“Snark all you want, but you are not who you thought you were.”
“Yeah, I got that. So, who am I?”
Skyla sighed and stood. She went to the window and gazed out at the bay. “I have some guesses. I researched while you were in oblivion, and I want to run some things by you.”
Thorin appeared in the doorway, materializing like a ghost. He had a real knack for that, I’d noticed. “I’d be interested to hear your conclusions as well,” he said.
Thorin was polished and refined in a charcoal suit and crisp shirt and tie. His hair gleamed like spun gold. Instead of refining him, the suit sharpened his angles and exaggerated his dangerousness. Although, with him, it was probably no exaggeration. Thorin tugged an upholstered chair from the corner and settled it beside Skyla’s seat.
The three of us stared back and forth at each other, wondering who would go first. Finally Skyla exhaled and slunk to my bedside. She plopped into her chair. “I was poking around at wolf myths like shape changers, skin walkers, werewolves, and loup-garou.”
“Loop-ga—” I began.
“Not important,” Skyla said, cutting me off. “But looking into wolf legends led me to two wolves in Norse legends. Guess their names.”
“Skoll and Hati,” Thorin said. “Get to the point.” He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.
Skyla huffed but did as he said. “Skoll and Hati are two wolves who chase the sun and moon deities through the sky each day and night. In the Norse version of the apocalypse, called Ragnarok, the wolves eventually catch the sun and moon and eat them. Now, do you know the names of the sun and the moon?”
Skyla had described my dream, the words growled by the wolf. I shoved the thought away, not yet ready to accept what this coincidence might mean. The root of Solina came from the word for sun, but Chapman corresponded with none of the words I knew for the moon. “I can guess, but why don’t you tell me?”
“Mani for the moon,” Thorin said. “Sol for the sun. Are you trying to imply Chapman and his sister have something in common with mythological figures?”
“She glowed,” Skyla said.
“So you say.”
While they argued, little beads of sweat popped out on my forehead. Time for another round of ibuprofen, though I might have preferred a dose of Thorin’s oblivion instead. “That’s another weird coincidence,” I said, interrupting Skyla and Thorin’s heated dialogue.
“What do you mean?” Skyla asked.
“Our names. Twins run in our family on my father’s side. Somewhere down the line, I had a great, great—I don’t know how many ‘greats’—grandmother from somewhere around Germany. Her name was Solaberga, and she had a twin brother named Manfred.” Skyla scrunched her nose in distaste. “Yeah, my reaction too,” I said. “My mom said those names were too old-fashioned, but Dad really wanted to respect tradition and blah blah blah. Solina and Chapman were a compromise, keeping the roots but modernizing the names.”
“You think your parents know something?” Skyla said. “Or was it just fate?” She said the word on a ghostly breath and waggled her eyebrows in a melodramatic way.
I giggled. Thorin rolled his eyes. “Maybe I’ll ask them next time I talk to them,” I said. As if I would ever mention this to Mom and Dad. “Accepting all you say is true, then how do the two of you play into this?” I tried to readjust into a comfortable position, but such a thing didn’t exist. I gave up and gritted my teeth. “Wait, I know. Skyla, you were the Good Witch, and the wolf was the Wicked Witch, and Thorin was the Wizard of Oz.”
Skyla snorted, and the corner of Thorin’s lip twitched. “I won’t argue about being a witch,” Skyla said. “But I think I’d prefer if you called me a Valkyrie.”
“I obviously need to read from a wider pool of resources,” I said. I had heard the term before but couldn’t place the why or wherefore. The night I touched Thorin at the restaurant in Anchorage, I had seen a vision of him as an ancient warrior, so I decided to track that path. “What about you, Thor-in?” I said. “Are you the God of Thunder in hiding? Is that a hammer in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
Thorin flashed his teeth at me. “Anytime you want to know, Sunshine, I’ll be happy to show you.”
Sunshine? He had said the word sarcastically, almost as an insult, but at least he wasn’t calling me Miss Mundy again. “So,” I said, pressing my fingertips together into a tent shape. “I’m supposed to believe my brother and I are the sun and the moon, Adam Skoll and Harold Hati are wolves, and you”—I looked pointedly at Skyla—“are a Valkyrie.”
“I think so,” she said.
“Gracious, those were some good drugs you gave me, Thorin. Y’all are going to get a kick out of this when I wake up and tell you all the crazy stuff you said in this dream I must be having.”
“You glowed,” Skyla said again.
“What’s with you and that word?”
“Can you reproduce the effect?” Thorin asked.
“Sure, recharge my batteries and flip my switch.”
“What were you doing right before it happened?” Skyla asked.
“I was trying to stay warm. I was huddled under the poncho, thinking about me and Mani at the beach as kids.”
“Do it again,” Thorin said. “Think the same thoughts.”
I closed my eyes and slipped into the memory. Nothing happened. I tried harder. A lot more nothing happened. “I was cold, and hurt, and scared. Maybe that had something to do with it.”
“It’s not important anyway,” Skyla said. “You’re safe and alive. I’ll do my best to keep you that way.”
“Because if the wolves get me, the end of the world will come?”
“No,” Skyla said. “Because I’ve already exceeded the quota of friends I’m willing to lose in a lifetime.”
Thorin stood and seemed to fill the room. He loomed over the bed. “This has all been very thought-provoking, but I have a meeting in Anchorage today and I have to leave now if I’m going to make it on time. We will talk further about this when I return.” He turned to me. “Please make yourself at home. The refrigerator has been stocked.” With that, he strode from the room.
Skyla watched him leave and then turned to me. Unease etched lines on her face. “Here’s the kicker.”
I covered my eyes. “There’s more?”
“In the Norse pantheon, the head honcho is Odin. Sort of like Zeus with the Greeks.”
