by J. A. Pitts
“Lie about something,” Stuart said.
I looked down at my fist and said, “I hate coffee.”
The disk throbbed, a dissonant pulse that grated my teeth, but only for a second. “I love coffee.” The disk hummed quietly, a smooth sensation.
I handed the disk back to Stuart.
“Damn,” I said, frowning. “So, back to plan B.”
Gunther looked up. “Plan B?”
“Let’s regroup tomorrow out at Jimmy’s,” I said, glancing toward the house. “I’m not comfortable sharing secrets here.”
They both nodded, and I shifted into first, swung the bike around and headed back toward Redmond.
Tomorrow I’d try something new. I just hoped that Jimmy would listen. After this little scene I’m not sure he would be too open to things.
Fifty-two
The next day, Jimmy, Gunther, and I reconvened back at Black Briar. Stuart went off to see Qindra. It was very cute to see him so crushing on her. I laid out my ideas for taking Katie over to the school, doing a bit of a séance, maybe doing some astral walking and explore the surroundings. I couldn’t tell them about the diary, however. If they knew Katie had taken it, they hadn’t mentioned it to me yet, and I did not want to go there.
I wanted to get Qindra involved, but with Stuart currently asking her out to a super spectacular dinner and the whole wooing thing, I thought it would be better if I used the resources I had. Jimmy was dead set against me taking her on some damned fool’s errand, and he was out on the deck talking with Deidre about it. Gunther and I planted ourselves in Katie’s room to wait out the storm.
I’d kidnap her if I had to. I had to try something. I was pretty sure I could talk Melanie into helping me. Mostly sure.
I took out the necklace that we were going to give to Gottschalk. Katie’s hands were crossed on her chest, so I turned them palm up and lay the necklace into them.
“Your parents had this necklace,” I said to her.
Her hands closed over the cut stones, but her eyes didn’t open
“Did she …?” Gunther began, standing up.
“No,” I said, covering her hands with mine. “She grasps things when you put them in her hands. Some instinct, I think. She’s not in there.”
“How can you be sure?” he asked, sitting back down.
I sat beside him, took out my knitting and began to work on sample piece for a new scarf I was working on. This one used a lot of beads. It was going to kill me, I’m sure.
“She’s lost somewhere,” I told him as I began the soothing dance of the needles. “I’ve seen evidence of that. I just need to find out where.”
He humphed and crossed his hands behind his head, crossed one ankle over a knee and leaned back against the wall, watching her.
“I watched her grow up,” he said, quietly. “She was hell on wheels, this one.”
I looked up. He had that faraway look of old memories.
“And when she told us about you,” he said, grinning. “Jimmy about lost it. We knew you from the Ren Faire, but you were a little rough around the edges. All anger and bravado.”
I squinted at him. “It wasn’t that long ago,” I said. “Like what, two, three years?”
“I think Katie carved it in the old barn. She was convinced you were the real deal, her one and only.” He looked up, his face suddenly sober. “Not mine to tell, though. Sorry.” He smiled at me with a very sad smile, his flowing hair and wild Viking looks suddenly sensitive and vulnerable. “She does love you, kiddo. With all her heart.”
“Ditto,” I said, looking at her with watering eyes. “God, Gunther. I can’t lose her.” My breath caught, and I thought I was going to cry for a moment. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “I have to bring her home, show her the way, put out a light, something.”
“I’ll talk to Jimmy,” he said, quietly. “He’ll see reason.”
“Yeah, right. Jimmy? He only believes things he can see on his own.”
“Brilliant idea,” he said, smacking his open hand on his thigh. “Why don’t you and Skella arrange to take him sideways. You can, can’t you?”
I thought about it. Not astrally, that took a special skill. I don’t know when I’d acquired it, but my bet was that Gram had something to do with it.
“Good idea. You wanna go?”
He laughed again and held up his hands. “Hell no. I’ll trust you. I don’t need some crazed spirit or giant spider like eating machine chasing me across Hel’s domain to trust you’re telling the truth.”
