Freya’s phone was nearly dead.
Lynn didn’t have the right kind of charger, and Freya was under explicit orders not to leave the austere two-bedroom at Paonia Place. It had been a rough night. Even with the silicone earplugs Lynn gave her, the sounds of car doors slamming, televisions blaring, and other tenants arguing kept waking Freya up. She wasn’t used to sleeping near so many other people, houses were far apart from each other on Elliot Road.
Freya searched the entire condo for something to read, but Lynn was one of those people who only owned the books they were supposed to have read. A single shelf had Anna Karenina, The Second Sex, The Tipping Point, The Alchemist, and The Great Gatsby.
It was Gatsby that sealed it for Freya. She was sure no one liked F. Scott Fitzgerald. People only pretended he was important because everyone else seemed to agree. She pulled down Anna Karenina and inspected the spine. The book had never been read and likely never would.
You barely got through it, Freya chided herself.
She’d was twelve years old when she read Anna Karenina, too young to tackle Tolstoy, but she’d soldiered through anyway. All she remembered now was something about a grand ball and an endless procession of indistinguishable Russians. She returned the book to its place.
If only she’d stayed with Lynn’s sister Lee instead. Freya was certain the librarian could do better than this meager line of unread books. But then they’d be putting Lee in danger, too.
Freya reminded herself Lynn was taking a risk by letting Freya sleep here. She didn’t deserve to be judged for her unread books, her ugly couch, and the lingering cat box stink she probably couldn’t even smell at this point.
Everybody deserved better. Freya was profoundly inadequate. Again, she cringed at the memory of Samantha Gregulus walking away from her without a word. She’d seen right through Freya. She didn’t want that weight on her or her son. It was no wonder Dan hadn’t texted her like he said he would. He had never liked her. It was all the Starball’s doing.
“This is all your fault,” she accused the orb, holding it up to the sunlight. In the Starball’s violet sheen, the real culprit was reflected, ugly and bloated by barrel distortion.
Everyone would have been better off if I had just drowned.
Freya waited for the cooling touch of the Starball to pull her out of her spiral, but the placid feeling never came. She squinted as she plumbed for the sensation. Why had it cut her off?
The Starball wasn’t fooled by her self-pity. Freya wasn’t even fooling herself. This wasn’t the terrible weight that had carried her into the river. She was just being weak. She was sick of it, sick of herself.
I’m never going to kill myself.
The thought burned through all the miserable layers of regret Freya had wrapped around herself. She could stop pretending now. She was wasting her time slinking back to the idea of ending it all every single time something went against her. She needed to move. The direction wasn’t important.
Her phone was at five percent battery, and Dan still hadn’t replied to her good morning text. A hundred times she’d fought the urge to double text.
Freya ran her fingers over the locket, trying to convince herself it wasn’t over. They would unite and everything would be okay, there would be a reason for his silence. She wanted so badly to have a gift to give Dan in return, but what?
For seven deep breaths, she thought about Dan, pushing away everything else. What did he want? What would make him happy? She popped open the locket and couldn’t help but smile at the picture. It had been such a perfect night.
Inhaling deeply, Freya shut her eyes and tried to hold that feeling for as long as she could. She was right back there at Sparrow Hall. Mr. Mathis was on stage, wringing “Turn the Page” out of his guitar while sweat poured from his temples. She snuck a look at Dan. He was entranced, peering up at the stage with his lips parted in astonishment. She’d wanted to lean over and kiss them, but she didn’t want to break the spell.
Suddenly, she had it. With her phone at four percent, Freya called a cab.
* * *
“Can you drive past the house first so I can make sure no one’s in the driveway?”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Sure. Any problem?” asked Mr. College Football. His name was Reginald Banks. Freya read it on the laminated taxi license Zip-Tied to the back of his headrest. It was a small town, after all, there weren’t that many taxis. She had a lie all prepared, some fluff about how she didn’t want to wake up her mother, but as they drew closer, it felt wrong not to let Reginald know what he might be in for.
“Some guy has been stalking me. I want to make sure he’s not waiting there.”
“Good God,” Reginald said. “That’s no problem at all.”
“Thank you, sorry about that. I’m just packing up some things inside, I might be twenty minutes. You can let the meter run.”
“It’s no trouble. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Can’t stand that kind of thing. If someone was bothering one of my girls, I’d lay them out. Cowards like that oughta be strung up.”
He’d been such a goof before, but when he got serious, Reginald had an unexpected gravity. In his voice, she heard the tightening rope. The silence in the cab was so thick she wished he’d start yammering about football again.
