Iduna's Apples (Valhalla Book 2)

by Jennifer Willis

  Thor erupted several yards away. Sally nearly jumped out of her chair.

  As much as she wanted to eavesdrop—for more details of their current situation, and for news of Freyr’s arrival—Sally closed her eyes and deliberately tuned out everything but the deck in her hands.

  “Okay.” She stopped shuffling the cards and took a deep breath.

  She pulled one card after another, until five cards lay face up in a circle on the footstool in front of her: Queen of Diamonds, Five of Hearts, Two of Spades, Ace of Spades, and King of Hearts.

  Sally put the rest of the deck down and hunched over the cards. She crossed her arms tightly and shifted her jaw back and forth as she frowned down at the spread.

  “Okay, so if Heimdall is the King of Hearts—because he’s in love and his girlfriend is missing and his heart is hurting, right? Then maybe Maggie is the Queen of Diamonds . . . because she’s a girl and, and diamonds are a girl’s best friend?” Sally kicked at the leg of the footstool, and the cards jumped. “So I guess that means Loki is the Ace of Spades, because maybe chaos is dark and he’s kind of the initiating source of it, and then for the five and the two, maybe those are coordinates, or an address. Or there are five points on the pentagram which is the sacred star . . .”

  Sally’s shoulders sank. She reached down to the floor for her orange soda and took a long drink. She was grasping at straws. She hadn’t studied much in the way of Tarot and wasn’t particularly skilled even with a standard Rider-Waite deck, much less generic playing cards. The burden of transatlantic jet-lag and what was very possibly her second doomsday scenario within six months weren’t helping, either.

  Sally gathered up the cards and glanced at her journal. Her Book of Shadows was proving similarly unhelpful. She rifled aimlessly in her backpack, wondering what else she might use to try to get answers. Her fingers brushed against her denim pencil case, and a shiver of excitement raced up Sally’s arm.

  A hopeful smile spreading on her face, Sally pulled the homemade pencil pouch into her lap and unzipped it. Inside, with its braided cord tangled around the half-dozen pens and pencils, sat the polished obsidian point Loki had given her the previous December for the 12-night celebration of Jul.

  It had been her first time celebrating the Norse New Year with other people, and on the second night of raucous feasting at Odin’s Lodge, Loki had invited her to take a walk in the woods. About a half-mile from the Great Hall in a thick stand of fir trees, Loki had reached into his pocket for the inch-long cone of dark volcanic glass. He’d handed it to her just as a light snowfall started drifting down through the tree branches.

  “It comes from the volcanoes here,” Loki had told her. “The black color of the obsidian will help to ground you, lift any illusion or fantasy from your mind, and bring you a purity of focus.” Then he’d pointed to the few splotches of white on the point’s shiny surface. “Snowflakes,” he’d said. “They’ll boost your confidence. Black and white together bring balance.”

  He’d accepted Sally’s enthusiastic hug of thanks, then shrugged and said something like, “Every Moon Witch should have a pendulum made from the stone of her homeland.”

  Sally unwound the pendulum’s waxed cord and lifted it out of the pencil pouch. The opaque glass glinted in the light from the nook’s small hearth. She hadn’t worked with the pendulum much but she knew—in theory—that it could be used to answer simple yes-no questions, and even for dowsing in the hands of a skilled practitioner.

  “So,” she addressed the snowflake obsidian point as it glimmered before her eyes. “Can you help me find Loki?”

  Sally slipped the pencil case back into her bag and got up from her chair to approach the others.

  “Umm, I think I have an idea . . . ?” Sally stammered, unheard.

  All three appeared more agitated than even a few minutes earlier. Heimdall was pacing across the tile floor by the hearth while Saga navigated websites on what Sally guessed was Maggie’s laptop computer. Thor had commandeered the small coffee table. He had the full-sized map of Scandinavia spread out with a smaller map of Oslo resting on top, and there was a stack of travel guides on the floor by his feet.

  “Where else did you go that first day?” Thor had one guidebook open in his lap and paused with a red pen poised over the city map.

