by Ruth Eastham
The sky flickered with sheet lightning; thunderless, rainless. Jack’s reflection looked back at him from the glass. It was as if Tor was there, looking in at him.
Jack stared at the telly and tried to push out his worries, listening to the tourist video Gramps had set to spool between programmes. He’d heard it a thousand times before. “Isdal. Town of the Midnight Sun.”
The screen filled with local landscapes as the smooth, soothing tones of the voiceover rang out, first in Norwegian and then in English. Gramps had been proud of that touch.
“Isdal. Where there’s always a friendly face… An ancient coastal town set in timelessness… A jewel between mountain and sea… A town shrouded in fascinating history and fantastical myth…”
Jack knew all the words, in both languages. That’s how sad he was!
“Two thousand metres above the town, the rugged Brennbjerg peak stands watch over Isdal’s sheltered bay … and on its rocky slopes, the majestic Isdal glacier, descending in close proximity to the town.”
There was an aerial view of the glacier, pitted with blue crevasses.
Tor. Jack thought of the cracks snaking up the ice round his body. The cave could collapse; then they’d never get him out. He had to tell someone, surely!
“Isdal’s location close to the Arctic Circle means that on one very special day every year the sun does not set, and the whole town takes to the streets in age-old celebration, the Festival of the Midnight Sun…”
There was a shot of the sun, sitting on the sea’s horizon like a fat egg yolk. People paraded the streets dressed in Viking helmets and long tunics, and danced round a bonfire, gold masks covering their eyes. Fireworks exploded across the sky. A Viking longboat was being launched into the bay, its dragon’s head decorated with evergreen branches and flowers.
With a flurry of icy air, the kafé door swung open and a man came in, his windswept hair standing up from his scalp. “Evening, everyone!” He beamed, all teeth and red cheeks and thick glasses. Then he hurried across the room and settled down at Gramps’s table, nodding at Jack as he took off his coat and patted down his hair into neat, slick lines.
Petter Alver; the head of Isdal Museum.
Just tell Petter, Jack told himself. Let him do the rest. The bloke will be falling over himself to get to the glacier.
So what was stopping him from telling?
Petter laughed out loud at a joke of Gramps’s, pulling Jack out of his brooding. He watched Petter wipe his eyes on a handkerchief. He could ask him about Skuli’s ballad at least; he was bound to have heard it. Then maybe Jack could work out its connection with the ice cave runes.
Jack waited until Gramps had gone off to help Gran behind the counter and then went over to Petter’s table. They exchanged a few words, about school, the weather, then Jack slipped in his question, writing a few lines on a paper napkin.
The death gold brings four deadly plagues:
Air, Water, Earth and Fire,
The gold it must be buried deep
“Ah, yes!” exclaimed Petter, snatching up the napkin before Jack could finish and adding the last line in his own scrawly handwriting.
Or else will life expire.
He adjusted his glasses. “I’m very familiar with this ballad, Jack. It dates back to Viking times, did you know that? Must be over a thousand years old. You may also know that my postdoctoral thesis was on Viking Isdal.” He gave a happy little laugh. “My life’s work, you could say! I led the team involved in the excavation of the Norse longboat found by our fjord here. It’s a priceless national artefact!”
You’ve only told me that seventeen times, thought Jack. But he set his face into an “I’m impressed” look.
“Now, the ballad, yes.” Petter squinted at the napkin. “There have been different scholarly interpretations, but the gold obviously refers to the sun. Death gold means sunset and the Arctic winter; and the idea of burying the gold deep refers to the disappearance of the sun necessary for its rebirth; the natural life cycle, so to speak.”
Jack imagined pulling the arrowhead from his pocket with a flourish – ta-da! – just to see the look on Petter’s face. Interpret that, mate! But he just sat there and nodded.
“Air, water, earth and fire – well, these are the ancient elemental forces, once believed to be the basis for all living things. It’s not at all clear why they might be referred to as plagues though.
