Valhalla

by Jennifer Willis

Sally sat at a table near the giant fireplace inside the Cactus Lily Coffee Lodge. She kept her hands wrapped around her mug of hot chocolate, mostly to keep herself from shaking too badly.

  It was nearing 5 p.m., and the sky was already dark. The Black Moon was just over 56 hours away. But instead of the global call to compassion and harmony that Sally had been trying to bring about, there was no telling what was going to happen.

  After the book return fiasco at Powells, Opal had driven Sally home to pack a bag and leave a quick note for her parents. Sally didn’t even remember now what fabrication she’d scrawled—something about feeling much better and spending the weekend at a friend’s house to catch up on a joint science project. She needed time to sort this all out, and hanging around the house looking like a hag wasn’t an option.

  She’d shoved as many candles, books, and other supplies as would fit into her overnight bag, and then spent a good forty-five minutes staring at herself in her bathroom mirror, gauging her streaked-white hair and sunken eyes and mentally measuring every wrinkle. She would probably still be standing at the sink now if Opal hadn’t dragged her away from her own reflection.

  Sally sipped her cocoa and wondered how she’d gotten into this mess. Maybe if she hadn’t been so secretive and had asked her magickal friends for help? Maybe if she hadn’t warded her bedroom against her parents and hadn’t lied to them? She wasn’t sure how they’d take the news that their daughter was a Norse witch, but she resolved to have a long, honest talk with them once this was all over.

  Sally took another sip and stared at Opal’s laptop screen. They’d found a database link to the text of a rare volume entitled Gammel Magi av Dame Freya (“Old Magic of the Lady Freya”), only recently translated from Norwegian to English. But the translation was available solely as an 847-page PDF file on a server hosted by the University of Iceland, and she was at the mercy of the coffee lodge’s spotty WiFi.

  She watched the slow progress of the status bar and held her head in her less than supple hands. Twenty-three minutes into the download, and it was only nine-percent done.

  Sipping a pumpkin smoothie, Opal plopped down into the chair next to Sally. “Still downloading?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll fix this. Or we’ll find someone who can. For all you know this is just temporary. You could wake up tomorrow looking like yourself again.”

  Sally looked down at her lap. She was too tired to cry any more. “I should’ve known better than to try that ritual on my own. With the Black Moon and all the planets lining up, maybe I was just playing with fire.”

  “That’s this weekend, right?”

  Sally had spent the last couple of hours trying to explain everything to Opal, even pulling out star charts to point out the old constellations. But Opal was an eclectic Wiccan who worked with the Ancient Greek gods and knew almost nothing about Odin’s pantheon or Norse mythology. Sally had finally given up when Opal’s eyes glassed over as she tried to explain the basics of rune magick.

  “Stupid, stupid.” Sally balled her hands into loose fists. Her file download was now ten-percent complete. “I checked and double-checked all my calculations, all the correspondences and everything. I wasn’t wrong, you know?”

  “We’ll ask Ansur when he gets here, okay? We’ll go over everything you did, step by step. He’ll know what to do.” Opal sipped her smoothie and glanced around at the other Cactus Lily patrons in their flowing robes and crystal-encrusted jewelry. “Looks like NeoPagan Social Hour is set to start any second now.”

  “Yeah, on Pagan Standard Time. Everything starts later and takes longer than you think.” Sally laughed sarcastically, then immediately felt guilty. She’d always set herself apart from Portland’s Pagan community, with the excuse that she was studying a more obscure tradition and didn’t want to distract anyone from their paths. But now she realized what a snob she’d been.

  Sally put down her cocoa and rested back in her chair. The truth was she hadn’t respected anyone’s tradition other than her own. Sally wasn’t sure which was worse—the possibility of being ridiculed and chastised by her Pagan peers for her metaphysical debacle, or forever looking like the Crypt Keeper’s little sister.

  “Opal, I want to apologize to you.”

  “For what?” Opal checked her watched and then glanced at the door as it swung open, but it was just a guy with stringy hair and dirty blue jeans coming in, holding his head in his hands. “No Ansur yet.”

  “I’m sorry I put down your ritual to Athena last spring.” Feeling doubly embarrassed and stupid, Sally looked down at the table. “I said you were just trying to get better grades.”

  Opal slurped down the last of her smoothie and smiled. “I WAS trying to get better grades.”

  “But you also really believed. You studied really hard—not just for your exams, but for your craft. You chose a goddess that you admire, and you were trying to be like her, wise and vigilant.” Sally sniffed hard. “I didn’t give you a whole lot of credit for that.”

  “Because I didn’t gravitate to the Norse tradition, and because I don’t believe the gods are literally real, like you do.”

  Sally met Opal’s eyes and felt her face burn red.

  “You’ve been so nice to me, driving me around to all the witchy shops and taking me to festivals and stuff.” Fresh tears streamed down Sally’s cheeks. She kept looking around the coffee house, worried that everybody might be staring. “I’m such an idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot.” Opal grabbed at a thick strand of her dark hair and twirled it in her fingers. “You’re just young. Inexperienced. So you thought you were the only one with an inside scoop on all things magickal, and sometimes you’re kind of a pill. It happens.”

  Sally cried harder. “I just wanted to make the world a better place!”

  “No, Sally. What I meant was . . .” Opal jumped to her feet and waved frantically at the older man just stepping through the coffee shop’s front door. “Ansur’s here! Over here!”

  Sally blew her nose into a paper napkin. A chorus of furious squawking rose up from the center of the room, and Sally nearly jumped out of her skin—then realized it was just some of the other witches comparing their cackling skills.