Thief Eyes

Chapter 1

Icy rain blew into my hood and dripped down my neck as I knelt on the mossy stones. The sky was gray, layers of cloud hiding any hint of sun. The wind picked up, and I shivered, missing the hot desert skies of home. It was way too cold for a June day.

Not that Dad noticed. He grinned as he traced a crack running through the rocks. “Amazing, isn’t it? You can almost feel the earth pulling apart.”

“Yeah. Sure.” I looked down into the small fissure and saw nothing but endless dark. I shifted my soggy backpack on my shoulders and rubbed my eyes, gritty from a night spent flying across the Atlantic. I’d never been much good at sleeping on planes. Yeah, Dad, I followed you four thousand miles to Iceland so we could stare at holes in the ground.

I got up, stretching stiff legs. Beyond a metal fence, the cliff where we stood dropped down to a grassy plain. A gray river braided its way through bright green grasses, and a few wet geese hunkered down by its shores. The geese looked cold, too. Probably they were thinking the same thing I was: the sooner they could get somewhere warm, the better.

“So this is where it happened?” I tried to sound casual, like I didn’t much care.

Dad looked up. His dark eyes were shot with red—he wasn’t good at sleeping on planes, either—and his hair stuck out from beneath his windbreaker, dripping water. “You mean the rifting? It’s happening throughout this valley. The North American and European tectonic plates meet here, and they’re forever pulling away from each other. Only the pulling doesn’t all happen in any one place, so—”

“That’s not what I mean.” I fought not to let my frustration show. You know that’s not what I mean.

Dad sighed. “No, Haley, this isn’t where it happened.” His sleep-deprived eyes took on the lost look I’d come to know way too well this past year. The look that made me decide Dad didn’t need to know if I’d blown another test at school, or fallen asleep in class because nightmares had woken me in the middle of the night again, or was tired of peanut butter and jelly for dinner but just as tired of cooking if I wanted anything else.

I’d come four thousand miles. This was more important than a few bad dreams or missed meals. “Where, then?”

A couple brushed past us, clutching the hands of the toddler who walked between them. Dad looked at the cracked earth. “Logberg. Law Rock.”

“Where’s that?” Rain soaked through my running shoes, turning my socks clammy and cold. Back home, we canceled track meets for weather like this—but I was the one who’d asked Dad to bring me here. He’d wanted to stay at the guesthouse and catch up on his jet-lagged sleep.

Dad sighed again. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

Let this go? I dug my nails into my cold, damp palms. No need for Dad to hear me screaming, either. When your mother disappears without a trace, you don’t just let it go. “I want to see. Is that so much to ask?” I kept my voice calm, reasonable—the same voice I’d used to convince Dad to take me to Thingvellir today, because I really wanted to visit the national park that was the site of Iceland’s ancient parliament and in the middle of a rift valley and, oh, yeah, just happened to be the place where my mother disappeared last summer.

“Fine, Haley.” Dad got to his feet, and I knew for once I’d won. I followed him away from the lookout, my running shoes squishing on the wet gravel path. Dripping tendrils escaped my blond ponytail and clung to my cheeks. I slowed to match Dad’s pace. I’d grown taller than him this past year, which still seemed strange.

The path cut down through a cleft between blocky stone walls that formed a perfect wind tunnel. Goose bumps prickled beneath my damp sleeves. Dad looked up at the rocks. “You can almost see how they must have fit together once, can’t you? Before the rifting tugged them apart.”

What I saw was my father hiding behind another geology lecture. Maybe Dad couldn’t help it. Maybe when you spent your whole life studying rocks and earthquakes, you forgot how to talk to people.

The stone wall to our right dropped away as we reached a grassy outcrop. The wind let up, and Dad stopped at the base of a walkway that led to an overlook. Some tourists stood on the walkway, huddled beneath umbrellas, listening to a tour guide in jeans and a T-shirt. The guide was soaked, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Here?” I asked. Dad nodded.

Even without the wind, I felt cold. “So what’d you two fight about?” My voice came out too loud, with a squeak at the end. So much for sounding casual.

Dad leaned down, picked up a black stone, and turned it over in his hand. “Obsidian,” he said. “It’s funny how the names of rocks translate in Icelandic. Obsidian is literally raven flint, while lignite—brown coal—has something to do with the fire giants, out of Norse mythology—”

“Dad!”

He dropped the stone but didn’t meet my eyes. “No, Haley.”

“No what?”

“No, I’m not going to answer your question. Some things are none of your concern.”

