“Man, it’s hot,” Rocky said after a minute. “And this bag is heavy. Hold up a sec.” He stopped walking and dropped his bag to the ground. There were wide lines of sweat where the straps had cut across his shoulders, and when he turned, I could see his whole back was soaked. And with a single smooth motion, he stripped off the soaked T-shirt, revealing a six-pack and smooth hard chest plastered with sweat. His jeans hung well below his hips, exposing about two inches of boxer shorts.
It took all my strength to tear my eyes away, and while I tried not to stare, Rocky hoisted his backpack again, then tied his wet shirt on one of the many straps hanging from it.
“That’s a little better,” he said. “Onward, fearless leader.”
We started walking again.
“So,” he said after a moment. “Is it true what that woman said?”
My heart jumped in my chest.
“Is what true?” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
“Janet Steele? The tennis star? She’s your mother?”
I gasped and smacked his upper arm, not too hard, but hard enough to leave a bit of a red mark. It was tense beneath its light film of sweat.
“You knew who I was the whole time!”
Rocky’s face colored. “Well, not exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
“When Sal told me I had to stay here this summer, I did a little looking around on social media to see who’d tagged things in the East End, and North Hampton specifically. You and your sister stood out.”
“Are you saying that you didn’t know if I was Molly or Mardi?” I asked.
He nodded sheepishly.
“But we’re so different!”
“Um, you have pretty much the same face.”
“That is SO not true! I can’t believe you couldn’t be bothered to remember which one of us doesn’t get strange tattoos in highly visible places and wear torn clothes that haven’t been in style since before she was born. I’m almost starting to regret my decision to walk you to Sal’s.”
Rocky chuckled. “I don’t think Mardi’s look is so out there—although she does look like she’d be a lot to handle.”
“And you think I’m more, what? Manageable?”
“If I was ever stupid enough to think that, you have thoroughly disabused me of any such a notion.”
“‘Disabused’? Trying to show off your college vocabulary?”
The words came out harsher than I’d intended, and I found myself wondering if we were flirting or actually fighting. But the next thing out of Rocky’s mouth told me exactly which side of the line we were on.
“What I’m trying to say is, I’m glad you’re the sister I ran into first.”
“You’re—oh.” I couldn’t keep the smile off my face, so I turned and looked over my right shoulder, as if I found the dunes fascinating. I was trying to think what my next line should be. Like “I’m glad you ran into me too” or “Do you have a girlfriend at college?” or “Want to play strip poker?” Before I could make up my mind, however, the sounds of a roaring engine and screeching wheels made themselves heard over the faint wash of the surf.
“Wow,” Rocky said. “Someone seriously needs to get a muffler. And learn to slow down.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything. It’s not like I’m an expert on car engine noises or anything, but I was pretty sure whose car I was hearing. The roaring and screeching grew exponentially louder as the still-unseen car raced toward us.
“Sounds like he’s coming right this way,” Rocky said. “We’d better get off the road.”
It’s not a he, I wanted to say as Rocky took my hand and led me onto the sandy shoulder of the road. For one moment, I thought about squeezing tightly and pulling him into the dunes and hiding. Then Mardi’s Ferrari shot over the crest of the nearest dune. It didn’t actually leave the ground or anything, but it might as well have, it was going so fast.
“Holy flying Ferraris, Batman!” Rocky laughed, pulling me back a few feet farther. He opened his mouth to say something else, but whatever it was got lost in the squeal of brakes. I don’t know how Mardi managed to stop the car going a thousand miles an hour in ten feet, but she did, right in front of me and Rocky.
The first thing I saw was Trent because the passenger side of the car was closest to us. Second was Mardi, looking at us with a half-amused, half-regretful expression as her eyes flitted between my face and Rocky’s, and then down to our hands. That’s when we both realized we were still holding hands, and we stepped apart simultaneously.
“Man, I am so sorry to have to do this,” Mardi said, “but get in, Molly. We have to deal with something.”
“I can’t. I’m showing Rocky where Sal lives.”
“Up two more dunes, take the first right. You’ll see an old junkyard with a beaten-down old trailer in the middle of it. It’s not a junkyard. It’s Sal’s house. 409 Pfenning Road. Now get in, Molls. This is serious.”
I turned to Rocky. “You want us to give you a lift?”
Rocky smiled sympathetically. “There’s not really a backseat in that thing. And your sister seems like she’s in a hurry. I’ll see you at the Inn sometime? Or the beach?”
“Beers or bikinis,” I said as flirtatiously as I could. “Two of my favorite things.” Rocky actually blushed.
I hopped over the edge of the car and squeezed myself into what Rocky had correctly identified as “not really a backseat,” even if it was covered with creamy leather.
“Hey!” Trent protested. “You’re getting sand all over me!”
“And this is the warrior who’s supposed to save us at Ragnarok?” I smirked to Mardi. “We’re all doomed.” I turned to Rocky as Mardi gunned it.
“Watch out for Freya,” I called. “She’s incorrigible.”
