mind I saw more arrows, all aflame, landing throughout Iceland—south, west, east, north. I saw arrows flying beyond the island, too, landing in places I knew from maps: Greenland. England and Norway. The northeastern United States. Wherever the arrows landed, cracks spread, tearing the land apart.

Seeing the future runs in our family. “That’d better not be the future.” I imagined the cracks in the earth spreading all the way to Tucson—all the way around the world. I’d always assumed that whatever happened here, home would be safe.

Would returning Hallgerd’s coin stop those arrows—stop that future? Or would it only give her more power, like Svan said? What if I needed to get rid of the fire in me to make the arrows stop?

We topped a rise. I looked down, over a glimmering lake and row after row of blocky stone walls. I dreamed of a tower made of a child’s gray blocks. “Thingvellir,” I said. This was where it all began.

Where it all ended, for Mom. I clutched Ari’s fur so hard my knuckles turned white.

I felt once more the fire flowing beneath the earth. I felt the fire burning through my veins. Somehow, I kept that fire beneath my skin. Ari ran faster. Sweat poured down my face. A few figures—ghosts like Hallgerd’s uncle— glanced up as we ran by. We left the lake and the ghosts behind, making our way past fields of gravelly black rock and through farmland broken up by farmhouses and small towns.

Ari stumbled, caught himself, and stumbled again. I stroked his fur. “Just a little further,” I said, hoping it was true.