Undraland (5 page)

He leaned his hip toward me, so I tried to be the least amount of intrusive as I slid the device from his jeans. He still smelled like freshly baked sugar cookies.

“Just hit the button to light up the screen. I want you to see my screensaver.”

I obeyed and saw his screensaver was a garden gnome. I swallowed my inner grimace. I really hated those lawn ornaments. They looked creepy, like overly happy children’s toys that came to life at night and hacked villagers to bits. Perhaps I’d seen one too many horror movies with Linus.

Linus.
He loved a good scare, which to me seemed an oxymoron, as there was nothing good about being afraid. If a movie really freaked me out, that night he would wait until I was almost asleep and then whisper creepy lines from the movie into the darkness. My retaliation? A cigarette lighter to the underside of the DVD. That way no one could be haunted by the movie ever again.

“That’s a Tomten,” Jens explained, clarifying nothing.

“Oh,” I said lamely. I held up the screen to his face and nodded. “Striking resemblance. I mean, the old man face, the Santa Claus hair, dunce cap, cheery little cheeks, two feet tall. Totally you.” I paused and then shook my head. “Oh, wait. He’s smiling. Nope. I don’t believe you’re a lawn ornament, Jens. Man, you almost had me there.” I slipped the phone back in his pocket, my knuckles accidentally brushing his toned abdomen. My cheeks pinkened, and I retracted my hand guiltily, though I knew I’d done nothing wrong.

“Those lawn ornaments are protection charms left by guardian gnomes when they retire. I’m a guardian gnome. I was hired to protect your family. If I ever retired, one of these would be left behind to provide you with some sort of safeguard. The reason they all look like the same guy is because that mini Santa Claus was the first gnome ever. He’s the first Tomten our race sprung from. So we leave a little tribute behind to watch over our charges.”

Jens didn’t give the vibe of trying to trick me. He seemed pretty sincere. But, you know, garden gnomes. I decided to stick with suspending my disbelief in the spirit of seeing where the rabbit trail led. At worst, I’d get a good bedtime story out of it. “Okay. But you’re so tall. Maybe it’s a guard versus guardian thing,” I reasoned.

“Nope. Most Undrans are taller than humans. Our average is over six feet tall. Seven, in some parts. Except dwarves, obviously.”

“Obviously,” I commented, rolling my eyes at him. “Why is it common knowledge in my world that gnomes are smaller, then?”

He cast me an innocent smile and batted his thick eyelashes at me. “Why is it common knowledge that blondes are dumb?”

I flicked the gash on his arm in retaliation. “You deserved that,” I said of his intake of breath. “So you smell like sugar cookies, but you’re not Santa Claus? I gotta warn you, any story that doesn’t end in me getting presents is pretty lame. I may need you to tell me the rest in song.”

Jens relaxed by a degree, just enough to get more of his story out. “I’ve got a nice lump of coal all picked out for you.”

“Oh, you spoil me.” I rubbed his arm to soothe it. “Go on.”

“It’s my job to keep you safe. Back there with those Weredogs? Not safe. I know you don’t like it, but I really did have to get you out of there.”

“Thanks for that,” I offered, realizing how selfish I’d been not saying anything sooner. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

Jens pfft’d. “I’m not hurt. That’s nothing.” His volume quieted when his pride finally did. “But thanks. Anyway, Tomtens come from Undraland, not here. There are two worlds: here and Undraland. We call this the Other Side. I’m taking you to Undra right now, in fact.”

“Do they have Chinese food in Undraland?” I asked after a long pause.

“No. Mostly farms. Nothing like your world. Get ready for a culture shock.”

“Do they have mocha milkshakes?”

“No. Think Amish, Loos.”

“Do they have burgers and fries?”

“Not how you like them. Ours have real beef.”

I glanced wistfully out the window at the billboard advertising a taco so gorgeous, I wanted to move in and make myself a blanket out of the refried beans. “Can they take a hint in Undraland? I’m starving.”

