Page 24 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

The silver ridges of my scars caught the morning sunlight, and I studied the new line of puckered skin that cut across Galahad’.

“T”. With two lives left in Skalterra, maybe I should’ve been more concerned as I walked down Keel Watch Harbor’s empty Main Street. I was two dream-deaths away from dying for real.

Instead, I marveled at how the new line of scar looked just as old as the ones it had joined in the night, as if it had been there on my hand for years rather than hours. The gashes the rotsbane had carved into my stomach were also looking older than they actually were. They’d bled a bit when I first woke up, but the broken skin had already fused back together, leaving me sore and bruised, but in one piece.

I curled my fingers over the scars of my hand and shoved my fist into the pocket of my open zip-up hoodie. My one-size-too-big flip-flops smacked the pavement of the empty sidewalk. Monday morning had brought a lull in visitors, so Gams had given Liam the day off to help his aunt and uncle plan for Riley’s memorial.

This, of course, meant someone had to go retrieve Gams’s morning bagel sandwich.

Teddy’s bagel shop was situated at the end of the street, right where the road veered away from the water and up the windy hill to the library. The yeasty smell of fresh-baked bagels wafted out onto the sidewalk, and my growling stomach quickened my pace into the shop.

It was dark and cozy inside after the bright, morning sun of the street, and Teddy waved at me from behind a display counter full of different types of bagels. Ceramic chickens of every color decorated the register, and I recognized Gams’s craftsmanship in their patterns and shapes.

“Wren! There you are! I’ve got your food right here!”

Teddy called out. Liam’s blond curls bounced around his forehead as he looked up from the binder he was bent over in one of the shop’s vinyl-seated booths.

He raised a hand in greeting, and my cheeks warmed. He had carried me to bed again last night. That was three times now. I tried to smile back.

“Let me help you with that.”

A woman with graying brown hair braided over her shoulder got up from Liam’s booth to retrieve a brown bag from behind the counter. She smiled at me as she handed me the bag, but her eyes were rimmed red and heavy.

“It’s nice to see you again, Wren. When was the last time you were in Keel Watch?”

“I don’t know, middle school maybe?”

I ran through the faces in my memories of visits to Gams growing up, but I couldn’t place the woman.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I remember you.”

“Olive.”

She offered a slim, long-fingered hand.

“Riley’s mother, and Liam’s aunt.”

She winked at Liam and went to join her husband at the register.

“Sleep okay last night?”

Liam asked behind me.

I spun around, ready to defend myself after falling asleep in yet another inappropriate location.

“Look, I—”

I looked at the open binder in front of him. Its pages boasted images of floral arrangements. He, or maybe his aunt, had circled a few of the options. All sense of fight fled me, and I deflated.

“Yes. Thank you, Liam.”

He smiled and shifted over in the booth, patting the striped vinyl next to him.

“No nightmares?”

he asked. I had to work hard to keep the pain off my face as I took the seat he’d offered. The rotsbane’s claw marks were healed, sure, but the muscles there were sore and tender.

“Eh.”

I dug inside the brown bag until I found my usual avocado and bacon breakfast sandwich.

“More of the same. You?”

“Weirdly enough, I slept great.”

He frowned at the binder, then pushed it towards me.

“What do you think? I don’t really like the lilies. They feel too… I don’t know. Final?”

“Lilies are funeral flowers.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Is this for the memorial?”

“Yeah. Aunt Olive is Team Lilies, but I like the more leafy ones. I guess Riley’s her son though, so she should get final say.”

Despite insisting he’d slept well, his eyes were heavy and his hair messy.

“She picked out lilies for my parents too. She is— well, was my mom’s sister.”

I looked back at Olive. The librarian, Mr. Lane, had come down the hill to get breakfast, and she laughed with him at the counter while Teddy made Mr. Lane’s order.

“Which ones would Riley like?” I asked.

“None.”

Liam flipped the binder shut.

“He’d call it a waste of money because he isn’t dead.”

My phone buzzed on the table and the screen lit up. I thought maybe Gams was getting impatient for her bagel, but the name on the screen sent my heart plummeting.

Why the hell was Linsey Harper texting me?

Adrenaline buzzed in my extremities like fresh Skalmagick, and I fought the instinct to throw my phone across the bagel shop. Instead, I took it in my hands and opened the message.

“What is it?”

Liam asked. I shook my head, and tilted my phone towards him so he could see.

A web link glowed under Linsey’s name, and while the thumbnail was pixelated and blurry, I recognized the woman in the image.

I tapped it, and Liam shifted closer to watch the video load.

The video title loaded first, in all caps, at the base of the screen.

“ROMANCE AUTHOR GOES ON RAMPAGE”.

