Astyr gripped the edge of the wooden dining table in front of her tightly with both hands and raised her eyes to meet the dark blue eyes of her guardian who was seated across the table waiting. Astyr tried to tell herself she was ready for this but the truth was that she was never ready to meet someone's inner self head-on. She hated being forced to endure a person's every moment of life; good times and bad, good people and bad. These encounters would invariably leave her shaking and sick and she always tried her hardest to simply avoid meeting anyone's gaze.
But now there was no way to stop this without being disrespectful to Grima Thorrsen, her new foster mother. Grima only had three house rules and behaving respectfully was one of them. Besides, Astyr always tried to be polite, it made living with strangers easier.
So Astyr told herself she could handle this, that she wouldn't let whatever she saw get in the way of being a good foster daughter to Grima, and she raised her eyes.
Immediately she was flooded with images and sounds and feelings. A young Grima was sitting on a bare dirt floor in what looked like a primitive wooden hut. She was bundled in thick, woolen, old-fashioned clothes with a heavy animal fur wrapped around her shoulders. Her dark hair was tucked up into a white kerchief with only a few stray strands peeking out around her smooth, pale face. She was sitting with her legs crossed and her hands placed in her lap.
Grima was nervous but excited and was focused intently on the woman sitting in front of her. The woman was dressed the same as Grima and was obviously kin to her since they shared a remarkably similar appearance.
There was a small fire burning in a brazier in the middle of the room and there were bundles of furs and blankets stowed against one of the walls. Against another wall was a collection of wood bowls and cups and several tarnished metal pots in different sizes. The wall directly opposite from the room's entrance was stacked with several large wooden shields, each of slightly different size and shape and each having its own unique design of metal tacks hammered into it. Beside the shields were several long wooden spears with vicious metal blades attached to the ends and two very large, very heavy swords.
The woman facing Grima told her to take a deep breath and relax and to try to imagine a solid barrier in her mind. Grima was scared and didn't want to seem weak and incompetent on her first try. She imagined a solid stone wall several feet thick and put herself behind it. She raised her eyes to meet the other woman's blue eyes and right away she could see in her mental picture the woman sitting beside her on her side of the wall.
"You're too concerned with trying to see what I am looking at Grima." The woman said this with a sigh of exasperation. "You cannot leave a hole in your defense to look out of. It leaves a clear path for others to come in. Let's try again."
Grima took a deep breath and gave herself a strong mental shake. She re-imagined her thick stone wall and looked once again into the woman's eyes. This time she studied the older woman's dark blue eyes as a small smile formed around them.
"Much better this time, dear." Grima felt a surge of pride at the soft compliment. "Blocking other people's souls from your gaze is almost the same. You will find with practice that you can filter through them or stop the scenes altogether as you will." The other woman said this to Grima with a matter-of-fact tone.
The scene stopped and Astyr found herself looking into Grima's dark blue eyes and studying the dark lashes ringing them and noticing the fine lines just visible in the pale skin around them.
Astyr was shocked. She had several questions trying to race each other out of her brain but her mouth was unable to form a single word. Astyr just remained perfectly still facing Grima and gripping the table so hard that her knuckles were completely white.
"Did any of that make sense to you, Astyr?" Grima asked her softly, giving her a chance to bring her thoughts into order.
"This happens to you, too? You have these visions when you look into people's eyes?" Astyr held her breath waiting for a reply. She was starting to feel the long-dead stirrings of hope deep inside of her and she was trying to tell herself to calm down and not get too far ahead of whatever this was.
"I do have this ability, Astyr, just like you. We're not the only ones." Grima explained to Astyr how her mother had taught her to control the visions so that they didn't control Grima's life. "I hope that you will give me a chance to try and teach you these things as well."
Astyr couldn't stop the welling up of hope in her chest and she couldn't stop herself from smiling.
They spent another hour sitting at the table practicing and when Astyr was finally able to block her mind, they cleared away the remains of dinner. Grima sent Astyr to her room to do her homework and took care of cleaning the kitchen herself.
Alone in her room Astyr felt like she was floating on a cloud. She couldn't believe what had just happened. Not only did she discover that she wasn't as much of a freak as she had always felt she was, she was no longer a slave to the onslaught of visions that kept her separate from everyone around her. She no longer had to fear the simple act of looking someone in the eyes.
