Defy the Dark

Saundra Mitchell Now Bid Time Return

Dacey Shen had never won anything before. In fact, she hadn’t even told her parents she’d entered the contest until the sponsors called to congratulate her.

“It would have been nice,” her mother said as if they hadn’t already had this conversation several times, “to know about this ahead of time. Daddy and I could have gotten time off work. We could have gone with you.”

Clasping her hands, Dacey stood by and watched her mother rummage through her luggage. Again. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“We’re going to miss you.” Producing an industrial pack of crackers and cheese, her mom shoved it beneath the paperbacks. Just in case the plane crashed in Outer Mysteria, south of Nowherelandia—Dacey wouldn’t have to eat the other passengers. She had mom rations.

Dacey watched, counting off the minutes until their cab arrived. “I’ll miss you, too. But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And it’s going to look so good on my college apps.”

“Extracurriculars are important,” Mom agreed.

One week in Norway, to explore and discover and probably pose for a lot of brochure pictures. A student exchange program had sponsored the contest, and all it took to enter was an essay. Dacey had written hers in one afternoon.

If I could go anywhere in Europe, I’d choose Tromsø, Norway, so I could photograph the northern lights.

Like most essays written in one afternoon, it was fiction. She didn’t know anything about photography. The aurora was pretty, but she’d never thought about it much. It was Tromsø that interested her or, more specifically, polar night.

Everybody had heard of white nights, when the sun never goes down. It was kind of a kick to find out there were polar nights, when the sun never came up. Weeks of dark, with just a little twilight at noon to stir things up.

So she wrote the essay, sent it off, and forgot about it. Then she won, which meant dealing with her parents—they were cool with out-of-state camping trips, but across-the-ocean field trips? Not so much. But there were chaperones! Other juniors and seniors! A trip of a lifetime!

Finally, they gave in.

Well. Daddy gave in. Her mom was going to drag out the pain as much as possible.

Dacey shut up and endured the taxi ride to the airport, while her mother leaked anxiety everywhere: If you get arrested, don’t let them call the Chinese embassy! Make sure they call the American embassy! Then there was the long walk to security: Don’t make any jokes about bombs. It was good Mom couldn’t go past the ropes, because Dacey had already heard the TSA lament: Bare feet! Who knows what kind of diseases are on those floors?

There were kisses and tears and finally Dacey was off. Alone. To Norway. For a second, uncertainty engulfed her. Maybe it was too much to do on her own. Maybe she should just stay home? Heart thrumming, Dacey looked back one more time. Her mother waved in the distance, then put both thumbs up.

Okay, maybe she could do this.

After boarding, Dacey settled into her seat and nursed a flicker of hope. She was in 2A, and in 2B a grandma with silvery hair and a kind smile. Grandmas loved to talk. Plus, bonus, they usually couldn’t sleep, either. Which meant Dacey would have company on the long flight.

“Have you been to Norway before?” Dacey asked.

The woman smiled apologetically and answered in another language. No idea what it was, although Norwegian was a pretty good guess.

So much for a chatty granny, Dacey thought. Tightening her seat belt, she sighed. Eight hours wide-awake and trapped in her own head, while the other passengers slumbered around her. Whee.

The thing was, Dacey thought she should have gotten used to it—she barely slept anymore. It wasn’t senioritis or SAT anxiety, it was insomnia. Hideous little pockets of it, leaving her marooned at three a.m. Sometimes she played on the computer; sometimes she went for walks.

Sometimes sleep came in a dozing chain, or restless dreams that were worse than being awake in the first place. She’d dreamed about lying awake in bed, studying the cracks on her ceiling. They stretched for the walls, and it wasn’t until they touched the floor that Dacey realized they weren’t real. And then, oh so cleverly, she woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.

Insomnia sucked.

She was sick of sleeping pills and warm milk, late-night television and endless exercise, caffeine, no caffeine, bizarre herbal supplements and well-meaning advice from people who thought insomnia meant it took twenty minutes to fall asleep instead of twenty seconds. She was tired of worrying her parents, who took her to the doctor over and over.

That’s why she’d entered a contest to go anywhere in the world. That’s why she’d chosen Tromsø in January. Polar night, long days of nothing but dark, just a hint of twilight spread across the midafternoon. Dacey had a new Nikon in her luggage and a photo-essay outline on her Mac.

One week of polar night—one week photographing the aurora borealis—she called the project Winterglow, but that would probably change. Maybe to something like I Don’t Know Much about Photography or I Just Thought I Might Get Some Sleep if the Sun Never Came Up.

It was a work in progress.

The camera was busted.

Dacey glared at it, her only Christmas present just for this trip, all six hundred dollars’ worth of it.

New images popped up on her computer screen. Unearthly greens and blues filled each shot, sinuous curves stretching the heavens. The software chugged away, piecing multiple pictures into one panorama—and it was almost breathtaking. Almost.