“There is evidence that a disease plague of some kind struck the town around a thousand years ago.”
Jack felt his heartbeat quicken as Petter went on excitedly.
“From excavated burials we can deduce that a good portion of the town’s population was wiped out. Perhaps that’s what is being referred to.
“As an interesting aside, there is evidence that sacrificial hangings were a favourite way for Vikings to worship the main Norse god, Odin. Keep any such plagues at bay, if you will.”
A cold draught circled the table, blowing the napkin to the floor. Sno gave a low growl as it brushed his paws.
Petter drew closer. “Between you and me, Jack.” His eyes glinted. “Between you and me, I’d give anything to be able to speak with a person from back then. To really understand how they thought and felt, you know?”
He gave a short, wild-sounding laugh and for a single, sickening moment, his mouth twisted into a sneer and it wasn’t Petter’s face Jack saw; it was the face of that other man – the one Jack had seen when he’d first touched Tor…
Jack shrank back and Petter’s eyebrows raised a little, his expression back to normal. “Why the sudden interest in the ballad anyway, Jack?”
“Well,” he stammered, struggling to make sense of what he’d just seen; trying to remember his prepared answer. “My mum was telling me she learnt the ballad when she was young and … you know, she’s, well, hard to get through to sometimes.”
“Ah, I understand.” Petter’s face relaxed into a sympathetic smile. “You’re trying to show an interest; get her to come out of herself, eh?”
Jack nodded shakily, getting up from the table. “Thanks for your help, Petter.”
Jack went back to his seat and took a bite of waffle. It was like chewing cold rubber. Had he imagined Petter’s look? He dangled the rest of the food in Sno’s direction, but the dog stayed under the far table, curled in a tight ball, watching him.
The logs on the stove crackled and flared and Jack’s skin tingled with heat. He peered out of the window at the deserted street. From across the room, he heard Sno growling deep in his throat and saw the dog’s thick fur tremble.
“…the mighty Isdal glacier…” droned the telly. The image quivered, static distorting the picture.
The lights flickered and Gramps looked up, cursing under his breath. He changed channel. A football match appeared on-screen. News stories spooled fuzzily along the bottom. Scientists monitor unusual tectonic plate shifts…
Jack’s phone buzzed. Vinnie. But the message took ages to come up and letters of the text were corrupted.
FRE3ZING T* DE#TH? S@ME STO&Y H3RE M%TE
The footie match now looked as if it were being played in the middle of a blizzard, and the sound was gone. Gramps swore again, getting a tea-towel-in-the-face reaction from Gran. He stood on a chair to fiddle with the wires at the back of the telly.
Petter lowered the book he’d been reading. “Maybe it’s because of the You-Know-Whats!” He winked. Jack eyed him suspiciously, but there was no sign of the scary weirdness he’d seen before.
“What’s that?” said Gran, retrieving her tea towel.
Petter gave a chuckle. “Didn’t your husband tell you?” He started laughing as if it was the funniest thing ever. “What he told us last night in the bar?”
“OK, Petter,” said Gramps. “We don’t need to repeat all the details. An electric cable needed repairing, that’s all.”
“Thought you said it was a real mess-up there, up on the Pass.”
“First I’ve heard of it,” Gran said, bringing a cup and plate. “What’s this about the Pass?”
“It’s all repaired now, my sweet.” Gramps gave the telly a hefty thump. The sound was back, but a thick fuzzy line now spooled up the screen. Jack heard the words my lousy job … electricity board, and lots of swear words, but muttered this time so Gran wouldn’t hear.
“I can’t believe he hasn’t told you…” Petter widened his eyes and let out a fake cackle. “About the demon birds!”
Jack flinched. Friend or foe, the demon birds… Wasn’t that what Skuli had said?
“Just like in our ballad, Jack!” said Petter, as if he’d heard Jack’s thoughts. He mimed drinking from a glass, waggling a finger in Gramps’s direction.
“Yes, thank you, Petter,” said Gramps. “Thanks for that. Most grateful.”
