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“Must be strange, missing a year of your life,” my father comments after a moment. “I’d say the same happened to me, but I was here living it. I just didn’t really know it.”
“It’s been a real trip, that’s for sure,” I admit with a sigh. “In some ways, I haven’t really missed anything. The world still looks the same. Same two-faced people still in power. Same atrocities being committed. Same war. Same ignorance. Same late-stage capitalism slowly killing people.”
“That’s true,” he says with a nod. “And none of my favorite television programs have returned either.” He clears his throat and glances at me. “I think when we find the portal, me and Tuoni should go through, and you stay behind in this world. I think it’s for the best.”
“You andhim?” I ask, jerking my thumb at the backseat. “Neither of you would get ten feet without trying to kill each other.”
“You know I don’t have totry,” Tuoni says with a grunt.
“Okay, Yoda,” I say to him as I shake my head. “No. It’s not up for discussion or debate. I am needed in that world. I’m going.”
“You are needed inthisworld,” my father counters, raising his voice slightly, his cheeks going red. “The Land of the Dead is no place for a girl of the living.”
“Even one whose mother is the Goddess of the Sun?” Tuoni asks.
“Even so.”
“Even though I’m the one prophesized to unite the land? How can that world be united if I’m not there?” I ask.
“Phhfff,” my father says. “I know you’re special, Hanna, you truly are, always have been. But who says you’re part of the prophecy?”
“Because the prophecy says the one who unites the land is the one who touches Death,” I say, holding up my hand. “And I can touch Death.”
I glance back at Tuoni and nod at him to take off his glove. He does so slowly.
My father takes his eyes off the road and looks back. “What are you doing?” he asks frantically.
“Don’t worry,” I tell him as Tuoni brings his hand forward. “Just keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road.”
But it’s too late. The car is already swerving on the highway, my dad watching in horror as Tuoni wraps his large, warm bare hand around mine.
“Hanna!” my father cries out. “Stop!”
I can only smile up at Tuoni in response as he stares down at me with a tenderness that’s absolutely disarming in the moment. Such a small thing, to touch each other like this, and yet it means so much to both of us.
“I can’t believe it,” my father says, looking back to the road and correcting the car. “That can’t be.”
“Believe it,” Tuoni says gruffly before he gives my hand a kiss and then sits back in his seat, slipping on his glove back on.“But don’t get any ideas. She’s the only one I can touch without killing.”
“Just as the prophecy says,” I tell my father.
“I’ll be damned,” he says to himself.
“You might be,” Tuoni says, “if you don’t get us through the portal and back to Tuonela. How much longer is it?”
“Another couple of hours,” he says, glancing at the clock.
“Then might I request we stop at one of those automobile houses that serves coffee? I have a feeling we’re all going to need it.”
Luckily, the next service station isn’t too much further. My father fills up the SUV, and Tuoni gets his gas station coffee. He doesn’t seem that impressed, but he drinks it anyway. At least it’s not decaf.
Another hour and a bit later, and things start to look familiar—well, as much as they can in the monotonous land of ice and snow. I recognize the airport on the outskirts of Ivalo, then the drive I had once made with Noora. The fact that we are getting closer to her domain makes me sit up and pay attention, even as twilight begins to fall.
Everyone else in the car seems more on edge too, especially as we turn off the highway at a sign for the resort.
“So what’s the plan if they’re still working there?” I ask. “You went into hiding, but they may have not.”
“They won’t be,” my father says. “I know the people there. I haven’t kept in contact with them, but I know they wouldn’t hire them back, not when they just disappeared like that. Things got strange after both our disappearances, Hanna. It looked badly on them that both you and I disappeared after being in contact with them.”
