Ragnar

by Joanna Bell

  "Right," he said. "You heard the man. Let's get the hell out of here. Come on Em, Katie – let's go."

  On the way back to River Falls, Michael explained the temporary deal with the FBI. I'd admitted lying to them, back during the first meeting, when I said I didn't know where Paige was. My lawyer explained that he was sure they didn't have enough to arrest me for anything directly related to Paige's case –because if they did they would have done it already – but that they now, if they wanted, could arrest me for lying to the FBI.

  "But I didn't –" I began, already unable to properly recall exactly what I said to Agent Lapierre.

  Michael shook his head. "It doesn't matter. That FBI agent said you told him you said you knew where Paige was. His word is enough. Emma – did you say that? Did you tell him –"

  "I said I wasn't worried about her! That's all I said!"

  "Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure of that?"

  I thought back to the conversation. I wasn't sure. I'd lost my patience a little with Agent Lapierre. I hung my head. "No. I – I think I may have said I know where she is just so he would stop asking me about it."

  "Right," Michael replied, making sure he'd caught my eye before continuing. "No more talking to the police, Emma. No more talking to literally anyone who isn't me or your immediate family about this, do you understand?"

  He was angry, his tone sharp. I wanted to defend myself. "But I just said it because he –"

  "It doesn't matter," my lawyer said forcefully. "It doesn't matter why you said, Emma. It matters that you said it. Whatever possessed you to call the police, anyway? How many times have I told you not to –"

  "I thought if I talked to them that they could do something about this! That they could make it so we can go back home. I can't stand this! I really can't – none of us can. Look at my mother's face!"

  "Emma," my dad said, turning around to face me from the front seat.

  "What?"

  "You need to listen to what the man is saying. I told you we'll sort this out and we will. But we can't do that if you don't listen to advice."

  "OK," I whispered, slumping down in my seat and closing my eyes, shutting down. "OK. I won't."

  I didn't say another word for the rest of the drive. Even when people asked me direct questions it was as if I were hearing them from a great distance, as if they had nothing to do with me. I was retreating to the only place available to me at the time – my own head. Katie saw it happening and warned the others to just leave me alone for a little while. Thankfully, they listened.

  Katie insisted, when I was too tired to do or say much of anything on my own behalf, that she and I have our own room that night. My parents stayed in a room right next to us and Michael went home, promising he would be back again very early the next morning.

  My sister started running a bath as soon as we were alone, and then told me to get undressed and get in. She was about to tell me not to be ridiculous, anticipating my protestation at the idea of getting naked in front of her, but I was actually too tired to object. Maybe my brief time with the Vikings had something to do with it, too?

  "Are they outside?" I asked, when I'd sunk into the hot water and felt the tide of panic that had been threatening to overwhelm me all day pull back a little. "The police?"

  "They're in the parking lot. I think they're in the lobby, too. But they're not right outside the door. We're good."

  "I totally fucked up today, didn't I?" I asked. "That guy – that FBI agent – I totally bought it when he told me he was on my side. How dumb can I be? I'm pretty sure they think I killed Paige. And if they don't, they think I know what happened to her. So I don't really know what to tell the police tomorrow. You know I can't tell them the truth. So what am I supposed to say?"

  Katie sat down on the toilet seat and propped her chin on her hand. "I – I don't know, Em. I don't know."

  My big sister didn't know what to do – and she always knew what to do. Katie being at a loss was scarier than being at a loss myself. We both went quiet for a few minutes, still trying to absorb everything that had happened over the last 24 hours.

  "Do know who Monica Lewinsky is?" She asked, apropos of seemingly nothing, a short time later.

  The name rang a bell. "Monica who? Ummm. Wait, yeah – isn't she the one who gave the president a blowjob? Why are you asking?"

  "Exactly," Katie said, grabbing a bottle of cheap hotel shampoo and getting to work peeling off the label with one of her fingernails.

  "Exactly what?" I replied, bemused by the abrupt change of subject, but also grateful for it.

