The Other Side Read online

  “Breathe, syster. Breathe,” Jamie commanded me, mimicking deep breaths until I acquiesced. Calm down. I’m here. The battle’s over.

  Jamie was crushing me on the bed, staring me down with… not pity. No, it was camaraderie. I was his equal. Somehow through our long and tangled journey, I was a warrior, not an inconvenient human to drag along as dead weight. It wasn’t just because I fought alongside all of them. It was the marks, too. I bore the marks of battle now. My body was peppered with bruises, scars and now stars.

  I was a warrior. I was Lucy, Queen of the Other Side.

  I could tell Jamie was reading my thoughts as my muscles relaxed under his weight. He lifted his arm off me and pounded his fist over his heart, nodding once to acknowledge the great battle we had been through, and the many more that may come throughout our conjoined lives. Then he picked up my shimmering hand, curled my fingers in a fist and pressed it to my chest. “Queen Lucy of the Other Side. Undrans will see your arms and cower in respect. You killed the last siren.”

  I sniffled and tried to wrap my mind around it all while I kept the dangerous thoughts tucked safely away from Jamie. After a few beats, I nodded. “Okay. I… It’s okay. I won’t hurt us anymore.”

  Without breaking eye contact, Jamie spoke quietly, lulling me with his gentle way as he traced my cheekbone with his thumb. “Queen Lucy the Fierce, it was an honor to fight beside you. You didn’t need Undraland magic for any of it. You’re purely human, and that is your beautiful thing.”

  I closed my eyes, swallowing down my panic and forcing words to match my pain. “I let Uncle Rick stab my mother,” I confessed, my voice breaking on the last note. “There’s no forgiveness for that. What kind of a person can do something so awful?” I couldn’t even look at him; so deep was my shame in it all. “I’m afraid.” I showed him my hands. “This changes things. It’s changing me. I can feel it,” I confessed, shivering at the memory of Pesta touching my forehead and the strange chill it sent through me. “Pesta did something to me in Limbo. I feel different inside. I don’t know how to explain it.” There was a numbing dark in me. I felt unable to laugh at the same jokes or find the levity in things I used to.

  Still pressed down atop me, Jamie took my hand in his, kissing my sparkling knuckles. “You’re my syster,” he whispered. “Pesta didn’t alter that. I don’t fear the darkness inside you,” he said, answering with love the deep-rooted questions that tore at my insides. Jamie rolled off me, pulled me up next to him on the bed and hugged me, swallowing me with the same comfort that broke Jens down in the crematorium. “You are always the one who condemns you the most. You know the reasons I could give you to absolve that guilt, and yet you choose to carry the burden.” He kissed my forehead and smoothed back my damp hair. “Lucy, you can be as light as you wish, or as burdened down as you choose. Either way, no one will ever hurt you again, except for you. I’m afraid not even Jens the Brave can save you from that.” He held up my arm, stretching it out like a graceful ballerina. “You have to choose to be light.” He whispered in my ear, “It’s time for you to play, liten syster. To live. It’s time you put up your white picket fence and left your pain in Undraland.” He kissed my cheek, and I shivered.

  Flickers of laughter from nights spent playing cards with my family fluttered like a swiftly shuffled deck through my brain. Mom and Dad sending us off on countless first days of school with a well wish and, what back then felt like too many hugs, and still somehow never enough.

  I wrapped my arms around Jamie, my makeshift brother. I couldn’t believe I ever tired of hugs from my family. Had I known, I would have squeezed them forever, shielding them with everything I was, and now am.

  I would not waste anymore of my life holding back. I squeezed Jamie with my sparkly arms, the light dancing on his neck in the room that was only lit by the lamp, the TV and me. “Thank you. I love you, big brother.” I kissed his cheek, and I could tell he was grinning. “I want that life. The good one without the running and hiding and all the fear.”

  “Then you shall have it, darling girl.” Jamie lifted me off the ground and laid me in the bed, motioning for Jens to come sit beside me. Jamie gripped my cold toes, bringing them up to his mouth to blow his warm breath on them. Since they were connected to his toes, he knew exactly how gentle to be. Jamie nodded to his best friend and left.

