Ellida Page 3

  Eamon was neither overwhelmingly handsome like his brother, nor did he possess his father’s powerful physique. He didn’t resemble his mother, either. With his dark-blue eyes, thick, copperish-blond hair and long narrow nose, he was, in fact, a male version of myself.

  He probably noticed I was watching him. As if he could read my mind, he said, “It was a bit of a shock when I saw you yesterday. You look like my twin sister.”

  My uncle let out a soft chuckle. “None of my kids took after me. Maggie looks exactly like her mother, and Eamon took after my brother.”

  “You’ll get a second chance with your grandchildren,” Eamon said.

  “Jack told me we have something else in common, Eamon,” I said. “Music. He told me about Rawhide and the bar where you guys play on weekends.”

  “We need a singer. Jack says you have a fantastic voice.”

  “Whoa, whoa! Hold on! I’m not going to sing, no way!”

  Unconcerned with my reaction, Eamon continued building his case. “It’d be a good way to meet people and let them get to know you. Man, who wouldn’t come to hear an Ellida?”

  Yeah, I could imagine that. “That’s way out of my comfort zone, Eamon. Sorry.”

  My cousin wasn’t a person to be easily discouraged. “Even Dad thinks it’s a good idea.”

  My uncle nodded. “It’s up to you, Astrid. No pressure, but think about it.”

  No pressure, yeah. Eamon wouldn’t easily drop the idea of getting a singer. I wasn’t sure if he would convince me to join the band, but I was relieved knowing that my uncle didn’t find the idea outrageous. For a brief moment I closed my eyes and visualized a dim bar full of people, a small stage for the band, and me singing all the songs I loved.

  I sighed. “I’ll think about it. I promise.”

  WE STOPPED at the white fence that surrounded my house. James pushed it open and turned to me. “Are you okay with this, Astrid?”

  “I’ll be fine, Uncle.”

  I didn’t have memories of this place; I was too young when I’d left it. Still, my heart pounded in my throat as James turned the knob and we stepped inside.

  I stood near the entrance, reluctant to step in. My uncle’s fingers gently closed around my shoulder and gave me a little push.

  I looked around the house where my parents had lived during their short marriage. I thought I’d feel something. Anything. But the old house remained silent. No memories, no scents, no signs of its former inhabitants.

  The big living room swallowed up my furniture from Rosenthal, still looking half empty.

  The house was clean and well aired. A pleasant and oddly familiar blend of lavender and citrus reached my nostrils. The floor was spotless, the windows and translucent white organdy curtains recently washed.

  I tried to imagine my father and my mother there, to hear their voices. No matter how briefly, they must have loved each other. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been born. My mother must have laughed here, my father must have kissed and held and loved her… They must have… There must be light, and love, and happiness caught up here in this house.

  Suddenly, I felt ashamed that I’d never wanted to know more about my parents. I’d accepted whatever Ella and Arnaldur had told me. Your mother was too young to take care of you. Then she remarried, and we all agreed it would be better for you to stay with us. That was the official version, and I had been content with it. My mother had the right to live her own life however she liked, I reasoned in the typical manner of my kind. A logical, reasonable, unemotional cause-and-effect way of thinking. Of course she wouldn’t know what to do with a child, being almost a child herself. Of course I was better off with my loving grandparents. Of course this, of course that…

  But I was a werewolf, too, and therefore much more emotionally demanding than my wizard kind. Why had I been satisfied with this simplified explanation for such a long time? Why had I never wanted to know the whole truth?

  I didn’t need to be a psychologist to know that it had been a way to cope with the issues I preferred to keep buried deep inside me. Then, Jack had come into my life. He’d told me more about my mother, and for the first time I’d started shaping her in my mind. Here she was the Red Cliffs prodigal daughter. With shame burning inside me, I realized that was what I’d been thinking about her, too. Nobody knew a thing about what had been going on with her all these years, or nobody wanted to tell me. Jack and Betty, two of three people who were hurt the most by my mother’s actions, were the only ones who thought she was a victim, too.

