A Twist in Time

by Susan Squires

  “He’s a cousin visiting from . . . from . . .” Someplace obscure. “From Finland. I don’t know what kind of insurance they have there.” Was Finland a socialized-medicine state? The girl frowned. Lucy rushed on. “I’d be glad to guarantee payment for his care, though.” She wasn’t sure how charity cases worked, but she didn’t want them kicking him out if he couldn’t pay. “I’ll give you a credit card.” She began digging through her bag.

  “Social Services can contact his family and find out the details. I’m sure you won’t be on the hook for it.” But she took the credit card. She ran it through the machine.

  Lucy glanced around at the waiting room full of old people of several nationalities, mothers with crying babies, Mission District denizens looking entirely zoned out. Those patients on the gurneys must have been waiting for admission. “You’re really busy.”

  “Tuesday nights are usually slow, but tomorrow being St. Patrick’s Day, we’re almost up to weekend busy. I wouldn’t want to be here if St. Patrick’s Day was on a weekend. We’re the official knife and gun club.”

  What did she mean, St. Patrick’s Day? Lucy concentrated on filling out the forms. At least she could manage the date. She had that one memorized. November 9, 2009.

  “Okay, we’re good.” Bernice handed the card back.

  Lucy wrote “Bjorn Knudsen” in the space for the name on the form. That sounded Finnish. Knudsen was the name of the local dairy that made her favorite ice cream. Now for a town. She couldn’t think. Make one up. Helgard. Yeah. Why not? “I can’t remember his street address.”

  “We’ll get details from him when they’re done with him.”

  Good luck with that. “I can give you my info. He’s staying with me.” Was that a mistake?

  “Put that down under the ‘Responsible Party’ section.”

  Lucy printed her info carefully. She shoved the clipboard back through the glass.

  Bernice scanned the sheet. “You put down the wrong date.” She looked up at Lucy, curious. “It’s March 16.” She raised her brows at Lucy’s blank look. “St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow?”

  Lucy felt her stomach drop. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “Two thousand ten,” Bernice said slowly, careful now, as though she was dealing with a crazy person. “You . . . uh . . . lost a few months there.”

  Lucy managed a shaky smile. “Oh. Of course it is. I . . . I guess I’m more shaken up by all this than I thought.” She not only hadn’t come back to the place from which she’d left. She also had lost four months of time. Brad must be crazy with worry. She’d better call him. And he was just the one to help her get her time-traveling companion back to his own year. Of course her phone had no charge. “You have some pay phones around here?”

  “Sure. Down by the cafeteria.” Bernice pointed down a hallway absently as she changed the date on the form.

  “Thanks.”

  Lucy headed down the hall following the overhead signs to the cafeteria. She spotted the phones. But suddenly she felt as though she wanted to vomit. She held out her hands. They were shaking. She needed to sit down, pronto. She headed to the cafeteria, filled with neon lights too bright on orange and purple plastic furniture. Enough to make her stomach turn flip-flops. She sat in the nearest chair and put her head down. Shock. She was just shocked by all this traveling through time and battles and bringing back a half-dead warrior and lying to everybody.

  She took deep breaths until she felt like sitting up. She needed something in her stomach, even hospital food. She bought some onion soup and a Diet Coke and loaded up on crackers. She sat at a table by some windows, black now with night. The soup wasn’t half-bad. Or maybe it was the Diet Coke that settled her.

  She found herself staring at her reflection in the dark window as if it were that of a stranger. She was short and . . . curvy. That was the kind word for it and the main reason she always wore black. Why hadn’t she gotten her father’s wiry build along with his height? Brad was a runner and was always urging her to take it up, presumably to transform her into someone with a runner’s body like his. Wasn’t going to happen. What she did instead was walk. She had walked the hills and hollows of San Francisco as if she was looking for something ever since her father died. She just didn’t know what she was looking for. Her hair wasn’t the dark auburn fashionable at the moment, either. It was red. Really red. Carrot red. Well, darker than carrot. But still really, really red. And curly. She wore it long because she’d grown tired of watching some poor stylist try to make something of it. Now it tumbled to her waist and she could trim it herself. She always wore it in a long braid to confine it at least, but curling tendrils popped out around her face, especially in San Francisco’s damp weather. And then there were her freckles. If you were a redhead with very pale skin you couldn’t escape them. She may have gotten the Italian name from her father, but her looks were from her Northern European mother, dead now for . . . what? Sixteen years.

