Page 22 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

Liam’s bedside note and glass of water had been a sweet gesture, but his darkened brow and matching scowl when he arrived for work told me he wasn’t exactly happy at having to carry me to bed again. He hunted me down where I was restocking the canned goods shelves near the back of the store.

“Have you talked to a doctor?”

he demanded.

“Good morning to you too.”

I glared up at him from where I crouched on the floor, pushing around chili cans to make room for pinto beans.

“Where’s breakfast?”

He scowled, then jammed his hand into a paper bag to procure an avocado and bacon sandwich on an asiago bagel.

“I found you on the stairs.”

“Is the bacon crispy this time?”

I ignored him as I bit into my sandwich.

“Wren.”

I stalked back towards the register.

“Liam.”

I mimicked his tone back at him.

“I’m serious. I’ve got half a mind to tell Ethel—”

I spun around, and he bumped to a stop when I jammed a threatening finger into his chest.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Do you know what’s wrong?”

he asked. I rolled my eyes and slipped behind the register counter.

“I thought it had to be narcolepsy, but I was searching some things on the internet. Have you heard of POTS? I can’t remember what it stands for, but—”

“I don’t have POTS,”

I said through a mouthful of bagel.

“but I’m wondering what the diagnosis code is for overly-involved friend.”

“Friend?”

he repeated with a coy smile.

“Don’t push your luck,”

I warned.

“I’ll revoke my friendship faster than I can fall asleep.”

“That’s not funny.”

I leaned against the back wall and raised an eyebrow at him.

“It’s kind of funny.”

“You were sleeping on the stairs, Wren! And you bruised your cheek!”

I rubbed the sore spot below my right eye. I’d spent a good portion of the morning covering the fresh bruise there with make-up.

“I’m fine,”

I insisted again.

“Really. I’m just tired and stressed out with all the Von Leer things.”

Liam sighed heavily and ran his hands through his curls.

“When’s the phone interview?”

he asked, finally giving in on the issue of my apparent fainting spells.

“Next week. Wednesday morning.”

“So I have to open all by myself?”

He retreated back to the ice-cream station to grab his apron.

“Not if you’d rather do the phone interview for me. Can you do a girl voice?”

He cleared his throat and flashed me his favorite jaunty smile.

“Hello, Von Leer,”

he said in an over-the-top falsetto.

“I’m Wren, and my favorite things include volcanoes, extreme sleeping, and scaring the crap out of my friends by pretending to be dead in the stairwell.”

I fought against the laugh that worked its way up my chest, but was unsuccessful.

“Then yes, you’re opening the shop all by yourself on Wednesday.”

The day saw a steady stream of customers that kept Liam from lurking by the register too much. He still found reasons to come over to my side of the shop between ice-cream cones, and judging by the way he continuously surveyed my face, he was waiting for me to pass out again.

“I’m fine,”

I hissed at him a little bit after lunch when he reached for my forehead with the back of his hand.

“What?”

He blushed.

“You’ve got hair in your face. I’m helping.”

“You’re checking my temperature!”

“Am not.”

He batted my hands away and pushed my flyaways back from my forehead.

“See? That’s better.”

I ducked away again, and strands of loose hair fell back into my face.

“Liam, you’ve got a line.”

We both jumped as Gams came out of the stairwell door behind me. Liam spun around to look at the two teenaged girls looking over their ice-cream options.

“Sorry, Ethel.”

Liam hurried back to his station, and I smiled at my grandmother.

“Don’t let Gladys and Sarah see you two being so chummy with each other.”

Gams smirked at me. Jonquil leapt up to the countertop and bumped against Gams’s hand in search of scratches.

“You’ll be the talk of the town if you aren’t careful.”

“You told me to be nice to him, so that’s what I’m doing.”

“Be nice, yes.”

She scooped Jonquil into her arms.

“Be a friend when he needs one. But that’s it.”

She tickled Jonquil’s chin to avoid looking me in the eye.

“You know he isn’t like my high school friends. He won’t hurt me.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

Gams turned to make her way back to her workshop.

