Thorin stepped closer and shoved a cell phone into his hip pocket as if he’d recently finished a call. A nearby street lamp illuminated him, and his long, pale hair was incandescent. “It seems I’m stepping on your toes at every turn today.”

“No. You’ve been perfectly… nice.”

Thorin huffed. “Nice?”

What did he want me to say when the truth was that I found him intimidating and tactless? “I think it’s the jet lag. I feel like I’m dead on my feet.”

“Val isn’t giving you a ride?”

“He’s having a good time. I didn’t want to interrupt. Besides, Mani’s place is just down the street. I can walk.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I would feel better knowing you got home safely. Mani would want us watching over his sister.”

I held out my hands in surrender. “All right. If you insist.”

“I do.”

I shrugged and started down the sidewalk. Thorin fell into place beside me. His presence unnerved me in an inexplicable way. He exuded a quiet self-assurance most people my age didn’t possess. Of course, Thorin wasn’t quite my age. I glanced over at him. He was in his early thirties, maybe. Six or seven years older than me, if I had to guess. He was informal in jeans, work boots, and a Carhartt coat, but he wore his casualness like a disguise, a costumed attempt to convince people he was unassuming, laid-back, harmless. It was about as believable as a lion wearing bunny ears.

“How long do you plan to stay in Siqiniq?” Thorin asked.

“Long as it takes.”

“Long as what takes?”

I shoved my hands deep into my jean pockets and bunched my shoulders. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but what business is it of yours?”

“Mani was one of my best people. He was with me from the beginning of my business. His death hurt us all—broke everyone’s heart, but we’ve started to recover. I’m worried your being here will be like tearing the scab off a slow-healing wound.”

I stopped and crossed my arms over my chest. Exasperation buzzed through me. “Do you think I came all the way up here because I was worried about maintaining the status quo?”

Shadows hid Thorin’s expression, but indignation rolled off him in palpable waves. “It’s more than status quo that I’m worried about. Your presence here is bound to attract attention—and not in a good way. Whatever evil found Mani is likely to come after you as well.”

“That’s my problem, though, isn’t it?” I said and started down the sidewalk again. I kicked up my pace. Thorin stayed back, letting me have my distance, but he shadowed me until I reached the safety of Mani’s apartment. Thorin’s concerns about stirring up Mani’s troubles were not unique. I had worried about the same thing as I deliberated over the decision to come to Alaska, and I hoped the results would prove worth the risk.

In spite of, or possibly because of, my jet lag, I slept uneasily. Images of Mani’s murder haunted me—as they had almost every night since his death—calling for vengeance. Hokey as it sounds, a vision of my brother’s murder had come to me the same night he was attacked. In the dream, Mani’s killer hid behind a mask—a wolf panting hot, carrion breath. My brother’s blood dripped from his fangs.

I had suffered that dream countless times since that first night, especially whenever I was exhausted or frazzled. After a day of cross-country travel and Thorin’s lush party, I was both of those things, mixed with too many beers and shots of crappy tequila. And because my transition from consciousness to sleep happens like a slowly descending escalator rather than a plunge from a cliff, I can’t always discern delusion from reality. It probably happens that way for everyone, but the difference is that most of my dreams come true.

Tonight the nightmare was visceral, vivid and almost impossible to escape. I woke up screaming. The walls surrounding me were Mani’s, the same walls from my nightmare, and while some small part of me knew I was awake, my panic insisted I was still in the dream, the wolf was nearby, and he was coming for me. I rolled out of bed, clutching the bedclothes to my chest, and backed into the corner. My knees gave way, and I sank to the floor, shaking and gasping for breath.

When no blood-crazed beast lunged at me from the shadows, I allowed myself to believe it was the same bad dream as always. After a couple of deep, steadying breaths, the worst of my terror drained away. I wiped a fist across my eyes, as if the gesture might rub away the last of the lingering images. Then I rose on wobbly legs and stumbled to the kitchen. In the refrigerator, I found several bottles of water. I grabbed one, snapped the lid, and guzzled. The cold pierced my sinuses, but I ignored the pain and emptied the bottle in a few desperate gulps.

Given enough time, the words and visions in my nightmare would distill into random flickers and vague images. They always did. Maybe my subconscious dealt with debilitating terror by locking it somewhere deep down inside. Only at night, in sleep, could my nightmare fully escape.

But no matter how much I repressed the details, one thing always remained. One obsession fastened itself to my psyche and burned there no matter the time of day, whether I was awake or asleep. Mani’s killer spoke in a low, growling voice, and in his final words to my fading brother, he said: “I have swallowed the moon; my brother shall swallow the sun. The beast will rise and swallow the world, man and god.”

Chapter Three

Half awake, bleary eyed, and still in my pajamas, I sat on Mani’s sofa and clutched a mug of scalding coffee. The pale light of early morning stole through the living-room window and gave the space a spectral quality. Across the room, a pile of Mani’s belongings stared at me, issuing a silent challenge.

Initially, my parents had insisted on hiring a moving service to box up everything and ship it home for us to sort out there. Mom and Dad wanted nothing to do with Alaska and often behaved as though the last three years of my brother’s life hadn’t happened. They swallowed the unfairness of his death and their own impotency like some sort of inevitable, bitter pill. They wanted me to do the same, kept telling me to “let it go.” They almost had me convinced, too; I was never a risk taker. But the nightmares refused to relent. The more I tried to ignore them, the more they persisted. The dreams strained my rationality and took a toll on my well-being. My work suffered, my relationships –the few I had—fell apart. Do something, I had said to myself. Do something before you lose yourself completely.

