Flock (31 page)

The moment the sky cleared, I knew that I was different, forever altered. At first, I attributed it to a case of near-death disorder, a condition that had become fairly chronic with me. Its symptoms were dizziness, confusion, and an overpowering urge to kiss the ground and then Jack Snjosson. Beside me, the object of my compulsion grunted.

“Are you OK?” I threw myself on top of him, probably breaking every rule in a post-impact, potential first-aid situation, the mouth-to-mouth a possible exception.

“Better now, I think.” He rolled to his side. “But what the hell was all that?”

Where to begin?

“I think that was my third and final wish being granted by a Swan Maiden, but something went haywire.”

Despite getting my still-here-on-earth legs back, I felt leaden and lethargic.

“Your what?” He struggled to a sitting position.

“Can I give you the short version for now?” What was it with me? I felt so slow, like some important cog in my get-up-and-go was broken or missing.

“Sure.”

Here goes,
I thought, taking a deep breath. “When Brigid took you to Niflheim, I had to get there. Queen Safira of Vatnheim tricked me into a deal, one where I promised Leira to the water realm. Afterward, Marik was sent here as a sort of collector. I was warned that to tell you or anyone else was to endanger them, so I just tried to buy time until I could figure out how to break the pact.”

“So you and Marik . . . ?” Jack asked.

I shook my head. “I just needed to keep you away from him. Jack Frost and a merman are a bad combination. For the water guy, anyway.”

I could tell that Jack was getting riled up by the story, that he was both angered to be so clueless and relieved by some of the information.

“Meanwhile,” I continued before he could interject, “the sinkhole and dead birds were Brigid trying to break through. When Marik made it clear that he was out of time and that Leira would die soon in order to transition, I lost it and deliberately broke the pact by getting my Stork powers suspended. After that, Safira teamed up with Brigid to begin Ragnarök, the, well, end of the world. As earth knows it, anyway. They were banking on surviving, and starting from scratch without us. But I recently figured out — thanks to Hulda, as usual — that during our two near-death experiences, I made wishes. Wishes that were answered. By a Swan Maiden. I used my third and final one to offer myself instead of Leira.”

“You did what?” Jack asked, alarm spiking his voice.

“Except it didn’t work, because . . .”

“Because what?”

“I got tricked by Idunn, the Goddess of Youth, someone I suspect has a lineage as blue-blooded as Leira’s and mine, maybe even more so. She’s mischievous and a game player and has either earned her way back into the goddess Frigg’s good graces or has pulled off the ultimate grift. I honestly don’t know what just happened.”

From the looks of it, Jack was having a hard time processing it all. I still didn’t feel right, either. The light-headedness I was experiencing wasn’t exactly dizziness; it was more of an emptiness. Jack didn’t look so hot himself. Except, from what I could tell . . .

“Jack, are you shaking?”

He brought both arms to his chest, drawing himself in tight. “A little.”

“It couldn’t be —”

“What?” he asked, huddling.

“Are you cold?”

“No. Of course not.”

“So what is it, then?”

“I don’t know. The chills of some sort.”

My mind had more gears spinning than the Tour de France. “If you’ve never been cold, how would you even know?”

“Because I don’t get cold. You know that.”

Could it be?
She was a trickster, sure, but a thief, too? I felt fundamentally altered; Jack was beset by unknown-to-him chills.

“We’ve been had,” I said. “Or rescued. I hardly know what to think, but you reached out to me at the precise moment that . . . Holy crap! We’ve always said that we’re stronger with our powers combined. But could it be?”

“What?”

Before I could explain further, I heard a grunt.

“Marik!” I shouted.

With everything happening faster than I could track, I’d almost forgotten his presence. I ran to him as he shifted and groaned.

“Are you all right?” I kneeled beside him, not daring to touch him. He looked pale and weak and — balled as he was — smaller than I remembered.

Jack, at my side, helped Marik to a sitting position.