He chuckled. “Sure. Give me a couple exits to put more distance between us and our Were tail, and we can stop somewhere and grab a bite real quick. I gotta refuel anyway. Now where was I? Oh, right. Undraland. I’m from Undraland, which is made up of different countries. Some of us get along, some not so much. All the races have different abilities and limitations, but Tomtens are best known for guarding and farming. Tonttu, the tribe I’m from, is mostly farmers. Not many guards left, actually.”

“How’d I get so lucky?” I teased.

“You’ll have to ask Alrik when you see him. He can explain the rest better than I can.”

I really hated that there was this whole other world my uncle knew about, but I didn’t. I cleared my throat and tried to keep everything light so Jens wouldn’t turn and see my gaping emotional wound. “How can that be possible? You’ve told me so much. I feel like I’m eating Chinese food in Undraland as we speak.”

“You’re doing shtick,” he observed. “I freaked you out. Did I say too much?”

I kept my expression cool and did my usual conversational dance to avoid talking about things that made me anxious. “You know, every time I meet a guy who kills bears, steals cars and burns down homes, I wonder if it’s the garden gnome figurines sneaking out at night to do nefarious deeds. You just confirmed it all. The world makes sense again.”

“Double shtick? Now I know you’re upset. Just wait. Alrik can explain everything better. I suck at this. I shouldn’t have answered your question.”

“I didn’t actually ask my question yet, you know. That was all free information.”

Jens frowned, flipping over the conversation in his mind to try and find the spark that started his information spill. “Whatever. I knew what you were going to ask. And I changed my mind. I decided I do want your left shoe.”

“Not a chance. I was going to ask if you happened to know of any elves up at the North Pole, or any reindeer who needed a job pulling cars.” I pointed to the dash. “You’re almost out of gas, Saint Nick.”

“Whatever. I earned your left shoe. That blue one would look fetching on me. Don’t you think?”

“Ravishing,” I agreed. “I guess I get that dollar. You didn’t answer my one question.”

He took his eyes off the road to look at me, sizing up my level of commitment to our strange conversation. “I do know an elf. A great many of them, actually. That’s one of the countries in Undraland. Elvage is on the other side of the mountain from Tomten, but our countries don’t get along all that great. Not many of us travel back and forth, but I’ve done the trek before.” He paused, steeling himself to say his next piece. “Your uncle lives in Elvage.”

I said nothing to the blast of information that made my boat of reality rock back and forth on tumultuous waves I wasn’t ready to trust just yet. Inside, I was a jumble of questions and doubt. Oddly enough, my burgeoning distrust wasn’t directed toward Jens, but rather my uncle, whom I couldn’t believe kept such a big secret from me. “Uncle Rick’s an elf? And you’re a garden gnome.” I shifted in my seat, my discomfort only increasing.

“Actually, I’m a
guardian
gnome, but I’m from a tribe that’s mostly garden gnomes. All gnomes, just different professions.”

I began tapping a rhythm on the door. “So when a bear attacks me in the middle of suburbia, I should be glad you’re the guardian kind, and that you won’t try to stop him by growing him a tomato plant and making him a salad?”

“Exactly.” Jens pulled over to a rest stop, looking every bit as exhausted as I felt. The early morning sun was making me a mixture of tired and jittery.

When I came out of the restroom, Jens handed me a leathery beef stick from the vending machine. I looked at it, wondering when the last meal he’d eaten with a woman was. I gave him back the non-food. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”
I’d rather eat those disgusting orange circus peanuts than chomp on leather dipped in bouillon,
but I decided to keep that to myself. 

“There’s other stuff in the half-empty vending machine, but you wouldn’t like any of it. Potato chips and candy bars mostly with fake peanut butter in them.”

I pursed my lips together to keep from letting my anxiety surface that he knew my quirks so well. I nodded, trying to appear pleasant and not like I was having a mini freak-out.

