The Other Side Read online

  “Foss?” Tonya asked, scooting his tea cup closer.

  He was surly, and had been born without the people-pleasing gene. “No.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You could at least say ‘no, thank you.’ Pretend you’re a polite person for one night.”

  Foss looked at me from his position to my left on the couch and folded his arms over his chest. “No.”

  Britta drank a sip of hers and faked a smile. “It’s lovely, Tonya. Thank you.”

  Tonya pressed Foss for more information. “No, really. Tell me more. How did you propose?”

  Foss looked up at Jens and smirked. “I kissed her just like this,” he said, and before I could brace myself properly, Foss pressed his mouth to mine, really hamming up the eroticism for the viewers. It was a game of chicken between him and me, and also one between him and Jens. A joke, really, but taken way too far.

  Then it wasn’t. Foss’s lips were hot on mine, and his firm grip on my lower back tugged me closer. My eyes fluttered shut, and my heart pounded as I struggled for… for…

  Surely I was struggling to make a clean break, right? I was just waiting for the opportunity to pull away inconspicuously, wasn’t I?

  My hands were gripping the seat and the back of the couch to brace myself, but my back was arched as we kissed beyond what was socially appropriate.

  I finally came to my senses and shook my head, turning away from his kiss as two more planted themselves on my cheek. Foss straightened, but did not look away from me as he spoke. “I kissed her like that, and told her we would be married.”

  “Just like that?” Tonya asked. Her Cinderella sigh and smile covered over the reality that I was choking on my embarrassment and rage just a few feet from her. The euphoria I didn’t want to feel pulsed through me, making me lightheaded and slightly giddy. I giggled, and covered my mouth at the unexpected indiscretion.

  “Such a sweet couple,” Jens commented, my odd swing of emotion trumping his rage toward Foss. “You alright there, Mrs. Foss?”

  “I… I…” My breath drew in too much oxygen, and the colors in the room began to pop out at me in a wide array of sixties groovy madness. My face was flushed and I felt suddenly dizzy. My fingers felt fuzzy, and my head started lifting like a balloon floating away from my body. “Can I use your restroom?” I asked. “That kiss and the tea were a little strong.”

  Tonya pointed down the hallway. My vision started to tunnel, white light in my periphery edging out the caramel walls. Behind me I heard Britta say, “Jens? Something feels strange. Is this how you feel after ravioli usually?”

  Man Friend followed me down the hall. By the time I made it to the bathroom, I was oddly at peace with everything in my life. The happy twinkling lights danced in my vision as Man Friend caught my elbow, lowered me to the carpet, dragged me into a side room and shoved a hood over my head.

  17

  Painless

  I awoke to chaos. Pure chaos.

  The hood over my face kept the details at bay, but I could hear fists and shouts being thrown haphazardly about as I tried to care about the urgency of the moment.

  Everything was so pretty inside the hood. The black was the perfect canvas for my mind to practice its psychedelics on. Spindly colors drew patterns in my mind’s eye. Turquoise and pinks painted so beautifully on the black. My hands were bound, but I still tried to grasp at the pretty colors and shapes.

  Jens shouted something to me, and I giggled. I knew this was the wrong response, but that’s all I could do.

  The laughter vanished when someone dragged my body down the hall and knocked my head into the wall. It didn’t hurt at all – that was the thing that gave me pause. I could tell by the force that it should’ve put me in tears, but I felt oddly boneless. Nothing hurt. Not my head, not the circus, not Linus.

  I was picked up and hefted over a shoulder I wasn’t sure I should trust. The colors spun, but I didn’t mind. They rearranged themselves so beautifully, captivating my attention as I was taken outside and slammed into a trunk.

  I tried to care, but the pretty colors danced for me like a fireworks show, demanding my attention as they pirouetted and spun in their own musical motions. The car took off, and I was rattled around in the trunk, banging into hard things that again, I could tell were supposed to be hurting me.

