I opened my eyes too soon for my liking. Jens, Charles and Foss were shouting in my face and shaking my body in various places. The world swam, and I was lifted… somewhere by… someone. Truth be told, I was ambivalent about the fact that I was still alive. I was just grateful my headache was mostly gone, and the voice had stopped.
“He’s coming out of it!” Britta called from across the room. “Jamie? Jamie, are you alright?”
I couldn’t look at Jamie. I knew if I did, he would know how crazy I’d gone. Same went for Jens. And Charles. And heck, throw in Foss for good measure.
“Thank God, Loos!” Jens heaved his relief in my face, burying his nose in my cheek.
“Lucy, can you hear me?” one of them called.
I’m pretty sure I answered. Either way, my eyes were open. That should count for something.
“Do you know where you are?” Charles asked in earnest.
I grimaced and held my forehead. “Please stop shouting at me. My head’s killing me.”
Jens held my head in his hands and pushed down on the lump I’d given myself. “Well, yeah! When you knock yourself stupid, it’s gonna hurt. What were you thinking?”
“It was an accident,” I lied, sitting up and batting all the hands away from me.
“No, it wasn’t,” Jamie argued, rubbing a similar lump on his forehead.
My hackles rose at Jamie challenging my lie. “I’m not allowed to trip? I’m not allowed to be imperfect? Queen Lucy the Almighty Bringer of Perfection, right? What do you people want from me? I’m a checkout girl, not a queen!”
“I saw you do it,” Jamie stated flatly.
“Did Mace do this to you?” Jens seethed.
Charles scoffed. “I’m standing right here, you know. I didn’t bash my sister’s head in.”
“Why would you ask that?” I frowned. “Of course Charles would never attack me. I already told you what happened. Too much Gar. I tripped and fell and bonked my head on that tub.”
“Give it up, little rat. Jamie can see everything. The laplanding’s complete.” Foss crossed his beefy arms over his chest in his finite way.
My nose scrunched. “You know, I have no idea what that means, but I hate that you call me a rat. It’s mean.”
Jens buried his face in his hands. “I was going to explain it to you, but you stormed out when we got in that fight earlier today.”
“How could you not tell her what’s happening to her?” Charles was irate, his black brows furrowed as he glared at Jens. “This whole time, what must she have been thinking? No wonder she tried to knock herself out. She probably thought she was going mad!”
Jamie shook his head. “Guys, give us some space. I’d like a moment alone to talk to Lucy.” When no one thought much of this idea, he shouted, “Now!”
For such a meek guy, I’d never seen a room clear out faster than when he ordered it so.
“Nicely done,” I commended him. Just the two of us in the small house was more of a soothing balm than everyone crowding around and demanding answers.
“May I?” Jamie sat down at the foot of the bed I was propped up on and crossed one leg over the other, his hands folded atop his knee. “Lucy, there’s something we need to talk about.”
I had instant flashbacks of my parents gearing up to recap Uncle Rick’s account of his rendition of the birds and the bees. I bit back a smile and prayed this would be a less horrendous experience.
“I’m very proud of the way you handled yourself with that Were. Jens told me about your bent against killing, so I can only imagine how hard that must’ve been for you.”
“Thanks.” I pulled the covers up over my chest, feeling a little exposed in the formal gown.
“You saved my life by picking up my weapon, and for that I’m forever in your debt.”
My eyes were wide at his little speech. “Well, for what it’s worth, you did most of the work.”
He held up his finger. “About that. When I helped you drive in the machete the final time, we ended up killing the Were together. Something special happens when two people do that. They become laplanded.” He took a breath and waited for my reaction.
“Um, cool?” I shrugged. “I got no clue what that means.”
Jamie managed a wan smile. “It means that you and I are bonded for life. When two people become laplanded, it’s painful to be apart, hence the headaches and the voices.”
Goose bumps broke out on my arms and the air suddenly felt hard to suck down.
He tapped his temple. “When we’re together, there’re no headaches.”
“I don’t hear any voices,” I lied, afraid to admit my insanity.
Jamie reached out and patted my hand. “I know how overwhelming this all must be for you. You know, Jens tells me your parents were laplanded. It’s one of the reasons their marriage was so strong.”
“Huh? My mom doesn’t believe in killing. She was a vegetarian.”
“What’s a vegetarian?”
It was my turn to look at him like he came from another planet. “Someone who doesn’t eat meat because they’re morally opposed to the killing of animals.”
Jamie was amused, as if I’d just said the most ridiculous thing to him. “Well, that’s nice. No wonder you feel so strongly against violence.”
I nodded, hugging my knees to my chest and pulling my skirts down over my toes under the blanket. What a waste of an awesome dress. “So we’re tethered together? For how long?”
He swallowed, and his response came out almost inaudible. “For life.”
My stomach churned. “What? No, no. No, no, no, no, no.”
Jamie tried to hold my hand, but I gripped myself harder, sitting in a ball on the bed. “I know it’s not ideal. If we’re near each other, it’s like nothing’s changed at all. No headaches. And over time, I’ve heard the headaches from being apart get less and less. The tether gives you more slack as you learn to use it. Eventually we might be able to get a whole mile of space if we work on it.”
“A mile? That’s it? But I… I…” Flashes of my parents always getting jobs where they could work together hit me with their odd coincidence. I’d thought it was romantic how they couldn’t bear to be apart. Waitress, cook. Receptionist, accountant. “How do we undo it?”
He shook his head, finally letting his defeat show. He didn’t like this any more than I did. “It can’t be undone. It’s nature’s response to us killing together. Now we’ll always be together. There was a soul in that Were, so we killed someone together, not just a random bear.”
