Wraithsong (27 page)

“
When did you know
you…wanted to get to know me more?” I ask.

“
The second I saw you in
the greenhouse, I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t know how much
trouble I was in quite then. When you came to visit my house I
couldn’t help myself from wanting to kiss you. It was as if my body
took over and the rest obeyed, and after that, I couldn’t keep my
mind off of you.” He pauses. “We
should
be together, you and
me.”

I can’t help but smile. I smile because he
cares about me and in all the years I can remember, I never thought
I’d find anyone who would understand me so thoroughly.

Chapter 29

I wake up in Anthony’s arms, resting on his
warm chest, his heart beating steadily against my ear. The scent of
him is enough to awaken life in me, and having him this close,
feeling his body heat against mine, only intensifies my feelings. I
run my fingertips along his bare arm. He shifts, and I look up into
his wakening eyes.

“
Good morning,” he
says.

I smile. “Good morning.”

“
Sleep well?”

“
Yes, thank you.” Our hands
interlace and I burrow the side of my face into his neck. I don’t
want to get up and end this blissful moment since we probably won’t
have too many of these moments again. The future is too uncertain
and there are no guarantees that we’ll live through this ordeal. I
could die, Anthony could die, my mom could die, and it will be as
if none of us ever existed.

“
What are you thinking
about?” he asks.

“
I was just thinking about
how wonderful this is, and how we might never—” I can’t complete
the sentence. Saying it out loud makes it sound so much more real
and I don’t want to bring the hopelessness of our reality into this
perfect, but all-too-brief moment.

“
So let’s enjoy it for a
few minutes.” Anthony kisses my forehead and at that, I creep
closer and kiss him on the lips. “I hope we’ll have a happy
ending.”

“
The ending will be happy
if I’m with you,” I say. “And my mom.” I’m surprised how easily the
confessions of my heart come now. “There has to be a way we can
win,” I say, sitting up.

“
Let’s think about that in
a minute,” Anthony says. “I want this to be a beautiful moment
without worries of what might or might not be.”

I lie back down onto his chest and nuzzle
into him. “Me too.” Though I want to, I can’t fully enjoy lying
here in his arms because I’m worrying about what’s happening to my
mom.

“
So tell me something
interesting,” Anthony says.

“
Like what?”

“
Well, you never told me
how you found out that I was a Huldu,” Anthony says.

I chuckle lightly. “Okay,
first it was the fact that
I
was attracted to you. I’ve never been attracted to
anyone before, and I thought there was something wrong with me
since I hadn’t, you know, liked anyone in that way.”

He laughs.

“
The second clue was the
fact that my flair didn’t work on you. I asked my mom if anyone was
immune to a Huldra’s flair and she said only other Huldras and
Huldus, and elves. So I thought you could be one of those, unless
my Huldra flair was just pathetic.”

“
Well your Huldra flair was
far from pathetic, especially since it worked on me,” Anthony
says.

“
But I didn’t know for sure
until you told me.”

“
That wasn’t a very
pleasant moment.”

“
No,” I say, remembering
the intense car ride away from the ballet where we’d gotten in an
argument. “The first time I thought you might like me was when you
kissed me on the couch in your house. I felt it in your kiss that
you wanted me.”

“
Yeah, I couldn’t hold back
any more, and it was really hard for me to not…take you up on your
advances that night.”

My heart leaps in my chest.

“
I tried to make sense of
my feelings for you because I’ve never been fascinated by another
human and your aura was so beautiful compared to any other human’s
I’d ever seen,” Anthony says.

“
Really? It seemed to me
that you wanted to get rid of me.” I look up at him.

“
Well, initially, yes, I
did, because like I told you, Maureen wanted me to get to know you
when she suspected that you were a Huldra, and she wanted to take
you for herself. I didn’t want to be part of that.”

My cheeks flush with blood. Coming from him
in this moment and in this way, his words and deep voice entrance
me and keep me wanting more. “So when did Maureen realize that I
was a Huldra?”