  Heimdall stopped mid-stride, and ran a hand through his thick hair as he thought. “After the Akershus Castle, we had lunch. Someplace nearby, with fish and game dishes . . .” He sighed and glanced at Thor. “Is this really important?”

  Saga turned to face him. “You know better than I do that running about without so much as a rudimentary plan is worse than doing nothing at all. Tracking your movements prior to your run-in with the Frost Giants is a place to start.”

  She rubbed her tired eyes and looked up at her brother in sympathy. “I know you’re upset, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re nursing a concussion there. Just bear with us on this, okay?”

  Heimdall looked down at his boots. “Det Gamle Radhus. That was the name of the restaurant.”

  Saga started typing on the computer. Thor thumbed through the guidebook, located the restaurant’s address and drew a red circle on the city map. He looked up at Heimdall, waiting.

  “Then we walked around. We visited the Oslo City Museum and the park there. Frogner Park.” Heimdall stopped and blinked at the hearth flames.

  Sally gripped the pendulum in her fist. “I think I know a way we can find them . . .”

  “Later we went up to some place with views,” Heimdall cut her off. “Frognerseteren. We had coffee. We split an apple cake.”

  Heimdall started to tear up, and he turned away from his kin. Whether it was the stress over escaped Frost Giants, worry for Maggie, or the incessant throbbing at his temple, he couldn’t be sure. It was unlike him to get emotional.

  He could feel the Moon Witch at his back and knew she wanted something from him, but he had no patience for Sally at the moment. Thor and Saga were convinced she could help, and he hadn’t been able to raise Frigga on the phone to judge otherwise. Legendary wielder of Norse magick or not, Sally was just a seventeen-year-old girl. She was no match for the Frost Giants. She’d be a liability.

  “And you felt you were being followed the entire time?” Thor’s red pen hovered over the city map.

  Heimdall turned back around and nodded. “Not immediately. It was sometime that first afternoon. Shadows where there shouldn’t have been any, flickers of movement at the periphery of my vision. Maggie called it ‘seeing ghosts.’ She speculated it was all just hazy memories of my life here before.”

  Heimdall sat down. “Frigga suggested I was still tense from last fall with the Yggdrasil, and that a part of me was anxious for the next problem to arise. She said I was spoiling for a fight.”

  Saga looked up from the laptop. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Heimdall rubbed the knotted muscles in his neck. “I should have known right away something was truly wrong.”

  “You couldn’t have known you had Frost Giants tailing you, Heimdall,” Saga offered. “Of all the possible scenarios for something to go horribly wrong on your vacation, is that one you would have come up with?”

  Heimdall blew air through his teeth and shrugged. Sally stepped closer to his chair.

  “I think we should try dowsing.” She gestured toward Thor’s maps.

  Heimdall looked up at her with an expression of vague confusion, and Sally worried that the blow to the head may have done more damage than was immediately apparent. Before he could answer, Saga’s phone rang. Heimdall jumped, knocking his knee into the table and sending the phone skittering to the floor. He watched it vibrate across the tile, its red light flashing in time with the ringtone.

  “Will somebody get that?” Saga waved toward her brothers as she kept surfing on the laptop.

  After the phone’s jingle started up for the third time, Thor cleared his throat. “Normally when it makes a sound lik
e that, there’s a reasonable chance the phone wants you to pick it up and see who’s calling.”

  Heimdall didn’t have the energy for a retort, clever or otherwise. He reached down and grabbed the phone just before it vibrated its way beneath his chair. He read the display—UNKNOWN—then quickly glanced at Saga. “What if it’s the ransom call?”

  She shot him a frown. “Why would they be calling me?”

  He answered just before the call rolled over to voice mail. He didn’t speak, but listened to the clipped voice on the other end.

  “I’m in the hotel lounge. Thank you,” he sniffed, then hung up and rose to his feet. “That was the front desk. I gave the hotel Saga’s number in case they needed to reach me today. Someone left a note for me earlier this morning. They’re bringing it now.”

  Thor sprang up from his chair. “How long ago?”

  Heimdall shook his head. “It’s been hours. They’re long gone.”

  “Who?” Sally asked.

  Thor stepped out from behind the coffee table. “They could be hanging around in the lobby, waiting for you to approach the desk. I’m going out there.”