  “Oh, Mom, Dad, where are you?” I whispered softly as my chest tightened with awakened pain. “You must be somewhere here, with me.”

  I closed my eyes and saw a room with soft pink walls, filled with golden autumn light, white curtains blowing in the afternoon breeze. And two smiling faces, one with soft-gray eyes, the other one with dark-blue, hovering above a child in a crib.

  The old house wasn’t quiet anymore.

  “Red Cliffs needs to accept me for who I am, Uncle, and forgive my mother for whatever they think she’s guilty of,” I said quietly, swallowing my tears. “I am not only Hal’s daughter, but Rowena’s too. If they can’t, I don’t think I can stay here. I can’t pretend to be somebody else.”

  For a long moment, James didn’t say anything, and then he nodded. “I understand, Astrid. And I don’t ask you to deny that part of yourself; you know that, don’t you?”

  “I know.”

  “It will be fine, you’ll see. Just give us a chance. We need you here.”

  As I needed them, I thought, and this little town, and a different kind of belonging—to my father’s kin, to another part of myself. Here I am, Father, Mother, I wept silently. I came home because I wanted to, because I’m happy to be a big, strong werewolf with red fur and amber eyes. And a wizard with blue eyes and golden-reddish hair. I denied both of you. I betrayed you by trying to be somebody else, neglecting my wizard powers and fighting the wolf in me. Not anymore. I am happy being who I am.

  I turned to James with a smile, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders. “I’m not going to live here, Uncle, but I’ll keep the house. I’ll renovate it, make it pretty again. Eamon,” I addressed my cousin who’d been sitting quietly on my beige sofa, “help me to find my laptop. We should go back. Aunt Betty might need a few extra pairs of hands.”

  Three

  Astrid

  THE MOHEGANS’ kitchen looked busy as a beehive and smelled wonderful.

  “Check the oven, Astrid. The squares should be done by now,” Betty said when I offered to give her a hand.

  I pulled out a big baking sheet with raspberry bars. “Pour the glaze over it, let it stand a few minutes and then cut it into two-bite size pieces,” she said, pushing a bowl with sugar glaze into my hands.

  Lily was in charge of the catered finger food that had just arrived. Drew started another batch of brownies in a copper mixing bowl.

  I heard the front door open and my uncle’s voice greeting someone. A moment later a young woman with a four-year old child came in.

  “Hi, I’m Frances Colby, and this is Graeme.” She hugged me and kissed my cheeks. “Say hello to Miss Mohegan, Graeme. She is our Ellida.”

  I ducked down to his eye level. “Hi, Graeme. You can call me Astrid, if you like. What do you have there?” I pointed to a small yellow dump truck clenched in his fist and immediately regretted my attempt to make conversation because his big blue eyes filled with tears.

  “This is my favorite truck and my cousin Mary broke it. Because I cut off her Barbie’s hair. We were playing and she said it was okay, and then she started crying.”

  “Maybe it can be fixed. Did you try?”

  “It’s broken, see here. My dad used crazy glue, but it didn’t work.”

  I could easily fix it, even with my limited metal skills, but I didn’t want to look like a show off in front of his mother. “You know what, Graeme, I have to find my special glue. Next time you see me, remind me abo
ut your truck and I’ll try to fix it, okay? Come, have a cookie. Do you have any allergies?” I asked my habitual question and glanced at his mother. She shook her head.

  “No. Only Henry has them. He’s allergic to cookies and ice-cream and even pizza.”

  SOON OTHER children arrived with their mothers, and before long Graeme had forgotten all about his broken truck.

  Many people came that morning, mostly young women and children, but there were quite a few men, too. My cousin Alec arrived with Sid Brandon; Sid’s brother Mark popped in a bit later. Then another set of brothers came in: Costa and George Manatos, the owners of Kalamata Grocery, which sold Mediterranean food. They came with hands full of paper bags with olives, pickled vegetables, feta cheese, Parma ham and dried figs.

