The Strange Maid

TWENTY-SIX

THE CITY OF the dead spreads out around me, marble glowing like pieces of the moon fallen to earth. I sit cross-legged, facing a woman with black hair in two thick braids down either side of her face, hollow cheeks, a smile carved to hold laughter.

We speak of family and the old television I watched with my mother and father on those rare weekends when they decided satisfaction meant snuggling under blankets just the three of us, when we never got dressed or even brushed our teeth, but only ate sugar toast and the most activity was tickle torture during commercial breaks. I tell the woman those were the times I first felt wild, when I shrieked and cried for relief but begged them not to stop. She says her first encounter with madness was at a wedding, a night made brilliant by bonfires and drums.

I tell her, I’m waiting for you on an island.

And she says, I’m coming.

It’s sunlight that wakes me, warming my face.

Grass tickles my hands and cheek. I sit up. The sun is high. I fell asleep on the scraggly grass mound on the northwest edge of Fort Massadchuset. Salty sea air ruffles the wisps of hair around my face and I wince into the light.

We arrived last night after midnight, under a low, oblong moon, and it was only the UV lights we’d torn off the semi that let us find the long boardwalk reaching out from the narrow island into the sea where we could tie the trawler off. Red Stripe had to climb over the boat and plop into the water. I rode on his shoulder as he struggled up the steep sand bank in the darkness toward the fort. Cold ocean soaked my jeans and I was crusted with pale sand by the time we made it to the brick wall and around to the only entrance to the fort. The berserkers were there, affixing the UV spotlights in ways that gave us light but didn’t bar Red Stripe from the arched doorway. The sally port, Rathi called it, unable to hide his admiration for the construction. All I saw were bricks.

I took Red Stripe through the three-meter brick tunnel into the inner courtyard and trudged back down the long dock to help the rest unload all our supplies. And Ned, of course. Sharkman led him by a slipknot noose around his neck. It pinched my heart to see it, knowing what I knew, but I allowed it to happen and climbed up the narrow turret stairs to the grassy roof of the fort with a spear and handheld light to keep watch in case she was right behind us.

After an hour or so my eyes burned for sleep as I scanned the black waves and shoreline for any oddities, and Soren relieved me. I curled up right there to dream.

Now in the daylight I can see the whole of the fort and island and can’t imagine a more perfect place.

It’s probably three or four kilometers from tip to tip, curved toward the mainland like a young moon, all white sand and rough green grass and inner saltwater bogs. No trees, no tall dunes that a greater mountain troll might use for shelter or shield. We control the fort, the only permanent structure other than the boardwalk connecting the sides of the island and the flat wooden patio with its falling-down picnic tables and old restroom facilities.

The fort itself is a great circle of concrete and brick, sunk down into the ocean floor at the inner edge of the island. Rathi told me on the ship last night it was built to protect the mainland against the Anglish during the War of 1812 but not completed until the rebel army took control during the Thralls’ War. It had thirteen cannons at one point, and you can still count the crumbled mounting platforms. I stand on one of the grass embrasures and could walk the entire perimeter if I wished. Down in the half-circle parade ground the Mad Eagles have set up a large baby-blue tarp on tall poles next to one of the three turret stairs. Soren perches on a folding stool under its shade, sipping coffee and watching the three berserkers work out. The folding chairs lean against a brick furnace with a small hearth and chimney.

Red Stripe shelters below me, under one of the brick archways lining the parade, and Sharkman tied Ned up in a sublevel storage room rather like a cave.

A soft yell draws my attention back to the Mad Eagles. They stand in a line in the center of the grassy parade ground, exercising. As I watch, they cry out again in a single voice, moving in unison through a series of defensive postures. Their swords shine in the sun.

I slide down the steep grass embrasure and land on the brick footpath that runs around the inner circumference of cannon mounts. There’s a more modern metal rail, filthy with salt and rust, to keep tourists from pitching over into the inside.

Even the seven of us should be able to hold this place against the troll mother, especially if we have warning from Red Stripe. But he’s given no indication yet that he’s aware of anything the rest of us aren’t, and so we can’t rely on him. As I go carefully down the dark turret stairs, the sense of my dream rushes back to me. The woman in Valkyrie braids who spoke with a smile of the Alfather’s madness. The sense that we were old friends; the comfort between us had been gentle and warm. And yet, I know in my heart it was a dream of the troll mother. I told her where to find me.

I join Soren under the mess tarp. He silently points to a package of toothbrushes sitting on the plastic folding table, and then to the ten-gallon water jug hanging from one of the poles. He doesn’t take his eyes off the Mad Eagles. “The toilets outside don’t flush, but Thebes and I made a compost on the other side of the building first thing.”