Astyr quickly finished her assignments; it was easy when you didn't even need to open a book to get the work done. She stuffed the papers and folders back into her bag and left it on the desk ready for tomorrow. She was still feeling rather euphoric so she drifted over to the window to look out into the forest and think about the new possibilities she faced being able to control her gift. The trees in the cool autumn night were still and peaceful and everything had a faint silver glow in the light of the not quite full moon. There were no colors visible in the darkness, only various shades of gray and silver and black. The trees on this side of the house were large and grew close together leaving little light from above to sustain much undergrowth.
Astyr was still lost in her thoughts when she thought she saw something move in between the thick tree trunks near the edge of the clearing that the house was in. She held her breath and concentrated on the spot between two tall pines where she thought the movement had come from. As she stared intently into the deep blackness she realized that there were two spots of color in among the flat grays and blacks that dominated the landscape. These two spots were an ominous amber color and were about four feet above the ground. The spots were completely still and Astyr could make out no shapes in the darkness surrounding the spots.
Suddenly the spots ceased to exist and Astyr gave a gasp and jumped like she had been shocked with electricity when there was a knock on her door at the exact same moment that they disappeared.
Astyr ran to the door and jerked it open staring frantically around with her eyes wide. Grima was standing there with some books in her hands looking at Astyr with some surprise. "I didn't mean to scare you, dear. Is something wrong?" Grima asked with a note of concern in her voice. Astyr put her hand over her racing heart and gave a small, nervous laugh. "I've never lived outside of a city before." Astyr tried to explain to Grima all the while feeling foolish. "I think I'm starting to jump at shadows."
"Don't you worry about anything this far out, Astyr. You're safer here with me than you ever were in the city." Grima's reassurances felt good to Astyr's shattered nerves and she felt her heartbeat slow to a normal rhythm. "Thanks Grima, I'm sure I'll get used to all this soon." Astyr smiled at her guardian to let her know she was okay. "Was there something you wanted?" Grima was holding some books in her hand and Astyr was curious about what might be in them after Grima's shocking revelation earlier.
"I thought you might find these interesting if you have any extra time to read them." Grima held out the books and Astyr took them, turning them around to see the titles along the spines. The first was a book on herbology and the medicinal uses of plants. The second was an anthropological history of Europe. The final book was about Norse mythology. The books were worn but in pretty good shape for their age. Astyr thanked Grima and promised to find time to read them.
After wishing Grima a good night, Astyr sat down on her low seat at the end of her bed and settled in to take a look at the books. The herbology was very fact heavy and Astyr knew most of the plants anyway so she put that one aside. She also passed on the history book, she had just finished writing an essay for her history class and she didn't feel like any more of that tonight. So she cracked open the Norse mythology and began reading about long ago deities and heroes.
The subject was fascinating and the stories kept Astyr absorbed right up until the last page. She glanced up at her clock and was surprised to see it was almost one o'clock in the morning. She had to be up in just a few hours for school. She crawled into her bed and was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
The next morning dawned bright and clear and Astyr was up and ready with a spring in her step. Despite the lack of sleep, she was still feeling giddy about what she had learned from Grima the night before. She couldn't wait to get to school and see how well she could keep up her mental blocking. She dressed in a white cotton dress that swirled around her knees and covered her shoulders with a short blue denim jacket. She added a silver colored bead necklace and her flats from yesterday and grabbed her bag and headed out the door.
She had to be at the end of the driveway by a quarter to seven to catch the bus so she walked quickly along the dirt lane with the thick forest completely surrounding her. The weather was cool and there was only a light layer of mist still clinging to the ground muffling the sounds of wildlife coming from the trees. Astyr could just make out the chatter of some early rising birds but they didn't sound very close to where she was walking. Actually, the forest close to her didn't seem to have any sounds at all. Astyr felt a small trickle of fear race up her spine as she remembered the two amber colored spots she had seen from her window the night before. They had looked so much like eyes but Astyr didn't want to think about what kind of animal would be attached to eyes that were four feet off the ground and alone in a forest at night.