In the middle of each picture was a spot. A smudge. A pale something that repeated all the way across the panorama. She couldn’t cut it out—she didn’t know how to Photoshop it out. Her first set of pictures was ruined.

Dacey opened one and zoomed until the smudge filled the entire screen. Tension burning between her shoulder blades, she leaned in to stare. A pale smear with dark streaks in it marred the shot. It was delicate, like a wisp of fog or an errant puff of cottonwood.

It looks like a face, her brain chirped.

“Shut up,” she replied.

It seriously does, her brain replied. A younger, cuter version of Thor.

Sliding from her chair, Dacey closed the laptop and started for the bedroom. It was lack of sleep talking—when she was really low on Zs, she saw minotaurs on subways and phantoms during physics class. She felt rooms shaking when they totally weren’t. And now, apparently, she saw handsome faces in the aurora borealis, in the middle of polar night.

Best to ignore it all; none of it was real. Maybe sleep deprivation made her crazy, but she didn’t have to actively participate. She stripped off her jeans and collapsed into the turned-down bed.

Around her, the cottage cooled with a low, blue glow. Moonlight on the snow outside seemed to make the world quieter. There was a serenity to the long run of hills; they turned to stone mountains on the horizon. Dark water spread into the distance, still as glass. The world was a lullaby.

Sleep didn’t come. Instead, her mind hopped on a hamster wheel. Tromsø wasn’t what she’d expected at all. She’d thought there would be a hostel, tons of people everywhere. Instead, she had her own cottage, one of several tucked into the countryside.

The exchange counselor had given her a huge binder full of touristy things to do, and then left her alone to do them. Which was actually kind of nice, and something she would never, ever tell her mother.

Then she wondered what was wrong with the camera—if she could fix it here, or if her dad would have to return it. She couldn’t go back to New York with nothing. It had a warranty, right? Of course it did—it was brand-new.

New camera, broken camera, face, not a face, what’s that noise outside, maybe nothing, maybe wolves, until it finally settled into a soothing pattern of white noise.

Not once did she wonder who had turned down the bed.

Morning never came. When Dacey finally rolled out of bed, a dusky imitation of dawn greeted her—the sky still dark, sunrise colors at the horizon. Her travel clock insisted it was 9:00, but was that a.m. or p.m.?

Hunger ended the contemplation. Dacey stumbled to her feet and trudged toward the kitchen. Then she groaned when she realized the cupboard and the fridge were empty. Briefly, she glanced at the giant block of orange cheese crackers.

“Sorry,” she told them. “I’m not that desperate yet.”

A brisk hike and a ferry ride later, Dacey strode through the streets of Tromsø proper. Though the streets were narrow and the lights were on, it didn’t feel like a village. It was very much a city on the edge of night, full of people, full of life. Everything glittered in purple and gold: the water, the buildings, even the mountains in the distance.

She followed the buzz into the heart of town and eventually found herself in a café that promised omelets and reindeer.

When her waiter greeted her in Norwegian, she managed to reply, then consulted her phrase book. “Snakker de Engelsk?”

“American?”

“Yes.” She folded the menu and smiled up at him.

Ruddy cheeked and animated, the waiter could have been twenty or fifty—it was hard to say. His hair was so pale, it could have been gold or silver, but his smile seemed friendly. He leaned against the table comfortably. “Visiting family?”

“On vacation. Sort of.” It sounded so weird to say that; to realize she was on vacation all by herself. Apparently, that thought showed in her expression, because the waiter laughed.

“Sort of?”

“I’m doing a photo-essay on the northern lights,” she answered. “For my school newspaper.”

“They are beautiful.” He hummed his approval, then leaned over to help her with the menu. After selecting a salmon-egg omelet and convincing her to try the lefse bread with currant jam, he stood and offered, “For the best view, you should try to get away from town. Just a hop on the ferry . . .”

Pleased for no real reason, Dacey gestured vaguely behind her. “Oh! I have that view. I’m in a little cottage across the bay. The harbor. The bay?”

“Harbor,” he said.

“It’s perfect; it’s right on a hill. There are these huge windows. . . .”

Awareness lit his face. “Kristian’s cottage.”

“I didn’t know it had a name.”

The waiter tapped the edge of the table with his order book. “Let me get this started. I’ll be back.”

He disappeared for a moment, and Dacey reconsidered the whole conversation. He seemed nice enough, but she could just hear her mother now: What were you doing, telling a stranger you’re alone? And where to find you! That man could have been an ax murderer!

Considering the number of people her mother thought were ax murderers and the number who actually were, Dacey relaxed. Besides, the guy was obviously on the clock. When would he have time to hack her to death, between courses?

When the waiter returned, he brought her a cup of black coffee and a tray of sugar and milk to sweeten it.

“Right, so,” he said, leaning on the edge of the table. “It’s an old cottage. Very romantic.”

Dacey colored slightly. Was he hitting on her? “I’m just here to take pictures.”