“You think I’ll hurt him?”

I whispered after her.

“I think you’re on different trajectories,”

she said matter-of-factly.

“You’re going to do great things some day, Wren, just like your mother. This town is too small for you the same way it was too small for her. But Liam’s a good boy, and he belongs in Keel Watch.”

“Gams!”

I hissed after her as she and Jonquil headed towards the workshop door.

“Restock the chips when you have a moment, would you?”

she called back.

“They’re looking a bit picked over.”

She closed the workshop door behind her.

I blew a flyaway hair from my face, and when it fluttered back into place, I ripped my hair tie out and let my pathetic ponytail collapse. I flinched as I pulled a strand of hair from the nape of my neck where my undercut was becoming unruly.

Gams had told me to be nice to Liam. She’d been so happy about me making friends, but now I was supposed to reel that in? I scowled at Liam, but he was too busy scooping ice-cream to notice me.

What did Gams know about what I was going to do with my life? What did she know about Liam? What if he wanted to leave Keel Watch after he graduated? What if I wanted to stay? The town was on a tectonic fault line after all. If I did become a geophysicist, it might not be a bad place to live.

Liam looked up from the cake cone he was fussing over and met my eyes.

I pulled another hair.

The girls took their ice-cream to the chicken shelf, and I marched out from behind the register to grab more chips from the storage closet, still fuming over Gams’s words.

It was just like the Riley thing all over again. Help put up posters, but also don’t. Be Liam’s friend, but don’t be too friendly.

The storage room smelled like old cardboard and dust, and I shoved bread loaves and cereal boxes out of the way to scoop chip bags indiscriminately into my arms.

The air-conditioned air of Gams’s workshop blew out from under her door to chill my ankles as I stomped past, hopefully loud enough for her to hear in her basement.

I dropped the chips to the floor before kneeling down and shoving them into their respective spaces on the shelf. I probably should have checked which brands and flavors actually needed restocking before grabbing random bags, but I was too annoyed to go back and trade out my picks.

“That was definitely him right?”

a hushed voice asked one aisle over.

“For sure. He looks just like the kid in the picture.”

“Let me see it again.”

Paper rustled in the silence that followed, and then.

“Okay, they’re absolutely related. Look at the noses!”

I tip-toed out from the chip aisle. The faint reflection of two girls huddled together was difficult to make out in the giant back windows, but I could tell their backs would be to me when I came around the corner. They were still holding their ice-cream cones, but were crouched so the tops of their heads weren’t visible over the aisle shelves. In-between them, they held a familiar, crumpled flyer.

“I dare you ask him if he did it,”

one of them giggled.

“I don’t know, he was nice. And cute. Maybe he didn’t kill his cousin.”

“The cute ones usually end up homicidal. His parents are dead too, remember?”

“Maybe it was the missing kid’s dad. He works at a shop down the street. Let’s go there next—”

“Actually, I think you’re leaving.”

The girls jumped so hard at the sound of my voice that the one with beachy blonde curls dropped her ice-cream. Her dark-haired friend fixed a defiant scowl across her angular face.

“We’re not done shopping,” she said.

“You paid for your ice-cream. Now get out.”

The girl looked ready to argue, but then Liam came around the corner, wiping his hands off on his apron.

“Wren? Is everything okay?”

The two girls spun to face him, and the blonde crumpled the Riley poster in her hands.

“Come on.”

The dark-haired girl grabbed her friend’s bicep and dragged her towards the door, causing her to drop the crumbled flyer. She paused to look back at me at the end of the aisle, smirked, and let her ice-cream fall to the floor.

“Hey—”

Liam started, but I cut him off.

“Let them leave.”

He stayed silent as the bell over the door signaled the girls’ exit. Liam’s gaze dropped to the discarded flyer, and he bent down to pick it up. He smoothed out the wrinkles and gave his cousin’s picture a careful frown.

“What were they saying?”

he asked quietly.

“Nothing.”

“Wren.”

