“It’s a reminder to relinquish control to the will of the gods.”
Sally turned and was astonished to see Saga standing behind her.
“There’s only so much change one person can force,” Saga continued. “The rest is up to the powers that be.”
“But it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try,” Sally replied.
“No, it doesn’t. But it does mean that sometimes, if you push too hard, you can have a really bad day.” Saga smiled. “Feel like you’ve gotten hit by one of Thor’s thunderbolts?”
Sally grimaced. “Something like that.”
Saga touched Sally on the wrist. “I’ve got something that might help.”
Saga walked back to the Customer Service desk and stepped behind the counter.
“There is something wrong with that woman,” Bonnie commented to Saga, not bothering to lower her voice. “But you’ve gotta love Portland. You can’t throw a rock around here without hitting a Pagan of one stripe or another. Myself included. I just wish the crazy ones didn’t make the rest of us look bad.”
Not even a yard away, Opal gave Bonnie a withering scowl. Bonnie shrugged and stepped over to the computer terminal.
“Maybe she’ll put a hex on that publisher over the missing pages.” Bonnie started typing. “Like it’s a matter of life or death. Some people just take their beliefs way too seriously.”
Sally saw that Saga wasn’t listening. Instead, she was laying bundles of dried herbs on the counter.
“Thursday is definitely my favorite day of the week.” Bonnie picked up one of the bundles and held it to her nose. “Because that’s when you bring in these amazing smudge sticks. Tell your mother she should be selling these, not giving them away. She could make decent money selling these through New Renaissance or Moonshadow.”
Saga sorted through the bundled herbs and selected one. “I’ll pass that along.” She stepped out from behind the counter and headed toward Sally and Opal. She handed a bundle of sage and lavender to Sally. “Do you know what this is?”
“A smudge stick.” Sally breathed in the woody fragrance and felt her body relax.
Saga looked Sally in the eye. “You can use it to purify a space, ward off negativity, or just to help you focus. Understand?”
“My parents would never let me burn something like this in the house.”
Saga frowned at Sally’s wrinkled forehead and graying eyebrows.
“That’s okay,” Opal interjected a little too cheerfully. “You can use it at my apartment, Aunt Sally.”
“Aunt Sally?” Sally looked up in confusion. “What?”
“But first you wanted to dye that gray out of your hair, remember?”
Sally reached up to touch her brittle hair. “Oh! Right!”
Saga’s eyes narrowed as she looked back and forth between Sally and Opal.
Sally faked a laugh. “Sometimes I get a little mixed up.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Saga asked.
Under the girl’s steady gaze, Sally felt that same rush of adrenaline that had hit her before. Sally nodded. She felt her palms starting to sweat as she held the smudge stick tightly.
“Good luck.” Saga took a step back, and Sally’s entire body sighed.
Opal turned Sally toward the door. “Sorry. I didn’t know how to explain that comment you made about your parents. You know, while you look like . . .”
“Like a frumpy spinster?”
“Yeah.” Opal opened one of the doors at the main entrance. “We’ll devise a plan over lunch. We’ll fix this.”
Sally looked back over her shoulder at the dark-haired girl behind the counter, then allowed herself to be led outside into the rain.
6
Still behind the wheel of his pick-up truck, Heimdall sped along the tree-lined gravel road that wound its way to the Lodge. It had been nearly two hours since he’d called the emergency family meeting—he’d been in the middle of the forest on the other side of the mountain and had to find another ranger to cover the rest of his shift. He’d also had to break another date with Maggie.
The mid-afternoon sun hung low in the October sky, but it was already much darker in the woods. He could have navigated the private road blind-folded, but Heimdall switched on the headlights out of habit. Raindrops splattered the windshield as low pine branches scraped the top of his truck.
No doubt he’d be the last to arrive, and that his father would have something to say about it. He could just make out the lights of the family’s current homestead, built by the gods’ own hands a century earlier. In those days the property they’d bought half-way up Mt. Hood was far enough from Portland that they had little fear of accidental trespassers stumbling across their family bonfires and raucous holiday celebrations. They also hadn’t imagined too many others wanting to build on a dormant volcano.
