by Cate Martin
"They'll be back," my grandmother said as she walked towards us. She was leaning very heavily on her walking stick, something I had never seen her do before.
"Mormor?" I asked, but she quickly waved my concern away.
"Just need a little Odin sleep of my own. Which I'll get, now that this matter is dealt with," she said.
I felt ashamed then for how angry I had been with her before. Why had I thought she was putting me out of the way like an unwanted competitor? Why hadn't I believed she just wanted me to rest?
Was I that susceptible to Loke's muck-stirring?
"I didn't get to say goodbye to Frór," I said after too long of an awkward silence between us.
"Well, he'll be back too," she said, albeit a bit more grumpily than before.
"Nilda and I have to get back to Villmark. We have watch duty tonight," Kara said to us.
"Yes, I've heard," I said.
"It's a heavy responsibility," my grandmother said, "but one I expect you and your sister will lift easily. And Ingrid and I shall always be there if you need us."
Kara just nodded, then ran to catch up with her sister already on her way back into town.
"I'm heading back down to Runde myself," my grandmother said. Now that it was just the two of us, she stopped making even the small pretense she had been attempting before to not look as tired as she felt.
"Someone must have a sleigh," I said, looking around. But everyone around us was walking themselves.
"I'll be fine," she said. "But you have work to do here before you can come home."
"Here?" I asked, looking at the cabins around us.
"Signi has books for you," she said, pointing towards the cabin with the little hearts just visible on the shutters. "And Haraldr is there with her, waiting to speak with you."
"Oh," I said. Now I was the one feeling epically tired despite my daylong nap. On the one hand, I was about to get weighed down by a mountain of books on abnormal psychology.
And on the other hand, there was that rune I had never quite gotten around to practicing.
But after hugging my grandmother goodbye, I headed up Signi's steps and knocked on her door.
Haraldr himself opened the door.
"Signi's not here," he told me as he let me in. "She and her house guest made themselves scarce before half of Villmark came down into this hamlet. How this will stay secret now, I have no idea. That was your grandmother's decision, even though the council didn't like it. But that boy isn't ready for all of Villmark. Not yet, anyway."
"I'm sorry I got so little rune work done," I said. "But I was busy. I mean, you know I was busy, right?"
"Nonsense," he said, that one word exploding out of him. I couldn't help but flinching. At first I thought he was denying that I had been busy. But then he said, "the ur-dwarves and the moss wives both sought you out? I'd say that's a sure sign you've got a handle on the power of this particular rune."
"So I'm here to get the next assignment already?" I asked. I didn't do a very good job of hiding how stressed out that thought made me.
But he just laughed. "No, not quite," he said. "A little more meditation on this one wouldn't kill you. Tomorrow morning is soon enough to start with the next one. No, you're here for quite another reason entirely."
"What's that?" I asked apprehensively.
He smiled at me. "I've convinced the council that you have earned yourself a bit of a reward. A night, just one night, back among your friends down in Runde. Your grandmother has sworn to be your chaperone, not that you'll need one."
"I can see my friends?" I asked, all but blinking back tears.
"From sunset tomorrow until sunrise the next day," he said. "I'll even let you catch a little nap in the morning. We can push our meeting that day back to lunchtime. What do you think?"
"I think... thank you!" I said, throwing my arms around him. I wanted to squeeze him tight, but his bones felt too fragile for that.
"You've earned it," he said. "It's not every volva who can take on the Wild Hunt and live to tell the tale." Then his face took on a mock stern expression. "Not that you will tell such tales. Not to outsiders."
"Of course not," I said, even though I knew that I would. How could I not? They were my friends.
"Until morning, then. Enjoy your night," he said.
"I will," I promised.
But as I walked back towards Villmark, Mjolner appearing out of nowhere to walk beside me like a loyal guard dog, I couldn't get that last look in Haraldr's eyes out of my mind.
I couldn't help but feeling that he wasn't giving me this night with my old friends as a reward. Maybe that was a part of it, but it wasn't the main reason.
No, I was pretty sure Haraldr knew that with Thorbjorn gone for who knows how long, and with Nilda and Kara now taking over so many of his duties, I was going to need the support of my other friends.
