The Strange Maid

TWENTY-TWO

AFTER EXTRACTING FROM Talia a promise of temporary silence about our discoveries and a printout of the latest lesser-troll sightings in Port Orleans in return for allowing her a personal visit with Red Stripe, we head home. My toes curl and tap in my boots as I analyze the possibilities. If the troll mother’s here, if she’s been hunting me, I should draw her away from the city and its residents, but it’s also possible the huge population has been a cushion of safety because she can’t find me here without revealing herself.

And suddenly I have questions for her, not only this black need to cut out her heart. I want to know why she came to Vinland. What choices did she make—as it’s clear she does make her own choices—that led her there? If she wasn’t from Montreal and if she truly followed Soren and me here, it has nothing to do with Red Stripe. That is both a relief and horrifying, because then what if it was only and always to do with me?

If Freya and Odin set me on the path toward her, did they set her onto me, too? Your heart, she said, as if she recognized me, had been looking for my heart. And what about Unferth? Where does he fit in?

There must be a solution to this puzzle. A refrain to this poem.

After ten minutes of silent driving along the red highway, Soren says, “Maybe she has nightmares about you, too.”

I shiver despite the heat and bright sunlight, and ask him to pull off at a rest stop.

It’s white with a pink tile roof, sheltering soda machines and candy dispensers, toilets, a Skuld shrine for travel blessings, and a stand of brochures advertising swamp tours and the Old Quarter and the Mjolnir Institute we just visited. While Soren buys a honey soda, I wash my face in one of the rather wretched sinks, then stand outside in the sunlight. It dries the water as I lift my chin, eyes closed. The evaporation is slow and prickles. What does it feel like to have your skin turn to stone?

Shaking out of the thought, I plop onto a bench. I bend down to grab a sharp chunk of gravel and carve nihtmaera, an Old Anglish word for nightmare, into the surface of the picnic table. I turn it into a binding rune and try to match it to my scar. It nearly fits.

Soren slides in across from me and adjusts the sock on his forearm before putting his elbows on the table. He doesn’t even open the soda can but regards me placidly while condensation forms against the aluminum.

I take a deep breath and pluck the front of my sundress off my chest to let air slip down. Dogs bark and cars rush past; the wind bends the pine trees lining the highway.

Finally I reach over and pop the top of his soda for him. He lifts his eyebrows. Instead of bursting out with my thoughts on what we should do next about the troll mother, I say, “I met a disir in the garden at the ball.”

“A disir!”

I rub my finger over nihtmaera. “It was Idun the Young.”

The flash of heat rips down my arms and face; I jerk my face away. When I peek again, Soren’s hands are flat against the picnic table, his brow creased, but otherwise he hasn’t moved. “She was there?” he whispers tightly when I meet his gaze.

“Yes.”

Soren knocks the soda can over with a sharp swipe. Carbonation hisses as the liquid glugs out. He watches it for a long moment and then says, “I’m sorry. I’m … sorry.”

I cover his fist with my hands and slowly pry it open. I draw the rune love in his palm.

“How does she look? Is she … well?” he says, so quietly I nearly can’t hear it.

“Pretty, and healthy.” I catch his eyes. He looks down.

We remain posed with our hands together while the breeze and sun dry the spilled soda into a nearly invisible patch against the wood. Soren’s shoulders heave then, and he withdraws his hand.

“Soren, how is she Idun the Young? I saw it in her eyes, her godhood. I know you aren’t supposed to say more, that it was breaking enough trust to even tell me her name.…”

His glower is severe. “That’s why Freya stole Baldur’s ashes, or arranged for it, to get Astrid there and make her the Lady of Apples. That is what she wanted.”

“There was no other way?”

“Astrid … agreed. She knew it was the right thing to do, and always … always was devoted.”

“To Freya?”

“To Freya, and Baldur, and the world and … her own heart. She’s so good, Signy.”

I scowl. “If Freya wants me to kill the troll mother, she’ll get that, too. Everything she wants.”

He nods. “Freya didn’t get everything she wanted. I was supposed to forget Astrid, too. It would have destroyed me. I would not be the man I am without her in my life. It would change me as much as cutting out my frenzy.”

“Odd-eye, Soren. I should have tied her up and dragged you to her.”

He laughs sourly. “I’ll see her in a few weeks.”

“You will?”

“Four times a year, at the heavens’ holidays, I’m allowed to spend one day with her.”

“What a curse.”

“A blessing compared to what it might have been.” He covers his chest, as if it pains him, and stands up. “Can we go? I’m too hot; I need to move.”