  I decided Jamie was right. I had fought enough. Now was time for rest, and in the morning, I would play. I would laugh, and I would move on. I would find a home and start a life there.

  Jens bent over me and pressed his lips to mine, his gorgeous eyebrows peaked in the center of his forehead. “You feeling better, Loos?”

  Our toes connected again, and our kiss curled us around each other in a web only we knew solace in. I kissed my Tom, the tension in my body deflating in his arms. “You know? I am.” I stared up at him, not sure how I got so lucky that in the midst of all the loss, Jens and I found each other. “Kiss me, Jens. I think finally I’m ready for you now.”

  “I’m not sure that’ll ever be true, but I’ll take the kiss.” The beautiful and dangerous man I always felt safe with kissed me. I settled into his embrace and began making mental plans of the life that was finally on the horizon.

  Epilogue

  My Beautiful Thing

  “Honey, do you think you could go just a little bit faster?” Jamie begged.

  Britta’s careful calculation of the other drivers was a thing I found adorable. Going ten miles under the speed limit was a thing Jens and Jamie did not.

  “What’s the real rush? Take your time, Britt.” I adjusted my knee-length black pencil skirt and tugged on the hem of my gray blouse. “I thought I was done wearing dresses when we left Undraland, but the skirts found me with a vengeance.”

  “I think the heels are sexy.”

  “Well, then you can wear them next time.”

  Britta, Jamie and Jens conversed about the weather and the drive, but I kept to myself for the next twenty miles until Jamie poked into my brain. You’re doing it again, he informed me. That quiet thing. You have to engage, Lucy. You can’t keep pulling back from us.

  I’m here. I’m listening. I just don’t have anything to add.

  You’re making Jens crazy with all your silence. It’s been months, syster.

  I mentally shrugged.

  You can do better than this.

  I bristled at the insinuation that I’d not been through enough to warrant a bit of quiet time. You want to talk? Let’s talk. How about we discuss what we’re going to do when your year-long furlough comes to an end? Royalty or not, you’ll be summoned back to Undraland, and I’m still pretty firm on not going back.

  I applied for an extension, Jamie shot back. My father doesn’t want me in his kingdom any more than I want to be there. Trust me, he’s just making me sweat by withholding the paperwork.

  Sure, Jamie. If you’re so certain it’ll all be fine, why haven’t you told Britta?

  Jamie spoke so his voice carried to Jens and me in the backseat. “Lucy, could you explain about tipping again? I can’t remember who gets a tip. Is it the cook or the waiter or the doctor?”

  Jamie was almost as good at avoiding things as I was. In truth, none of us were terribly worried. I just didn’t like him pushing me to talk all the time. Once his father learns I’m laplanded to Jamie, they’ll have to take that into consideration and grant him permanent residence on the Other Side, of which I guess I was still queen. Jamie’s marriage to Britta? Well, that was something his betrothal to Freya certainly didn’t allow. There would probably be words about that, but in the end, that’s most likely all it would be.

  Jens glanced behind us from our cuddle nook in the backseat. “I’d like to get there sometime before dinner. Cars are starting to pile up, sis.”

  “Hey, backseat drivers. Shut it,” I said, palming Jens’s face to silence him. “You’re doing great, Britta. Tell your brother where he can shove it.”

  Jamie turned his head to give
me a simpering look at my sass. I enjoyed paying him back for his verbal comments to Britta and his nonverbal ones toward me. “Very ladylike, Lucy.”

  Britta was determined to get her license before the end of the month, but they were cutting it pretty close. She drifted left, nearly crossing over into oncoming traffic. Each time Jamie or Jens course-corrected her, it made her nervous, but it was necessary most times.

  In the six months since the mission ended, a lot had happened, and in a wonderful dichotomy, not so much happened, either. The lots were the normal things that were so new to all of us, it felt like winning the lottery every single day. Jens bought us a large tract of land with a big farmhouse he and I occupied. Then we had a second house constructed on the property on the furthest reach of the laplanding bond’s tether.

