Thor wondered if he was supposed to applaud.
Hugh straightened up and seemed to notice the stick in his hand for the first time. He studied it absently, then waved it in the air. “I’ll leave you here a while to ponder.” He started to walk away.
“Aren’t you afraid I might just run off?” Thor called out, then immediately chastised himself. Hadn’t he been longing for the guide to leave him alone?
Hugh turned back and cracked a smile. “You’re in no shape to go wandering off, even if you did have the first inkling as to where you are.”
Thor got that itchy feeling again that the Indian was in his head, reading his thoughts.
Hugh tapped the stick against his open hand. “Besides, you think I’d have any trouble finding you?” He waited a beat, then turned and walked silently into the trees. Within the space of two or three breaths, Hugh seemed to disappear completely. Thor was alone.
He was still thirsty.
He reached for a small stick on the ground by his side and used it to dig aimlessly in the dirt. He thought about Maggie’s Well and wished he had the divine influence to reroute its aquifer to his current location.
“When is a god not a god?!” Thor shouted in the direction of Hugh’s exit. “When he can’t even get himself a bloody cup of water!”
There was a flicker of movement in the woods, off to Thor’s left. Was Hugh returning after giving him only a few seconds of solo contemplation?
“It’s no use,” Thor said loudly. “I still can’t answer your question.” He closed his eyes against a dizzy spell that made his head swim. He pressed his palms into the dry pine needles to keep himself more or less upright and to stop the forest from spinning.
But a soft rustling like a restful breath came from the brush a few yards away. Thor couldn’t afford to be caught unawares. He opened his eyes, fully expecting to find Hugh’s smug smile. But it wasn’t Hugh. Thor’s blood ran cold when he saw the translucent figure wavering between the shadows of the trees.
“It can’t be,” Thor said as he recovered his power of speech. “Not here. Not like this.”
Bathed in dappled sunlight, Freyr smiled and then faded away.
Thor’s breath exploded out in a painful groan as a powerful shiver shook his body. He sweated even as the chill settled over him. For the first time in his very long life, Thor had seen a ghost.
4
Heimdall paused at the edge of the forest. It had been hours since Freya arrived with the guides she’d recruited—and hours more since Thor, Sally, and Opal entered the wilderness with strangers whose intentions were unknown.
He was itching to run after them. But Freya’s guides, Frank and Alma, wanted no part of a possibly supernatural kidnapping and without a proper tracker of his own, Heimdall would have embarked on little more than a fool’s errand. Thor alone might have left an obvious enough trail for Heimdall to follow, but he and the girls were in the company of guides who might have magickal means of concealing their tracks.
So Heimdall waited. He wore a rut into the dirt as he paced away the time and chewed on Freya’s rubbery deer jerky.
Freya and Bonnie had taken the guides back to their homes—just getting Bonnie into the car had been an epic task; the bride-to-be was practically apoplectic at the thought of Thor in danger and out of reach.
But Rod had used the time to retrieve Heimdall’s truest hunting partner from Odin’s Lodge. Laika, the best tracker Heimdall knew, now stood at his side and looked equally as restless as Heimdall felt.
“Two different trails, girl, if we’re lucky,” Heimdall explained as she studied him with her clear blue eyes. The wolf-dog had an uncanny understanding of human language, though Heimdall hadn’t yet figured out if she’d simply picked it up over her years with him, or if she truly was psychic. “Probably in different directions. So, who do we go after first?”
Laika whined and stamped her front paws in the dirt. Heimdall rested a hand on her head.
“I don’t know, either.” Heimdall peered into the woods and felt the mantle of first-born responsibility weigh heavily on his shoulders. His brother would be seriously depleted by the lack of food and water after the intense sweat—Thor was also without provisions and in the company of a possible enemy. But Thor had been in worse scrapes before. Probably.
And Sally and Opal . . . They had supplies in their packs and magick at their fingertips. They also had each other. But they were more fragile, and they trusted too easily.