10
HOMEWARD BOUND
Mardi-Overbrook-Journal.docx
I glanced at Molly in the rearview as I sped toward Fair Haven. She was looking out the side of the car with a little smile on her face and her fingers were rubbing together slightly, as if she was remembering the feel of Rocky’s hand in hers. I have to say, it was nice to see that smile after days of scowls. I thought about saying it out loud, but figured that would just make her frown again. Instead, I said:
“So that’s Rocky McLaughlin, huh?”
Molly met my gaze in the mirror. Her eyes were guarded.
“I guess so.”
When we were younger, Beyoncé released I Am . . . Sasha Fierce. Molly set her alarm for midnight, when the album went on sale on iTunes, so she could download it to her phone, and by the time everyone in the house woke up the next morning, she’d memorized the lyrics to every single song on the album. She listened to it for three days straight, once going so far as to cast a spell on this poor woman on the subway who tapped Molly on the shoulder and asked her to turn it down because the music was blasting out of her earbuds (Molly turned the woman’s gum to glue, which sealed her lips shut for the duration of her subway ride). When she finally took her headphones out to shower, I asked her if she liked the new Beyoncé album and she said, “I guess so.”
What I mean is, Rocky didn’t know what was about to hit him.
But as fascinating as that was, we didn’t have time to talk about it.
I found Molly’s eyes in the mirror again. “You’re probably wondering why I picked you up.”
“Little bit,” Molly said.
“You remember how Janet Steele”—I couldn’t bring myself to say our mom—“said she’d bought a beach house on the East End?”
For the first time since she’d gotten in the car, Molly’s expression showed a little bit of interest.
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Well, turns out the house is Fair Haven.”
“What?” Molly turned to Trent. “What is she talking
about?”
“It’s true,” Trent said. “Your mo—Janet Steele bought Fair Haven. And she kicked us all out.”
“But how? You can’t just buy someone’s house out from under them, can you?”
“I was kind of wondering the same thing,” I said.
“I’m a little vague on the whole thing myself,” Trent said. “I guess sometime in the nineteenth century my father transferred ownership of the house to a corporation to dissociate it from the Gardiner family. We’d leave for sixty or seventy years at a time, living in London or Paris or New York, then come back, pretending to be our own grandsons and granddaughters. That way no one would notice that we never aged.”
I nodded. Troy had told us about similar schemes he’d used over the centuries. One day, Molly and I would have to do the same thing.
“So anyway,” Trent continued, “that first corporation was eventually sold to another corporation, and that corporation was sold to another corporation, and so on and so forth. The whole thing was still supposed to be owned by Gardiner Industries, but after the 2008 stock market crash, the board of directors spun off a few assets to raise some cash.”
“Ugh, did you just say ‘spun off a few assets’?” I groaned.
“Seriously,” Molly agreed from the backseat. “That kind of banker bro talk is just . . . yuck.”
“Whatever,” Trent said, grinning. “I’m sorry I can’t always be all, ‘Dude, that dress is radical!’ all the time.”
“Did you really just say ‘Dude, that dress is radical!’?” Molly teased.
“Cowabunga, dude,” I chimed in. “Let’s go nosh some ’za and kick it at your crib.”
Trent rolled his eyes upward. “Odin help me!” He sighed. “Speaking of my crib,” he persisted, “it turns out the board didn’t realize one of the companies they’d sold was the one that owns Fair Haven. But superstar athlete Janet Steele did, and she swooped in and snatched it up—for a song, I have to tell you. She bought the whole place for less than what my stepmother spent on renovations.”
“Oh, your stepmother!” I said. “She must be having a fit!”
“Wait a minute,” Molly spoke over me. “Are you saying that Janet bought your home on purpose? Like she actually wanted to kick you out?”
“What?” Trent said guiltily. “N-no. I’m sure it was just a coincidence.”
“Gods, you’re a terrible liar,” I said, chucking him under the cheek. “Good thing you’re so cute. It’s okay,” I continued when he started to protest. “Dad told me everything.”
“Told you what?” Molly said.
“One sec,” I said to Molly, then turned to Trent. “Did you know?”
Trent did something complicated with his face, which I think was meant to be his I’m-so-guilty-I-can’t-even-pretend-to-play-innocent expression. “What’s the best answer to this question? You tell me what to say, and I’ll say it.”
“The correct answer is, how in the Hel could you keep something like this from me? We’ve been dating for a whole year! You should’ve told me!” I fumed.
“Told you what?” Molly practically yelled. “If someone doesn’t tell me what in Frigg’s name is going on RIGHT NOW,” Molly screamed from the backseat, “I’m going to cast a decomposition hex on this Ferrari and you’re going to wake up in the morning to a pile of rust!”
I caught Molly’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “I’m still trying to process all this too.”
As quickly as I could, I filled her in on what Dad had told me about the tradition of human familiars among some of the Aesir and Vanir trapped in Midgard, and how some of the familiars would try to trick the gods into having children with them. She absorbed it with an increasingly dumbfounded expression on her face, and when I’d finished, all she said was:
“So Mom’s definitely human?”
