Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [7]
I broke into a slow jog. The dream faded, the memory of flames turning less real than the slap of my rubber soles on the pavement and the music blaring from a distant bar. Bright blue water shone in the distance. I headed toward it. Somewhere a car horn honked—a quiet honk, oddly polite. Two small white birds with red beaks, black caps, and long tail feathers stared at me from a rooftop. Arctic terns? Somewhere farther away, a raven krawked, and the little birds flew off abruptly. I was less interested in birds than in mammals, but I remembered that arctic terns migrated all the way from the Arctic to Antarctica and back again, every single year. They were tough little birds.
The street met a paved black trail that followed the bay, beside a seawall built of large gray rocks. Perfect—I turned right, onto the path, and broke into a faster run. Sun reflected off the water beside me. Across the bay, smooth black volcanic hills swept toward the sky, so different from the dusty brown mountains of home. Different, but kind of cool—I stared at them as I ran. In the distance I heard barking.
Something furry barreled into my legs. I tumbled to the pavement, speed turning to stillness in an instant. A wet tongue licked my face.
Someone pulled the dog away and began speaking—angry Icelandic words I didn’t understand. It was a boy around my age, with a wool cap jammed down over his ears and shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes. He knelt in front of me, his arms overflowing with a wriggling brown-and-white Icelandic sheepdog.
“I’m sorry, I don’t—Talar thu ensku?” I asked hopefully. That was on the very first page of my phrase book.
The boy’s mouth pulled into a sardonic smile. He wore a scuffed black leather jacket, mended at the elbows. “Yes, of course I speak English. I yell at the dog, not you. Though you do not look like a tourist.”
I laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” My great-great-grandmother had come from Iceland, but that hardly seemed to count. I got to my feet. My running pants were torn, and the scraped skin beneath bled from a jagged gash. I flexed my knee and felt a twinge of pain.
The boy glanced at the scrape. “Sorry,” he said. The dog squirmed out of his arms and licked my knee, making the rip larger. His rough tongue stung, but I didn’t flinch away. I drew the dog into a hug, rubbing his shaggy fur and letting him know I forgave him for knocking me over. He licked my face, as if he forgave me, too, for not watching where I was going.
“He likes you.” The boy stood and offered me his handkerchief. He was taller than he seemed—taller than me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I took the handkerchief—he had lovely long fingers—and did my best to wipe the blood away. I stood, testing the weight on my knee. Already the pain was fading and the bleeding slowing. I reached down to scratch the dog behind the ears. He was a sweet dog, with one of those always-questioning faces. “What’s his name?”
“Flosi,” the boy said.
I rubbed Flosi’s nose. Flosi nudged my hand away, gave my knee an enthusiastic final lick—that stung, too—and looked up at the boy.
“We need to go,” the boy said.
“Yeah.” Of course he had to go. No reason for him to hang around chatting with some random tourist his dog had toppled over. Still, we both hesitated. In the sunlight, his green eyes were nearly as bright as the sea.
We looked away at the same instant. My face felt hot. There was no reason for that, either.
“Sorry,” the boy said again.
“No harm done.” I smiled. Then, because I didn’t want him to think I was the one hanging around too long, I added a “see you” and jogged off. My knee hurt at first, but I’d run through worse, and the pain disappeared as I found my pace once more. I realized I still held the boy’s handkerchief,