Now, however, resorts and vacation cabins were being constructed all over Mt. Hood, encroaching closer and closer on the Lodge. At least a half-dozen times each winter, a carload of ski bums or snowboarders wandered onto the property looking for Government Camp or Timberline Lodge. But Odin refused to put up so much as a gate on the private road leading to the homestead. He’d sooner relocate the entire clan than erect something as vulgar as a fence in the forest.
They were already looking for a new location—yet another scouting expedition Heimdall would have to lead as soon as he found and secured the Yggdrasil. Heimdall clenched his teeth at the thought and took a bend in the road a bit too fast. The truck’s back wheels skidded on the wet gravel, and Laika whimpered anxiously.
“Sorry, girl.” Heimdall took a deep breath and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, trying to relax his body. He knew Laika was reacting more to his stress levels than his driving. “Just a few more minutes, and you’ll be in Frigga’s kitchen lapping up feast scraps.”
Laika yipped and sat up tall in the passenger’s seat.
The previous Lodge had been on the Oregon Coast—more convenient to the Sitka Spruce Yggdrasil, on the other side of Portland. But that Lodge had mysteriously burnt down. Heimdall’s investigation hadn’t determined a cause beyond “spontaneous combustion,” and most of his family still believed the compound of cabins and longhouses had been a casualty of one of Loki’s “accidents.”
Catastrophe had been narrowly avoided thirty years earlier, when Loki was dissuaded from what he thought was a great prank: getting a janitorial job at the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant near Kelso, Washington. The disasters that struck Three Mile Island and even Chernobyl would have been a walk in the park compared to what might have happened if the unstable god of chaos got anywhere near one of those towers.
Heimdall rounded the last turn of the long drive, and Laika pawed at the dashboard as the Lodge came fully into view. He barely waited for his truck to come to a complete stop under a giant cedar tree at the Lodge’s front entrance. Heimdall cut the engine and slid out from behind the wheel in a single motion, his mud-caked boots landing squarely on the soft dirt and pine needles. Laika leapt out after him.
The homestead was a temple of wood and glass rising up among the old-growth trees. Frigga had wanted something more modern after the old compound was destroyed. With its squared columns, lofty archways and exposed wooden beams, the family’s great hall looked more like a Frank Lloyd Wright design than any of the longhouses Heimdall could remember.
Heimdall dutifully wiped his muddy boots on the bristly welcome mat and smiled at Laika mimicking his movements. “All clean now?”
Laika’s tongue hung out of her mouth, and she lifted a dry forepaw to press against the heavy wooden door.
Heimdall smiled and pushed the door open. He and Laika shook off the rain as they stepped onto the all-weather carpeting just inside the doorway. Glancing at Laika, Heimdall hooked his thumb in the direction of the ceramic wall plaque that greeted every new arrival: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”
Laika whined and stamped her front feet. Enticing aromas of roasted chic
ken and turkey and stewed vegetables wafted into the foyer, along with the echoes of worried voices.
Heimdall eyed the collection of boots already lining the walls of the entryway. The clan was fully accounted for.
Heimdall stooped to slip off his heavy boots, hung his damp jacket in the hall closet, and retrieved a pair of sheepskin boots—all in deference to his mother.
Patting his thigh to invite Laika to follow, Heimdall padded down the oak flooring of the long hallway in his handmade, soft-soled boots. The promise of Frigga’s cooking drew him forward, the flavorful smells awakening his dulled senses with every step. It had been days since he’d gotten a decent night’s sleep in a real bed. Heimdall’s boundless energy and little need for sleep had once been legendary, but now just the thought of a down comforter made his eyelids heavy.
When had sleeping on the forest floor started leaving him so achy?
Stifling a yawn, Heimdall ran a hand across his bare face. The only time he missed his traditional, full beard was when he was in the Lodge with his kin gathered for the feast. It still gave him a start sometimes to see his clean-shaven brothers in their blue jeans and t-shirts instead of skins and leather armor.