“You said it couldn’t have been any ordinary kind of bird,” Petter continued to mock. “Enormous feathers everywhere, nothing like you’d ever seen!”
“They were!” Gramps fiddled with the ketchup bottle on the table. “A whole lot of big black raven feathers and nothing else.” He cleared his throat. “Just a larger-than-average bird getting electrocuted, I suppose.”
“That’s not what you said last night!” grinned Petter.
“Really?” Gramps took a noisy slurp of coffee. “Well, it’s amazing how a few beers can liven up a story.”
“You said it looked like the birds had clawed through the cables!” Petter snorted. “Can you imagine? They cut corners on maintenance, then try to blame a bird!”
Jack’s skin flushed with heat again. “Could a bird do that, Gramps?” he asked quickly.
“No chance in hell!” said Gramps. “Any normal animal would be dead as soon as it even touched a cable of that voltage.”
“Which is why your gramps got a bit spooked by the whole thing, I dare say!” smirked Petter.
Gramps shook the creases out of his newspaper so the pages shivered. BIZARRE WEATHER SET TO CONTINUE, said the headline. “As I said, the power is restored, as good as new!”
Just then the lights flickered again. Petter let out a loud laugh.
Skuli’s words came back to Jack. Something weird’s happening. We don’t understand it…
He felt Skuli’s notepad in his pocket. He should be trying to read more of the runes, not sitting in here eating waffles!
There were movements outside, children in the street looking in. Noses pressed up against the glass. Fingertips pointed at the pastries, leaving grubby marks. Any minute the kafé would be full.
He had to try and understand those runes. But not here.
Saying goodnight to Gran and Gramps, Jack took his jacket and slipped out the back way with Sno skulking behind at a distance, passing through the yard and up the wooden steps to his bedroom.
Reaching his door, he paused and turned. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen someone, lingering at the bottom of the steps. He peered hard into the gloomy twilight, but there was nobody there, only trails of mist creeping along the street, lingering in the branches of the huge twisted pine tree in the middle of the square. A faint light spilled up from the chink of below-street window of Skuli’s basement flat. The breeze nipped at Jack’s face and he shivered.
Jack coaxed Sno inside then shut the door. He tried the light switch, but it was dead. He lit the candle in a holder by his bed and closed the curtains. Sno crouched on the floor, looking up at him, ears pressed flat against his head. Jack took a breath, and then pulled Skuli’s notepad from his pocket.
7
THE VISITOR
At the gates of death, I wake thee.
The Incantation of Groa
Jack lay on his bed and opened the notepad. He turned a page, and then another, scanning the runes, his fingers flicking through more and more impatiently. He couldn’t read any of it. It was just a load of lines that made no sense.
He thumped his pillow. The bond he’d felt with Tor had been so real. He had to understand what it all meant!
Sno pushed his head through the curtains and hooked his paws on to the window ledge. His ears were pressed forward; his body taut and still.
Jack got up and went over to the window. He moved the curtain and looked out. Mist swirled round the doorways in wisps, rising into little towers of white like ghostly figures, then sinking and spreading between the shuttered wooden buildings. Beyond the houses he could see Brennbjerg mountain, a humped mass in the lingering blue twilight. The room momentarily flashed violet and there was a crack of thunder. The tiered roofs of the church on the hill flickered bright in the lightning, the slanted wood tiles glinting like scales. In one place a cross was illuminated, in another, the open mouth of a dragon. By the tower, a tangled Isdal flag flapped like a grotesque bird impaled on a pole.
What was the arrowhead anyway? Jack thought. Where had it come from? He reached a hand into his pocket and touched the warm metal. Sno let out a low growl, and the candle flame jumped and shrank, hissing on its wick, and the shadows twitched on the walls. Jack eased the arrowhead out of his pocket.
Sno snarled, and then lurched, snapping at Jack’s hand, making the arrowhead spin on to the floor.
The shock of it took Jack by surprise and he instinctively hit back, a hard blow to Sno’s muzzle, and the dog crouched, baring his teeth.
