Astyr Tyr stepped down from the school bus and made her way to the courtyard in the middle of the school campus. She was still feeling dazed and shocked from the events of the previous day and she was in no hurry to run into anyone.

She had sat in the passenger seat of Hakon's black Camaro as he drove her to Grima's house yesterday afternoon in complete silence. She was shaking from the attack by Dean in the parking lot and her mind was reeling from Hakon's silent revelation afterward.

When they arrived at her new home, she quickly said thanks and took her bag straight up to her room, closing the door so she could be alone with her thoughts.

Grima went out to speak to the boys and they told her about the incident with the other members of the football team. "It didn't really look like she needed any help," Hakon told her with a laugh, "but I didn't think it would be chivalrous to leave her to deal with five teenage boys by herself."

"Thank you for being there for her, both of you." Grima gave them both a smile of gratitude. "You know how hard it's going to be for her to trust us when she finds out the truth. It will help if she can see that you've always tried helping her. I'm trying to break things to her slowly but it took me too long to find her, we're running out of time."

"My father was wondering when her birthday is." Gunnar said. "Mine is coming up soon. Maybe she'll be able to come to my ceremony."

Gunnar had a hopeful expression on his face but Grima was doubtful that Astyr would be able to handle such an intense event like a coming-of-age ceremony in less than a month. "Her birthday is the first of May and I'm not even sure she'll be ready by then."

"She won't have much of a choice." Hakon said softly.

"I know." Grima said. "The best we can do right now is to try to protect her and make sure she makes it to her birthday."

"Well, she'll be coming home with us every afternoon." Hakon informed her. "I don't know why that girl left her, but I won't give her a chance to do it again."

"Just make sure that I don't end up needing to protect her from you, from either of you." She added to Gunnar.

"I can't make any promises about that." Gunnar replied with a grin.

"You will when you remember who her father is." Grima's dour pronouncement sobered them both up and they took their leave and drove off to leave Grima to take care of Astyr for the night.

Grima dragged Astyr out of her room to help with dinner but Astyr was too bothered to make any decent conversation. They worked together in companionable silence to clean up the kitchen and then Astyr went back to her room to do her homework. Her only assignment was to make a diagram for Biology of the Class Mammalia, Subclass Theriformes. It didn't take her long so she settled into her small sofa with the anthropological history of Europe that Grima had loaned her. It was a lot more interesting than she had expected but it was still a history book, so she put it away at a decent hour and went to bed.

She woke in the morning still feeling subdued and slightly confused. She couldn't make any sense of her new situation. She was now living with a woman who not only had the same ability as Astyr, but was also teaching her to control it. Did Grima know that Astyr had this talent before she brought her here? And then there was Gunnar and Hakon. Why did Hakon have a bracelet like hers and what could it mean? It must have some significance to them because they broke a two-year self-imposed commitment to anti-social behavior after they saw that she had one. And there was no denying that they had taken a keen interest in her bracelet when they saw it on her first day of school.

Remembering her first day of school, she suddenly recalled her first meeting with Gunnar. She had looked right into his eyes and seen... nothing. Well, not nothing, certainly. His eyes were a deep sapphire blue framed by thick dark lashes. But her gaze had stopped at his eyes. Did he have the ability to block his mind as well? If so, who did he learn it from? Was Hakon the same, too? Due to her lifelong habit of avoiding people's eyes, she hadn't yet looked into Hakon's eyes. She didn't even know what color they were.

She tried to put these things aside for the moment and focused on getting ready for school. The varsity cheerleading squad, of which Astyr was the newest member, usually followed some sort of dress code which dictated that the girls wore almost identical outfits everyday. But Astyr had no idea what the dress code was or how the girls all coordinated their clothes every day so she slipped into a pair of black jeans and a dark gray sweater that was wide at the shoulders but tapered to fit snuggly around her chest and went down to her hips. She slipped her feet into a pair of black ankle boots with low heels and scooped up her bag.

She headed down the driveway and wasn't ashamed to admit to herself that she was walking so fast because of the animal she had heard the day before. The early morning forest was still unnaturally silent in the hazy autumn chill. Her skin was crawling and she could have sworn that she was being watched but she heard no leaves rustling nor any twigs snapping today.

She got on the bus with a sense of relief and sat in the same place as yesterday and rode in silence the rest of the way to school with her thoughts in turmoil.

She was making her way alone to the courtyard in the middle of campus when Hakon and Gunnar came up to walk beside her to the gazebo in the center. They greeted each other in a friendly way, the boys being slightly apprehensive about how she might be feeling, and then split up to different groups inside the shelter of the wide wooden structure. Hakon went over to the boys who were on the football team with him, and Astyr, followed by Gunnar, joined the cheerleaders.

Astyr looked around trying to find Michelle, the girl who was supposed to have given her a ride home the day before, but she wasn't there. Gwen noticed Astyr's searching and informed her that Michelle's father had been in an accident and she had to leave suddenly yesterday. Apparently, everyone had been so upset over the news that they had forgotten about Astyr. Dean unfortunately chose that moment to approach with his arm in a sling. "Look, Astyr, I'm sorry about yesterday, and I know I was way out of line." he said this while keeping his eyes on the ground in front of her. "I hope you can forgive me."

Astyr mumbled that it was no problem, no hard feelings and all, and he left to return to the shelter of his teammates. The cheerleaders who had heard all this were giving Astyr looks of burning curiosity but she ignored them with the excuse that she needed to hand over the permission slip that Grima had signed for her along with the uniform order form and a check to Gwen. By the time she was done, the bell was ringing and she and Gunnar headed off with Jenny and Ginny to geometry class.

