Thief Eyes (19 page)

Ari caught up, his face red, sweat dripping from his hair. “This was easier”—he gasped—“as a bear.”

I dropped to a brisk walk, knowing that if I went any slower my legs would cramp up. I pulled off my jacket. My skin felt warm and flushed, in spite of the cool breeze, but it was good heat, for once. Normal heat, like after any run.

Ari wiped a hand across his sweaty face. We reached another intersection, and he turned left, so that we were following the fjord out the other side. “I guess it’s true—what they say. About American girls—being fast—”

I thwapped him with my jacket. Ari laughed. “Hey, I’m not the one who set that pace!” He took off his jacket, too, and draped it over his shoulders. “Maybe if I just keep it off I’ll stay human. Do you think it could be that easy? I didn’t even know the coat was bearskin until Muninn said so.”

I wrapped my jacket around my waist. “What’s it like?” I asked. “Being a bear?”

Ari looked down at the pale white hairs on the backs of
his hands. We passed a farmhouse. A pair of black-capped terns perched on the roof, watching us. “I could have killed him, you know. The sorcerer.”

“No one would blame you for that.” I kicked a black stone down the road. The volcanic rock was lighter than I’d expected. It disappeared into the distance.

“You don’t understand. I would have enjoyed it. It would have been fun.”

The memory of falling asleep in his soft fur made me want to cry. “You didn’t hurt me.”

“This time.” Ari made a fist and slowly opened it, as if fascinated by the way his own fingers worked. “This isn’t like some cartoon where the bears are all funny and cuddly with googly Disney eyes.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” We caught up with my rock. I picked it up and stared at its air-pocked surface. Ari watched me, his skeptical look making clear he thought I still didn’t understand. “Listen, Ari, I know a few things about polar bears—real polar bears. They don’t turn and run just because they’re scared they might hurt someone. They don’t wait to come back until they’re sure they won’t, either. They don’t run at all, not unless they’re chasing down prey.”

Ari kicked a patch of moss at the side of the road. “It’s still dangerous. If I get angry as a bear, it’s worse than as a human.”

“This whole mess we’re in is dangerous.” I glanced at Ari’s hands. His palms were still very faintly red where I’d
burned him. “If anyone should be worried about being dangerous, it’s me.”

Ari scowled. “That’s not the same thing.”

“No.” I let the rock fall. “Because you can’t bring buildings down with
your
magic. Maybe you were right to run away.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Ari said.

“I won’t if you won’t.” I drew a breath. “You know, if we can’t fix the memory thing, I won’t run home to America when this is all done. I won’t leave you alone here.”

Ari shrugged uncomfortably. “You don’t have to stay because you feel sorry for me.”

“Idiot!” I almost kicked him. “I wouldn’t stay because I felt sorry for you.” He didn’t want to kiss me—he might even be right about that—but that didn’t mean we weren’t friends, or that being friends wasn’t important. “I won’t abandon you.”
Not when you’re a bear, and not when you’re human, either
. “Jared would agree, you know.”

“That you should stay here with me instead of him?” Ari laughed. “I doubt that.”

“That friends don’t abandon each other,” I said sharply.

A truck rumbled along the road behind us. We moved onto the shoulder as it passed. Wind blew the grasses at our feet and rippled the surface of the fjord. Ari jammed his hands into his pockets as we walked on. “The thing is,” he said slowly, “if it turns out I change every night, with or without the jacket? Even if we fix everyone’s memories, I
have a problem then. Hard to go to college as a bear—never mind getting a job or playing gigs.”

Maybe you could stick to matinees
. That wouldn’t work in Iceland, though, where the winter days were as short as the summer nights. “You could migrate. Like an arctic tern.” I stifled a giggle. “Sorry. I shouldn’t joke.”

“Of course you should joke.” Ari shook his white hair out of his eyes. “Hey, I could be the first polar bear at the South Pole. Go visit the penguins. What do you think?”

“I think there are no penguins at the South Pole, only at the coast.” I laughed, and Ari laughed, too. I pulled the granola from my pack, and we ate it as we continued on. We veered away from the water for a bit, then turned left, leaving the main road behind. A harbor town came into view below us. The bright red-and blue-roofed houses reminded me of my run through Reykjavik, what seemed a lifetime ago.

We came to a small gas station. Wind whistled through its broken windows, and the door swung open on its hinges. I rubbed my bare arms, though the wind still didn’t seem cold to me. How far away had the earthquake been felt?

A girl and boy on bicycles circled around the parking lot while a woman stood nearby, talking into a cell phone. Across the road, I saw more emergency vehicles beside a huge orange tent. A few people sat in lawn chairs by the tent, talking quietly. Down toward the harbor, I saw smaller tents in some of the yards, as well as more people talking in
the streets. It didn’t
look
like anyone was hurt, but the hurt people wouldn’t have been standing around outside, would they?

“This is my fault,” I said.

Ari gave my hand a quick squeeze. “Not only yours. Come on, let’s see if we can find a bus schedule.” He started toward the gas station door.

The boy on the bicycle headed the same way, not seeing us. We quickly stepped out of his path, but then the bicycle hit a rock, and he tumbled to the ground.

Ari and I ran to his side, even as the girl stopped pedaling. I reached for the boy to help him up. He flinched as if burned, burst into tears, and ran wailing to the woman. She flipped her phone closed and stroked his hair.

The girl sat on her bicycle, balanced on her toes. She looked right at us. I smiled, even though she couldn’t see us.

She smiled back. “Are you ghosts?” she asked solemnly.