  My family stayed close to me all the time. Eamon was always within arm’s reach. James would usher in new visitors and introduce them to me. From time to time Betty would ask me to help her in the kitchen, giving me a chance for a brief break. I was a bit nervous and tense among all the new faces and names, answering various questions and enduring their curious glances. But that was okay, I said to myself. That was me: never entirely comfortable in a group setting.

  And then the door opened again and my heart jumped. Jack came in, bringing with him his fresh, crisp and sunny scent, and the knot in my stomach eased.

  “Hi Astrid,” he said and brushed my lips with his. “How’s everything?”

  The warm stream instantly spread from my lips through my entire body, embracing me from inside out. I caught a few curious looks and blushed.

  “Oh, fine,” I said, feeling shy and wonderful at the same time.

  Jack’s light kiss could be interpreted both as an affectionate greeting, as well as a statement of our relationship as a couple. He let everybody in the room reach their own conclusions. I briefly wondered if my uncle would see it as a ‘gradual revelation’ of our bond as I’d promised him back in Seattle, but I decided to let Jack deal with it. After all, it was he who had kissed me, not vice-versa.

  He gently squeezed my upper arm and joined his mother and James on the other side of the room, keeping me in sight all the time. I felt safe and secure.

  Then trouble walked in.

  James let in two women. He gave a fatherly hug to the younger one and kissed her forehead, politely nodded to the older woman, and then introduced them to me as Heather Kincaid and her daughter Peyton.

  The mother had the coldest blue eyes I’d ever seen. They sliced through me with such an icy force as if she’d finally met her archenemy. Her open animosity was so unexpected that I was sure for a moment that I’d imagined it. She said a few courteous words and turned to talk to somebody else. Nobody seemed to notice it, except Betty, who came to me and squeezed my hand.

  And her daughter. She smiled at me warmly, as if trying to make up for her mother’s hostility.

  Heather Kincaid had shaken the fragile balance I’d worked hard to establish. I decided to ignore her and concentrated hard on her daughter, who seemed to be a pleasant person.

  Peyton was my age and lovely: pixie-like, with big, open blue eyes that dominated her heart-shaped face. Even her voice was accordingly pitched: chiming, pearly and sweet. With her porcelain-white skin and dark curly hair, she looked like a woman-child, whose fragile physical appearance automatically triggered a protective response in the opposite sex.

  She inquired about my trip here, my job, my future plans. She said she worked in the real-estate business, and talked about her job and her trip to Europe the previous year.

  After her unpleasant mother, I was ready to like the daughter.

  Until she excused herself saying she hoped to see me soon and walked straight to Jack. She hugged him and kissed his cheek, and he did the same. It looked like nothing more than a warm greeting between friends, but then she placed her tiny hand on his arm.

  And kept it there.

  The alarm in my head went off.

  Summoning all my inner strength, I turned away from the picture of my smiling boyfriend and a small hand on his upper arm, and focused my attention on Frances Colby, who stood beside me. I asked her if she had a job, how long she’d been married and where her husband worked, nodding politely to her answers.

  Of course, I thought, confused, Jack hadn’t lived as a monk, waiting for Astrid Mohegan to be born, grow up and find him in her backyard. Was Peyton Kincaid his ex-girlfriend? Would he have told me if he’d a serious relationship with her? What was going on?

  And then I heard an angry voice growling inside my head.

  “You little bitch, move your claw from his arm! He’s mine!”

  My wolf was on red alert, hurt, possessive and jealous. She wanted to come out and take over.

  “You must trust him!” I said firmly, trying to calm her down. “Look at him! He isn’t interested in her that way. Trust him!”

  “She is surely interested in him! Look at her! She’s all over him!”

  “Enough!” I yelled at my wolf. “You back off! Let me handle it!”

  Eamon appeared behind me and pushed a glass into my hands. “Your drink, Astrid.”

  I took a long sip, scanning the room. I was sure that nobody else, save for my cousin, noticed anything. He confirmed it with a tiny shake of his head but stayed close to me.