  "She's the girl who gave the president a blowjob. That's who she'll always be. Not to herself, or her family, maybe – but to the public. Even when she's 90, that's who she'll be."

  "Well that's not depressing at all," I said, frowning. "Wasn't she 18 or something? How is that fair that she'll be –"

  "That's what I'm saying!" Katie exclaimed. "It's not fair! It's not fair at all! And the fact that it isn't fair doesn't matter. That's who the media says she is – and so that's who she is."

  I sighed heavily, beginning to see where my sister was going. "So you think that's going to be me now? I didn't suck any dick, Katie-kat. Well, unless you count Viking d –"

  "Ugh!" She laughed. "I don't want to hear about it, Em! But yeah, you didn't suck any dicks – not any famous ones, anyway, and that's what matters. But they think you killed Paige Renner. 'They' – the media, the public and now you say maybe even the police?"

  I nodded sadly. "Yeah, I think so."

  "So is this going to be your life now?" Katie asked, and I could see she was on the verge of becoming emotional. "Everyone knows who you are, Emma. Even before you went missing, everyone knew. They know what you look like. A lot of them think they know what you did. Mum and dad think taking you back to the Norwich is going to make everything better but it isn't. We've had reporters from the Daily Sun camped out at the bottom of the driveway ever since you disappeared, you know. Whenever I go to Tesco or the pub or anywhere, people are staring and whispering and wondering if it's me, Emma Willis's sister. There were paparazzi shots of mum and dad on CNN for God's sake!"

  Katie was right. I desperately didn't want her to be right, but she was. My reappearance, because it didn't come along with Paige's own reappearance – and because I wasn't going to be able to give anyone the answers they sought to that mystery – wasn't going to solve anything. In fact, it was just going to make it worse – for me, yes, but also for my family.

  "Why are you saying this?" I asked, angrily swiping a tear off my cheek and splashing the bathwater onto my face. "Why are you making it all sound so horrible?"

  "So you really went back in time, Em?"

  Another abrupt subject change. I looked up at my sister with a 'wtf' expression on my face but she just looked back at me expectantly, waiting for an answer. "Yes!" I replied, exasperated. "Yes, I did."

  "And you met someone there? A Viking? Really, Em? You really met a Viking?"

  I laughed helplessly, because I knew that a)it sounded ridiculous and b)it was entirely true. "Yes," I said. "Ragnar. I had to sneak out of his camp to leave, too. He chased me. All the time I was with the Vikings – and Paige – I worried about how you and mum and dad were feeling, what you were thinking happened to me. And now I worry about him, about what he's thinking, about how much he's missing me."

  Another tear slid down my cheek while my sister studied me.

  "You were only gone a month," she said a few seconds later, and not unkindly. "You're not – Em, you're not saying you fell in –"

  "I don't know what I'm saying!" I cut in before she could utter the word that I couldn't stand to hear, not then. "I don't – I don't know! It doesn't make sense, OK? I get it. I get that. But it was – Katie, things are different there. It's different with men and women, too. They don't seem to play games like we do. Well he didn't, anyway. And he was the one who said – uh. He said that ..." I trailed off.

 
"He said he loved you?" Katie offered gently and I nodded, because by then I was too emotional to talk.

  "And was it safe there, Em?" She asked after another few minutes of unhappy silence passed. "Were you safe?"

  I thought about everything I could tell my sister. About the fight with Baldric on the beach, being taken by Lord Cyneric's men, and then taken by Jarl Ragnar and his men. I thought about the man Ragnar had killed at the estate. It obviously wasn't anything like 'safe' in the past. But then I thought of Ragnar himself. Of his boldness, his strength, and the force of loyal, fit young warriors at his back. Ragnar would give his life to protect me. He hadn't said it, but I knew it. And it wasn't just Ragnar and his men – it was Eirik and his. Who had the power to overcome the Vikings at that time? No one, and I knew that because I knew that the invasion to come was going to be successful, that the forces of the eastern parts of Britain were no match for the men from the North.

