Or maybe it was time for the Lodge to disband completely. Maybe some of those wild lightning strikes and raging blasts of chaos had created new gods far away from this Oregon forest. Maybe there would be gods of burgers and solar power instead of lords of thunder and poetry. It made as much sense as anything else.
And Sally . . . She was on another path now. He felt stupid for not noticing the pattern before. It was easy to miss, at first. They’d all been so surprised when the Yggdrasil jumped from Scandinavia to the North American continent for its new incarnation so long ago, and the simplest answer eluded them. Just like no one could quite pin down the exact cycle of the apple harvest. The orchard would come into harvest quickly now, because Sally would need the apples. And her magick fed the Tree, which would follow her wherever she chose to make her home.
Bonnie moaned and shifted in her sleep. Thor reached for the jar of pollen tea in case she woke and needed more. But her eyes remained closed. He stood up and handed the glass jar to Opal. She would be in and out of the tent to tend to Bonnie, and he had others he needed to look in on. He left the tent and felt invigorated by the crisp air. An early spring was coming.
Tariq rolled his wheelbarrow back up toward the workshop for another load of supplies, and Rod stepped outside to confer with him. Despite being knocked out when the kitchen collapsed, Rod’s injuries proved to be mostly superficial. Thor was amazed by the man’s good luck—or was it his misfortune to be a mortal so closely allied with the Lodge? Half the Valkyries were gone, including Ted. Thor thought again about the apples, and he made a mental list of those he thought should be candidates for a share of the fruit—assuming the harvest would convey anything more than a sweet snack. Opal and Rod were at the top, after Bonnie.
Thor paused before he entered the next tent. He spied Sally standing in the distance, alone at the edge of the surrounding forest. Some part of her may have known this was coming, or was it natural teenage rebellion that had her pushing back against the Lodge these last years? Hers would be a long life of isolation now, and he felt honest sadness for her. He didn’t have the words to express his hopes and fears and admiration for her. He’d figure it out later.
He was pleased to see Freya sitting up on her cot when he pushed into the next tent. She was drinking from a glass jar of tea and grimacing with every swallow. No one ever claimed immortality tasted good. She waved him over.
“Maksim, he’s okay?” she asked.
Thor nodded. Magnus and Maksim were huddled together in one of the other tents, being kept warm and cozy and entertained by Carol. His neighbor was a wonder. Unasked, she’d made the trek to the Lodge with Magnus in tow and packed her car with an assortment of warm, clean clothes to go around. He didn’t know how she’d stumbled into the truth about his family, but now he suspected she’d known all along.
He made another mental note to ask Freya about any legends of mystical guardians who watched over the gods. Thor almost laughed the thought right out of his own head. It was ridiculous to think of his annoyingly buoyant neighbor as a higher supernatural mystery, but there was much about her that he couldn’t decipher. Whatever she was, he had neither the interest nor the mental bandwidth here in the ruins of Ragnarok to question her nature or her motivations.
Carol had already started work on the adoption certificates for both boys, too. Would the certificates be forgeries or the real thing? Thor didn’t care. Magnus and Maksim had each lost their natural parents in magickal strife, and they each had characteristics and skills that set them apart from the regular mortal population. They were his sons now, and they were going to need him.
Freya didn’t waste any time on pleasantries. “The people who brought Maksim and his family here . . . You know none of this solves the problem of human trafficking.”
Thor nodded again, relieved that she didn’t try to plumb the depths of his shock and grief. He’d be feeling the full effect of the day’s losses soon enough.
When he got back to Portland and assessed the damage to his neighborhood and his city, there would still be the question of the out-of-season construction company and their hiring practices. It had never been his job to police human criminals. He didn’t have the stamina for it. But undocumented workers were one thing. Kidnapping and forced labor were another.
“There weren’t any survivors among Suleiman’s Spiral for interrogation,” he said. “No way to know if another faction might try something equally stupid in the future.”
