Hidden

by Donna Jo Napoli

  I have a good memory. And my arms and legs are strong from farming. Between memory and strength, I take to boating as though born to it, which in a sense I suppose any child of Eire is, since it’s easier to get from one town to another by water than by land. This country is the same. All the settlements of any size are on the coasts, and even isolated farms are always near rivers, so boats can arrive much faster than walking or going by horseback.

  Reciting the rules in my head helps me to quell the initial abhorrence. And gaining skills with the sails actually makes me feel proud of myself. Who knows, maybe being able to handle a boat will help me rescue Mel. Now that I think of it that way, I can look forward to each thing I learn.

  Soon I enjoy looking around as we glide through the water. We’re just moving into winter, though the air is yet mild, and sunrise and sunset are filled with clutters of skylarks, their forked tails well defined against the red to yellow to white backdrop of sun glow. I laugh. In just a couple of weeks, I’ve come to savor the spray of salt water on my cheeks. Something about this is so very right. I’m coming, Mel. I’m coming to get you as soon as I can.

  I am sitting now in the calm of a bay created by a barrier island just a little out from a curved rocky shore thick with oak and beech. We were on our way home when we stopped here. A large beaver came out of the forest and swam across the salty water right in our path and disappeared on this island—which means there’s a dam in there. Armed with his ax, Beorn went over the side of the boat in pursuit of what he claims is the darkest, moistest, tenderest meat on earth. So I am entirely alone—a rare experience.

  I scan the bay simply out of habit, when I see the ship. It enters the bay on the north side of this island. And it has two sails. Norse ships have only one. The slave ship that stole Mel and me had two. It’s going slowly, as though trawling.

  Sweat beads across my brow and stings my eyes. Maybe they haven’t seen me. Our sail is down, of course. I pull up the anchor. I can’t paddle the boat around the south point of the island to the far side before they see me. So I hoist the sail. What else can I do?

  They have seen me now, definitely. No one could fail to see a boat with its sail up at this distance. I gasp for breath; I feel smothered. I go south. But they are coming south. So I head out, away, into the sea. The wind is at my back. The boat flies over the waves, faster and faster as though it will take flight. The world blurs and I’m shaking, but it doesn’t matter because nothing about me can affect the motion of this ship; it moves on its own now, as though at one with the changing shape of the water. We go, go, go, the ship and me.

  When I finally dare to look behind, there is nothing but sea. Blue-green everywhere.

  I loosen the sail so it luffs, then lower it. Within just a moment, the ship bobs on the sea like a dead body. My hands are numb. I look at them, at the indentation from the rope I held on to so tightly, but I can’t feel them in the least. I sit in the middle of the bottom of the boat and hold my face in my hands.

  But what am I doing? I jump to my feet. I’ve lost sight of land! There are no markers in the sea, nothing to give me a sense of direction. I no longer know which way the boat faces, which way is home.

  The sun blazes distantly. And it’s setting! It’s like the single eye of Óðinn. The god traded his other eye for a drink from the well of wisdom. He knows almost everything, and he’s counseling me now. I hoist the sail, but the wind is small. So I reef it, folding up the bottom part and lashing it to make the right size for this weak wind. I turn so the sun is to my back, and I sail due east. It takes a long time to see land—or maybe it only seems so long because it’s getting dark fast and I’m squinting. The wind blows against me now, at first just a little, but it’s gaining strength. I turn south, even though I don’t yet know which direction the island is, because I have to turn one way or the other.

  There’s a beach I recognize because the strand is so deep—even in high tide, the sand goes back enormously far before grasses start—so now I know the beaver island is to the north. I spin the boat and head north. It isn’t far. Beorn stands at the island’s tip and waves, the fool—as though I’m not heading straight for him. I stop and anchor while he swims out and tosses into the boat first three dead beavers, then his ax.

  He climbs in, hand over hand on the rope, and wraps himself in a blanket. He swam to that island in the first place, so he’s been wet all afternoon—and the temperature has dropped precipitously. He shivers. His teeth chatter. He doesn’t speak a word.