“No, no. Not for us. My Terje would have my head; you would be so disappointed. I mean, a romantic story.” He laughed, a soothing sound that let Dacey settle again. Still leaning at the edge of the table, the waiter glanced up, like he was trying to remember something important.

Finally, he spoke again. “A hundred years ago, almost exactly, I think. A boy named Kristian arrived from the south. Couldn’t have been much older than you. And he went to work, building a cottage for his sweetheart. He said she only came in the dark. He lived his whole life for the polar nights.”

Leaning in, Dacey asked, “Regular night wasn’t good enough for her?”

“He claimed she didn’t belong to this world.”

Starting to smile, Dacey shook her head. “Seriously?”

“The sunlight drove her away,” the waiter said. He brushed his fingers together, holding back a laugh. “So she came when the nights were the longest. Maybe she was a vampire.”

Dacey picked up her coffee. “Let the Right One In, right?”

“Pfft. That’s Sweden.” He spread his hands as he stood upright. “Do you want proof? He’s buried on the hill behind the house. In the pine trees.”

Wow, that wasn’t creepy at all. Dacey tried to picture the land around the cottage. There were lots of trees and lots of snow. She definitely didn’t remember a graveyard. A little uneasy, Dacey pointed out, “All that proves is that he existed.”

“True.” The waiter grinned, teasing. “But maybe his vampire is still out there, waiting. Polar nights, you know. Perfect for lurking in the dark.”

“Now you’re just trying to scare me.”

Laughing, the waiter said, “If I were trying to scare you, I’d tell you that the cottage is haunted.”

With a relieved smile, Dacey waved him off. He was so full of it. She didn’t believe in ghosts, vampires, or quirky regional myths. The closest she got to encounters with the supernatural were the hallucinations when her insomnia got superbad.

But people loved legends, and there had to be more. If she couldn’t get the camera to work, her editor would be just as happy with a local folklore and mysteries story.

She did a little dance in her seat and then dug into breakfast, recharged.

Striding through the cottage, Dacey held her phone in front of her as she talked. She’d gone through the camera manual page by page, spent a very tedious hour wiping all the lenses down in exactly the right way, and then shot another hundred pictures of the gold-edged dusk. Every single one of them was smudged.

“No, that’s what I’m telling you,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where I go, the pictures are messed up. Right, I tried different locations. Yes.”

She stopped to peer at one of the window frames. She hadn’t realized it before, but someone—perhaps the legendary Kristian—had carved roses into the wood. They bore faint traces of paint, red and gold and blue.

Trailing her fingers over them, Dacey warmed at the detail. She could imagine masculine hands carving into the wood. Almost see them, paint smeared and rough, filling in the little details with so much care . . .

The tech on the phone interrupted the thought. “And you’re using it outside?”

“Um, yeah. My dad bought it because it was recommended for outdoor stuff.”

Dacey turned to grab the manual and stopped abruptly. It wasn’t just that window—the room was full of rosemaling. Delicate curves and swirls framed all the doors and windows. The mantle matched, and so did the cupboard panels.

Suddenly, the cabin shifted. The distressed, faint streaks of paint turned vibrant. Gold poured into darkened outlines, glimmering in the light. The room swelled with color; thousands of hand-painted roses bloomed. Everything else faded—the furniture, even the light outside. A masculine scent hung in the air, musky and clean.

A cool touch raised the hair on Dacey’s arms, and she distantly heard herself telling tech support that she didn’t know how cold it was outside, just that it was.

“Are you wearing a scarf?” the tech asked.

The question broke the spell. Colors drained away, faded again. Aged again, her delirious brain insisted.

Rubbing a cold hand against her face, Dacey shook herself, catching up to the conversation she was trying to have. “I . . . no, what difference does it make?”

Gently, and surprisingly without condescension, the tech replied, “It’s probably your breath. The flash reflects off the frost when you breathe. That’s why you see it in all your photos.”

A blush crawled up the back of her neck, heat to drive away the lingering chill that had touched her skin. “I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s a common problem,” the tech said. “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“No, that’s all, thank you,” she said, and hung up without waiting for a reply. She kept waiting for the colors to come back, or the cold. Prickles raced on her skin again when she realized that the scent of musk still hung in the air.

Patting her face sharply, Dacey started for the bedroom. The insomnia was getting to her, obviously. She didn’t like to take sleeping pills because they didn’t work very well. Sure, they left her dreamlessly unconscious for a few hours. Afterward, she’d wake with a hangover, aching and tired. But sometimes it reset her brain enough that the hallucinations faded. Better exhausted and gorked out than exhausted and loony tunes.

She dug out a prescription bottle and swallowed a half tablet without water. Sprawling across the neatly made bed, she waited for sleep to claim her. Her fingers ran restlessly over the patches that made up the top of the quilt.

And then cold came over her again, when it was too late to do anything about it.

She hadn’t made the bed! She hadn’t turned it down the night before. Someone’s been in here, she thought. That’s why I smelled cologne. Someone’s been in here!

