Chaos Magic

by Jennifer Willis

  Sally checked her phone. No new text messages from Loki. That was a relief. She hoped he knew well enough to leave her alone, at least for now.

  Bonnie opened the door and pulled her fleece robe closed over a sweatshirt and hiking pants. Her hair was in disarray and there were dark circles under her eyes, and she didn’t look the least surprised to find the Rune Witch loitering on her doorstep. Sally started to apologize for disturbing her, but Bonnie shook her head and motioned her inside.

  “I didn’t know where else to go.” Sally fidgeted in the foyer. She heard voices coming from the kitchen at the back of the house and smelled a hot griddle.

  “I get that.” Bonnie’s voice was husky with fatigue. “You hungry?”

  She showed Sally past the homey great room to the snug and well-appointed kitchen. Thor and Heimdall sat at a square table nestled in a nook with a bay window, overlooking a modest yard and garden blanketed in red and yellow leaves. The table was near to overflowing with pancakes, toast, eggs, and pitchers of juice and syrup. There wasn’t a chunk of spam or a single marshmallow in sight.

  Sally’s stomach rumbled, and Heimdall and Thor looked up from their plates.

  “I didn’t mean to intrude,” she said.

  “You’re here now.” Thor gulped coffee from a china cup that looked precariously fragile in his large hands. “Might as well sit down and eat.”

  Sally took the empty chair opposite Thor and shrugged out of her singed jacket. Bonnie set a mug of coffee and a bowl of potatoes and sausages in front of her. Sally picked up a fork and choked back tears as she speared a chunk of potato.

  She’d never been to visit Bonnie’s home before, despite countless invitations. She always had something better to do, something more important or more interesting on her magickal agenda. Now that she finally had shown up, unannounced and after making a spectacle of herself at the Lodge the night before, Bonnie welcomed her without question.

  Sally shoved the bit of potato into her mouth and washed it down with a swig of strong coffee. She hadn’t realized how exhausted she was until the caffeine hit her. Now everything was bleary and buzzy.

  Bonnie took her seat beside Sally and offered her a tissue. “That bad?”

  Sally blew her nose. She stuffed the used tissue into her jeans pocket and reached again for the coffee. It was good stuff, even by Portland’s standards. Her knotted shoulders started to relax, though her limbs still felt overspent and shaky.

  “Stumptown,” Bonnie said with a tired smile as she lifted her own mug. “With some help from Freya’s additives. I don’t know how it works, but it perks you up and calms you down at the same time.”

  “Where’s Magnus?” Sally didn’t know what kind of schedule a crypto-paranormal toddler might be on, but she doubted any regular day care facility would know what to do with him.

  “A couple of the Valkyries are babysitting.” Bonnie glanced at Heimdall and Thor over the rim of her mug. “Good thing we have able babysitters available on short notice.”

  Heimdall and Thor kept glancing Sally’s way between huge bites of pancakes. They were waiting for her to explain herself, and she wasn’t sure where to begin. She held her mug close and kept sipping coffee, emptying the cup in a quick couple of minutes. Bonnie grabbed a full pot from the coffeemaker on the counter and refilled Sally’s mug.

  “Best part is it doesn’t need anything else.” Bonnie’s air was casual and thoughtful, as though there was nothing unusual about this breakfast she was hosting. “No sugar, honey, or cream. Nothing. Thor’s even lost some weight.”

  “As trim as I’ve ever been.” Thor patted his solid midsection, covered by a red-checked flannel shirt.

  Heimdall laughed, and Sally nearly jumped. After the tension and yelling and even physical violence of only twelve hours earlier, she was caught off-guard by the good humor around the table.

  “What are you all doing here?” Sally wrapped her hands around her mug and held it close to her face. “I wasn’t sure anyone would be back in town so soon.”

  The old Lodge had been up on Mt. Hood—far enough from Portland to allow Odin some breathing room but close enough to keep an eye on the Sitka Spruce Yggdrasil on Highway 26. But the new Lodge was in Pierce Forest, on the same property as the White Oak Yggdrasil. It was a good two or three hours’ drive from Portland depending on the route, the weather, and the determination of the driver, and it wasn’t unusual for family feast nights to turn into boisterous sleepovers.