She was really starting to spook herself because she now had a feeling that those eyes were watching her right now. She started walking faster and kept her eyes on the lane in front of her trying to tell herself to calm down. She heard a twig snap from somewhere not too far away from where she was and she put on more speed. There was definitely some kind of animal rustling leaves as it moved through the trees parallel to where Astyr was almost running but she didn't want to find out what it was. If it was something harmless like a rabbit, then it wouldn't want her intruding on its business, and if it wasn't something harmless, she didn't want to find out. She came out onto the dirt road that met her driveway and could hear the rumble of the bus as it made its way closer over the ruts and holes that completely covered the road.
As she saw the big yellow bus come into view, she turned to look behind her into the forest. She wanted to tell herself that she was just over-reacting. A big city girl scared of her first trip into the woods. But she hadn't had these feelings the afternoon before when she had jogged through the same stretch of trees. There was something in there and it was giving her a bad feeling.
She almost threw herself up the stairs as the doors of the bus were opened. The other kids were looking at her like she had an extra head so she made her way to an empty seat about halfway back and slid all the way over to the window. She gave a sigh of relief as the bus headed off and away from the forest.
When she stepped off the bus at school, she kept her head down and made her way into the courtyard in the middle of the campus. This was where everybody seemed to congregate waiting for the bell to ring. It was easy to see that there were clearly defined boundaries between the various different groups. The gazebo in the middle was filled with the girls that Astyr had sat with at lunch the day before along with a large group of large boys. The covered walkways that surrounded the courtyard had cement benches set at the edges and every bench offered a different slice of high-school life. There was a group of kids wearing dark clothes who all seemed to have the same haircut, both the boys and girls. Another group of kids were all wearing tight jeans, plaid shirts and cowboy boots and just past them were a group of surly looking boys in a ragged assortment of clothes. Near the doors to the building that housed the high school classes were a bunch of mostly girls standing together with books open and having a heated discussion. The whole courtyard was filled with kids who belonged in one place or another with others of their kind.
Astyr went over again in her mind what Grima had taught her the night before and prepared herself to make her way among the masses. Just as she was about to step off the walkway and head over to the gazebo, a hand grabbed her arm. She spun around pulled her arm free with a little jerk. Standing in front of her was Gunnar with a smirk on his face. "Did I scare you?" He asked while trying to hold in a laugh.
"No, you didn't scare me." Astyr informed him while looking straight into his beautiful blue eyes. "I wasn't expecting to be assaulted first thing in the morning, is all." She flipped her hair back and starting walking again towards the gazebo. Gunnar fell into step beside her with a chuckle. "Don't let him bother you, Astyr." Hakon fell into step on Astyr's other side and she looked up at him in surprise. "But if he does bother you, just tell me and I'll take care of it." Gunnar reached around Astyr trying to hit his helpful older brother in the arm but before he could make contact, Astyr grabbed his wrist and twisted it down so that it was back at Gunnar's side. "Thanks, Hakon, but I'm perfectly capable of taking care of things myself." The boys both started laughing and the three of them entered the gazebo to find everyone staring at them. Hakon moved off to greet the rest of the football team but Gunnar stayed beside Astyr like someone had glued them together. She gave him a sideways look but when she went to stand with Jenny and Ginny, he stayed with her.
"Hi Astyr," Jenny said, "Did you get a chance to ask Dr. Thorrsen about joining the squad?" Several girls nearby turned to hear her answer and Gwen walked over to them to make sure she didn't miss anything. "Yeah, Grima says it's okay if I want to join, but only if I can get a ride home after practice." Gwen looked her up and down yet again as if she could tell just by the way Astyr was standing if she would be able to be a cheerleader. She clearly wasn't put off by what she saw because she informed Astyr that they had a practice that afternoon and if Astyr could keep up then she would be on the squad. It was agreed for Astyr to go home with a girl in the junior class who lived just one road past Grima's house.
Gunnar grinned at Astyr and teased her about going over to the dark side but Astyr just rolled her eyes and headed off to class as the bell was ringing.
The day passed much as the first had, except that Astyr didn't have to get anything signed and could just slip into class with her friends like anyone else.
As she was walking off to the fourth period chorus class with Jenny and Ginny, they started interrogating her about Gunnar and Hakon. "Are you sure you don't know them from somewhere else, Astyr." Jenny asked. "I'm positive I'd remember if I had, Jenny, but the answer is still no." The three girls laughed a little at that but Jenny didn't let go of the subject. "They sure do seem friendly with you." She said giving Astyr a sideways glance. "I'm sure they're friendly with other people, too." Astyr was not really comfortable with where this conversation was heading and Ginny confirmed this when she added, "Oh, no. In the two years they've been going here, they haven't said more than two words to anyone besides the guys on the football team with them."