  I spin the boat again and sail us home. All these weeks my mind has been filled with the challenge of learning to sail. And, yes, the joy of being in control, and the hope that this will help me find Mel. I hardly thought of anything else. It was as though I was someone much stronger, someone who could do anything, right now, today. Someone who didn’t have a past that taught her better.

  But that ship reminded me.

  I could have been snatched. Again.

  And Mel is still somewhere else. Maybe somewhere awful.

  It’s my job to find her. I must!

  I’m yet only twelve; I can’t do it now. But I will. I will find Mel. She is my sister, and I love her. I will bring us back to Eire. Once I’m older, stronger, able. Once the sight of a ship with two sails doesn’t turn me into a quivering mass. I must find a way to prepare myself properly, so that I can succeed in rescuing her.

  As we finally turn up the Ribe River, Beorn moves close and says, “Don’t tell Ástríd.”

  Does that mean he saw the boat? Does he guess why I fled? It’s too dark to see the message in his eyes, if there is one there. “I won’t.”

  “You scared me, Alfhild.” He rests his hand heavy on my shoulder. “You were out of sight—so I know you couldn’t see the land. You broke the rules.”

  I turn my head away. I had no choice. If he saw the boat, he knows that. What’s the point of an argument?

  “You’re a fine sailor, though it will take years to make you sea wise. Remember that. Don’t get complacent. Ever. I don’t want to lose you.”

  I stifle a cry of pain. I love Beorn. Ástríd . . . Búri . . . Alof. And Mel, too. And Mother, Father, Nuada. I love them all. My head could burst with all this love.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  We walk past the smithy to the great hall where the feast is going on.

  “Look up, Búri.” Ástríd stops, holding the boy by one hand and pointing to the sky with the other. “The god Frey is riding over the earth tonight on his magnificent boar. If you look hard, you might see him, like a streak of gold.”

  “Boar? The god is riding on a boar? Our boar won’t let me ride him.”

  “Frey’s boar isn’t ordinary. His shines so bright, he lights up even the darkest cave. And he has a name: Gullinbursti.”

  “Our boar has a name: Collach.”

  “What a strange name to give him.”

  “It’s not strange. It’s what Alfhild calls him.”

  Ástríd looks at me.

  I shrug. Collach means “boar” where I come from. I’ve given Gaelic names to all the animals—it’s one way of holding on to the words that would slither away from the edges of my mind. I keep my face blank.

  Ástríd twists her lips. “Well, it makes sense then. After all, Frey is king of many things, including Álfheim, the world of the light elves. And Alfhild’s name is elfin. So Alfhild has things in common with him.” She looks at me as if to check whether I object to this account, but I simply shrug again. “Anyway, have you noticed that the days have gotten shorter?”

  Búri shakes his head.

  “Well, they have. Now Frey is bringing back the light. Today was the shortest day of the year, but tomorrow will be longer. Each day from now on will be a little longer.”

  “Forever?”

  “No. Just till summer. Then it changes again and the days get shorter.”

  “Don’t think about it too hard,” says Beorn. He’s holding Alof, and he kisses her on the forehead. Then he s
toops and kisses Búri, too. “It’s the way the world works, and thinking won’t make sense of it, and it surely won’t change it. The important thing is to move quickly to the great hall, and if anything strange greets you, just keep walking.”

  “Anything strange? Like what?”

  “Someone on an eight-legged horse.”

  “A horse with eight legs! Really?”

  “His name is Sleipnir. And the god on his back is Óðinn. You don’t want to stop if they show up, because behind them run the dead.”

  “What are the dead?”

  Beorn straightens the boy’s leather cap. “I’ll tell the tale later. For now, let’s go eat.”