  The car was afraid; I could feel it. Okay, maybe not the car, but the driver, for sure. They drove it like they were escaping something. I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to cheer them on or protest.

  The colors were so pretty. They were making triangles now.

  My head. That hurt on a psychic level, and I could tell Jamie was too far away. I’m sure other parts of my body stung, too, but for some reason, I didn’t care so much about those. My head was unhappy, though.

  I like bunnies. I don’t want to eat them ever again. I want a waffle. And chicken. And pie. Not pumpkin pie. Pie with ice cream and whipped cream. I like cream cheese. And bagels. The cheesy kind with the cheese.

  Foss had kissed me. That was kinda funny. Maybe one day I’d shake him and be able to just be with Jens. My marriage had caught up with me.

  Now the colors were all purple. I like purple.

  The colors jolted and popped as the car was slammed by something bigger than it, harder. Suddenly the car was airborne. I giggled out a “Wee!” before it crashed down and tipped so my feet were higher than my head. The colors reappeared, and I tried to catch them with my teeth.

  The car slammed back down and skidded to a halt. Something wet trickled on my face, and it made me laugh. Again, I could tell something was supposed to be painful, but I couldn’t remember what. My head still hurt, but the colors were so pretty, I didn’t care. It was Pink Floyd in my brain, and I was enchanted.

  They sang to me. They loved me.

  No one loves me like the colors do.

  “Help me! Foss, grab something to pry open the trunk! I can’t open it. Hurry!”

  Oh, Jens. So yummy. Like warm bagels dipped in sugar.

  A big metal noise happened above my head, and then I heard Foss and Jens shout in unison. “No!”

  “Careful! Foss, clear a space in the car where we can put her. Help Jamie! If we can stop his bleeding, it’ll save her.”

  Jens picked me up, and the pain was more acute. It chased away the colors I’d become quite attached to. When I heard his voice again, it was tainted with a sob. “Kill the driver, Foss! Just finish him! Where’s the girl?”

  My heart had been drumming in time with the song I couldn’t place in my head, but the rhythm beat slower, moving at a snail’s pace as my heart languidly chugged along, coming closer and closer to a stop.

  The colors melted and faded, and all I saw was the black of the hood before I closed my eyes, letting the slow song lull me to sleep.

  18

  Snatsafrigga

  This time the chaos I awoke to was the most intense physical pain I had ever felt. There were no words for the excruciating nature of the brutality I was assaulted with. I screamed at the assailant before it dawned on me that the hood was gone and so were the colors. I opened my eyes and took in a high ceiling with brown tapestries and sparklingly clean windows.

  Oh, the pain in my arm and all over my body.

  “I have to whistle her back down, Jens. She can’t handle all this! She’s just a child.” The woman’s voice was stern, but gentle.

  “Fine, but nothing more than that!”

  The most beautiful bird’s song hit my ears, and I felt warm and snuggly. My pain was muted, and I could take in my surroundings a little more.

  I was in a huge house of some sort. The mansion kind with vaulted ceilings and archways and real art on the walls.

  “Bring the doctor in here! Hurry!”

  An Indian man in his fifties stood over me, his composed face telling me that everything was fine and there was nothing to freak out about. Not that I could freak out if there was. A blanket of chill crept over me. When I turned my head, I saw Jamie
in the bed next to me, enjoying the same contented state. He had an IV in his arm and was marveling at the liquid going into his body via the tube.

  “I like the world with the this in it,” he mumbled, his words slurring like a drunkard.

  I tried to nod, but I couldn’t really access my neck. It felt like there was a brace around it, but I couldn’t figure out why. “I like the this, too, Jamie. I like the Jens and the Foss. Sometimes not the Foss.” The world tilted. “I need my half. My Linus half.”

  “I like the snatsafrigga.” Jamie’s brain slurred at the same time mine did, and I turned to the doctor just before my world went dark again.