“Jimmy thinks I’m lying?”
He shook his head. “Delusional, most like. He knows you love her and would do anything for her, but look at his life, Sarah. He’s terrified he’ll lose her, so he’s keeping a tight rein on her.”
I could see his point of view. Guy was just scared for her. Maybe I’d take Jimmy and Bub with me next time. Get Skella to drop us off someplace relatively safe. If that even existed in the Sideways.
“How’s Anezka?” I asked him, changing the subject without signaling.
He turned and looked at me with a smile on his face. “She’s a little ray of sunshine,” he sniggered. “When she’s not out of her gourd with anxiety and nightmares.”
“Sorry.”
“Well … accepted. She says you’ve been stirring up the nightmares, making the dark things creep out of their hidey-holes and slip into normal people’s dreams.”
That sucked. “Skella’s grandmother said pretty much the same thing,” I said, dejected. I put the knitting down in my lap. “I guess when I go tromping through the dreamscape, I’m a little loud and annoying.”
He laughed at that, a real belly laugh. “Jesus and Mary, Beauhall. You are the epitome of understatement.”
I punched him and picked my knitting back up. Luckily I hadn’t dislodged anything. I hated casting on.
He stared at me for a while, a look of concentration on his face.
“What?” I asked after a few minutes. It was unnerving.
“Well, we’ve been talking, me and Jimmy and Stuart.”
“Yeah?”
He turned his chair slightly to better face me. “You see, we don’t think you’re one of the elder gods come back.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Especially after learning that the dragons want to keep them all killed off.”
He waved his hand at me, smiling. “And you aren’t a dragon or anything else my order can understand.” He tapped two fingers against his lips, thinking. “It’s like you’re a white blood cell. Whatever is wrong with the world, you’ve been brought in to clean things up. Preserve the ecosystem by removing things that are harming the host.”
I had to consider that for a moment. “Like magical penicillin?” I asked.
“Which makes the dragons STDs?”
We both laughed at that.
“But it’s more than dragons,” he said, tapping his hands on the seat of the chair. “The current theory is that you are an antibody that is trying to heal the one-true-being.”
“Odin?” I asked. Didn’t seem right, but what the hell did I know?
“No, not Odin. He’s just another piece of the whole. No, I think you’re a servant of the world tree.”
I looked at him, thinking that maybe Anezka’s nuttiness had infected him in some way.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said, holding up his hands to forestall my clumsy rebuttal. “But I need something to draw on.”
He left the room and returned with a drawing pad and a black ink pen. He flipped to a blank sheet, passing things I was sure Jai Li had drawn. Then he drew a rough tree with a long trunk, three massive roots and three tall branches.
“This is Yggdrasil, the world tree.”
“Qindra drew it for me once,” I said “Nine worlds, yadda, yadda.”
He shook his head. “Yadda indeed. Do you know the mythos? The denizens? Do you know the worlds, truly?”
I shook my head. “No, truthfully I was a little worried
about Anezka at the time she was telling me. We were waiting for her cleaning crew to show up out at Chumstick. She was showing me to bide our time.”
“Just as I thought. May I tell my tale?”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure, I guess we’re not going anywhere. Jimmy is still pouting with Deidre.”
He sniggered and tapped on the page with his pen. “Pay attention then. This may help you someday.”
Fifty-three
“There is evidence of the world tree,” he began. “A giant tree that encompassed the entirety of the universe. Yggdrasil it was called in the old tongue. Off the branches and roots of this tree were the nine worlds.
In the heavens or the upper branches of the tree there were three worlds: Múspellsheimr, Álfheimr, and Ásgarðr.
Múspellsheimr is the world of Muspell or fire. This is where Bub is from originally. Before he became a servant of the amulet.”
I fingered the amulet through my shirt. It was a constant reminder of the kobold. I missed him, I needed to stop and touch base with him, recruit him to my little Sideways outing.