So, maybe for the first time in my life, I stood up for myself, channeling my brother’s willfulness and independence. When I told my parents I had already bought plane tickets, Mom nearly choked on her outrage. In the end, they relented only because I left them no other choice. They mandated that I dispose of the majority of Mani’s things and bring home only the most necessary or sentimental. Easy for them to say with the insulation of several thousand miles between them and all the things that represented the essence of my brother.

My problem was that everything of his was sentimental, even the holey boxer shorts I had found in his hamper. Especially those holey boxer shorts. They had big pink bows printed on them, and I had given them to Mani for Christmas, years ago, specifically to embarrass him. I should have known better. As soon as he unwrapped them, he slid the boxers on over his jeans and insisted on wearing them for our annual Christmas morning photos.

I finished my coffee, washed the cup, and dumped it on the draining board. Then I showered away the sour odors of bar and beer sweat and slipped into a pair of jeans and an old T-shirt from Mani’s closet that still smelled like him. After tying my hair back into a damp ponytail, I approached the living room, wearing my best no-nonsense expression. I set my hands on my hips, blew out a heavy breath, and said, “Okay, let’s do this.”

I organized everything into two piles, but the keep stack quickly outgrew the throw out stack. Throughout the morning, I forced myself to go back and reconsider. Each item I discarded took a piece of my heart along with it. When I had first approached this task, I thought it would only take part of the morning to finish, but by lunchtime my progress had stuttered to a halt. So many of Mani’s things absorbed my attention—his pictures, old birthday cards, his library of handwritten journals. In this collection of miscellanea, this assortment of nostalgia, Mani was still alive. How could I ignore the allure? How could I resist spending time with him again, even if it was in the past?

I flipped through the most recent of Mani’s journals, a fat book bound in worn leather and stuffed full of ticket stubs and other odds and ends. Mani kept meticulous records of both the adventurous and mundane days of his life. His journals were more than a simple effort to capture a memory. They were a tool he employed in his quest, his unappeasable need to find answers to the mystery that led him away from home and into the wilds of Alaska.

The pages of Mani’s journal flipped by in a blur until one caught my attention by mentioning my name. I knelt, pressed the journal open on the floor, and leaned close to study the page. Mani’s familiar scrawl filled every line. The swirls, loops, dots, and dashes made something tangible out of the intangible thoughts and emotions of the one person who had commanded absolute devotion from me. His handwriting was a surprisingly intimate thing. Here, above all the other objects in this room, was the proof that Mani was real. He had existed.

The page where I stopped was dated almost three years ago, when Mani had been in Alaska for about a month.

Got a care package from Solina today. Fudge cookies. I thought after working in that damned bakery I would never want to see another cookie again, but they smelled so much like home. I think Solina would like it here, but then I think nothing will ever get her to leave it all behind—home, the bakery, Mom and Dad.

Now that I’ve been here for a while, I see how I let her shoulder the weight of family obligations for both of us so I could get away from Mom and Dad’s expectations. I think she understood that I had to get away if I was going to figure out what’s been going on with me lately—the weirdness with the cold and darkness. The way shadows sometimes seem to cling to me. Those times when frost forms in my footsteps. Solina’s the only one who believes me. Said she saw it in one of her crazy dreams—me manipulating shadows and ice, bending them to my will.

She said she saw me framed by the hazy glow of a midnight sun and it felt important. Portentous. She likes using words like that. I think it means she reads too much. Solina either has her hands stuffed in a batch of dough or her nose stuck in a book. I don’t know how many times we’ve fought about her introverted tendencies. Anyway, there are only a few places in the world where the sun never sets at certain times of the year, and Alaska is one of them. Was it a coincidence that I got this job in Siqiniq as easily as I did? Who knows, but whatever the hell is going on with me, this is as good of a place to start looking for answers as any. Plus I speak the local language. Can’t say that about Russia or Greenland.

If I thought Solina totally loved the family business, got some kind of thrill out of cranking out wedding cakes day after day, I wouldn’t feel so guilty about leaving her. But I think she only does it because Mom and Dad expect it of her. Maybe I expect it of her too. I may have to admit that I used my sister. I guess that makes me a total ass.

I wish that she’d stand up to them, find her own way, get her own life. I hope Mom and Dad know how lucky they are.

I closed the cover before tears splattered and smeared the ink. Mani’s words touched a sore spot I usually managed to ignore—the loneliness I had suffered at his absence. In retrospect, the pain of his leaving was a minor abrasion compared to the deep, festering wound inflicted by his death. I sent those fudge cookies in place of myself because I was too afraid to leave home, too afraid to disappoint my parents. I filled the emptiness by putting in more hours at the bakery, and Mom and Dad saw my work ethic as proof of my dedication to them and our “family business.” Really I was only digging myself into a deeper hole.

Mani was almost right when he said nothing could get me to leave. Nothing short of his death. The irony of this situation did not escape me. I was so out of my element and, if I was being honest, more than a little scared. I was committed to closing out Mani’s affairs, though. All of them. Even the ones I didn’t understand. His need for answers was now my need. My brother’s quest was the same expedition that brought me here, and I sensed it all intertwined with Mani’s death and my strange dreams.

If Mani ever found any answers, he never mentioned it to me, and there was nothing Mani didn’t tell me. It was up to me to find the connections, but I doubted my ability to meet the challenge. Especially if I had only one week to do it.

I closed the journal and smoothed the leather cover. It felt alive, warm from the heat of my hands. I put it back in its place on the bookshelf and turned my attention to the dull and less emotional task of emptying Mani’s closets. Who am I kidding? There’s no detail in this undertaking that isn’t emotional.

Sometime later my cell phone rang. I dug around and found it under a pile of discarded college T-shirts and raggedy jeans. “Hello?”

“Solina!” Val’s chipper voice instantly brought out my smile.

“How are you feeling today?” I asked, thinking of possible late-night partying side effects.