Magni
“What a team we were.” Dina’s eyes were sparkling with mischief as she caressed my hair, and continued the story from when I was younger. “I distracted the cook and you snatched two of the biggest cookies she had baked.”
I laughed. “How old was I?”
“Let’s see; you’re seven now, and it was two years ago.” Dina gave me the schoolteacher look that she often used when she taught me to read or count.
“I was five.”
“Yes, and how old was I?”
Math had never been my strong suit and I frowned.
“Use your fingers like I told you to,” she instructed. “What is fifteen minus two?”
“But I only have ten fingers.”
Dina gave a low melodic chuckle and let me use one of her hands to count.
“You were thirteen then.”
“That’s right.” Tousling my hair, she planted a kiss on my cheek. “You’re such a smart kid, Magni.”
“Will you sleep here tonight?” I asked with a hopeful tone in my voice. I loved snuggling up with Dina.
She took my hand and moved closer. “I would like that very much.”
“Are you excited for tomorrow?”
“Are you?” she asked.
I frowned. “I like to see men fight, but I don’t want you to move out.”
Dina’s expression changed to one of sadness. People always said she and I looked alike. We had inherited our father’s blond hair and blue eyes, while Khan took after our mother with his dark coloring. Right now I was playing with her soft golden locks and inhaling the scent of Dina. It represented everything I loved, from warm hugs, bright smiles, to comforting back rubs when I couldn’t sleep at night.
“I don’t like the thought of moving out either. I’ll miss you and Khan.”
“And Mom and Dad,” I added, thinking she’d forgotten about them.
“I’ll miss Mom a lot.”
“Are you nervous about picking the right champion?”
She nodded. “Mom says not to expect love, but I want him to treat me well.”
Pushing up on my elbow, I looked deep into my sister’s eyes. “If your husband isn’t nice to you, I’ll beat him up for you, I promise.”
Everyone would have laughed at a seven-year old threatening to beat up a grown champion, but Dina didn’t. Her tears welled up a little and she leaned in to kiss my forehead, engulfing me once again in the comforting scent of her. “Thank you, Magni, I know you will. You’ve always been good to me.”
“That’s because we’re best friends.”
“And we always will be,” she promised before we fell asleep.
The next day I watched as many fights as I could. Never had so many men entered to win a bride, but then Dina was no ordinary bride. She was the ruler’s daughter, and the potential influence from becoming her husband drew the crowds.
In the evening, I saw her step forward looking like a true princess with her white dress and long blond hair braided by my mother. I thought Dina was the prettiest girl in the world.
The man she chose was very large and when he picked her up and carried her around on his shoulder like a trophy, she smiled and waved at me.
I sized him up, and my immature seven-year-old self whispered to my brother Khan, who sat next to me. “If he’s not good to Dina, you’ll have to help me kick his ass.”
Khan lifted an eyebrow, silently asking me if I was serious.
“I promised her,” I emphasized.
Khan looked to Dina and her champion. “I don’t think we could beat him, Magni. He’s too big.”
“If you won’t help me, I’ll do it by myself.”
Khan heaved his chest in a sigh. “Tell you what. If Dina complains, we’ll come up with a plan to help her, all right?”
This was so typical of Khan. Always scheming and being strategic, but he was almost five years older than me and my closest ally, so I’d take it.
We never got a chance to come up with a plan. Dina went to the East Coast with her new husband and we never saw her again.
Five days later, my mother gathered me and Khan. With eyes full of tears, she sat us down and told us what had happened. “There was an accident.”
“What kind of accident?” Khan asked.
“It’s Dina. She fell out a window.”
I stiffened and my pulse raced. “Is she okay?”
Erika’s shoulders jerked up and down as she hid her face in her hands, crying.
“Mom, is Dina okay?” I had to know.
“She died last night.” The words came out in a sob but I heard them and my whole world stopped.
“No,” Khan said beside me. “That’s not possible. It can’t be.”
“I’m afraid so. She fell out of an attic window.”
I wanted to scream that it was a lie! Dina would have never been that careless. She was smart and knew about danger. She had always watched me like a hawk, warning me not to get too close to cliffs, fires, windows, or anything that could harm me. I could recall being scolded at least five times by her for hanging out the window. There was no way she had fallen by accident.
An iron band tightened around my throat, and I jerked back when my mom reached for me. It was like my body was burning and I couldn’t stand her touching me. I wanted to run as fast as I could and find Dina. We would laugh together that she’d pulled a prank like this.
Nothing would happen to Dina. I’d promised her that much.
“What was she doing in the attic?” Khan asked our mom.
“I don’t know. Your father has gone to investigate.”
