In her dreams, the search-and-rescue team never finds them lost in the frozen Icelandic mountains. She screams at the helicopters as they fly overhead, holding her baby tighter in a vain attempt to keep her warm. Eventually the roars of the engines fade into the distance, and Luna grow quiet, still, and cold. A blonde woman in white night clothes sits in the snow in front of her, her eyes full with love and pain. She raises a gun to her lips, puts it in her mouth...
"Mummy! Mummy!" shrill cries broke Riley out of the nightmare. As she rose from bed, she noticed the smell of burning food and raced to the kitchen.
Luna stood by the stove, her face pale and streaked with tears. "I-I tried to make b-breakfast, but I burned it. I'm sorry Mummy." she whimpered in Icelandic. Blackened toast burned from the stove, filling the tiny kitchen with smoke.
"Oh darling." Riley gasped. She turned of the stove before anything can burn up, then threw open all the windows. She turned back to find her daughter, who was bawling in the middle of the living room. Riley sat down on the couch and pulled Luna into her lap. "Hey, it's alright darling."
"You're not angry?" Luna raised her watery hazel eyes. Every inch of her was Riley, from her eyes to her hair to her love of music. At times, Riley felt sad that she didn't look like Magnus, but other times she felt relieved to see her dead husband looking back at her everyday.
Riley kissed her forehead, "No, I'm not angry." she reassured her, "But don't try to cook again unless someone is watching. You're too little to do it on your own."
"Okay Mummy." Luna wiped her eyes with her mother's pajamas.
"Let's go out for breakfast." Riley suggested with a smile. "C'mon, let's get ready."
Half an hour later, hand in hand, mother and daughter walked down to a nearby cafe for brunch. That Sunday morning the sky was blue and bright, without a cloud to be seen. The streets of London were slower paced, as it was still fairly early. Riley ordered a fry-up to share with Luna, along with two mugs of black tea. Mornings like this, peaceful and indulgent, made her chest feel a little lighter, despite the nightmares of the night before.
On Monday morning Riley opened up the small shop where she taught piano, flute, and cello to overachievers and adults who needed a hobby. For a second, she thought she saw a beautiful Indian woman standing inside, but a second later the woman vanished.
On Tuesday afternoon, while resting at the park with Luna, Riley looked around and wonders why she wasn't at the police station; then she remembered that there's no reason for her to be at a police station.
On Wednesday evening, she felt a pair of lips on her own, and somehow she knew they belong to a man named Hernando. But when she opened her eyes, she was alone in her bedroom, the warmth of the Mexican sun fading into memory. This sensation disconcerted her the most. She hadn't kissed anyone since losing Magnus.
On Thursday night, she felt the faint sensation of brushing her fingertips against a car window; only she was inside a cafe, having a snack with Luna. A few minutes later, a man appeared in the middle of the cafe, kneeling and looking at the ground in front of him with an out-of-place interest. He dressed in what seemed like a police uniform, though it was different from what the police in London wore.
In an instant, the cafe disappeared and Riley stood in a crumbling church watch the cop inspect a torn, dirty mattress. Again, she saw the blonde woman from her dream, lying on the mattress and writhing in agony. He became aware of her presence and stood to face her. The cop was young, handsome, and his face softened when he looked at her.
"Uh...hi." He greeted.
"This is where she died." Riley breathed.
"Did you know her?" The cop asked, approaching her. The kindness in his eyes put her ease. "How do you know she died here?"
"I saw her."
"Do you live here?"
"London, with my daughter."
Her answered seemed to confused him, "Where're you doing here?"
"I don't know." Riley shrugged honestly, "I don't know where I am." She gazed around her, for she had never seen a place like this in London or Reykjavik.
"Chicago." The man supplied, "Near the south side."
"In America?" Riley's eyes widened and she smiled excitedly. "I've never been to America."
Someone tugged on her shirt. "Mummy, I want to go home!" Luna whined.
Riley blinked in surprise, noting that she had mysteriously returned to the cafe. The cop was nowhere in sight. "What was that darling?" Riley asked somewhat absently.
"Can we go home please? We've been here forever." Luna repeated.
"Okay," Riley took her hand, wondering if she would see the handsome man again.
She did see him again, this time in her apartment while she was getting up from a restless night's sleep, Luna still fast asleep next to her; it was nighttime in Chicago. Perhaps she should have been more shocked at the sight of a police officer (albeit in casual clothes) standing in her bedroom, but this man had a comforting presence, like an old friend she hadn't seen in a while.
"I'm so sorry," he blushed upon catching her in such an intimate space. "I shouldn't have showed up here."
Riley only smiled, "You didn't mean to, I'm sure. Time zones are tricky."
