Lucy at War Read online

  Linus smoothed my dirty hair from my face. No, weirdo. It’s you. Can’t you feel it?

  The itchy feeling in the back of my mind near the brick wall and the translucent one grew more insistent, and were my hands not tied down, I would’ve clawed at my scalp. What is it? Make it stop! It hurts!

  Linus knew. I don’t know how, but he knew what the wall was.

  When the hot burst of electricity ripped at my body again, the brick wall shook violently, but the translucent wall exploded in fury, like it had been just waiting for its moment to prove its power. To my surprise, the guy I’d been in the cell with in Elvage stepped out from behind the shambles.

  Charles Mace? I asked, confused as to why my mind conjured him up in my last moments. His lanky form made its way to my bedside, standing next to Linus and placing his hand over mine. His silver irises looked deep into my eyes, as if willing me to remember things I didn’t have access to.

  And then it hit me like a wave from a hurricane that sucked me into its vortex. I was small, and the water kept crashing over my head, dragging me under until I was drowning in information that had no place to rest in my brain. The facts jumped around like popcorn in my mind, making me motion sick and terrified beyond what I could handle.

  Charles Mace was my brother from when my parents lived in Undraland before I was born.

  They left him in Alrik’s care when the Huldras were banished.

  He’d been fitted with a collar to keep him from whistling. It was a lot like the collar I was wearing now.

  I’d lifted Kristoffer’s key that took Mace’s collar off.

  I’d held his hand and held him as he tried to declare himself and grow from lurky loner into a man who could run with Jens the Brave, a prince and a Fossegrimen chief.

  He’d been the one who opened the farlig fisk’s mouth.

  He’d been the one who’d kept me from drowning in the boat’s hull.

  Charles Mace had been the one…

  He’d been my brother. Flashes of memories filed themselves in order quicker than I could make sense of them. Then suddenly my mind stopped at the prison in Elvage. Huddled on the ground, holding hands like children as our last moments ticked by. I vowed I wouldn’t leave him. I wouldn’t be the family that abandoned him.

  And yet, I had. My lips parted as I looked up into the face of the man who’d truly loved me enough to give himself up for me. Only one word birthed from my cracked and dry lips. Why? I mouthed, mourning his loss with grief over the situation I just barely understood.

  Because I love you. Mace spoke to me as if the answer should have been obvious, but love like that was too grand for one person to keep. I would never be able to earn or deserve his sacrifice, and yet he’d given it to me without asking anything in return.

  You were always a beautiful thing, he commented, looking at my besotted state as if I was the sun and moon. It absolutely smashed my already obliterated heart, and I reached a new level of my silent version of wailing. He bore a look of bold determination as he stood next to Linus. I won’t see you broken like this. Here’s where we fight.

  I sobbed openly in my imagination. We? I can’t move! And you’re not real! You… you died, Mace! I just stood there and let them take you away! I’m so sorry! How that must’ve hurt you to hear me say I didn’t know you. You died hearing that! Forgive me! I can’t stand it! I thrashed around on the table again, my heart bursting and breaking. Even the electricity coursing through me wasn’t enough to wipe the anguish from me. I’d lost two brothers.

  Mace scolded me as if I was playing a game and being obstinate on the rules. Your feet. You feel that, right?

  Yeah. It’s hot. What is it?

  It’s the power inside you that you haven’t been able to access. Water elf, wind elf, siren, Huldra and human. It’s all swirling inside you. You’re just missing one thing. Linus switched places with Mace, and Charles began running his fingers through my hair, pressing on my forehead to ease the itch that had been bothering me. Do you feel that scratch? Do you see that brick wall?

  Well, yeah. It’s been in the back of my mind for a while now, but I don’t remember ever putting it there.

  Mace kissed my forehead. Tear it down, sweet girl. Tear it to the ground. Behind there lies more power than anything anyone could do for you.

  I thought about the logistics of tearing down a brick wall and conjured up a sledgehammer that was light enough to lift with some level of competence. Linus? I can’t move. For all my imagination acrobats, I couldn’t envision past my restraints. Blame it on the constant electrocution.