He led the way back to the car and leaned on the hood. “So, that bowling alley’s where we were supposed to meet Alrik.”

I tried to keep my voice even and my questions to a minimum. “He’s… he’s okay, right? You said no one died in the fire.”

Jens waved his hand to quiet my fears. “It was one of Tucker’s fires, so Alrik’s fine. Tucker’s the best. I’d be able to sense if it Alrik was dead.”

“Well that’s nice and cryptic.” I tugged at the hem of my shirt, fighting off my sleepiness with movement.

“The plan’s to get you to Alrik, and he’s crossed over to Undraland, so I’m taking you home.” When my chin lifted hopefully, he shook his head. “Home to my people, not yours. Think you can manage another few hours?”

“Sure.” I needed something normal. Something mindless to reset my spinning brain.

What’s the name of the lead singer from the Polyphonic Spree?
I knew if I didn’t look it up it was really going to bother me. I pulled out my phone and did a search for the band to waste time while Jens chewed his hunk of boot leather that was posing as food.

Jens snatched the device out of my hands, earning a frown. “Nope. No contacting anyone from beyond the grave.”

“I wasn’t. I was just looking something up.”

Jens turned it off and stuck it in his back pocket. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. I was looking up the lead singer’s name from the Polyphonic Spree. It’s bugging me.” I scratched my forehead. “That’s the thing about humans who aren’t garden gnomes. We like information when we want it. Gimmee my phone.”

“Oh, sure. That guy? His name is…” Then Jens smiled in that superior way I was growing to hate. “I’ll let you guess for a while. It’ll keep you occupied till we get home. And I’m not a garden gnome.
Guardian
gnome. Big difference.” He pulled out his own phone and punched the screen a few times, bringing up the band’s homepage. He flashed it to me, showing me the lead singer’s face, but not his name. His grin turned wicked, like a schoolboy who desperately needed slapping.

All my things now fit into a backpack, and he was stealing from my meager possessions. “Give it back. I’m serious.”

“Oh, you’re serious? That changes everything.” His levity shifted to authority. “No. Now get in the car.” When nothing brilliant came to mind to spew at him, he arched his thick eyebrow at me. “What? You don’t have any quippy comebacks? Nothing about where I can take a flying leap?”

I answered by getting in and slamming the door. I wanted to thrash him, but that would involve me speaking, and I decided I was against that. Truce over.

Being silent for long periods of time was a gift of mine. Most may not see it like that, but it actually takes a strong will to cultivate said talent. There was one year Dad moved us in the middle of the night to a motel three states away. Linus had been a month into his first relationship ever, and I actually kind of liked her. Melissa wore an old pink sweater every day and had braces to match. Sweet girl who went out of her way to be nice to me. Made ninth grade not too shabby for that small span of time.

Linus and I knew better than to question our parents on the constant moves. We never got straight answers from them anyway. But this move went too far. Linus decided to dig his heels in and protest. His fight wasn’t loud or emotional; it was cold and silent. When the verdict didn’t change even after he’d made his opinion known to Mom and Dad, Linus went on strike. He sat in that crappy motel facing the corner for a solid week. He didn’t speak, not even to me. I knew better than to try and make him. We were united in everything, so I took up his mantle and shut my mouth, too. We sat on the floor facing the wall, barely moving for seven days. Linus only ate or drank with me, shutting out the world in his quiet way. I learned a lot that week, listening to our parents slowly lose their minds as they tried everything to get us to talk, except for moving us back to Linus’s Melissa.

Sometimes you reach a point where you realize no one’s listening when you talk. Most people get louder. Ever since Linus’s lesson, I like to evaluate the situation and turn inward when I hit a wall like that. Then I know at least one person cares about my viewpoint – me. So that’s how Jens and I drove another three hours without speaking.

Six.

