Valkyrie Rising (3 page)

“Yes … I mean, no … I’m fine,” I stammered, wanting to get away. For so many reasons. “I—I left the oven on. I have to go.”

“Odd, given that none of the food I’ve seen requires heat.” He arched one eyebrow but let me go without another word. Still, I knew he was following my every move as I wove through the party.

My feet felt far away as they carried me up the deck stairs and into the house. The boy’s white pupils filled my mind. As did the way his face had fallen slack, empty, as he tipped right into me.

Once in the safety of my room, with two inches of solid oak protecting me from the world outside, what had just happened was easier to rationalize. It wasn’t like I’d wanted to join the party in the first place, and while there, all I could do was worry about Graham and whether I’d embarrass him. Or if he’d humiliate me by acting like my parent. Last Friday night, he had dragged me to a party, only to kick me out a half hour before my curfew. In front of everyone.

Either way, it was starting to seem like a good thing that I was leaving for the summer. If I was hiding in my room during the party of the year, and quite possibly hallucinating, it was a sign I needed a break from all the chaos and pressure of Graham’s world. Eight weeks in Skavøpoll, Norway, would give me just that. Graham’s shadow couldn’t possibly reach all the way across the Atlantic—at least not until he arrived and took over that town, too. But I would have a week to myself before he’d join me, while he stayed home to complete the circuit of graduation parties. And even when he did get there, there was only so much excitement he could stir up.

After all, there was no quieter place in the world than Norway. Nothing
ever
happened there.

T
he trip to Norway was thirteen hours in the air, with a layover in Newark. After a cramped eight hours sandwiched between the tallest person I’d ever seen and the fattest, I arrived in Oslo. There I switched to yet another plane for the short flight to Bergen, where my grandmother would pick me up at the airport. By the time the captain announced our approach and imminent landing, I was dying to get off the plane. Even the rinky-dink town of Skavøpoll would be a welcome sight after that epic bout of confinement.

My grandmother was waiting for me at the baggage claim. At six foot two, she was easy to spot. Even in a country where everyone was astonishingly huge and fair, she was striking. Her bobbed bright white hair was a beacon, guiding me through the sea of heads and right to her side.

“Elsa,” Grandmother said, kissing both cheeks. “You’re getting so tall. Almost as tall as me.” Graham and I took almost completely after her side of the family, resembling not only our father but also his mother, Hilda Overholt—I realized it more and more every time I saw her.

“Well, about four inches shy,” I replied, amazed that my grandmother still looked so young. Despite her white hair and old-lady spectacles, only a handful of wrinkles creased her face, and they were only visible when I searched for them. Grandmother Hilda was gorgeous.

“You’ll get there, sweetling,” she said, linking her elbow through mine. “Taller, that is. Then we’ll see you in those fashion magazines.”

“Right,” I muttered. The last thing I needed was to be even more freakishly tall.

“Or tearing apart Tokyo?” she suggested, towing me through the crowd toward the exit. “Don’t worry, Ellie, Godzilla still has an inch or two on me.” She clucked her tongue. I’d forgotten how she did that when she was teasing. And that she’d always been able to read me too well. I had to laugh, pushing aside my jet-lagged crankiness.

Suddenly, I saw the two months stretching in front of me in a whole new light. Not that it wasn’t always fun to visit her, but last time I’d been here was the summer before I started high school. I’d been just a kid. This time, things could be different. Grandmother Hilda had always been cool. She let me wander through town at all hours, no questions asked. That was never permitted in LA, under my mother’s ever-watchful, all-seeing eyes. Even Graham would have more freedom in Skavøpoll, with the nonexistent drinking age.

That line of thought opened up a whole world of unwelcome anxieties, like whether Graham would loosen up. And how on earth I’d share a roof with Tucker Halloway for two weeks straight. But I knew I’d manage somehow. I always had.

M
Y GRANDMOTHER LIVED
on the top of a hill a mile outside of town, in an old gray farmhouse nestled at the edge of a pine forest and surrounded by gardens that would put most professional landscapers to shame. A stone fence taller than Graham traced the property line, surrounding all two acres, making it feel almost magical, like we were set apart from the rest of the world. The calm and quiet of her house were so consuming that the day before Graham arrived was really the first time I ventured out for anything other than a morning run through the surrounding fields.

The morning was bright and warm, and after my run, I decided to explore the town. Not much had changed during the two years since I’d last visited Grandma Hilda. Downtown Skavøpoll was still a long row of family-owned shops lining a narrow main street. One side of the road backed into the water, while the other was built along the base of a slope that stretched up behind the town, dotted with homes and farms until it disappeared into the mountain. The stores along the water’s edge were scattered, fading into docks and rickety fishing sheds.

I wandered toward the wharf and waterfront, where the fishing crews were unloading their morning catch. With every step I thought about my grandfather, who had taken me down to those same piers each morning when I was young. We’d buy warm croissants from the bakery and watch as salmon the size of German shepherds were wrestled out of the cargo holds and tossed ashore.

The fishing crews had been up since the early hours of morning, hauling in nets full of fish, and it was amazing to see how much work they’d already done. While the rest of the country was still rubbing the sleep from their eyes, the fishermen had already unpacked their wares and were preparing the fish to be frozen and shipped all over the world.

The men patrolling the decks and hauling on ropes and pulleys were every bit as barnacled and battered looking as their weather-beaten boats.

Or so it seemed.

As I leaned forward over the metal railing along the dock, watching the work progress, I felt someone watching me. So I turned. A boy, an older boy, was on the deck of a boat farther down the pier.

Words utterly failed me. Except “wow.”

Disheveled blond locks peeked out from beneath his baseball cap. He grinned when he caught my eye—a flash of pearly white in an otherwise tan face.