“Hey, Heimdall.”
Heimdall stopped short and glanced into Frigga’s craft room, where his mother’s loom and spinning wheel lorded over assorted knitting and sewing projects sitting in orderly piles on a half-dozen work tables. At the far wall, Rod hovered over a heating grate in the floor and waved a screwdriver in greeting.
Laika pawed at the air to return the salutation, while Heimdall nodded at his mother’s human handyman. Rod was the only mortal who knew who—and what—Heimdall and his family were. He’d put the pieces together over the nine years he’d spent around the Lodge installing kitchen cabinets, upgrading light fixtures, and repairing all manner of damage to furniture that resulted whenever Thor watched a televised hockey game.
“Raccoons in the ducts again.” Rod fitted an antique metal grille into the vent and started replacing the screws. “But your mother won’t stop leaving food outside for them, so . . .”
Rod worked the screwdriver with a subtle flair often missing from construction workers, and Heimdall tried hard to hide his smile. Rod was a talented handyman and a loyal friend to the Lodge, and it was an added bonus that his presence made Thor spectacularly uncomfortable, no matter how many times Frigga tried to explain that being gay was actually trendy these days.
“Everyone’s already here.” Tightening the last screw, Rod nodded in the general direction of the den. “It’s pretty tense in there. Anything I can do?”
Heimdall gave a noncommittal grunt and continued down the corridor.
Laika drew up short as they approached the end of the hallway. She glanced up at Heimdall as he stood on the threshold, watching his kin in the open kitchen and adjoining den as they huddled around platters of steaming food—two roasted turkeys, three broiled chickens, a dozen crusty loaves of dark bread, and heaping bowls of potatoes, simmered greens, peppered cabbage, and more.
Laika pawed at his leg. When Heimdall looked down at her, Laika glanced at the food, then back at Heimdall. She then looked toward Frigga seated in the den, and back at Heimdall. She lifted her worried eyebrows.
Heimdall patted her head. “You hungry?”
Laika’s mouth fell open into a panting grin.
“Come on, then.” Heimdall stepped into the kitchen and grabbed the last empty plate. He wasn’t sure how Frigga managed to prepare so much food on short notice, though this spread paled in comparison to the sumptuous feasts she normally served. Then again, his mother was always cooking something.
The traditional dishes tasted somewhat different these days. Ingredients from the old recipes weren’t often available—some of the savory herbs had long since died out and modern pasteurization left an odd taste to the butter and cream. But Frigga had adapted and invented new dishes to satisfy the Norse appetite. It had taken Odin’s kin a while to get used to pastas and curries, but “Viking pizza”—roasted lamb, cabbage, and goat cheese piled high on flatbread—was an instant favorite.
Much to Frigga’s chagrin, Odin did periodically demand a turducken—a culinary monstrosity Frigga could barely bring herself to look at, much less cook—after Saga bought one on a whim at the grocery store during American Thanksgiving.
Heimdall stood at the counter and started serving himself. At least a dozen dishes had already been picked over, but there was plenty left for him and possibly a full complement of Vikings. He elbowed his way between his colossal brother, Thor, and his more slightly built cousin, Freyr, to grab a handful of dinner rolls.
Thor grunted without looking at him. “About time you got here.”
Heimdall scooped cabbage and squash onto his plate and reached for a turkey leg, pausing to toss a hunk of meat to Laika waiting patiently behind him. “Forest roads aren’t like open highways, you know.”
Thor huffed and rounded the end of the counter that separated the kitchen from the den, stepping down into the sunken family room where he found a seat on a leather-covered settee with his back to the kitchen. Heimdall let Laika lick a mound of mashed potatoes out of his hand.
“You think it’s true? They saw a Berserker?” Freyr scooped up the last of the braised beets and oranges. The nature god was shorter and more slender than Heimdall, though Heimdall himself was fairly lean by Viking standards.
Heimdall shrugged.
“That must have been rough, getting dissed by a Berserker like that.” Freyr licked a trickle of beet juice off the side of his hand.
