by Joan Holub
“Okay,” Honir said agreeably.
“No! Don’t let him go,” Bragi warned in the nick of time. “We have to keep hold of him, remember? Or he else he’ll shape-shift and get away.” That was the way shape-shifting magic worked, as Loki well knew. As long as anyone touched him with so much as a fingertip, he couldn’t change shape, but once they let go, shifting would be easy.
“Oh, right,” said Honir.
Seeing that they were onto him, Loki began to twist, turn, and yell vigorously in an effort to get free. Hearing the commotion, other students came running, including Skade, Sif, and the mighty boygod Thor. Thor and Skade grabbed on to Loki too, just in case. Bragi was glad, because in his new “old” state, Loki seemed way heavy and strong.
“Idun isn’t in our dorm room. We just checked,” Skade told Loki flatly when he insisted again that she was probably there.
“We just pecked? I didn’t peck anything,” Sif said, looking confused. When Skade repeated what she’d actually said more loudly, Sif nodded. “Oh, right. Checked. She’s not there. And she wouldn’t just go off somewhere without picking and delivering her apples to the V first.”
Bragi nodded in agreement.
“That’s right!” several other students chimed in to say.
By now they’d carried Loki all the way to the doors of Gladsheim Hall. Honir and the others let go of Loki’s feet, allowing him to stand, but Thor kept hold of his arms. Though Thor wasn’t as superstrong as before he’d aged, he still had more muscles than anyone else around.
“Last chance before you face Odin,” Bragi warned Loki, nodding toward the hall door. “Spill your guts. Where’s Idun?”
As if to make this threat even clearer, Skade added, “If you don’t tell us right now where to find her, we’re taking you inside. Where Odin and Ms. Frigg await.”
Loki cringed. “Okay, okay,” he said at last. “I’ll tell you what happened.” Quickly he explained about the deal he’d made yesterday with the eagle-giant Thiazi in order to gain his release.
“I knew there must have been a reason he suddenly let go of you and that ladle in midair!” Bragi exclaimed. “But I can’t believe you let him kidnap Idun just to save your own skin.”
“I can!” several students called out, including Thor, Sif, and Skade.
Just then, falcon-Freya soared down from the sky. Her shape-shifting feather cloak drew oohs and aahs from those who hadn’t seen it in use till now. Once she landed, she removed the cloak and laid it over her arm, then put on her red wool cloak, which Sif had been holding for her.
“Oh, good, you found Loki,” Freya announced breathlessly. She sagged against the hall door, looking totally winded. “Just got back from flying over Asgard to look for Idun and him from above. But I came up empty.” Eyeing Loki, she demanded, “So where is she?”
Loki shrugged helplessly. “Wherever Thiazi took her.”
“Thiazi?” Freya repeated.
As the situation was explained to Freya, Loki insisted that he’d had no choice about what he’d done. “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have lost my temper and hit that giant with the soup ladle. But Thiazi would never have let me go without a promise that I’d bring Idun and her apples to him. If it’s a choice between me or someone else, of course I’ll save myself,” he said, as if this were the only reasonable course of action.
“Yes, you would,” Freya agreed irritably. “But think about this. Your choice has doomed a great many of us at the academy, including you! Because without Idun and her apples, we’re all going to age quickly and die.”
“Hmm. That is a problem,” Loki admitted. “So what’s your solution?”
“Why do we have to fix your mess?” demanded Skade, going nose to nose with him.
Echoing Skade, others began to grumble. “Yeah. Why should we?”
To rein things in before they could get out of hand, Bragi called for quiet. “Let’s check that café. Thiazi is probably holding Idun captive there. Someone needs to rescue her. And fast!”
“Thor? Couldn’t you go after Thiazi and bonk him on the head with Mjollnir?” Sif suggested.
Looking a little embarrassed, Thor admitted, “Mjollnir is back at my pod. That hammer is heavy, and I’m too weak to lift it right now. Someone else will have to rescue her.”
At this, everyone looked at Loki. “What? Me?” he asked. “You expect me to go after her?”
They all just glared at him. “It’s your fault Thiazi’s got her,” Sif pointed out.
“Besides, look at us,” Skade said, motioning to herself and the gray-haired students around her. “Look how tired out Freya got just flying a little way. We aren’t fit enough to go. Not at the rate we’re aging. And that’s your fault too! So get going!”