Heimdall rubbed the back of his neck. How could Odin talk about having him lead the Lodge when he couldn’t even decide which of its members to rescue?
“We follow whichever trail is the strongest,” Heimdall said. So we have a chance at least of saving somebody.
Laika stepped through the sparse outer line of trees, her nose to the ground. Heimdall followed as she meandered far to the left and then back to the right, seeking familiar scents. After several long minutes of trying to pick up the beginnings of a trail, Laika looked over her shoulder at Heimdall. The furry ridges above her eyes furrowed in uncertainty.
“Keep at it, Laika.” Heimdall encouraged her with a thin smile. “You’ll find them.”
Laika backtracked to the tree line and wandered a dozen yards in either direction, searching for an entry point. Finally, far to Heimdall’s right, Laika lifted her nose and turned her face to the sky with a triumphant howl. She glanced back at Heimdall and then advanced quickly into the woods.
“Good girl!” Heimdall called as he ran behind her. The forest grew more dense with every step. “Good girl, Laika!”
Before the field was out of sight, Heimdall turned to wave back at Freya and Rod. Without cell service, Heimdall had no way to relay his progress or call for help if he and Laika ran into trouble of their own. He put his faith in Freya’s eerie intuition that Half-Moon and Hubert were more than mere pranksters and had their own nefarious agenda, and he hoped her vision wasn’t clouded by grief.
Rod waved back, but Freya just nodded to Heimdall over the distance. They had their own supplies and would set up camp in case any of the wanderers stumbled back out of the forest at their starting point. It was a long shot.
Heimdall sprinted to catch up with Laika. He followed her gray-and-white tail as she tore through the forest. She yipped with excitement as she followed the perplexing twists and turns of the scent trail.
Heimdall tried to keep track of their path as his eyes adjusted to the darker world of the woods, but he quickly became disoriented and even a little dizzy as they cut sharply left and right and even seemed to double back. At first he wondered if Laika had gotten confused by the plethora of scents in the rich forest, but experience had proven her skills to be superior to his own. If she took hard turns and traveled in broad circles, then this was surely the path the others had taken.
“Good girl,” he called again, though she didn’t need his encouragement. She was smart for a dog and clever for a wolf. She understood the stakes without Heimdall trying to explain. Laika hunted as though her own life depended on it.
“Very good girl,” Heimdall huffed under his breath and kept running.
Opal was fuming. Still seated on the ground, bare soles pressed hard into the dirt, she hadn’t been able to connect with the Earth—while Sally had picked it up almost immediately.
Sally was doing her best not to make eye contact.
In the day’s waning light, Opal was making a visible effort to contain her frustration, but if Sally could see auras like Opal sometimes could, she imagined she’d be watching the etheric equivalent of steam pouring out of Opal’s ears.
Moon, who had reappeared after her strange departure, was back to being maternal and calming.
“It doesn’t always happen the first time.” Moon rested a hand on Opal’s head. She glanced at Sally, standing a few yards away. “In fact, it’s quite rare for someone to make such a profound connection with the Earth energies even after years of practice.”
That comm
ent didn’t help. Sally winced as Opal leapt to her feet and kicked her backpack. The empty specimen bottles rattled inside.
“That’s just great!” Opal shouted at no one in particular. Then she looked at the ground and scowled, her shadow stretching out long in front of her. “Assistant to the freaking Moon Witch.”
Sally turned and limped away on her tired feet. Why did they have to keep having this same argument?
“This was merely the first of many exercises along our journey,” Moon told Opal. “There will be other opportunities, here in the woods and also following your return.”
“Right, so I can just keep working at it, day and night, for weeks and months . . .” Opal turned and glared at Sally. “Years. All while some people get it on the first try. But you didn’t even try at all, did you, Sally? You were just sitting there, making a bunch of noise and distracting me, and still it worked for you.”
“It’s not like that,” Sally said.