  On it! Linus assured me, picking up the tool and aiming it like a superhero’s fated weapon. Three swings, and he made a dent.

  Four, and he made a hole.

  Turns out, a hole was all I needed.

  Fourteen.

  Hilda the Powerful

  Heat ran up my limbs and filled my body. Suddenly, I wasn’t Lucy Kincaid. I was Lucy the Destroyer. My body was still a wasted shell, but something primal awakened in me I didn’t realized I possessed.

  It was Undraland.

  It was my mother.

  The wall she’d put up in my mind to keep my genetic abilities at bay had just enough of a gap in it to allow a rush of her to flood through me, and for me to catch a glimpse of the determination on her face. In my mind, I could smell her subtle flowery perfume that ripped my heart out when my brain registered the change.

  A whistle I had never been able to tap into burst out of me like a punch to the stale air of the torture chamber I was being held in. I couldn’t control it. I didn’t even know I was doing it. It was my mom.

  With dark curly hair and too much moxie to be held down by death, my mom shouted through the hole in the brick wall of my mind. Open your eyes, darling! I can get us out, but I have to see where we’re going.

  My eyes opened to the room that was lit only by my hands. I blinked a few times, pushing through the pain so I could grasp the overwhelming crush and crash of seeing my mother and Mace again.

  The goateed orderly burst into the room, along with a handful of doctors and people in uniforms. The whistle coming out of me took the wind from their sails, and one by one, they collapsed on the ground. My mother controlled the whistle that flowed from me; I simply owned the lips. She revived only Goatee, and coerced him into undoing my ties.

  But I can’t move! I’m barely alive, Mom! I sobbed to her.

  Hold on, baby! she cried.

  It was my mother. Her voice. The pride in her tone when she called me “baby”. It was her all over.

  I ran to her. I thought of nothing else but her as I fell to my knees in front of the hole, with Linus and Mace at my sides. There wasn’t more than a large fist-shaped hole through the wall, but it was enough to make me near hysterical to get to her. Mom! Mama! We can get you out!

  No, you can’t, and don’t try to do any more with the sledgehammer. This is a one-time deal, baby, so let’s make it a good one.

  I reached through the hole and snatched at her hand, holding the fingers that were so similar to mine tighter than what could be comfortable.

  Goatee lifted my body off the table, carried me out into the hall and placed me in my wheelchair. He turned off the lights in the concrete hallways, so I could see using the light of my hands, which was at the maximum of what I could handle.

  Jamie! Mom, I don’t know where Jamie is, but we have to find him! Jamie and I are laplanded, so I can’t leave without him.

  I’ll take care of it, she assured me as she’d done when I was accused of cheating on a Chemistry exam in the tenth grade. I’d been on the brink of suspension, and the next day, I was being apologized to by the teacher and principal.

  Whatever, I’d earned that A. Ask the farlig fisk. I rock at science.

  Yes, you did, honey. Now try to keep your eyes open so I know where to tell the orderly to steer us.

  I kept my eyes open, but retreated into my head where my mom, Linus and Charles were. Charles s
cooped me in his wiry arms like I weighed nothing, and brought me tight to his side. I dreamt up a soft cushiony blanket that he wrapped me in, and just like that, I was safe again. I was good at imagining warmth, and the blanket was a sentimental tool that helped me muscle past the freeze my extremities shuddered at.

  My whistle changed, and Goatee wheeled me down another corridor not two hundred feet from where I’d been strapped to the bed. He unlocked the door and opened it, revealing my poor Jamie, a broken pile of dirty, hairy limbs on the concrete floor. Goatee left for a few minutes, returning with another orderly who had a shaved head and a second wheelchair.

  Jamie was dragged by the men and hefted into the chair. He was drooling into his overgrown beard, and had no idea I was next to him. I seemed to be experiencing a separation between my body and my brain, but Jamie was in his own world entirely. I wanted to hold him, but I could only picture the state my own body had been reduced to.

  My mom’s whistle shifted, and the men wheeled us down several hallways, leading us steadily upward and to the left. Every now and then, the floors inclined at a slight angle I hadn’t noticed before, and I knew my mom had done it.