  The first piece of mail addressed to me had been a thing of beauty. It was a Chinese restaurant menu, and it quickly became our favorite place to frequent. We had a key hook on the wall, a big bathtub and a welcome mat Jens insisted was just a formality. He hated having guests over. What a grump.

  Jamie, Jens, Britta and I enrolled in college together. Jens didn’t care what we took; he was just happy to be able to be in public with me in his visible form. Jamie and Britta were quick studies, but they mostly took the classes for the social acclimation of it all. Jamie was adorable, asking each professor as many questions as he could squeeze in. Britta was cute when she got flustered at the terminology she didn’t understand. Jens was positively gorgeous when he studied with me. Furrowed brow, chewed-on pencil… all of it, I couldn’t get enough of. I could picture him in doctor’s scrubs, and relished the imagery.

  I was… me. And for the first time, that felt like a good thing. Well, I was a subdued version of me. I was older, less carefree. Jens even commented the morning before last with a hint of sadness in his voice that I was quieter since Undraland. I had nothing to say to that.

  The four of us had just completed our first semester of mostly prerequisites. I earned all As except for one B in literature (please, like I needed that to be a doctor. Unless Emily Dickinson needs her blood pressure taken, literature and I can finally part ways).

  “Okay,” Jens spoke up from his place beside me. His finger was twirling a lock of my hair that now touched my shoulders. “Britta, if we’re late, Foss is gonna be pissed. He’s not exactly friendly to begin with, and I really want this to happen today.”

  Britta was gripping the steering wheel and spoke through gritted teeth. “If you want me to get my license, I need to practice. I only failed it by a few technicalities last time around, and I will pass it this time.”

  “Seventh time’s the charm,” Jens muttered, scratching his eyebrow.

  “You’ll pass the test, I’m certain of it,” Jamie assured his wife, his hand on her shoulder.

  She shrugged off the gentle touch. “Don’t distract me!” she whined, switching on the wiper blades instead of the turn signal.

  “This is just not safe,” Jens grumbled. “Pull over, sis. I got it from here. Lucy’s still my charge, and I say no.”

  Three cars honked at us as they passed by. Britta was a jumble of nerves when she crawled into the backseat with me. I held her hand and rubbed her arm while I thought up questions to distract her. “I’m loving what you guys did to your bedroom. It’s growing on me.”

  Okay, that was a lie. Their room was horrifying. Jamie and Foss had made an iron shield to hang up on the wall that Britta and I had painted a cheery sky blue. Over the doorway was hung a large sword, and Jamie’s family crest was emblazoned on a huge breastplate that hung over the headboard. All it was missing was a cell, and the scene would be complete. As tired as I sometimes got watching movies late at night with Britta, I made sure never to fall asleep at her house. The guest bedroom was even worse.

  Luckily Jens had taste dissimilar to his best friend and let me do the house, painting the rooms alternating olive and lavender with gold accents to keep his Undraland feel to the place. Our room was a haven, and I adored every inch of our two-story slice of Heaven. Foss had agreed to help me paint a calming constellation on the ceiling over our bed when he stopped being a jerk. So, you know, never.

  Foss was as he always was. Try as I might, I didn’t really want to change him much. He didn’t hit me anymore, thanks to the Huldras peeling back his Fossegrimen curse to a tolerable level. We even reserved a room in our house for him to stay in when he comes to visit. He liked it better when we headed out to stay with him instead, but I like him on my turf. He prefers a kingdom, but I’m in no mood to be his servant ever again.

  My darling husband bought a ranch about half an hour away. It was just enough space for us to live peaceably with each other. He employed a great many ranch hands who have the patience of Job, not correcting him too often when he treated them like servants who must obey, instead of as employees with a choice.

  You’re doing it again, Lucy. Britta’s been talking to you, and you’re doing that barely there grunting you picked up. Engage! Jamie scolded me.

  Jens closed the time gap and pulled into the courthouse only five minutes late. He grinned at Foss, who had his arms crossed over his chest and a surly look on his handsome mug as he tapped his foot on the steps of the courthouse expectantly. “Hey, Foss, oh King of the Ranchers,” Jens called to him, saluting with two fingers.

