Page 4 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

It was a trick. It had to be. I must have hurt my hand on something in my hurry to escape the shop, and then subconsciously incorporated the injury into my dream.

Yes. That was it. That made sense.

Except the scarring on the skin looked years old, despite the fresh sting the faint lines carried with them, and I knew they hadn’t been there before I’d last passed out.

Skalterra couldn’t be real, as real as the memory of it felt in my head. It was a dream. A very vivid dream brought on by stress. But the scars on my hand made my heart beat faster and harder in my chest, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the “T”

they formed on my palm.

“Wren?”

Gams knocked on my door, and I jumped, curling my hand into a fist.

“What’s wrong? Liam said you weren’t feeling well. Was it the bagel? I can yell at Teddy if you like.”

“No!”

I said a tad too aggressively. My head spun with the speed at which I stood to open the door.

“I mean, no. The bagel was fine. I just—”

Gams stood in the hall with her fist raised to knock again.

“What? What is it?”

Gams’s eyebrows shot up at the look on my face. I pointed at my phone on the floor behind me. Usually, the nerves that accompanied such an email from Von Leer would be unwelcome, but now they served an important distraction.

“Von Leer?”

Gams asked in a hushed tone. I nodded, and she cranked her volume up several decibels to demand.

“Well? What’d they say? Are you in?”

“I don’t know! I haven’t checked!”

She hurried into the room and snatched my phone up to check for herself. The more she tapped the screen, the more her face screwed up in frustration.

“These damn things don’t make any sense. Open it!”

She pressed the phone back into my hands, and I hoped she didn’t notice my shaking fingers.

“‘Hello, Ms. Warrender’,”

I read aloud.

“‘We received your letter of continued interest as well as your finalized GPA and would like to schedule a phone interview to discuss possible fall admission to Von—!”

That was as far as I could read before Gams tackled me from the side.

“Another Von Leer Viking in the family!”

she squealed.

“I knew the chickens would bring good luck! I knew you’d get in!”

“They didn’t say I’m accepted.”

I extracted my arms from her embrace to read the rest of the email. A half-hour ago, I might’ve been excited about this email, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that had followed me back from Skalterra.

“It says ‘possible’ admission.”

“It’s a phone interview. You know how to talk on the phone. Mention your mother. She’s an alumnus. And she’s well-known!”

“Oh, yes. My mother the smut author. They’ll take me for sure.”

“I heard yelling.”

Liam appeared in the doorway, out of breath and red in the face.

“Is everything okay?”

Jonquil wove between his ankles, glaring at me. Her pale eyes reminded me of Galahad’s, and I suppressed a shudder. It wasn’t as if Galahad was real, even if the scar on my hand suggested otherwise.

“Wren got into Von Leer!”

Gams cheered. Liam perked up, but I shook my head.

“I didn’t get in. I have an interview.”

“That’s great!”

Liam smiled wide and genuine.

God, he was annoying.

“It’s something,”

I admitted.

“but it’s nothing for sure, and I don’t want to jinx it.”

I wiped my hands on my jeans, hoping that I might remove not only the nervous sweat but also the strange scars on my left palm.

“I’ve got to call Teddy and tell him,”

Gams announced.

“He’ll be so excited. Maybe you two and Riley can carpool in the fall! Wouldn’t that be fun?”

She kissed me on the cheek and hurried out of the room.

“Another one for Von Leer!”

she cheered in the hallway, and Jonquil chased after her.

Liam and I stood staring at each other. His jovial smile fell from his face, and his brow furrowed. I tucked my scarred palm behind my back.

“You aren’t going to tell her?” he asked.

“About what?”

“Passing out downstairs. And then sulking in here about it. You look sweaty too.”

“I didn’t pass out, and I wasn’t sulking.”

I rolled my eyes and shooed him into the hallway, closing my bedroom door behind us.

“I fell asleep. I’m fine.”

“Narcolepsy?”

His eyebrow hitched upwards.

“Just tired,”

I growled, leading the way back down to the shop.

“And I told you not to get Gams.”

“Just got the email!”

Gams’s voice echoed up the stairwell.

“Call Siobhan. I want everyone there. No, it’s not for sure, but be real, Teddy. They’d be stupid not to admit her!”

I groaned and quickened my step.

“Gams, what are you doing?”

I demanded. She hung up the phone as I came through the door, and she threw her hands up in a show of innocence.

“Nothing. Thinking I might paint another chicken. To celebrate, you know.”

I glanced back at the shelf of ceramic chickens. Someone must have come in and bought another while I was sleeping, or maybe Gams had given one away, because they were lacking in numbers.