Stina

We ended up at the entrance to a rickety amusement park I’d never heard of, and were greeted by a clown trashcan that had been tipped over onto its side, cigarette butts spilling out of its painted smile. The faded and splintered arch over the gate was missing all the vowels in the word “carnival”, making the sign kinda pointless. When I glanced beyond the gate to the tall rides, I noticed none of them were moving, and several were missing cars or whole bits of track.

I had no idea which state we were in. Details mattered, but so little of everything Jens had done made any sense to me, I guessed that even if I knew every detail, I’d still be in the dark.

He parked the car and got out, stretching from head to toe and then shaking like a dog kept in a cage too long. I made no effort to join him, though I was terribly stiff. Jens opened my door and popped the trunk, taking out a red backpack. He jerked his head toward the lackluster park. “Out you go. You’ll be safe with my people while we figure things out.”

I obeyed, but only because I didn’t want him to carry me again. I’m sure Tonya would’ve been thrilled to be tossed around by the older, rugged-looking man. I frowned, my melancholy stamping itself on my shoulders and weighting them. Memories like those would have to do, being that I would never see her again. Only solid girlfriend I’d ever had, and just like that she was gone from my life. I tucked that despair away and kept my expression neutral as I followed Jens to the entrance.

I heard organ music piped in from the center of the park, but it had that terrifying serial killer clown feel to it – too slow and clunky to be classified as cheery. Despite my dislike of Jens, I didn’t stray too far from him. I’d never been terribly fond of clowns ever since Linus downloaded every clown slasher movie in existence and made me watch them all in a single weekend. That was his retaliation for me making him watch all the seasons of my favorite girly show, which he declared was far more scarring than his horror movies.

We didn’t go to the open ticket booth, but to a closed one. He banged on the plexiglass, waving a gold badge from his pocket. An elderly lady looked up from her knitting and greeted him. She wore an orange cardigan and had thick creamsicle bifocal frames to match. Her sweater reminded me of the one my Uncle Rick wore like a uniform with his Dockers. If you’ve never seen a tall black man in an orange cardigan, you’re missing out. Somehow he rocked it. “Good to see you, Jens. It’s been positively boring without you around to entertain me.”

“Now, now. You can’t have me all to yourself, Mattie. But I came back for you, so the world’s right again.”

“So it is.” She uploaded his badge information with a digital scanner and read the pertinent information to him through her thick lenses. Her eyes and lips were framed in accordion wrinkles as she read aloud. “The Kincaid girl’s place was terminated. No casualties. An imprint of her dental work was left where the authorities could find them in the rubble. She’s been identified and declared dead. Well done, peach pie, as usual.”

Jens nodded, ignoring the fact that my heart plummeted in my chest and my nerves were showing themselves in the form of cold sweat beading on my forehead. It was hot out, but I was chilled through to the bone. I would never see Tonya again. My life had been yanked out from under me.

“Peach pie. Are you flirting with me, Mattie?” Jens pocketed his badge and leaned on the sill.

“Oh, I’m always flirting with you, and you love it.” The woman whose blue faded nametag read “Matilda” slid open the window and reached forward at the same time he leaned in. She pinched his dimpled cheek, and then slapped it lightly.

“Is Alrik still here? I couldn’t find him.”

“Alrik came back early. Said he ran into some trouble with Weres entering civilization too close to humans, not that anyone except for you and me would believe him. Three of them were tracking him, so he had to get Tucker to burn his favorite place down. Then he came back to Undra just to throw off the scent.” She shook her head. “Such a shame. He loved stocking the shoes at that bowling alley. Alrik crossed over earlier this morning.”

Jens rolled his eyes. “Must be nice to port places. Just pop from state to state whenever you like. Elves are such cheaters.” He jerked his thumb in my direction. “I’m taking my charge to see him.”

