by Kendall Grey
I’m not.
I’m in crisis, questioning my very existence.
But I must choose how to go forward. I must decide who I think I am and adjust my plans accordingly.
So, which is it? The great trickster god Loki, hell-bent on retrieving his runes and his immortality and reclaiming his position within the fallen pantheon of the Æsir, or a deranged human woman who talks to chickens and questions her sexuality, identity, and relevance in a world that couldn’t care less about her?
In the words of Loki from Asgard Awakening, I’ll take Door Number One, if for no other reason than it fuels my delusions of grandeur. If I’m screwed either way, I might as well go big rather than home.
“I’m okay,” I say again, this time with more confidence, though I don’t actually feel it.
Freddie targets me with a finger point. “So, the road trip is still on? Because I’m all about reconnecting with my southern roots, especially the ones attached to good southern booty. It’s been too long since I had a slice of peach pie.”
“You are a strange man, Freddie,” I say, unsure of what he means by “good southern booty” or “peach pie.” I’ll assume it’s a hedonistic sexual reference and leave it at that.
The tow truck slows to turn into a lot. The driver parks, and we all get out while he unloads the Porsche and deposits it in a garage filled with heavy machinery.
While Freddie pays the man and talks to a “mechanic,” Gunnar Magnusson takes me aside. “Freddie’s been imbibing in his suckers again, so I’ll have to drive once the car is fixed. Maybe you should take a nap. You seem exhausted, and you need to be fresh when we arrive in Atlanta.”
I search his face for signs of doubt and find none. “Do you believe me, Gunnar Magnusson?” Please believe me. I don’t even believe in myself anymore.
“The truth? No. I don’t believe you,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not right. I’m with you, right or wrong.”
“Why?” I demand, fighting back welling tears. “Why would you stand by someone you think is nuts?”
He doesn’t answer for a long moment. He seems to be mulling over how to respond. Then he presses his lips together in a tight smile and leans closer. “I stand by you because despite all the evidence proving you’re not a Norse god, I want to believe you are. I stand by you because I have a silly little hope inside me here,” he points to his heart, “that keeps whispering in your defense. When my heart talks, I listen.”
“Why do you listen to an organ? It pumps blood. It doesn’t think or feel.”
“Because it never spoke to me before I met you.”
I eye him suspiciously. “All those girls you and Freddie reminisced about couldn’t get it to talk? There were quite a few, if I recall correctly. Surely at least one had an impact.”
He laughs. “Freddie’s another story, but there were never that many girls for me. A few were special, but none of them were you.”
Liquid heat washes over my head and drips over my entire being like the water from my first shower. It’s unexpected but welcome. I may not know who I am, but this feeling is true. It’s something to hold on to when everything falls apart.
Suddenly, the world seems a little less dismal, and my mental state—whatever condition it’s in—feels less important than my emotional one. Gunnar Magnusson grounds me, for better or worse, Norse god or human woman. Maybe he’s exactly what I need. My balance. My steady, sturdy anchor.
I gather my courage and consider the possibilities for my future. In the big scheme of things, does the current body I occupy matter? Sure, it’s inconvenient and still largely unexplored, but the prospect of discovery isn’t so bad. If I open myself up to whatever is in store, the challenges to come might not impact me as negatively as they would if I resist.
Embrace the femininity. Embrace the wildness. Embrace the surprises.
As Loki the god, I always enjoyed such challenges.
I inhale a full breath and concentrate on the air moving in. I blow it out slowly.
Better.
Movement near the garage grabs my attention. I squint for a better look.
A butterfly, yet not. Bigger. Faster. Iridescent.
I remember that thing.
Time slows. I zero in on the creature. I can hear its wings buzzing faster than the speed of sound.
Wake, Trickster.
My jaw drops. “I’m awake,” I say. But not yet woke.
Gunnar Magnusson screws up his face and swivels his head in slow motion to follow my line of sight. The instant he turns, the creature zips away.
Time resumes its normal pace. I point and blather, “Did you see that?”