“Also fire giants. They’re definitely bad news.”
I thought back to the time I battled Bub. “Fire extinguishers, got it.”
“Álfheimr is the world of the Ljósálfr, Skella’s people,” he continued.
“Ásgarðr also known as Asgard is the world of the Æsir, Odin’s people.
“The three central worlds,” he pointed to the middle of the tree, “are Vanaheimr, Miðgarðr, and Jötunheimr.”
“Vanaheimr is the world of the Vanir, the old gods that came before Odin and his ilk.” He paused, considering. “There are those who believe the civilization collapsed before Asgard fell, but it is only speculation and rumor.”
“Like maybe the legends of Atlantis or something?”
He looked at me, appraisingly. “Perhaps,” he said. “Hadn’t combined those two legends together before, but I can see the connection.”
I smiled at that. I was getting better at pulling together puzzle pieces and solving mysteries.
“Miðgarðr or Midgard is Earth, the lands of the humans.”
“Got that, easy enough. Home, sweet, home.”
“Yes. The third is Jötunheimr, and is the land of the Jǫtunn or Giants.”
Legend said you could walk from giant land to Asgard, so they must be connected somehow. “Oh, yeah, I’m very aware of them.”
He smiled at me and pointed to the roots of the tree.
“These are the tree roots, the underworld. This is made up of Svartálfaheimr, Niflhel, and Niflheimr.”
He looked at me. “Svartálfaheimr is the land of the dark elves, or the Dvergar, Durin’s folk.”
“Rolph’s people?” I asked.
“Yes, precisely. They are considered dark elves because of their nocturnal nature.”
“Doesn’t mean they’re evil, though. Right?” I didn’t want Rolph to be evil. The guy was wonky at times, but he had a good heart. Now, some of his kin, like the dwarves who were messed up in the blood mead, and the necromancer’s, shit, they were rotten to the core.
“Niflheimr is the land of the ice giants. They, along with the fire giants from Múspellsheimr are who were supposed to bring down Odin and his crew and trigger Ragnarök, the end of the world.”
Ragnarök. Is that the only way to repair the wheel? Is that the final game? I know Nidhogg wanted the wheel repaired. So did Odin. But did I have to destroy the world to fix it? Seemed counterproductive, but we were talking mythical shit way above my pay grade.
“And Niflhel?” I asked, fearing his answer.
“Hel, the land of the dead.”
I shuddered. “Oh, yeah. I got that one down. No desire to ever go back.”
“Quite.” He drew a bridge between Midgard and Asgard, then drew an X over it. “This is the rainbow bridge that Heimdell shattered when the dragons took Odin’s halls. This kept the dire wolves from joining the battle. Frost giants and their younger goblin brethren made it to Asgard, but the ship the fire giants were to sail on was never built. Loki had been betrayed to Nidhogg, so Ragnarök never happened.”
“Who betrayed Loki?” I asked.
“Ratatoskr—bore-tooth, or the gnawer. He’s a big damned squirrel who carried messages between Nidhogg and the unnamed eagle that lived at the very top of the tree.”
“Why unnamed?” I asked, forgetting all about my knitting.
“This is where the etymologies mix,” he said, putting down the pad and standing. He paced the length of the room.
“In Genesis, the text states that thou shalt have no gods before me.”
I nodded, well aware of the scripture.
“My order believes that the eagle represents God, the one true god. And that the others are lesser beings.”
“So, you’re saying that Christianity and all this Norse mythos stuff works together?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said. He scratched his chin. “You come from a pretty strict Christian upbringing. The scripture is full of ambiguities and plot holes big enough to drive a donkey through. Who’s to say the myths and the gods don’t live together perfectly well?”
“Well, da for one.” No way the old man was going to buy Odin, dragons, and the like. Of course, I’d seen, battled, and lived through all of those. What I didn’t have was hard evidence for was da’s vision of the God Almighty.
“So, maybe God as my father believes him to be, doesn’t really exist.”