  All sirens, my mom gasped as we passed a lunch room of sorts. They fell like autumn leaves at her whistle, a scattered mess of an underground kingdom. They had been more powerful than Undraland could handle, but to humanity, they were mole people. They all fell at the feet of my mother. Perhaps if they’d had an inkling that a practicing Huldra was amongst them, they could’ve taken precaution and put my collar back on me. But now it was too late. Hilda the Powerful had the upper hand.

  She had me.

  Goatee abandoned my chair when we reached what looked like the communal restrooms – you know, for those lucky jaggoffs who weren’t forced to pee into a bucket. He ran in and turned on all the faucets and showers on full blast before coming back to me.

  My mom drew on latent powers in me I’d never been able to hone. Suddenly, I was Lucy the Water Elf, and hot liquid poured out of my bony hands. Buckets and buckets of angry water streamed behind me as Goatee and Baldy pushed our chairs up the slow incline toward the surface of wherever we were. I could scarcely operate my hands, but my mom knew what to do.

  She always knew what to do.

  When I’d almost been suspended for allegedly cheating on that exam, she’d known what to do. When I’d skinned my knee or gotten a cold, she’d known what to do. Today was no different.

  The wall she’d constructed to keep her powers away from me left her in control of the abilities I’d acquired. She’d been collecting them, studying them, and knew exactly how she would use them to set me free. I’m not sure why I didn’t expect as much. I mean, come on. She’s a Kincaid girl.

  More water than I could fathom shot out of me, bursting from my hands and now my feet. Baldy and Goatee slipped a few times, but mom kept their feet determined.

  A gasp of hesitance came from my mother. Six? Lucy, is Sixten of the Greenhaven living here?

  A shudder ripped through me on the inside. Yes. He’s Captain Six now. Boy does he have the burning loins for you. He’s the one who knew you were inside me.

  My mom swallowed, closed her eyes and nodded. Part of her heart swooned – I could feel her swing of emotion – and I cringed. Mom and Dad were the only ones that made sense together. I didn’t like this Six character making my mom feel so teenager-ish.

  Mom’s voice was clear through the hole in her brick wall. I cannot let him die. Her whistle changed, and our orderlies stopped. Baldy ran back the way we’d come, shouting out for Captain Six as he went. He returned two whole minutes later, during which my heart pounded that we would be apprehended. Goatee surrendered me to Six, who ran my wheelchair forward with Baldy pushing Jamie’s. Goatee made himself useful opening doors and turning off lights.

  Be careful, Mom. Six hates Jamie. Don’t let him hurt Jamie. In a careful tone, I said, Are you sure Six should be saved? He let them keep me here!

  My mom’s reply was desperate. I can’t just let him die! I couldn’t save him the first time during the slaughter. I thought he had died! Now that I have a second chance? I must save him. He was your father’s closest friend.

  I knew better than to argue further, but I had so much more to say on the subject. I wanted to give my mom a twenty-minute rant on the creepiness Six had devolved to. I wanted to shake sense into her.

  In my brain.

  It was hard to keep up with what was actually going on.

  Goatee wheeled me to, of all things, a crude lift rigged on a system of ropes and pulleys. Despite their detailed torture devices, the sadistic Sirens had yet to install a proper elevator. Goatee wheeled us onto the square wood platform, and Six grabbed the ropes.

  My body paused whistling to take a breath, and I registered that someone was running up behind us toward the lift’s platform. My wheelchair turned around, revealing two men in scrubs with their hands over their ears as they charged us.

  I have seen my mother enraged on precious few occasions. One was when she heard our high school teacher was referring to her son as “Chemo Kid”. Another was when Linus discovered the front desk hadn’t turned off the free porn channel at one of the skeezier motels we stayed at. If I respected her then, I feared her now. She was not one to be trifled with, and someone was screwing with her whistle’s effect.

  She couldn’t control them, but she could sure as anything order the man who’d carried a torch for her all these years. Six ran at the men, swinging his well-trained fists that yearned to be put to proper use.