  I held up my hands to stop everyone. “Can’t bring in your knives, guys. No concealed weapons in a courthouse.”

  This was met with unhappy protests and cagey glances around the parking lot. We had left Undraland and eminent danger, but the anticipation of violence was engrained.

  Foss was in no mood, which is to say, business as usual. “I love that you think I have all the time in the world to just wait around for you people.”

  I got out and helped Jamie extract Britta from the car. “Oh, you’re so important,” I said, shoving my long black opera gloves onto my hands and rolling them up my glowing star-spangled arms. “How will the cows know to stand where they’ve been standing all morning and eat grass? How will the earth turn without you there to bark at it?”

  Foss glowered at me. “I wouldn’t mock the man who feeds you.”

  I grinned. “Did you bring me a present?”

  Foss grimaced. “Why would I do that?”

  My face fell. “I thought you knew. In my culture, when you get a divorce, the man brings the woman a gift to signify all their happy years together.”

  Foss scratched the back of his neck and glanced around uncomfortably. “Oh. I didn’t know. How about a cow? You can have one of my cows.” He finally met my gaze and realized I was teasing. “I think I’ll send it over in the middle of the night and have it delivered to your living room.” He shook his head. “‘For all our happy years together’? We’ve only been married less than a year, and a lot of that was unhappy.”

  “Unhappy?” I teased, walking up to him with my let’s-have-a-fight swagger. “Since when have you ever been unhappy?” I reached up and pinched his nose, gratified at how much progress he’d made that he didn’t shove me. “Come on, darling husband. It’s time you were rid of me once and for all.”

  Foss stomped into the building, but Jens proffered his arm like a gentleman. He was extra sweet to me that morning. I was treated to such niceties as breakfast in bed, my choice of music in the living room, and even a back rub when he noticed me massaging a crick in my neck from too much studying the night before.

  “You sure about this?” Jens asked, opening the door for me and his sister.

  I nodded. In reality, I didn’t know why it had taken Jens asking me in carefully chosen words to realize I didn’t actually have to be married to Foss anymore. Of course I knew it, but the part of me I didn’t like to examine too close still felt reluctant, even as my husband stood impatiently in the lobby. When the elves had drawn up our paperwork to cross over to the Other Side, they had put me down as having a Fossegrimen husband. I was legally married on paper, thanks to the effi
ciency of the Undraland office.

  I didn’t want Foss like that, but…

  No. No buts. I wasn’t willing to think about my reasons for hesitating. They were childish and selfish. Jens. I wanted to be with Jens. Obviously.

  So, you know, maybe I shouldn’t be married to his friend anymore.

  I kissed Jens’s cheek and detached myself from him. When I agreed to come in this morning, I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d gone with Jamie four times already, but didn’t have the guts to go through with it. Seeing Jens’s insecure and soft-spoken plea made me realize I was being silly. Foss was never mine to begin with. There was no point in holding onto him like I was. Besides, Foss wouldn’t up and leave without talking to me first. We didn’t need a piece of paper to tie us together. We had Undraland.

  Foss was dressed in dark gray slacks and a green dress shirt. He was so rarely out of his ranch gear; it was strange to see him so put together. Of course, I picked out all his clothes, so I wasn’t terribly surprised to see the combination, but he was handsome all the same.

  He waved off Britta and Jamie, but met Jens’s eye and postured, extending his hand in formal greeting. “We’ll be out soon,” he said, giving an unspoken command for Jens to give us a little space to get through the process.

  Jens nodded easily, but I could see the hesitation he wanted to voice. “Sure. We’ll be out here.”

  The judge’s chambers had an outer room with blue vinyl chairs and a clerk at a desk who granted unenthusiastic couples entry when it was their turn. Foss led the way to two chairs near the back, motioning for me to sit down.

  When Jens was gone, Foss’s body language around me was different. He was looser and given to touching me when he normally might not. His arm slung around the back of my chair, his too-long legs stretching out as he tried to make himself comfortable in a world where everything was just a little too small for him. We sat in silence for several minutes before he spoke. “You’re still doing that quiet thing I hate.”