  I was angry with myself for letting my jealousy get the better of me. My wolf had just vocalized what we both feel strongly, only I was ashamed of it and she wasn’t. I was trying to deal with it with logic and reason, while she wanted to come out and deal with it in person. That was the only difference.

  I took a deep breath and reminded myself what a gentleman Jack had been when my ex-boyfriend, Ingmar, had come to see me. But Ingmar and I were just friends now, two people who had ended their love affair long ago and felt good about it.

  Could Jack say the same about this girl and her feelings toward him?

  I didn’t doubt Jack’s love for me, not for a moment. I wasn’t sure he was aware of it, but to me it was clear as day the petite girl was still very much in love with him. Her eyes were full of love. And something else, I suddenly realized. What was it? Hurt? Pain? Had he told her about us? Or had she figured it out on her own? God, I didn’t want my love for Jack to hurt her!

  She removed her hand from his arm. Jack took a small step back expanding the physical space between them. I felt his eyes on me and felt the power of his love embracing me.

  A few days ago—or an eternity ago, I wasn’t sure anymore—I’d been concerned about the power of the bond that left Jack and I more or less without options. We had decided to make the best of it, to accept it as a gift, to nurture it and cherish it. Now I felt the bond as freedom and a blessing, precious and magnificent as life itself.

  I found Jack’s eyes and smiled at him. His warm, amber gaze caressed me with love.

  “Happy now?” I asked my wolf.

  I felt her sigh. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But you know what? Nobody touches what is mine!”

  I exhaled deeply and I turned my attention to six-year old Henry Flanagan, a child prodigy with an IQ over 160. He was kneeling in front of a side table beside the sofa, drawing.

  I sat on the sofa, peeking at his art work. It looked like some kind of map. I opened my mouth to ask him about it, but he looked at me and said candidly, “Miss Mohegan, your eyes changed color. I’m sure they were blue when we were introduced to each other.”

  From the corner of my eyes, I could see Jack freeze and turn to me. Eamon shot me a worried glance. Alec and Betty started walking toward me. James grabbed the first plate and did the same. I gave them all a discreet sign I’d be okay.

  Henry picked a sand-colored pencil and continued coloring his map. “Could you please explain to me how you do that? It’s fascinating,” he said in his grown-up language.

  Now we had the full attention of the entire room.

  “Is that because you are a witch?” Henry carried on.

  “Henry!” Donna Fl
anagan, his grandmother, snapped. “Miss Mohegan is a wizard, not a witch.”

  “But Granny, this is purely a gender matter. Men are wizards, women are witches.”

  “Harrison Albert Flanagan, that’s enough!” His grandmother warned him. “Not a word more!”

  I laughed. “It’s okay, Mrs. Flanagan. Henry, why don’t you sit here beside me?” I patted the spot on the sofa. “We called ourselves wizards, but you are right, that’s a rather gender neutral term.”

  He sat beside me, his drawing in his hands. “More like a category.”

  “That’s right. In our wizard tongue, we call ourselves—”

  “Asanni, asyr and asyngaer,” he said, nodding. “I thought those words aren’t in use anymore. Miss Mohegan, I’m sorry I offended you by calling you a witch.”

  “Oh, you didn’t offend me at all. Now, about my eye color. See, Henry, I simply have two different eye colors. Astrid the Witch is blue-eyed and my wolf has amber eyes.”

  “I see. Does it give you trouble sometimes? For example, when you travel, with the customs officers when they check your passport?”

  I almost burst out laughing. “I’ve been quite lucky so far. May I see your picture?”

  “Of course.”

  He offered me his drawing. I studied it trying to suppress a smile. “It’s a very accurate map of the United Arab Emirates,” I said, amused.

  “And surrounding countries: Qatar, Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Granny used to work in Saudi Arabia, you know,” Henry said, and then carried on with a brief account of the current geo-political situation in this part of the world.

  “You seem well informed for a young man of eight,” I said.

  “I’m six, Miss Mohegan.”

  “You don’t say! Six! I was sure you were much older.”

  Henry beamed and asked me if I played chess.

  “I do,” I said.

  “Then perhaps we can have a match or two one day.”