Page 19 of Soul of Shadow #1

Charlie woke before the sun. She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, hoping to shock away the exhaustion that would surely settle there.

She was running on about two hours of sleep, having spent the night alternating between reading up on Norse mythology and peeking outside her window to see if that beast had decided to turn back around and make her his midnight snack.

She had learned a lot, though. After scouring a dozen different websites, she could now name the seven principal Nordic gods by heart:

Odin: the god of all gods. Like Zeus, only Nordic.

Frigg: Odin’s wife and the queen of Asgard.

Thor: Charlie had thought this was just a character in the Marvel franchise. Tall, hot, held a big hammer? Apparently, the inspiration for the superhero had actually come from Norse folklore. Thor was Odin’s son, the protector of humanity, and the god of thunder.

Loki: another Marvel character pulled from Norse legend. This Loki had nothing to do with Tom Hiddleston and everything to do with wreaking havoc on the rest of the gods. A mischievous god who could shape-shift and turn into animals. Responsible for the death of Balder.

Balder: Odin’s lesser-known son. The paragon of beauty, kindness, and fairness. Somehow murdered with mistletoe.

Heimdall: keeper of the Bifrost bridge that connected the nine realms.

And last but not least, Hel: goddess of the underworld.

There was still so much to learn. And she had a plan for how to learn the rest—a plan that involved Elias Everhart.

As she packed her bag for the day, she glanced at the curtained window over her desk. She hadn’t opened it since waking up, fearful of what she would see, but she would have to look now. She needed to scout the driveway to make sure it was safe to head to school.

She reached out a hand. It quivered as it neared the drapes. She stayed that way, hand dangling in front of the drapes, for several long seconds.

Screw it.

Charlie took hold of the curtains and yanked them open.

The first thing she was hit by was sunlight. It streamed in the window, lit up the lawn, sparkled on the pavement. It was blindingly bright and so stunningly beautiful it made the whole world look as if it were made of diamonds.

She was going to need a pair of sunglasses.

After a few moments of digging in her dresser, she found a pair of fake Ray-Bans and stuffed them onto her nose. Then she went back to the window and peered outside.

At first, she saw nothing but the flower boxes filled with exotic blossoms. Before she ate the eyaerberry, those flowers were simple white daisies, the same thing her mother planted every spring.

Now she couldn’t even name the varieties growing there: long stems, a rainbow of colors, blossoms so thick and heavy they bent back toward the earth.

Something that could easily be a Venus flytrap.

They looked like the photos she had seen of flowers in rainforests and jungles.

Then, a tiny creature poked its head out of the flowers and stared right up at her.

She nearly let out a scream but clapped a hand over her mouth just in time. It would do no good to send her family running into her room. They couldn’t see the things she could.

It was the same creature she found sitting on her steering wheel the night before.

Tiny, with a pointed hat, a button nose, and a long white beard.

Its red hat was pulled down over its eyes, or perhaps it had no eyes at all.

It wore a gray tunic so long that she couldn’t see if it had feet, and its hands were stuffed into itsy-bitsy red mittens.

It was so small she could fit it in her jacket pocket.

It was… well, if she was being honest, it was adorable .

She had no idea what she’d been so afraid of when she first saw this little guy.

Maybe it had just been too much all at once—the overwhelming newness of the world around her, of its many colors and smells and creatures that shouldn’t exist. Regardless, unless this guy had a mouth concealed inside that long beard containing razor-sharp teeth, she didn’t see much to be afraid of.

To be honest, she wanted to pick him up and nuzzle him against her face.

But she figured that would be rude, so instead, she merely opened the window and gestured for him to come inside.

The creature obliged, waddling in and hopping down onto her desk.

“Hello, there,” Charlie said, immediately feeling stupid. How did one talk to a mystical Asgardian being? “You’re the same little guy who was in my car, right?”

The creature bobbed his pointed hat once.

Charlie took that as a yes.“Have you been following me?”

Another bob.

“Can you tell me why?”

In response, the creature waddled a few steps over and pointed enthusiastically at her backpack, which sat unzipped on her desk chair. Charlie had no idea how the little guy was able to see with his hat pulled down over his eyes, but he seemed to be making do.

“You want something inside my backpack?” she asked.

He shook his head. Then he leapt from the desk with surprising strength, landing on top of the open backpack. He slid down her history textbook, snuggling at the bottom of the bag.

“You want to… come to school?”

He nodded vigorously.

“But why?”

To that, the creature had no response. He merely made himself more comfortable at the bottom of her bag.

Charlie chewed her lower lip. On the one hand, she could pick up the little guy, put him back outside the window, and tell him to get lost. That was the safer option.

No chance that he would turn out to be a feral creature intent on eating her toes in her sleep.

On the other hand, he seemed, for reasons she could not fathom, oddly attached to her.

She got the sense that if she were to kick him out of her backpack now, he would simply find another way to get inside.

She sighed. Apparently, she had just made her first supernatural friend.