“No,”

I whispered. Mom appeared onscreen, wearing her favorite green robe with her hair disheveled, and standing on Linsey Harper’s front porch. The angle of the video suggested the footage was taken from a security camera, and I held my breath as Mom hammered on Linsey’s front door.

“Is that your mom?”

Liam hissed. I shushed him, but he continued.

“Wow, she looks just like Ethel.”

“You better get your ass outside in the next three seconds, Teresa, or I’m breaking your goddamn windows and coming in there myself!”

Mom screamed in the video. She kicked over a potted plant with a slippered foot before rapping on the door again.

“Get off my porch before I call the police, Eliza.”

I recognized Mrs. Harper’s voice speaking over the camera’s intercom.

“Oh, please call them so I can tell them what your cheat daughter did to Wren!”

“This is on the internet,”

I said blankly. Mom lifted the upturned plant pot and smashed it against the concrete porch.

Liam patted my shoulder and leaned in closer to better watch.

“Linsey hasn’t been home all night,”

Mrs. Harper chided.

“And your daughter got mine kicked out of school, so—”

Mom launched into a tirade that drowned out Mrs. Harper’s words, and I cut the volume on the phone. Mom ripped the welcome mat from the ground and frisbee-threw it into the front yard, still yelling.

“It could be worse,”

Liam said, watching Mom destroy the Harpers’ porch decorations.

“How, Liam? How could this be worse?”

“It’s not like you’re ever going to see anyone from high school again,”

Liam said.

“And no one would be dumb enough to give you crap about it because your mom might come murder their lawn flamingos.”

Mom punted a garden gnome across the screen.

We watched in horrified silence as Mrs. Harper turned on her garden sprinklers, forcing Mom to abandon the porch as water blasted her from all angles. She lost her slippers on the lawn in her hurry to escape, but still found time to turn back and flip the Harpers’ house the double bird before retreating to her car and peeling away from the sidewalk.

The video ended, and the screen turned black to reflect our stark faces back at us.

“I have to go.”

I sprung away from the booth, grabbing the brown bag with Gams’s breakfast. I left my half-eaten bagel on the table. I didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.

“Wren—”

Liam reached for my hand, but I drew away. Blood pounded in my ears, and the shop, so dark and cozy before, now seemed too bright.

The bell over the door rang out as I ran onto the street, and my flip-flops slapped with every running step back towards Gams’s store.

I knew Mom had been angry the morning I’d stumbled out of my car covered in sticks and dirt, and yes, she’d driven off in a hurry, but she’d seemed so calm after coming home, if a bit wetter than before.

Sabrina raised a hand in greeting as I passed her on the sidewalk, but I ignored it, surely setting our flimsy friendship back even further. However, there was no time for Sabrina right now, because Linsey Harper had put my mother’s tantrum on the internet.

When I pushed into the air-conditioned interior of Gams’s shop, I thought she’d already seen the video. She waited for me, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed behind her round glasses.

But then I saw the wrinkled missing flyer in her hand, stained with bits of day-old melted ice-cream.

“I found this in the trash can.”

Riley’s black-and-white face smiled back at me.

“What’s extra weird is that it has the Port Fletcherton Community Board approval stamp. How did this get to the Port Fletcherton Community Board, Wren? And then all the way back here?”

I held up my phone.

“Mom’s on the internet.”

“Well, I should hope so! Her books are very popular in certain circles, but—”

“It’s a video.”

Gams stared at me for a moment, her lips twisting as she breathed heavily through her nose.

“Fine,”

she snapped, and slammed Riley’s poster onto the counter.

“What’s this video?”

I silently held my phone out to her and let the video play. I didn’t have the heart to watch it again. Gams’s eyebrows shot up her forehead, and she nodded along as she watched in awed silence.

“I would’ve chosen different words than ‘cheat daughter’ for that Linsey girl, but still. Very impressive. Is that it?”

“Is that it?”

I repeated.

“Gams! Everyone can see this!”

“So delete it!”

I pulled at my hair, feeling my ponytail come undone beneath my fingers.

“That’s not how the internet works!”

“Von Leer isn’t going to care. It’s okay—”

“I don’t care about Von Leer! I care about Mom! I care about her book tour!”

I yelled. Yes, there had been a time where this video would’ve mortified me in a different way. I would’ve been embarrassed to have my mother freaking out and getting sprinklered online on my behalf, but Liam was right. I wasn’t going to see anyone from high school ever again, and I’d already solidified their opinions of me when I got Linsey expelled from Von Leer.

And Von Leer? They already knew my mother. She’d been their student. She’d done more speaking engagements there for her romance novels than anywhere else. Her books were in the student store, despite their filthy content.

No, this wasn’t about me. This was about how I’d been dumb enough to get stuck in the woods and set Mom off like this. This was, just like most things, my fault.

Gams threw her head back and laughed, and the sound brought embarrassed warmth to my cheeks.