Panic swallowed her. Trying to claw back up from sleep, Dacey managed to pick up the card with the exchange counselor’s phone number. But it fluttered to the floor when her woozy fingers refused to keep hold. She slumped onto the pillow and slept.

When she opened her eyes, Dacey felt like she was made of lead. She blinked, and confusion set in.

The world had an upside-down kind of dream logic, little stars and sparks drifting around her. The flowers on the headboard opened bright petals, and when Dacey sat up, she realized she wasn’t alone.

A boy stood at the windows, cradling a cup in his hands. He was finely built, lean and tight, his shoulders tapering to a perfect triangle at the narrow straits of his waist. His close-cropped hair was so pale that it reflected the palette of blues outside.

Dacey tried to throw herself out of bed, but the molasses weight of dreaming held her down. So instead, she demanded, “What are you doing in here?”

Hesitating, he formed his lips, then stopped. After gathering his thoughts, he said in accent-tinged English, “This is my cottage. I’m supposed to be here.”

Moonlight outlined his profile, glowing at the tuft of his brows and through the fine, silvery curve of his eyelashes. He had a strong nose, and a full mouth, and the slightest hint of transparency to him. Through the pale lavender part of his lips, Dacey could see the fence outside; the mountainous horizon traced a shadow on his cheek.

Relieved, Dacey fell back in bed.

“A dream. Oh, God. Thank God.” She laughed, a bubbly, delirious sound that spilled out of her and didn’t stop when he came to sit beside her. Instead, she clapped a hand on his knee, which seemed substantial enough. “You’re a salmon-egg omelet and half an Ambien.”

“What? You’re talking out of your head,” he said. He held out the bowl-shaped cup in his hands. “Tea?”

The clean scent of well-steeped tea flooded Dacey’s senses. Struggling against the strange weight of dreams, she finally managed to sit up. She swayed into him, her cheek skimming his shoulder, her hand accidentally slipping down his chest.

His leanness was all muscle, tight and sculpted beneath the rough fabric of his clothes. Warmth radiated from him; it slipped into her and slowly spread. Tipping her face up, she smiled and asked, “Are you a dirty dream? I don’t usually have those about white boys.”

He pressed the cup into her hands. “You’re the one; I’ve been waiting for you.”

Swirling a finger in the air, Dacey spoke between swallows of tea. “Kristian, right?”

“Yes—” he started.

Leaving the cup on the bedside table, Dacey sat up quickly. With a lunge, she grabbed two handfuls of his shirt and pulled him back with her. The bed rocked slightly; the headboard whispered against the wall. Kristian felt remarkably real, deliciously real.

But despite his seeming solidness, and all his perfect details, she saw the roof timbers through him. Plainly, faintly—but most definitely there.

He blinked at her, a mixture of surprise and wonder playing across his face. “I must be imagining you.”

“Fair enough—I’m dreaming you,” Dacey replied.

And she kissed him, so crazy bold she couldn’t even believe herself. Until now, all of her kisses had been a little bit shy, a lot awkward, with real-life noses bumping and real-life teeth cracking together. But this wasn’t real life, was it? It was an eerily lucid dream.

Considering all the bizarre tricks her mind played on her, Dacey figured she had a right to enjoy this one. Why not let a myth she heard over breakfast come true?

His mouth skimmed hers. He captured her and chased her, all with a part of his lips. The stars and lights in the room surged, as if controlled by the rush of her breath. Kristian was gentle, but his hands were rough-hard from work—building a cottage, carving it full of roses. His fingers tangled in her hair; his thumb smeared the full curve of her lip.

Everything had a strange, giddy glow to it, and his kisses left a trace of honey on her tongue. Before she could steal one more kiss, he disappeared. It wasn’t subtle at all. One moment, he wasn’t there.

He’s buried on the hill behind the house, the waiter’s voice repeated. In the pine trees. Nothing but night air pressed against her. Breath shallow, she fell back on her pillow, staring at the ceiling.

“Kristian?” she called.

Of course, no one answered. Leave it to her stupid brain to come up with the perfect dream and the perfect way to destroy it. Nothing like a little bit of morbid reality to ruin the mood. Wrapping her arms around herself, Dacey sighed and sank into the pillows.

A cold trickle seeped through her hair. Jerking up, she slid back and stared. Kristian’s cup had tipped onto the pillow, tea coursing through wrinkled bedding to get to her. It took just one thought—I never could have imagined a detail like that—to break the spell.

Actually, the dream.

“I’m awake,” Dacey said. And she threw herself out of bed.

Wrapped tight in her hoodie, Dacey followed Herr Velten, the exchange counselor, through the cottage.

“Someone turned down the bed last night, then made it this morning. And they left . . .” She gestured at the cup, still overturned on the pillow. “That. I’ve smelled cologne!”