  Bonnie put down her coffee and ran her fingers around the ceramic rim. “You might as well tell her. It will end up impacting her, too, in the end.”

  Sally didn’t like the sound of that. She stabbed at the potatoes and sausages in her bowl.

  “It’s like this, Sally.” Thor laid his hands flat on either side of his plate. “The Lodge is under new management. But no one’s sure who that new management should be.” He gave his brother a sideways glance. “Or what it should look like.”

  “Wow,” Sally said before she could stop herself. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, but he was being so weird about it. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you explain something so plainly without beating around the bush for half-an-hour first.”

  Heimdall choked on a piece of sausage and Bonnie gave her husband a smirk. Thor took it all in surprising stride.

  “You’re not wrong. I’ve blustered about for too many centuries,” Thor said. “My temper sometimes gets the better of me, but I’m working on that.”

  “Sometimes?” Sally blurted. “Seriously, you’re not acting normal and you’re wigging me out.”

  Heimdall leaned back in his chair. “He’s putting on a good show, yes? Thor is attempting to demonstrate that he can be cool-headed and even-handed despite centuries of behavior to the contrary, and therefore he should be the head of the Lodge. You have your moments, brother. I won’t deny that. You’re our strongest and most fearless warrior. But you’re not a chief.”

  “It’s always got to be you!” Thor balled one hand into a fist but apparently resisted the temptation to bring it down on the table and scatter their breakfast to the four winds. “Perhaps the Lodge needs both a new leader and a new direction.”

  “Which is precisely what I’ve been saying.” Heimdall’s voice was calm, his breathing even. “Times are more complicated, and we have much more than our own skins to account for and protect. We must have more considered deliberation before action, more diplomacy before might. So we can fit in better with modern human society and perhaps even be meaningful contributors to it.”

  Thor grimaced. Bonnie pushed back from the table and glanced at Sally. “Hold onto your coffee.”

  Sally grabbed her mug just before Thor smacked an open palm on the table. Sally’s fork leapt out of her bowl and clattered to the floor, along with Heimdall’s plate, a jelly dish, and Bonnie’s toast. Bonnie rose and went about cleaning up the mess. Thor got up to help, but Bonnie pushed him back into his chair.

  Thor leveled a frustrated glare on his brother. “Meaningful contributors? How’s saving the humans’ bloody hides over and over again for a meaningful contribution? We’ve been encountering dangers new and old from every corner. We can’t just sit around the homestead and not engage. We need to be closer to the action so we can stop disaster before it begins. We’re responsible for these mortals. That was Odin’s message.”

  Thor gestured toward Sally. “It’s been rough, and getting rougher. Whether or not it’s the Rune Witch’s influence doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening”

  “Wait a minute.” Sally rested her mug on the table. “Are you saying that everything that’s happened is my fault?”

  She felt tears welling and immediately hated herself for getting emotional. Yes, she was tired. Her life seemed always to be falling apart around her and building itself back up again without her consent and in shapes she didn’t like. She felt angry with everyone about everything pretty much all the time, but she’d held i
t together long enough to enjoy a couple of cups of coffee and a few bites of breakfast. She was starting to hope she was close to getting a grip on things.

  But it sounded a lot like Thor was suggesting that everything that happened since she’d arrived on the scene—from Managarm and the Berserkers to the Køjer Devils, Badbh, and even the volcano gods—was because of her.

  Sally wiped her hands over her face and sniffed hard. Someone had finally said what she feared the most. She just wished it hadn’t been Thor.

  “Do you blame me for Odin and Frigga, too?” She took a ragged breath as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

  “Nobody thinks that, Sally.” Bonnie’s voice was barely above a whisper.

  “Hel’s horned beasts, child.” Thor sounded as though he’d had the wind knocked out of him. “That’s not what I was saying.”

  Heimdall turned in his seat to stare out the window. He should have been the first to jump to her defense, and Sally waited for him to say something. He’d always been the peacemaker and eager to put everyone’s minds and hearts at ease. Her stomach dropped lower with every second that he was silent.

