“Oh,” Rod replied. “Oh.”
Freya stepped in front of Grace. “Still, there’s no reason for you to go tearing off into the woods, Mrs. Red Cliff. Heimdall has Laika, and we’re set up here in case Thor or the girls manage to double back.”
Grace pushed herself away from the hood of the car. “Heimdall and Laika may be good trackers, but even the best can follow only one trail at a time. And none of you fully appreciates what’s at stake.” She swung her stick in an arc to take in Bonnie, Freya, and Rod.
Rod thought about offering coffee again and maybe extending an invitation to sit down and discuss what the stakes might be—anything to forestall the old lady from dragging him into the woods.
Freya took a more direct approach. She rested her hands on her hips and stood her ground. “With respect, Mrs. Red Cliff, I do understand that our friends’ safety may be on the line—“
“Ha!” the old woman exclaimed with more amusement than malice. “If that’s all it was, I would’ve stayed at home. Saved my backside the abuse of this ridiculous vehicle.” She smacked the car’s fender with her stick.
“It’s four-wheel drive, GG,” Bonnie grumbled. “It’s a perfectly respectable car.”
Grace groaned as she leaned down to lift her rucksack. Bonnie stooped to help her, but Grace shooed her granddaughter away with her hiking stick. She thrust her heavy arms through the canvas straps and then looked to Rod. “Ready to get moving?”
“Uh.” Rod looked to Freya for help.
Freya opened her mouth to make some new protest, but Grace launched forward with surprising speed and placed herself between Rod and Freya.
“Is she your keeper?” Grace asked Rod. He felt her words as sharply as if she’d thumped him on the chest with her stick. “This one, who nearly brought down the House of Odin with her good intentions?”
“That’s not really what happened,” Freya said to Grace’s back. “It’s complicated.”
Grace ignored her. She gestured toward the forest with her hiking stick. “I hear good things about you, Rod Hammerstein. My granddaughter’s thick fiancé thinks highly of you.”
Rod suppressed a grin. Thick was an appropriate description for Thor, regardless of whether Grace meant “strong” or “foolish.” Looking into Grace’s dark eyes, Rod got the feeling she intended both.
“Thank you,” Rod replied. “But Freya’s right. We shouldn’t—”
“You think you have enough stamina to keep up with an old lady? And enough sense to stay out of trouble?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Rod dipped his chin in deference to her easy authority.
“Good. Then you come with me.” Grace moved past him and headed straight toward the woods.
Rod watched her departure and struggled to make a decision. He desperately wanted to stay put, to wait in the relative safety and comfort of their meager camp. But he couldn’t just let an old woman, no matter how tenacious, strike out into the woods by herself.
“Freya?” he asked, again looking for guidance.
“Bonnie?” Freya gestured after Grace, but Bonnie just sat on the car’s hood and started to cry.
“Frank and Alma, they wouldn’t help.” Bonnie hugged herself as her tears fell into the dirt. “They said they didn’t dare interfere with such forces.”
“What forces?” Rod asked. His question went unanswered. He didn’t like how comfortable he had gotten being ignored by this lot.
“And now Thor is out there, in danger. And Sally and Opal . . .” Bonnie choked on her words and sobbed harder.
Freya moved to Bonnie’s side and took the weeping bride into her embrace. “Shh. Bonnie, it’s okay,” she murmured. “This is all a big fuss over nothing. You’ll see. It will end up being a hilarious story you tell your grandchildren one day.”
Biting his bottom lip, Rod watched Freya comfort Bonnie. “Freya?” He gestured toward Grace, who had just about reached the tree line.
Freya made a frantic motion toward the trees with her hand. “Go get her,” she hissed.
Rod gulped down what was left of his coffee and took off after Grace as she powered into the forest. Given how easily she’d managed to cow a powerful goddess like Freya, Rod was pretty sure he couldn’t just “go get her.” Whatever Grace had in mind, he was now along for the ride.