Not looking forward to that, I quickly brush, counting out the supplies piled beneath and atop the table. There’s boxes of protein bars, a bag of oranges, a cooler, honey sodas, and bottles of wine. Toilet paper. I rub at the flaking salt still clinging to my skin from my swim, wondering if we’ll be here long enough that I have to worry about tampons. I grab some of the toilet paper and head out of the fort, down the creaky boardwalk to the facilities. Outside the fort, the sun glares off the white sand and tightens the salt on my skin. I’ve got to change out of these clothes.

When I return, I use my tank top and the hanging water bottle to scrub my face, then ask where my stuff is. Soren points to one of the guardhouses. “You’re in there, and Rathi and I are sharing the other. Unferth is still tied up in that powder magazine. The Mad Eagles set tents up in the casemates with Red Stripe.”

It’s a good thing he points to the low black arch leading down off the parade grass when he mentions powder magazine and to the proud brick arches that completely surround the rest of the parade when he says casemates.

I thank him and head into the casemates: the hallway of linked chambers underneath the circle of cannon mounts. Green slime stains the corners of their vaulted brick ceilings, and a thin white layer of sand and salt streaks everything, even the slate floor. In the cool shadows Red Stripe is hunkered down, back to the bright parade ground. His spine and shoulders are calcified, but I see his arm moving slowly as he traces the cracks between the bricks. His eyes turn to me when I approach and scratch behind his ear. “There, Red Stripe,” I say. He grunts contentedly.

The guardhouse walls where I find my suitcase and sleeping bag were whitewashed at some point; a naked wooden checkout counter and a few sagging shelves mark how it was a bookstore once. I strip and dig out jeans and one of the Mad Eagles T-shirts that have become a staple of my wardrobe.

When I emerge back into the sun the Mad Eagles have circled up into a complicated battle-ring, and there’s Soren still drinking coffee. No sign of Rathi.

I pick my way barefoot across the meadow and then pad down the concrete stairs into the blackness of the powder magazine. Ned lounges against the crumbling wall with his hands tied together. He eyes the berserker logo just visible on my shirt. “Do as the Romans do?” he asks lightly.

“I can find one for you, if you’re jealous.”

He shrugs one shoulder as if it matters not at all, wincing at the light behind me. “Am I free to leave this cage, Signy?”

I crouch to untie his hands. “Unless you’d rather I bring you a chamber pot. We’ve got toothbrushes and water and TP at the mess.” As I turn away, I toss back over my shoulder, “Probably no hot chocolate, though.”

Sun and humidity curl the wisps of hair escaping from my messy braids. I join Soren, accept a tin mug of hideous camp coffee, and pretend not to watch Unferth harvest morning necessities from the table and stroll out the fort. His limp is bad, likely from being bound on a cold stone floor all night. But his shoulders seem relaxed, and just before he vanishes I see him glance up at the sky. Maybe he’s relieved to have told his story. He held on to it for so long.

I undo my braids and use my fingers to untangle them, thinking of Ned’s fingers on my scalp, and I watch Soren watch the Mad Eagles move through a complicated series of defensive postures. “Why don’t you join them?”

“I’m not one of them.”

“Neither am I, but I’ve worked out with them.”

“It’s different.”

“Sharkman makes it different, you mean.”

“No.” He glances at them again, not bothering to hide the confused longing. “I’ve never been good with other berserkers. And now that I denied Odin, most of them hold it against me. You saw, back at the base. He didn’t even want to let me in the gate.”

Abandoning my hair, I smack his shoulder. “Let’s go, then.”

He hesitates for only a moment.

We warm up quickly, with the system he showed me in empty hotel weight rooms, and by the time Unferth is rooting around in the mess to make more coffee, we’re sparring with two of the Mad Eagles’ practice spears.

Though I know Soren goes easy on me, I sink into the rhythm and feel I’m doing well, until the Mad Eagles gather to watch. Darius folds his arms over his chest and Thebes crouches like a mountain beside him. Sharkman glares hot daggers at Soren, and Ned brings his tin cup of coffee nearer. I try to ignore the audience, but the moment Unferth drinks he sneers and spits coffee onto the ground, then overturns his cup. I laugh and Soren disarms me, shaking his head at my lack of attention.

In the ensuing quiet, tension draws us all together as Unferth stands there, free and casual.

I grab up my spear from the ground and toss it at him. He drops his cup to catch it, and I take Soren’s spear, lifting it in challenge. Unferth lowers his chin and smiles. I rush to find my footing, forgetting everything else.