Liam turned sideways to shuffle past me on his way back to the ice-cream station.

“Dinner tonight,”

Gams snapped at him.

“Siobhan’s. You and Teddy are both coming. Riley too, when he gets in.”

“Gams,”

I hissed. She patted my shoulder.

“You’ll be fine.”

Her tone was gentle, and more assuring than dismissive.

“We’ll call it Liam and Riley’s homecoming dinner if that makes you feel better.”

It did make me feel better, but only a little.

Gams left the shop early that afternoon. She insisted that anytime after 4:30 PM was too late for dinner and shuffled out the door, still barking closing instructions as it swung shut.

The scars on my hand continued to tingle, and I avoided Liam’s eyes as we cleaned in silence. He hadn’t brought up my sleeping spells anymore, but I knew he was worried by the way he watched me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. He tracked my movements as I paced across the floor with the broom, and when it was finally time to pack up and head to Siobhan’s Tavern, he offered me the blue Von Leer hoodie he’d come to work in.

“You want me to jinx it, don’t you?”

I accused.

“You aren’t feeling well today, and I don’t want Ethel to yell at me when you show up at your dinner with a cold.”

The early summer sun was still high above the rooftops of the shops that lined Main Street.

“Oh, yeah. It’s positively chilly out. The elements will surely make quick work of my frail, womanly physique.”

He snorted and threw the hoodie over one shoulder while I locked the front door. Jonquil stared at us through the glass, her tail swishing angrily, though I wasn’t sure what for.

Keel Watch Harbor was a quaint town. Iron-wrought street lamps lined the single road that cut parallel to the water, making up Main Street. This time of year, though, as we headed into long summer days, the lamps were seldom lit as the sun shined down on bright rooftops and a humble marina from the early morning until late at night.

I wrinkled my nose as we started down the sidewalk. It must’ve been low tide judging by the sulphuric scent of kelp baking in the sun, but I welcomed the stink. It was so real, so tangible, that it forced Skalterra to the back of my mind. This was reality. Walking in the warm sun and the sea breeze, I knew it had to be.

And as thoughts of Skalterra melted away, I finally found the room in my chest to be just a tiny bit excited about Von Leer.

“You’ll get in, you know,”

Liam said. Seagulls cried overhead, and I caught glimpses of the glittering harbor between the bakeries, shops, and restaurants. Many of them had already locked up for the day. I hoped it wasn’t so the owners could go to Siobhan’s.

“Stop,” I said.

“What?”

“Jinxing it!”

I waved a dismissive hand at him.

“And being nice.”

“You’d rather I be mean?”

“I’d rather you be honest.”

His steps faltered, and I forged ahead, hoping I remembered where Siobhan’s Tavern was located.

“Oh, I can be honest if you like.”

Liam recovered with a laugh.

“Please.”

“I think you’re trying to be unlikeable on purpose.”

“And what are you? A psych major?”

“Architecture, actually.”

“I’m not a building, so you can go analyze literally anything else, please.”

He laughed louder this time, though I couldn’t tell if it was at me or with me. Best to err on the side o.

“at me”. I scowled.

“No?”

he teased.

“Then what are you?”

I stopped walking to look at him, and I hated that he was several inches taller than me. I would’ve preferred him to be shorter.

“I’m an amalgamation of good grades and participation points in clubs I never cared to join in the first place, all so I could look good on paper for the university that passed on me in the first round.”

“Amalgamation?”

He smirked.

“It means combination or a fusion.”

“I know what it means.”

There it was again. That infuriating laugh.

“I just don’t know why you used it.”

“Because it’s a good word.”

“Spoken like an author’s daughter.”

“I promise, the books my mother writes aren’t using words like ‘amalgamation’.”

I didn’t know that for sure, of course. I hadn’t been allowed to read them until I was eighteen, and even now, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what lurked in the pages of Eliza Warrender’s twenty-plus-books-and-counting erotica series.

“What is it, then?”

Liam continued.

“What makes you so determined to be disliked?”

I bristled at the question. I didn’t want to be disliked, that was obviously stupid. So why did it bother me that he had asked it?

“Most people end up disliking me one way or another,”

I said simply.

“Maybe I like to speed up the process so we don’t have to linger on the fake niceties for too long.”

“You’ve never had friends, then?”

“I’ve had friends!”

I snapped.

“And they must like you.”

I swallowed, focusing on the sound of two gulls squabbling over something tasty in the tidal flats.

“They did. Until they didn’t.”

“Very insightful.”

“I don’t owe you my life story.”

