Page 29 of Skalterra By Nightmare
I took the bagel even though it was nearing lunch time.
“Did something happen?” I hadn’t planned on asking it, but the words tumbled forth. Maybe I was looking for an excuse to think about anything other than my fight with the Grimguard, Tiernan blowing me up, or the fact that our entire reality really was teetering on the edge of collapse. Or maybe I was actually concerned about Liam, despite his stupid smile and perfect hair.
He sighed and ruffled said perfect hair, somehow making it look stupider and perfecter.
“My cousin Riley,” he said. “He was supposed to come back from grad school yesterday, but no one’s heard from him in two days. He hasn’t called, and he’s not responding to texts.”
“Oh.” I remembered Teddy’s pallid, worried face at the tavern the evening before. Riley would be his son. “Your uncle didn’t have to make us bagels.”
“He needs to keep busy.” Liam shrugged and took up his spot behind the ice-cream just in time for a young family to rush in. A small boy led the way to the ice-cream station and pressed his face against the glass to survey the flavors. “And you need to keep fed.”
I looked up to see Liam still watching me from over the heads of the family.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“You won’t pass out if you have enough food,” he reminded me. “Eat that bagel. I don’t want to have to catch you anymore.”
My face bloomed with embarrassed warmth, and I considered not eating the bagel out of principle. However, it was still warm in my hands, despite its squished form, and I’d never been able to resist a pairing of bacon and guacamole. I unwrapped the bagel sandwich with stinging pride as well as gratitude.
Gams made an effort to pop out of her workshop more often, checking in with Liam each time she did. Anyone else might have felt suffocated by her fussing, but Liam smiled every time she came by, even accepting the little blue chicken that she brought to him a while after lunch.
She handed a second blue chicken to me, beaming. This particular chicken had careful white lines cross-hatched across the blue body, and while it wasn’t a very intricate pattern, the tiny details and careful lines must’ve taken Gams forever.
“Does this one go on the shelf too?” I asked, looking at the shelf of ceramic chickens for sale by the door.
“This one is for you!” She goggled at me with eyes magnified behind her work glasses. “For getting into Von Leer!”
“I didn’t get in yet,” I murmured, though I closed my fingers around the chicken all the same.
“We’ve been over this,” she sang. “With a phone interview, you’re as good as in.”
The chicken’s glazed paint was smooth under my fingers, and I held it tighter, as if its cool touch might erase the scars Galahad had left on my palm.
“Wren?” Gams stared at me from behind her giant spectacles, and concern doused her usual fire.
“What?” I loosened my grip on the tiny statue and tried to blink away thoughts of Galahad.I avoided her gaze, worried if she looked too closely at me, she might see the midnight forest of Skalterra rushing past behind my eyes.
“You’ve been distracted today.” She raised a hand to my forehead, but I ducked away and smiled.
“I’m okay. Promise,” I insisted softly. Gams was a wild spirit, but she and Mom had both become quick to worry over me in the last few weeks.
The bell over the door jingled, and the young woman who’d sat with Liam at Siobhan’s Tavern the night before walked in. Her curly hair glowed strawberry in the light that streamed through the back wall windows, and she forced a smile through her grim demeanor.
“Hot off the presses.” Her smile faltered as she held up a stack of papers. “Mr. Lane let me use the library printer for free, since it’s for a good cause.”
Gams took the top paper, somehow managing to work a chicken into the woman’s hands as she did so. She nodded approvingly and passed me the paper over the counter.
“It’s a good picture of him. Thank you, Sabrina,” she said. “Wren, put that on the bulletin board.”
A black and white face stared back at me from the paper, grinning the same stupid grin that Liam liked to flash. His hair might’ve been darker than Liam’s, but it was hard to tell without color, and he wore an identical Von Leer hoodie. It looked like a picture that might’ve been snapped between classes or on a school weekend while out with friends.
I’d been sad for Liam before seeing a picture of Riley, but putting a face to the name brought a new, more profound sadness. I didn’t want this young man to be missing, not when he looked so friendly and so much like Liam.
Not that I cared for Liam, but hehadbrought me a bagel, and that counted for something.
I pinned Riley’s poster to the bulletin behind the register, trying to put it to the side so that I wouldn’t block customers’ view of it as I rang them up.
“Mom’s letting me use the car to drive these up the coast. I was going to post them as far north as Dunningham,” Sabrina said. Liam shot Gams a pleading look.