He raised pleading brown eyes to meet mine. “Come on.”

I sighed, glanced at Gams’s closed door, and then squared my shoulders.

“They think you murdered Riley. That or maybe your uncle did it. You should probably call the bagel shop and warn him. They were talking about going there next.”

I expected anger, but instead he shrugged and shoved the flyer into the back pocket of his jeans.

“At least word is getting out. We’ll find him faster this way.”

He forced a smile.

“You take care of the register. I’ll clean up the ice-cream.”

I wanted to say more, but he was already headed to the supply closet. I didn’t understand how he could be so calm in the face of it all. Losing his parents, losing his cousin, being blamed for their apparent deaths—but he carried on, shrugging it off and mopping ice-cream.

It was infuriating. If he wasn’t going to be mad at those girls, who’d only come here because I’d disobeyed Gams and reposted the Riley posters, then what was I supposed to do with my anger?

I hurried back to the register, eager to be out of the aisle when Liam returned with a mop.

By the time Gams came up to take the closing shift, I’d dusted the register counter with a smattering of hair pulled from the back of my neck. I brushed it away before she could notice, and disappeared into the stairwell up to the apartment.

My looming Von Leer interview, thoughts of Skalterra, and the quiet sadness that Liam carried the rest of the day had caused enough turmoil for me to seek comfort in pulling at my lengthening undercut. I’d done enough damage that my fingertips could feel where my hairline at the nape of my neck had been made uneven.

Jonquil wove between my ankles in the tiny bathroom across the hall from my bedroom while I dug in a small black tote for my electric razor. It was near the bottom of the bag, hiding beneath a bottle of aloe vera.

It hummed in my hand when I pressed the power button to test its charge, and I pursed my lips. Mom had shaved down the undercut for me, but she was probably in Spain by now.

Jonquil jumped onto the counter, knocking the black tote of razor guards to the floor.

“Be my eyes for me, will you, Jonky?”

I pulled up on my ponytail with one hand, and held the buzzing razor to the nape of my neck with the other.

I froze, concentrating on my reflection, wishing I had a way to see the back of my head and wishing I didn’t have to shave down my hair in the first place. Why did the Nightmare version of me have beautiful, long hair? And a slender neck and graceful chin?

She wasn’t afraid of breaking the rules, of monsters, or of people.

That was who I should be, not the scared kid in the mirror with no way to give herself a decent undercut, so screw it, here goes nothing.

“What are you doing in here?”

I jumped as Liam appeared behind me in the mirror. I slammed the razor to the counter and spun around.

“I’m trying to cut my hair. What are you doing in here?”

He lifted a plastic bag.

“I brought you a burger. I thought we could practice more interview questions, and I was looking up iron deficiency—”

“I’m not iron deficient.”

I cut him off and looked at the steaming bag. It smelled too good for me to be angry at him.

“But yes. Burgers would be nice. I’ll meet you on the back deck.”

He set the bag down and squeezed into the tiny bathroom beside me. He gave Jonquil a head scratch, then picked up the razor.

“Just a clean up, right?”

He positioned himself behind me, but I kept a hand over my neck.

“I don’t need help.”

I would rather have the world’s most uneven undercut than let Liam Glass see the patchwork mess my hair pulling habit had made of the back of my head.

“Are you sure?”

His reflection stared back at me, and I tapped my fingers against the counter where I leaned. I needed help. He wanted to help. Why was this so difficult?

I gave a heavy sigh, trying to force out whatever stubborn pride I was holding onto.

“Just be quick, okay?”

I held my hair out of the way and closed my eyes with my head bowed over the sink. Liam’s fingers brushed against my shoulder as he held me steady with one hand and used the other to lift the razor to my neck.

The razor tickled against my skin as Liam ran it up the base of my head. He let go of my shoulder to brush bits of hair into the sink.

“Where’s Sabrina?”

I asked as he put the razor back to my hair.

“Working. Who do you think made the burgers?”

I frowned at the brown hairs gathering in the white sink basin. I wasn’t sure I’d won my way back into her good graces after my blow-up at the beach parking lot.

