Chapter 6
That night Tor and I slept together in the master suite. We did change the bedding first, just in case some of that magical illusionary animal hair was lurking in the folds and crevices. He even sprinkled the clean sheets with lavender water. When we lay down I could smell flowers, just a hint in the air. We shared a few kisses, but we both wanted sleep more than sex by then.
Since I’d left my alarm clock in the other bedroom, I overslept. I woke at about ten o’clock to find Tor already up and gone. In my shorts on the floor, my phone was ringing. I grabbed it and clicked on, then lay back down.
“Maya?” Cynthia’s voice. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I paused for a large yawn. “Looks like I’m missing class.”
“Well, you missed yesterday, too. Are you sick or something?”
“No. My shape-changer and I just had some incredibly steamy nights.”
Cynthia laughed. I heard her telling Brittany what I’d said, and she laughed as well.
“By the time I got cleaned up and drove down to school,” I said, “the session would be almost over. Do you feel like lying for me?”
“Sure. You had a cold, right?”
“I couldn’t stop sneezing and spreading germs all over, yeah.”
“I’ll tell the prof that. We all know how she hates germs. Uh, you guys are using something, aren’t you?”
“I take the pill, yeah, because of my menstrual problems. They’re supposed to put me on a regular schedule.”
“Are they working?”
“Not yet.” My vampirism was the reason, of course, not that I could tell Cynthia that. “For all I know I couldn’t get pregnant even if I wanted to.”
“Don’t take chances, okay?”
“Don’t worry! I’m not ready to have his cubs.”
Cynthia snickered and hung up. A good thing she did, too, because when I sat up to put the phone away I realized Tor was standing in the door. He must have been up for some time, because he’d gotten dressed. He’d dropped the nerd illusion. His eyes narrowed, and I could see the torment in them, the sign of a man who could be cruel if something drove him to rage.
“What’s all this about cubs and shape-changers?” he said.
“When I first moved in with you, y’know? I told my friends that you were a shape-changer, a bear. We sort of joke around about it.”
Still scowling, Tor walked into the room and stood over me. He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Well, I had to tell them something,” I said. “They asked about my new job, and I couldn’t think of what to say. I didn’t want to lie. So I told them I was taking care of a were-bear. They thought it was hysterically funny.”
“Oh.” All at once he grinned. “They didn’t believe you.”
“Of course they didn’t!”
He uncrossed his arms, hesitated, then sat down next to me on the bed.
“You’re naked,” he said. “You know what that does to me, don’t you?”
“Show me.” I smiled at him. “I’m literal minded. I want a demonstration.”
“That can be arranged.”
There was something about him being dressed and me being naked that I found really arousing that morning. When he started to take off his shirt, I stopped him with kisses. When I began unzipping his jeans, he took the hint.
When we were finished, I leaned over the side of the bed and retrieved the box of tissues we’d put there earlier for the usual necessities. Tor pulled up his jeans but left them unzipped. He took a tissue from me.
“What are you grinning about?” He was smiling himself.
“I was just remembering how determined I was to wait before we fell into bed. I wanted to get to know you better.”
“You know me better than you think you do.”
“I sure do now, yeah.”
I finished cleaning up and lay down next to him. He turned over on his side and pulled me close.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “I’m so lucky.”
“So am I. I love your body. It’s lean and smooth, but you’re strong, too. You’re not like those totally grotesque muscle guys. You know, the ones with pecs that need a good bra.”
He laughed out loud and kissed me. “I’m double lucky, then,” he said. “You really think that?”
“Yeah, I do. Y’know, you’re a man who’s got good looks and money, but you’re not real sure of yourself, are you? I’d expect a guy like you to be arrogant. Why aren’t you?”
“The bjarki, of course.” His smile disappeared. “I used to be arrogant. I think that’s a good word for it. Conceited would be another one. It shows what happens to men who get swelled heads. Something always brings their luck crashing down.”
I raised myself up on one elbow and looked into his eyes. I could read his sincerity from the sadness in them.
“I’m glad I didn’t find you before,” he went on. “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with me. You would have told me off with four-letter words and walked away.”
I could say nothing to that, because he was probably right. I sat up cross-legged on my side of the mattress. He got out of bed and concentrated on tucking in his shirt and zipping up his jeans.
“You know,” he said, “it hadn’t occurred to me before that being a bjarki might have some benefits.”
“I don’t think I’m worth it. What you go through, I mean.”
“Now who’s being humble?” He managed to smile, but I could see that it cost him. “Why don’t you get dressed? It’s about time for lunch, and exercise always makes me hungry.”
Before I could say anything, he turned and strode out of the bedroom. I got up and retrieved my clothes from the floor. While I dressed, I remembered what Cynthia said about ‘using something.’ I hadn’t given one single thought to using a condom to protect against STDs. It was a little late to do more than hope Tor was as healthy as he looked—aside, of course, from that little matter of his shape-change. As long as he never bit me, and he wasn’t the type of guy who liked causing pain during sex, I wouldn’t have to worry about that.