Heimdall stared solemnly at his brother’s broad back. Thor would be the last of his kin to admit any such sensitivities. But to be ignored by one of his own warriors—even a new Berserker fresh from his awakening—must have been one of the greater shocks of his long life.
From the black leather sofa where he sat next to his wife, Odin trained his eye on Heimdall and Freyr loitering at the formica counter.
“Get in here, both of you!” he bellowed. “This is no time for stragglers.”
Freyr stepped down into the den. Heimdall lagged behind to fill a ceramic bowl with a little of everything from the platters of food while Laika sat and watched, licking her chops. He put the overflowing bowl of food down for her and she looked up at him, tentatively wagging her tail.
“It’s okay.” Heimdall gestured toward the bowl. “Just eat it, will you?”
Laika sniffed at the bowl, then cocked her head at the sound of Frigga’s voice in the den.
“She won’t be mad. I promise.” He nudged the bowl toward Laika with his foot.
Laika took small, hesitant bites. She glanced again into the den before she buried her face in the bowl.
“You are the weirdest dog,” he said.
Her muzzle coated in mashed potatoes, she looked up at him and bent her ears back in disapproval. Heimdall laughed. “Okay. Wolf-dog. You are the weirdest wolf-dog.”
Satisfied, Laika bent back down over her bowl. Heimdall collected his plate and headed into the den where his kin were already deep into their late afternoon dinner.
Freyr had snagged the last comfortable seat, sharing a leather sofa with his twin sister, Freya, and his cousin, Saga. Odin and Frigga occupied the matching sofa on the other side of the massive coffee table Rod had crafted from stone tile—after Thor had broken the previous table by sitting on it.
The other two sides of the table were bounded by Thor, taking up the space of three people on the leather settee, and on the other end by the great stone fireplace where there was always a roaring fire, regardless of the season. Tonight, with rain starting to pound against the Lodge’s roof, Heimdall figured the hearth bench was probably the best seat in the house.
He skirted behind the sofa where his parents sat, trying not to spill any of his food. Frigga reached back and grabbed his wrist as he passed. The light from the hearth glinted off her short, black hair as she eyed his plate and frowned. Apparently it
wasn’t sufficiently overloaded with her home-cooked fare.
“A crisis is never a good time to stop eating properly.” Frigga flashed a masterful, guilt-inducing smile and dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a linen napkin.
Heimdall kept moving, careful to hide his grin. Even after centuries of living among more “civilized” peoples, the sight of any Norse god using a napkin always struck Heimdall as funny. Frigga was determined to master modern etiquette, but her sons preferred to wipe their greasy fingers on their socks.
Heimdall settled in by the fire and was grateful for the warmth and the hearty food. He took a healthy bite of potatoes and bread and glanced out the picture windows onto the clearing behind the house and the darkening forest beyond.
“Woman!” Odin bellowed, though he was sitting right next to Frigga. “Leave the boy alone. If he’s hungry, he’ll eat.”
Finished with his own meal, Odin tossed his ceramic plate onto the stone coffee table and belched loudly as his utensils clattered onto the hardwood floor.
Frigga sighed in familiar exasperation. She rose from her seat and reached for Odin’s plate, checked it for cracks, then examined the coffee table for damage.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to throw the dishware?” She picked up his fork, knife, and spoon and wiped bits of food off of the floorboards with his discarded napkin. “I swear, you can take the god out of the Jutland . . .”
Odin laughed heartily and smacked his wife on her broad backside. She stood upright, scowled at him, then strode toward the kitchen, shaking her head. Odin laughed harder, then thumped the flat of his fist against his chest and belched again.
“Ugh!” On the other side of the room, Saga wrinkled her nose in disgust, a near perfect imitation of her mother. “For frigg sake, Dad!”
Odin wagged a stern finger in her direction. “Don’t take your mother’s name in vain, young lady.”
An eternal teenager, Saga collapsed back against the sofa, her long curls falling forward into her face. “Whatever.”
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