“Really.” Opal crossed her arms firmly over her chest. Her lips tightened over her teeth. “Then what is it like? Tell me, Oh Mighty One. You are the one and only Moon Witch, after all.”
Sally looked to Moon for help, but the guide shook her head and stepped back out of the line of fire.
Resigned to the conflict, Sally tried to relax her posture as she stood in place and took the full brunt of Opal’s glare. “That’s not the point,” Sally said at last. “The point is that with practice and focused intention, you’ll get there, too.” That last word was a mistake. Sally flinched as the syllable escaped her lips.
“Right,” Opal replied, defeated. She dropped her arms to her sides and turned away. “Because I’m always going to be following in your footsteps. I wasn’t lucky enough to win the hereditary magick lottery, like you did.”
Sally looked again to Moon. “You want to step in here? Maybe some advice on taking advantage of our training out here, or something?”
Moon’s expression remained impassive. “This conversation has no bearing on your work with me, nor my obligation to you.” She moved farther away and leaned against a tree. Moon adopted the expectant attitude of a spectator at a sporting event waiting for the main action to get underway.
Sally took a step toward Opal. Even with this discord, she could feel her active connection to the Earth dancing beneath her. She decided to keep that information to herself. “Opal . . .”
Still barefoot, Opal took a few tender-footed steps past her pack and stopped, keeping her back to Sally. “Don’t, Sally. It’s no use.”
Something inside Sally finally buckled. She had tried being understanding and reassuring, and it had gotten her nowhere. She was tired of being the caterer at Opal’s pity party, even as she tried to ignore the fact that Opal had often enough done the same for her.
“You’re being ridiculous!” Sally huffed. “You’re acting like a little baby, and it’s stupid.”
Opal turned around, wearing an expression of disbelief.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Sally said. “All the time I was away, you were getting all cozy with Frigga and Freya and everybody. You got the training and attention I should have had. You earned the praise and the trust and the recognition . . .”
“The recognition that should have been yours?” Opal asked with a sarcastic lift to her eyebrows. “Because you’ve been such a paragon of magickal ethics and diligence? And all your spells work perfectly, without anything ever blowing up in your face?”
Sally glanced at her own pack, her thoughts on her ritual supplies. She spied a faint smile at the corners of Moon’s mouth. Sally closed her eyes and sensed a shift in the vibration beneath her feet.
“I’ve made some mistakes. I don’t deny that.” And some of them have been real doozies. Sally shuffled her bare feet in the dirt, wondering if she was on the verge of making another colossal blunder.
“But you get to be the Moon Witch anyway.” Opal lifted her hands in a gesture of futility. “Yeah. I know I’m being petulant and petty. I should be happy to be invited to the Lodge at all. It’s been freaking incredible working with Frigga and Freya, being a part of even the smallest bit of all this. I get that. And I am, truly, grateful for all of it.”
Opal took a breath and shuffled slowly in a tight circle, collecting her thoughts. She came around to face Sally again. “But can you blame me if I get tired of being second fiddle? Even when you were away, I was an also-ran. Your stand-in. Einherjar or not, I’m just another generic, run-of-the-mill Pagan in Portland. Like there aren’t enough of those.”
Sally pressed her lips together and tried to think. No way was Opal run-of-the-mill. She had more discipline and stricter ethics than half the population of Portland’s practitioners put together. Three-quarters, more likely. Compared to Opal, Sally was reckless, headstrong, and selfish. Actually, Sally was all those things whether she was being compared to Opal or not.
Sally’s shoulders slumped. “So you don’t wish I’d never come back?”
Opal’s eyes widened. “No! No, Sally. Not even. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.”
“You could have stepped into my shoes and been the Moon Witch.”
Opal shook her head and managed a small smile. “Even if it worked that way . . . I just get frustrated. I want to be a witch in my own right.”