Herr Velten frowned, tugging his own ear as he considered the bedroom. “I have a key and you have the guest key. No one else should be in here.”

“That’s what I thought!” Dacey threw up a hand. “I didn’t want to call the police but, you know, I don’t feel very safe now.”

“It’s just so strange.”

You’re telling me, Dacey thought. You didn’t try to kick it with a ghost.

But she kept the sarcasm to herself, especially when she glanced at the clock and realized it was approaching midnight. A taste of guilt ate at her, and she said, “I know it’s late, and you probably want to get back to bed. Do you have another cottage available?”

Humming, Herr Velten knitted his snowy brows. He looked around, then hummed again, a thoughtful sound that lingered. Time seemed to slow as he considered this question, and Dacey found herself wanting to shake him.

Finally, he nodded. “Yes, but not until tomorrow night. There are boys in the other cottages.”

It was all Dacey could do to keep from blurting out that there was a boy in this one, too. Clasping her hands together, she shifted her weight from foot to foot. “There’s nowhere in town or . . . ?”

“I’ll lend you my dog,” he said.

Dacey stared at him. “Herr Velten, I don’t want to be pushy or anything, but I just told you I thought somebody was in the cottage.”

Gently, he put a hand on her shoulder and pointed to the floor-to-ceiling windows. No, to the nearly pristine snow outside. It gleamed in the dark, crystalline and clean. “Two sets of footprints. Mine. Yours. No one else could be here.”

No one with a body, Dacey thought uselessly. Since she wasn’t prepared to say that out loud, she went with “Oh.”

“Is this your first time away from home?” Herr Velten asked. “Maybe you’re a little nervous. A little jet-lagged.”

“Maybe,” she said.

With a smile, Herr Velten gestured for her to follow. “Take my dog. You’ll like Skadi. She’s very loyal. Very warm on the feet, too, if you enjoy that sort of thing. And she barks like mad when someone comes in the house. If there’s an intruder, she’ll scare him away.”

Dacey wavered. She’d never had a pet before; her dad was allergic. It would be kind of cool to borrow a dog . . . but it really didn’t fix the problem, and that was, this cottage was haunted. Or something. “There’s really nowhere in town?”

“It’s Nordlysfestivalen, and the film festival is starting, too. I doubt there’s a room to be had.”

Inwardly, Dacey groaned. She knew about the aurora celebration; actually, she knew about the film festival, too. She’d read about them in the binder. She was probably supposed to be enjoying them.

“Miss Shen?”

She looked around, her gaze falling on the camera. The only reason her parents had agreed to this was for the extracurricular value. Because she’d promised to create a photo-essay to add to her journalism portfolio. She had to go back with something—even if it was more travel legends.

Swallowing her nerves, Dacey nodded. “All right. I’ll take the dog.”

“And we’ll get you moved tomorrow night,” he agreed.

With a wave, he headed out the door—off to fetch a dog Dacey didn’t know what to do with. Worse, leaving her alone in a cabin that had gone cold from the open doors and the unsettling sense that it wasn’t entirely empty.

Outside, the northern lights began to shimmer. The otherworldly greens and blues were joined by streaks of pink, a stunning display. Threads of light hung in the dark, wavering as if strummed by an unseen hand. A faint crackling accompanied it tonight, as if the aurora sparked against the snowy horizon.

Awe pushed Dacey’s anxiety away. It was hard to be scared when there was magic in the sky. Pulling her coat on, she stopped to carefully wind a scarf over her nose and mouth. Then she grabbed her camera and headed into the night to try again.

Maybe she’d made up the photo-essay thing because it sounded good. But as Dacey stood beneath the swirling lights, she had to admit they moved her. The ethereal twist of light drew her in, threads of blue and green hanging against the deepest black she’d ever seen.

Rationally, she knew it was just solar winds playing with the atmosphere. Logically, she knew that the high-pitched crackle when it was particularly quiet was just electricity confusing the fibers inside her ears. She wasn’t really hearing a celestial event. She wasn’t really seeing a Greek goddess spill out across the night.

Dacey took a few more shots, walking across the yard. The snow squeaked beneath her feet. Herr Velten was right: two sets of footprints, hers and his. Maybe the static that made the northern lights whisper also generated hallucinations. Or the insomnia. Or the jet lag. Or the whole lot of them had joined forces to drive her just a little crazy in an endless night.

Turning slowly, she searched for the hill with the trees. And it was there, past the run of the fence. Cold air swept over her; her nose burned when she breathed. And she could feel the snow starting to work its way into her boots. She should have gone inside. Instead, she squared her shoulders and headed for the trees.

Some things had to be real. The iridescent gleam on the snow, that was real. The dark, spindling arms of the trees silhouetted against the sky, those were real, too. And they opened to a clearing, a rough stone standing in the center. It was dark, smooth at the base, but rough at the top.

It looked ancient, like Viking ancient. Like seriously olden times and Thor for really real ancient. A glint of silver caught her eye, and she moved closer. Smoothing a gloved hand down the surface, she wiped haze from a bit of glass. It was a locket—no, a picture frame set into the stone.