  A wave of shame washed over Lucy. Once she would have known to the hour how long it was since her mother had succumbed to ovarian cancer. Sometimes Lucy missed her as sharply as if she’d died yesterday. Lucy missed her mother’s balance. Her life had been slowly gyroscoping out of her control since she was fourteen. Her father had tried so hard to make her into his own image even though she had no interest in physics. Then, with his death, everything just seemed to fall apart. Maybe because she had no purpose to replace the one her father tried to give her. Brad too. But Brad was easier to resist than her father. True, she liked her work, searching across history and cultures for connections between people, their thoughts, their emotions, through the books they wrote. It wasn’t that. It just didn’t seem like enough.

  “Miss?”

  Lucy looked up to find the big black nurse in green scrubs from the ER.

  “We stabilized your cousin. He’s going into surgery now.”

  At least he wasn’t lying on a gurney in the hall. “Will he be okay?”

  “The surgeon is very good. Does lots of shoulders. We’ll admit him afterward. You can be there when he wakes up. Seeing a familiar face might keep him calm. He’s a fighter.”

  “I’d like that. Do you have enough blood for him?”

  The nurse patted Lucy’s arm. “You go down to the basement and tell them you want to donate for a patient going into surgery. Give his name. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Lucy nodded. Calling Brad could wait. She was responsible for ripping this guy out of his own time. The least she could do was donate blood for him.

  As she came back up to the emergency waiting room, she sported a sticky label on her chest that said she’d donated blood today. She should go back down to the cafeteria and call Brad, but she could hardly think, she was so tired. She wandered back into the crowded waiting room. Here, too, the lights were too fluorescent and the magenta and orange flowered carpet relentlessly cheery. A large industrial clock over the reception area said it was now nine.

  The problem with calling Brad was that she’d be calling in Casey, too. She didn’t trust that guy as far as she could throw him. Would they understand the danger of kidnapping a man whose deeds might be an integral part of history? Brad would think of him as a prize. He’d want to “debrief” him (and her) when they should be getting the guy back before his absence changed things too much. And there was a chance Brad and Casey wouldn’t want to risk using the machine again.

  But wouldn’t taking him back, all repaired and dosed with antibiotics and germs he got in a modern hospital, maybe change the course of events, too? She had so blithely used the machine because she thought it was some kind of destiny, she hadn’t thought what could happen. And now she couldn’t think what was right to do. She had to be sure what she should do before she called Brad, or he and Casey would just take over and do whatever they wanted with the guy. She tried to think. It was all so confusing. . . .

  “Miss . . .” The black nurse was shaking Lucy’s shoulder. “Your cousin is o
ut of Recovery. We’re taking him up to a room.”

  “Is he okay?” Lucy rubbed her eyes. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. The waiting-room clock now showed nearly midnight.

  “Groggy and weak. He lost more blood than we could replace. But the doctor said the surgery was successful. He should be back in action and ready for physical therapy in a few weeks. He looks like he’s normally healthy as a horse,” the nurse laughed. “Say, where’s he from? Nobody could figure out what language he’s speaking.”

  “He’s . . . he’s from a remote village in Denmark.” Were there remote villages in Denmark? It was a pretty small place. Uh-oh. She’d told the receptionist he was from Finland.

  “Well, go on up to Room Fifteen-oh-six and talk to him as he comes out of it.”

  Yeah. Like she spoke Beowulf, or whatever it was.

  Galen Valgarssen opened his eyes slowly. At first he couldn’t make out anything. His vision was blurred. The place seemed to be all white. He hadn’t thought Valhalla would be white. The skalds told of a jolly great hall with wenches and drinking and a huge fire over which roasted haunches of venison. His shoulder throbbed. And his thigh. Wounds were supposed to be miraculously healed every night in Valhalla. Well, maybe it took a while. He was lying in a bed with the head raised. It was night outside. The window was black. But inside the room a round disc by his bed gave off a cone of harsh white light very unlike candles or oil lamps. The place smelled foul, like urine and something acrid. The blankets were thin but tucked tightly around him. It made him feel like a prisoner. This wasn’t his idea of Valhalla at all.