“You’re the most talented witch I know!” Sally exclaimed with a grin that bordered on relief. “Who helped me when my magick turned me into a saggy old spinster? Who knows more about essential oils than anybody in Oregon? Who put up with all my whining and talked some sense into me when I got that stupid crush on Freyr?”
Sally paused for a second. She didn’t speak Freyr’s name much these days, and her voice nearly caught in her throat at the thought of how hung up she’d been on him two summers ago.
“Come on,” Opal replied with a smirk. “That lasted about five minutes.”
Sally gave an awkward laugh. “So, can we be done with this now, for real?”
Opal choked out a small chuckle of her own. “I think so. Yeah. Sally, I’m sorry.”
Sally shrugged. “It’s okay.”
Opal turned to Moon. “I’m sorry I interrupted your training. I was being stupid.”
Moon pushed away from the tree and stepped toward the girls. “It’s good to clear the air, to dispel the distractions and obstacles that keep you from your goals.” She looked meaningfully at Opal and raised her eyebrows. “So we try again. Leave your boots and your socks where they are. Sit on the ground. Press your soles into the soil. Listen for the voice of Gaia.”
Opal didn’t hesitate. Within seconds, she was sitting in the dirt with the soles of her feet flat against the ground. Sally started to follow suit, but Moon grabbed her by the elbow and lifted her back to her feet. She pulled Sally a good distance away from her friend.
“Not for you,” Moon whispered, the sharp edge returning to her voice. “Grab your boots and your pack and come with me.”
Sally glanced at Opal, who had already closed her eyes to make another attempt at communing with the energies of the forest. “You’re just going to leave her here?”
“We’re not going far,” Moon replied. Her expression was stern and commanding, and Sally didn’t like the look of it. “But we are going. Now. Get your things.”
With a painful grimace, Sally quietly worked her blistered feet back into her boots and tightened the laces. She lifted her pack onto her shoulders. When she turned around, Moon was heading into the woods with the obvious expectation that Sally would fall into step behind her. Sally looked again at Opal. She was uneasy about leaving her friend, especially as evening drew near, but she knew Freya had chosen the guide carefully. If Sally didn’t trust Moon, what would that say about her faith in Freya?
Before Moon could disappear completely into the darkening woods, Sally buckled her pack’s hip belt and hurried into the trees after her.
Sally batted at the low-hanging branches
that snapped back at her in Moon’s wake. One of them nearly caught her in the eye. They were in a different part of the woods now. The tree trunks were thicker here, not like the skinny trees they’d passed earlier that were bare of branches to a height well above Sally’s head. Another fly-back glanced off Sally’s cheek. Moon pushed forward, unaware of or simply not caring about Sally’s struggle behind her.
Moon was fleeter of foot than her plump frame would have indicated and she was moving faster than she had on the initial hike in. “Hurry now,” the guide said over her shoulder in a calm voice. She didn’t sound like she was the least bit winded, while Sally scurried to keep up.
They’d been on this pace for a good thirty minutes, Sally guessed. She tried calling out a question now and then, but Moon ignored her. Moon didn’t shush Sally or instruct her to hold her questions for later. She simply didn’t react.
Sally grew increasingly worried about being separated from Opal with no clear idea of how to get back to her.
Despite Moon’s assurance that they would be hiking only a short distance, it was obvious this was no casual stroll. As her blisters oozed inside her boots, Sally wondered how difficult it would be to use her map and compass to teach herself orienteering on the fly—in the middle of the woods, with night approaching, and without anything like a mobile phone app to correct her mistakes. She couldn’t even text Opal to make sure she was all right; they’d been forbidden from carrying phones into the woods—not that her phone would be any use anyway. Her Weasel Wireless service was a joke.
Sally looked up and saw the colors of sunset tingeing the clouds above. The temperature was dropping even as Sally sweated to keep pace. So, no orienteering skills, no idea where she was, and no clue how to survive a single night in the forest. Sally silently cursed herself for not joining Girl Scouts when her parents had offered to take her.
Raven Quest (Valhalla Book 4) Page 6