I started. “I—I don’t know.” Was the spell broken? No, the boy hadn’t seen me, though he’d felt my touch.

The girl nodded, still solemn. “I see ghosts. My grandma says some people can.” She reached into her pocket and offered me a piece of black licorice.

I took it. “Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome!” She turned and pedaled away, winding through the parking lot toward the woman and boy.

I tore the licorice in half, gave a piece to Ari, and popped the other into my mouth. It was salty. My lips scrunched up,
but then I decided I liked it. “A gift,” I whispered. Unlike with Muninn or Svan or the fire spirits, there’d been no price—it was just a gift.

A pair of backpackers headed down the road and into the parking lot. They walked over to the woman. “Do you know—is there a bus today?” one of them asked in English.

The woman answered in English, more stilted than the Icelandic she’d spoken on the phone. “The bus is canceled. Because of the earthquake.”

Ari and I looked at each other. The woman asked the backpackers where they were headed; Akureyri, they said, and she opened her phone, saying she knew someone who might be able to give them a ride.

We could hitch a ride, too, sneak into someone’s backseat, only how would we know where they were going? Up above a gray falcon circled around, reminding me of the kids on their bicycles. Could we borrow bicycles and head south that way?

Ari took his jacket from his shoulders and stared at it thoughtfully. Wind pulled at the sleeves and at his hair. “Ah, well,” he said at last. He pulled the jacket back on and zipped it up. “There’s enough time to be human later.”

I gave him a puzzled look. Ari held out a hand and bowed slightly.

“Haley,” he said, “may I offer you a ride?”

Chapter 14

I
t took me a moment to realize what Ari meant. “As a bear?”

“I may not be much as a human, but as a bear I make pretty good time.” He grinned. “Or if you prefer, we could hotwire a car. Not that I’ve ever done that before, but they do it in movies all the time, so how hard can it be?”

“No, no, I’d love a ride. That’d be amazing, actually.”
How many wildlife biologists get to ride a polar bear?
Jared would be jealous—I cut the thought off.
If he’s jealous, it won’t be because of the bear
. “Are you sure?” I asked Ari. “I mean, it’s awfully far.”

“Of course. It’ll be just like shooting womp rats back home.” At my blank look, Ari said, “Another
Star Wars
joke. I’m a bit of a geek, if you hadn’t noticed. Yes, I’m sure.
I have lots more energy as a bear. More than I know what to do with, actually. I can get us to Hlidarendi.”

“Thanks,” I said.
We really are in this together
, I thought.

We loaded up on sandwiches and Cokes and maps at the abandoned gas station. We tried to call Jared on the pay phone there, too, but like at the hotel, we didn’t get a dial tone. Ari left a few bills on the counter to pay for all we took—though we still had no idea whether anyone could see our money—and then we headed down to the harbor to wait for the sun to set and Ari to change. We stretched out on a patch of grass. Ari studied the map. I took out Thorgerd’s spellbook and studied the spell for returning the coin. There were words I had to speak—after my third pathetic attempt to sound them out, Ari took pity and read them for me. I repeated the words until I had them memorized.

Ari folded up the maps. “I know the way. I won’t screw this up.”

“You didn’t screw anything up.” I stopped reciting the spell under my breath and looked at him. “Seriously.”

Ari looked back. For a moment we stared at each other, frozen in place. More than anything, I wanted to take his face in my hands, to convince him without words that he hadn’t messed up after all. Did he have any idea how much harder this all would be without him?

“I didn’t kiss you when I had the chance. If that isn’t screwing up, I don’t know what is.” Ari turned abruptly
toward the harbor. The water was bright beneath the afternoon sun.

I wanted to tell him—what? That he still had a chance? That he didn’t, but I wished he did? I bit down hard on my inner lip, drawing blood. It tasted coppery and hotter than blood should have.

I pulled a sandwich from my pack and bit fiercely into it. The taste of blood mixed with the taste of tuna salad and a yellow sauce that was more like mayo than mustard. I read through the spell once more.

The mead has to work
. “Ari, your mom was going to cast this spell. She wouldn’t have killed a fox—would she?”

Still looking at the water, Ari pulled a Coke from my pack and popped it open. “You’re asking me? I didn’t think Mom would sleep with a married man.” Ari picked up a flat rock and skipped it over the blue water. “You know, when I invited myself to lunch at Thingvellir, I had this idea that maybe you’d figured things out—about my mom and your dad, I mean—better than me. Stupid, really. I don’t know why I thought they’d have even told you when they didn’t want me to know, either.”

I tried to skip a stone, too, but it sank right into the water. I watched the ripples circle out. Maybe I was the stupid one, for not having figured out what was going on sooner.

We finished the sandwiches as twilight settled in. Ari stood and handed me the flashlight. I stood as well.
He stretched and took a few steps back. “Ready?” A small smile crossed his face.
He’s looking forward to this
.

As the sun dipped behind the hills, the smile faded. Ari’s eyes took on a wide, startled look. “You’d think I’d get used to this—” His voice turned hoarse as his jacket began to flow, his face to twist and change, his skin to sprout white fur. Within moments a white bear stood roaring before me. The sound sent shivers down to my bones. Somewhere deep inside I
knew
I ought to run.

Ari whirled and ran from me instead, loping away along side the harbor. I raced after him, calling his name. He disappeared into the distance as the sky grew dimmer. I stopped and took a deep breath.
He’ll come back. Just like last night
. Did he need to remember that he wouldn’t hurt me? Or to wait until it was true?