  Maybe he was in Hel’s domain instead—a wintry land below the surface of the earth, according to the Old Religion. That fit with the harsh white and hard surfaces, even if he really wasn’t cold. But he had been an honorable man and a brave one who died in battle. He expected Valhalla. He turned his head. In another bed a very old man with skin like yellow, wrinkled wax breathed laboriously. That one had not died a warrior’s death.

  A clear bag hung above Galen on a metal pole, a flexible sort of tube going into his left arm. That wrist was circled with a leather cuff lined with fleece and chained with short links to the metal frame of the bed. His other arm was held to his chest with an elaborate sling, immobilizing it as surely as a shackle. Panic surged up from his gut. Now he remembered. The cursed man in the soft green clothes had tortured him by poking needles into him. They had made him breathe foul air through a mask over his nose and mouth until he passed out. He was definitely in Hel’s realm. He peered down. He was dressed in a thin tunic, pulled over his heavily bandaged shoulder, under the sling.

  He had to get out of here. He yanked the chain with his good arm. . . .

  “Whoa there, guy, steady.”

  The woman had braided red hair and fair skin and very green eyes, not unlike some of his people. He couldn’t understand her, but she took the hand of his shackled wrist and stroked his forearm, making soothing sounds. Her hands were delicate, with very clean nails worn longer than any woman he knew. She smelled like blood, though. Her clothes were black, in stark contrast to all the white around her. He remembered her now. She had appeared at the battle with the great contraption made of brass mill wheels like a Valkyrie come to take him away, and Egil had attacked her, so he had to defend her, and then . . . then he must have blacked out. When he woke she helped him to . . . wherever he was. It was probably his blood he smelled on her. “Are you Valkyrie? Am I dead?”

  The only word she apparently understood was Valkyrie. Her eyes lighted up when he said it. A Valkyrie who didn’t speak Norse? She shook her head. “Not Valkyrie.” She smiled. When she smiled, he thought he might be in Valhalla after all. You’d want your Valkyrie to smile like that. She put her hand on her breast. “Lucy. Lucy Rossano.”

  “Galen Valgarssen.”

  “Not exactly the name I gave you.” She shrugged and raised her brows. “Finn? Norse?”

  Finn and Norse he understood. He nodded. She was asking his nationality. “Danir and Saxon.” Half of each, curse be it on him.

  “You are Viking?”

  That he got. He nodded. “Half.”

  She looked frustrated. “I wish I spoke Danish.”

  Something to do with Danir. He had many questions he would ask her. He rolled his eyes around the room. “Where is this place?”

  She shrugged again to say she didn’t understand.

  He tried Englisc. “Hwar es min sweord?”

  She looked surprised. “Your sword?”

  She understood Englisc. This was good. “Bring hit to m,” he ordered.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  That was no Englisc he had ever heard. He recognized two words—“think” and “good.” He shook his head to signal that she wasn’t being clear. “Unsael thes racetg.” But she only echoed his frustrated shake of the head. Did she or did she not speak Englisc? Or would she just not release his shackle?

  The man who had tortured him earlier appeared behind her. Galen started to sit forward and demand that she release him, but pain washed over him and he almost fainted. She made a gentle shushing sound and pushed him down, smiling reassuringly. She began talking to the man very rapidly. He could understand nothing. That could not be Englisc. Were they deciding how to kill him? Were they discussing tortures? He balled his hands into fists. He was helpless here, weak with his wounds, bound to the bed, and unable to understand what they said.

  Suddenly, from out of the haze of unknown words, several rang very clear. The man said, “Umerus humerus.” The Latin word for shoulder. Then he heard the word for loss of blood. They spoke Latin.

  “You speak the tongue of the Christ Cult?” he asked in Latin.

  The man didn’t stop talking, but the beautiful woman turned to him, surprise and relief glowing in her face. “I study—studied—Latin. I speak a little,” she said with a horrible accent.