  Goatee continued pulling us upward until I could only see the shoes of one of the men as he was flung over Six’s shoulder like it was nothing. We reached a new corridor that had a lower ceiling not built for the comfort of Undrans. Goatee and Baldy had to duck as they ran us onward.

  Mom seethed through her hole in the brick wall of my mind. Lucy, summon your father here right this instant! And your uncle, too.

  Fifteen.

  Rolf of the Greenhaven

  I did as she ordered without question, casting up a “yikes” look at Mace. He wasn’t looking at me, though. His stare was fixed at the hole where he could see more of his mother than he had since he’d been a baby. Though he held me, he yearned for her. His gaze was only distracted by the sight that made my heart leap.

  My dad. Rolf Kincaid in the imaginary flesh burst into my brain like a superhero, chest barreled and hands at the ready. His hair was done up like Clark Kent’s, as he used to wear it when he took my mom out for the rare date night. Lucy? Honey? I’m here! I’m here!

  Though I could conjure up his image anytime I wished, I tried not to think of my parents. It was too painful to see their faces and know I’d never have them with me again. I hadn’t allowed myself to think of my dad in months – at least, not more than replaying a memory. Conversations with the dead were reserved for Linus. He already knew I was nine kinds of crazy.

  My dad ran to Charles and me, catching us both up in a hug that felt like breathing and smelled like the home I never left home without. Dad clutched my frail form in a hug that squeezed the emotion out of me in a gut-twisting scream that echoed across the corners of my mind. It was too many feelings to compartmentalize. My dad with his smile that was only given to kindness, my mom, here but still held back by her own powers, Linus with his… everything I needed, and Mace, poor Mace, with all the memories he’d made me forget stuffing themselves back inside my brain like too many tickets in a raffle box.

  Uncle Rick came to the party soon after and touched my forehead lovingly with his thumb. Up you get, he said, and just like that, my imagination worked overtime. I was able to stand with new strength, but my movements were jerky, like a badly edited horror movie where the drunken sorority girl is stumbling through a strobe-lit party with the killer in tow. In fact, my whole brain began to flicker, as if the lights were being turned on and off in my consciousness. I friggin’ hate strobe lights.

  My dad ran to my m
om, and the sight did my heart good. He was hers to tap into now. I did my job, which was getting him to our little pretend family reunion. They were holding hands through the hole and shouting to each other, but I couldn’t make out the words. My dad’s free arm went around Mace, gripping him as if Charles was his only link to breathing properly. He even let out an angst-filled bleat of agony into Mace’s dark hair. Linus clamped a hand down on my dad’s shoulder, and my heart was filled to bursting. It was my family as we were meant to be.

  The water shooting out from my body was so loud now; it was hard to hear much else. After the lift, the orderlies were steering Jamie and I down the low-ceilinged corridor toward a dead end. I began to panic, but when we reached it, I looked up and saw a manhole cover. Goatee boosted Baldy up, who popped open the lid to the outside.

  The strobe light in my brain was maddening. I could tell it was blinking in conjunction with my level of available brainpower left, and that my body was on its last leg of survival. I’d been starved, electrocuted over and over, kept in darkness and isolated from humanity. I was kind of proud of myself for holding out as long as I had. I knew if I passed out now, the whistle that was getting us out would fade. The orderlies would stop obeying my mother’s commands, the sirens would take us back under for more torture, and we would die. I wouldn’t get back this clarity again that allowed my entire family to exist together in one room. No matter the plane of reality, the sight of all of us working together was precious to me.

  Hurry, Mom! I shouted through the haze of off-and-on lights. I can’t hold on much longer!

  Just a few more minutes, honey! I can get you out! I can help! Linus, hold my hand! Rolf, grab both our boys’ hands! Alrik, hold Mace’s hand! Form a chain, everyone! Lucy, hold onto your uncle!

  I reached for Uncle Rick, who gripped my palm with a steady expression. From my mother to me, our entire family stood as a unit. Heat began to fill me from the spot where I was holding onto Uncle Rick and flooded into my stomach, and I knew it was a mixture of magic and my emotions swelling beyond the breaking point. The lights began flickering, and I felt myself starting to fade.