  "I think I was," I said, eventually. "I think I was safe. I don't think everyone else was, not all of them – but I think I was."

  "Because of him?" Katie asked, intuiting the underpinnings of my words.

  "Yeah. Because of him. Paige Renner married one of them, too – another Jarl. So she's safe, too. Safer than she would be back here, that's for sure."

  "Really?" My sister cocked her head, curious. "You think she's better off there than here?"

  I shrugged. "What have we been talking about? You think Paige Renner would be OK if she came back?"

  "No," Katie replied. "You're right. She wouldn't be. She obviously wouldn't be."

  "So why do you have that strange look on your face? Do you disagree?"

  "Nooo..." she replied slowly. "No."

  "What, then?"

  My sister gazed pointedly down at me. And then she said maybe the last thing I ever expected her to say:

  "If it's true, then – if you went back in time, and Paige Renner is there and she's safe, and you were safe – and you have someone who loves you... " she paused, "then why – Em, why don't you go back?"

  My mouth fell open, but no words came out. Katie wasn't joking, I could see that.

  "What –" I started, when I could speak again. "Katie, what do you –"

  "I don't mean forever," she cut in. "No, not forever. Just for – for a while, maybe."

  "Well how long is a while?!" I exclaimed, shocked.

  Katie seemed to notice, then, that I hadn't greeted her suggestion with unalloyed enthusiasm. "You don't have to," she said quickly. "I'm even saying you should, Em. Not at all. I just got you back, didn't I? We just got you back. But this is going to be hell, you know. The media, the public – not to mention the police, and who knows what they think they have on you – it's going to be awful. If you went back until all of this died down – and that's going to take way more than a month, believe me – maybe you could come back in some way that no one else would know about? Do you think you could do that? I don't know how it works."

  After the initial surprise of my sister's suggestion passed, I started to think about it. To really think about it. Not going back forever, but just for, as she put it – a while. A year, maybe? A year and a half? Long enough for me to be able to sneak back without having to worry about the woods on the Renner property crawling with police and reporters. Long enough for other stories to take hold in the collective mind of the public. It would mean seeing Ragnar again, and my heart seemed to swell in my chest at the thought of that reunion. It would mean seeing Paige again, and her family. It would mean living with the Vikings, learning new ways of living – and being. It would also mean leaving my family a second time. Even thinking of that made me want to ugly-cry in the bath, right there in front of Katie.

  "What about mum and dad?" I whispered squeakily.

  "We'll tell them," she said. "We'll –"

  "No," I replied before she could continue, knowing without doubt that telling my parents about the time-travel would be a huge mistake. "No, Katie. You know that wouldn't –"

  "I don't mean about the time traveling!" She smiled. "I just mean – I'll tell them you've gone somewhere. That you're safe. That you needed to get away from everything – from the situation here. None of it will even be a lie! But if they assume you're drinking Mai Tais on the beach in Belize, or South America – no harm done, right?"

  "But what about everything else?" I asked, still too afraid to really let myself consider that what Katie was talking about could actually happen. "What about the police?"

  "What about them?" She replied. "If you're back in time, they won't be able to find you. And mum and dad won't know where you really are. Only I'll know – and I won't say a thing. They can't do anything to us, it's not like we're suspects."

  "And the media? All of those reporters waiting at the bottom of the drive – what about them?"

  "Do you think the number of reporters hassling us is going to increase or decrease if you're there?"

  That was a good point. I pinched my nose between my fingers and lay back in the bath, submerging my entire head underwater. And then I stayed there for a few seconds, trying to figure out if Katie and I were insane to be thinking of such a plan, or if it just made sense.

  When I popped back up and caught my sister's eye, she must have seen the truth I hadn't yet admitted to myself.

  "You want to go." She said simply.

  I nodded slowly. "Yeah. I – I think I do."

  "Well if that's what you want, you'd better get out of the bath and get dressed right now. Because it's going to have to be –"

  "Tonight?" I gasped, knowing she was right but also hoping, somehow, that she wasn't.