The words registered with me, but I refused to believe they were true. This was just another game of hide and seek.
“Magni, stop,” my mom called out when I knocked my chair over and stormed out of the room. I sprinted through the house, searching my room, Dina’s room, the kitchen, the library, and every one of the places I could remember her hiding in the past. When she wasn’t there, I searched the garden. My voice was hoarse from calling out her name, and after hours of searching, I collapsed in the far end of the park where no one would hear me sob.
She was never spoken about again. It was like Dina had never lived.
Except she had lived!
She had sung to me, read to me, kissed away my tears, and held me. She had played with me, been my best friend, and slept in my bed often.
My dad ordered all pictures of her removed to spare my mother the pain of seeing constant reminders. Dina’s old room was converted into a bathroom and walk-in closet for one of the guest rooms. The Gray Mansion was purged of evidence that Dina had lived here for fifteen years. The few times I dared bring up Dina’s name at dinner, my father flat-out ignored me and changed the subject.
After that, I began questioning if Dina had been real or an imaginary friend from my childhood.
That’s when I made a last attempt to find some evidence of my sister’s existence, and discovered a picture in my parents’ room under my mother’s bed.
Dina was younger than I remembered her. A pretty girl around ten or eleven with the long blond hair, blue eyes, and cute dimples that I had loved so much.
I took the picture and slept with it under my pillow for months, brooding over all my unanswered questions and my guilt for not having protected Dina like I’d promised her.
At twelve and a half, I was huge for my age and strong beyond my years. My nine years of intense fight training was showing and my father praised me, saying that the world had never seen a more exceptional talent than me. With my strength and speed, I’d be the best fighter the world had ever seen.
His words empowered me to ask him the question that was burning in my chest.
“Dad, what happened to Dina?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said and turned his back on me.
His disrespectful dismissal of Dina’s life made me explode. I destroyed everything within my reach and servants fled in fright as glasses and cutlery went flying through the air. My father had to physically restrain me with the help of two from his security unit, and after that, I was sent to live at a school. There was no talking things through. No apologies or explanations. I was a twelve-year-old with a shitload of grief and unanswered questions, who hated the world.
After our father died, I’d searched for pictures of Dina from media events in the past. I only found her wedding photos and they were too painful to keep.
A few years ago, I’d tried talking to my mother about it, but it came across as blaming her, and Erika broke down crying. To this day it still haunted me that I didn’t know what Dina had been doing in that attic. Had she been killed or did she die while trying to escape her husband’s brutality? In my mind she’d been attempting to climb down from the roof. The thought that she’d committed suicide was too outlandish, since the Dina I knew loved life. There was no way to ask her husband since he died a few weeks after my father’s visit to investigate. Rumors said my father arranged it, but it was all speculation.
Finn was one of the few I’d told about Dina. We almost never spoke about her, and for him to bring her up in a conversation like he’d done tonight was rare.
I kicked at the ground in front of the cabin, and stuffed my hands deeper into my pockets. Finn had gone back to the school when I’d asked for a minute to clear my head. I’d been out here for at least fifteen minutes and my head was as chaotic as ever.
Apologize. That had been Finn’s advice to me. What he didn’t understand was that I would rather face four opponents at once in a physical fight. At least when people were attacking me, I knew how to protect myself.
I cracked my knuckles and rolled my shoulders, while muttering low curse words before I went back into the cabin.
Mila wasn’t sobbing anymore, and both she and Laura watched me when I took off my jacket. “Ehm, I thought I should come back and explain myself.” I shifted my balance. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, Mila. It’s just that all this talk about, ehm...” I coughed. “This talk about love is new to me and I’m not very good at it.”
They both looked at me, and neither spoke.
“I’ve never given an apology before, but I hope you know that I don’t like it when you cry.”
“Are you going to give me an apology?” Mila asked.
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. “I thought I just did.”
Mila shook her head. “You have to use the words ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I apologize.’ Otherwise it doesn’t count.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath and spoke on the exhalation. “I apologize.”
Mila reached out her hand to me. “I can tell that you have been crying, so I forgive you.”
“I never cry!” I said in a gruff voice because I would never admit to that with Laura in the room.
“You cry on the inside.” Mila kept her hand outreached as an invitation to sit on the chair next to the bed. I took it and held her hand in mine, just like I had when I made her sob a little while ago.
“If you move away, will you promise me one thing?” she asked.
“Anything.”
“Will you take me with you?”
“Sweetie, Alaska isn’t a place for children, and you need to stay in school.”
Her face fell. “Then won’t you please stay, Magni?”
I gave a loud puff. “For now I will.”