  * * *

  There was beeping, and it reminded me of when Linus was in the hospital during junior prom. He’d been super bummed because he’d finally gotten the nerve to ask a girl to the dance, she’d said yes, but he’d gotten sick the night before the big day. No one had asked me to the dance, of course, but Linus had insisted I tag along with him and Marta. The hospital had felt especially lonely that night, despite the fact that we were together. Knowing we were missing out on fun made his illness that much worse.

  The beeping had been relentless. It was a good thing. It meant his heart was beating and his breathing was happening on its own, but the sound started driving us mad.

  And that’s how the Great Safety Dance Rally was founded. We realized that Safety Dance fit perfectly with the hospital machine beeps, so I sang and danced to the song while Linus did the robot to it in bed. We must’ve gone through the entire song two dozen times before my dad begged us on actual hands and knees to sing anything else.

  “What’s the matter, Dad? You can dance if you want to.”

  Then Linus would chime in with a breathy, “You can leave your friends behind.”

  Then it would start all over again, but this time with more laughter. It became our favorite song. Linus taught me all sorts of useful things to the tune of Safety Dance. How to hotwire a car, steal someone’s alternator belt, and break into a building with the standard locks most schools came with. While the entire school was dancing a few miles away to the hustle or whatever, we had our own school dance. And let’s face it, any party with Safety Dance at it is a good one, even if it’s in a hospital. I bet they had to dance to something crappy, like country music.

  The same beeping rang in my ears, but the song didn’t hold the same joy it once had. Now I was the one confined to the bed with tubes in me.

  I opened my eyes and saw Jens sitting in between my bed and Jamie’s in the same strange museum-like mansion that was our makeshift hospital. Jens was leaning forward with his hands clasped, his forehead resting on his thumbs. He kept whispering, “Please, please, please.”

  I tried to lift my hand to comfort him, but I couldn’t find the proper controls in my brain to operate my arm. “Jens?” I whispered.

  Jens sat upright and whipped his head around to confirm I’d spoken. “Lucy?” He was off the chair in a heartbeat. “She’s awake! Somebody grab Doctor Sharma!”

  There was a fair amount of commotion, but Jens knelt next to my bed and held my hand.

  “Ah. There it is,” I said, my words sluggish and slurred.

  “There what is? What do you need, baby?”

  “You found my hand. I couldn’t remember where I put it.”

  Jens wove his fingers through mine and lifted our hands so I could see them without moving my head. “It’s here. I’m here.” He leaned forward and buried the top of his head in my palm. There was a sniffle, and then the dam broke. Jens sobbed harder than I’d ever seen him cry, kissing my palm every now and then to make sure I was real. That we were real. That I wouldn’t disappear out from under him again.

  I tried to turn my head, but found there was a brace on my neck. The doctor explained while Jens tried to compose himself that I sprained my wrist, broke a rib and tore something I couldn’t pronounce in my calf. There was talk of a concussion, whiplash and blood loss that was worrisome, but the biggest thing that told me how bad the ordeal had been was Jens in tears at my bedside.

  I was confined to the bed for the foreseeable future. My leg could not be walked on, nor could my spine handle the stress of me being upright for more than a few minutes. Doctor Sharma was kind but firm, recommending bed rest, fluids and a special diet for me to get my weight up.

  “What happened?” I finally asked after the doctor moved to check on Jamie, who was still unconscious.

  “I didn’t see it, but I should’ve. All the signs were there.” The tears sprang afresh, wetting his thick lashes and displaying his torment across his cheeks. “Tonya. It’s not her anymore. She’s Pesta’s Mouthpiece. I didn’t even put together that Pesta constructing a portal here meant that she would need a Mouthpiece to act on her behalf. Of course she would pick someone you would trust. Pesta needs your bones to finish the portal.” He sniffed and then let out a pitiful sob. “The tea! She dosed you with lavender powder. It was a nearly lethal dose. If you hadn’t been tied to Jamie, it might have had some serious consequences to your brain. She doesn’t need you to have brainwaves, though. She just wants your bones.” He rubbed my palm on his stubble, kissing the heel of my hand with his eyes closed. “I’ve failed you. You could’ve died. They almost got away with kidnapping you, too. I had to crash our car into theirs to stop them. I tried to aim away from the trunk, but the car ricocheted into a building and messed you up pretty good.”