  I’m ready. I don’t want to hear about what the gods are doing tonight. It bothers me that I already knew everything he said about Frey and Óðinn. It’s impossible to sit around the hearth at night with a skald and not know all the god stories. I know about the long line of Danish kings who were always waging war with someone too—the first of whom was Skjøld, a son of Óðinn. The stories about these gods and kings are fabulously entertaining, I admit. But I worry that they’re entering me, sneakily, insidiously. Sometimes I can’t remember stories from Eire, and I used to love those stories. I used to make my brother Nuada tell them over and over.

  When I was lost on the boat, when Beorn was on the beaver island, it was the god Óðinn who I thought of, not Jesus. Sometimes I’m not even sure of the words to the Lord’s Prayer. Mel and I used to say it together, and without her, it’s hard to remember. The thought makes my tongue feel fat, like before I cry. It’s almost a foreign feeling to me now; I haven’t cried in a long time.

  I focus on the feast ahead. We’ve been fasting all day so we’ll have a hearty appetite now. Jól is the most important holiday. It starts tonight and goes till the new year.

  We enter the hall, and the aroma of roast pork slaps us in the face and practically makes me fall over with hunger. People are drinking ale—no, not drinking, they’re sloshing it down—and the room is so packed we have to weave our way through. A piper follows us, with a goatskin covering his shoulders in honor of Thor. His tune is all lively, so that my feet naturally want to dance. The two harpists at one side of the room join in. As one, people get to their feet, and in a snap the center of the room is cleared of food and game boards. It’s like magic. They dance, partners hand in hand.

  Something tickles my neck, and I turn to find Egill’s face thrust in mine. I laugh. “What are you doing with that feather?”

  “Since I haven’t much of a beard yet, I thought it was a good substitute. Come.” He grabs my hand, and we join the dancing.

  The music goes on and on, and it’s fun shuffling about. I love dancing, of course. At banquets when I was tiny, Mel and I would grab opposite corners of a kerchief and swirl each other around the hall to horns, pipes, whistles, harps. Then she got too old for such behavior, so I danced in circles by myself, waving the kerchief over my head. I’m dancing for her now, dancing out my pledge. I’ll find you, Mel. I kick and turn. I’ll save you, Mel. I flail my arms. I’ll come in a boat and whisk you away.

  But it’s been a long day, and finally my stomach clenches. “Aren’t you hungry?” I practically yell above the laughter and music.

  “Always.”

  So we stop and eat, and Ástríd comes over to ask Egill to watch Búri, so she and Beorn can dance for a while. She feels fine about asking Egill for a favor, since Beorn has promised Egill to take him on as his helper once spring comes and he goes trading again. And, of course, she doesn’t even ask me; she simply plants Alof in my arms and leaves. Little Alof promptly grabs at the meat on the tip of my knife, but I swing it away in time.

  “Good thing you’re quick,” says Egill.

  “I’ve had lots of practice.” I hold the knife tip at a slant so Búri can take off the meat, and then I look at Alof, who’s staring at me with eager curiosity. This child will be eating everything lots earlier than Búri did, I bet. I kiss her, so the grease of the meat from my lips coats hers. She understands instantly and licks her lips in surprised glee.

  “Can I have one of those?”

  I spear a piece of meat on the tip of my knife and hold it out to Egill.

  “No. I meant the other.”

  A kiss? I’m appalled. I’ve known about what happens between men and women for as long as I can remember. I’m the girl who passed as much time as I could among the livestock, after all. But I have no interest in such things. Not yet. I pull away.

  Egill grabs me and pushes me down.

  I jump up, ready to let loose a fury of invectives, when I realize that a huge bone just got hurled across the room. If Egill hadn’t shoved us flat, Alof and I might have been hit.

  The man who caught the bone calls out a challenge, and people clear the way as he casts it back. The other man catches it and falls back a few steps from the force of it. And the bone’s flying through the air our way again. But we are safely crouched on the floor. I’ve seen this sport before and always thought it was stupid—drunk men making absurd challenges. But now I realize the bone-casting contest isn’t just dumb; it’s dangerous. Gnawed bones are heavy. I don’t like how these men show off their strength all the time.