“Eliza is a grown woman, and she was perfectly within her rights to dropkick those ugly lawn gnomes. Maybe not legally speaking, of course, but any good mother would’ve done at least that.”

“But—”

She held up her hand to cut me off and pulled her own phone out of her pocket.

Mom answered on the first ring.

“Mom? What’s going on? Is it Wren?”

Mom’s voice was tight with worry.

“There’s a video of you on the internet.”

Gams cut straight to the chase.

“Whoops.”

Mom’s laugh echoed over the speaker.

“Is it from the tour? The other day in Nice, things got a little out of hand. In a fun way, of course.”

“It’s from Linsey Harper’s front porch.”

Gams smirked at me.

“Linsey’s— oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Has Wren seen it?”

“She’s standing right here. Say hi, Wren.”

“Hi, Mom,”

I mumbled.

“Oh, god. Wren, look. I’m sorry,”

Mom gushed.

“I flew off the handle a little bit, I’ll admit, but I never meant to embarrass you.”

“I’m not embarrassed.”

I crossed my arms and stared at Gams.

“I don’t care what Linsey thinks about us. I care about your books.”

Mom laughed again, and Jonquil jumped up onto the counter to bat at the phone.

“I promise the sort of readers checking out my books do not care about me breaking a couple of tacky flamingos. This is free marketing. It actually explains the bump in sales I’ve had today.”

“You got sprinklered,”

I said.

“Because of me.”

“I got sprinklered because Linsey’s mother is a nasty, old bat and her daughter is no better. They’re lucky I don’t write them into my next book just to kill them off.”

“But—”

“Check the comments, Wren.”

Mom sounded exasperated.

“I promise, I’ll be okay.”

I hesitated, still staring at Gams. She nodded at the phone in my hand, and I scowled as I reopened Linsey’s video.

“TurtleLauncher47 says it’s a publicity stunt,”

I said, scrolling through the comments.

“And some guy named Cliff doesn’t like your robe.”

“Cliff is jealous,”

Mom sniffed.

“What else?”

Each rude comment made my heart sink lower, calling Mom all sorts of nasty names, but Mom was right. Most of the commenters seemed to be on her side, or, like TurtleLauncher47, thought it was fake.

“This one says she knows a momma bear when she sees one and that you should’ve broken the ugly fountain next to the porch too.”

I frowned.

“I hate that phrase. ‘Momma bear’.”

“I had my eye on that fountain,”

Mom admitted.

“I thought about going back for it until I was halfway home.”

“I don’t want you risking your career for me!”

I asserted.

“Or getting arrested!”

“Teresa wouldn’t dare call the cops,”

Mom snorted.

“Not when she knows her own kid is guilty of worse. Call it an unspoken agreement. You don’t press charges against Linsey, they don’t press charges against me, and none of us have to ever see each other again.”

I leaned against the shelf full of blue chickens, and ran my hand over my eyes.

“Yeah. Fine, Mom.”

Europe had never felt so far away. I needed her here to tell me it was okay. I needed to see her face to know she wasn’t lying.

“I have to go get ready for my next event, but I don’t want you thinking about that video anymore. And block Linsey Harper’s number. I don’t know why you still have it,”

she said.

“I love you, Wren.”

“Love you too.”

Gams ended the call and gave me a smug look.

“Your mother can take care of herself.”

She stepped forward to wrap me in her arms. I set my chin on top of her white-haired head and tried to still my hammering heart.

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten about those posters.”

I pushed away and shook my head.

“I was trying to help,” I said.

“How many did you put back up?”

Gams scowled.

“Just a few in Port Fletcherton, but obviously it was enough.”

I marched past Gams to snatch the flyer from the counter and crumble it into a ball.

“You were right. A couple girls came by yesterday to gawk at Liam, and now his family is going forward with Riley’s memorial when he could still be out there.”

The search for Riley getting cut short was another thing I could take the blame for, as roundabout as it was. The space behind my eyes stung, but I took a steadying breath. I’d killed a rotsbane last night. This was nothing to cry over.

Gams frowned and retreated behind the counter to grab her purse and keys.

“Where are you going?”

“To take down the rest of the flyers. I promised I wouldn’t make you do my dirty work anymore. The store is closed today. Go upstairs. Take a shower. You need a break.”

She came around towards the door, but I stared out the far windows rather than meet her eye. I was messing everything up for everyone. No matter what I did, it was wrong.

“You’re doing amazing, Wren,”

Gams insisted.

“I’m sorry I put you in this position to begin with. Please be kinder to yourself. This isn’t the end of the world, and even if it was, it’s not your fault.”

She stood on her tiptoes to peck my cheek before bustling out the front door, but I could’ve done without the reminder that the world ending was another thing resting on my shoulders.