“I’m not asking for it.”

His tone was genuine and gentle. What a farce.

Ugh, he’d probably make fun of me for using the word “farce”.

“I had friends,”

I repeated.

“Or I thought I did. And we were all in the same Advanced Physics class. It was the last test of the year, and Linsey Harper had gotten her hands on the answer key. She said it didn’t matter if she cheated because she’d already gotten into Von Leer, and we were all graduating soon. High school was over. But it wasn’t over. I needed a good grade. I was getting ready to send my finalized GPA to Von Leer. I needed to be perfect.”

“You cheated?”

“Never.”

I gritted my teeth.

“Linsey cheated. She gave the answers out to all her other friends. She admitted later she’d only left me out because she wanted to be the only one from our high school to get into Von Leer.”

“And what does it matter to your GPA if everyone else cheated?”

Liam frowned.

“The test was on a curve. My B+ could’ve been an A. So I told the teacher.”

Liam ran a hand over his face.

“You didn’t.”

“Of course I did!”

I knew he wouldn’t understand. I could tell he was probably perfect in every regard. He’d never had to claw his way to the top.

“I needed that A! And I got it. Only four of us didn’t cheat, and my B+ was the top score. Automatic one hundred percent.”

“And then all your classmates collectively decided to hate you?”

Liam asked.

“Not yet.”

My stomach twisted thinking back on it. It hadn’t been my intention. I didn’t know our teacher had a connection at Von Leer. I didn’t know he’d report Linsey to her new school before she even had a chance to start there.

“The teacher called Von Leer and got Linsey’s offer of admission rescinded.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

I ran my hand over the buzzed hair at the base of my neck.

“And only four of us didn’t have our test thrown out. It was easy for her to figure out who had snitched. And then, they—”

I cut off. I didn’t want to think about it. A thrill of panic sent of a rush of adrenaline through my chest, and I took a deep breath to calm the fluttering of my heart.

“They shaved your head?”

Liam asked in a hushed voice. I shot him a look of pure loathing.

“No, I did that myself, thanks, and I like how it looks.”

His cheeks flared red.

“Oh. No, it’s nice, I just assumed—”

I held up a hand to silence him and put us both out of our misery at his floundering for an apology.

“We’re here.”

I looked up at the carved sign that rea.

“Siobhan’s Tavern”. The wooden building jutted out over the marina, and at high tide, it was fun to look down at the crabs scuttling under the water. Now, however, it reeked of exposed seaweed.

“Look, your hair—”

“It’s fine.”

I gave Liam an insincere smile and swung the heavy door open.

A cheer went up, and I had half a mind to walk backwards straight into traffic. Not that there was any traffic on a Tuesday in Keel Watch Harbor, but maybe I’d get lucky.

Liam, however, put a hand between my shoulder blades, hovering it there, respectful enough not to touch me, but still barring me from a quick retreat.

“Welcome back, Liam!”

A tall woman with a blonde bob forced her way to the front of the crowd. I hadn’t seen Siobhan since I’d last visited three years ago, but she looked just the same.

“First year down at Von Leer! What an accomplishment. It’s a great school.”

She winked at me as she said it, and I knew Gams had warned everyone not to congratulate me outright on tentatively moving off the waitlist.

“Liam, sit with us!”

A group of kids ran up to Liam to take his hands in theirs and drag him towards the back window. Like the window in Gams’s shop, it stretched clear across the room, providing diners and drinkers as good a view of the harbor as one could get in Keel Watch. The low ceilings kept the atmosphere dark but cozy, even while the sun shined outside.

Gams beamed at me from the center of her gaggle of friends, all with graying hair and long sleeved shirts that the summer weather probably didn’t warrant this late in the day, even with the sea breeze that kept the town cool and comfortable.

“You remembered to put food out for Jonquil, right?”

Gams asked as I got closer.

“Of course,”

I lied. I’d have to feed her later when Gams wasn’t looking.

“Excellent! And you all remember Wren?”

Gams turned to her friends with a proud hand on my shoulder. I always felt like a giant standing next to her. My height had to have come from my biological father, though as searchable as Maxwell Brenton, PhD, was on the internet, his accomplishments weren’t notable enough for his basic body metrics to be readily available online.

“Wren!”

The nearest woman pulled me into a hug that smelled of old perfume and hairspray.

“It’s about time you visited Keel Watch! I hear we get the whole month with you?”

“Whole summer, actually.”

I blushed, and Gams’s friends squealed in delight.

“And was that Liam Glass you walked in with?”

The woman next to me gave me an animated nudge with her elbow.