I attack wildly. He slows me down with careful blocks, wielding his weapon like a troll-spear. The jar of spears colliding shakes up my arms and I use my feet to hold the butt in place, dodge, place the spear again, dive through his defense, and shove instead of whipping it about to get in a lighter hit. Unferth staggers but goes low and pushes me back with a hard angle against my waist.

The sun beats down. It’s been two months since I fought in this style, and Unferth knocks me down again and again, but I turn fast and am on my feet before he can pin me. Little flashes of surprise on his face fill me with satisfaction, no matter how often I hit dirt. Practicing with Soren has helped tremendously.

Finally, when he knocks me to the ground, I stay there, breathe hard, and stretch my hands and feet out as far as I can. My shirt sticks to me and my scalp itches, my head spins and the tips of my fingers throb with my pulse. But the air rushing in and out of my lungs is clean, dragging all the darkness out of me. It finds each crevice, every fold inside where doubts hide, and tears it out.

Unferth crouches over me, the spear tilted against his shoulder, and says, “Have you gone soft while I was away?”

“Away?” I sneer at him, but it turns into a laugh.

His annoyance melts as he watches me smile, and my insides seem to evaporate in a burst of bubbles. He holds down his hand and I take it, letting him pull me up against him. We part slowly, as friends, and I know the Mad Eagles will see it, will understand as far as I’m concerned he’s part of our team.

Darius begins to speak, but Sharkman turns fast and gets right in Soren’s face. “Our turn, berserker.”

He makes the word into an insult.

As if he’s been spring-loaded, Soren throws immediately into Sharkman.

My guts knot as Unferth and I back up out of the way. Unlike our spar, this is vicious and fast. Like dogs, Soren and Sharkman dart in to engage, punch, and grapple, then fling apart. They circle and leap back in with jabs and grunting. Sharkman knocks Soren’s head to the side, and Soren connects with Sharkman’s stomach in a heavy blow. They break apart again and Sharkman shakes his shoulders, then strips off his shirt. The column of horizontal spear tattoos ripples as his chest heaves.

Soren pauses, and I’m about to insert myself when he slowly removes his T-shirt, too, and sinks back into his boxing stance. Sharkman growls and bares his teeth, face flushed.

The meadow is silent but for the smack of flesh and hard grunts and the occasional explosion of breath. Soren takes a few hard hits, then goes on the defensive; he dodges and blocks, occasionally knocking back, while Sharkman pounds harder and faster, and my throat is closing up. I think I have to throw in myself to get this to stop, if Darius won’t, and all the gods curse them.

Just as I think it, Soren lunges in and grabs Sharkman by the neck and chest, and there’s an explosion of heat. I spread my arms to catch myself when it hits me. Thebes sways, and even Darius falters back a step.

Sharkman drops to his knees.

Soren lets go, expression stricken, and turns away. As Sharkman falls forward and barely catches himself with his hands, Soren heads fast to the mess tent, grabs a bottle of water, twists it open, and pours it over his face.

And Rathi, standing in the doorway of the second guardhouse in miraculously pressed pants, shirtsleeves, and a vest that shines with pink-and-orange-flowered embroidery, says stiffly, “If you’ve all finished determining your place in the pack, maybe we should discuss the battle plan.”

Soren raggedly insists on checking the perimeter of the island first, though we can see everything from the wall of the fort. Worried, I go after him, padding carefully barefoot along the boardwalk until he leaps off into the shallow dunes. I roll up my jeans and track after him, around the edge of an inland pond that shimmers with tiny waves, toward the far western tip. Whitecaps beat at the southern curve of the island itself, but to the bay side the water is clear green, calmly lapping the beach.

Soren sinks to his knees at the edge of the water and lifts great splashes of it up to his face.

The sand sinks away under my toes. Sunlight warms my neck and arms, and the air smells like fish and salt water. Soren looks up at me, shoulders dripping and seawater glistening in his buzzed hair. I notice the new tattoo on his forearm that’s been covered until now.

It’s the outline of a skinny, twisted apple tree growing from roots that encircle his wrist. The branches weave and tangle up toward his elbow in delicate lines, only the phantom of a tree with tiny apples sketched in like promises.

“Are you all right?” I ask. “What did you do to Sharkman?”

He strips off his orange T-shirt, rubs it over his face, and tosses it onto a tuft of grass. “I drew off his frenzy. The power of it, even though we weren’t berserking. That’s what happened, at the end of the fight. I reached it and just took it away.”

“Odd-eye, that’s incredible.”

“I shouldn’t be able to,” he says darkly. “I’m not their warleader. That’s how they assign captains.”

“It isn’t about seniority?”