“
After you visited my house
the first time, Maureen knew. She has the ability to know exactly
what a being is. She said you were special and that she wanted to
have your fifth Huldra gift.”

“
But you said you had spied
on me for months? Didn’t she know before that?” I ask.

“
I did spy on you before
that, yes, but we still didn’t know for sure if you were a Huldra
or not. That’s why Maureen wanted to meet you, so she could
know.”

“
Stalker,” I
say.

“
It wasn’t like I was
hanging out at your house night and day. I had to balance school,
work, and soccer too.”

“
Stalker.” I hit him in the
chest.

He laughs. “Sorry, that was the old me. One
day, and before Maureen knew, I saw your mom, and she didn’t carry
the human aura. I didn’t tell Maureen because I still wanted to get
to know you somehow.”

“
Did you set Principal
Jenkins up to make me weed with you?”

“
Well, I had asked him to
find someone to help me weed the front of the school, but that was
mainly so I could spend more time—stalking you to see if I could
figure out if you were a Huldra or not,” he says.

“
Did you use your Huldu
flair on Principal Jenkins to make me have to weed with you?” I
ask.

“
No, it just happened to
work out on its own, assisting my plan in working out perfectly,
even better than what I had planned.”

“
Fate,” I say.

“
I don’t believe in fate,”
Anthony says.

“
Our ancestors, the
Vikings, did, and I think I do too.” I pause to hear his
reaction.

“
Most people don’t know
what they believe in and just flow through life like driftwood,”
Anthony says.

“
I believe I was fated to
meet you.”

Silence. “And I you,” he finally
concedes.

A knock at the door interrupts our
conversation and Anthony gets up to answer it.

“
Are you Anthony?” I hear
someone ask. The voice sounds a lot like my mom’s.

There’s a moment of quietness, and then I
hear rushed, angry whispers.

I shoot up and out of bed and run to the
door. There, I see my mom and cry out because I’m so happy and
relieved to see her. There’s something strange in the way Anthony
and my mom are interacting and it almost seems like they know each
other and are arguing about something.

“
Mom, how did you escape?”
I say, hesitant to approach at first. When she sees me, her eyes
light up, and when she opens her arms wide, I jump in to her
embrace, all my hesitation gone, clinging on to her as if she could
vanish at any moment. The agony of having lost her melts away with
the tears running down my face. “Are you all right? Did they hurt
you? You look so weak.” I pull back and search her eyes, but to my
horror, I find no peace there. Instead, I find desperation that I
haven’t seen since my dad died.

My mom has bruises on her face and arms, and
though her clothes looked fabulous before, they’re now dirty and
torn. I remember that in one of my dreams, Olaf had broken her arm,
but to my relief I see no injury.

“
Listen to me very
carefully, Sonia,” she whispers and then pulls me with her to the
living room away from Anthony. “Anthony isn’t who you think he is.
He’s the one after your fifth Huldra gift, not Maureen.”

At first, her comment doesn’t register
because of course it can’t be true. I shake my head a little. “No,
he’s helping me find you, helping me save you.” I know my mom would
never lie to me about this, keep secrets, yes, but not lie, no.
Maybe she’s delusional because of all the torture or has somehow
been misinformed.

“
Sonia, I promise you it’s
true,” my mom says.

I can hardly get myself to consider the
words she has just spoken. Disbelievingly, I look at Anthony.

“
Sonia, she’s lying! This
isn’t your mother; this is an imposter, a Darkálfar. She has
shape-shifted so she looks like your mother, but it’s not her.” He
storms toward my mom as if he intends to assault her, but I step in
front of my mom, creating a barrier between him and her.
“Stop!”

When Anthony stops, I look back at my mom.
She looks exactly like my mom, her expression, her smile and even
the soft creases around her blue eyes.

