Page 31 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

Riley did not like the color black.

At least, that’s what the text Liam had sent me the night before claimed. I searched through my clothes, trying to find something that wasn’t too dark but still memorial-appropriate.

The harbor outside my window was busy with townsfolk in their own memorial attire, though none of them seemed to have received Liam’s memo about Riley’s apparent distaste for black. They bustled about the docks in dark button-ups and dresses as they prepared the marina for the vigil. I recognized Liam’s Aunt Olive near the end of the dock where she messed with an arrangement of lilies. Gams shuffled down the wooden planks towards her.

I threw on a green dress and enough make-up to camouflage my patchy eyelashes before hurrying downstairs to help however I could.

The shop was closed, and July sunshine streamed through the large back windows to light the empty aisles as I slipped between them. Gams’s air conditioning sent goosebumps erupting up and down my bare arms, and I pushed through the back door, eager for the morning heat that the sun was sure to provide.

The bay, blue and calm, melded into the sky through the bit of horizon peeking through two emerald spits of land that cut into the water to form our bay. Gulls cried on the sea breeze, and the bell of a buoy tolled out across the water.

It would’ve been a beautiful day if not for the solemn faces that carried fold-out chairs, floral arrangements, and a blown-up poster of Riley out into the marina.

That, and the cold of the shop seemed to cling to me. I was unable to shake it as I hurried down wooden steps to the harbor.

“Morning, Wren.”

Siobhan nodded as I passed her.

“Have you seen Liam this morning?”

“Not yet, but he texted me last night. Why?”

I tried to rub warmth back into my arms. Siobhan didn’t have sleeves either, and the wind ruffled her graying ginger hair, but she didn’t seem nearly as bothered by the cold as I felt.

Siobhan frowned in response, and continued her trek to a trailer loaded with folded chairs.

My sandals echoed on the wooden planks of the marina, and Gams looked up as I approached the end of the docks. Olive sat on the planks, messing with her lily-laden flower arrangement.

“Wren, have you heard from Liam?”

Gams asked. Olive looked up with red-rimmed eyes. Her pink lipstick was already smudged.

“I have a text from him.”

I pulled my phone from my dress pocket.

“What’s it say?”

Olive asked.

“Just that Riley doesn’t like the color black.”

Olive sighed and returned to her flowers while Gams gave my green dress a glance.

“Why are you shivering?”

Gams held a wrinkled hand to my forehead.

“Are you sick?”

“No, it’s just freezing out here.”

I clenched my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering.

“I thought it felt nice.”

Gams furrowed her brow at me.

“If you aren’t feeling well, maybe you should wait inside until the memorial starts.”

I stepped aside as one of Riley’s friends from the cove hurried by with the poster of Riley and an easel to rest it on. He wiped sweat from his brow, nodded hello, and then went back the way he came to continue helping set up.

“I’m fine,”

I insisted.

“I want to help.”

Olive stood up and brushed off the skirt of her dress.

“Would you try calling Liam?”

she asked.

“He won’t answer me. I know how he feels about the memorial, but Riley would want him here.”

“Of course.”

I nodded.

“But if his phone is off—”

Olive pulled keys from her purse and pressed them into my hand.

“Check at home. Riley’s truck was still there this morning, so if he went somewhere, he didn’t go far and might be back by now.”

Gams took my arm to walk with me back down the dock.

“If you can’t find him, that’s okay,”

she said once Olive was out of earshot.

“The memorial will help Riley’s parents, but skipping it might be what Liam needs.”

“I don’t think he’d skip it.”

Gams knew Liam far better than I did, but I couldn’t imagine Liam, so selfless and so kind, missing Riley’s memorial and upsetting his aunt and uncle.

“Are you talking about the Glass boy?”

Sarah sat on a bench with Gladys, both too old to help carry chairs but obviously wanting to be in the center of the action anyway.

“Is he missing now too?”

“Hush, you,”

Gams snapped and tried to pull me past the old women.

“People disappear in Keel Watch Harbor,”

Sarah called after us.

“It might save time and effort if we printed out his pretty picture really quick and stuck it next to Riley’s.”

“He’s been gone one morning. That’s hardly missing.”

Gladys pulled her black shawl tight around her shoulders.

“Don’t listen to Sarah, Wren. She’s miserable.”

“What you call miserable, I call practical,”

Sarah sniffed.