“You bit me!” Jack grabbed Sno’s collar and pulled him to the door. “Don’t you ever bite me again! Out! ”
Jack slammed the door shut. He heard Sno scratching on the wood and whimpering a while, and then everything went quiet.
His hand trembled as he sat on his bed and inspected the teeth marks in his hand. Sno had never done anything like that before, not even when he was a puppy playing. Blood pooled in the two puncture marks on his palm, near the place where the arrowhead had cut him when Skuli first handed it over. But there was no sign of that cut, none at all. He turned his hand over in disbelief, scanning the skin. The wound had been there that afternoon, quite deep, but there was absolutely no trace of it.
Jack swallowed. Skuli had said something about that, hadn’t he? About where the arrowhead had cut him. It healed super fast.
Sno was nervous of the arrowhead, that’s what it was. Could Jack blame him? Animals sensed stuff. He went quickly to the door and opened it. “Sno! Sno!” But the wind battered back his voice, and there was no sign of his dog.
A bird landed on the electricity cable overhead, a dark silhouette against the sky, its shape magnified as lightning threw its shadow on to the wall. It looked weird, clamped on the line like that as it swung violently from side to side. The thunder cracked overhead. Then, one by one, in an unbroken ripple, the lamps went off all the way down the street.
With a shudder, Jack went back inside and shut the door and bolted it. He crouched to look at the arrowhead where it was lying on the floor. Air, Water, Earth, Fire its runes said. There was a flurry of wind like sharp stones thrown against the glass and Jack scooped the arrowhead back into his pocket and eased the curtains apart, peering through the gap.
Another gust slapped the window, rattling the pane. The church bell struck and Jack counted the strokes: seven … eight … nine … ten.
He thought about Tor, alone in the ice. Then Skuli, alone in his house.
With his finger he wrote in the layer of condensation: Beware this cursed arrowhead…
He stopped with a gasp and moved back from the glass.
There were the letters, clear as anything. Only they weren’t the letters he’d intended to write. Without even realizing it, he had written in runes!
That meant… It had to, didn’t it? He scrambled to get the notepad and pulled it open, almost ripping a page in his hurry. He hunched over the runes, and there was that familiar coming
into focus; that sorting into meaning… Beware this cursed arrowhead. Beware the four plagues.
He gave a shocked laugh, of excited panic. The message was coming strongly and impatiently into his mind, as if this was his chance and he mustn’t waste it. He grabbed a pen and scribbled as he read:
“Seek another way to send the arrowhead back. Flames over water. A midnight sun.”
The runes were ended. He had done it. But what did all this mean? He had to go and tell Skuli right away. The words tumbled round his head as he shoved the notepad in his pocket and made for the door. Flames over water… Midnight sun…
There was a sudden bang and a crack, and a rush of freezing air, blowing out the candle flame. The window swung loose from its latch and slammed against the wall. A framed photo on the windowsill was swept to the floor and the glass smashed.
Jack rushed over to retrieve the picture and force the window shut. He wiped the silver slithers of glass from the surface of the photo. Him and his dad bundled up in hats and football scarves, their faces fixed in stupid grins. Their last-ever weekend together.
We all still want to know how it could have happened… Gran’s words came back to him. But we have to be practical now.
Practical Jack. That’s what his dad used to call him when they did jobs around the farm: fixing the tractor; putting fencing round the lake…
He smoothed the photo and propped it back on the windowsill.
And that’s when he saw the figure.
Someone across the street, half hidden in mist and shadow. Jack pressed his face close to the glass and peered down, his breath fogging the pane. Whoever it was, they were looking straight at him.
There was lightning and the growl of thunder; then more lightning filled the room. Dark. Light. And with each flash, the shape came closer. Jack shrank away, but still the figure came nearer, rising until it was level with the first-floor room. Jack gave a cry and stumbled backwards, but it was already at the window and runes were rapidly being drawn in the fog on the pane…