“Or would you rather discuss this with Odin? Huh, Loki?” Bragi jerked his head toward Gladsheim’s double-doors again.
Odin could be pretty terrifying when angry—even an old Odin. So it was no surprise when Loki quickly replied, “Okay, I’ll go.” There was a resigned look in his eyes as he glanced around at the other students. However, his eyes lit up when they settled on the feather cloak still draped over Freya’s arm. “Only I’ll need to borrow Freya’s shape-shifting cloak.”
“Ha!” said Freya. “No way. You can travel just as fast wearing your magic yellow racing shoes.”
“True,” said Loki, “but then Thiazi would see me coming. To have any chance at rescuing Idun, I need to go in disguise.”
“But you can shape-shift into anything you want,” Freya argued.
“Yeah, but Thiazi’s mountaintop café is quite a journey,” Loki told her. “It takes a lot of energy to hold a shape for such a long period of time.” He hesitated a moment before going on. “And it’s also likely that Idun will be mad at me if and when I find her.”
“Duh, you think?” Skade burst out.
“Drink what?” asked Sif, cupping her ear in confusion.
Loki ignored them. “So anyway, if I wear your feather cloak, Freya, I can fool Idun into thinking I’m you. She’ll probably let me rescue her no questions asked.”
Freya frowned at him, frustrated. “I wish I could just go myself.”
Loki shrugged. “Face it, you oldie moldies.” He waved toward the crowd, whose gray hair and wrinkles were multiplying as fast as the snowflakes that were beginning to fall. “You’re too weak and slow pokey to make it all the way there and back. I’m the only one youthful enough to go.”
“So it would seem,” Bragi said resentfully. He understood Freya’s and Thor’s frustration. If he thought he had the strength and stamina to rescue Idun himself, he’d have volunteered in a heartbeat to don Freya’s cloak and go after her. He studied Loki for a minute and a new thought occurred to him. “Have you got a stash of Idun’s apples hidden somewhere nearby?” he snapped. Even just a slice or two of one her apples would give him and a few others the strength they’d need to effect a rescue.
“Sorry,” Loki told him. “You just saw me eat the last one. There are more on the trees, but we all know they’ll wither if we try to pick them. C’mon, if we wait much longer, I’ll start to age too. And then what will we do? Ticktock, time’s a-wasting. Cloak, please.” He held an arm out to Freya.
Finally persuaded, she said, “I guess we’ll have to trust you. Just remember, you need Idun back here safe as much as we all do.” Reluctantly she handed Loki her cloak.
“Help! Thief!” the cloak cried out when it realized that the person holding it wasn’t Freya.
“It’s okay,” Freya reassured it. “I’m letting Loki borrow you, but just for a few hours.” She fixed Loki with a stern look. “If you so much as bend one of my cloak’s feathers, I’ll shred your yellow racing shoes—and you—to bits.”
A look of alarm flitted across Loki’s face, but then he grinned. “Warning noted, Ms. Graya. I mean Freya,” he told her, cracking up.
Freya rolled her eyes.
With things decided, Thor released Loki’s arms at last. Ins
tantly Loki threw Freya’s cloak across his shoulders. Just as it had with Freya, the cloak quickly tightened around his body, wings opening up from its sides and beginning to flap.
Watching falcon-Loki take to the sky and vanish into the thickly swirling snowflakes, Bragi hoped they’d done the right thing. And that Idun was okay.
12 Imprisoned
WITH A FEELING OF UTTER defeat, Idun sank to the pantry floor after the eagle-giant locked her in alone. She was too upset to feel hungry, even though she’d only had two apples to eat since last night’s dinner. Tears of self-pity welled in her eyes, but she angrily wiped them away.
“Just because your plan to help Loki do a good deed didn’t work, doesn’t mean you can’t save yourself!” she admonished herself out loud. Sitting with her back against the door, she deliberately took bites of the single magic golden apple Thiazi had given her to keep up her strength. With each bite, however, her worry escalated.
Crunch. What was happening to her friends and all the others at the academy who depended on her apples to stay youthful? Since she hadn’t delivered any apples today, the Valhallateria kitchen would be running low on them by dinnertime.
