I went to my room and threw myself down on top of my cot. “So let me get this straight,” I said to Sarah, who was still up, reading. “Mordur’s not related to us? He’s the son of the hired man? So . . .”
“So you can kiss him,” Sarah finished.
“Hey, wait a minute, that’s not what I was figuring out,” I said, though it was exactly what I was figuring out.
“Well, if you did think that, you wouldn’t be alone.” She fluffed her hair, acting like some kind of model. “Lucky for you, I’m already taken.”
I huffed out a sigh. The coffee was still zigging around my system, and everything else that happened was zagging through my brain. “This has been the weirdest day of my life,” I announced. My body was drained. I felt immensely tired and yet I couldn’t do much but sit up in bed and stare at the wall, wrapping the comforter tightly around me. I wanted to collapse into sleep, but it was impossible.
Mordur seemed different than any other boy I’d met. Exotic, I guess. I wanted to find out more about him. It must have been hard growing up with his mother living somewhere else and not wanting to spend time with him. And to not have a dad anymore.
“So what do you think it is?” Sarah asked, startling me.
I was so busy daydreaming I’d forgotten she was in the room. It took me a moment to figure out what her question was about. “I don’t know,” I answered slowly. “Something that’s very smart.”
“What if I said I believe Uncle Thordy?”
Just a few hours ago I would have called her crazy. But now I simply asked her why.
“Did you see when it was coming up the ladder into the loft? Its head . . . it was animal-like, but there was something human about it. You said it seemed very smart—smart enough to climb a ladder and lift up a trapdoor. Smart enough to get into the barn and steal a sheep. And the way it moved was unlike anything I’d ever seen. But it wasn’t much bigger than that boy. Just very, very strong.”
“Onni had a mark near his eye. Almost like he’d been hit with a fire poker.”
Sarah nodded. She didn’t seem surprised by this information. “Do you remember the story Grandpa told us on the plane?”
“About Great-Grandpa and the bear?”
“Why do you think he told us that story?”
“I don’t know. To scare us. To pass the time.”
“All good reasons. But he really believed it. He told it with such conviction, like he was seeing it through his father’s eyes. I have a theory, Angie. I think we’re all connected to our ancestors. We share the same genes, the same dreams, and often the same lives. Think of Grettir the Strong. I’ve actually had dreams about him. How many battles did he have against evil in his life?”
“He fought a lot of ghosts and things. And people too, don’t forget. He was an outlaw.”
“Yes, but he’s remembered for being a hero. We have . . . the essence . . . of each of our ancestors somewhere in our muscles, in our minds, and perhaps most importantly in our spirit. And sometimes that stuff just comes out.”
“Like when you yelled those Icelandic words back in the croft house?” I said.
“Yes, it was partly what I read, but partly what was passed down to me, like one of our ancestors had been in a situation like that and knew what to say. What do you think?”
I’m about two steps from freaking out, is what I wanted to say. That only two days ago I was safe at home in North Dakota.
Sort of safe. Back at home I’d had the nightmares.
“We are connected to our ancestors,” I answered. The hair on the back of my neck slowly stood up. I described the dreams I’d had about the wolf.
She listened silently, nodded. “I’ve had dreams like that too; seeing things before they happened. I once dreamed Michael was going to break his arm on a school trip. I even felt it crack. I convinced him to pretend he was sick and stay home. One of his classmates ended up breaking his arm at a tour of a metal factory. Kind of weird, but so what? So you and I seem to be a little psychic. Does it mean this wolf-thing is real?”
“My gut tells me one thing,” I said, “but my brain tells me this is all our imagination.” I lay back against my pillow. “There’s still something bothering me: the quarrel Mordur and Uncle Thordy had about us going to the croft house. Why did Uncle Thordy let us go if he believed this creature was out there?”
Sarah sat completely still for a moment, almost like she was meditating. “Do you think we were bait? He’s had a year and a half to really learn how to hate this wolf-thing. Maybe he thought he could get rid of it.”
“But to risk our lives—”
My words were cut off by the smashing of glass and a fearful cry from Grandpa’s room.