  The bone goes back and forth faster, flung harder each time. The laughter of the onlookers becomes strained. Egill tugs on me and we crawl away, over near the gaming boards.

  “What’s going on?” I ask him. “What’s at stake?”

  “They both want to marry Helga, and Harald hasn’t decided who will win yet.”

  Harald is Helga’s father, and Helga is my friend, to the extent that I have any friends outside the family. I keep pretty much to my work. We haven’t really talked since last summer. I spy her now, standing against the far wall, her arms crossed at the chest, her face a mask of indifference. I wonder who she prefers. “It’s rotten that she can’t choose.”

  “Choose? What a crazy idea.” Egill laughs and pushes me in the shoulder.

  I push him back, a little harder.

  “You have too many crazy ideas,” says Egill. “Like working with Beorn on the boat. He’d be better off with me helping all the time, not just when he goes trading.”

  “I’m good on the boat.”

  “You might be. But that doesn’t make it right.”

  Suddenly one of the men throws up his hands. “I won’t fight you. I won’t break Jól.”

  And the contest is over just like that. That’s a good thing about Jól—it’s a festival of peace. Even men who fight all the time can act nice during Jól. I watch the tension drain from Helga’s shoulders as she turns back to her plate of food.

  Egill reaches a hand toward me, and for a moment I fear he’ll touch my hair, but when I lean away he touches Alof’s cheek instead. “Will you skate with me tomorrow?”

  The weather changed this past week, as though getting ready for Jól. It’s so cold now, the stream is frozen. “I don’t have skates. You know that.”

  “I made you some.”

  “Really?” I’ve watched skaters with something bordering on envy. It’s like dancing, but infinitely smoother. “Who died?”

  “Kjartan’s old stallion. And I was the first to ask for the foot bones.”

  It’s a lot of work to make skates. I watched Beorn make a pair for Búri. You have to grind the bottom of the bone flat and make it smooth on top. And unless you want to use a spiked stick to propel yourself across the ice, you need to add holes in either end of the bones so they can be fastened by thongs to your shoes. Though I coveted those skates, I didn’t ask Beorn to make me a pair for the very reason that I knew how much work it was.

  I shouldn’t accept such a gift, especially not after how Egill behaved tonight.

  Still, I’d love to learn to skate. I’m sick of standing on the side and swallowing my envy as I watch Búri play ball games on the ice. “Thank you,” I say at last. “But skates aren’t payment for kisses, you understand.”

  He laughs.
“I know that.”

  “Know it well. If you want thrills, you’ll have to find them elsewhere.”

  “Oh, there’ll be plenty of thrills this week, with the papi and all.”

  I don’t know that word . . . papi. “The what?”

  “Aha! Something the know-it-all Alfhild doesn’t know. A papi is a foreigner.”

  “So what? Lots of foreigners pass through Ribe.”

  “A papi is different. He’s not a trader. He’s a religious man from some other religion. He’s come to find converts.”

  My ears are starting to ring. “What religion?”

  “He calls himself Kristinn.”

  Kristinn? Christian!

  “And he’s from Írland. It’s to the west.”

  Írland—Eire land.

  An Irish monk.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “What do you think it is?” Egill stands looking at the box on the floor inside the poled enclosure they’ve built for the monk. It’s a poor excuse for shelter; the wind blows right through. The monk sits on the dirt with his back to us. He’s slumped forward, and his tunic is so thin, the ridges of his backbone stand out distinctly.

  The box is the length of my forearm and half that in width. It’s made of thick yew. Sheets of pounded-thin copper are nailed to the outer surfaces and secured at the edges by nailed-on bars of more copper. The bottom is a normal rectangle. The lid is attached by hinges and is in the shape of a pitched roof, with four sides: two large ones and two smaller triangular ones to close off the ends. A ridge pole goes across the apex of the roof, and it holds together the four roof pieces. The ridge pole sticks out a little on both sides and curls into loops, where each end of a chain is fastened. On the sides and lid are circular and rectangular decorations, all of bronze.