“What happened? Where is she? I don’t feel her,” Marik said, scanning the area with a haunted look in his eyes.

“Safira and Brigid have gone,” I said, kneading my left knuckles with my right thumb. “Forever, if I’m not mistaken. Which means . . .”

What was — without exaggeration — a rescue from the brink of destruction for all of earth was the kiss of death to Marik. If, as I suspected, the portals had been resealed with Marik on this side, there was nothing to be done for him.

“I know what it means,” Marik said, closing his eyes and leaning back against a leg of the bench.

“Am I missing something?” Jack asked.

“Marik will not survive here. He’s . . .”

“Not human,” Marik finished for me, his lids weighted with the effort of reopening. “Never meant to survive long-term on earth.”

Sirens approaching expanded our sphere of attention. Before us, what was once Pinewood High School was a jagged patch of bricks and twisted metal, and it slammed me back to reality. Everyone — my dad, Penny, Ms. Bryant, Jinky, and dozens of others — had been in that building. The entire structure was no longer there; it had been sucked up like some kind of house of cards by a malevolent magician.

“We have to check on the others,” I said, panic straining my voice. “They were in the school.”

Jack looked across the parking lot to the shorn plot of broken walls. The muscles in his neck and shoulders were corded and tight.

“Go,” Marik rasped. “I’ll be fine.” He stretched and climbed weakly up onto the bench. It wasn’t very reassuring, but I knew there was nothing we could do for him.

With more sirens now rushing to the scene, Jack and I took off across the parking lot. Given what remained of the building, I had very little hope. From this vantage point, the back side, the structure had been all but leveled. The gym, however, was on the other side.

With my heart pounding on every jarring lunge of my all-out dash, we raced to the front of the school. A cry caught in my throat and then released like a trapped animal as I surveyed a scene of equal, if not greater, devastation. I barely recognized the place. How could, in mere minutes, an entire building be sucked up and away? A building not one hundred feet from where I had been on the same property. A building that contained my father, friends, and favorite teacher.

When the first fire truck pulled to the curb alongside what had once been the front entrance, I felt sick to my stomach. What was there left to save?
Who
was there left to save?

Then a movement from around the opposite side of the school caught my eye. First a single person strolled into view. And then another. Until they were filing around the side of the building in a line. As soon as I saw my dad holding Ms. Bryant’s arm, I ran to him like some kind of charging bull.

“What happened?” I shouted, sprinting to him and nearly bowling them both over. “Where were you? How did . . . ? Is everyone . . . ? Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

It all hit me when I saw Penny and Jinky round the corner. The latter assisted the former, who had a decided limp but was fine.
Fine!
From the looks of it, they were
all
fine! I didn’t even realize I was sobbing until I felt the spasm in my shoulders.

My dad hugged me to his chest. “Where did you go? I almost tore the door down to get to you, but they had us on lockdown in that shelter.” He looked around, grimacing at the altered scene before him. “How did you . . . ?”

“Huddled in the bus stop,” I said quickly. “Jack showed up at the last minute. If he hadn’t . . .” I thought about the fog he’d created. It had bought me valuable time.

Marik hobbled into view; he didn’t look good, but the sight of him sent Penny from Jinky’s side and hurrying to him. She really cared about him, and, judging by the expression on his face, the feeling was mutual. He appeared sallow, greenish almost. Not everyone had escaped unscathed.

I could see the firefighters and now a few paramedics working their way toward us, sorting the crowd into triage areas. There were injuries; most looked like cuts and scrapes or the occasional twisted ankle. Mr. Derry, who, from the looks of it, was suffering with chest pains, appeared to be the worst of the group.

“Your dad’s a real hero,” Ms. Bryant said. “He organized the teachers and chaperones into groups and found two kids during his final sweep of the gym. They only had moments to spare. If he hadn’t gone back up for a last search . . .”

