Thief Eyes

“No. That was my first mistake, not talking to your mother. I’m not always much good at talking—I guess you know that. Maybe we could have worked things out. I don’t know.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Here. You should let Jared know you’re okay.”

I was so tired. I couldn’t deal with Jared now. “I’ll call him in the morning, I—”

“Don’t be like me,” Dad said. “Talk to him. Don’t worry about the charges. Take as long as you need.”

Jared picked up on the first ring. “Haley?” The strained hope in his voice nearly broke my heart.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“You’re not going to disappear again?”

“No,” I promised him. “It’s over.”

I told Jared everything, too, crying all over again as I did. Talking to him felt good. I realized just how much I’d missed him.

We talked for a really long time.

I had no idea what time it was when I finally fell into bed. I barely had time to grab Mortimer—he wasn’t a bear, but he’d do—before I fell asleep.

I dreamed I walked on a green summer hillside, dandelions blooming, gulls circling up above. There was no fire, just a gently trickling stream and a distant figure walking toward me. As the figure drew closer, I recognized her. “Mom!”

She smiled and reached for me. Yet as our hands met, flames flared between us. Mom turned to hot ash, sifting like snow through my fingers. I would have screamed then, only the fire had burned my voice away. I ran, knowing any moment I would burn, too.

But I didn’t. A cool breeze caressed my neck, and I found myself jogging along a path beside a harbor. The sky above shone with stars. When I looked down, I saw a white fox running by my side.

“At least now I know what happened,” I said to him. “That’s something, isn’t it?”

Freki didn’t answer. He just cocked an ear in my direction as we ran on, the little fox keeping me company through the rest of the night, clear on to morning.

Wind gusted as Dad and I walked between the blocky stone walls of Thingvellir two days later. Rain spat from the sky, and I shivered in my jacket. The wind felt good, though. I didn’t think I’d ever mind the cold again.

We stopped when we reached the Law Rock, and together we stared out at the river. The geese were gone now, leaving behind grasses that blazed bright shades of orange and red. Most of the tourists had left, too. Only a few people walked the path behind us.

“So this is where it happened,” I said.

Dad turned to look at me, his eyes damp. “I miss her, Haley. You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Either you loved someone or you didn’t. Was it ever that simple?

Dad shoved his hands into his pockets. “Can you ever forgive me?”

My throat hurt, but I forced myself to speak. “I’m working on it,” I said, and meant it.

We walked back down the path in silence, to the Hotel Valholl, where we were meeting Ari and Katrin for dinner. Ari and I had slept most of yesterday away. We’d seen each other only briefly, when Dad and Katrin brought us to the police station to file a report. Apparently the police had thought it might have been Dad and Katrin’s fault we’d disappeared, that maybe they’d abducted us or something, and Mom before us, too. They seemed to believe Ari’s and my story that we’d run away, though, right down to our claiming that Ari had dyed his hair and I’d cut mine to make us harder to recognize.

Ari looked up from the newspaper he was reading as we entered the room. His leather jacket was replaced by fleece-lined black nylon, along with a bleached wool cap almost as pale as his hair. “Hey,” he said in English. “It says here they found a staff carved with magical runes in the Westfjords. Very mysterious, no sign of the owner. The people at the Sorcery Museum are looking into it.”

“There’s a sorcery museum?” I said, also in English, as I slid into my seat.

“Yeah. In Holmavik. Too bad we forgot to visit. Of course, we were a bit busy.”

“Just a bit.” I turned to the menu, which was written in both English and Icelandic. I read the English, then ordered in Icelandic, which seemed to startle the waiter. Even if I spoke the language, a million other small things gave me away as the foreigner I was.

“It’s going to take a while to get used to that,” Dad said. “I bet you could place out of your language requirement when we get home, though.”

I switched to English automatically. “Yeah, because that would make it all totally worth it, right?” I managed a laugh.

Katrin glanced at Ari’s white hair. “We all have things to get used to.” She spoke English, too. She sipped her coffee and looked at Dad and me over the rim of her cup. “You’ve decided to go back, then?”

Ari looked down, suddenly very interested in his napkin. I nodded slowly. “There still might be time to catch up at school. Keep me from losing the year.” Give Dad and me a chance to learn how to live alone with each other.

“I wish you would stay,” Katrin said. “Not all the stories about Hallgerd and Thorgerd are written down. I’d tell you the rest of what was passed on to me.”

“Nah, Jared would be disappointed if she didn’t come home,” Ari said.

I looked sharply over at him. Ari met my gaze. “Hey, two days ago we were not sure we would make it back at all. It is good that you can go home.”

I kept looking at him. “Want to go for a walk?” I said.

“It is freezing out there. Why would anyone—I am being stupid again. Yes, I would love to go for a walk.”

I glanced at Dad, and he nodded. Ari followed me out.

As we headed across the parking lot and onto the path, something icy blew into our faces. I held out my hand, and a cold flake landed there. Snow.

Back home, they were still having hundred-degree days. Even without magic, I’d be warm soon enough. The thought wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. I missed the desert, but I was going to miss Iceland, too. Would it always be like this, wishing for whichever place I couldn’t be? “Dad says maybe we can come back for Christmas,” I told Ari in Icelandic.

“The weather’s worse at Christmas,” Ari said, also in Icelandic. “More snow, and it’s dark all the time. Of course you don’t want to stay.”

I stopped and stared at a cluster of bright red flowers. Didn’t they know that it was way too cold to bloom? “I talked to Jared.”

Ari didn’t look at me. “I’m sure he’s glad you’re okay.”

“Of course he’s glad. Jared’s my best friend. He’s been worried sick these past months. He wants to know what it’s like to be a bear, too, by the way. I think he’s a little jealous of you.”

Ari gave a wry laugh. “We’re even there, then.”

“You’re not listening!” Or maybe I wasn’t saying it right. “I told Jared how much I’d missed him. And I told him how much I was going to miss you.”

Ari opened his mouth as if to make a joke, shut it again. Around us the snow kept falling.

I drew a deep breath. Either you loved someone or you didn’t. But what if you loved more than one person? Or what if things changed? “We decided—we’re only sixteen, okay? Maybe in Hallgerd’s time that was old enough to be married off whether you wanted to be or not, but neither of us wants to live out some ancient tragedy. We’re not ready to decide about the rest of our lives, you know?” I was having enough trouble getting through each day right now. I’d had more nightmares last night.

“So you’re—”