  "When else?" She asked, tossing me a towel. "You're talking to the police again tomorrow, right? What if they decide to arrest you? What if they decide to follow you everywhere?"

  "They're already following me," I noted, knowing there were police officers stationed outside the hotel, and that they weren't just there to keep the press at bay. "In fact how are we even going to get out of here tonight, Katie? I can't just walk out – even if the police did let me go, the media are going to follow us."

  "OK," Katie said, leaving me alone in the bathroom to dry off and continuing the conversation from outside the door. "Where are we going, anyway?"

  "Paige Renner's house. The property, not the house."

  There were a few moments of quiet as my sister thought about how we were going to get past the throngs of people waiting outside. I pulled my clothes on and paused, briefly, when I caught sight of my own face in the mirror. Was I happy? Sad? I couldn't tell. I didn't know.

  "OK," my sister said when I emerged from the bathroom. "OK, here's the plan. I'm going to leave. I'll tell mum and dad I need to be alone, that I want to go for a drive alone. I'll walk out the front. You – um, you're going to have to meet me somewhere."

  "Where?" I asked, almost certain the plan was already scuppered. How the hell was I going to get out of that hotel with all those people outside, all waiting for a glimpse of me?

  Katie strode over to the window and wrenched it open. I joined her in leaning out. Our room was at the back of the hotel, looking out over a grassy, landscaped area and then a small stand of trees a little further back. No one was out there, because so far no one had been able to find out what room we were in, and because there were no doors on that side of the building.

  We were on the second floor, and I looked down at the snowy ground, thinking.

  "I could make that," I said, about 75% convinced that I could. "That snow looks pretty deep, too – that should help."

  "I could meet you over there," Katie said, pointing to a spot at the edge of the trees, beside the road. "Give me twenty minutes after I leave, I'll have to get past everyone. Actually, ummm... OK, I know. You wait here, by the window. I'll flash the headlights when I'm ready – if the coast is clear. Is that – is that OK?"

  Neither of us were convinced it was going to work. But we both recognized that no one else had a better plan on
offer. When she started gathering her things I reached out and grabbed Katie's arm.

  "Wait! You mean – are you leaving right now?"

  She nodded. "Yes. It's kind of now or never, Em."

  "But what about mum and dad?" I asked, as my voice rose in pitch again.

  "What about them? You can't see them – you know that, right? You can't say goodbye, Emma, because then they'll ask why you're saying it."

  "But can't I – can't I just see them?" I whispered, knowing what the response was going to be.

  "No. There are cops in the hotel. Plus you're emotional – we both are. Mum and dad will know something is up. We just – Emma, we just need to go, OK? We need to go right now!"

  Half an hour later, as I stood trembling at the hotel room window, a car pulled up beside the woods and I watched, half-filled with dread and half with hope, as its headlights blinked at me once, then twice. It was Katie. I stood in the dark for a few moments, listening to the sound of my own breathing, my own hammering heartbeat. And then I pulled the window open again, not quite believing what I was doing, and climbed up so I was crouched on the edge of the frame.

  The ground looked further away than it had the first time. Jump. Just go. You have to do it now. Jump, Emma! Jump!

  I jumped. And then I landed in the snow, half on my feet, half on my ass. It was dark and quiet, the only light being that from the streetlights lining the road a fair ways away, and the only sound the odd car driving by. I glanced around, terrified that a camera flash was going to go off or someone was going to start screaming my name. But no one did.

  When I got to my feet, I started to run. And I kept running, falling a few times in the snow, until I got to the car and opened the passenger side door.

  "No!" Katie said. "Get in the back. And stay down."

  Of course. I slammed the front door and climbed into the backseat. "OK," I panted, crouching down in one of the foot-wells behind the passenger seat. "OK, Katie."

  It didn't take long to get to the spot where I'd parked my own car just over a month ago, intending to go back to the past to get my lost phone and come right back. As we stepped out, after Katie made sure no other cars were coming, I noticed that it simultaneously felt like a very long time ago and also like it could have been yesterday.