Soren rolls his wide shoulders with discomfort. “Just power. Madness, and the one in charge needs to be the one who can control the rest of the men. Just in case.”

“Could you do it to Thebes and Darius?”

“It’s possible.” He doesn’t sound convinced.

“When I decide to take over the world, you’ll definitely be my first call.”

“If you survive the next few hours.” Soren’s gaze stretches toward the mainland, reminding me sharply of what’s coming. We should head back now, but it’s so lovely here for these last few moments of peace. I wonder if the troll mother is under the water yet, if she made it that far.

“I’ll survive,” I say, and kick a huge splash of water at him. He doesn’t waste energy blocking it but lets it fall all over him, completely darkening his jeans.

I grin.

His hand snakes out and he grabs my ankle, shifting up with his shoulder to knock my hip and send me crashing back into the ocean with a yell.

The water barely softens the blow of my other hip against the beach. Laughing and wincing simultaneously, I dunk back all the way, lying back into the sloping sand. I rub sweat off my arms, scrub my face, and pop my mouth and nose out enough to breathe while I work my fingers through my hair and let it all loose.

I let the gentle sway of the tide move around me, for one moment lost in the quiet roar of the ocean.

When I sit up, Soren has dragged a large hunk of driftwood to the water and straddled it. I stay in the ocean, enjoying the cool silk of it sliding over my legs. Leaning back with my elbows on the soft sand, I breathe as deeply as I can and hold it, then I tell Soren everything Ned told me.

His glower grows fiercer the longer I talk, and when I say Freya’s name, he moves his mouth like he wants to spit but can’t. I flick my fingers against the surface of the sea and say, “We have to go back and make a final plan. I know she’s coming tonight.”

“Because of things Unferth said? We can’t trust that. Not if the troll mother is coming, and he’s done so much for her, for hundreds of years.”

I shake all the water from my hands and stand up. With water sluicing off my jeans I look straight at him. “I love him.”

Soren tilts his head up, wincing away from the bright sky. “There’s nothing Astrid could do to make me stop loving her.”

Relieved that he understands, I smile. “I’m sure Ned Unferth could manage something unforgivable if he tried hard enough.”

“Probably that’s part of what you like in him. You both reach for impossible things.”

As he joins me on the bank, I lift my chin and adopt an air of haughtiness. “Naturally.”

“I’ll dump you back in the sea,” he threatens, and I swing an arm as high as I can around his shoulders. It occurs to me that everything I’ve been through is worth it for earning a friend like Soren Bearstar.

He must agree with me, for he puts his arm around my waist and lets us walk like that for a few minutes before his usual reticence kicks in and he withdraws. We’re nearly back to the fort, me cursing my playfulness because wet jeans are the most awkward thing in the world, when I see Ned himself waiting for us on the boardwalk. Soren casts me a careful glance and murmurs, “I’ll see the others are gathered and ready,” before walking through the sally port.

I stare at Ned while Soren clomps down the boardwalk. He leans off his bad leg and holds an open bottle of wine loose in his hand. He takes a drink. “You and Soren enjoy your bath?”

“Quite,” I say with relish.

He twists his mouth. “He’d make you a good consort. Possibly he’s even who Freya had in mind when she made me promise not to love you myself,” he says more casually than I’ve ever heard him bother with.

I laugh. “That’s not likely. Soren …” My laughter trails away and I stand there, stunned. He was supposed to forget Astrid. “Do you really think so?” I stoop beside him.

His shoulders jerk in a shrug. “Why else would she care who I loved?”

My instinct is to shove him over, to act out because he keeps dancing around that word. “It isn’t Soren you have to worry about.”

“Worry about,” he sneers.

“Sharkman is the one I kissed.”

Ned hisses through his teeth; exactly what I wanted him to do. I smile, and he cusses. “I do not like this, little raven—Signy.”

“It’s hard being the one not in the know. The one teased.” I skip back from his reach.

He doesn’t chase. “Not being the one you’re kissing.”

It hangs between us in the sticky air. I swipe the bottle of wine. “You know you’ll have to cut back how many nights a week you’re drunk when I’m the Valkyrie of the Tree. I can’t be surrounding myself with bad role models.”

He studies me, slowly sucks in his bottom lip as if he’s tasting a last drop of wine. “I’ll consider it,” he murmurs.

I offer the bottle back to him. As he takes it, our fingers brush together, and I slowly smile.

The seven of us gather in the questionable shade of the mess tent to eat protein bars and talk. Sharkman and Soren sit at opposite ends, and Rathi folds his hands and bows his head like he’s in church.

I describe my dream this morning, my feeling that the woman was the troll mother despite her lovely Valkyrie appearance. That if this mother is the first troll mother, perhaps this was her face before Freya put the heart into her chest.