  “Who’s in the lobby?” Sally tried again.

  “And then do what, exactly?” Saga reached up to grab a fistful of Thor’s shirt, and pulled him back down into his chair. “We’ve already been through the lobby this morning. Seems to me if Valthrudnir or his goons were going to jump us or whatever, that would have happened already.”

  “That’s also assuming this note in question is even from the Frost Giants.” Heimdall took in a deep breath, trying to release the anxious tension in his chest. He hoped it wasn’t obvious in his voice. “Could just be a flyer from a pizza shop.”

  Sally pulled her footstool across the floor to the coffee table, and she sat down next to Heimdall. She looked over the maps, her eyes following the dozen or so red circles Thor had drawn. Maybe she could suspend the pendulum over the map, and have it tell her if Maggie or Loki were somewhere nearby . . . ?

  A slender clerk in the hotel’s burgundy-and-beige uniform peeked his head around the corner of the lounge. “Mr. Bendreg?”

  Thor jumped to his feet and glowered down at him.

  The teenager quaked under the hard stare of the god of thunder, and he lifted a folded piece of paper in the air to explain his presence. Feeling sorry for the clerk who was barely older than she was, Sally was on her feet and in front of the young man before Thor could frighten him further.

  “I’ll take that,” Sally offered. She took the note from the clerk, then looked expectantly up at Thor. “Tip him, will you?”

  “Tip?” Thor’s woolly eyebrows knitted together. “Such underlings should know their place, and serve their ancestral gods with meek gratitude and reverence. Any who doesn’t might be in league with the Frost Giants.” Thor turned a hard eye on the clerk, who had started backing away.

  Heimdall stepped up next to Sally and took the note from her. He dug into his pockets, extracted a piece of paper currency and passed it over without glancing at the denomination. From the way the young man’s eyes lit up, Heimdall guessed it was a handsome tip.

  “Thank you, sir!” the clerk exclaimed in vaguely accented English. With Thor still eying him with suspicion, the young man stumbled backward and dashed around the corner, out of sight.

  “Could have been one of them,” Thor muttered.

  Saga scoffed. “Did that look like a Frost Giant to you?”

  “We don’t know what these past millennia under the ice might have done to them.” Thor crossed back to his chair and sat down. The furniture sighed in resignation.

  Heimdall shook his head. “Trust me. That wasn’t a Frost Giant. You probably scared that kid half out of his wits.”

  Thor leaned back in his chair and smiled. He liked the idea that he could still intimidate.

  Sally sat down in front of the maps again, but looked up when she felt Thor’s eyes on her.

  “Think you could scare up some Berserkers again?” Thor asked with what passed for a cheerful smile. “We’ll need warriors when we go up against the Frost Giants. But not like that kid there,” he gestured behind him. “I mean from good stock, the strong Viking lines that must still run deep here—”

  “Oh, no,” Sally cut him off. “I’m done with Berserkers. Plus, there’s no guarantee they’d show up at the right time or the right place.” Or that they’d even be on your side, Sally shuddered.

  “You can do it, little witch!” Thor proclaimed loudly.

  Trying to mask a dark shiver, Sally kept her eyes trained on the map of Oslo. Little witch. Managarm’s pet name for her. She could hear his voice in her ear again, every word dripping with derision. Sally squeezed the obsidian point in her fist.

  Saga rested a hand on Thor’s arm. “Not this time, okay?”

  Sally dangled her pendulum over the map and concentrated on the black-and-white point. Find Maggie. She’d not done any real dowsing before—short of using the pendulum to find Baron the cat in the back yard when her parents weren’t looking. The obsidian bob hung motionless in the air. She lowered the pendulum until it was suspended just an inch over the paper. Show me Maggie.

  Heimdall carefully unfolded the note in his hands. Thor leaned forward, eyes on his brother. “Mr. Bendreg? That’s what he called you?”

  Heimdall ignored him and read.

  “Isn’t that Maggie’s name? Bendreg?” Thor asked.

  Heimdall kept reading.

  “You’ve taken your woman’s name?” Thor rested his meaty fists on his hips. “She’s got you on a pretty leash.”