Working in the evening’s lengthening shadows, Sally knelt in the dirt and carefully planted candles at the four cardinal directions. She guessed her father hadn’t had this particular use in mind when he slipped the compass into her backpack. At least she would be able to tell him with a straight face that it had come in handy.
But even knowing north from south, she had no idea how to get herself safely out of the forest.
The clearing was small, and her ritual space was smaller still. The circle delineated by the cardinal quarters was not quite five hand-widths across. It was going to be tight. She left herself barely enough room to move around the outside of her circle, and for her sleeping bag, too—there was no telling when Moon might return for her, and the temperature had already dropped enough that she could see traces of her misty breath on the air.
Sally rested back on her heels. Her white quarter candles looked stable, each one buried in the dirt just enough to remain upright. Her Book of Shadows lay on the ground beside her, its pages open to the cool air. She glanced at her notes. It wasn’t a complicated ritual—just a fancy memorial—but Sally didn’t want another Odin’s Return fiasco.
She’d dug into her research to find the right collection and order of elements for her shadow spell. But she was also learning to rely on her intuition and magickal instincts. Whether she liked it or not, she was working with darker energies now, and not everything she needed would be written in books or available online.
Before coming face to face with Badbh in Ireland, Sally likely would have run fast and far from anything tinged with darkness. At least she would have kept a cautious, curious distance. But confronting all three sisters of The Morrigan, plus the power of the Black Pool, had given her an appreciation for the magick within shadows.
Sally took greater precautions now, something she’d gleaned from the disaster of Clare’s spells at Dublin Castle. The wax of Sally’s candles had been blended with her own tears. The frankincense resin had been coated with a small amount of her blood. She’d even made a binding sacrifice to the Yggdrasil before collecting soil from its base. More blood-letting, but Sally was getting used to it. She owned her magick, both the power and its consequences. No one else should have to pay for her mistake or miscalculation. If anything went wrong this time, it would be on her own head.
Sally lit the white candle marking North. Her working had begun.
She reached into her pack and dug into a deeply recessed pocket for her athame. Her ritual knife was really just a letter opener with a stylized dragon head, a modern approximation of the designs that had graced the prows of old Norse ships. But Sally kept her athame sharp.
She unsheathed the stainless steel blade, enjoying its weight and the texture of the dragon’s scales and horns against her palm. She crawled around the outside of her circle and leaned forward to trace the first rune symbol in the dirt to the immediate left of the North candle.
“Fehu. Generative energy, power. Creation and destruction,” Sally breathed as she drew the rune’s obtuse angles. When she was done, it looked like a letter F wearing a hat. Sally inched to her left, moving clockwise around the circle. She pressed the tip of the athame into the dirt and drew the next rune.
“Uruz,” Sally said as she traced the symbol she knew all too well. The pale scar lines were still visible in the pad of her right thumb from where she’d accidentally branded herself almost three years earlier. Sometimes it itched.
“Courage,” Sally said, finishing her drawing. The symbol looked like an uneven and upside-down U. “Initiation.”
Next was Thurisaz, followed by Ansuz, Raido, and Kenaz. When Sally completed the sixth rune, she paused at the candle ma
rking East. She held an unlit match to the flame of the North candle and watched it spark to life. She lit the East candle.
Sally paused and looked up into the branches of the surrounding pine trees. She was grateful for their snug sanctuary, as though the wilderness had carved out this protected space just for her. She tried to repay the kindness by keeping her candles far away from any low-hanging foliage that might catch fire.
Lifting her face to the sky, she felt the fragmented warmth of the day’s last light touch her skin. Sheltered in the tall forest, she was bolstered by the tingling energy of Gaia beneath her and felt encouraged to continue.
She was mildly surprised to spot a lone raven on a high branch above. It appeared to be studying her. She smiled at the bird and watched as it bobbed on its feet and shifted its weight from one leg to the other and back again. The raven stretched its neck forward and croaked at Sally.
Messenger of the gods. An excited warmth spread through Sally’s chest. “All right. I’m getting back to it.”