By the end of the day, every girl on the squad had heard at least two different versions of what might have taken place in the parking lot the day before and they were all trying to speak to Astyr at the same time in a confusing babble of expressions of concern, questions to get more details, and squeals of delight that Dean had ended up in a sling because of whatever had happened. It seemed that he was not a favorite person to the varsity cheer squad. Gwen put an end to the ruckus by calling the practice to order. When everyone was paying attention, she turned on Astyr and demanded she tell them how Dean had gotten hurt the day before. Astyr gave them a brief telling of the facts but left out the part about Hakon's bracelet. That was definitely none of their business and had nothing to do with the fight anyway. After she said that Hakon had given her a ride home, Gwen told everyone that now that they knew the real story they didn't need to waste any more of her time talking about it and proceeded to put them through a grueling workout under the excuse that they needed to get Astyr ready for Friday's football game.

When she finally let them go, they dragged their aching bodies off to the locker room. Leaning against the wall of the back of the gym were Hakon and Gunnar. A couple of the guys from the team were standing around with them chatting and they all stopped to tease the girls walking tiredly passed them. The cheerleaders were too exhausted to be bothered by it and so just laughed it off. When Astyr got near them, Gunnar called out to her, "Hurry up, Astyr, we don't want to die of old age here." Hakon laughed at that and Astyr told them she'd be out in record time.

"Why are they waiting on you?" Gwen hurried up to her side to ask. "Oh, they're giving me a ride home from now on." She could almost see Gwen's eyes turn green as she said that and she rushed through her shower. After she was dressed again, she grabbed her bag and headed out the back door to where the guys were waiting on her. Just before she reached them, Gwen called to her and Astyr turned back to see her coming out of the locker room and walking quickly towards Astyr. When she caught up Astyr fell into step beside her and they walked towards the parking lot with Hakon and Gunnar in tow.

"I needed to get your cell-phone number before you left today." Gwen said by way of an explanation. "I send out a text at 8 pm to let everyone know what they should wear in the morning." That cleared up the mystery of the dress code but it wasn't going to do Astyr much good. "I don't have a cell-phone, Gwen. I guess you'll just have to call me at Grima's house to let me know." Gwen almost stopped walking from shock when she heard Astyr's reply. "How can you not have a cell phone?" Gwen asked her in a whiney voice.

"I'm an orphan, Gwen. I'm a ward of the state and the taxpayers don't think it's worth it to pay for cell phones for troubled youths." Her voice was getting hard and if Gwen had known her better, she would have walked away then. "But you're Dr. Thorrsen's kid now; she should get you a cell phone." Gwen said this matter-of-factly.

They had arrived at the car park at this point and Astyr didn't even bother to say bye as she stalked over to Hakon's Camaro. Gwen took this to mean that she should follow Astyr and continue the conversation but she took the opportunity to flirt with Hakon instead and started to compliment his car. Gunnar opened the passenger door and climbed into the backseat and Astyr pushed the seat back into place and slammed the door shut leaving Hakon to deal with the head cheerleader on his own. He spared a goodbye to Gwen and then got in the car cutting off whatever she had been saying.

Hakon started the engine with a satisfying roar and they drove off out of town towards Grima's house.

"You know, Astyr," Gunnar started, "it's really not a bad idea to ask Grima for a cell phone." Astyr agreed to think about it but only as a way to stop the discussion. She settled back into the seat and enjoyed the heavy, electric guitar blues music that the screen in the dashboard said was The Black Keys. Three more songs had played by the time Hakon pulled into the driveway and drove up to the front of the dark red house set on stilts. Grima was walking up to the house from the nearby riverbank and called out a hello to Astyr and the two boys. "Grima, I don't know if you realize, but Astyr doesn't have a cell phone." Gunnar opened the subject and Astyr shot him a look that would have stopped anyone else in their tracks. "She'd be a whole lot safer if she had one in case of emergencies, you know."

Grima actually agreed with the grinning fool and promised to take care of it the next day. Astyr mumbled a thanks for the ride to Hakon and a see you later to Gunnar and they got back in the car and drove off.

"You don't have to go to the trouble, Grima." Astyr really wasn't comfortable with Grima taking on a long-term commitment to the phone company on her behalf.

"No, Astyr, you're right, I don't have to. But the boys are right about it being safer and I would feel better knowing I could find you or that you could call me if you needed help." This was a sound argument and Astyr knew she wouldn't win so she thanked Grima for taking care of her and headed up the stairs.

They spent the afternoon discussing the plants that grew in the surrounding forests and what they were good for when Astyr decided to ask Grima about the wildlife. "I hear animals in the mornings when I'm walking out to the bus and my city-tuned mind starts imagining the biggest, scariest beasts it can think of." Astyr said this to Grima with a laugh. "I swear I can feel their beady little eyes following me as I walk past."

"There aren't really any beasts in these woods, Astyr." This was supposed to be reassurance. "We're too close to civilization to find many large predators, but it isn't unheard of to see a panther or a bear." This brought a look of surprise to Astyr's face but Grima smiled and patted her on the hand. "Don't you worry about them, dear. Being so close to town, any large animals like that will know enough to avoid humans."

Astyr decided that close to town must be a subjective measure because she couldn't have felt more isolated from other people in the thick forest of evergreens and fiery colored autumn oaks that surrounded them.

The rest of the evening followed the now-familiar pattern and Astyr finished the history book that Grima had loaned her before climbing into bed and falling fast asleep.

********************************************************