The boy from her dream-hallucination-whatever looked back in black and white.

The picture was damaged, water creeping around the edges. It ate the detail in the background and left just his shoulder and his face. But it was him, unmistakably. It wasn’t like Norwegians all looked alike. Her brain hadn’t summoned some stock Scandinavian to play the part of Overactive Imagination Boy.

Dacey sank to her knees, shivering at the cold that closed around her. She didn’t need a phrase book to understand a gravestone. Kristian Dahl, born 1895, died . . . never. There was no final date. He was young in the photo, maybe eighteen? Maybe twenty?

Kristian Dahl, it said. Born and never died. Dacey clasped a hand to her chest, pressure against the tightness there. She didn’t believe in ghosts or vampires, so what was left? The words had probably been cut deep and angular once. Years of elements had softened the stone and the shape of his name.

Someone had left the stone. The photo. Someone had remembered him.

A dog’s barking broke the quiet, and Dacey pushed herself up. Maybe she wasn’t the first girl to spend a night in Kristian’s cottage, alone but not really. If parapsychology wasn’t an option, maybe physics were.

She knew there was a third dimension, space. And a fourth dimension, which was time. And somehow, they got together and caused gravity. . . . If that could happen, could they bend the past toward the future? Or the future toward the past? Or was that completely crackheaded? Dacey sighed and wished she’d paid more attention in class.

Hurrying back to the cottage, Dacey barely noticed the green-blue glow that bathed her. The northern lights flickered on, shaping the permanent-impermanent sky above.

Bounding through the living room, Skadi—a Norwegian elkhound, according to Herr Velten—showed no sign of settling. She leapt and rolled, chasing a rubber ball with bells in it, and occasionally skidded past on the bare wood floors.

A streak of cream and black, she turned after every gambit, as if looking for Dacey’s approval. When she got it, she started over again, filling the cottage with a rumble of motion. Maybe Dad could start taking Zyrtec, she mused, because having a dog was awesome.

As Dacey hooked the camera up to her computer, she smiled when Skadi dropped the ball by her chair.

“You want it?” Dacey asked. She shook the ball to make it jingle. With a cheery yip, Skadi rose on her hind legs, bouncing in excitement.

Considering that the hound was knee high and all muscle, Dacey hesitated to throw the toy very hard. She could only imagine the look on Herr Velten’s face if she trashed his cabin playing with his dog. So she gave the ball a gentle toss, and Skadi lunged after it, curved tail wagging.

“Good girl,” Dacey said, turning to watch the upload bar on her computer grind toward 100 percent.

Skadi carried the ball back, holding it expectantly until Dacey threw it again. Back and forth they went, but when the pictures finished uploading and thumbnails filled the screen, both of them stopped. Dacey cursed under her breath and enlarged one of the images.

The streak was still there.

Paging through the next few pictures, Dacey’s heart sank. It didn’t make any sense. She’d cleaned the camera, she’d worn the scarf, she’d done everything she was supposed to do. Frustration washed over her in waves, tightening until it ached to sit there. Her head ached, too, and she wanted to cry. This trip was not going the way she planned and she was so tired.

When Skadi barked, it startled her. Dacey pushed her chair back and looked around as she buried a hand in Skadi’s warm fur. “Shh, what’s wrong, puppy?”

Skadi barked again and put her paws up on the table.

“It’s just a computer,” Dacey told her. She stroked the dog’s head, trying to soothe her, but Skadi barked again and again. The sound echoed in the cottage, ringing in Dacey’s ears.

Moving to close the laptop, Dacey jumped when Skadi pushed her head beneath her arm and barked again. With a frown, Dacey looked back at the screen. All her warmth drained away because Skadi wasn’t barking at the computer. She was barking at the pictures.

The streak was gone, replaced with the lean, long shape of a boy in suspenders. The boy. Kristian Dahl, born 1895, died never.

“Okay, that’s it!” Dacey clapped the laptop closed and threw herself at the couch. It was crazy. The whole trip was crazy. She hadn’t slept enough to drive away the hallucinations. She must have seen Kristian’s picture somewhere before. Online. In a catalog. Somewhere.

Or! Or the camera was bad. Kristian’s face in the pictures was just pattern recognition. Brains liked to make pictures out of clouds and stars and haze on pictures. That’s all it was. It had to be.

Pulling an afghan over herself, Dacey patted the cushion next to her until the dog hopped up. It would be morning soon. She just had to get to morning.

She wrapped her arms around Skadi’s neck. “I’ll go into town for the day. To the library! Or the festival! And tomorrow night, new cottage. Put this all behind me. You know what? It’ll be fine. It’s all good. We’re so good, aren’t we, Skadi?”