A ridge forms between his brows as he searches the grounds. “What was it?”
“Did you see it?” I say again, desperate to know exactly how crazy I am.
He shakes his head.
“It was small.” I show him how big with my thumb and forefinger, only a couple inches. “It flew. Like a butterfly, but bigger. Very fast.”
“A dragonfly?” he asks.
“What is ‘dragonfly’?” I’m imagining a miniature dragon gliding along the air currents.
Freddie walks up then. Gunnar Magnusson points to the phone he’s holding. “Can you find a picture of a dragonfly?”
Freddie looks confused but opens the application that takes him to the internet. He types the word and turns his phone to me.
“That could be it,” I say, unsure. “It was fatter in the body, though.”
Freddie and Gunnar Magnusson exchange looks and say together, “Hummingbird.”
Freddie types on his phone and flashes an image of a small birdlike creature with a long beak, shockingly bright red neck, and a vivid green back.
“Yes!” I point excitedly at the picture. “That’s it! What is ‘hummingbird’?”
Freddie shrugs. “It’s a tiny bird that flies fast.”
“How fast?” I ask.
He consults his phone. “Says here, they can beat their wings twelve to eighty times per second, depending on the species, and they can travel at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour.”
“But I don’t think it’s the right season yet for hummingbirds this far north,” Gunnar Magnusson adds. “They usually winter in southern climes and migrate north in spring and summer.”
Freddie and the internet confirm this theory. “It’s too early for them here. Must’ve been something else.”
I shake my head. “No. It was definitely a hummingbird.”
Which leads me to wonder: Why was there a hummingbird in Iceland when I woke up? Surely Iceland is too cold for this animal if it migrates during winters in America.
And migration questions aside, was the bird actually talking to me? Did it wake me up? Or was the voice I heard something out of a dream? My imagination is quite active, as Gunnar Magnusson so kindly pointed out. Maybe my subconscious made the bird up.
“Freddie,” a man calls, wiping his black-stained hands on a dirty rag. He wears a red hat that juts low over his eyes like a duck’s bill and jeans that climb all the way up his shoulders, splashing down his front and back like a waterfall. Underneath the strange blue-jean covering is a T-shirt. I see the word “Asgard” written in the Asgard Awakening font peeking over the top of the bib.
“I got your tire all fixed up,” he says. His accent is strange. Familiar.
He spits a jet of brownish liquid on the ground, then claims a small flat tin from his pocket, opens it, and pulls out a wad of dark plant matter. He stuffs it inside his mouth, bites down, and chews. More spitting follows.
I sniff with disgust. “What is that?” I quietly ask Gunnar Magnusson while the man talks with Freddie.
“The guy or the stuff in his mouth?”
“Both.”
“He’s a mechanic. He fixes broken cars. He’s chewing tobacco. It’s what’s in the cigarettes you saw people smoking last night outside the club.”
The man makes me uncomfortable. He’s staring at me f
rom under the hat, but I can’t get a good look at his eyes. Freddie shakes his hand and returns to us.
“We’re ready to rock,” he says, slinging his key ring in a loop around his finger. He turns to Gunnar Magnusson. “You wanna drive for a few hours? I could use a nap.”
Gunnar Magnusson grins widely. “Twist my arm. That’s enough.”
I hold up a finger, confused by this command. “But, he didn’t touch you.”
Gunnar Magnusson laughs. “Hop in, Loki. I’ll explain on the way.”
Freddie flings the keys to him and dives into the back seat of the Porsche, leaving the front passenger seat for me. I slip in. Gunnar Magnusson removes his round glasses from his shirt pocket and settles them in place on his nose. I smile.
“I like you better with the glasses,” I say, changing my mind on the subject. “They make you look smart.” And handsome, but I don’t tell him that.
“Fooled you,” he jokes.
When Gunnar Magnusson starts the car and backs up to leave, I give the mechanic one last glance. For a split second, sunlight grazes his face, illuminating a pair of eyes too golden to be real. Above his head, the hummingbird flits. The two watch us as we pull away, the man chewing his tobacco and bird hovering in place. He quickly lowers his head as if he was caught doing something he shouldn’t be.