Luckily for Astyr they were walking into class by then and were too busy singing to finish the discussion. Astyr found it a little disturbing that two ridiculously gorgeous boys had spent two years at a school without being snared by any of the girls into relationships, let alone conversations. And if they were so into their privacy, why were they clinging on to Astyr like ivy all of a sudden. It's not like she wanted the attention. There wasn't much sense in starting something anyway when she really didn't know how long she would be here. And she still didn't know why she felt so bothered every time they grabbed her the way they did. Other kids were always pawing all over each other all the time. It was something friends did, little punches on the arm at stupid jokes, grabbing their arm when they were excited about something, even linking arms while walking down the hall like Jenny and Ginny were always doing. Maybe all that time avoiding being near other people had made Astyr too suspicious of something that was just normal teenage behavior. It's not like either one of them had tried to hurt her.
The bell rang and Astyr followed Jenny and Ginny out of the class and into the gym on their way to lunch. The same bunch of boys from yesterday were in the same place as yesterday making the same annoying noises as yesterday. The girls chose to simply ignore them today and passed out of the gym and on to the cafeteria.
They sat at the same table they had the day before and soon they were surrounded again by the rest of the girls from the cheer squad. Gwen sat down next to Astyr and joined in the conversation the other girls were having about some juicy bit of gossip that was going around. Astyr didn't know the people involved but was glad nobody was asking her a ton of questions while she ate. Gwen sat up straight and flipped her hair back and sure enough when Astyr looked up to see why, Hakon and Gunnar were making a beeline for the table full of girls. Gunnar came around and sat on the other side of Astyr from Gwen and Hakon squeezed in between Jenny and Ginny who were sitting across from Astyr. Gwen put a dazzling smile on her face and starting complimenting Hakon on his saving the football team from a fourth defeat in the last game while Gunnar started helping himself to Astyr's food. Astyr decided to just let it go since she was watching Hakon and Gwen and trying to gauge Hakon's reaction to Gwen's painfully obvious advances. Unfortunately for Gwen, there didn't seem to be any reaction.
Astyr decided Hakon must be a pretty good judge of character and they all got up and headed out so as not to be late for their next classes. Gunnar shadowed Astyr all the way to English, stayed beside her in Biology, and Astyr had to tell him to go away as she went into the girl's locker room to change into P.E. clothes for gym.
He was back again as soon as she entered the gym with Jenny and Ginny beside her. They gave her a grin and Astyr rolled her eyes back at them. Gym class consisted of both classes of sophomores so there were enough kids to actually make separate teams. Another couple of girls who were on the cheer squad came over and joined them as the coach sent them off to run laps around the gym as a warm-up. Astyr soon left the other four girls behind and kept pace with Gunnar and the rest of the boys. After ten laps Gunnar got a wicked smile on his face and started sprinting. Astyr laughed and increased her own speed until they had lapped everyone else in class. They stopped and waited on the risers for the last stragglers to finish. "You're pretty fast for a girl." Gunnar said nudging Astyr on her shoulder. She laughed and pushed him back and said, "so are you." They both started laughing at that and the rest of the class were giving them looks. The coach had them split into four teams and they started two half-court basketball games. Ten minutes before the bell the whistle blew and kids headed off to the locker rooms.
Jenny and Ginny grabbed Astyr and dragged her straight through the locker room and out through a back door that led out to the track behind the gym. They didn't need to change since they had cheerleading practice so they sat in the grass waiting for the rest of the squad to arrive. Ten juniors and seniors showed up and then Gwen sauntered up and called everyone to order.
"As you all know, we need another warm body to make the team even and Astyr is the only girl in school who is anywhere near presentable enough to fit in with us. So we are going to show her the jumps and flips and routines she will need to know and we will see if she can keep up. If she's coordinated enough to not fall on her face, we're putting her on the team so let's all do our best to be patient and help her learn the basics today."
After Gwen's stirring speech, the girls got up and stood in formation ready to start practice. Astyr stood in the front beside Gwen so she could see all the movements. The squad did a jump that Gwen called a herkie and then turned and told Astyr to give it a try.