“Did she know who they were for?”

Liam laughed and brushed at my neck again.

“Don’t worry, she wouldn’t poison your food if there was any chance I might eat it on accident.”

I jolted my head up to look at him through the mirror, and he laughed.

“I knew it. She doesn’t like me.”

“Sabrina doesn’t like most people. Once you’ve made an impression, it’s hard to change her mind about you.”

“Oh.”

I looked back down as Liam lifted the razor again. Jonquil bumped against my arm from her perch on the counter, but I suspected she was searching for Liam’s attention rather than mine.

“But it’s not impossible to win Sabrina over,”

he assured me.

I wouldn’t get my hopes up, not when I was the one who had originally taken down Riley’s posters and had only replaced a fraction of them. If she ever did find out it had been me, she was sure to tell Liam. He was kinder than Sabrina, but he would never forgive me.

He gave my neck a final brush and turned off the razor.

“If architecture doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll be a barber.”

He grinned at me in the mirror. I ran my fingers over the shortened hair at the back of my head. Even if I couldn’t see the haircut, it at least felt the same as when Mom would shear it down.

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

As genuine as my next words were, they still took an embarrassing amount of effort to summon forth.

“Thank you, Liam.”

Liam backed out of the bathroom and scooped the plastic bag up from the floor. Jonquil bounded off the counter to give chase, chirping as she landed on the tiled floor.

“What do you say?”

He shook the bag at me, and Jonquil wove between his ankles.

“Dinner on the back deck?”

Gams’s warning from earlier in the day echoed at the back of my head. She’d been right. A friendship with Liam wasn’t sustainable, and he deserved better.

But the burgers did smell good, and he was kind, and as terrible as taking Riley’s posters down had been, I felt like I deserved at least a little bit of kindness.

The sun sinking over the harbor was still warm. We sat at the edge of the shop’s back deck with our legs through the railing to dangle over the high tide. Liam was back in his Von Leer hoodie, and I watched him eat his burger, thinking of the way I’d stolen his face and clothes in Skalterra to escape arrest with Orla.

Orla had called his face and clothes hideous, and while I disagreed, the memory of it made me smile.

“What?”

Liam asked through a mouth full of burger.

“Nothing.”

I ran my fingers over the fresh undercut again.

“Sabrina did a good job on the burgers.”

“You think so?”

Liam surveyed his half-eaten burger.

“Riley always liked them too. Siobhan’s going to cater his memorial free of charge.”

“Memorial?”

My appetite ebbed, and I lowered my burger.

“Did they find something?”

Liam sighed, and set his burger aside on the to-go container between us.

“No, but he’s probably not coming back.”

He kept his eyes on the water beneath us.

“Everyone knows it.”

“Nobody knows anything,”

I said, too aggressively.

“It’s not the first time this has happened, you know.”

My stomach churned, and I set my burger down next to his.

“I know. I heard about your parents. Liam, I—”

“I told my aunt and uncle about those girls today,”

he said.

“They were going to keep looking for Riley, but after that… They want it over.”

I dug at my undercut, wishing there was still something there for me to pull on. None of this was normal. It didn’t make sense, and maybe it wasn’t my mystery to unravel, but I hated the look on Liam’s face.

“People don’t just disappear,”

I said.

“They have to go somewhere, even if they’re dead. Why does it keep happening here?”

“It happens everywhere, Wren. All the time.”

He rested his chin against the bars of the railing and reached his hand to rest on top of mine.

“But thank you. It’s nice that someone else believes he might still be alive. It’s exhausting keeping up hope.”

“I won’t give up. Even if you do, I’ll believe he’s still alive for the both of us,”

I promised him. His fingertips curled around my palm.

“And I’m sorry about your parents.”

“Did Ethel tell you?”

“Gladys and Sarah.”

“That makes more sense.”

He chuckled softly, and a tiny smile finally cracked the grief that weighed on his face.