In response, Skadi barked at nothing. Leaping down from the couch, she barked again, then stopped. Her head tipped quizzically. Then, she moved—purposefully. Dacey shivered, because it was unmistakable. Skadi saw something. And whatever it was didn’t scare her.

Curling her toes into the couch, Dacey watched Skadi pad after an unseen guest. The dog sniffed along the baseboards, then dropped to lie in front of the window seat. Whining, she pawed at the rosemaled panels, then nosed at them.

Suddenly, one of them popped open, which startled Dacey and Skadi both. The dog bounded away, then back, barking at the open panel.

“Shh,” Dacey said. “It’s not going to hurt you, shh.”

But Skadi had hunting in her blood, and she’d flushed out something for Dacey to claim. Slowly, Dacey lowered her feet to the floor, then crept to the window seat. It was a thankfully uneventful walk—no ghostly voices, no sudden cups of tea from the ether—which made it easier to kneel down and open a dark cubby. Skadi barked, bowing on her front paws before springing up again.

Inside the cubby was a small package, and she gingerly reached inside to claim it. Covered in thick dust, it was barely bigger than a deck of playing cards. The brown wrapping paper flecked away, aged and soft as ash. The twine was a little hardier, still tied tight, now around a small, leather-bound book.

Sitting back, Dacey carefully slid the string off and opened the first page. The sharp scent of paper turning acid assaulted her, but the pages still felt smooth beneath her fingers. Fading ink sloped across the page, but Dacey couldn’t read it. Her Norwegian was pretty much limited to “Snakker de Engelsk?”

But she didn’t have to speak another language to understand the drawings. Page after page showed ornate rose blossoms, the same designs that surrounded her now. There were building plans for the cupboard, for this window seat.

The cottage had started as careful ink drawings—the fence that surrounded it, the design laid into the hardwood floors. Even the bedroom, with its expensive glass wall, he’d planned it that way all along.

It wasn’t a story told over breakfast anymore. And it wasn’t a dream or a fantasy; emotion stirred in her chest and flooded her veins. She was right there, in that moment, with a real boy who’d selected the wood and hammered it together, piece by piece, to create this place. He’d loved every inch of the cottage, put thought, and sweat, and love into it.

Running her fingers over now-faded ink, Dacey stilled. Whatever the explanation, she definitely believed in Kristian. He’d pulled a dream into reality. He’d existed, and somehow, she’d seen him. Glimpses of the past come to life, right here in his cottage. When she turned the last page, she caught her breath. No more cottage plans or roses, the last page was a portrait.

Of her.

It captured the crooked bow of her mouth, and the way one of her eyebrows arched higher than the other. Kristian had spent a lot of time here, shading her dark hair and dark eyes with ink, shaping her round face with delicate care. It didn’t just resemble her. It was her, down to the half-moon chicken pox scar on her chin.

Underneath, he’d scrawled a signature and a date: 25 Januar 1913.

Dacey didn’t have to check her phone to be sure. All the pictures she’d taken had time stamps—today was January 24. Tomorrow, she’d be gone. And now instead of anticipating it, she was dreading it. There was too much to figure out, too little she knew.

How could she pack up and go, now that she knew Kristian had disappeared into the polar night, waiting . . . for her?

Dropping her head in Dacey’s lap, Skadi seemed to speak for both of them when she took a deep breath, then sighed.

Just as the midday twilight ended, Dacey woke up.

Smearing a hand across her face, she stretched, then apologized when Skadi leapt down at her sudden movement. It took a moment for her senses to sharpen. Suddenly, everything was crisp and new—she woke up! She’d fallen asleep!

Almost giddy, Dacey hopped out of bed, then dropped to bounce on it again. Slept, she’d slept! And now she moved in fast-forward. With a whimsical slide down the hallway toward the kitchen, she actually laughed. Skadi chased her the entire way, orbiting her with every step. She skidded to a stop at the kitchen door, clutching the frame.

The rest of the tea set, the one that matched the single cup Kristian had left behind, sat on the counter. Steam swirled from the pot’s spout, and the air smelled fresh with loose-leaved tea. Skadi barked, then bounded past Dacey to sit and stare at an empty spot next to the stove.

Because it was still dark, on top of jet lag, on top of insomnia, time had lost all real meaning for Dacey. She could count breakfasts and pictures to try to sort it out, but the truth was she had no idea when she was. But the cool, tight prickle of awareness streamed across her body again.

She’d fallen asleep on the couch. She’d woken up in bed.

And now a century-old tea service sat on her counter, brand-new and full of water she hadn’t boiled. Her borrowed dog sat happily, basking in unseen attention. None of it made sense, unless all of it did.

“Kristian?” she asked.

No one answered. Dacey walked toward the stove, ran her hand through the spot that held Skadi’s attention so completely. It was cooler there. The hair stood up on the back of her neck, and her mouth tingled, like tasting the wind just before the lightning came.

Fixing herself in place, Dacey asked the air, “Can you see me?”

