Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [12]
“And leave someone else stuck with the guy instead?” I asked. What does this have to do with me? Why am I seeing this woman?
“Hallgerd called on power deep within the earth for her spell,” Katrin said. “That power echoes on to the present day, in the patterns of the plates that shift beneath our feet and the fires that stir the earth.”
Dad rolled his eyes. “Or the plates could be shifting because Iceland is located both atop a hot spot and on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, making it one of the most geologically active places on the entire planet.”
“The spell failed,” Katrin said, as if she hadn’t heard, “so Hallgerd sent her—her foster father, that’s the best translation, though it’s not quite right—to kill her husband Thorvald instead, after Thorvald slapped her during a fight. Her foster father killed her second husband, too, though it’s less clear Hallgerd wanted that. As for Hallgerd’s third husband—he died when she refused him her hair to make a new string for his bow.”
Gunnar died, of course. I remembered the tour guide saying that. How much did you have to hate someone to refuse him a few strands of your hair?
“She was quite the charmer,” Ari said from behind his menu.
Katrin glanced at Ari, then back at me. “But all of that was later,” she said. “First Hallgerd cast the spell on her descendants—on her daughter and her daughter’s daughters, all the way down the line. Not many of her descendants remain, but I’m one, and your mother was another, only I didn’t know that when she came here.”
“Wait—we’re related?” And Dad just happened to wind up working with Mom’s long-lost cousin?
Ari snorted. “No more related than most Icelanders,” he said. “This is not a large island, Haley. I’m more closely related to the prime minister than to you.”
“The common ancestor was some twenty generations back,” Katrin said. “You’re probably more closely related to your president, too. And we probably have other common ancestors closer than Hallgerd—but that is not the point. The point is that Hallgerd searched for one of us to possess. For thirty generations, we all knew to turn away from her spell. Until your mother—” A pained look crossed Katrin’s face. “She probably didn’t even understand what Hallgerd offered her.”
Dad shoved his menu aside. “We don’t have to listen to this.”
I ignored him. “What happened to Mom?”
Katrin swallowed and looked down at her laced fingers. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know Amanda was one of Hallgerd’s daughters—that she was part of the line that had left for North America—until it was too late. I would have warned her, but—she ran, and so the spell consumed her.”
“Consumed?” My throat tightened around the word.
Dad grabbed my hand. “I won’t have you upsetting Haley with this nonsense.”
Katrin glared at him. “Better for her to be upset and alive. What you need to know, Haley, is that you’re one of Hallgerd’s daughters, too. And while the spell should have ended with your mother, it hasn’t. I don’t understand why, but the power Hallgerd called upon is with us still. You felt the earthquake yesterday. I think the problem may be—there’s a coin that Hallgerd used to cast her spell. And that coin hasn’t been found.”
My hand fell limp in Dad’s hold. My stomach did a little flip.
“It’s possible,” Katrin said, “that the coin was consumed as well, but—”
“No. It wasn’t.” I drew my hand free and reached into my pocket. I was only a little surprised to feel warm metal there. Sweat trickled down my neck. I’d thrown the coin away—in my room, and by the