by Cate Martin
"But the Wild Hunt?" Thorbjorn said as he helped me to my feet.
"That was the thing," I told him. "What he was holding. That was what was summoning them."
"Are you sure?" he asked me.
"You didn't hear it?" I asked.
"No, he wouldn't," my grandmother said. But I could tell from the tightness of her face that she had.
"What was it?" he asked.
"The voices of those who have been taken from the Wild Hunt," she said grimly. "How such a thing can even be done, I shiver to think. But this is very old magic. These souls are lost to life and afterlife both. They long not to be alone, dangerously so. And the Hunt wants them back very badly. I'll have to figure out a way to free them from this accursed object. But in the meantime, I promise you, this is over. We can rest now."
If I got back into Frór's house and up to his spare bedroom under my own power, I don't remember it. For all I knew, I just curled up there in the snow and finally fell into that Odin sleep I had been promising myself.
And, thankfully, it was a dreamless sleep.
29
I woke to the familiar experience of being half off my own pillow, displaced by the cat sleeping against the back of my neck. I sat up and looked around. At first it was disorienting. Nothing around me was familiar.
Then memories started coming back. I was in the spare bedroom of Frór's cabin. I wasn't entirely sure how I had gotten up there. I was even less sure how long I had been sleeping. It looked like morning outside the small window beside the bed, but it felt like I'd just slept for days.
I got up, careful not to wake Mjolner, and found my clothes on a chair. They weren't the clothes I had been wearing before. Someone, probably my grandmother, had fetched me fresh things from my house in Villmark. I got dressed and took a brush to my matted hair, then headed downstairs, hoping to find someone awake or at least a cup of coffee.
I found both the minute I set foot inside the kitchen. But it wasn't Frór waiting for me there, already pouring me a cup of coffee after hearing me come down the stairs. It was Loke.
"Good morning," he said, handing me the cup.
"Which morning?" I asked, soaking in the smell of roasted beans before taking my first sip.
"You missed a day, but only because your grandmother did a little..." he finished his sentence with a vague wiggling motion of his fingers.
"She used magic to keep me asleep?" I asked. I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that.
"She'll say it was because you needed the rest," Loke said.
"But you think it's because?" I prompted.
He shrugged. "Probably that."
"Loke," I said warningly.
"I'm not making trouble," he said, holding up his hands as if in surrender. "I'm just saying, she had a lot of decisions to make."
"And she wanted to make them without me?" I asked. "No, that doesn't sound like her at all."
"If you say so," Loke said.
"Where is she now?" I asked.
"At the trial," he said.
"Geiri's trial? Already?" I asked.
"Like I said, it's been a day," Loke said. "A momentous day. And you slept through it."
I rubbed at my face, then drank more of Frór's strong coffee. "So he's guilty then? He was the one doing the spell?"
"There were three spells," he said with a grin. "But he was only doing two of them."
"He had a cursed arm ring that had the power to summon the Wild Hunt," I said.
"And a bag to keep it in," he agreed. "That bag cloaked the ring’s magic. That's why you and I and your grandmother couldn't see it, even when it was right there. Not until Thorbjorn took it out of that bag. And how horrid was that?"
"I don't remember you even being there," I said with a frown.
"I was in the house. That screaming was loud," he said.
"Why didn't the arm ring bring the Wild Hunt straight to it?" I asked.
"The bag again," Loke said. "Geiri was just using the arm ring to summon the Wild Hunt to this general area."
"So how was he getting the women outside?" I asked.
"He had marked them beforehand," Loke said. "At the bakery. He had some sort of magical ointment that soaks into the skin and stays in the bloodstream for days. He marked all three of the youngest sisters, the unmarried ones. Nilda and Kara were at the shop at the same time, and he touched them too. He was targeting single women, and he knew who was going to be outside of Villmark on that hunting trip. Just a little touch of his thumb on their bare skin when shaking hands or just brushing past them in passing. They never knew, apparently. They’d all forgotten a hooded stranger lurking around the bakery, touching them all on the hand. Although they did remember it happening after your grandmother asked them about it."
"They're here?" I asked. "They're safe?"
"They’ve been sworn to secrecy regarding this little hamlet, but they’re all outside at the trial," he said. "No one else was taken."
"So after my grandmother took that arm ring from Geiri, she could get to the lodge?"
"That's the funny part, actually," he said. "They all just showed up back in Villmark yesterday afternoon. They gave up on hunting when you and Thorbjorn disappeared. Good thing too; no one else was ever going to reach that lodge. It's not possible. Only blood members of the family can find it."
"Part of the protective magic," I guessed.
"Exactly. Gunna and Jóra never told anyone, but they did make sure that the hunting parties always had a family member in them. Otherwise, if you walk more than a mile or two away from the lodge, you'll never find it again. Although apparently you got very close."
"It didn't seem close at the time," I said. Then a sudden thought had me laughing out loud. At Loke's puzzled look, I said, "I was just laughing at the irony. If Thorbjorn and I had decided to try for the lodge rather than running back to the hamlet, we would've made it. I guess he didn't know."