Continuing clockwise, Sally moved past the East candle and pressed the tip of her athame into the soil to draw the runes Gebo, Wunjo, Hagalaz, Naudhiz, Isa, and Jera in diligent succession. She spoke aloud the name and energies of each symbol to pull their influence into her circle as she kept edging around the space. Six symbols between each of the cardinal candles, with a pause to light each successive flame, until she finally came back to North.
Sally took a deliberate breath before inscribing the final rune and closing her circle of power. This next step wasn’t exactly a huge moment of truth, but completing this ring of light and symbols would raise significant energy. She needed to be focused and ready. Sally slipped off her boots and socks, and chided herself for having not done so earlier. Her toes relaxed as she stretched them in the cool air. She knelt and pressed her palms against the bare ground. She closed her eyes.
“Gaia,” Sally whispered. She felt the instant connection to the energy of the Earth. Moon’s instruction was paying off already.
But Sally hesitated. Moon hadn’t given any guidance on using spoken language, much less proper names, when tapping in. “Umm, I mean, if that’s what you want to be called.” She frowned but kept her eyes closed. “I apologize if that name is overused. Or if you don’t like it. Maybe people have misused it. But I don’t know what else to call you, or this energy. Or whatever. Not yet.”
Sally forced herself to stop babbling. No sense in making a mess of it from the outset. She quieted her busy brain and drew her attention to the damp soil beneath her hands. She wiggled her fingers, letting some loose dirt work up between them.
“I honor you,” Sally said with genuine reverence, sending her message into the ground, through layers of sediment and rock, down into the core of the planet. Her planet. Home. “I trust you. I want to be more than a parasite scuttling across your surface for my brief stretch of days. My life is short and insignificant compared to you. I praise your magick and your strength. Your quiet and awesome strength.”
Sally opened herself to the Earth, dropping the psychic barriers she had been conditioned to keep in place. Her mind filled with images of sparkling streams, thick forests, raging wildfires, and the tempest of hurricanes. Her senses overflowed with the fragrance of spring cherry blossoms, the steaming lava of volcanoes, and the cool mist of soft rain.
Sally clutched at the soil beneath her fingers, trying to steady herself as she rode the waves of energy flooding into her.
“I want to do right by you.” She pressed her palms more firmly against the ground. In Ireland, Niall had taught her to not just pull energy from the Earth, but to give back power and focus as well. She had to make herself part of the circuit, not a leech seeking to drain it.
Sally took a quick breath and readjusted her hands and knees in the dirt. “I want to do something meaningful for my friend, and I’m hoping you can help me.”
The raven on the branch above cawed, a loud, screeching sound that threatened to break her connection, and Sally’s temper flared. She cracked open one eye and looked up at the raven. She was about to chastise the bird for the interruption, but then she remembered that she was supposed to be learning to accept the gifts of the forest as they came to her.
The Raven is sacred to this land.
Sally didn’t know much about Odin’s ravens, Huginn and Muninn, beyond what was passed down in myth and legend. Odin didn’t like to talk about how they’d apparently abandoned him, and he was not the kind of immortal Sally wanted to pester with questions. As far as she knew, not even Odin understood the ravens’ retreat. Still, Sally imagined their influence wafting on the breezes that stirred these trees. It was a comfort to think that Odin’s ravens might be watching her work. She smiled up at her black-feathered observer. “I thank you, brother.”
She didn’t brush the dirt from her hands as she reached for her athame. With deliberate precision, she drew the final rune, Dagaz.
“Security, destiny.” Sally traced the simple bow-tie pattern with the tip of her blade. “Certainty. Dramatic change. Higher consciousness.”
Higher will. Sally lifted her athame, wiped the dirt off on the leg of her jeans, and slid the knife back into its velveted sheath.
All four cardinal candles were lit, with a fifth candle in the center awaiting the match. All twenty-four runes were inscribed around the perimeter of her circle.
Sally reached for her magickal journal and turned the page.