Freya drank down the rest of the tea and made a face. “No. I don’t think so.”
She took a deep breath and looked to the far corner of the tent where Heimdall lay on another cot. Thor deliberately didn’t follow her gaze. Some color had come back into his brother’s face, but he remained unconscious. There was no telling when or even if the Shining One would come back to them.
Saga had fallen. Bragi had died on this same field. Baldr was long since gone. If Heimdall were to slip away, too . . . Thor was the last of Odin and Frigga’s children. He filled Freya’s empty jar with water and handed it to her.
“We’ve been saying it for years, but now it’s really true. It’s a different world.” She wrapped her hands around the glass jar and sipped the water. “There will be new wielders of magick and new legends and heroes yet to be created. Maybe it will be better this time.”
“Only time will tell if we’ll play any part in it,” he said.
She smiled, but he saw the resignation in her eyes. “You’ll rebuild the Lodge.”
“Yes.” He would repair the main Lodge building and the surrounding property, as he had done before. He would shore up their defenses, but he would be only a temporary caretaker. His place was in the city now, with his family.
“We’ll rebuild the Lodge,” Thor said. “And see you at the head of it, cousin. It’s how it should have been all along.”
Maksim drank down the glass of water Carol offered him. She kept bringing him water and juice and hot chocolate. She said it was to help prevent something called shock, but all of the liquids filled his belly and his bladder and made him have to run outside behind the tents to pee.
Rod had set up a battery-operated screen connected to a small box that had a library of videos and games that Maksim and Magnus could play. It was fun for a while, but Maksim was tired of everything changing all the time. He had been at home, and then he was on a journey, and then he was underground in the tunnels. Then he was at Thor’s house for a while, and he kind of liked that, even though he missed his parents. And now he knew he’d never see them again.
All of the grown-ups and even Magnus were being especially nice to him as he sat in the tent. He had all the pre-packaged snack foods and hot soup he wanted. It wasn’t like the couple of feasts he’d had from Bonnie’s kitchen, but it was still better than the tunnels.
No one wanted to answer his questions, though. He’d tried asking about the bad men who’d kept him underground. He asked about the other people who’d been kept with him, too, and even about what had happened to the white goddess. Had the men in the robes been bad even before they met Utra, or had she led them astray? Did his parents really have to die? Why did his uncle choose magick over family? But every time he asked a question, the adults shushed him and pressed more food and drinks into his hands. They wanted to fill him with sustenance instead of answers. He was upset about this until he looked deeper into their faces and saw the worry and fatigue they were trying to hide. They probably didn’t know, either. He might never get answers to his many questions.
Maksim handed his empty glass back to Carol and took the plastic bottle of apple juice and the peanut butter sandwich she offered him. He shifted closer to Magnus on the cot as they sat side by side and watched the screen. Magnus was fiddling with the remote. A fireball shot into the sky on the screen as the hero in another action adventure show escaped yet another close scrape with death and disaster. Maksim wished it had been the same on the field outside. Magnus turned up the volume until the who
le tent filled with the sound of explosions and gunfire and screeching tires.
“Are you sure that’s what you boys should be watching right now?” Carol stood over them and scowled, but Maksim could see the softness in her eyes. “Why not a nature documentary or an old episode of Mister Rogers?”
“That’s baby stuff.” Magnus hunched forward and elbowed Maksim. “We like this better. Right, brother?”
Maksim felt the smile break across his face, though he tried to hide it by taking a huge bite of his sandwich. He’d never had a brother before. Was it wrong to be happy and excited about that, when he’d just lost his parents? He worried that he would forget them too soon.
“Okay, but this is the last one.” Carol grabbed the remote from Magnus and cut the volume on the screen by half. “And try to keep it down. You’re not the only ones in here.”