"No, he didn't know," Loke said. But there was no laughter in his own voice.
"What is it?" I asked.
"No," he said, shaking his head firmly. "He's going to have to talk to you about that."
"About what?" I asked, but he just shook his head again. "Well, where is he now? Wait, let me guess. At the trial."
"It's just outside the front door," he said with a tip of his head in that general direction. "But I'm not going that way. Eat a couple of those hard-boiled eggs before you go. You need the protein."
"Are you my honorary grandmother now?" I asked him, but took one of the eggs and rapped it on the table before setting to work peeling it.
He ignored my quip, draining the last of his coffee and setting the mug in the sink. "I have to go, but I'll see you as soon as I can."
"When's that?" I asked, my eyes still on my egg.
"Oh, whoever knows?" he said. He sounded tired and frustrated, and I glanced up at him. But he was already disappearing out the back door.
I blinked hard as the door clicked shut behind him. For a second there, I thought I had seen another, more modern kitchen through that doorway. But that made no sense. I took a bite of the egg, then crossed the room to open that door.
I was looking out over an expanse of snow and snow-covered trees, just as I should be. Clearly, I needed more coffee.
It was a little remarkable that I saw no sign of Loke walking away, but if he had gone around to the other end of the hamlet, there'd be no sign of him from where I was standing.
Then I looked down. There wasn't a single footprint in the snow.
That was a mystery for another day. I put another egg in my pocket, then headed to the entryway where my boots and parka were waiting.
As promised, the minute I stepped outside the door, I was on the fringes of the trial already in progress. A small dais had been set up on the northern end of the village circle, and my grandmother in her volva regalia sat on her three-legged stool upon that dais.
Geiri was in chains at her feet. Thorge and Thormund were standing in
front of the dais, close enough to grab him if he moved. But I doubted he would. Those chains looked incredibly heavy, and his entire posture was slumped and despondent.
My grandmother looked over at me, the briefest of glances, before returning her attention to Geiri. But others had noticed that glance, and faces in the crowd turned my way. Nilda and Kara gave me little nods, which I returned. Raggi and Báfurr scowled at me; no surprise there.
But Thorbjorn, who had already been standing at the very edge of the crowd, walked over to me, his pace so swift he was all but running.
My stomach knotted. Every face in the crowd gathered before my grandmother was grave, but his was particularly so.
Just what had Loke refused to tell me before about Thorbjorn? Was I about to find out?
"Ingrid," he said in a whisper when he reached the bottom of the steps. "Walk with me?"
I nodded and came down to him. Then we walked together between Signi's cabin and Frór's, heading out into the forest.
"Shouldn't we be back there?" I asked as soon as we were far enough away where not whispering felt appropriate.
"Not really," he said with a sigh. "That's all just for show. He has nothing more to tell us. He'll go into a holding cell in the caves, and that will be the last anyone in Villmark will ever have to see of him."
"Nothing more to tell us?" I asked, suddenly very irritated. I stopped walking and turned to face him directly. "Did he say everything yesterday while I was still sleeping?"
"Ingrid," he said, and I realized my tone was far harsher than I had intended it.
Or was it? I was pretty mad. "Why did you let her do it?"
"Let her do what? Leave you to finally get some sleep?" he asked.
"Is that what she did?" I asked.
"You know it is," he said. "That wand of yours is a powerful object, and you were using it a lot. Without training. Haraldr and Nora were both concerned. We all agreed to let you recover. I agreed to let you rest and recover. Are you angry with me?"
"No," I said, but too quickly. "It just feels like I was being kept out of things."
"No one intended that," he said.
"All right," I said, and turned to start walking again. He quickly fell into step beside me. "What did Geiri say, then? From what little he told me, I guess this was some sort of misogyny thing."
"For his part, yes," Thorbjorn said. "He left Villmark years ago because, he says, all the women rejected him. He thought he had found his one true love and had followed her all the way to Minneapolis. But then that relationship didn't work out either, so he just drifted back here."
"Loke told me about the ointment he used to mark the Freyas and Kara," I said. "But they're all so young. Surely they weren't the ones who had rejected him before?"
"No, they weren't. He wanted to punish all of Villmark by removing all the single women one by one, starting with those on the hunting trip. I gather he wasn't sure how all this magic was going to go, so he wanted to start with an isolated group and then work up to all of Villmark."
"So where did he learn magic?" I asked.
"That's just it. He knows nothing," Thorbjorn said. "The ointment was something Halldis used to make. He still had a vial from his younger days when she sold it to him as some sort of love spell. Just touch the woman you long for, and in the dark of night you can lure her out to you."
"And she sold this?" I asked.
"Not out in the open," he said. "But your grandmother has gone through everything we found in her cottage after she was arrested, and there were other vials there. She says in normal circumstances the victim would indeed slip outside without her family knowing, but the minute she was disturbed in any way, she would snap out of it."
"Well, they didn't," I said.
"No, he did something to it to increase the potency," he said.
"Without knowing any magic," I said skeptically.
"Someone probably told him what to do," he said.
"Who?" I asked.
"That's just the thing," he said, and now it was his turn to stop walking and face me directly. "He can't tell us."