  “I was drugged?” I asked, piecing together enough parts of Jens’s story to make sense of my scattered recollection. “That’s what the powder feels like?”

  Jens shook his head. “No. You were overdosed. You and Jamie’ve been tripping for a long time. Your leg got impaled by an umbrella in the trunk, and you didn’t even feel it. It’s dangerous at that level, especially for a first-timer. I’m so sorry. I’ll never touch the stuff again!” He wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. “I almost lost my best friend and my girl in one swoop. I need you to be alive. I need it, Loos. Linus was the one who got you? Well, you’re the only one who gets me!”

  “You’re so sad,” I observed, my eyelids heavy. “I’ma sleep now. Don’t leave me.”

  “I promise, I’ll never leave you,” Jens vowed. The last thing I remember before I passed back out was my boyfriend’s pleas for me not to leave him, either.

  19

  Elsa’s Baby Doll

  It was a week before I was allowed to take the neck brace off. It was two weeks until I could put pressure on my leg, and three weeks before my ribs were healed enough for walking across the long bedroom without audible groans.

  I really could’ve used another month on top of all that before I dealt with the Huldra of Toronto.

  “I can’t believe you’d say that. She’s obviously human. Look how short she is!” exclaimed a loud-mouthed brunette.

  “But she survived an overdose. That’s not normal,” another Huldra argued.

  The basement of the mansion was really a whole house unto itself. I sat on the plush white leather couch in the home entertainment area in front of the giant TV I wished I could just watch. Tuning out the arguing sounded like the most refreshing thing at the moment.

  One giant house. Twenty-seven Huldra women, ten men and five kids. Four Undrans. One human. No rules. It would’ve made a great reality TV show.

  “She’s clearly human – you know she’s human – and I’m not debating this all over again. I just explained her entire bloodline to you people. She’s got a little extra elf in her blood now from Alrik adopting her, so maybe that helped her pulled through. Or maybe it’s because she’s laplanded to a Tom. I don’t really care. Moving on,” Jens demanded. He was standing in front of the TV with a lanky black-haired, long-nosed Huldra named Liv who I’d never seen in anything other than skin-tight leggings and short, tight shirts.

  This was hour three of everyone debating what should be done with me and how they would move forward now that I was living with them.

  Jamie and Britta had
locked themselves in our room to avoid the Huldras. Though we were grateful for their shelter, we were all very much aware that we could be under their control at any moment.

  The source of our safety was Elsa, a Huldra who’d helped Jens on a few guard duties a while back, and Leif, her husband. Elsa sat on my other side in the basement’s long rec room, leaning back into the couch with her hubby in their matching fur-lined brown hiking boots. They were the picture of repose, but I was not fooled. When any other Huldras got too near me, she tensed and pursed her lips, sending them off to occupy one of the other many eggshell-colored leather couches.

  I had a hard time differentiating which men were there because they wanted to be, and who was there because they were under the influence of the Huldra’s whistle. One thing was sure, all the men were gorgeous. It was a little intimidating.

  Leif was the only man living in the coven I trusted to some extent. He was deaf, so I knew he was not under Elsa’s control. Though as she strummed her pink fingernails on his knee, I realized she did not need a whistle to keep him under her spell.

  Foss was there on principle, but he hated every second he was amongst the dangerous females. He kept securing the cotton in his ears, sitting erect on the long couch next to me, waiting for any of the women to make a false move.

  I’m not sure how, but I’d convinced Foss that in my culture, the husband was the wife’s servant. It was fantastic. He waited on me hand and foot, hating every second of his obeisance. When my stomach growled, he was so well-trained that he got up and brought me a bowl of beef stew that had been served up earlier that evening. “Thanks, Foss.” I stirred the thick gravy and spooned out a large carrot chunk that bobbed in the brown.