It’s my concern more than anyone’s! Dad never answered, no matter how often I asked. I dug my nails deeper into my palms, felt the familiar pinch of nails breaking skin. I whirled away and stomped up the wet walkway, past the tourists. Mom would have run after me, but Dad just let me go. I reached the overlook and leaned on a railing, staring out at the river. A goose made its way into the water, followed by two fuzzy goslings. I watched them sail by. There should have been squirrels here, too, chipmunks, something—but Iceland wasn’t big on native land mammals. A few arctic foxes, the occasional stranded polar bear—that was it.

My palms began to sting. Behind me the guide talked cheerfully about all the old stories that were supposed to have happened at Thingvellir. Mostly they sounded like a long list of who killed who, though at least one guy managed to fall in love, get married, and take his wife east with him. That didn’t sound so bad—except that years later, when he was battling enemies, his so-called true love refused her husband two locks of her long hair, which he needed to replace his severed bowstring. “Gunnar died, of course,” the guide said.

Of course. The rain dripped down my hood and into my face. No happy endings here. No endings at all, just a polite letter from Iceland’s Logreglan—their police—concluding that there was no sign of where my mother went but no evidence of foul play, either. The story stopped there.

It stopped here. Mom had come to Iceland with Dad last summer, the first summer of Dad’s three-year research grant. They’d visited Thingvellir to do some sightseeing, and they’d gotten into a fight. Nothing strange about that—Mom and Dad did fight sometimes. Whose parents don’t? Well, okay, my boyfriend Jared’s, but that was beside the point. They were mostly stupid fights, anyway, about stuff like Dad spending too much time on campus, or Mom bringing home yet another stray cat to foster, or whose turn it was to cook or pay the bills.

As I stared out at the river, I could almost picture them here: Mom in her slacks and blouse, blond hair loose around her shoulders—she only pulled it back for work at her vet clinic; Dad in his rumpled T-shirt and jeans, his mad-scientist hair sticking out in all directions. Mom would do all the yelling, of course. Dad got really quiet when they fought. But then it would be over and life would go on. Except this time, Mom had been so mad that instead of making up with Dad like she was supposed to, she’d run away. Dad had waited for Mom to cool down and come back. She never did.

Dad had let me read the police report, but he wouldn’t tell me what he and Mom had fought about. So I gave up asking and started begging him to take me to Iceland with him instead. I’d figured once we were here he’d have to explain.

So much for that theory. I stared at the wet wooden slats beneath my feet. What could make Mom so angry she’d decide not to come home? How well could she hide in a country smaller than Arizona? How could she want to, when I was home waiting for her? Did she hate me as much as she hated Dad? Mom and I fought, too, also about stupid things, like whether I’d washed the dishes or could cut my hair or was old enough to date. Mom wouldn’t abandon me for any of that … would she?

The wind picked up again, cutting right through my fleece-lined jacket. What if something else had happened, like some creepy kidnapper or human trafficker had spirited Mom away? Was she even still alive? My stomach clenched at the thought, even as I told myself that of course Mom was okay. We’d know if something really awful had happened to her—wouldn’t we?

If Dad knew anything—anything at all—he had to tell me. I’d make him tell me. I turned from the railing and headed back to him.

At the end of the walkway I stopped short. Someone was staring at Dad, a woman in a long wool skirt and deep green jacket. Her hood was pulled back in spite of the rain, her flyaway hair barely tamed in a long red braid. Dad drew his arms around himself, as if he’d only just noticed the weather. “Katrin. We’re not meeting until tomorrow.”

Wait, that was Katrin Jonsdottir? Dad’s coauthor—they’d written a bunch of papers together about new ways to predict earthquakes and volcanoes.

“Umm, hi,” I said, then realized I’d spoken in English. “Godan daginn,” I tried instead, words from the Icelandic phrase book I’d read on the plane.

Katrin frowned. The wind blew damp strands into her face. “You must be Haley.” Her English was perfect, just the slightest trace of an accent. She gave Dad a look cold enough to freeze water, and I wondered how they even sat in the same room together, let alone wrote all those papers. “You shouldn’t have brought her here,” Katrin said.

“Excuse me?” Nice to meet you, too. Maybe Katrin was one of those people who hated all teenagers on general principle—but no, Dad had said she had a kid, too.

Dad shrugged uneasily. “Haley and I don’t mind the rain.”

“I’m not talking about the rain,” Katrin said. The look that passed between her and Dad should have turned that rain to jagged shards of ice.

“Haley, why don’t you go on ahead?” Dad said. “I’ll catch up.”

“Sure, Dad.” I didn’t want to watch him and Katrin stare at each other a moment more. If I did, I thought I might turn to ice, too. What was going on here? And why did the stomach-clenching feeling I had—the same feeling I got when Mom and Dad fought—tell me I didn’t want to know?

Before I could make a break for it, Katrin laid a hand on my shoulder. I was afraid she’d tell me to stay, but she said only, “Be careful, Haley,” before looking back to Dad.

