River of Shadows (Underworld Gods #1)

I stare at it for a moment, part of me almost expecting it to lock from the outside. But, of course, it doesn’t.

I walk over to the window and peer outside. I’m looking right onto the parking lot which gives me a bit of comfort for some reason. Even though they seem hell-bent on me going to sleep right now, I’m grateful they put me in here instead of out in the forest. I already feel thoroughly creeped out, and for no reason at all.

I decide to lie down on the bed to test it out. It’s a queen and quite firm, but my body immediately relaxes into it.

I should unpack and then maybe find Noora, see if I can get something to eat. Text Michelle and Jenny and my mom and let them know I…

But the thought starts to drift away.

My eyes close.



* * *





* * *



My eyes open.

Darkness.

Complete and total darkness.

For a moment I think I’m dead, then I see a green light above me blink on and off and I realize it’s a smoke detector.

I fumble for my phone and it’s in my pocket. I’m still wearing my damn coat.

I bring it out and turn it on. The time is ten p.m., the light bright, making me wince, and the photo I have of my father and me as the screen wallpaper makes me want to burst into tears.

I manage to hold it together and shine the light around the room until I see the bedside lamp and switch it on.

Well I just totally passed the fuck out, didn’t I? This is exactly why I wanted to stay awake as long as possible. Now I’m wide awake when everyone else is going to sleep.

I sigh and get up. Use the washroom, splash some water on my face, then my rumbling stomach tells me I need to get something to eat. Even though I’m sure Noora and Eero are asleep (and I have no idea if they live at the hotel or elsewhere), maybe I can help myself to something in the kitchen.

I leave my room and walk down the stairs to the main level, heading toward the kitchen. I’m almost there when I notice another room, just past the dining room and lounge. While there are only a few lights on in the hotel, and it’s eerily quiet and empty, I can see flickering candles dancing on the walls, hear the soft sound of music. The music itself is strange and becoming, like choir voices and low tribal drumming.

I walk toward it, feeling the need to be quiet for some reason, then stop.

There’s a casket in the room, lit by candles on either side, chairs lined up on either side of the room.

Oh my god.

This is where the funeral is being held.

I swallow hard as I walk into the room, my eyes drawn to the casket. Beside it is a blown-up picture of my father’s face, some smiling moment out in the sun when he was younger, and that’s when it hits me. I mean it really hits me, like I’m in the middle of train tracks and for once I don’t see the locomotive coming.

Tears spring to my eyes and I’m frozen, stunned by the immensity of it all, of the fact that life will keep going on without my dad in it and how fucking unfair that is.

I don’t even notice that my knees are buckling and I’m collapsing into the ground. I don’t even notice the strangled cry that’s ripped from my throat, filling the empty room. I don’t notice anything but the devastatingly cold and hard realization that my father is gone.

He’s gone.

He’s really gone.

He’s dead and he’s not coming back.

But it can’t be true. It just can’t. Why do I still feel him within my heart, why do I still feel that connection?

Because you’re delusional, a voice in my head says.

But it just can’t be true. People like my father, they just don’t die. They’re the type that live forever. They’re the ones that defy the odds. They’re larger than life, larger than death. My father can’t be living on this planet one minute, drinking coffee and listening to bird song, having the sun on his face and then…not. You can’t just stop being. You can’t stop what has started. How dare God take him like this, to just decide my dad’s time was enough?

It’s not enough. It’s never enough.

“Papa,” I cry out, my voice breaking and echoing in my ears. I sound like a child, I feel like a child. Oh god, I would do anything to be a child again, to go back, to be with him. I want to be young again, I want to do this over again and get it right this time, I want to tell my mother that I’m not leaving him, that I’m staying with him.

“I want to go back,” I whisper hoarsely, my face buried in my hands. “I want to go back to when I was your little girl. I want another chance. I don’t…I can’t move on like this. Not in this world. Not without you.”

But the room gives nothing. All there is is the casket at the end and my father’s wonderful smiling face beside it and all I feel is so much despair and sorrow and regret, a deeper cut than bone deep.

A cut that will never ever heal.

A scar for all my life.

Right in the heart of me.

I stay on the floor of the room for what could be minutes, might be hours. It’s hard to tell when I’m jet-lagged. Eventually though, I stagger to my feet, leaning on the chairs to push myself up.

I know I should turn around, go to my room, maybe cry my eyes out until I fall asleep again. But I can’t. I know my father is gone and yet I feel that if I turn my back on the casket, I’m turning my back on him. That I’m abandoning all I have left of him, his cold dead body.

But it’s still him. It’s still his.

And I’m here.

So I find my strength and I walk down the aisle. The closer I get to the casket, the more I realize how beautiful it is. Made of some tree with a lot of knotted “eyes,” and intricate carvings all over, showing reindeer and trees, eagles and swans. Beneath and to the sides of the casket are the floral arrangements, pine boughs, and various berries all strung together with red and silver ribbons.

I run my hands over the casket, wishing I could feel his energy come from inside. But dead people don’t give off energy. I’ll never feel that again from him.

Open it, a voice in my head says. You’ll regret it if you don’t.

I swallow hard. I’ve been debating this last week whether to look at my father’s body. On one hand, I don’t want the memories of him tarnished. I want to remember him alive and full of life. On the other hand, I need closure, badly. And if he was found frozen, well, how bad can he really look?

So I place my fingers along the bottom of the lid.

Lift it up.

And stare directly into an empty casket.





Chapter 2





The Funeral





What the fuck?

I stare at the empty coffin, bewildered, then push the lid up further, quickly glancing down the end, then putting my arm inside, frantically feeling around.

There’s nothing.

It’s fucking empty.

What the hell is going on?!

A flush of hope warms my chest, the idea that perhaps my father isn’t dead after all. But then none of this makes any sense. They would have had a body at some point—where did that body go?

“You need to leave.”

I gasp loudly and whirl around, but the room is empty. Where the hell did that voice just come from?

I turn back in time to see the casket lid slowly lowering and, standing behind it, the tall slim shadow of a man.

I gasp again, taking a step backward, just as the shadow comes forward into the candlelight. The light of the flames flickers against his face, revealing a young man with floppy red hair and sky-blue eyes, his cheekbones high with alabaster skin and ruddy cheeks, making him look eternally youthful, his age hard to pin down. He’s dressed in all black, except for a string of spotted feathers tied around his wrist.

“Who are you?” I ask, pressing my fingers harder into my chest as if to keep my heart from jumping out.

“You need to leave,” he says again, his eyes briefly going over my shoulder to the doorway and back to me, shimmering in intensity. “Now.”