Maksim glanced to the back of the tent where Vesha lay on a cot under a heap of blankets. He didn’t think she was hurt, but she didn’t get up. Sometimes she opened her eyes and stared up at the canvas ceiling. She didn’t say anything. She would just blink slowly and then close her eyes again. There was another explosion on the screen, quieter than the last one. Maksim took another bite of his sandwich.
Magnus wouldn’t talk about it, but Maksim knew he was sad. And confused, too. So was he, and so was Thor. Maksim wasn’t allowed to see Bonnie yet, and that frightened him a little. Carol kept telling him to be patient as she gave him more dried fruit snacks. But Vesha wouldn’t talk to him and Sally was off wandering by herself. And he heard enough snatches of conversation from the other tents whenever he went outside to know that things weren’t good. Maksim thought they’d won the battle, but it wasn’t a happy victory.
Maksim put down his sandwich and darted outside again. He ran around to the place behind the tents where he’d been relieving himself. He didn’t want to hike up the hill to Rod’s workshop to use the bathroom there, and Loki’s cottage felt too spooky. Tariq had promised that something called port-a-potties were on their way, but Maksim liked his patch of yellow snow. It was always right there where he left it. It didn’t move or change.
He thought he heard crying in one of the tents and raised voices, one of them Thor’s, coming from another tent farther down.
Maksim stood in the snow and tried to make blue sparks with his fingers again. There had been so much magick on the field, more than he ever dreamed he’d see with his own eyes. A lot of it had been bad magick—or, the magick itself wasn’t bad, but it had been used badly. Maksim would never use his magick to hurt anyone. His magick would only ever be good, and he had a new family now who could protect him from anyone or anything else with bad intentions that might come along. Maksim decided he would use his magick to help Thor and Bonnie and the others. Even Sally the witch.
But the sparks were stubborn. They didn’t come as quickly as before, and when they did they hurt his fingers. He didn’t think it was supposed to be painful, and he worried he was doing something wrong. He’d ask Sally when he saw her again, or maybe Freya. He liked having a big group of people around him who knew about his magick. He didn’t have to hide anymore.
Maksim scrubbed his hands in clean snow and went back into the tent where Magnus was watching his program. On the screen, the hero was yelling into his mobile phone in irritation, and Magnus laughed. Maksim pressed up against his new brother for warmth and shoved the rest of his sandwich into his mouth. He was learning to like peanut butter and the funny, frustrating way it stuck to his teeth and to the roof of his mouth.
Something happened on the screen that made Magnus cheer. Maksim watched as an older woman casually pushed the hero’s sidekick out of the way to save him from a flaming projectile. Maksim wasn’t sure why that was important, but he pumped his fist in the air, too.
Sally walked along the edge of the forest in a disoriented trance. She’d spent the night in the woods, in the cold snow, with no one but Laika for company. She couldn’t face the others just yet. She couldn’t rely on her words to describe what had happened on the battlefield, or what was happening now. She kept her distance from them, as much for her own comfort as for their safety.
Laika trailed along behind her, close enough to make her presence felt but far enough away to give Sally the room she needed. Smart wolf-dog. Sally ached for Baron with grief that cut like a dull butter knife, but her mourning swirled and swam in a flood of foreign feelings and knowledge and memories that filled her again and again. She was absorbing Loki’s essence. Chaos sparked beneath her skin and quickened her breath, and she was certain the magick was spilling out her eyes and her ears and her fingers. But she kept it contained. Barely.
A deep buzzing filled her ears, but her hearing was still sharp. Maybe a little too sharp. It took a while for her to understand that it wasn’t the dramatic absence of battle noise but the sound of magick thrumming all around her. It ran through the ground beneath her feet and electrified the air. She felt all of it. She could almost see the shimmer of magick wherever she looked. Most of all, she felt it in her blood and bones. She breathed in star clusters and exhaled winter winds. The magick vibrated over every inch of her skin and lit her up inside like a jar of frantic fireflies. This was her magick, grounded in her body and mind.