“
Sonia, this is ridiculous.
You know it’s me,” she says. “Don’t listen to him, for he’s the
Darkálfar—the liar, and he was the one who kidnapped me, and kept
me imprisoned, not Maureen or Olaf. Come with me so we can travel
to Wraithsong Island to start your training with
Maureen.”

“
Anthony has been training
me,” I say.

My mom turns me around to face her, grips my
arms and stares in to my eyes. “He’s after your gift, do you hear
me? Now let’s go before he grabs his gun and shoots us both.”

“
I’m not after Sonia’s
gift. Sonia, don’t listen to her, this is a set up!” Anthony
says.

I don’t know what or who to believe. My mom
takes my hand and pulls me toward the door, but Anthony steps in
front of the door, preventing us from leaving.

“
Let us go, Darkálfar,” my
mom says.

“
I am not a Darkálfar,”
Anthony says.

My mom turns toward me again. “Sonia, I was
so worried about you,” she says, caressing my hair. “I didn’t know
if Anthony had done something to hurt you, or—” Her eyes fill with
tears and she sniffles and wipes a tear from her cheek. “I’m
sorry.”

“
It’s okay; you don’t have
to apologize,” I say, stroking her upper back. “We’re together now,
so everything will be fine, but you have got to believe me when I
say Anthony is helping me—helping us.”

“
Sonia, this woman is not
your mother,” Anthony says, huffing while grabbing his temples. “I
don’t know how to prove this to you, but she’s lying,” he seethes,
still standing in our way in front of the door, his behavior making
me afraid.

“
I know how to prove it,” I
say. Just then there is a knock at the door. Anthony answers it and
the Lightálfars enter.

“
Who have we here?” Ross
asks.

“
This is my mom, Hedda,” I
say.

“
No, it’s not,” Anthony
interjects. “This is Layla, a Darkálfar who has shape-shifted to
look like Sonia’s mother.”

“
No it’s not, it’s my mom,”
I say, taking her hand in mine, feeling the need to protect her
from everyone here. “But since Anthony is so skeptical, I’ve
figured a way to prove that it’s her.”

“
How?” Ross says, stepping
closer to my mom, his eyes unwelcoming.

“
By asking her questions
she and I would only know the answers to,” I say.

“
Do you think she’s a
Darkálfar?” Skuld says to Mani, her hand reaching for the gun
underneath her trench coat.

Mani nods and at that Ross pulls out his
gun, cocks it, and places it against my mom’s forehead.

“
What are you doing?” I
yell.

“
I smell something rancid,
and I think it’s Hedda. We don’t know if you’re a Darkálfar or not
so prove it to us!” Ross says.

Skuld walks over, placing his hand on Ross’s
shoulder. “Ross, put the gun down and let’s resolve this in a
peaceful way.”

But Ross doesn’t put the gun down. “Did you
search her before you let her in? Did you? Sonia, you are putting
all of our lives in danger by letting her be here because this
impostor might not be your precious mother at all. How did you find
us anyway, Hedda or Layla, whatever your name is?” Ross says, not
backing down.

“
I didn’t find you; Maureen
just told me to come here to get Sonia, and of course that’s what I
would do—she’s my daughter,” my mom says. “I swear to you that I’m
not a Darkálfar. Ask me any question you want, Sonia, about your
childhood, anything…” My mom’s hands, which she’s holding above her
head, are shaking.

“
This is my mom, Ross.
Don’t you think I would have known if she wasn’t? Drop your stupid
gun. You’re scaring her—and me!”

When Ross doesn’t drop his weapon, I ask,
“Mom, who was my first grade teacher?”

“
Mrs. Thompson,” my mom
answers.

I nod fervently. “Exactly, and where did we
go on vacation when I turned eight?”

“
Disney World,” my mom
says.

“
And what was Dad’s
favorite song?” This will be the telling question because only my
mom will know the answer to that.

“
Just tell him to put the
gun down, Sonia, I can’t think!” my mom screams as her hands
flail.