“Umm, yeah. Okay.” I turned away from her and hurried down the path. After a few steps I broke into a jog, ignoring the way my sneakers squelched against the gravel. Running felt good after seventeen hours waiting in airports and being crammed into airplane seats meant for short people. For the first time since landing in Iceland, I almost felt warm.

The path led to a pond with an interpretive sign. I stopped to read it, stretching my calves and watching raindrops ripple the water’s surface. The sign explained that in the Middle Ages, women convicted of things like lying and adultery had been drowned here. Nice.

A bit of sun fought its way through the clouds, making the water seem red, like blood. I shivered and ran on, following a dirt trail that branched away from the main path, winding around the far side of the pond and then following a stream uphill.

The rain slowed to a few soggy drips. The path grew steeper and water roared in the distance. Be careful. I scowled, remembering Katrin’s warning. Careful of what? I kept climbing. A huge waterfall came into view.

Huge if you lived in southern Arizona, anyway. White spray leaped into the air. I left the path and clambered over slippery rocks, trying to get closer to the water. The roaring grew louder, the air colder. Too cold—I stopped and rubbed the sleeves of my wet jacket. What was I doing here, anyway? What made me think I could find Mom, when the people who actually lived here had failed?

Spray blew into my face. A few more threads of sun poked through the clouds, casting rainbow patterns onto the water. Beautiful, I thought, but I only felt colder. I wondered if Mom had seen this same waterfall. “Where is she?” I asked the rushing water. Of course it didn’t answer. I sighed, turned around, and clambered back down to the trail.

Something glinted in the dirt there. A small silver coin, not much bigger than my thumbnail, crisscrossed with a strange pattern of circles and lines. I knelt down, as somewhere a raven cried out, and picked the thing up.

The coin burned as my fingers closed around it. The ground shook as if a train were going by. The air blurred and a hot desert wind stroked my cheek. I should have been scared, but that heat felt so good after the chill rain. I clutched the coin harder and leaned into the wind. The roaring waterfall seemed very far away.

Somewhere a woman’s voice whispered, “Hvad heitir thu?”

I knew that from my phrase book, too. I frowned, trying to remember the right response. “Eg heiti Haley.”

Someone touched my shoulder. The air snapped back into focus, and rain spattered from the cold sky onto the trail. I turned around, looking for the woman who’d asked my name. No one stood there but Dad. “Ready to go?” He shouted to be heard over the water.

I shoved the coin into my pocket. It felt merely warm now, like it had been too long in the sun. Maybe I was just homesick and had imagined the desert wind. But why would I have imagined a woman’s voice to go with it?

I followed Dad back down the trail. “Did you feel the earthquake?” he asked, once the waterfall was far enough away that he didn’t have to shout.

“Earthquake?” I remembered the ground shaking—was that what an earthquake felt like? Did the air usually go all blurry during a quake?

“Just a small one.” Dad grinned, like he couldn’t wait for the ground to rattle and shake some more. “Earthquakes, volcanoes—really, Iceland’s just one huge geologic event waiting to happen.”

Now there’s a comforting thought. I stepped past the drowning pool and onto the main gravel path.

Katrin ran up to us, her braid flying out behind her, and looked right at me. “You’re okay?” The anger was gone, and her face was pinched with worry.

“I’m fine.” Was there some reason I shouldn’t be? “It was just a small quake.” I smiled, but Katrin didn’t smile back.

She looked sharply at Dad. “Tomorrow, Gabe. Both of you.”

Dad sighed, as if he found the idea troubling. “Yes, Katrin. We’ll be there.”

Katrin nodded and walked away without another word. I looked at Dad.

“Lunch,” he said. “We’re meeting to talk about this summer’s observation stations, and Katrin invited you along.” Dad shoved his hood back and ran a hand through his unruly hair. Before I could ask why Katrin would want me to come to lunch when she thought I shouldn’t be here at all, he said, “Speaking of food, what do you say we get some dinner?” Dad blinked hard, like he did when he stayed up too late working on a paper.

I rubbed my eyes, too. A night without sleep was enough to make the world seem more than a little blurry, right? “Dinner sounds good.”

“We’ll get hot dogs,” Dad said. “Iceland has the best lamb hot dogs—”

“Yeah, Dad.” I laughed. “I came four thousand miles just to eat hot dogs.”

Dad laughed, too, and for a moment the tiredness left his face. It wasn’t only the flight—he’d looked more tired at home, too, since Mom had disappeared. I knew how he felt.

I had to find her. For both of us. I’d have dinner first, and try to get some sleep—and then I’d make Dad answer my questions. Or else I’d go look for Mom on my own. No way was I letting this go. I followed Dad back to the car. My hand itched, and I glanced down at it.

There was a small red circle on my palm, right over the red half-moons where I’d dug my nails in—right where the coin had burned me.