The bjarki would present a different kind of problem once school returned to regular sessions and the moon cycle took itself out of sync with the weekends. Over lunch I brought up the difficulties of having the full moon fall on class days.
“I’ll always be here in the evenings,” I told him, “but what are we going to do when the bjarki dominates and I’ve got class during the day?”
Tor thought for a couple of minutes.
“It’s not likely there’ll be a fire,” he said eventually. “The security system has heat sensors, so even if there was one, the company would call the fire department. You need to keep up your work. I want you to get that degree, you know. I can tell how much it means to you.”
“Thanks. Not that I know what I’m going to do with a degree in painting. I could end up doing portrait sketches down in Jack London Square.”
“Don’t even think it! You never know what kind of weird character you’d meet if you did that.”
I had to laugh, and he joined me.
“But what you can do,” he continued, “is paint, of course. You don’t have to worry about money any more.”
Some women might have eaten that statement right up. The huge assumptions behind it bothered me.
“If nothing else,” I said, “I’ve got student loans to pay off. I’ll have to get some kind of job.”
“No.” He shook his head and smiled. “We can take care of those.”
I considered arguing, but I figured it would get me nowhere. Besides, I had another year of school before I—or we—had to worry about the loans. If things continued good between me and Tor, I could even continue studying for yet another year and get a credential in art education, something a little more practical than just learning portraiture.
I still however valued the portrait class. The teacher had set up a model for our final project, the one that was going to carry half
the class grade. This model was an Asian-American man. She’d dressed him in khaki trousers, a corduroy plaid shirt, and for the final challenge, a shiny silver vinyl vest. I made sure I showed up the rest of that week to work on the portrait. I made up studio time in the afternoons even without the model present by working on the background, a drape and a lot of artificial potted plants. On Friday I was planning on staying extra late, because the room would be closed for the weekend, but Tor called me around three o’clock.
“Uh, Maya?” he said. “Were you going to come home soon?”
“I can. Why?”
“I just got email from Liv. I uh I don’t know what to say, but it’s really kind of upsetting.”
“I’ll just clean up and come right back to the house.”
When I returned, I found Tor pacing back and forth in the living room in front of the west window. The late afternoon sun shone around him, and by some trick of the light, his shadow on the floor fell in the shape of a bear. I slung my backpack onto a chair and hurried to his open arms. He held me close and kissed me. I pulled back so I could study his face.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “You’re practically shaking.”
“Yeah, I know. I just learned something new about my family. It’s changed everything.”
“Whoa!”
“Yeah. Let’s sit down. I translated the email and printed it out for you.”
We sat down close together on the couch. He picked up two pieces of print-out from the coffee table, handed one to me, and slipped his arm around me while I read.
“Dear Tor,” it began. “I asked Mother your question, and she unburdened herself to me about something that’s been bothering her for years. You and I have an uncle we’ve never heard of. He’s grandfather’s bastard son. Mother and Father knew all along, but they didn’t want us to know because they wanted us to respect our grandfather when we were children. I don’t suppose we would have even understood, much less been upset by it, but you know how she is about such things.”
I glanced at Tor and pointed to that line.
“Worried about what people would think of her,” Tor said. “Not prudish, no, but wanting the neighbors to look up to us. She was a village girl from Norway, not even Icelandic. She never felt she belonged in Grandfather Halvar’s world.”
“Is that why your folks moved to America?”
“One reason.”
I waited, but he said nothing more, and I resumed reading.
“So,” Liv’s email continued, “Father was not the eldest son after all. I suppose that’s why his talents were so thin. Uncle Nils is not a nice man, Mother says. He hated and resented Father because he had everything, and Nils had so little. Grandfather acknowledged him and let him have his name, but when he died, he did not leave him anything in his will. Mother heard many years ago that Nils moved to New York City for a job in banking there. Grandfather did do that for him, give him education and connections. So he still probably is in the United States.
“There is a woman who might still live in California who might know more. She was Nil’s mother’s close friend. Her name is Bryndis Leifsdottir. She moved to the States to live with her son, Orvar Arngrimmsson. She would be over seventy now if she is still on this plane of existence. Mother doesn’t know where she moved to in the state, so it could be many miles away from you of course. I’ll see if I can get more information, but Mother really hates talking about this. She did give me the one photo she has, and I scanned it.”
I looked up, and Tor gave me the second piece of paper. On it was a color print of the man I’d confronted in the mall, much younger but still recognizable.
“That’s him,” I said. “That’s the guy I saw at the mall, and the guy who saw me at the café before I moved in here.”
“You’re sure?”
“Real sure. We’re going out with my friends tomorrow, anyway, so we can take this along and show Cynthia. She got a good look at him, too.”
“That won’t be necessary. It’s not that I don’t believe you. I’m just real worried. If Nils is the oldest son, he should have had the rune set, and I bet he knows it.”
