Page 110 of The Warrior
A few years ago, I’d tried talking to my mother about it, but it came across as blaming her, and Erika broke down crying. To this day it still haunted me that I didn’t know what Dina had been doing in that attic. Had she been killed or did she die while trying to escape her husband’s brutality? In my mind she’d been attempting to climb down from the roof. The thought that she’d committed suicide was too outlandish, since the Dina I knew loved life. There was no way to ask her husband since he died a few weeks after my father’s visit to investigate. Rumors said my father arranged it, but it was all speculation.
Finn was one of the few I’d told about Dina. We almost never spoke about her, and for him to bring her up in a conversation like he’d done tonight was rare.
I kicked at the ground in front of the cabin, and stuffed my hands deeper into my pockets. Finn had gone back to the school when I’d asked for a minute to clear my head. I’d been out here for at least fifteen minutes and my head was as chaotic as ever.
Apologize. That had been Finn’s advice to me. What he didn’t understand was that I would rather face four opponents at once in a physical fight. At least when people were attacking me, I knew how to protect myself.
I cracked my knuckles and rolled my shoulders, while muttering low curse words before I went back into the cabin.
Mila wasn’t sobbing anymore, and both she and Laura watched me when I took off my jacket. “Ehm, I thought I should come back and explain myself.” I shifted my balance. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, Mila. It’s just that all this talk about, ehm...” I coughed. “This talk about love is new to me and I’m not very good at it.”
They both looked at me, and neither spoke.
“I’ve never given an apology before, but I hope you know that I don’t like it when you cry.”
“Are you going to give me an apology?” Mila asked.
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. “I thought I just did.”
Mila shook her head. “You have to use the words ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I apologize.’ Otherwise it doesn’t count.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath and spoke on the exhalation. “I apologize.”
Mila reached out her hand to me. “I can tell that you have been crying, so I forgive you.”
“I never cry!” I said in a gruff voice because I would never admit to that with Laura in the room.
“You cry on the inside.” Mila kept her hand outreached as an invitation to sit on the chair next to the bed. I took it and held her hand in mine, just like I had when I made her sob a little while ago.
“If you move away, will you promise me one thing?” she asked.
“Anything.”
“Will you take me with you?”
“Sweetie, Alaska isn’t a place for children, and you need to stay in school.”
Her face fell. “Then won’t you please stay, Magni?”
I gave a loud puff. “For now I will.”
CHAPTER 29
Town Hall Meeting
Laura
For three days Magni kept his distance. I was sick and tired of not knowing how to act around him. I needed him to sit down and talk to me. To figure out a way for us to live as husband and wife with the respect and love that we both deserved.
He’d asked that I go back to the Gray Mansion, but to remind him that I made my own decisions, I stayed at the school. Magni was gone most of the day and when he came around the school at night, he was more closed off to me than ever. Twice we’d had sex, but both times had felt purely physical and as soon as it was over, he’d turned his back on me. My choosing the Motherlands had not been forgiven or forgotten by him. More than once, I regretted leaving his bed that night I went to catch Devlin. If I’d known Devlin wasn’t a danger to anyone, but living with his girlfriend, I would have stayed with Magni that night.
Athena, Finn, and Tristan were still at the school as well. Wrestler had asked to meet Tristan for some testing on Wednesday morning, and the boy was so nervous about getting the apprentice job that he’d begun biting his nails.
On Tuesday evening, the school was packed when Boulder, Christina, Khan, Pearl, and Magni joined us for the poetry night that Kya had arranged.
All the children had either written a poem of their own or picked out a poem written by a child. After dinner we sat for an hour listening and clapping.
Mila read outGeneration of Mirrors, the beautiful poem she had shared with me, and Raven enjoyed the spotlight with her own poem on farts that had all the boys laughing.
