That night, long after Asta had fallen asleep, Runa lay in bed, a thousand conflicting thoughts playing like a movie reel in her brain. She couldn’t sleep. Worry, fear, and uncertainty warred inside. Everything that had happened added up to one simple conclusion—she was losing her mind.
Her inexplicable experiences at Everwine Manor, as well as the strange things happening to her body, had no reasonable explanation. She was worried for both her safety and her sanity. Worse yet, her marriage was crumbling, possibly past the point of reconciliation. She missed Chase so badly it felt like her heart was breaking in two.
To Chase, maybe she was just a look-alike replacement of his first wife, but she loved him. She wanted things to work between them. Closing her eyes, she pictured his face on their wedding day. She tried to remember the way he’d looked at her, needing to believe he’d seen her, not the ghost of Freya.
The buzzing of her cell phone startled her. Grabbing it quickly, she was shocked to see Chase was calling. She hadn’t heard from him all day, and she’d assumed he wanted nothing more to do with her.
“Hello, Chase,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry, Runa. I’m so sorry for everything.”
At the sound of his voice, her pulse quickened and her eyes filled with tears.
“You’re sorry?”
“Of course I am. Darling, I’ve been a fool. My behavior is unforgivable. I’ve been swamped at work, and I’ve been taking that stress out on you. You don’t deserve that.”
“I know your job is stressful, Chase. I understand. But we need to be able to talk to each other. I feel like I can’t share my worries or concerns for fear of you becoming angry.”
“I know. I’ve been a terrible husband. When I came home tonight and realized you were gone, I knew I had to do whatever I could to get you back.”
“Chase—”
“Will you come home? Come back to me,” he begged.
“Chase—”
“We’ll go away together. We’ll take that honeymoon. That’s what we should have done to begin with. We need time together, to get to know each other. I’m sorry I didn’t give that to you.”
A thousand thoughts collided in Runa’s brain. Chase did love her. He loved her for herself, not because she looked like Freya. And yet there were so many unanswered questions. She wanted him to explain away all the things she’d seen at Everwine Manor, but she was afraid to broach the topic.
But then she thought back on the occurrences and began to doubt herself. Every single instance was so farfetched, so over the top, that they couldn’t have really happened. Was it possible she had imagined it all? Maybe it was all in her head. Maybe none of it was real. Chase had insisted that she should see a therapist to work through her stress. Was he right?
The only thing she knew for sure was that her husband, the man she loved with all her heart, was on the other end of the phone telling her he felt the same way. He was begging her to come back to him, back to the life they both wanted. In that moment, she couldn’t throw away her marriage because of a few events that didn’t make sense.
“Of course I’ll come home. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
“Oh, darling, you have no idea how happy that makes me. I love you so much,” he said, a catch in his voice. “I was afraid I’d lost you forever.”
“I love you, too, Chase. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Runa hung up the phone and dropped it on the bedside table. Chase had given her exactly what she wanted, and she wasn’t going to throw that away. The rest of it didn’t matter.
Too restless to sleep, she sat up in bed. Her eyes landed on the box in the corner. She’d been so caught up in Chase that she’d forgotten to open it.
She flipped on the light, grabbed the box, and sank onto the bed. Lifting the wooden lid, she gasped. Tucked inside was a small leather-bound book with an Ansuz rune symbol carved on the cover. Glancing at the ring on her finger, the one her mother had given her so long ago, she realized they were identical. Tentatively tracing her hands across the book, Runa felt a strange energy pulsing against her skin.
With trembling hands, she removed the book from the box. Flipping through it, she noticed different handwriting throughout the pages. She opened it to the front of the book, wanting to read it from the beginning. She blinked a few times, trying to decipher the words. They were written in a strange language, one she didn’t understand.
As Runa concentrated on the words, she wanted very much to understand them. She thought about how badly she wanted to read the book. She touched the pages, and as she did, the blue light flickered from her fingertips, brighter and more vibrant than it had ever been. Her body vibrated with energy. As she looked at the book, the words suddenly morphed into English, and she could read them.
The book was called Døtre av havet—Daughters of the Sea. The first page was a sort of introduction, explaining it was a svarteboken, or grimoire. It also served as a family history. She flipped through the pages, reading through spells, incantations, and recipes for creating simples, or medicinal herb potions.
Then she came to the family history section, and her breath caught in her throat. The book explained that the women of this particular line had been endowed with special gifts, placed within them to help others. It warned that people wouldn’t understand, therefore fearing their gifts, some doing unspeakable things to silence them.
Reading on, Runa learned about women who had visions, some who were healers, and others who could control elements. Each of them, all the way down the line, carried a connection to water. According to the book, the most special was the “generation of two,” who would possess all of the gifts simultaneously yet must sacrifice something in return for such power. Runa had no idea what any of it meant, but she was intrigued.
She saw a list of women’s names and began to read them aloud. As she did, the room hummed with energy.
Else, 1585
Bekka and Helga, 1600
Sofie, 1625
Nora, 1645
Ella, 1663
Maja, 1683
Thea, 1704
Leah, 1727
Amalie, 1748
Frida, 1767
Astrid, 1783
Tuva, 1803
Selma, 1825
Malin, 1843
Mille, 1861
Sigrid and Brynja, 1883
Ingrid, 1900
Mathilde, 1917
Ada, 1935
Celine, 1953
Asta, 1973
As she spotted her mother’s name, as well as her grandmother’s, something inside her began to shift into place and understanding dawned. These weren’t just random women. They were the women of her family line. They were women, like her, who had powers they couldn’t explain, a special gift. They were connected to the water, had visions, and could control elements.
Runa thought back to her own strange experiences and pondered the manifestation of her gift. What did it all mean? She also wondered why her name wasn’t written in the book. It seemed strange that Asta, who had such a proclivity for the supernatural, wouldn’t write her daughter’s name in a magical grimoire.
Maybe it was because of the circumstances surrounding Runa’s birth. After all, Asta had been a single mother at eighteen. She was trying to survive. She probably hadn’t had time to worry about recording her daughter’s name in a book, too focused on keeping them alive.
Runa closed the book and placed it back inside the box, suddenly exhausted. Moving the box to the pillow beside her head, she drifted off to sleep.