“The ancient one you showed me?”
Tor nodded. “I inherited it from my dad, and I don’t want to give it up.”
“There’s no reason you should. It’s not your fault your grandfather gave it to your father instead of this uncle.”
“That’s a good thought. And we don’t even know if Nils is the one who’s behind the illusions.”
“Right. If he is, though, it might explain why he’s calling you a thief.”
Tor considered this in silence. Finally he shrugged. “The runes probably don’t blame me,” he said. “They lend me their power, after all. They’d withhold it if they thought I wasn’t entitled.”
“Can’t you ask them about it?”
“Of course.” He smiled in honest relief. “I can’t use them as staves, but I can bring them out and then use another set for the reading. Do you mind if we do it right now? I need to stop worrying.”
Before we went downstairs, he rummaged around in the kitchen and brought out a plate of offerings for the nisse, a slice of bread, an apple, and a small glass of brandy.
“Would you carry these?” he said. “All you have to do is put them on his rock. If you feed him, he’ll know you’re part of my household now.”
Part of his household? The words struck me as strange—antique, from some time that defined a household in a very different way.
I put the food and drink on the nisse’s rock while Tor drew the drapes in his laboratory, as I thought of the big room with the crossed circle on the floor. The pair of barstools faced each other on either side of the high wooden table.
“If you’ll take one of those,” he said, “I’ll get the staves.”
I took the stool facing in the direction of the little room with the safe in it. I watched Tor through the open door as he opened various small drawers in the array. He’d bring out a leather pouch, look at it, put it back, and take out another one. I noticed that he had at least five of the little sacks, all in different colors, some leather, some velvet. Finally he settled on brown leather. He took a folded up square of white linen out of a larger drawer, then brought it and the pouch back to the table.
“Brown for protection,” he told me. “That’s what we need.”
He spread the white linen out on the table, opened the pouch, and poured out the staves, small chips of wood about one inch by two, each with a rune carved into it.
“Will you turn those upside down for me?” he said. “I’ll go get the antique set.”
I occupied myself with turning the chips over while he opened the safe. He brought the wooden display case back and propped it up on the other stool as if it were a person who’d want to see what was going on. He stood next to it and across from me.
“Okay,” he said. “Our first question is, does this set belong to me?”
For a long moment he stared at the rune staves. He leaned forward, shoulders hunched, back tense, eyes narrow with concentration. He held his right hand flat above the scattered chips, then pounced, picking out three staves so fast I barely saw him tuck them into his palm. He laid them down face up, one at a time.
“Cattle for wealth, Tir’s mark, and ancestral property,” Tor said, “all of them right side up.” He glanced my way. “Which means a positive answer. Yeah, they’re mine.” He sighed with a little puff of breath. “That’s a relief.”
From his sudden smile I realized that he had perfect faith in the answer he’d received. He turned the staves back over and slid them into the spread.
“Is that all there is to it?” I said.
“For a simple question like that, yeah. I’m going to ask about this new uncle next. Would you mix those up for me? Keep them face down.”
While I moved them around on the linen, Tor looked away to avoid noticing what ended up where. This time he drew nine staves, one at a time. Before choosing anothe
r, he turned each over and placed it into a complicated layout, roughly circular with four staves in a straight line down the middle.
“Othala again.” Tor laid a finger on the rune in the exact center of the display. “Ancestral holdings, but I don’t think it means property exactly.” He pointed to the rune at the very bottom. “Because here’s cattle-wealth again, Fehu. That’s the property, the money and land. So Othala’s more like family wyrd.”
Tor fell silent and returned to staring at the layout. Finally he shook his head. “This isn’t adding up,” he said. “I’m going to get a notebook and a pen and write it down. I’ll have to think about this.”
“It must be important. It sure looks complicated.”
“It is, yeah.” Tor laid a forefinger on the bottom rune, which looked like a drunk F. “This bit’s clear. Wealth causes trouble among kinfolk. The wolf grows up in the forest.”
“What?”
“That’s a quote from an old Norwegian poem about the Fehu rune. I’m not a wolf, but the first part’s pretty accurate.”
“Yeah, the whole world over.”
He gave me a wry smile and nodded. “Grandfather Halvar tried to prevent that kind of trouble. I’d show you my copy of his will, but it’s in Icelandic. Pages and pages of detail. My dad’s was almost as complicated. He wanted to make sure that Liv and I stayed close instead of fighting over who got what.”
“Did he succeed?”
“Oh yeah. Liv really wanted the family land, and I’m glad she’s got it. We split up the money pretty evenly. The land pays her back for taking care of our mother, I figure.”
“Didn’t Liv say your grandfather left Nils out of the will?”
“Yeah, I never saw his name there. I hope that Grandfather made some kind of gift-settlement on him. I think there are ancient precedents for that, buying off the illegitimate kids. But the old man could be a real cold son of a bitch. Nils must be real bitter.”