Matilda handed him a clipboard with her thick, wrinkled fingers. “Sign her in, dear.” She looked me up and down appreciatively. “Thanks for bringing this one in without making a scene. Did you get a Huldra to spell her to make her so calm?” She gave a visible shiver to indicate she did not care for Huldras.

Something in the recesses of my brain pinged when I heard the term, but I couldn’t place why it sounded familiar.

Jens glanced back at me and frowned. “Nah. Just used my awesome people skills.”

Matilda made a huff of disbelief and took back the clipboard, her chubby fingers winding the pen’s chain back around the clip. “Boy, you’re lucky you’ve got the face of every mother’s nightmare.”

He grinned in a churlish way that made me want to puke on his black boots just to take him down a notch. I pretended to accidentally brush against him as I reached past to check he spelled my name right. I smiled through my irritation, loving how easy he was to pickpocket. I’d picked many a pocket in my day – not to steal cash, but usually as part of one of Linus’s harebrained schemes that
never
(always) got us into trouble.

“Go ahead on in, kids. Give Alrik a hug from me and remind him he owes me $3.25 from our bridge game last week.”

“I can pay off his high-stakes gambling debts.” Jens’s thumb touched the edge of his empty pocket. My victory was ill timed and therefore, short-lived.

Matilda smiled, her cherubic cheeks moving her glasses up on her face. “Oh, you’re a sweet boy, Jens. I don’t care what King Johannes says about you.”

His thick eyebrows pushed together as he patted both his back pockets. “Left my wallet in the car. I’ll be…”

He stopped talking when a red sports car pulled in at a speed not considerate of pedestrians. It parked at the entrance, which was not actually a parking spot. A black-haired beauty in her thirties stepped out, revealing…well, just revealing. She wore a purple dress that was kind of a dress and kind of a butt-length form-fitting shirt. Her black heeled boots up to her knees and red lips to match her car made me feel like a kid still in pigtails.

My toes clung to my mismatched sky blue and black Chucks as I leaned against the ticket booth, waiting for Jens to put his tongue back in his head.

“Jens!” Matilda’s voice turned sharp in that way elderly women have of shaming you by simply saying your name. “Everything on this side of the gate is property of Undraland. Huldras aren’t allowed past it. Not a toe. I don’t care how short her skirt is.”

“I know the rules, and so does she,” Jens assured her. “We’re not together, Mattie. She just helps me out on jobs sometimes.” He pointed an adult finger in my face, and I despised him for it. “Don’t move from this spot. I’ll be right back.” He called to the woman, “Stina, what do you want?”

Short Skirt Stina’s eyes glossed over me like I was a sea urchin, or you know, something that doesn’t belong in a picture with Jens.

Matilda slammed the sliding window shut, a clear look of fear on her face. “Huldra,” she mouthed, shuddering, staring with dread at Stina.

Then I remembered. When Mom and Dad went out on their rare date nights, Uncle Rick would stay with Linus and me. We straight up begged like gypsies when it came to avoiding bedtime. We put on puppet shows with our socks for Uncle Rick, sang songs, and pled for story after story.

Uncle Rick was a great storyteller. He made up all sorts of goofy tales, one of which was about a people called the Huldras.

I studied Stina, suspending my disbelief for the moment that the world was in fact, a more bizarre place than I realized, and that Huldras were real.

Huldras were women who had magic in their whistle that could be used to control people. They could enchant people to do their bidding for hours, which would explain Matilda’s self-inflicted booth isolation. I began to feel very exposed.

Jens needed no mind-controlling whistle to scamper toward Stina. Their conversation was too far off to eavesdrop on. I turned and leafed through his wallet, bummed at the lack of useful information he’d stashed inside. I expected some top-secret intel or direct orders or something.

Instead I found a few receipts for nothing damning, a black card I tried not to be impressed by, and a few pieces of paper I began thumbing through to gain more information on Jens to be used for nefarious purposes later.

