The woman’s voice carried throughout the room and fueled the townspeople. More than half the room fed her fire, voicing their worries and theories like gasoline and torches. The rest who were from the Norse Woods sat still and motionless, unaffected by their taunts and threats.
“Sit down, Irene!” Mr. Goody shouted, repeatedly banging the gavel over the podium as turmoil arose amongst the crowd. “Order!” he screamed this time, his blond hair shaking over his shoulders. No one listened.
Half the room was standing and pointing fingers in all directions, toward the Hollow Heathens, toward the people on the left side of the room. But the people of Norse Woods remained stoic, blank features pinned to their faces. The mention of my mother and father suffocated my mind, unable to think, unable to concentrate. All I could do was bounce my eyes around at the fear in the eyes of half the people, the hollow in the eyes of the rest.
“It was me!” Julian’s voice boomed within the room as he took a step forward. The room quieted, and arms dropped to the people’s sides, surprised. The rest of the Heathens’ gazes glued ahead without a tell as Julian fixed his attention on Irene. “Rest assured, we do not want your women,” he said flatly, bouncing his eyes to me, then snapping them back to Irene. “We stay true to our own. As far as the ocean, it called out for me, and I listened.”
“Lies, you monster,” Irene spat.
Kane jumped up from the front of the room, dressed as if he were at a church service, and faced the crowd. “Julian Blackwell went after Fallon Morgan,” he added. “And used his shadow-blood against me when I intervened.”
The room roared with whispers, and all eyes fell on me. The heat of their stare turned my icy blood to lava as my heart pounded in my ears. I looked to Julian, not understanding the big deal, and Julian’s posture remained unchanged and collected. Augustine Pruitt, who I’d learned was Kane’s father, stepped up beside Mr. Goody with knitted brows.
“Is this true?” he asked, eyes sailing between Julian and me.
“I … I …” my words were lost in the scuffle of banter as everyone looked in my direction.
“Say what you will, but the accusation is weak at best,” Julian scoffed with a tilt of his head, venom in his tone. “The girl is a flatlander, is she not?” Kane growled from the front, and Julian continued, “Not to mention the absurdity in desiring a Morgan. If you must know, Norse Woods embodies morals, and I—a monster—a certain taste. The girl is hardly worth Norse Woods’ time or attention. And, yes, I’m guilty of chivalry. Couldn’t bear to see the helpless girl hit the ground since Kane’s ego weighs him down.”
And a knife sharpened by his words twisted me open in places unknown, unfelt. It was a different hurt than the rest. Why did it hurt like this?
Kane took a hasty step forward. “You—”
“Mr. Goody,” Julian interrupted, cutting off Kane. “There is no need to cause panic over a misunderstanding. Let’s get back to more important matters, like the food rations the residents will have to savor this week until the truck arrives.”
“I agree,” Mr. Goody stated, then his gavel slammed down over the podium, the topic closed for discussion. Pruitt shook his head, visibly disturbed on how the matter was handled, but after a few moments, he straightened his shoulders and swallowed his thoughts back down. “This meeting is adjourned.”
People stood unsatisfied with the meeting’s outcome, and I stayed seated as they swarmed around me, heading for the exit. I’d learned two things during the meeting. One: I couldn’t bear to be around Julian after the dream I had, the moment we had shared. In my mind, he was vulnerable to me, yet still the very dark soul who controlled the dark forest and the dark things that haunted it. But the Julian who’d appeared today was someone else entirely, aloof and impenetrable.
Two: hearing how Dad was Sacred Sea’s High Priest. The older generation cared for him deeply, respected him, looked up to him once upon a time. A time before I’d come into this world. And my mother … What was so terrible about falling in love with my father? Why did they hate her?
Dad had rarely talked about my mother. He had barely been home enough to even speak to me.
Dad was a handsome man with a strong Italian nose, glossy black hair, and bright blue eyes. When he was home, he would spend most of his days in the garage, tinkering with model airplanes. Almost daily, we would get boxes full of ordered parts for his beloved hobby. Marietta and I used to stack the boxes outside the garage door, and for months they would wait for his return, as did I. Then after he would come back, he would disappear even longer.
Once he was done building them, he’d take me out into the field. It had been the only one-on-one time we would spend, out there with the tall grass tickling at my legs. No trees or people, only land for miles and looking up into the clear Texas skies. Together, we would fly the plane far after the sun had set. He would keep his words to himself, locked away. He was barely ever present, but in times when he was flying, he was present—the only time I’d ever seen a spark of life in him. All other times, he was trapped in distant memories, his mind always somewhere else. A place I didn’t exist.
On a rare occasion, he’d come into my room at night smelling like sawdust and motor oil and sit beside my bed. It was the only time he had talked about Freya, my mother. His calloused fingers hesitantly pushed my white locks off my forehead as he cried, apologizing for his misery. He’d said it was his fault he couldn’t climb out of it. That this slow and painful death of living without her was unbearable, but he had to go on because he’d made a promise.
Monday broke apart my daze when she said, “Jonah let us off the hook for the day but said to keep our beepers on us. Let’s go shopping.” I scanned the room. Jonah had already left, Julian had already left, and the room was nearly empty, only a few stragglers gossiping at the doors. “Fallon, hey,” she snapped her finger in front of me, and our eyes locked. “Defy Superstition Day, remember? It’s in like three weeks, and if we wait any longer, everything will be sold out.”
“I need to check on Benny first, make sure he’s alright.” I hated to leave him alone just as much as Gramps hated me hanging around, but if something were to happen, and I wasn’t there to help, I didn’t know if I could forgive myself. He hadn’t done so well during the storm. I’d refused to let him leave his bed this morning and set up his coffee and newspaper at his bedside before leaving the house.
“Yeah, sure,” Monday nodded, “Go on and check on him then meet us at the gazebo in thirty. We’ll wait for you.”
It was late morning, and Gramps was half asleep with the finished crossword puzzle and an empty coffee mug beside him. The sun settled high in the sky, beaming across his wrinkled face. I pulled the curtains closed and turned to clean up the folding bedside table.
“Just leave it, why don’t ya,” he muttered under his shaky breath.
“Are you hungry?” There were still leftovers in the fridge from the soup Mina had dropped off the day before after the storm passed and word got around that Dr. Morley had made a house call. “I can heat up that chowder.”
The tip of the pencil laying over the tray table had broken, and I dropped my eyes to the shuffled newspaper across the mini table. In deep, dark circles, the moon phase calendar was circled so hard the pencil had pierced through the paper.