Foss steered the ship toward a port that Jens was unhappy with. Jens was edgy about me seeing the Mare, so I didn’t pry. It wasn’t his secrecy, it was Jamie and Britta that had me on edge. They were unusually quiet around me with cheery you-can-do-it-buddy smiles.
Everyone was packing up the crates to ready for docking except for me. They had categorically refused to let me help because of my manic cleaning bout after the farlig fisk. After I had been laying in my hammock for exactly ten minutes, Foss called me lazy and told me I needed to learn how to steer the ship in case he ever wanted to take a break. He’s a real sweetheart. I think just nicely asking didn’t even occur to the lunkhead. That’s how I ended up next to Foss at the helm of the ship, sitting at his feet and snuggling Henry Mancini. I kissed my dog’s fur and rubbed behind his ears, grinning when he ground his head into the touch.
“How long till we dock?” I asked.
“Not too long now. Anxious to meet your boyfriend’s little distractions?”
“I know you’re being nasty.”
“Give the Guldy a prize.” He looked off into the distance and adjusted the giant steering wheel. “Now what would make you think that?”
“Because you never talk to me nicely unless your brains get scrambled by fiddle music or you’re secretly being terrible.”
Foss let a boyish grin sneak out. “Oh, I’m just looking forward to seeing the pedestal you put your boyfriend on get knocked out from under him.”
“Careful,” I warned. “You almost sound like you care about my relationship. Ipso facto, you care about me. Ouch. That can’t feel good, growing a heart from scratch like that. Be careful. Ovaries are next.”
He scowled at my joke, so I knew I’d won. “If Jens gets the moonbeams you see in him taken away, it’ll crush the both of you. Two lovebirds with one stone.”
I felt small, sitting next to his towering form. He had a way of almost convincing me he could be halfway decent, and then reverting back to his predictable wretched behavior. Foss was an open palm you thought might welcome you, but it always managed to slap you instead. And yet, I fell for it every time. My mom would have called that an admirable quality. Linus would have told it like it was: I’m gullible and can’t believe anyone’s past redemption.
Henry Mancini licked my face, cheering me up from the funk Foss always put me in. I sat on the wood floor, wondering if I would ever feel the urge to get back on a boat after this trip.
“Can I ask you something?” Since it was just us, I felt I could voice my concerns.
“Do you honestly think I could stop you? Go annoy Jamie or his rat.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re mean and scary. I get it.” I rolled my eyes. “Sit down for a second,” I urged, tugging on his pant leg.
Foss grumbled and shook his leg to rid himself of my essence, but complied and sat on the floor, facing me with his back against the ship. He made a big show of how inconvenient I was making life for him, but I could tell he was happy to be off his feet.
“What’s the deal with the Mare and Jens?” I asked, rubbing Henry Mancini’s fur. He had jumped off my lap and was whining next to me, sounding all kinds of pitiful as he paced in a circle.
Foss scoffed, picking at a thread on his beige pants. “You don’t want to hear it. It would ruin the shining image of your precious boyfriend.”
“Which is exactly why I’m asking you. You like hurting me, and I’m guessing it’s all bad news. So, out with it. Is it an ex? Is that what you were jabbing him about?”
A smug smile crossed his face as he focused on nothing in particular. When his vision narrowed on me, the smile faded. Suddenly, the outright hatred was gone and we were two allies sharing secrets. It was hard to keep up with Foss’s mood swings.
“Not one woman so much as a harem. Jens was too popular in Tonttu after he killed those trolls, so he moved around a lot before taking on your family on the Other Side. Many men who spend time in Bedra never come out. Jens made it out, but that’s where he acquired his lavender powder addiction. The Mare buy it from my people by the barrel. It’s how they keep their men so long.” He sighed. “I knew Jens back then. He bought some lavender powder for medicinal reasons. Those trolls messed up his back a little.” He shook his head. “It always starts out medicinal. Then a few years later, you’re wearing the powder around your neck like a noose.”
I nodded, not fully understanding everything. “You know I only got about half of that, right?”
“The tiny size of your brain never surprises me.”
Henry Mancini looked up at me with sad eyes and started heaving as he yelped. “Oh, baby! What’s wrong? Did you eat something bad?” Foss inched away as my puppy built up a fair amount of sick and barfed it on the deck. My hands were on him in an instant, images of Linus on the floor of the bathroom churning in my rattled psyche.
“Ah!” Foss complained loudly, as if a dog throwing up was the most aggravating thing ever. “Control your wolf, Lucy! We just swabbed the deck.”
“I’m the one who cleaned it, you jag. Leave him alone. He’s been through a lot.”
I trotted down the stairs and fetched a rag made from a ruined garment. I came back to the top and cleaned the spot up, throwing the rag and chunky puke overboard. I crouched next to Henry Mancini and spoke in soothing tones that made Foss groan his annoyance at me. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Poor, seasick puppy. We’ll be off the boat soon.”
Henry Mancini stood on all fours, turned around in a circle three times, and then collapsed like a dying star.
My chest felt tight until I saw him breathing. “He’s okay,” I informed Foss, who probably could not have cared less. “What should I do for him?”
“Throw him overboard so he doesn’t have to deal with you anymore?” Foss suggested.
I glared at his smirk. “Don’t even joke about that. How do I make him get better?”
Foss rolled his eyes at having to care about my problems. “Let me take a look. You’re so overly emotional about a simple creature. Jens should never have let you keep this wolf.” He looked inside Henry Mancini’s mouth and frowned, then checked his fur.
“You shut your smackhole!” I demanded, angry that he was being mean to me while my dog was sick. “Henry Mancini needs me! I’m his family. He came to me, of all people. He knew I would take care of him.”
“Fantastic job you’ve done so far. He looks awful.”
I closed my eyes and willed myself not to cry in front of Foss. “Please just tell me what to do. I really can’t lose another person I love. I need him to be okay.”
Foss’s arrogance and snark deflated out of him at my plea. “Get him a dish of water. If it’s something he ate, that’s the best way to move it through him on the limited cargo we have here.”
I ran down the stairs and brought back the water as fast as I could, spilling a little on the way. Foss was bent over my puppy, and I did not like the sight of him so close to something I loved. “Here,” I said, handing the wooden bowl with water to Foss.
“Um, Lucy? Back up. Something’s wrong.”
The concern in his voice sent ice through my veins. “What is it? What did you do?”
Henry Mancini’s eyes were shut, and he was growling in his dreamy state.
“Go get Jens right now.” His tone was controlled, but I could tell something was very wrong.
I wanted to ask questions, but I obeyed. I ran down to the bottom floor to collect Jens, yanking him from the crate he was packing up. “It’s my dog! Something’s wrong with him.”
Jens wasted no time running to the deck. Foss stood and whispered to Jens while I brought Henry Mancini onto my lap. He was growling at something in his delirious state, but I could not tell what.
Then my sweet puppy did something he had never done before. He turned his head and sank his teeth into my hand, shaking his head back and forth to further rip into my skin. “Ow! No, Henry Mancini! No, no!” I dislodged his jaw from my hand but he came at me again. When he looked up at me with malice I had never before seen on him, my heart froze.
My precious little puppy lunged at me, his gray eyes mutating to a ferocious yellow.