Ned’s lips tighten as if he disagrees, but he only says, “We should be ready before twilight. I’ve seen her walk under cloudy skies and rise when the sun still burned in the west.”

“Is that because of the heart?” I ask. “If I’m right, it lets her use rune magic like the ancient Valkyrie could, like Odin and Freya do. That might be one reason why it’s my riddle’s answer—so I take that power from her, to use it myself, or … give it to Odin.”

“That’s just a story,” Rathi scoffs. His eyes are dark and warm as the earth. It dawns on me he’s not wearing his contacts. “You’re forgetting the fossil record.”

I laugh. Rathi sniffs and regards me with the familiar brown eyes from all my best memories.

But Ned says, “This troll mother isn’t the original troll mother.”

“What?”

He only gazes at me as if I should already understand.

“How do you know?” asks Darius.

Ned twists his mouth, and his hand tightens on his knee, knuckles whitening.

Impatiently I say, “He knows because he’s the original Unferth Truth-Teller. Raised from the dead by Freya to lead me to the troll mother. Ned, are you sure? I thought she told you this troll has the heart from—”

Sharkman surges to his feet. “Freya!”

“You knew Hrothgar Shielding?” Rathi interrupts. “Of the great Freyan kings? You were at Heorot?”

Darius quietly says, “Beowulf Berserk.”

Rathi stands up to, too, towering over Ned, and the sunlight gilds the smooth waves of his hair. “That’s why your version was different in places, like I’ve never seen or heard before. You wrote the poem!”

Of course my wish-brother resisted the legend of the first troll mother being true, but he believes this with only scant linguistic evidence.

“Sang it. I sang it,” Ned snaps. “When I was a poet, when I was a man, we didn’t murder poetry by carving it onto stone. It lived in the air or not at all.”

There’s a long silence as everyone studies him.

I rub my rune scar. “Ned, how do you know this troll mother isn’t the first?”

He slowly turns his gray eyes to mine. “The same way she knew me, when she saw me. We are old friends.”

“Grendel’s mother?” Darius asks.

Sharkman says firmly, “She died. Beowulf killed her.”

Suddenly I know. My rune scar. Strange Maid. Ned told me the answer months ago. And again last night: In the end, she was too dark, too mad, for her own good. I splay my hand and thrust to my feet. “Rag me,” I whisper. “Valtheow.”

My troll mother. My mirror self, the monster of my dreams. Writing my name again and again, carved into her stone chest. But not my name. Her name. Valtheow.

I push through the men and look down at Ned. Truth truth truth flickers against his pupil. “You lied,” I whisper, hoarse and shocked.

He says numbly, “That poem was the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

“What?” Rathi demands.

“He made it all up,” I say. “What happened at the mere. The story of Beowulf.”

“No. Most of it is true.” Ned blinks, staring at a thing from the past. “The berserker killed Grendel. But it was Valtheow who destroyed the mother and saved Heorot.”

Darius puts his hand on Thebes’s shoulder as if to steady himself. Sharkman’s face is blotchy around the spear tattoo on his cheek. Bright sunlight pours down through the tarp, turning everything a haunted blue.

“He’s our greatest hero,” Thebes rumbles.

“But why?” Rathi whispers. “Why lie about that?”

“Grendel’s mother had the heart,” Ned says, his voice hollow. “The magical stone heart from the very first troll that Signy was talking about. It’s what made Grendel’s mother so powerful. The trolls had passed it down, mother to daughter, over the ages.”

I sink to my knees beside Ned’s camp chair. “Valtheow took it.”

He says, “Because she made herself into a mirror of the creature, she recognized the heart. She felt its power and coveted it. She ripped it out of the troll thinking she could control it. Thinking she was strong enough alone. She wasn’t. The heart destroyed her, turned her into a monster in truth.”

“You lied to protect her legacy,” I say.

“I had to, didn’t I?” he begs. “I couldn’t let anyone know; I couldn’t make that her immortality. She was magnificent, but she … fell. She lost herself to the worst parts of her nature: vengeance and passion and the darkness that had always drawn her.” Ned grips my wrist. “Signy … you’re drawn to those things, too.”

I push up and away from him as my heartbeat thunders in my ears, counting that old eight-point rhythm like Odin’s own pulse.

“It’s happening again,” Rathi says ominously. “We have all the pieces: berserkers and Valkyrie, the poet and his king named Hrothgar. A troll mother. Even a one-armed troll-son.”

“This isn’t Heorot,” Ned says irritably.

It’s Thebes who rubs his scarred temple and says, “I hope it goes better for us.”