After years of martial arts training, jumping up in the air with one leg sticking out wasn't exactly a challenge. Astyr did the jump easily and waited for the next. The afternoon passed quickly as the squad tried everything they could think of in the search for something Astyr couldn't do. They finally conceded defeat after she performed a flawless backflip followed by a backwards somersault. The only thing she didn't do was fall on her face and when Gwen called it a day the rest of the squad rushed up to Astyr to congratulate her and welcome her to the squad. This involved several long minutes of high-pitched squeals and jumping up and down.
Eventually, everyone started drifting off to the locker room to change clothes and the girl who had promised to give Astyr a ride home told her she'd be waiting in the student parking lot for her so that Astyr could get her permission forms and uniform order forms and rules handbook from Gwen. This caused Astyr to be the last girl to leave the locker room and there were only a few footballs players leaving their practice as Astyr made her way to the parking lot.
There were a few cars still in the lot and a few boys hanging out and joking around. Astyr looked at every car trying to find her ride, but the girl who said she would wait was nowhere to be found.
The boys were starting to take notice of Astyr standing by herself and as two large guys in jeans and tee shirts came towards her, the rest of the pack followed a few steps behind. "Hey, sweetheart," the larger of the two called to her, "do you want a ride with me?"
Astyr definitely didn't want to ride anywhere with this brute but declined his offer politely and turned to go back to school in hopes of finding a phone when she was jerked back roughly by a large hand on her shoulder to find herself facing his massive chest. "You don't need to be scared, sweetheart. We just want to have a good time." He was grinning in what he must have thought was a seductive way but actually made him look like a deranged baboon. "You'll have fun, too, if you just relax and come with me, honey." Astyr informed him that she wasn't interested in going with him and that being in his presence sounded like the opposite of fun and tried to jerk her shoulder out of his grasp. But instead of letting go, he dug his fingers painfully into her shoulder and held on tight.
That was too much as far as Astyr was concerned. She was tired of this buffoon and decided to bring this non-event to a close. She reached up with her right hand and grabbed the wrist connected to the arm hurting her shoulder. At the same time she stepped closer and brought her knee up into his groin. As soon as his grip on her shoulder loosened, she twisted his arm over and swept her foot into his shins and used the momentum from his twisting arm to drive him face-first into the ground. His friends had all instinctively taken a half step back when her knee had made contact but now that he needed help they were closing in again. Before Astyr could shift her weight to meet the oncoming challenge, the large guy coming straight at her folded up and flew backwards. He sailed through the air and landed ten feet away when he hit the side of a pickup truck hard enough to leave a dent.
Hakon stepped into the middle of the circle and glared around at the other boys. They all found something fascinating to stare at on the ground. "Astyr, let Dean get up now, please." Hakon said this to her calmly and Astyr realized that she was applying enough force to pop Dean's shoulder out of the socket. She pushed his arm away from her and it slammed into the ground hard enough for Dean to give a gasp of pain. "Consider yourself benched this week," Hakon told Dean as he was pulling himself up out of the dirt, "and anyone else who is still standing here in 10 seconds can warm the bench with him." He addressed this last part to the rest of the boys standing around and they wasted no time in clearing the area. Trucks and cars started up and quickly left the lot and Astyr was left standing with only Hakon and Gunnar, who had come up from behind the group as Hakon was speaking.
"Thanks for helping me." Astyr said to Hakon as she reached down and picked up her bag from where she had dropped it. "What are you doing out here alone?" He asked her. "I thought you were taking the bus."
"The bus doesn't run after practice and Michelle said she would give me a ride." Astyr looked around the near-empty lot one more time but it was clear that Michelle was not there. "She said she would wait for me but she was gone by the time I got here."
"Well you need to get home so come with us for now." Gunnar started to lead Astyr over to the new black Camaro that was the only car left in the lot at this point. She didn't follow him and he turned back to see what was wrong.
"I barely know you, Gunnar. I appreciate you guys helping me just now but this feels like jumping from the frying pan. I think I should go inside and call Grima for now." Astyr turned to make her way back to the school building when Hakon put his hand gently on her arm. He didn't jerk her around or apply any pressure and Astyr looked down to see a silver bracelet peeking out from the cuff of his jacket.
Gunnar came to stand in front of Astyr and told her softly, "You're safe with us, Astyr. We're on your side."
And with that Astyr followed them to their car and let them take her home.
****************************************************