Gunther shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Oh, ye of little faith. Open your mind Sarah. There is ample evidence for both.”
I moved my knitting over into my basket and stood, stretching.
“So, I’m this squirrel or something, narking out Loki and generally helping to break the wheel, betray Odin and give the throne to Nidhogg?”
“Not quite that,” he said. “But there is evidence your true calling is to fix the wheel. Didn’t Nidhogg say the same to you?”
I hadn’t gone into detail on my last meeting with Nidhogg, just given them the highlights. Perhaps I was just a lackey to go between head and tail. I scrubbed my hands over my face and yawned.
“Okay, so say I’m this white blood cell squirrel thingy. Now what?”
Gunther sat down, his shoulders dropping. “Good question. We’ve never gotten past that point. Just deciding this was a huge leap of faith.”
I laughed. “Berserker, Fist, Lover, Mother, Squirrel, and White Blood Cell. I am one complex individual.”
We both laughed. “I’m going to roust Jimmy,” I said, patting Gunther on the arm as I went passed him. “Squirrel.…” I couldn’t stop chuckling.
“I’ll stay here,” he said, sitting back down. “I’ll just watch her sleep a bit longer.”
I kissed him on the top of his head and went down the hall toward the kitchen and the back deck. Time to kick Jimmy into high gear. I wanted to bring Katie home.
Just in case, maybe I’d say a quick prayer. Couldn’t hurt, right?
Fifty-four
I guess Deidre had worked Jimmy over pretty well. When I went out onto the back deck, he was walking across the grounds, heading out to the war memorial. Deidre patted me on the arm as I went past her and I gave her a quick hug.
Jimmy must’ve heard the door because he’d paused out by the old ruined barn.
“Hey, Jim,” I said, jogging up to stand next to him.
He was staring into the ruins, the fallen timbers, the ash that refused to go away, even after more than a year of being open to the weather.
“This is where it happened,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
“What? Where Deidre fell?”
He turned to look at me, his eyes haunted. “This is where we lost our innocence. This is where we stopped being children and started being jaded and wounded grown-ups who struggle against the sharp edges, opening old wounds, lost in our past.”
“That’s pretty heavy stuff, Jim.” I said. “Ever thought about tearing i
t down? Letting the new memorial the dwarves built pass for our historical memory?”
“Bub lives here,” he said, pointing through the interlocked beams to a small corner in the back where a convergence of roof pieces had created a small cave of ash and burnt wood.
“We can find him a new place,” I said, staring into the barn. “Where is he this afternoon?”
“No idea,” he said, shrugging. “Can’t you call him with that amulet of yours?”
I grabbed the stone beneath my shirt. “Yeah, I suppose. Let me give it a try.”
The stone pulsed a quiet red as I slipped it out from my shirt and held it in my hands. “Bub?” I asked the air. “Bub, where are you my friend?”
There was a popping sound behind me, and the quick stench of sulfur. Jim and I both turned. Bub sat on the picnic table against the new barn across the yard. He squatted down with his knees up around his ears. A great yawn cracked his face, forcing his jaws open as wide as I’ve ever seen them. Half his head practically unhinging and tilting backward. I was willing to bet we could drop an anvil in his gullet and he’d just burp and smile.
“You tired, Bub?” I asked, crossing the yard.
He stretched his arms above his head and arched his back. His scales shone dully in the light of the late afternoon.
“I was taking a nap,” he said.
Jimmy shook his head, but a smile touched the corners of his mouth.
“Nap where?” I asked.
“With Frick and Frack,” he said, stretching upward, coming to his full four feet with his talons clicking above his head.
“I’m glad you could make it,” I said, sitting on the table beside him. “Saves me from having this conversation twice.”
Jimmy stood by the end of the table, one foot up on the bench nearest my boots. I leaned back on my elbows, and Bub dropped back down like a frog. He had the boniest damn knees.
“I want to do something with Katie,” I started, not looking at either of them.
“You want to take her sideways?” Bub asked, his voice tight.