Page 31 of Skalterra By Nightmare
But gloves are easy to remove, and fidget toys don’t get the nervous energy out quite as well. Besides, no one wants to be the kid with the fidget block in class. It’s an easy way to get labeleddifferent.
“Smart” felt like a lazy diagnosis to me, but Mom was satisfied, so that was all the help I was going to get.
And here I was, four years later, pulling out eyelashes to deal with the weight of keeping reality from collapsing while helping Liam look for his lost cousin.
Partway through the drive, Liam rolled his window down. He stuck a hand out to play with the current of salty sea air, and when he asked if it was too much wind on me, I lied and said no. Maybe feeling the air rush between his fingers did the same thing for him that pulling my hair out did for me. Maybe he needed the distraction.
It was hard not to notice him checking his phone every minute. I knew he was waiting for Riley to text him, or for his Uncle Teddy to call with good news. He was still flashing Sabrina that stupid smile as they talked, and there had to still be some semblance of hope behind it.
Riley had only been missing forty-eight hours after all.
The first town we stopped in had a community board at a marina similar to the one I’d seen in Keel Watch Harbor. I felt like an intruder as I followed Sabrina and Liam out of the sedan. They clung to Riley’s posters as they assessed the board to determine best placement.
“There.” Liam pressed the flyer against the board at eye level and drove a push pin into the paper just above Riley’s picture. “One down.”
Sabrina leaned in towards the poster and lifted onto her tiptoes to give the corner a swift kiss.
“For luck,” she asserted. She rubbed her thumb over the red lipstick mark she’d left on the paper. “Sorry about that.”
Liam clapped her on the shoulder and forced a laugh.
“He’ll think it’s funny.”
They made to move towards the line of shops that overlooked the marina, more posters in hand, but my phone buzzing in my pocket held me back. I pulled it out, and my heart soared at the sight of the caller ID.
Liam looked back at me expectantly, but I shook my head at him.
“I’ll catch up,” I promised, fumbling my phone in excitement as I rushed to answer. “Mom! Mom, are you there?”
“Wren!” Mom cheered on the other line. I had missed her voice, and the sound of my name reverberating through my phone speaker was enough to dispel every thought of Skalterra. “Your Gams told me the news! My baby’s going to be a Von Leer Viking!”
The heat that rushed to my face made the hoodie a bit too warm for comfort.
“No, I only have a phone interview and not for another two weeks.”
“If they’re making you wait that long, they’ve already made their decision. You’re in. Otherwise, why waste everyone’s time?”
I pulled my phone away to glance at the clock.
“Wait, where are you?” I asked, doing quick timezone math in my head.
“Lisbon! Oh, Wren, you’d love it! Maybe next summer we can come here together. Call it a late graduation gift!”
“Lisbon? It’s got to be past midnight in Portugal.” I scanned the street for Liam and Sabrina, but they had already disappeared into one of the shops.
“Book reading went late.” I could hear the shrug in her voice. “Plus, there’s no event scheduled for tomorrow, so I get to sleep in. Is Gams there? I wanted to talk to her, but she never answers her own phone.”
“No, I’m out with Liam Glass and Siobhan’s daughter. I guess no one has heard from Teddy’s son in a few days, so we’re posting missing flyers in the neighboring towns.”
Silence buzzed on the other end of the call for a moment before Mom broke it.
“Teddy’s son is missing?” she asked, her tone suddenly tight and careful. “Riley?”
“Yeah, but he’s probably okay, right? It’s only been two days.”
“And you’re putting up posters?” She said it in a way that implied the answer better be no, even though she knew it wasn’t.
“The librarian printed them. Gams gave Liam and me the rest of the afternoon off to help Sabrina post them and—”