I follow him back to the car, where he insists on driving, as it will give him a thing to focus on to stay calm until he can practice his meditation.

As we head back into the city, I wonder if I’ve been too selfish. What if I’m not Freya’s endgame, but Astrid was? What if Vinland and I and the massacre were all just consequences to her plan? Did she give us up for Astrid to become Idun the Young? Were we casualties of war? Maybe my riddle was to position me for vengeance. Maybe Freya did this for me.

And that would mean Unferth did it for me, too.

I think of his dangerous teeth, of that hidden smile behind his eyes, when his lips never moved at all. And I wonder if I’m making it all up, inventing meaning in her actions and in his, because I can’t stand the thought that he was her pawn, that he only betrayed me.

I invite Soren to stay for dinner, but he shakes his head and says darkly, “I can’t control myself right now if your Sharkman pushes me.”

I lean across the gearshift and kiss the corner of his mouth. His hands tighten on the steering wheel and he very carefully remains still. I say, “If you change your mind, you’re welcome. Always welcome wherever I am, Soren Bearstar.”

He nods once, slowly, and I gather the rolled-up map from the backseat and climb out.

When I enter, I go straight into the garage where Red Stripe is chained. He’s crouched more comfortably in this airy room, despite the restraints, than he’s been in weeks. His calcified expression is merely uneasy instead of twisted with rage or pain. I set my map down and take a harsh cloth from the bucket of salt water in the corner. Darius, reading a book in the only chair in the room, glances up but says nothing as I wring out the water and put the cloth against the gash clinging to Red Stipe’s back and side. I lean in, scrubbing at the purple crystals that are his hardened blood. I should have asked Talia if she could guess why he’s not healing well, and wonder if maybe it’s the heat as she mentioned. But then, he was in the cold of Halifax for two weeks at least, and it didn’t heal then, either.

When I’ve scraped off the blood crystals as best I can, I stroke a finger along his short tusk and whisper, “It won’t be much longer.”

“Lady?” Darius says.

Putting my back to Red Stripe’s hard marble chest, I lean into his arm, which props him up like a pillar. And I look at Darius. He’s back in his uniform now, the long black vest and black pants, black boots. It leaves his arms bare. The left shoulder is marked with a family crest tattoo: a rampant eagle spreading its wings, in its claws a round-shield divided into quarters: two are blacked out, one holds the rune for strength, and in the last is a crossed hammer and anvil. Beneath the crest is a small phrase in medieval script.

“What does not a leader, but a man mean?”

He puts his book upside down against his knee. “It reminds me that when dealing with such power as turns in my chest, with the god of madness, I must be a man first before I can expect anyone to follow me. My father used to say it, and I had it added when I was made captain.”

“You must have been young.”

Darius shrugs. “Young but strong, Lady Valkyrie.”

“Strong,” I murmur.

“That isn’t something you need to worry about. I saw your strength when you charged at the herd, all alone.”

I push away from Red Stripe. “I wasn’t thinking about it. It was just what I had to do.”

He nods as if to say, Of course.

“Darius,” I whisper.

The captain sets his book on the floor and leans his elbows onto his knees. He regards me intensely but only waits.

“The troll mother is here. Near here, at least.” I take a long, shaking breath. “I think she followed me, and maybe even somehow was in Vinland because of me and my riddle. I can’t explain how, but the goddess Freya is involved, and I suspect she’s capable of manipulating nearly anything.”

He nods once, slowly. “What would you have us do?”

I push my temple against the hard, smooth surface of Red Stripe’s knee until it hurts. “I want to go out tonight and see if I can find out about where she might be. Through the lesser trolls. If I can find some iron eaters, maybe I can bargain with them. There’s so much water here she could be hiding in—the Wide Water or the ocean, or any of these massive swamps. If I can’t narrow it down, we’ll have to do something to draw her out.”

“Which would be more dangerous.”

“Exactly.”

“We’ll go with you. Sharkman and I, and leave Thebes here with Red Stripe.”

“No, I should go alone.”

The long look Darius gives me makes plain his disagreement.

“You’ll scare them—especially iron wights, Captain. Probably I’ll scare them, even if I’m gentle. But I’ll fare better on my own with getting them to talk instead of run.”

“This sounds more like madness than bravery.”

I throw him a half smile. “I’m better with madness.”

“As am I,” says Sharkman as he clomps down the stairs. “You see? We belong together.”

I laugh, and it feels good.

Sharkman gives me the smile that earned him his name.