  Galen sighed in relief. This would make things easier. “Good. Is this the Christ Cult heaven? Are you an angel?”

  She looked amused. “No.”

  “Well, whoever you are, get me my sword now.”

  “That is a bad . . . idea.” She turned to the man in green. “He speaks Latin, Doctor.” He recognized only the words “he” and “speaks.”

  “I’ve called the police,” the man in green said, whatever that meant. “They’ll be here shortly. You can translate their interview, since I’m sure none of the city’s finest speak either Danish or Latin. He can check out tomorrow in the early afternoon. I’ll leave prescriptions at the nurses’ station. He should see a primary-care doctor for follow-up tomorrow.” He turned and left.

  Whatever the man said, it made the girl look worried. “What is it?” he asked in Latin.

  She shook her head. “Someone will . . . want . . . to know who hurt you.”

  “That bastard Egil,” he snorted. “He never could have laid an axe on me if not for that chariot of iron wheels appearing out of nowhere.”

  She looked appalled. “Did I change . . . the . . . the battle only by being there?”

  Of course she did. He chuffed a bitter laugh. “Ja.” But he had more important concerns at this point. Like where he was. “What is this place if it is not Valhalla or Christ’s heaven?”

  She pressed her lips together. “That is difficult.” She chewed on one of those very clean fingernails and finally shrugged. “Where was the battle?”

  She must mean “is,” not “was,” since the battle was no doubt going on without him even now. She spoke haltingly and sometimes had to search for words. “Anglia, in the Danelaw,” he answered. “Egil Ingvansen rebels against Guthrum’s son.”

  “And when was it?”

  “Are you feebleminded, woman? It was, is 912 as Christians count years.”

  She took his hand. Hers were soft, uncallused. She had not done the hard work of a serving maid or a peasant tilling the land. Was she nobility or perhaps a prostitute or concubine? No decent woman would wea
r clothes that clung so to her body. Or maybe she wore the garb of a sorcerer. For if she was not angel or Valkyrie, she must be a wicce, to own such a chariot of bronze wheels. “Listen to me. This is the year of Christ 2010,” she said. “And you are in the . . . land beyond Iceland. Uh . . . Vineland your people call it.”

  He stared at her in shock. “You lie. There is no land beyond Iceland.”

  “Oh. The discovery of Vineland was after your time. But there is land beyond Iceland.”

  “Why did you take me here? Get me back to the battle.”

  “It was a . . . mistake. I did not . . . What is the word? . . . Intend it.”

  “Where is my sword?” Whether she lied or whether he was truly somewhere no man had any right to be, he was in deep trouble.

  “I know not.” She looked around, then went to a tall cupboard and opened it. “Here, and your clothing.” Then she murmured in her own tongue, “What’s left of it.” He got the words “what” and “of” and “it,” but not the sense.

  “Bring them, woman. I must return to the battle.”

  He saw by the mulish set of her jaw that she was about to protest when two men in strange dark clothing with short sleeves and golden broaches walked into the room.

  Great. Police. Just what she needed. She couldn’t have them arresting the Viking for vagrancy or something. She’d never get him back to 912 if he was sitting in jail. And he sure looked like a homeless person. Tangled blondish hair with crazy braids in each side, and a close-clipped beard—he had no address, no money, no labels in his clothes. He would give his name differently than he was registered. He was a mystery they’d love to unravel.

  “Officers.” She smiled. Deceit, thy name is woman. She was about to lie through her teeth to the police. Way worse than lying to the registration girl. “Thank you so much for coming.” The nurse who had escorted them pulled a curtain around the bed that held an old man and left. Lucy turned back to Galen, meaning to tell him who these visitors were, but instead she just stood there, blinking. Even weak and woozy from the anesthetic, he exuded strength and masculinity. What did they call it in martial arts movies? Sai. Of course he was a Viking. What else would he be? Just now he was gritting his teeth and looking very dangerous. She smiled and patted his hand. Wow. That sent shivers through her. Then she turned to the police. “This is my cousin Bjorn Knudsen from Finland. Do either of you speak Finn?” she asked with feigned hope. “No? Neither do I, but we get by in Latin. I’ll translate.”