Ms. Bryant gazed at my dad with admiration as she said this. I couldn’t help thinking that his self-sacrifice, his bravery, had something to do with the youth of his soul. His heedless actions could easily be considered rash, reckless even, but I’d wager he never doubted his chances.

Pulling away from my dad, I said, “I’m going to see how Penny is.”

She and Marik had formed a quiet pocket among the still-rattled throngs. They seemed to be holding each other up as Jack and I approached.

“The paramedics are checking everyone, making sure those in need of medical attention are seen to,” I said.

Marik’s eyes lifted to mine. I read alarm in them.

“I don’t want help,” he said, scanning left and right.

“But you don’t seem well,” Penny said. “I think I’ll have my knee looked at. When I fell on it, I swear something popped.”

“I’ll walk you over to their staging area,” I said, offering her my arm.

“You should come, too,” Penny said, looking at Marik with an earnest appeal.

“I just want to go home,” Marik said. “I had quite the scare, but that’s it. And I find all this commotion a little too much right now.”

“I’ll drive him,” Jack said. “My truck escaped damage.”

“I’ll stay with Penny and my dad,” I said.

Before Penny could protest further, I steered her in the direction of the ambulances. Below her skirt, I could see her knee had swollen to twice its size.

After what we’d been through, nothing should have shocked me, but watching Jack and Marik ramble off — Jack even lending Marik an arm for support — was quite the scene.

I got Penny settled onto the curb, where a paramedic began taking her vitals, when I saw a woman from the local news station sound-checking with her cameraman not six feet from where we were. With a nod of his head, he gave her a silent countdown: three fingers, two fingers, one finger.

“This is Deborah Manning reporting from Pinewood, Minnesota, where what is believed to be an F4 tornado has recently torn through this small northern community. The weather event began with a freak storm producing hailstones over six inches in diameter and was followed by a flash fog reducing visibility to almost zero, all of which limited meteorologists’ abilities to predict the scale of what is believed to be the largest tornado ever to hit the area.”

Deborah Manning, dressed in a yellow raincoat as if she just finished taping a segment for
Deadliest Catch,
walked a few steps to her right. “I’m standing in front of what was just a short while ago the high school and where some quick-thinking teachers and chaperones led students — with only minutes to spare — into a lower-level shelter. Other areas of the community weren’t so lucky. At least fifty homes are believed to have been lost in the original twister or one of its tributary cells that, in their own right, produced gusts of over one hundred miles an hour. Missing-person reports are accumulating as residents scramble out of shelters and venture forth to check on neighbors and loved ones. News of two highway deaths has just been reported.” Deborah paused and held a finger to her headset while receiving, presumably, a live feed. “We’re also just now learning of extensive damage to Pinewood Memorial Hospital.”

I had been watching the reporter, mesmerized by her unfaltering delivery, until her comments regarding the hospital were like dropping off a cliff. The hospital. Leira. My mom and Stanley.

“Penny, tell my dad I went to the hospital,” I said, vaulting to my feet.

“Sure, but hasn’t the hospital kind of, like, come to us? Is something wrong?” she asked, giving me a head-to-toe once-over.

“Not me. Leira. The reporter just said there was damage to the hospital.”

“Oh,” Penny said. “Do you think your car is still here?”

As opposed to not here, as in sucked up and away and now possibly floating on the surface of Vatnheim or buried in a Niflheim snowbank? The image of my little green bug as some kind of anachronistic oddity was the mental image I tried to focus on — without complete success — to stop myself from hyperventilating while running to where I’d parked. Two highway deaths already attributed to the storm.
What if my car landed belly-up in a water-realm pool like some helpless roly-poly bug?
Reports of missing persons coming in.
It could have landed atop Brigid in some entirely fitting reenactment of
The Wizard of Oz. More than fifty homes reportedly wiped out.
Brigid’s legs could shrivel and disappear, leaving only her fur mukluks behind.
Extensive damage to the hospital, where Leira was already struggling.