Munch. The youth-restoring effects of her apples would start to wear off after eighteen hours. And then goddesses and gods would begin to age quickly. She’d expected that she and Loki would be back before lunch to finish picking apples for the V kitchen. Oh, how she regretted trusting him now!
Crunch. Crunch. How long would it be before her friends realized she was missing?
Nibble. Nibble. Crunch. When everyone finally did notice she was gone, would they know where to look for her? Loki wasn’t likely to tell them what had happened.
“Yeah, because you set up this whole trick, Loki!” she grumped aloud into the surrounding silence as she sat in the dim pantry.
She stared at the half-eaten apple she held, thinking hard. Bragi and Honir had to be the “two companions” Thiazi had referred to when he’d mentioned Loki’s visit. Those three boygods had gone hiking and skiing together yesterday. She doubted very much that Bragi and Honir knew anything about the “deal” Loki had struck with Thiazi, though. Loki would have been too embarrassed and secretive to tell them.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. If anyone asked Heimdall, he’d recall her going off with Loki to plant apple seeds in Midgard. Still, that information alone wouldn’t help her friends find her. No, she couldn’t count on others coming to her rescue. It was up to her to gain her freedom. But how?
Suddenly she perked up a bit. She’d eaten her apple down to the core, and now she was feeling its restorative powers. Her brain jerked out of scared-and-hopeless mode and into come-up-with-a-plan-to-get-out-of-here mode. She’d been all about helping others lately. Well, now she needed to help herself—by finding a way to escape! And actually, that would help others, too. Because they needed her to pick the apples of youth to keep them healthy.
She tossed her apple core in a high arc, aiming for an empty mixing bowl on one of the shelves across from where she sat. Score! The little victory brightened her spirits further. Jumping up, she pushed aside the curtain over a small, high window so that enough light entered the room for her to see fairly well. Quickly she began rummaging through the supplies on the shelves, seeking anything that might aid in an escape.
There were cloth bags of flour and sugar, dried veggies, and many jars of spices. But how could these help? Maybe, upon Thiazi’s return, she could heave a big load of flour at him as soon as he opened the door? She might be able to blind that eagle-eyed giant long enough to dash past him. Would it work?
“Doubtful,” she murmured to a spoon she’d picked up. “He’ll just fly after me and recapture me as soon as he recovers. Too risky a plan, don’t you think?” she asked the spoon. She wiggled it up and down, pretending it had responded with a nod in the affirmative. “Right. So I’ll keep that as plan B. Now I just need to figure out a plan A. Something more likely to succeed.”
The minutes ticked by as Idun examined other items on the pantry shelves and mulled over conversations with Loki that had led up to her capture. At dinner last night, he’d told her what a coincidence it was that she’d wanted to talk to him because he’d wanted to talk to her too. Grr. His sitting with her had been no “coincidence” for sure. All along he’d been plotting to find a way to get her out to that forest and into Thiazi’s clutches!
It stunk to realize that Loki had only agreed to scatter apple seeds in Midgard because doing so would help with his own plan. “I totally fell for his trick!” she told a dragon-head-shaped oven mitt she found in the drawer of a sideboard.
Slipping her hand into it, she pretended the mitt was a puppet. “True,” she made the dragon mitt say, while bending her fingers open and closed to make it “speak.” “The fact that Loki was so easy to convince should have caused alarm bells to go off,” the mitt-puppet chided her. “But instead, you allowed yourself to believe he really did want to change.”
“Hey, don’t worry about my feelings,” Idun told the dragon mitt. “Just tell it like it is.”
The makeshift puppet (in reality her own self) continued its scolding. “And then when he flattered you, suggesting you take your ‘scrumptious’ apples to eat on the trip, you totally fell for that, too!”
Idun had had enough. “Oh, hush up, you dumb mitt-mouth dragon,” she told it. She shook her hand till it slipped off. Whack! It knocked aside a stack of large paper-thin sheets of tree bark. There was writing on them. Ingredients. Instructions. Thiazi’s recipes! Maybe if she threatened to burn them in his firepit, he’d let her go. Risky idea, though. She’d keep that as plan C.