And not just emotional support either. Something was coming for Villmark. There could be nothing more pressing on the minds of the council than that. And at least one of their number was willing to entertain the notion that the help of outsiders might play a part in the days to come.
But for now, it was enough just to know I'd be seeing them again.
"Sunset to sunrise. That’s not much time," I said to Mjolner as we walked. "But probably enough to squeeze in a dinner of fish and chips. How does that sound?"
Mjolner made a happy sound, and the top of his tail twitched from side to side contentedly.
If I had a tail, I would’ve been doing the same.
Check Out Book Six!
The Viking Witch will return in Corpse in the Mead Hall, out August 17, 2021 and available for preorder now!
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By day, a drab pole barn used as general store, post office and meeting place all-in-one by the people of Runde, Minnesota, a fishing village on the North Shore of Lake Superior.
By night, a Viking-style long house filled with tales and singing, roasting meat and flowing beer, and of course mead.
Ingrid Torfa can imagine no better place for a much-needed night of R&R.
The mead hall run by her grandmother lies where modern small town life brushes up against the old world lifestyle of the people of Villmark, proud descendants of a lost tribe of Northmen. All of her friends mingle there from the server who works in the restaurant on the side of the highway to the guardians charged with protecting the sacred flame of their ancestors.
The spells that her grandmother casts over her mead hall nightly keep everyone within safe and harmonious.
Or so everyone always believed. But when a murder interrupts Ingrid's night off, she finds herself questioning everything. Because her chief suspect is her own grandmother.
* * *
Corpse in the Mead Hall, Book 6 in the Viking Witch Mystery Series!
The Witches Three Cozy Mysteries
In case you missed it, check out Charm School, the first book in the complete Witches Three Cozy Mystery Series!
Amanda Clarke thinks of herself as perfectly ordinary in every way. Just a small-town girl who serves breakfast all day in a little diner nestled next to the highway, nothing but dairy farms for miles around. She fits in there.
But then an old woman she never met dies, and Amanda was named in her will. Now Amanda packs a bag and heads to the big city, to Miss Zenobia Weekes' Charm School for Exceptional Young Ladies. And it's not in just any neighborhood. No, she finds herself on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, a street lined with gorgeous old houses, the former homes of lumber barons, railroad millionaires, even the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Why, Amanda can practically hear the jazz music still playing across the decades.
Scratch that. The music really, literally, still plays in the backyard of the charm school. Because the house stretches across time itself. Without a witch to protect this tear in the fabric of the world, anything can spill over. Like music.
Or like murder.
* * *
Charm School, the first book in th
e complete Witches Three Cozy Mystery Series!
Also from Ratatoskr Press
The Ritchie and Fitz Sci-Fi Murder Mysteries starts with Murder on the Intergalactic Railway.
* * *
For Murdina Ritchie, acceptance at the Oymyakon Foreign Service Academy means one last chance at her dream of becoming a diplomat for the Union of Free Worlds. For Shackleton Fitz IV, it represents his last chance not to fail out of military service entirely.
Strange that fate should throw them together now, among the last group of students admitted after the start of the semester. They had once shared the strongest of friendships. But that all ended a long time ago.
But when an insufferable but politically important woman turns up murdered, the two agree to put their differences aside and work together to solve the case.
Because the murderer might strike again. But more importantly, solving a murder would just have to impress the dour colonel who clearly thinks neither of them belong at his academy.
* * *
Murder on the Intergalactic Railway, the first book in the Ritchie and Fitz Sci-Fi Murder Mysteries.
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About the Author
Cate Martin is a mystery writer who lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Also by Cate Martin
The Witches Three Cozy Mystery Series
Charm School
Work Like a Charm
Third Time is a Charm
Old World Charm
Charm his Pants Off
Charm Offensive
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The Viking Witch Cozy Mystery Series
Body at the Crossroads
Death Under the Bridge
Murder on the Lake
Killing in the Village Commons
Bloodshed in the Forest
Corpse in the Mead Hall (coming August 17, 2021)
Copyright © 2021 by Cate Martin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Shezaad Sudar.
Ratatoskr Press logo by Aidan Vincent.
ISBN 978-1-951439-60-6
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