Thief Eyes

My mother standing on the path, almost close enough to touch, her face streaked with angry tears. She looked up at me, and for a moment our eyes met. “Mom,” I said, stunned, the heat that burned in me forgotten. Was it really her? The path pulled me toward her, and I reached out my hands.

My hands and gaze were wrenched away. “Mom!” I fought to look back, but the path pulled me on, past other women: the grandmother I barely knew, because she lived in Canada; the great-grandmother I’d met only in old photos; her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother in turn. The heat came with me. I feared if I looked at my hands I’d see not skin, but flame.

I saw beyond the oldest, crumbliest pictures to other women with fair hair and fair eyes. Each of them looked at me in turn, and then my gaze was pulled farther back, and farther still, for countless generations until—

“Haley!”

A kneeling woman glared up at me, holding a feathered arrow in one hand. She was older now, with lines around her eyes and mouth, but I knew her. I’d never forget her or what she’d done. She handed her arrow to someone out of sight, glaring still. Behind her the sky was hot blue, no sign of rain.

“Why do you seek me, Haley? I have left you to your life. Leave me to mine.”

She never should have cast her spell if she wanted to be left alone. I drew the coin out of the blood, just like my spell said to do. “I’ve brought you a gift!” I called.

Hallgerd grabbed another arrow and pressed her lips together. “Haley, don’t you dare. Leave Gunnar and me to our fate. I have released my claim on the coin and spell. Your life and mine are linked no longer.”

“The hell they aren’t.” I thought of Mom, leaving for Iceland, saying she’d see me in a few weeks. I thought of Freki’s limp body in my arms. I threw the coin to Hallgerd, as hard and as fast as I could. Only once she caught it would I be free of her and her magic.

Hallgerd didn’t turn away. She couldn’t turn away. “You will pay for this,” she whispered. Her hand fell open. The arrow clattered to the wooden floor beside her, and the coin landed in her palm. Her fingers closed around it.

A wave of dizziness washed over me. The path, the earth, the sky all trembled and gave way. I fell, and flames rose up all around me. My cry was lost beneath their roar.

Then all at once the world went still. I was kneeling on wooden boards, and the sun shone brightly above me. Fire burned in me yet—did I think I was burning before? That was nothing compared to the heat I felt now. There was a roaring in my ears, and the air around me shimmered. I looked down at my hands. They were old hands, worn with age. I wore a dress, not jeans, beneath a scarlet cloak. A pouch and small knife hung from my belt. My head felt strangely heavy. Long hair fell over my shoulders from beneath my—hat? Headdress? I reached up and touched a blond lock. It felt hot, even to me—I jerked my hand away. My skin was hot, too, fire burning through the blood beneath it.

Through the roaring, I heard yelling down below. I was in a small loft, above a long narrow house. One side of the peaked roof had been torn away, leaving open air ahead of me. Beside me, a ladder led down to another room.

A man knelt by the loft’s open edge, sweat beading on his brow, a nocked bow in his hands. Beneath his leather shirt his arms were thick with muscle. Damp red hair, just beginning to gray, escaped from beneath his metal helmet. A grassy hillside rose ahead of us, like the hillside Ari and I had climbed, only now it was outlined by a bright blue sky, no sign of rain. Sheep grazed there, and the air held an earthy barnyard smell.

In my head Hallgerd cried, “How dare you deny me my right to die by his side!”

I started cursing then. Because the spell wasn’t just for returning the coin. Katrin’s spellbook had it wrong, or else after a thousand years a few things had been forgotten. I’d cast—must have cast—the same spell Hallgerd tried to cast at Mom, or one very much like it.

I was in Hallgerd’s place, a thousand years ago. The man beside me was her husband, Gunnar, and he was —we were—under attack.

Chapter 16

The dizziness I felt now had nothing to do with the fire in me. It was panic—pure, burning panic. Gunnar fired his bow. An arrow whooshed through the air, and someone cried out down below. He reached back toward me for another arrow. I forced my panic down and handed it to him. Fire roared in me. Not only my fire. Somehow I knew I held Hallgerd’s fire as well. Too much heat. Any second it would burst through my skin—and my hair. My hands shook, one of them clutching the burning coin I’d thrown.

Gunnar saw their trembling. “My brave Hallgerd,” he said, though I was sure I seemed anything but brave. His eyes turned pleading, yet tender, too. I’d seen Dad look at Mom that way, when I was younger. “Go away from this place. No one will stop you from leaving. Be safe, my love.”

I shook my head—because I wasn’t his love, because I was a thousand years from anything safe—and handed him another arrow, trying not to look at the long drop down where the missing half of the roof should have been.

The air wavered with heat. I cried out at a sudden movement, even as Gunnar shot at the hand that reached over the edge. The hand lost its grip, and the man hit the ground below with a thud. I handed Gunnar another arrow, and another. The roaring in my ears went on. The air grew heavy with the smell of sweat and dirt. There was a long cut along one of Gunnar’s sleeves, and the fabric around it was dark with clotted blood.

“Give me the coin,” Hallgerd hissed in my head. “Let me return to him.” For just a moment, my sight blurred and I saw the path between Hallgerd and me.

She was supposed to hate Gunnar. The story said so. She wasn’t supposed to want to stay by his side.

Sweat made my burning hair cling to my neck. I kept handing Gunnar arrows, clutching the coin tightly in my other hand. I’d returned it, just like the spellbook said. Only the spellbook hadn’t told me what to do after that. If I threw the coin to Hallgerd again would we be back where we’d started, with me holding the coin in my own time?

Another hand reached over the roof, but Gunnar shot it as well. Sweat poured down his face and stained his heavy leather tunic.

“Haley,” Hallgerd said. Her voice was suddenly, eerily calm. “It is a funny thing about berserks. They are so strong in their animal forms, but so weak afterward. And I see you have left me your knife.”

“Ari.” I’d left him with Hallgerd. The fear in me turned up another notch, and the heat in me rose with it.

“Return to me my life, Haley, and I’ll return yours to you.” Once more I saw the path between Hallgerd and me, generations of ancestors between us.

I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I was only supposed to return the coin. Maybe I hadn’t really done that yet. Maybe I needed to throw it to Hallgerd again. I drew my hand back, knowing the spell was still alive between us.

A sharp twang brought me back to where I was. Gunnar dropped his bow—its string had snapped—and grabbed a long-handled axe, swinging it at the man who was climbing into the loft, sword in hand. Gunnar’s blade connected with the man’s neck. Blood spurted everywhere—on Gunnar’s face and clothes, on the wooden planks, on my cloak. The man fell backward off the edge, hands grasping the air even as he died.

I braced my hands against the floor. Fire roared in me, around me. The stench of sweat and blood was everywhere. Through the roaring, I heard Gunnar’s voice. “Hallgerd,” he called. “Give me two locks of your hair. Twist them into a bowstring for me.” There was a hint of strain in his voice now. Another man came over the wall. Gunnar swung at him, and the man fell away.

My hair—this was where Gunnar was supposed to die. This was where Hallgerd killed him.

Hell no. I wasn’t Hallgerd. I didn’t have to follow her script. If Gunnar wanted a few locks of hair, he could have them. I shoved the coin into the pouch at my belt and reached for the small knife. Hang in there a little longer, Ari.