Chapter One
The waves crashed in front of me, the taste of ash and smoke coated the inside of my cheeks, and all I could think was ‘come the fuck on’.
The ferry station was practically deserted; everyone else in the small town of Oådda, Norway, was huddling inside their cozy houses protected from the unrelenting sheets of frigid rain. I stood under the narrow coverage of the ferry stop’s roof and distracted myself from the damp misery by trying to figure out where I should live when I returned to the United States.
Maybe Waltham, Massachusetts, where my mother lived, or Washington, D.C., with my father, but neither option was appealing. As a kid, I had spent more time on the train between the two places than at my parents’ homes, always shuttled back and forth, knowing that neither parent wanted me there. I sure as hell wasn’t going back to Seattle. Seattle could burn for all I cared.
The ferry approached, appearing out of the grey mess as if magicked into being. Stepping out into the downpour, I was immediately dripping; my best business casual coat and slightly too-worn work sneakers were no match for the gale. At twenty-five years old, all of my clothes were either business casual work wear or pajamas; three years at the best corporate consulting firm in the United States had beaten the desire for any other clothes out of me, along with most of my will to live and a not-insignificant portion of my sanity. Now I was here, on the edge of the world, running back to my godmother's house, hopingthat returning to the only place that I ever felt at home would fix everything that was wrong with me.
I didn’t have much hope.
It took around five agonizing minutes for everyone on the ferry to filter off. I watched with squinted eyes as little groups ran and trotted and scuttled through the rain. As soon as the last figure exited, I made my move, zipping towards the boat, my small suitcase rattling painfully on the stone behind me. It was miserable; I had about a pond’s worth of water in my shoes, but I was free. No Slack messages buzzing on my work phone, no extra laptop weighing down my bag. It was freedom or something close to it.
I leaped over the small step that led up to the gangplank and took the fifteen feet of the ramp in three long leaps. I was practically flying, the exhilaration catching up to me. I burst through the door…and promptly began to skid. The ferry was very small and only partially enclosed by a roof with benches underneath it, but other than a railing, the side of the boat was open and exposed to the elements. As I slid, I had the sick realization that I wouldn’t be able to slow myself down; I would go right over the edge.
Arms wheeling, the dark grey black of the water approaching quickly, a thousand and one emotions raced through me, but before I could even begin to acknowledge what those were, something warm and strong caught me in my middle, swinging me around.
The air was very much knocked out of me as I hung, leaning on my stomach, only the very tips of my toes touching the ground. That itself was a feat, I was 5’10, the arm, (I had come to the conclusion that what was holding me was an arm, a hand spread across my side, fingers placed almost perfectly on my ribs, though I doubted they could feel them) must belong tosomeone incredibly tall for them to be able to hold me off the ground.
The arm relaxed, and I was lowered to the deck. My breath still came fast and hard, but the danger was over.
“That’s why you don’t run on boats,” said the same person who had grabbed me, his voice resonant, rich, and heavily accented.
Well, yeah, I thought, no shit, I wasn’t going to dothatagain.
“Yes, sorry!” I said instead, slipping into my ‘cheerful, inoffensive consultant voice’, the one that could wheedle crucial information out of workers, and wasn’t too offensive when delivering the exact number of employees a corporate overlord should fire. “Thank you so much for—”
I turned around fully and stopped.
Iknew him.
He was tall, broad, and heavily muscled, and vibrant, wiry, auburn hair hung to his strong jaw in waves. He was very much a man, but all I could see was the boy who had those hazel eyes and that small scar that crossed his cheekbone. I had tackled that boy into the sand, causing him to cut his face on a rock when we were eight.
“Oskar,” I half-whispered, looking up at my first best friend, the one whom I used to play with every day, every summer, until I was twelve. Oskar, my friend, my first crush.
I continued, “Oskar? It’s me, Wilhelmina, Wil, Mina, Wright.” I knew that he had called me a nickname, but at that moment, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was.
“You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
It was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over me. Mortification hit me so strongly it made me nauseous.Of course, not every redheaded Norwegian man is your long-lost crush, I silently yelled at myself, my cheeks heating up.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said as he pulled up the hood of his beaten-up navy raincoat, “it’s been a long travel day, and I have obviously mixed you up with someone else.”
He grunted and turned away, swiftly moving over to the small cabin where I assumed the captain piloted the boat. I could feel the eyes of the other passengers: an older woman with a bright red hat, either a pair of friends or a couple, an incredibly hunched-over man who had torn himself away from furiously typing on his phone to stare at me, and his beleaguered-looking assistant.
I sent them all my best ‘I’m not crazy, I promise!’ smile before \sitting down on one of the wet benches. I kept the smile on my face as the boat pulled away from the dock, and proceeded to worry.
It all came rushing back, all those feelings, my almost obsession, the childhood memories; they overwhelmed me. I needed to control myself, and more than that, I needed to take my meds. I had been taking Illizine since I was thirteen, for some sort of obsessive anxiety, and had hardly missed a day since, but I was all messed up with the change in time zone. I slipped the pill bottle out of my purse and swallowed two pills dry.
As the pills made their painful journey down into my gullet, I tried to pull myself together, grabbing my little compact makeup mirror out of my purse. I was not risking waterlogging my phone; I would need to call my godmother to come and pick me up from the dock on the small island that she lived on, otherwise I would be in for a long, unpleasant walk in the dark.
I took stock of myself; little curls and coils had sprung out of my professional bun, and most of my makeup had been rubbed off from me leaning against the window on the airplane ride over. Dark blue-black bags hung under my eyes, my fawn-colored skin was wan. I had barely gone outside for the past couple of months; work had kept me chained to my desk, not that I would get much more sun here, we were just south of the Arctic Circle, and it was already September. Soon, the sun would just be out for a glimpse at midday.
I was curvy enough, with a plump bottom and not inconsiderable breasts, but that had only brought the leers of not-so-discreet businessmen, and so I kept to professional but oversized sweaters and loose pants. The sweater that I was currently wearing had a stain on its collar, which of course peeked out from under my jacket, and I couldn’t ignore the small hole on the cuff of my pants.
All in all, I was a mess. No wonder Not-Oskar had skedaddled away so quickly; no doubt he was worried about catching whatever disease I looked like I had, but luckily for him, last time I checked, mild depression and extreme exhaustion weren’t catching. Even as I felt my meds start to kick in, my eyes kept snagging on the navigator's cabin, where Not-Oskar was sitting next to the captain. Maybe being back in Norway had brought the crazy out in me.
To distract myself, I began to eavesdrop on the other passengers, mostly the boss and his poor assistant.