“It made for a good sob story for Von Leer at least. I was waitlisted, just like you, so I played up the dead parents thing in my in-person interview.”

“That works?”

I cocked an eyebrow at him and leaned against the wooden bar of the railing.

“You should’ve seen the poor admissions officer.”

Liam whistled.

“Nearly had him in tears. If you get the same guy, you should try it.”

“My mom’s not dead,”

I reminded him.

“She’s just in Europe.”

“And your dad?”

“I already used the absentee father thing in my admissions essay.”

The setting sun turned the harbor orange, reminding me of Ciarán, and I pulled my hand out from under Liam’s.

“Then use Riley.”

He pulled apart a bit of hamburger bun to drop to a couple of bufflehead ducks floating on the water below.

“He’ll think it’s funny.”

“I don’t know enough about Riley to make that convincing.”

“You heard all about him at the beach the other night.”

He looked up from the ducks to meet my eye.

“I heard his friends talk about him, sure, but you didn’t say much.”

He picked at the railing, the setting sun turning his hair a bright honey color.

“Riley would do anything for anyone. He’d drop whatever he was doing if someone asked for help, and after my parents disappeared, I needed a lot of help.”

The furrow between his eyebrows returned, and the smile the ducks had brought to his face slipped away.

“I didn’t mean that you have to talk about him now,”

I backtracked.

“It’s okay. Tell me about architecture class. What’s that like?”

Liam sighed and shook his head.

“He sold a ton of his things to make room for me when I moved in, and then used the money to buy me a new mattress. When he left for school, he came back every weekend to see me, until Uncle Teddy made him stop because his grades were slipping. And then Riley started buying me train tickets to visit him whenever he could afford it.”

His eyes turned glassy.

“When Mom and Dad died, he was all I had left. I mean, yeah, I had Uncle Teddy and Aunt Olive and Ethel and Sabrina, but Riley was different. He was home.”

He cleared his throat and brushed a hand across his cheek.

“He sounds amazing,”

I said.

“If he was even half as kind as you—”

“I just wish I knew what happened.”

He struck out against the railing, and the salt-weathered wood cracked beneath the hit.

“I just want to know where he went! Where Mom and Dad went. And why. Why does everyone have to leave me?”

He buried his face in his arms, disappearing behind the blue sleeves of his hoodie. His shoulders shuddered, then stilled, and a tentative quiet fell over our deck.

I wished I knew how to help. I wished I knew how to find Riley for him, or at least make him feel better. But I was useless.

“I’m not leaving you,”

I whispered.

“I know I’m not Riley, but I’m here.”

He raised red-rimmed eyes out from behind his arms, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.

“You keep passing out, and you don’t even care.”

I shifted closer until our shoulders touched.

“Please don’t worry about me,”

I said. He put an arm around me, and we leaned into each other the same way we had at the bonfire.

“Promise me you’ll see a doctor,”

Liam pleaded, the side of his head leaning against mine.

“I already have.”

The lie was effortless. I knew there was nothing wrong with me, but how was I supposed to explain to Liam that I kept passing out because my consciousness was being dragged to a separate reality to pilot a much more attractive version of myself.

“It’s fine. I promise. I’m not going to disappear.”

His shoulder relaxed against mine as we both settled into each other.

“Thank you,”

he murmured.

“And I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

I laughed.

“Getting upset? You’ve seen me do much worse over much less.”

“You’re okay. You’re a good friend. Riley’s going to love you once he comes home, you know.”

The sun bumped up against the horizon ahead of us. Galahad would be calling any minute, but I couldn’t bring myself to break the moment. Sitting here, leaned up against each other, we were both sad, but at least we were sad together.

“Liam?”

I whispered.

“Yes?”

I balled my hands in my lap.

“If I fall asleep here, will you carry me upstairs again?”

His arm tightened around my shoulders.

“Of course, Wren.”

I wasn’t sure how much time passed before Galahad’s voice growled at the back of my head, but I wanted those quiet moments of dying daylight to stretch on forever, sitting in both sadness and comfort, side by side with Liam.