“Now that’s a smart match, isn’t it?”

The women erupted into laughter, and Gams shushed them.

“No, no, Sarah. Don’t say that. Wren can’t keep a boyfriend, and I don’t want to lose the best ice-cream scooper in all of Keel Watch when it falls apart.”

“Joke’s on you.”

I forced a laugh.

“I’m not really the dating type, so who knows if I can keep a boyfriend or not.”

“Not the dating type?”

the perfumed woman repeated.

“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places. Siobhan’s got a daughter, and I think you might be her type.”

When Siobhan announced to the room that the burger bar she’d prepared for the occasion was ready, I found a seat by the window, planning to wait out the line. However, when Gams came to join my table, she’d already prepared a burger for me.

“Don’t mind Gladys and Sarah,”

she said.

“They’re happy you’re here, and Keel Watch gets boring without young blood like yours.”

“They’re okay,”

I assured her, and I meant it. Mom and I lived five hours down the coast by car so that Mom could be near her publishing house’s main office. She’d helped build it after all, and Keel Watch Harbor was too remote for that line of business. However, we were also the only family Gams had. Her friends were a lot, sure, but I was thankful she had them.

The city was no place for Gams, anyway. She was spry enough to keep up with the fast pace of a city, and street smart enough to make her way, but I couldn’t imagine her without her shop and her basement where she painted and fired ceramic chickens.

Maybe the city was no place for me either, at least not in the suburbs I grew up in. Not anymore. Not after graduation. Gams lived closer to Von Leer University, anyway. Maybe it would make sense for me to make the move into the guest room a more permanent arrangement.

Or maybe I was getting my hopes up prematurely.

Gams’s friends and favorite neighbors settled into the tables and booth seats, and I got the impression it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d received an email from Von Leer or not.

The community gathering seemed familiar to them, like they did this often.

The local baker had several cakes ready for the occasion that he couldn’t have whipped up at such a late notice.

The children of Von Leer strutted up to the lemonade table, hastily constructed by everyone’s favorite coffeehouse owner, with a confidence that said they’d been looking forward to this.

They carried overflowing cups back to their table where they kept Liam hostage, now also joined by a young woman with the same blonde ringlets as Siobhan.

The two extra seats at my table with Gams were a rotating roulette of vaguely familiar faces, each commenting on how tall I’d grown and how they weren’t surprised Von Leer was interested in me.

“No one from Keel Watch stays on the waitlist,”

Gladys said on her third rotation through the seat opposite mine.

“If Liam Glass could wiggle his way off it, you’re a no-brainer from what Ethel has told me about you.”

“Liam was waitlisted?”

I sat up straighter and looked for him across the room, but Teddy had pulled him aside to talk in a corner.

“Of course! Wanted to follow in his cousin’s footsteps. Riley got in on early admission, but he was always an overachiever. Captain of just about every sports team. Valedictorian. Homecoming King. Did you ever meet him on your visits here?”

I shook my head and stared at Liam with a newfound respect where he spoke with his uncle. I still didn’t like him— it was easier this way— but it did make him a little more relatable. I’d thought everything must come so easy to him, but it sounded like that was his cousin, Riley.

Liam’s brow furrowed, and Teddy frowned. It looked like something had upset them both, but then my hand started to burn.

It was just a tickle at first, hardly noticeable. Then it grew stronger until it seared across my palm.

“Ouch!”

I startled, grabbing my hand at the wrist as if that might help stem the pain. I turned my palm over to reveal the scars Galahad had left there were angry and red.

“What’s wrong?”

Gams asked with sudden concern.

“Nothing," I lied, standing up.

“Wren Warrender, I hope you’re ready,”

Galahad’s voice echoed in my head.

You aren’t real, I tried to tell it back.

“I’m just—”

I glanced around at the room of smiling faces.

“I’m tired. This was nice. Tell Siobhan thank you.”

My chair clattered to the floor behind me.

“Wren!”

Gams made to move after me, but Teddy was there to stop her.

“Ethel, a word, please. It’s about Riley.”

She glanced between me and Teddy, and I took the chance to bolt.

“Wren Warrender, I demand you answer me.”

Galahad’s voice chased me out the tavern door.

“Give me two minutes!”

I said between gritted teeth as I hit the sidewalk outside running.

“I have to feed my grandma’s cat!”

Maybe he was just a fiction after all, because he remained silent in my head until I’d made it back to the apartment over the shop and filled Jonquil’s bowl next to my dresser.

“Wren Warrender—”

“I told you!”

I snapped, standing in my bedroom.

“It’s just Wren!”

And my bedroom fell away.