My hands moved items from various points in the guest room — my toiletries bag from atop the dresser, a sweatshirt from the hook on the back of the door, sweaters and jeans folded on the desk chair — but my mind wasn’t there. It was miles down the road. My heart, unfortunately, had remained to plague me. The pain I felt was crushing; a wrecking ball couldn’t have done more damage. Jack. All the misgivings I had had after his departure rushed over me: a river of regret, what-ifs, and what-nows. Jack. I needed him; he needed me; we needed each other. It was a fact as elemental as the chart hanging on the wall in Mr. Fuller’s chemistry classroom. I felt so sad and alone. There was no one to whom I could divulge the depth of our connection, except Jack himself. And had I ever really? I’d felt too young, too inexperienced. I just hoped it wasn’t too late. Jack. He had to be OK, because without him I wouldn’t be.

My plan was to head to the airport first thing in the morning. At least three times I flipped open my laptop, hoping to check flights to Greenland, information regarding the topography of Northern Greenland, and download maps of the area. No Internet. Dang. Not being connected left me with a sense of frustration, like finding your keys dangling from the locked car’s ignition.

In the end, I alternately paced back and forth and wrote out everything I could remember about anything that seemed remotely connected: Ofelia’s warning, the selkie legends, the rune reading, and what Vigdis had said about The Snow Queen’s prologue. By one in the morning, my travel journal was crammed with random notations and my legs ached. Exhausted, I slipped into a long white nightgown, lay down on the bed, and finally succumbed to the tears I’d held back for a long time.

I huddled in a ball for hours, drifting in and out of troubled dreams. At some point, in the very darkest hollow of that night, I again heard the strange music. It was soft, but not melodic, more of a rhythmic series of long, sad wails. Then the tempo picked up: an urgent, commanding beat. I sat up with a start. Padding across the cold floorboards to the small closet, I pushed my toes into the pillowy fleece of my UGGs, pulled my parka over my nightgown, and crept silently into the kitchen. I found the flashlight and slipped out the back door. My eyes lifted to the moonlit sky and my ears followed the mysterious music as I picked my way along the rough path that descended toward the fjord. This time I headed in the other direction. The shoreline was even rockier here. Huge boulders jutted out into the water and created a kind of seawall. Like a drumroll, I could hear waves crashing over the black rocks. The rush of the water piqued my curiosity; something in its swell and spill was unusual. I ventured closer to the water’s edge. A series of flat, shelflike boulders jutted into the fjord. I stepped onto one, then onto the next, and finally upon the third. The huge rocks were like made-for-giants pavers, but leading where? As if in reply, something splashed in the water. Despite the dark night, cold air, and slick surface, I crept to the very edge of the final stone and peered into the rippling waters below. Red hair. I swore I saw, by the light of the moon, red hair shimmering like a Garnier shampoo ad. It swirled in a billowy cloud. I dropped to my knees, scooping at the frigid waters with my hands. The fistful of golden seaweed I brought to the surface was confusing and disappointing. Just as I resigned myself to the notion that, for once, logic prevailed, I heard a rustle behind me, and a dark shape approached, advancing over the rock jetty.

Still in a crouch, I froze, terror icing me to the spot. The figure continued forward, and I knew I was in a vulnerable position: trapped on the edge of a dark rock on a remote stretch of beach with an icy fjord behind me. As the shadow grew near, its size came into perspective. A child? No. A girl. Long ebony hair. Mahogany eyes. Jinky. WTF?

“A little cold for swimming, isn’t it?” Jinky, now within six feet of me, asked, though it sounded more like an accusation than a question.

I stood and scouted left to right, readying, but for what I didn’t know. “I wasn’t. I thought I saw something is all. Anyway, what are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“It’s a small town. And trust me, there are other places I’d rather be, but I’m the type who sees things through.” She removed something from her pocket — my pouch of runes — and jiggled the bag. The stones tinkled within. “These are yours. I’ve come to —”

“You stole them,” I interrupted, surprising even myself with the accusation.

“I borrowed them,” Jinky said.

“What’s the difference?”

“Their safe return.”

Well, damn. That was true enough.

“You could have asked.”

“I took the easier route,” Jinky said, her lips curling in a self-congratulatory smile. “For the record, I wish I’d left well enough alone, but I didn’t, so we can sit here and discuss the rocks themselves, or you can hear what I saw in them.”

In them?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“When I touched them, back at the festival, I had a vision. Though it was brief, it stuck with me. I knew I had to hold them again, but I didn’t dare in front of my mother.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say my mother is a businesswoman, not necessarily a rune reader. And no more a gypsy than she is the queen of Denmark.”

“So the reading was fake?”

“No, because I wasn’t translating. She doesn’t speak English; I could have been reciting Shakespeare for all she knew.”

Jinky hardly looked the type to quote Shakespeare. Anyway, I didn’t think sonnets would be much help right now. Jack was missing, and she had seen something in the runes.

“So, then, you’re a true reader? What did you call it?”

“An erilaz. And yes. But the ability comes from my father’s side of the family. My grandmother is Sami, one of the nomadic peoples.”

“You mean, like, from Lapland?” So maybe I remembered a thing or two from that world cultures class, besides the international fashion capitals.

“They prefer Sami,” Jinky said with a sneer as if I had offended her, her grandmother, and a long line of ancestors.

“I’m sorry. Look, someone important to me is missing. I only just learned about it tonight. Earlier, your reading meant nothing to me, but now —”

“A loss,” Jinky said.

“Yes.”

“So my reading was accurate. This is not good. Not good at all.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. She didn’t even know Jack, so her reaction had to be based on something else.

“Is there something more I should know?” I asked.

“When I held the stones the second time, I felt —”

“What?”

“Fehu, the loss symbol, was so strong it throbbed in my hand. And I sensed —” She hesitated.

“Just tell me.”

“A great loss, maybe even catastrophic. Crazy as that sounds.”

I hadn’t expected that. And was not much liking the word crazy these days.

“Listen,” Jinky said. “This is beyond my abilities. With your family connection to the selurmanna, with the power of your runes and the intensity of the reading . . . only my grandmother can help us.”

Great. A bigger gun was being called in. And if Jack missing and the threat of a “great loss” already put me beyond the average erilaz’s capabilities, what would she think about the whole Stork thing? My secrecy vows precluded me from telling her, but how much would that up the ante?

Jinky pulled a cell phone from her pocket, punched in a series of keys, yakked in Icelandic, and snapped the phone shut. “I can take you to my grandmother. Let’s go.”

“What — now? I can’t just go. I need to tell my afi, or at least leave a note.”

“There’s no time,” Jinky said.

“But I’m not even dressed.” I gestured with open arms to my flimsy white nightie flapping from beneath my parka.

“You’re fine,” Jinky said, starting back toward shore. “Anyway, wait till you see my grandmother.”