I made Zach drop me off on the street below the house. I shrugged off his questioning gaze and climbed off the bike onto the sidewalk. He watched me slip past the gate and shut it behind me. His gaze was a knife in my back.
The foyer was empty as I entered the house, but I heard indistinguishable voices coming from the sitting room. Panic squeezed my heart. Guests would start trickling into town any day now. My siblings and cousins, all of the families. I wasn't ready for it.
I sprinted up the main stairs, my footsteps muffled in the carpeting. There was one place in my parents' house where no one ever found me. A small space in the den of wolves where I could hide.
My bedroom door had a sturdy lock on the knob but it was no real deterrent. I went to the closet and tore open the doors. When I pushed aside the layers of clothing that hung neatly on the rack, a small door was revealed in the back wall. It was painted over and I had to pull hard to break the glue-like seal.
I managed to wrench open the door and the opening yawned into darkness. I crawled inside and shut the door behind, cloaking myself in consuming gloom. My hand felt in the dark for the wall and I followed it until I ran into a staircase.
The steps creaked underneath my feet as I climbed. I groped above my head in the dark for the pull cord of a single bare light bulb that hung overhead and clicked it on.
Small light revealed more shadows than illumination. Piles of dusty boxes stacked high to the ceilings. Remnants of my family's past were abandoned here, rotting and forgotten.
Our attic was extraordinarily mundane. An old bassinet lay on its side in the corner and a set of wooden blocks was on the floor underneath it. Dirty sheets covered old pieces of furniture and heavy trunks with thick locks that I was never brave enough to break open.
There was still a blanket bundled up on the floor, musty with disuse. A burnt out candle sat next to it and droplets of old wax still dotted the floor.
This was my secret place. No one ever came up here. I doubted anyone could even remember where to find the key to the attic door, if they were ever inclined to enter. I was the only one who knew about the secret passageway in my bedroom closet that led to the attic stairs. I guarded that secret like my life depended on it, in case it ever did.
I escaped here as a child to hide from my siblings, until they decided to do something besides torture me. Until Magdalen forgot how much she wanted to set the plaits in my hair on fire. Or Adrian lost interest in making me swallow the pancreas he'd carved out of a stray cat because Silus said that eating cat pancreas turned your skin purple.
I settled down onto a blanket on floor. The familiar smell of mothballs and lavender rose from folds in the fabric to settle around me in a welcoming cloud.
A stack of books sat next to me. It had collected much less dust than anything else in the attic. I must have set it up there before I left. Most of the boxes contained books, some useless and others less so. I used to sit up here for hours and comb through them all. I couldn't escape my family, not physically, but I always hoped to find something that would take my mind away.
Now I was the prodigal daughter returned. I'd been to a literal hell and back. I was changed. So why was I still that scared little girl, hiding in the dark?
I picked up the first book in the stack and idly flipped through it. It was a handset volume, penned by one of my mother's great aunts. Cramped notes filled the margins of each page, circling elegant drawings of lines and curves. The first page of the book bore its title.
The Casting of Lots
I remembered it. In her time, Great-aunt Hagal was an oracle. She had a hard-line directly into the ether. I only met her once, mere months before she died.
My mother and I visited her in early summer. This was during a phase my mother went through in which she firmly believed my powerlessness was a curse that could be broken. If only she could consult the right authority, we would finally find a cure. I could still become the powerful being the fates had promised her.
We traveled to a remote cottage on the green, Icelandic countryside. Hagal lived alone and isolated. She had sat behind a heavy table with her hands resting heavily on its surface. One hand touched the wood and the other covered a leather bag tied with a length of cord.
Her face was wrinkled and worn with age but her hands were smooth and soft, girlish even, untouched by time or hardship. She opened the bag and upended its contents. Blank tiles spilled across the table, skittering and clacking against the wood. They looked like polished stones or worn bone.
"These are cut from the wood of the World Tree." Great Aunt Hagal's hands hovered in the air over the tiles, moving over them in a gentle swaying motion. "As Odin hung from the windswept tree and spied the first runes, so must we pierce the veil between worlds."
Great Aunt Hagal's eyes never left the table's surface. With lightning speed, she turned over three tiles. Black markings were carved on each. She touched the first, a letter c made of straight lines with an extra swipe on the top and bottom.
"Perth. This is your situation as it is. Perth is the rune of initiation and change."
Her hand moved over the second tile, a tilted cross.
"Nauthiz. This is the action you must take. Nauthiz is the rune of pain. Its role is to identify your weakness."
I shivered at her words. My mother stood behind me and her hand closed hard on my shoulder. A warning against speaking out of turn.
Great Aunt Hagal touched the last piece. Two triangles faced each other with their points touching. It looked like a distorted version of the symbol for eternity.
"Dagaz. This is what will be. Dagaz is the rune for transformation. You must ready yourself for the spirit. She has much in store for you."
Hagal swept the tiles back into the leather pouch and tightened the cord. The bag disappeared into the voluminous folds of her dress. She rose painfully slow from the table and turned away, disappearing deeper into the house.
I was summarily dismissed.
My mother led me out of the house and back to the car. We left Iceland that evening to return home. Her disappointment at Hagal's murky fortunetelling was a palpable thing.
Rune casting could be a powerful bit of magic or it could be as useless as a take-out fortune cookie. Oracles were notorious. Their advice was only useful in hindsight, when it was time to enumerate all the ways in which you went wrong. Their information only made sense if you already knew what the hell they were talking about.
I felt along the floor, feeling without enough light to pierce the shadows. Cobwebs stuck to my fingers and the dust that painted my hands. I'd almost given up, resolving to come back later with a flashlight, when my fingers touched smooth leather.
My body folded underneath an antique armoire to reach the prize that was squeezed in next to the wall. The bag was heavy as I pulled it out and dumped out the contents.
Rune stones spilled into my open hands. They were warm to the touch and I could feel the heat radiating out from my palm to tickle down my skin. I held a Wayward family relic, an item of power.