  “But it’s what Maggie has been saying,” Heimdall said. “It’s the message we’ve been sending.”

  Sally couldn’t breathe. Her vision dimmed and a roaring sound rose in her ears. She felt Bonnie’s grip on her shoulder, pulling her back. “Sally? Are you okay?”

  Sally grasped the cool glass of water Bonnie offered and took a few sips.

  “Sorry,” Sally said. “I think I nearly passed out.”

  She held the glass with both hands and kept her gaze on the water between sips. She didn’t know if she was suffering from an overload of emotional and psychological stress or from some kind of chaos magick hangover. Maybe all of the above. She knew that something had to change, but even if she knew where to start she wasn’t sure she had the power to alter anything more than her study schedule. She was sitting at the breakfast table eating pancakes and sausages with actual immortals. Rune Witch or not, she was still a kid with a lot of learning to do.

  Bonnie sank into her chair. “It’s no wonder.” Her words were hard, pointed at Thor and Heimdall.

  Sally put down the glass. Her hands fell limp in her lap. She thought back to how Maggie called Opal to help in the kitchen at the party. She thought about how wide a berth Heimdall gave her when Maggie was present.

  Maggie had to be at the Lodge. No one knew when her new trees would produce, and Heimdall and his kin needed those apples to stay alive. Maggie would control that harvest and its distribution. If Maggie decided she didn’t like Sally, then the Rune Witch was pretty much an outcast.

  “So that’s how it is,” Sally said flatly.

  “No, that’s not how it is.” Bonnie turned her chair so that she was facing Sally. “Sally. Look at me.”

  Sally lifted her gaze and was taken aback by the fire in Bonnie’s eyes.

  “Nothing is decided,” Bonnie said. “And you are always welcome here.”

  “Thanks. I think I needed to hear that. I already didn’t know where I fit, and now I’m training with Loki. And Opal . . .” Sally’s voice trailed off.

  “And Opal is Maggie’s choice for Rune Witch.” Heimdall gulped down the remainder of his coffee and rested the empty cup on the table. “Even though that’s not how it works. She’s got different ideas on how things should be.”

  “And that’s not the kind of new direction we need right now,” Thor added.

  “Thor,” Bonnie said in warning.

  Sally wondered what kind of Goddess of the Hearth Bonnie might make. Bonnie was more laid-back, a good counterpoint to her husband, and she was less greedy for influence or whatever Maggie was after. But Bonnie was mortal and probably always would be.

  Thor leaned forward. “What’s that black-hearted fool gotten you into now?”

  Sally brushed stray tears off her cheeks. She kept her eyes focused on the ceramic butter dish on the table. She recognized the painted blue and yellow flowers. It was the same pattern as the wares in Frigga’s kitchen. Probably a wedding present.

  Sally missed Frigga fiercely, and it hit her fully in the chest. Frigga would have said something dismissive about Sally’s upset, something that would have left Sally wondering whether or not she’d just been insulted. And that would have been enough to distract her from whatever was bothering her and get her mind engaged on something else. Or, Frigga would have clucked at Sally and made the whole situation out to be a silly misunderstanding they could laugh at. She would have made it better. But Frigga was gone, and Sally had helped her leave.

  “He used me.” Sally met Thor’s gaze. Maybe she finally understood the centuries of suspicion between Thor and Loki. “He wanted my magick to open up a portal to the underworld. He tricked me.”

  She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she expected, but probably something more dramatic than Thor calmly folding his hands on the table and turning to consult his brother. If Thor was making a play for leadership, he was missing a prime opportunity to take charge.

  “This is troubling,” Heimdall said.

  Sally waited for either of them to say more, but no one did. “And? What are you going to do about it?”

  Thor lifted his eyebrows and watched his brother look out the window again. Bonnie rose to put on a fresh pot of coffee and started washing the breakfast pots.

  “That’s the tricky part,” Heimdall said. “We are all in rather tenuous positions. Loki is no exception.”