Maybe one day I’d find comfort in all of this, but today it felt like a portable prison. “I… I need some air.”
Before he could stop me, I was halfway to the door. I opened it to the early hours of the night and bolted forward in the red glow of the giant moon. I had no idea where I was going, but it didn’t matter. I had to escape. I ignored the shouts of Jens and Charles as I ran, my dress impeding my quick escape.
Dread coursed through my veins when my head started to pound. I tried to muscle my way through the pain and keep going, but the tether snapped me like a rubber band. The pressure was so great out of nowhere that I fell to the ground on all fours, unable to open my eyes. I clawed at the grass, inching my way further from Jamie.
Ah! My head! Stop, Lucy! Stop!
I felt Jens pick me up and run me toward Jamie, who was also on the floor. Guilt nudged me when I realized that I’d done it to him. Jamie. I barely knew the guy, and now we’d never be rid of each other.
Jens brought me back inside the hut and flopped on the bed, pulling me to sit next to him. His arm wrapped around me in a hug that was meant to comfort him, not me. He let out a desperate noise of frustrated defeat into my hair. “I hoped it wasn’t true. With everything in me, I wished it. Tried to grab onto any other possible explanation. No, Lucy!”
I held him, offering what comfort I could in my utterly flummoxed state. I was still trying to wrap my mind around what Jens had days to process. I shushed him, wrapping my arms around his neck and leaning my head on his shoulder.
“I waited so long for you to see me! I’ve been invisible in your life for five years! I finally get to be with you, and now you’re linked to my best friend?” He shouted into my hair again and gripped me tight, his grief washing over me like a flood. “And the worst part is that I can’t leave you! I have to watch while you and Jamie build a life together!”
Jamie picked himself up off the floor where the headache had knocked him, and knelt next to us at the side of the bed, hands clasped in supplication to his forehead. “I would never do anything to take her from you, Jens. I would never betray you like that. You’re a brother to me, more so than my blood.”
I could feel Jens’s heart pounding as he gripped me. His hand cupped the back of my head, fingers digging into my scalp as he shook with anger at the lot we’d been dealt. He spoke to Jamie through gritted teeth. “Have you ever known a man and a woman who were laplanded that did not marry and have children together?”
“Stop it!” I yelled. “Don’t talk like that! I’m twenty years old, Jens! I don’t want my whole life planned out for me.”
“But don’t you see that it already is? How will you get married to some amazing guy and explain that Jamie comes with the package? And what about his betrothal? Do you really think Freya will be fine with a queen sleeping down the hall their whole lives?”
“The curse!” Jamie moaned. “What about the curse? It’s not safe to be near me in the night. You know what I could do to her in my sleep!”
I gulped. “We can sleep in separate rooms, can’t we?”
Jamie pressed his fists to his eyebrows in frustration. “I live alone because I’m a violent sleepwalker! I’m not safe to be around. My curse runs deep, Lucy!”
I shook my head, my heart reaching out beyond my own grief to his. I put my hand in Jamie’s curly brown hair, glad that he’d forsaken the use of his small gnome hat back in Tonttu. “You’ve never attacked Britta or Jens.”
“Because I love them!” He buried his face in the mattress. “I do not love you, Lucy. I’m sorry. I barely know you.”
I took in Jamie on his knees and Jens in his besotted state at my side. Someone had to be the adult and pull us out of this mess rationally.
I counted to four, and when I spoke, my voice was devoid of the stress looming over the room. “It’s fine. We’ll figure this out.” I tried to push past all my fears and questions and lead us to some sort of middle ground between acceptance and despair. I kissed Jens on the cheek and found that it was wet. “Jens,” I cooed, stroking the short hairs at the nape of his neck. “It’s okay.”
“How can you say that? I’ve loved you for so long, Loos. You have no idea what it’s like to be so head over heels and have the person not even know you’re alive. Then I finally… and then this happens?” He looked at me as if it might be the last time his eyes got their fill of my face. “Now I have to watch my best friend live his life by your side? I have to guard your children? Watch while you fall in love?”
“Stop!” I shouted, hugging him tight, our hearts pounding against the other’s. “Stop talking like I have no choice in my own life. I’m not marrying anyone, so don’t go there in your mind. I don’t love Jamie. No offense,” I offered to the man on his knees who was tugging his hair in anguish. I pulled Jens’s tattooed cheek toward me so I could whisper what I never meant to say to him so soon. “I love you, you idiot!”
Jens pulled back, his lips parted in awe. “You, what?”
I pressed my forehead to his. “Don’t make me say it again. You know I do.”
Jens kissed me, his eyes shut as if his heart was so full, he was in physical pain. He kissed my cheeks as he spoke, and I was very aware of the revealing nature of my dress. “I’ve waited so long to hear you say that. To hear it like this?”
“You’re really surprised I think you’re an idiot?” I teased, trying to make this our moment. The two of us, not the three.
He let out a bitter laugh and buried his face in my neck. “I don’t like the idea of someone knowing you better than I do.”
Emotion was alive in me, despite my attempts at humor to push away the horror of the situation. It was a humbling thing to be loved by such a heroic man. To know he could have his pick of any number of adoring Tomten women, but chose me instead, warmed me to his affection all the more. But I’d murdered, and this was the price I would pay for the rest of my life. My heart panicked, but I remained on the bed next to him, determined not to run from him. From us. “Please don’t give up on me. Not now,” I whispered in desperation.
Jens nodded, my plea chasing away his fears for the time being. “Never.” He kissed my eager lips. “You’re right; we’ll figure this out.”