They slid past the driveway. It was empty, and Reginald did a quick K-turn, whipping the wheel with the heel of his palm. The driveway was empty.
Freya opened the door and waited, perfectly still, scanning inside for anything out of place. She saw the Sako still in the corner. It was insane Lassa had just stood the rifle against the wall with no lock. An automatic weapon just sitting in the foyer where anyone could pick it up.
Freya shut the door behind her and picked up the rifle, flicking the safety off, and setting the fire selector to automatic. Her pulse pounded in her ears, every breath a shout. If someone was waiting to ambush her, she could empty the magazine into them in less than three seconds.
Room by room, Freya swept the house, opening every closet and every cupboard she thought someone could possibly hide in. The whole time, she was stupidly aware the taxi meter was running. She had a keen sense of the Starball in her pocket, ready for the first sign of warning.
Lassa’s room was the last one she checked. She held her breath as she opened the walk-in closet, the rifle’s grip sweaty in her palm, her finger was pressed the edge of the trigger guard.
Just clothes. At the back of the closet, Freya noticed a panel she’d missed before, slightly ajar. She slid it to the side. There was a tall gun safe for the rifle with boxes of ammunition inside. On the top shelf, there were binders full of paperwork. Flanking the safe were a stack of boxes that said MEAL READY-TO-EAT, INDIVIDUAL - DO NOT ROUGH HANDLE WHEN FROZEN. Beside them were a stack of opaque blue three-gallon water jugs. There were boxes of candles, flashlights, a first aid kid.
Freya remembered Lassa telling her she was being ridiculously pessimistic thinking humanity would be extinct in a hundred years. And yet, here was she was, all stocked up for doomsday. Freya knew this cache was her idea.
If the big one was about to drop, Randall would have been out on the roof in a lawn chair with his Celestrons, ready to watch it all go down. Freya would have been beside him, holding his hand. What was Lassa afraid of? A solar flare knocking them back to the 1920s? Russians nuking the VLF array at Cutler? An alien invasion?
She set the rifle in the safe without locking it and slid the panel shut. The meter was running. She needed to get her things and leave before someone showed up. But as she tuned to leave the closet, she couldn’t resist sliding the clothes aside to look at the secret calendar again. She reached out and set her hand over TAURIDS WITH FREYA.
Her father’s hand had been right there. If she could only travel back a year, she could stand next to him and take it. She could grab him and warn him not to go to Quays that night. She could tell him everything she never got to.
Take me back there, she willed at the Starball, gripping the orb, and shutting her eyes. It was useless. There was only one way to get Randall back, and she was locked up in Northern Light hospital.
Unity with Lassa. Unity that would reopen every wound and almost certainly destroy them both. Freya had an urge to tear down the calendar and to rip it to shreds, but she knew she would regret it later.
In her room, she quickly watered Yggdrasil and packed a suitcase with clothes and toiletries, grabbing her charger. She took all the money from her drawer, her passport, and her birth control pills, taking the one she’d missed last night. Thinking her room might be searched, she packed both halves of the meteorite. Then she pulled out her guitar case. By weight, she knew the Ovation was inside, but she set it on her bed and checked anyway.
This was what she’d come for, after all.
With her suitcase in one hand and her guitar case in the other, she stood at her front door and turned around to look at the house. The map with all the pins, the spotless kitchen, the hallway with the bookshelves… Was this the last time?
Outside, Reginald was waiting for her, and she apologized for taking so long, but he waved it away.
“I got all the time in the world,” Reginald said with a contented grin. He was drinking coffee out of a giant thermos and listening to sports radio while the meter ran.
“I forgot one more thing,” Freya said.
She slipped back inside the house, and then swapped to her puffy black jacket with the faux-fur collar. It had big pockets. She took Randall’s pistol out of the ottoman and checked that the safety was on. She looked at the indicator port on the barrel hood, a round in the chamber. She ejected the magazine and checked it was loaded. All the things Randall had taught her. She reinserted the magazine, checked the safety a final time, and slipped the gun into her coat pocket.
She ran her hand over the top of the pocket, wondering if the puffiness would conceal it. Then she reached into the pocket of her jeans. There was no sign from the Starball.
With every step, the pistol reminded her of its weight. Outside the sun glared, the air was biting, the world too sharp. As she turned back to lock the deadbolt, Freya heard tires spattering in the driveway slush. She turned back, stupidly worried Reginald was driving off with her guitar.
But the cab was still idling. A new car had rolled up the driveway, a silver Cadillac CT6 with rental plates. The two men inside were strangers. They wore dark suits and mirrored sunglasses.
Feds.
“No,” Freya mouthed.
At once, she tried to call Lynn. But her phone was dead.