Discomfort lodges in my throat like a fish bone that snuck past the fillet knife’s notice. It’s pointy and hard and choke-inducing.
I check my surroundings as Gunnar Magnusson eases the Porsche into traffic. Huginn is nowhere in sight. So, why do I get the feeling that I’m being spied on again?
Chapter Sixteen
Gunnar Magnusson switches on the radio as we travel down Interstate 95 South. He turns the dial until he finds music he likes. It’s loud and growly and gives my insides a little punch and twist. In the good way.
“What is this?” I ask.
“This is Van Halen.”
“What is Van Halen?”
“It’s a band. They play rock ’n’ roll,” he answers proudly. His thumb taps the steering wheel to the beat of the song, and his body rocks forward and backward to the music. His head bobs up and down.
I mimic his motions. Like dancing at the club last night, it takes a while to get the hang of it, but by the end of the song, I have the rhythm down. Gunnar Magnusson slides me a grin.
I’m disappointed when it ends. I rather liked the fast runs up and down the scale, as well as the little detours along the way. The music from my era was nothing so sophisticated as this.
Gunnar Magnusson turns down the volume on the next song and says, “We should make it to Atlanta in time, no problem. I hear those conventions are crazy. Knowing how wild Asgard Awakening fans are, it’s bound to be a lot of fun.”
I frown. “That show is a mockery.”
“I don’t think so. They get most of the historical facts accurate. There’s some artistic license, but overall, they do their research,” Gunnar Magnusson disagrees. “You take it too seriously. It’s meant to be funny. Like Xena: Warrior Princess or Hercules.”
“Pfft.” I gaze out the window, watching for rogue hummingbirds.
“What’s your beef with it?” he asks.
“I don’t know what cows have to do with that poor excuse for performance art,” I huff.
He laughs gently. “It’s a figure of speech. It means, what don’t you like about it?”
“I told you. They treat Loki like he’s a joke. He’s constantly put down, made fun of, accused of wrongdoing.”
“Wasn’t that how Snorri Sturluson portrayed him in The Prose Edda? That’s the most definitive extant work we have from the Norse people of the time.”
“One person’s opinion is just that. An opinion. There’s nothing to say any of what he wrote was fact-based in the first place.”
“Well, if you’re talking about mythology, it’s not exactly fact in the first place, is it? I mean, no more so than the Bible or Quran or Talmud. Those works are meant to be interpreted, not taken as gospel. Pardon the pun.”
I shrug. “Based on what little I’ve seen of today’s religion, it seems to me modern people do take those works seriously.”
Gunnar Magnusson narrows his eyes on the lightning-fast road streaming under us. I recall standing on the prow of the Ragnarok longship sailing over the black ocean, wind tangling my hair, sea spray coating my face with salt. In some ways, not so different from modern cars with their exhaust and heavily traveled black roads. Both will kill you eventually.
“Well, they shouldn’t,” he says.
Ah, there’s my favorite word again. I smile.
“What do you believe, then, Gunnar Magnusson? What is your religion?”
“You’ll laugh.” He glances at me through his glasses. My gaze bounces from the big hands on the wheel to the biceps bulging under his flannel shirt.
“I might,” I admit.
He grants me a relenting nod. “I don’t believe in religion. I believe in love.”
“Huh.”
“Told you.”
“I’m not laughing. I’m contemplating.”
“Inside you’re laughing.”
“Maybe.”
“I just think if we treat people the way we want to be treated, we make the world a better place. Showing kindness isn’t weak. It’s powerful. A little love for one’s fellow man goes a long way.”
Fellow man. Ha!
Yeah.
My thoughts always come back around to this hang-up. Why am I so accepting of men falling for me, but so resistant to the prospect of falling for them? The body is willing. The mind is still searching for balance.
And before you guffaw, yes, even the god of mischief and trickery requires some stability. Without it, I’d be nothing more than a ball of flame destroying everything in my path instead of just most things in my path.