Thor blundered through the trees. His head was spinning from dehydration, Hugh’s blows to his noggin, and his crazy hike into the forest. Hugh may have told him to stay put and to cogitate on a ridiculous riddle Thor suspected was designed to trick him into unintentional enlightenment, but Thor was in desperate need of water. There was no way he was going to sit still and thirst to death.
Plus, the possibility that he might have seen the ghostly image of his fallen cousin had him wigging the freak out.
He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, on tripping over stones and sticks only every third step or so, and on not running face-first into one tree after the next. Unfortunately, the trees were winning.
The quiet babbling of a nearby stream drove him forward. Relief was within reach. Thor kept moving, remaining on his feet only through the principle of dynamic stability. If he paused to get his bearings or correct his balance, he was certain to fall down and stay there.
I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! Thor imagined yelling up at the sky—with a squadron Valkyries on medic alert standby—and he started to chuckle. But then the shadowy image of Freyr’s face swam into memory.
“No way that was him,” Thor muttered. A pine branch raked its bark and needles across his face. His vision was blurry. He grumbled and kept moving, trained on the sound of water.
“If he’s still alive, he’s back in Ireland.” Thor shivered at the thought of Freyr’s spirit—very probably no more than a faceless, unconscious shade—trapped in Badbh’s cold, underground cauldron.
Would it have been better if Freyr was simply dead? Thor thought so. The valiant Vanir should have been ferried by the Valkyries—maybe even the ones on motorcycles—to the Hall of Valhalla, there to feast and drink with the Einherjar warriors in endless celebration.
“Overflowing steins of mead,” Thor said aloud. He narrowly avoided running into another tree, and he winced as more rough bark scraped against his jaw. A cheeky squirrel perched on a high branch chittered its irritation and disapproval in Thor’s wake.
Better to be all the way dead than trapped in that sorceress’s lair, he thought. But no one could be sure just what had happened to Freyr.
Thor held his hands up to protect his face as he pushed through another stand of thick shrubbery. The sound of flowing water filled his ears. He broke through the bushes, tripped over an exposed root, and splashed down on his stomach in the middle of a shallow brook.
Thor laughed aloud as he raised his face out of the water, thick rivulets streaming f
rom his beard and down his sweatshirt. He knelt in the brook and scooped one palmful of cool water after another into his mouth and across his face in an attempt to dispel the haze of hunger that clouded his brain. He dunked his head beneath the surface and let the chill of snowmelt shock his senses back to something approaching clarity. Finally, he lowered his face to the water and drank directly from the stream.
“By the blessings of Audumbla,” Thor nearly sang to the brook as it flowed around him. “I needed that.”
He suddenly recalled the stark image of a scrawny and dirty Scarlett O’Hara standing in the decimated fields of her family’s plantation. Starving and desperate from the ravages of the Civil War, she held a skinny turnip to the sky and vowed to the heavens and anyone else listening that she would never be hungry again.
The thought of making a similar proclamation, thigh-deep in a forest stream, struck Thor as funny. He choked on a mouthful of water and coughed as the liquid spilled into his lungs and squirted back out through his nostrils. Spluttering laughter and water, Thor sloshed toward the bank and threw himself down on his back.
He stretched his arms out to his sides and looked up at the clear indigo sky as the fiery, watercolor strokes of the setting sun faded from its edges. Summer had come to Oregon. Even back in Portland, the skies would be wide open with barely a cloud to be seen. The region’s infamous precipitation wouldn’t come again for months.
Little chance of rain on his wedding day.
He smiled. He’d been advised that the actual wedding and its many trappings—the food and the flowers and the guests and the gifts—were more about the bride than the groom, but he found himself rather looking forward to it.
The Lodge needed a happy celebration after too much loss, and Thor didn’t mind not being the center of attention. So what if Rod complained that Thor was turning into a groomzilla with his exacting input on napkin colors and the reception menu? Wasn’t it Rod’s job as the groom’s wedding liaison to make sure Thor had a voice in the planning?
Raven Quest (Valhalla Book 4) Page 8