Still no answer. There was a connection, but she didn’t know how to make it. She poured tea, two cups, and even took a sip. Nothing. She darted to the living room and returned with the camera. Shooting off a rapid succession of pictures, she checked the display. Nothing. Not a streak, not a face—just a handful of ordinary pictures of an ordinary kitchen.

“Look,” Dacey said, putting the camera aside. “I’m not taking another sleeping pill so you can sneak up on me. Just say something. Do something. Anything.”

Just then, she was struck by an idea. Reaching into her robe pocket, she pulled the small sketchbook out. It was his, and personal. She felt like she knew him, just a little, from the shape of the words she couldn’t read, and the delicate precision of the sketches she couldn’t stop looking at. This was her connection to him, not the ghost or the dream or the hallucination.

She held the book out—not sure what to expect.

The slightest spark filled the air, and the ink in the book darkened, sketches filling in until they looked freshly drawn. The leather cover grew brighter, until it shone. A sizzling sound raced around them, the rosemaling waking, repainting itself. The cabinets making themselves brand-new.

From nothing, Kristian reached out to take the book. His shape filled in, as if someone only had to pour details into him. Transparent, then translucent, he became. His gray woolen pants and cream linen shirt slowly took texture. His hair, which had seemed blue with snow and moonlight behind it, came in a pale gold. And his startlingly green eyes widened and swept over Dacey’s shape.

She wondered if he saw her the same way she saw him, insubstantial, but slowly brightening to real.

“I put this away so long ago,” he said, thumbing through the pages.

“About a hundred years,” Dacey said. “Give or take.”

Closing the book, Kristian put it aside and approached her. “Something’s not quite right, is it? I’m standing here, and everything looks old. All the paint is faded.”

Dacey held out a hand. “Right now, it looks brand-new to me.”

For a long moment, Kristian considered her. He took her hand and turned it in his. Trailing his fingers across her palm, he mapped every inch of it. There was no chill in his touch, and the last hints of transparency faded. “Are you a ghost?”

Laughter rang out, and Skadi jumped up in excitement. Shaking her head, Dacey murmured soothingly to the dog, then looked up at Kristian again. “No. And neither are you.”

“Of course not.” Kristian squeezed her hand before letting it slip out of his. “You came to me. You showed yourself to me, that’s why I built this place. I thought if I did, you’d come, and you’d stay. . . .”

“I didn’t. I couldn’t have.” It hurt Dacey to say it. “That’s not how time works.”

Lighting up, Kristian started for the living room. “I can show you.”

Blood humming, Dacey followed. When she came around the corner, she saw Kristian kneel by the window-seat cubby. With a smile thrown over his shoulder, Kristian pulled out another leather-bound book.

This one was much larger than the sketchbook, and when he opened it, Dacey saw why. It was an old-fashioned photo album, each page lovingly squared with black-and-white portraits of a familiar landscape.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he explained, and let her take the book from his hands. “So I left my family and took a train north, as far as I could. And then a sledge until I got here. I thought the long nights would help me sleep. I brought my Seneca to take pictures, but look.” He leaned over, turning the pages and then dropping his finger on a darkened landscape. “They came out wrong. I took more. And more, and on the last day, I saw you.”

So did she. Though the photographs were grainy, the edges a little soft like most vintage pictures, her shape there was unmistakable. This was the picture he’d sketched from; this is what she’d looked like on her first night in Tromsø, scarfless and hatless, trying to capture the northern lights for her photo-essay.

Slowly, she lifted her head to meet his green eyes. “Kristian . . .”

“So I came back in the summer.” He smiled and closed the book. “I bought the land and built this place. And I waited.”

“For me.”

Curling his fingers beneath her chin, he tipped her face up gently. “For us.”

And this time when they kissed, the world came together instead of pulling apart. Everything matched again; Dacey’s heart soared. Kristian’s hands were warm and rough—and real. But she broke away, pulling her fingers over her lips.

She loved her life: her parents’ cute apartment in Brooklyn, her job on the school paper, and every single one of her friends back home. She loved her anxious mother and her sweet father, and the way every single day was something new for her.

At the same time, she now loved walking into a cottage in Norway to find something magical. Something epic and legendary, waiting for her. How many girls got to say that? How many people ever did?

Skadi padded over, curling to lie against them. Snuffling her nose beneath Kristian’s hand, she huffed and turned her eyes up to Dacey. Which wasn’t fair at all; dogs weren’t allowed to throw in their two cents when it came to completely life-altering decisions.

“What’s the matter?” Kristian asked.

With a deep breath, Dacey gathered herself. Then she brushed Kristian’s hair from his eyes and smiled. “You’re just very complicated. This is complicated. And I’m going to have to call my mother.”

Kristian blinked. “Call her what?”

“I’ll explain later,” Dacey answered, and tugged him into her arms. Just the thought of explaining Kristian, polar nights, and possibly time travel to her mother made her head hurt. So she kissed the non-stock Scandinavian. She could figure out the complications in time.