  Heimdall sighed in exasperation. “Maggie made all the travel arrangements. Everything’s in her name.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Thor shrugged. “So, what’s it say?”

  “It’s from the Frost Giants.” Heimdall’s jaw tightened. “They have Maggie.” He paused. “It gets worse.”

  Find Maggie! Sally mentally shouted at the pendulum, still hanging motionless over the map. Then she tried, Find Loki!

  “Come on, will you?” Sally grumbled. Her breath caught in her throat as the pendulum started swinging over the city map, but there was no pattern to its movement. It sloped in a lopsided figure-eight, then made a wide circle before starting to vacillate first along the North-South line, then switching to East-West.

  “Umm, anyone know what this means . . . ?” Sally asked.

  “Heimdall, what could possibly be worse?” Saga moved closer to read over her brother’s shoulder. “Oh. Oh, crap.”

  Sally looked up and caught Saga’s eye. “This isn’t giving me anything. I don’t think they’re around here.”

  Saga shook her head. “They’re not.” She rested a hand on Heimdall’s elbow. “By the tears of the Valkyries.”

  Heimdall looked down at Thor. “When do the others arrive?”

  Thor glanced at his watch. “Their plane lands in 90 minutes.”

  Heimdall folded the note and stuck it in his jacket pocket. “Tell them to meet us at Iduna’s Grove.”

  6

  Maggie sat across from Geirrod at the worn, wooden table. They were in yet another stone room, but at this lower level the walls were made of solid rock that curved into the ceiling overhead.

  Watching the giant pick bits of apple out of his teeth, without apology, she wondered if there might be anything else available to eat.

  From the way first Frigga and now these giants went on about the apples, Maggie guessed they were some kind of Scandinavian delicacy. Frigga had been digging through cookbooks for all manner of apple recipes—ancient and contemporary—and waxing poetic about the divine tarts and casseroles she would serve upon Maggie and Heimdall’s return.

  And here at the table, Geirrod relished the large, red-gold apples as though they were honeyed ambrosia. But Maggie found the fruit to be coarse and dry, even slightly bitter.

  Her stomach gurgled, loudly. At least the apples had been filling. She rested her hand on her abdomen in embarrassment. Ge
irrod smiled.

  “I see you were hungry after all.” He sucked a sliver of apple skin from beneath a slightly jagged fingernail. “You must inform me when you become hungry or thirsty again.”

  Maggie frowned. “For more apples?”

  The thought of another apple made Maggie want to gag. Frigga wanted her to bring back ten bushels of these dry, fibrous things? Maggie wondered if the apples had some special dietary properties. Maybe Frigga would use them to help Odin and Thor lose some weight.

  Geirrod shook his head. “The apples must be consumed slowly, as they revitalize you. Let these first few do their work, and only then fortify yourself further.”

  Maggie looked down at the pair of apple cores on her plate. “I guess there’s something really special about these apples, huh?”

  Geirrod looked blankly at her for a moment, then burst out laughing—the same grating sound as before. Maggie cringed and covered her ears. Geirrod muffled his laughter behind his fist, but there was still a smile in his eyes.

  “Something special about the apples, indeed.” He winked at her.

  Maggie felt nauseous. She’d given up trying to get a straight answer out of her so-called host about where she was and what had happened to Heimdall. She just kept telling herself that Heimdall was safe, somewhere, and that he’d find a way to come for her.

  Any minute now.

  Geirrod rose from the table. “Now that you have tasted the apples, Lady Maggie, you can begin to heal Loki, that he might also partake of the fruit and be restored.”

  Maggie rose unsteadily to her feet and gripped the back of the chair for balance. “Yeah, about that . . . I’m pretty sure Loki’s in a coma.”

  Geirrod stared at her.

  “A coma?” she tried again. “You know, he’s unconscious and he won’t wake up. I mean, I’m no medical professional. I don’t know what the exact definition is, but that’s what it looks like to me. At least, that’s what people in comas look like on TV—even though those are just actors pretending to be unconscious. So, really, I don’t know what someone in a coma may or may not look like.” Maggie sighed. “I’m just saying.”