As she eyed the jars of spices on a shelf she’d passed over earlier, a new idea came to her. She picked up a spice jar at random and dashed it to the floor to shatter it. The smell of cinnamon wafted to her nose. Mmm. Using a long-handled spoon, she carefully rummaged through the cinnamon-covered glass shards to find a long glass splinter.
“You ought to work,” Idun murmured to it. Tearing a piece of cloth from a flour bag, she wrapped it over her fingers to keep from cutting herself as she picked up the shard. Back by the door again, she kneeled and carefully tried to push the shard through the keyhole.
“Drat! Too fat,” she muttered to the shard. Realizing that she’d rhymed like Bragi, she smiled. Thinking of him and her friends made her even more determined to escape.
She could see now that even if the shard had fit, it would have been too short for her to hold on to once it was inside the lock. Turning, she now found herself eye level with a low shelf she’d overlooked earlier. On it lay a bundle of thin sticks—skewers for threading cubes of meat and veggies for grilling. Perfect!
Excitement shot through her. After pulling one of the skewers from the bundle, she poked it into the lock. She wiggled the stick around a bit and then pushed. Clack! Something inside the lock gave way. Success!
Idun opened the door and stepped out of the pantry into the café. She’d done it. She was free! She took a few steps toward her eski, then paused. Thiazi’s recipes! They could prove useful. In a flash, she dashed back inside for them and then tossed them into her eski atop the remaining golden apples.
Seconds later she was riding on the back of her eski, its runners taking her smoothly down the mountainside. It was snowing heavily now, and she guessed from the amount of filtered light overhead that it was late afternoon. Just as she reached the bottom of the mountain, she heard the shrill cry of a bird somewhere overhead. EeYEE! She froze as the eski slowed to a halt. Was Thiazi returning?
Wait! That call had sounded more like a… a falcon! Her eyes searched the skies. At first she couldn’t see the bird clearly because of the falling snow. But then it dove lower and she saw that it definitely wasn’t an eagle. She’d been right. It was a falcon! Her heart lifted. Daring to hope, she shouted out, “Freya? Here I am!”
Her forest-green cloak stood out against the bright white snow, but from a distance it might make her look
like a tree. So just in case the bird really was falcon-Freya but unable to hear her, Idun waved her arms and jumped up and down too.
At once the falcon gave another shrill cry and headed straight for her.
13 A Nutty Idea
FREYA! I’M SO GLAD TO see you!” Idun exclaimed as the falcon landed in front of her. But instead of shrugging off its feather cloak, the falcon regarded her with one beady eye and whispered some magic words under its breath. Quick as a wink, Idun was transformed into a nut! An acorn to be precise. Whoa! She’d had no idea Freya could do that!
The falcon picked her up in one claw and clasped her eski in its other. And then they were off, winging toward Asgard as fast as the bird could go.
“Freya!” Idun called out, relieved to discover she could speak even in nut form. “When did you learn how to shape-shift a girlgoddess into a nut? Smart of you to make me lighter to carry, but I’m glad you didn’t transform my eski, too. That might’ve damaged my apples!” Unfortunately, her voice was now so high-pitched and tiny that the falcon seemed unable to hear her over its own beating wings and shrill cries.
But if the falcon cloak was mine, I could have flown away from Thiazi on my own without Freya’s help. The thought had floated into her head, unbidden. Even after everything, it seemed Idun still couldn’t let go of the injustice of losing such an awesome cloak.
The snowfall let up as they sailed above Midgard. Though clasped in the falcon’s claw, Idun was nevertheless able to see out between its talons. Through breaks in the clouds she looked down on the farms and villages they passed over. They hadn’t been flying for more than a few minutes, however, when a sharp cry came from behind them. Scree-ee!
“Ymir’s eyeballs!” Idun cried out in her tiny, nutty voice. “Thiazi!” Still wearing his crown, that huge regal eagle was chasing them.
A wave of despair washed over Idun. In a nutshell, she felt doomed! “Faster, if you can!” she urged, even though falcon-Freya didn’t seem to hear her tiny voice. Falcons were usually faster than eagles, but Freya hadn’t been a falcon for long. She’d only used the feather cloak a few times and probably needed more flying practice. “C’mon, Freya, you can do it!” acorn-Idun urged. But as the stronger and much larger eagle drew closer, a fatigued falcon-Freya faltered.