“Have you ever had a relationship with another man?” I ask.
He turns to me slowly and stares. “Where did that come from?”
“Just wondering.” I keep my eyes focused on the sea of taillights ahead of us.
“No, I haven’t been with another man. I’m not opposed to it.” His eyes shift sideways as if to indicate Freddie, who’s now awake and bobbing his head behind us to music playing through his earbuds. He’s tinkering with a contraption he plans to install on my suitcase. “I’ve just never found myself attracted to the same sex.”
“Me either. But good to know.”
“Why?”
“No reason,” I lie.
Going too fast, a semitruck zips in front of us and slams the brakes. Gunnar Magnusson slows down. His arm flies out in front of me like a swinging battle-ax, pinning me protectively to the seat, as if the belt suffocating my boobs isn’t enough.
A hand appears from the truck’s open window. It’s holding a wiggling brown shape. A head leans out, and the person hurls the writhing object at us.
I recognize it a second too late. A ball of feathers tumbles through the air, frantically pumping its wings to right itself, and smacks into our windshield. Hard.
A crack snakes through the glass. Feathers explode in a spray of muted colors. A desperate, terrified eyeball watches through the window, wide with pain. The car twists out of control, and we spiral into oncoming traffic—spinning, spinning, spinning. Horns blow angrily in a cacophonous chorus that sparks a memory from my past …
Three winters, snow soaked with the blood of battle. Three more winters with no spring or summer to soften the ice. Wolves devouring sun, moon, and stars. Trembling felt through the entire world. Fenrir breaking free of his bonds, mouth gaping, jaws buttressed by the sky above and earth below. Jormundgandr slithering from the ocean onto land, spitting venom, choking the air with his poison.
A ship made of fingernails, toenails, and death, piloted by a frost giant sets sail. I meet him on the battle plain with my three children in tow, ready to bring the world down in flames with me. Heimdall raises the Gjallarhorn to his
mouth and blows with all his might, waking the gods and welcoming them to the battle to end all battles …
The car’s spinning trajectory ends with a BANG! when we crash on Gunnar Magnusson’s side into a concrete wall butting the highway. Explosions erupt from every direction like volcanoes waking up angry and hungry. Giant puffed bags like the inflated sails of longships, heavy with wind, trap me from the front and from the door. Those sails eject so forcefully, they burn my skin with the heat of their friction. But they protect me from hitting the glass, or worse.
“Gunnar Magnusson,” I try to say, but it comes out as an unspoken whisper with all the force of a feather behind it.
I gasp but cannot find my breath. My lungs feel like they’ve been turned inside out. I open my mouth around the giant balloon in my face to gulp oxygen. I’m surrounded by air, but it won’t come inside. I work my jaw. My chest spasms. Blood rushes to my extremities, thrumming hard behind my ears as my heart labors.
Red drips into my eyes.
I can’t breathe.
I’m suffocating.
I’m going to die.
I wind my hand through the hot sails until I find Gunnar Magnusson. He’s not moving. I squeeze his arm.
My seat lurches forward as Freddie thrashes behind me, battling with his own breath, coughing and kicking. The shock of his jerk prods my lungs enough to snatch a tiny bit of air.
I gulp again. And again. And again. My throat burns like it’s coated with lava. But I’m breathing. I’m alive.
Freddie’s alive.
But what about Gunnar Magnusson? And Huginn?
“Gunnar Magnusson,” I rasp, patting his arm.
He doesn’t answer.
The sacks surrounding me slowly deflate, revealing the extent of the damage. A few wet feathers stick out from jewels of glass falling across the dashboard, glittery and catching the light in red-stained facets. I see Huginn’s beak, open and unmoving. Freddie yanks the handle behind me, shoulders open his door, and stumbles around to Gunnar Magnusson’s side.
I think Gunnar Magnusson and Huginn are dead.
Something quakes inside my soul.
As the light dims to a low halo around my vision like the final dying rays of sun the day before winter sets in, I steal one last glimpse at the escaping truck far down the road.