Had it been this way for Loki? Would it always feel like this? She was surprised her hair wasn’t standing on end. But her hands weren’t shaking, and her breath and heartbeat were steady, more or less. She’d done it. She’d sucked the chaos into herself, and she was the new vessel of magick in this world, and maybe all the other worlds, too. She was the Keeper of the Realms.
But she hadn’t gotten all of the chaos. Too much of it had escaped and couldn’t easily be reclaimed. Tariq had shown her online news stories about freak lightning storms around the globe that coincided with Loki’s death and the battle of Ragnarok. Tariq’s phone screen filled with one headline after another about suddenly restless volcanoes, flash floods, and earthquakes. All of humanity was on edge, the stories exclaimed, with reports of mythical beasts appearing out of thin air, traffic management systems going haywire, and dangerous electrical surges that had sparked countless fires and explosions. How many casualties had there been? It seemed no corner of the world had been left undisturbed, but the Pacific Northwest had borne the worst of it.
She’d drunk down some tea Tariq brought her, but she couldn’t quite taste it. Her mouth tingled with sweetness and sunlight and cool air and rich soil as images arose in her mind of strong roots and gentle rain and the quiet vitality of photosynthesis. How long before all of this drove her mad? In a moment of sarcastic angst, she wondered if she might be the first inmate in Freya’s Asylum for the Paranormally Compromised.
But then Tariq distracted her with more internet news, this time from emboldened conspiracy theorists proposing that the freak lightning and other simultaneous mayhem was evidence of a shadow world government trying to harness a solar storm to transform the planet into an antenna to beam a beacon of submission to a whole host of alien overlords across the galaxy. After that, Sally felt more secure in her own sanity.
And then Tariq had left her alone again, to wander among the trees with Heimdall’s wolf-dog following behind her. Because Tariq had work to do to try to clean up the smoking, bloody mess that had been made of the Lodge and its grounds. The Yggdrasil had lost at least half a dozen broad limbs, but she knew the Tree would recover. She felt the Tree pulling moisture from the soil and energy from the sunlight. If she let her mind drift, she soon found herself lost in memories of times and places she’d never seen herself—the Yggdrasil’s memories, and maybe some of them were Loki’s, too. How far back would these memories go? Sally wasn’t sure she had the strength or the courage to follow them. Yet.
Sally turned on her heel and marched up the sloping snow and grass toward Loki’s cottage.
The door stood open, and a wide, heavy table had been pulled into the center of the main room to serve as Opal’s workspace. Remnants of
her salves and teas rested in stone mortars and plastic pitchers across the table’s dark, rustic wood. Opal was down in the tents, doing her job as the magickal helper to the Lodge. She was ministering to the wounded, putting her many skills to practical use. It was what Sally would have done—what the Rune Witch would have done—if not for Loki.
Sally walked inside the cabin and stood next to the table, while Laika brushed against her leg as she trotted by to lie down on a woven Pendleton blanket in front of a low-burning fire in the stone hearth. The wolf-dog seemed perfectly at home, and Sally guessed she’d spent long hours keeping Loki company here.
Everything was dark and shadowy inside, no matter how many windows were left open. It was so different from the other structures Thor had built—like the high ceilings and blond-wood beams of the Lodge—but the little cottage had suited Loki. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all dark-stained wood, with hand-built furniture to match. The only color in the room was found in the red-leather volumes on the bookcases, the understated stripes and occasional, odd floral patterns of the upholstery and cushions, and the muted jewel tones of the old god’s crockery.
“It’s all yours now.”
Sally turned and found Opal standing in the doorway behind her. She looked remarkably good for someone who’d so recently been possessed by an angry Slavic goddess and who’d been an unwilling but rather active participant in Ragnarok. But Opal was alive and on her feet and getting things done. It was exactly what Maggie would have wanted.
“Right?” Opal asked. “I mean, isn’t that how it works?”
Twilight Magic (Rune Witch Book 6) Page 26