She didn’t look at me when she asked it. She looked at Trent, though it was clear she wasn’t looking at a seventeen-year-old boy but at Tyr, Norse god of war.
He held up his hands. “As far as I know, Janet Steele is a perfectly average human being.”
In the backseat, Molly looked disappointed.
“Our mother’s human,” she said in a dejected voice.
“Don’t be sad, Molls,” I said. “Look at Ingrid and Matt. Humans and witches can get along just fine.”
“I know,” she said, but if anything, her voice was even sadder. “But we’re only just meeting her, and before you know it”—she found my eyes in the mirror—“we’re going to have to watch her die.”
I held Molly’s gaze for a long moment without speaking. I could see it wasn’t just our mother’s future death she was upset about—it was the flight attendant whose life she hadn’t been able to save. I racked my brain for something soothing to say but nothing came, and it was Trent who spoke first.
“Why don’t you concentrate on getting to know her first?” He pointed at the sharp outline of Fair Haven, which had just appeared above the horizon. “We’re almost there.”
• • •
No one spoke for the last couple of minutes of the drive. The Ferrari shot over the bridge to Gardiners Island and tore deep ruts in the meticulously combed gravel of their mile-long looping driveway. Trent glanced back at them, then flashed me a look, but didn’t say anything.
I pulled up to the front courtyard of the two-hundred-year-old mansion, which wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Scottish highlands or in French wine country. The pink bricks glowed softly, and the hundreds of white-framed windowpanes reflected the bright light of the afternoon sun. Ivy grew over the east wing, which was the oldest part of the house, and dozens of rhododendrons bloomed in a dizzying array of purple blossoms. I tried to remember if rhododendrons bloomed this early in the season or if they were magically enhanced, but horticulture was never my thing.
“It looks so strange,” Trent said. “Now that it’s not mine anymore.”
“It’s our mother’s,” Molly snapped. She pried herself loose from the tiny compartment and jumped out of the car without waiting to see if I was following. She made it almost all the way to the door before she suddenly pivoted on her heel.
“Mardi!” she stage-whispered. “Can you believe we’re about to meet our mother?”
All I could do was point.
Molly whirled back toward the house. The door had opened just as she’d turned, and there she was:
Janet Steele.
Our mom.
I don’t know why, but I’d envisioned her in a tennis dress. I mean, I know why—she’s a tennis star, duh—but I also knew that tennis stars are allowed to wear regular clothes when they’re not playing, which was what Janet was wearing: a sleeveless sundress with a crisscrossed Greek bodice that loosened into a full skirt flowing softly around her legs. But even so. I’d pictured her in a tennis dress, and it was only when she appeared in civvies that it hit me.
This was our mom!
Molly’s brain seemed to be free of such inane ramblings, however. After a single eternal second during which she stared at Janet, she just ran to her and threw her arms around her.
“Oh, my gods! Mom!” I heard her muffled voice.
Janet’s very long, very toned arms folded around Molly’s back, and almost regally, she bent her head forward and kissed the top of her head. Since she was so tall, it looked like a normal-heighted woman kissing a little girl.
“My daughter,” she whispered, yet I seemed to hear her clearly. “My beautiful Molly.”
As she said all this, however, her eyes were still on me. They were piercingly blue and, despite the tenderness of her voice, they bored into me almost aggressively.
“Will you not come to your own mother, Mardi?” I heard her say, although I was so entranced by her stare that I didn’t even notice her lips move. Before I knew it,
I was out of the car, racing across the gravel to throw my arms around her too.
“Mom!” I cried as she pressed me against her with arms that felt powerful enough to crush bone. “Mom, it’s really you!” In answer, I felt the same lips that had kissed my sister press gently against the top of my head.
“Actually, call me Mum” was all she said.
• • •
I don’t know how long we stood like that, but finally Janet—Mum, I guess I should call her—stood back.
“This calls for champagne.”
It was surreal, to say the least. We never had a mother our entire lives and now here she was.
Molly and I looked at each other. In the plus category for having a mum: good hugs and champagne. In the minus: so far nothing. But then:
Mum’s gaze hardened as she stared over our heads. I turned and saw she was looking at Trent.
“You should not have brought the Aesir,” she said in a voice cold enough to freeze water.
I found myself wondering if Trent was onto something, if “Mum” had a beef with all the gods, and not just Dad. I tried to catch Trent’s eye, but he was busy returning Mum’s stare. His gaze was cool and guarded. Not quite hostile, but when it comes to ocular interactions between your mum and your boyfriend, I’m pretty sure “not quite hostile” doesn’t cut it.
“It’s okay; Trent’s my boyfriend,” I said.
Mum smirked. “Isn’t he a little old for you?” I know she didn’t mean that he was eighteen.
“Hello, Janet,” Trent said now. “It’s been a long time.”
“Hello, Tyr,” Mum answered. “Yes, it has.”
They stared at each other defiantly. I guess they knew each other after all.
Mum started to usher us inside, and it was clear Trent was not welcome. I wanted to defend him, but I was too excited to finally meet my mother. I hoped he’d understand.
“It’s kind of hot out here,” he said.