"What do you mean 'can't'?" I asked.
"Just that. Someone or something of great power told him how to concentrate that ointment. And it gave him that cursed arm ring as well as the bag to hide it. And it told him exactly what to do. He thought he was getting his revenge, but he was really working in the service of something else."
"But what is this something else?" I pressed.
He closed his eyes, tipping his head back as if to feel the warmth of the sun. But the sky was overcast.
"Thorbjorn," I said. "What's going on?"
"All of Villmark is in danger," he said. "And that means I have to go."
30
"What do you mean 'go'?" I asked.
"Let's walk back," he said, not answering my question.
"Thorbjorn," I said warningly.
"We should walk back," he insisted. "I'll just have time enough to tell you before I have to go."
"Go where?"
"On patrol," he said. But I could tell that, as familiar as those words were coming from him, this time he meant something very different.
"Why are you saying that like you're never coming back?" I asked.
"This arm ring your grandmother took from Geiri, it's the second thing of ancient power to show up in Villmark in a matter of months," he said.
"Since I got here, you mean," I said.
He gave me a wounded look. "I didn't say that. None of this is because of you."
"Maybe not," I said. But it didn't feel that way. Still, I pushed my feelings aside to focus on what I knew. "Roarr found the talisman he had because Halldis told him where to go."
"Right, but who told Halldis?" Thorbjorn asked.
"We could try asking her," I said.
"We have," he said. "I don't think the same thing is going on with her as with Geiri. It's more like she just doesn't want to say."
"What do you mean? What's going on with Geiri?"
"Didn't I tell you?" he asked. I shook my head. "That's why there's no point in watching the trial. He is incapable of saying anything about the arm ring or where he got it or who gave it to him or anything."
"A spell?" I guessed.
"A very powerful spell, one your grandmother cannot break," he said. He gave me another nervous glance. "I've never seen her so frightened."
"Does he remember, or can he just not say?" I asked.
"It seems like the latter, but who knows?" Thorbjorn said. "Frór has already gone out to hunt for whatever is causing all this. He left yesterday when it became clear that Geiri was going to tell us nothing. Now my brothers and I are all heading out as well, if not so far into the deeper places as Frór."
"You were just waiting for this trial to end?" I guessed.
"No, Ingrid," he said. "I was waiting for you to wake up. I couldn't leave without seeing you one last time."
I closed my eyes. "Would you stop saying it like that?" I asked. "Like we're never going to see each other again?"
He grabbed both my arms until I opened my eyes and looked at him again. "I know we'll see each other again. I just don't know when. That's the uncertainty that is eating at me."
"You've been on long patrols before," I said.
"Not like this," he said. "All five of us are going out at once. My father and Nilda and Kara are going to be guarding the caves and tending the ancestral fire. Everything is changing."
"Is that so strange?" I asked. "Someone else did it before you and your brothers were old enough, right?"
"For a long time, Frór was Villmark's only guardian," he said. "Don't you remember?"
"Yes," I said. "Sorry, I'm not used to remembering, if that makes any sense. The memories are there when I search for them, though. When I came here as a kid, your father tended the fire and Frór patrolled."
"But do you remember what we promised each other?" he asked, his fingers on my arms gripping almost painfully tight.
"That I would grow up to be volva, like my grandmother. And you wanted to be the guardian, like Frór. Mission accomplished. Good job, us. Not that we knew what we were signing ourselves up for," I said with a nervous laugh.
"We promised more than that," he said, his tone still earnest.
"I know," I said softly, my own laughter gone. "We promised to do it better. We promised to be a better team. To support each other more."
"There are things you don't know yet," Thorbjorn said. "Things about your grandmother and Frór. Things I learned after you left and never came back."
"Hey, I came back," I said.
"You know what I mean," he said. "You weren't really back until just a few days ago, and we haven't had time to have a proper talk since."
"And what's this?" I asked.
"A very rushed conversation," he said, as if it pained him.
"Frór left at once, mostly to get away from my grandmother, didn't he?" I guessed.
"He needed to go," he insisted. "But yes, to outside eyes, it always looks like they're trying to stay far away from each other."
"That isn't going to be us," I promised him. "That will never be us. Look, I didn't even remember what we said to each other until a few days ago, but we've already been working as an unstoppable team. Nothing is going to change that."
"I want to believe that with all my heart," he said.
"Well, I already do," I said.
"The crowd is dispersing," he said, looking towards the hamlet. "Your grandmother will want to speak with you. Haraldr too, I think."
"They can wait," I said.
"But I cannot," he said. "Thorge is already heading this way with my pack. The two of us are going into the mountains in the north to find any sign of whatever it is that plots against us." Then he looked at me with real regret in his eyes. "This isn't how I wanted to part from you."
"It's not forever," I said. "I'll be thinking of you every minute. Every magical protection I can extend to you from such a distance, you know you'll have it."
"I know," he said. He planted a lingering kiss on my forehead, then turned to take his pack from his brother.
I watched them go, only slowly realizing that Kara stood by my side, doing the same. Our hands found each other, and we squeezed them tight in silent support.