  The Lodge was in upheaval and lacking a master. Sally was lost in the world of magick, and in the world in general, with no reliable compass. But wasn’t everything just as normal as ever for Loki? As normal or as settled as chaos ever got, anyway.

  “There’s no clear path, and we’re doing what we can to hold onto the past while trying to blaze new trails,” Heimdall continued. “You want me to step in on your behalf. But I have no authority over Loki. Odin didn’t either.”

  “Frigga might have had more influence there.” Thor got up and carried his and Heimdall’s dishes to the sink. He gave his wife’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

  “Loki has assumed responsibility for your training,” Heimdall said. “He’s the only one with real experience in that area. Freya isn’t around, and Loki’s expertise far exceeds anything the rest of us could offer.” He looked at Sally with real concern. “You say he tricked you, and I believe you. But he is a trickster. Couldn’t that have been part of the exercise?”

  Sally sat on her hands to keep herself steady. “This wasn’t practice. It was a real working. The wind kicked up, violently. He used sigils I’d never seen before. He demanded that I read the spell aloud without any review. He let me believe it was a remembrance for Frigga and Odin, but really he wanted to bring them back—”

  Heimdall lifted a hand. “Nothing is bringing them back, Sally.”

  Sally pushed away from the table and stood up. “How do you know? You just said Loki has more magickal experience than anyone else. He’s older than any of you, too. Maybe he’s seen this kind of thing before.” She sat down again. “He’s probably done this kind of thing before.”

  So why did he need Sally? She shook the question away.

  Thor took the empty chair next to her. “I know this is hard, Sally. But gods die. There is a process to it. Just because we weren’t expecting it . . .”

  “Maybe you misunderstood Loki’s spell,” Heimdall interjected.

  Thor turned to his brother. “Are you defending him? And questioning the Rune Witch? You said a moment ago that you believed her.”

  “I do believe her,” Heimdall said. “I’m simply wondering if there’s room for a different perspective, one that might shed a bit of light on—”

  “That is not the point!” Thor smacked his palm on the table, and the heavy butter dish clattered to the floor. Mercifully, it didn’t break. Sally pondered if the Norse temper was why Frigga chose such heavy ceramics. Bonnie retrieved the butter dish
and gave her husband an exasperated look.

  “We can’t go around challenging each other’s intentions and perceptions.” Thor was less cross but far from calm. “We must be ready to act in defense of our own, and not hesitate.”

  Heimdall lifted his eyebrows. “To shoot first and ask questions later?”

  “Exactly.” Thor flashed a satisfied smile, then looked at his brother with suspicion. “Wait. No. You’re not being fair.”

  “I’m sorry, Sally,” Heimdall said. “Unless you’ve caught wind of something truly nefarious or immediately dangerous, there’s little we can do at the moment. He’s your teacher. Perhaps Loki is in mourning like the rest of us, and grieving in a way that seems strange to you.”

  “Seems strange to me, too.” Thor crossed his meaty arms and looked to Sally. “Tell me he’s at least suffering from that blow I dealt him.”

  Sally cracked a smile. “I punched him, too.”

  Thor barked out a hearty laugh. “Well done, little one.”

  Heimdall rolled his eyes. “I don’t advise any further assaults on the god of chaos. Sally, unless there’s real danger bearing down, I’m afraid you’re on your own with this.”

  Loki stood at his postal box and stared at the mass of returned letters bundled together with an army of rubber bands.

  Other Postal Cubby patrons unlocked their boxes and retrieved their envelopes and commercial mailers without registering the old god or the depth of his disappointment. They weren’t privy to Loki’s endeavors to track down other immortals the world over as he sought to ascertain who was still around and who might be willing to help.

  He locked his mailbox and left.

  It was a couple of blocks from Postal Cubby to the gravel walkway that led to his tiny house. Nestled among the tall hedges on the property Loki had owned since the 1850s, shortly after the city was founded, his home looked more like a modern gypsy’s caravan than a permanent residence. But that was the charm of living in a tiny house—or so the selling agent had told him. At least he wasn’t in a planned community where the units were squeezed together so tightly that neighbors were scarcely apart.