I looked down, wondering if I’d been staring or if he had. Even though he’d seen me first, I’d definitely given him more than a casual glance in response.

I started to walk away, down the pier, but I heard a deep voice behind me, slightly out of breath from jogging and saying something incomprehensible. My stomach dropped, but I managed to look composed as I turned to face the blond boy. He smiled expectantly, waiting for me to reply to whatever he’d just said.

“I—I only speak English,” I said, ashamed that most of the Norwegian I’d picked up over the years was food related. I was hardly going to ask that boy to pass the bread.

I finally looked up to meet eyes that were the breezy blue of a sun-drenched tropical sea, which was ironic in such an arctic climate.

“You’re Hilda Overholt’s granddaughter?” It was more of a statement than a question, delivered in flawless English. He could have been a boy from any town back home, with that Wonder Bread smile. Maybe from a small town in the Midwest where they hold their vowels just a second longer.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m here for the summer.”

“I thought so—I saw you running the other day, up in our neighborhood. I’ve been meaning to stop by. I live just down the road.”

I nodded.

“We met once before. But you were about eight years old. You probably don’t remember.”

I shook my head. It was surprising that I could forget a face like his, even if I’d been just a kid.

“You know,” he said, covering for my awkward silence, “you look just like your grandmother did when she was young. At least, in her pictures.”

I felt warm. Once upon a time my grandmother was supermodel caliber. The pictures on her wall made that more than clear. I didn’t really know what to say. But I rarely did when I was talking to boys other than Graham and Tuck—and they hardly counted.

Fortunately he didn’t seem to notice. He extended one hand. “I’m Kjell,” he said, then repeated it, “Ch-ell,” carefully enunciating the first part, since the Norwegian
ch
sound is harsher than its English counterpart. “I’m here for the summer too.”

“Really.” I was determined not to blow a chance to make a friend. Better yet, a boy who didn’t see me and think of Graham. So I took a deep breath and forced myself to be bold. “And where do you spend the rest of the seasons?”

He laughed. It was a noteworthy event—his teeth were so straight, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he said he’d had braces twice. But his smile was crooked. It was the best possible combination.

“Oslo,” he replied. “At the university. I’m studying medicine, so eventually I’ll work summer shifts at a hospital. But for now, I’m navigator on my father’s boat. There.” He pointed to a newish-looking fishing boat a hundred feet down the pier.

“That’s not at all impressive,” I said. “I mean, I’ve been a doctor since I was twelve. And nautical navigation? Kid stuff.”

His smile took a playful turn. “I’ve heard you Americans mature quickly.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Given our obvious age difference, it triggered an uncomfortable association with the romantic disasters my mother’s art students got into during her summer program in Europe. It seemed that older Italian men also thought that Americans matured quickly. That comment wound away into awkward territory, so rather than replying, I pretended to be interested in the crates being lifted off the boat in front of us.

“Are you free tonight?” Kjell asked rather abruptly. Then, a touch embarrassed, he added, “Some friends are going to a pub. Nothing fancy, but it’s better than sitting around Hilda’s doing nothing.”

“I don’t know,” I said on reflex. Hanging out with a boy, even in a group, meant wanting it bad enough to fight for it. On the one almost-date I’d had that year, Graham and twenty of his closest friends had miraculously ended up at the same movie. As if my bio lab partner had been plotting for weeks to murder me in the dark.

It took a second for it to sink in that there was no one there to stop me. Graham was five thousand miles away. And what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. I felt a smile building inside as I realized I was free to do whatever I wanted. “I don’t usually go out with strangers,” I said, even though I had every intention of doing just that.

“But I’m not a stranger to the rest of your family,” he replied. “Your grandmother used to babysit me.”

Even though it was beginning to sound less like a date and more like my grandmother had nudged him into taking pity on me, I held my smile and said, “Okay.”

He rewarded me with another flash of straight white teeth. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

Before I rounded the corner and he disappeared from sight, I glanced back at Kjell. He was already at his father’s boat, easily stepping over the four-foot span of water that separated the deck from the pier.

He was tall, cute, and smart enough to be in medical school. What more could any girl ask for? I paused to imagine what Graham would have done if he’d been there to witness the whole exchange. If he scowled when I was asked out by boys he’d known since kindergarten, I couldn’t imagine what he’d think if a college boy asked me out—a heart-wrenchingly adorable college boy. Graham’s certain disapproval was a point in Kjell’s favor.

But Graham wasn’t there. And until he showed up, I didn’t have to play obedient little sister. Or listen to his comments about boys and their one-track minds. As if he wasn’t one too. For now, I was Ellie Overholt, an American girl in Norway, and I’d finally get to do things
my
way. Even if I wasn’t sure exactly what that was quite yet.

I just knew that I, for one, couldn’t wait to find out.

I
HAD PLANNED
to jog back to Grandmother’s house, but after my encounter with Kjell, I decided to prolong my window-shopping, savoring my newfound feeling of freedom. The bakery still had a few fresh croissants displayed in the window when I passed, and even if Grandmother had probably eaten breakfast five hours ago, I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist our favorite treat.

When I pushed the door open, everybody turned and stared. And by everybody, I mean the three old women occupying one of the two café tables, sipping espresso from doll-sized cups, and the two burly fishermen still sporting orange rubber pants misted with seawater. I pretended not to notice how they watched my every move. In a small town, newcomers are endlessly fascinating.

So I wasn’t surprised when one of the old ladies rose and wobbled toward me, her carved birch cane tapping along the checkerboard floor.

The baker leaned forward with a polite, expectant smile. He must have known who I was, because he didn’t bother trying to talk to me in Norwegian. Instead he nodded mutely as I pointed at the croissants and held up two fingers.