A bar replaced her bedroom, leaving Riley sitting at a table across from the police officer. No one inside the bar commented on her bedhead and pajamas; Riley realized that none of them could even see her. There were other police officers around too, all drinking and laughing and partying.
"I'm Will by the way."
"Riley." Butterflies fluttered in her stomach when he smiled at her.
Back in her bedroom, Luna stirred awake. "Mummy?"
"That's your daughter?" Will looked at Luna with a hint of affection, "She's adorable."
Riley mouthed, 'Thanks' and ran her fingers through Luna's light brown hair. "It's nothing Luna. Go back to sleep."
On Sun's advice, she took a flight back to Iceland with Luna in tow. It had been almost three years since she'd left, and in that time the sense that she could put everything behind her never came. Magnus was still dead, Luna still didn't have a father, and the memory of wandering helplessly in the snow was as sharp as knife. On the plane Riley remembers how tiny Luna had been, how certain she had been that all three of them would die together.
"Mummy, look!" Luna cried, pressing her face against the glass just as Capheus had done earlier. "Is that Iceland?"
Leaning over, Riley replied with a tight smile. "I'd say you're right darling."
She had a hex on her, a curse that hurt everyone close to her. Riley looked to Luna, thought of the graveyard with her mother's and husband's names carved into marble, and felt her heart clench.
'I almost lost her once.' Riley worried, 'Am I pushing my luck?'
She sat in the stands listening to her father play with the orchestra, remembering, somehow, the first time he'd ever played for her: through the phone as she slid out of her mother's womb. Images flashed in the back of her mind, of her cluster, her new family, entering the world and taking their first breathes at the same moment she had.
The car's tires slide wildly on the icy roads.
The music grew fainter and Riley knew she wasn't not entirely there anymore. Something cool and wet dripped from her left nostril.
A torrent of warm fluid comes rushing out her body. It's too early; any time but now.
She heard a tiny "Mummy?", and felt a little hand grab onto hers, but she starts to fall over anyway.
Magnus' eyes are wide with terror as he frantically tries to drive them to safety. Her contractions are harder and closer together. Neither of them can see through the thick cloud of snow.
She gives her husband one last kiss, one he'll never return, before taking her newborn daughter out into the freezing morning air.
The midwife has no idea what she's talking about, the two of them decide. Riley and Magnus get into their car and start back for home, already regretting that they hadn't gone to the hospital like normal couples did. They just want the birth of their first child to be special.
Blood gets smeared on the sweater she wrapped Luna; blood from when she punched out a window to escape the car.
It's like the world's worst roller coaster, flipping down the side of a mountain
One of the orderlies melted into a familiar face, Will's face. "We're coming for you." he vows.
It would be so easy to end it all right then and there; the gun was already in her mouth. Her cluster all gathered around her, their eyes silently pleading for her to chose live. Will took her hands and his, and begged her not to give her. Riley remembered taking Luna to her father's grave and in her mind's eyes she could see her father taking Lunato the graveyard; to say goodbye to her mother as well. The image shocked her so much, she didn't notice that she's had dropped the gun until it clanged on the floor.
The orderlies grabbed her, and a nurse jabbed a needle into her shoulder.
A medic takes Luna from her and run into the rescue helicopter, desperate to get her somewhere warm. Riley is too weak to protest, despite the tear steadily growing in her heart. She collapses against another medic, who carries her into the helicopter.
Some kick from a cocktail of drugs forced her awake. Riley lay in Will's arms, with Kala standing over them with the same expression as a worried mother hen. Before she could fully comprehend what was happened, Will led her down to the parking garage of some large building, a hospital of sorts. She feels his fear and determination, sifts through his memories of the last twenty-four hours and understand just how much trouble they're in.
They forced their way into an ambulance, and when Will couldn't start the engine, Capheus hotwired their escape vehicle. Whispers followed close behind in a helicopter, and it took Nomi's directions and Wolfgang borderline-insane fearless to shake him off. The mountains started to look familiar,
"No!" Riley screamed, as all the horrible memories piled onto her at once. The midwife, the labor, Magnus, the blizzard, the cold, Luna slowly freezing in her arms. She forced Will to stop and ran out, ran away for every tortuous fear that threatened to pull her under. For a moment, she forgot that hex was just a cruel trick by that bitter old woman Yrsa. All she wanted in that moment was get away from the pain.
Will forced her hand; confessed to looking Whispers in the eye, loaded himself with drugs, and told her if she didn't raise their whole cluster would die. He did it out of love, out of faith in her strength, and she could never resent him for that. She thought of Luna's smiling face, and put herself back together.
As Sven's boat sailed away from Iceland, Riley looked out at the sunset and thought, 'Luna, darling, I'm coming back for you.'