“Liam’s okay,”

I said.

“He’s just running late.”

“Riley was running late too,”

Sarah sang.

“Sarah, if I didn’t think it would poison the fish, I’d shove you in the harbor. Come on, Wren.”

Gams tugged on my arm to keep me walking.

“You are freezing. Have you felt your arms?”

“Maybe if you didn’t constantly run the AC, I wouldn’t get so cold,”

I suggested.

“Nonsense. Jonquil is all fluff. She’d overheat.”

“I promise you, the cat is fine.”

I suppressed another shiver.

“Sarah has to be wrong, right? Because Liam—”

“Sarah is jealous she hasn’t disappeared yet. She’d love to be the talk of the town.”

Gams scowled. We’d come to the end of the dock, and she reached up to feel my forehead again.

“You don’t feel feverish.”

“I told you. I’m fine. Turn the heat up in the shop, and I’ll be okay.”

She studied me, and I watched her eyes go back and forth as she scanned my face for other signs of malady.

“You’ve been pulling at your eyelashes again.”

I rolled my eyes and looked away.

“I have to go find Liam.”

Gams hummed in disapproval.

“Fine. But if he doesn’t want to come to the memorial, don’t force him, and don’t make him feel bad. He needs to grieve in his own way.”

“It’s not grieving if Riley—”

“Wren.”

Gams frowned, a deep sadness pulling on the wrinkles of her face.

“It’s okay. Find Liam.”

She stood on tip-toes to peck my cheek and then hurried back down the dock.

I stopped upstairs in the apartment to grab a jacket before I headed in the direction of the bagel shop. When Liam didn’t answer his phone, I quickened my pace and tried to push Sarah’s words away.

Liam was fine. He had to be. He was Liam.

The bagel shop’s windows were dark, and I skirted around the building to find the door to the second-floor apartment. Even though Olive had given me a key to their home, I felt like I was trespassing as I fumbled with the doorknob.

The stairwell on the other side of the door was lined with family photos. Most of them showed Riley with his parents, or Riley in children’s sports uniforms. He got older as I climbed, and near the top of the stairs, Liam joined the family portraits.

“Liam?”

The living room window overlooked the street. Townspeople walked past on the sidewalk below, dressed in their most solemn blacks. Light from the window lit the living room and kitchen. It looked recently renovated, with white marble countertops and tile flooring instead of linoleum, but the apartment had the same salty, musty smell as Gams’s living room.

The hallway beyond the kitchen sported more family pictures. These ones included images of Liam when he was younger, as well as two other adults. The woman looked just like Olive, if Olive had darker hair, and I figured she must be Liam’s mother.

“You better not jump out at me if you’re in here.”

I shivered and tried to pull my jacket tighter, still unable to shake the cold. Maybe Gams was right about me being sick.

“I’m serious, Liam. If you scare me, I might punch you in the throat, and it won’t be my fault.”

I pushed a bedroom door open. Light filtered in through slatted curtains, sending striated shadows across the two twin beds that pressed against opposite walls. Neither looked slept in. Liam had spent so many nights on Gams’s couch recently.

A phone sat on one of the bedside tables, and I crossed the room to poke at it. Several missed calls and texts populated the lock screen. The most recent notification was fro.

“Wren Coworker”.

“Shut up, you know my last name, idiot.”

Despite my irritation, my stomach clenched with nerves. Liam clearly wasn’t home, but he’d left his phone by his bed.

“Wren Warrender!”

I yelped and spun around at the thundering voice, but I was alone. Galahad was back in my head.

“It’s the middle of the morning!”

I spat.

“I’m busy!”

“I’m sorry. If I could spare you, I would.”

“Spare me?”

“Wren Warrender, I command you to return to Skalterra!”

I opened my mouth to protest, but a flurry of snow blew in my face. I coughed and stumbled backwards. The frame of Liam’s bed smacked against the back of my knees, and I fell, landing in a field of white stained with blood.

Galahad lay on his side, bleeding into the snow.

“Galahad!”

I crawled to his side, fighting through the sideways flurry to press my hands against the wound in his flank.

“The others, where—”

“Behind you!”

Galahad shoved me off him and pointed into the white gloom. A figure glowed orange in its depths, and I could feel Ciarán’s rage needling at the back of my mind. A smaller figure struggled in his arms, and my stomach dropped.

He had Fana.