One folded piece of paper had a list of cities, all with a line drawn through them except for my latest address. My intake of breath was not noticeable, but my upset probably was. There, in perfect geographic order were the past five years of my life. It was the list of cities my family had moved to on our run from Weres or whatever it was my parents were always hiding us from.

The next piece of paper was a note to someone from Linus. My heart banged in my chest like an alarm as I read it. 

You ate the last bagel, you jag. The ransom’s set at 2 dozen donuts if you ever want to see your precious knife again. You have until I get home from school.

I couldn’t stop asking the note over and over and over whom it had been written to. Linus didn’t know about Jens and Weres and all that. He’s my twin brother. I would’ve felt it if he had. Maybe someone from his soccer team? “Jag” didn’t exactly narrow anything down. Which of his jock friends carried around a knife? And why did Jens have a piece of my brother in his wallet?

I tugged at the thin braided rope around my neck, twisting through the material the heart-shaped vial that hid under my shirt. It was Linus, literally. He’d been cremated, and I got a vial of his ashes. The cop who’d found my parents in the car wreck gave me some crap reason why I couldn’t see or have my parents’ bodies, so I didn’t have a piece of them to take with me.

It was just Linus and me.

I kifed the note from Jens’s wallet and shoved it in my back pocket. My brother. My note.

I was too upset to go through the rest of the wallet’s contents. I dropped it next to me for Jens to find when Stina was done flirting with him, if a timeframe existed for that. She was trilling her red fingernail down his arm. She was over six feet tall, which was a nice match for him, height-wise.

Jens shook off her advance, but she paid his subtle signals no mind. She reached out for his hand, tracing a design into his palm as she spoke.

Boys are so dense.

She followed him to his car while he fished around for the wallet he would never find, chatting all the while as she checked out his butt none too subtly. That, I couldn’t blame the girl for.

When he went to search the trunk, I took pity on him. “Jens, your wallet,” I called, making a show of picking it up so he could see how clumsy he was in dropping it in the dust.

He rolled his eyes at himself and trotted toward me, ignoring Short Skirt Stina as she prattled on about something very important to her that Jens couldn’t have cared less about.

“I’m talking to you, Jens!” she shouted.

Jens stopped and turned, an eyebrow raised almost comically. “I’m working, Stina. Why don’t you just keep dialing up the crazy? Nothing sexier than that.”

“A blonde? Really?” she directed toward me. “You’re such a cliché! I can’t believe you’d take her to your house when we were together not a month ago!” She said it to me like she was announcing some scandal, as if he’d been cheating on me with her last month. I didn’t really have a convincing gasp in me, so I leaned against the ticket booth while I waited for their very mature fight to finish up.

“Ignore her,” he called to me.

She shouted to me in a high-pitched screech of desperation, finger jabbing like a threat. “If you think he’s only sleeping with you, you’re dead wrong, honey!”

Jens met my wary gaze with one that was mildly embarrassed, then he turned to bark at the long legged beauty. “Leave her alone, Stina.”

I thought Stina would give him a verbal jab to parry, but instead she pursed her lips and sucked in a lungful of air.

Jens gasped in surprise and lunged at her, his fist cocked. So quick, I barely saw all of it, Jens socked Stina in the nose with force meant to combat a large man. Her head snapped back, and she stumbled. Jens caught her, anticipating she would fall backward, and lowered her to the ground gently, as if he’d not been the one who’d just leveled her with a single blow.

I screamed with my hands over my mouth, shocked that the puppy prone to misbehaving was capable of biting. The gravity of the situation hit me afresh; I knew nothing about Jens.

Jens glanced over at me, chagrinned that he’d been a horrible person in my presence. He shrugged as if to say, “What else was I supposed to do?”

I ran to the woman, shocked and appalled that I’d let a smidgen of my guard down around him. I passed through the gate and helped her up. “Are you okay? Jens!” I thrust open the car door and fished around for some napkins, pressing them to her nose and pinching the bridge so the red globules would clot.