“Smells terrific.” Bjarne stood beside me, ladling more cider into his cup. “Is everything all right? Did I say something?”
“No, no. I said something. My stepfather takes everything so seriously.” I looked into the other room where Glasius sat next to Luca on the couch, regaling the group with stories of Norsemen of old. Una was laughing, covering her mouth. It was good to see her so happy; I often wondered about her and Hank, such a humorless fellow.
The conversation drifted to Bjarne’s ski race. He had an easy day tomorrow, with the race coming up on Saturday. I promised to come out and cheer him on. It was an easy promise; I wanted to see him in action.
“Do you think Mistress Isa will be right about gathering your power, or whatever she said?”
Bjarne shrugged. “Sounds like dumbo-jumbo to me.”
“Mumbo-jumbo,” I said, laughing. “But dumbo isn’t bad either. Where do you suppose she gets that stuff?”
“The runes are very powerful,” Bjarne said seriously. “I didn’t mean they were dumbo-jumbo. But interpreting them without knowing someone? That means she thinks she can read my mind, feel my, what do you call them? My vibes.” He shook his head. “I don’t know about that.”
“What do you mean, the runes are powerful? I thought they were just an alphabet.”
“They’re more than an alphabet to some people.” Bjarne rubbed at a chapped spot on his lower lip. “Have you heard of Wicca? The Anglo-Saxon magic?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“There are those who believe in the Norse gods just the same, who find magic in the runes as followers of the sky gods or the earth gods.” He raised his eyebrows. “I have heard tales of great quarrels between the believers of the two. The Aesir and the Vanir. Earth and Sky.”
“Wait a minute. You lost me.”
“Pagans,” Bjarne said, raising his eyebrows in mock horror. “Witches, covens. Not black magic, most of the time. But not your average churchgoer, either.”
“You sound like you know some of these people.”
“I have friends. Only a few in Norway, but many in Canada and the States.”
“And you?” I asked. “Are you a pagan?”
Bjarne laughed and threw back that gorgeous hair. “No, no. Not me. My mother would disown me.”
“I have a mother like that myself.” I looked back into the other room. Luca was standing, motioning everyone to the table. “So is that fortune teller one of those witches?”
“I don’t know,” Bjarne said. “I don’t like people twisting minds, it isn’t fair. It isn’t good sports, to play with somebody like that. I just have to wonder about someone like Isa Mardoll, who thinks reading meanings into the runes can tell the future. It’s foolishness.”
“Mardoll—that’s her name?”
Bjarne didn’t answer. We sat around the table Luca had decorated with a large bouquet of gladiolus, their yellow and orange lushness a welcome tonic on a gray winter night. I forgot about witches and runes and enjoyed the special warmth of eating with people I loved, and liked. It was a feeling deep in my bones, in some primal place that harkened to the smorgasbord, the groaning board, the hunt board full of game and the spirit of survival for all the clan. We ate for the coming battle, the new harvest, the morrow, whatever it would bring.
Well, we ate quickly, for it was soon time to go back to the reception.
artie wacker had everything ready, wineglasses and wine on Paolo’s desk, Brie and cheddar and jack cheese on another table brought out from the storeroom I could tell he’d taken a minute to vacuum the rug, and I thanked him quickly before I forgot. He was such a conscientious employee, I couldn’t believe my luck in hiring him, even if he stayed only a few months, like all the others.
The reception began with my introduction of Glasius Dokken and his short speech. The crowd was small, only twelve or fifteen people, most of them over sixty. I was mildly disappointed by the turnout but hoped more people would come in before the reception ended at nine.
“Dogsled races,” Artie whispered to me at the cheese table. Somehow I had a big glob of Brie on a cracker aimed at my mouth. And in my own hand too.
“Pardon?” I lowered the Brie and eyed it.
“The dogsled races are going on right now,” he said. “That’s why the crowd’s so wimpy.”
I devoured the cheese and cracker, finding a space for it after the black beans and rice at Luca’s. Dessert, I told myself, French dessert.
“When are the races done?” I asked.
“By eight. So there’s hope.”
Una and Hank listened attentively to Glasius’s talk about the mural, which featured a Viking longboat and Leif Eriksson discovering America a thousand years ago. It was difficult to imagine the courage of these men, braving the storms of the North Atlantic to venture into unknown lands where they had no idea of the grave dangers that awaited them.
My stepfather had been talking about the Viking discovery of America almost nonstop for the last year. His slide show of two nights ago was about their trip to the Runestone Museum in Kensington, Minnesota, where a slab of rock was found a hundred years ago, engraved with a story of another Viking adventure to the New World. This time the Vikings supposedly got all the way to Minnesota, only to have half their group scalped by Indians.
It was an interesting tale, even amusing. The only problem with it was that it was dated about 1360, over a century after the end of the Viking era. The great voyages had ended by then, or so scholars thought. Hank had his own theories, like the possibility that there could have been explorers into the medieval times after the Viking era. I knew better than to argue with him. Most of his “discussions” ended with a tirade against scholars who were too cynical for their own good. Hank was annoyingly loyal to anyone who thought the best about the early Scandinavians. And frankly dismissive to anyone who didn’t agree with him.
Glasius moved on to the next mural, the Death of Balder. This fair-haired son of Odin was invincible until Loki tricked their blind brother into shooting a mistletoe arrow through Balder’s heart. I had already heard Glasius’s interpretation of this mural, so I decided to walk across the street to look at the ice sculptures for a minute. A cut-off barrel had a blazing fire lighting up the square, and spotlights shone on most of the ice carvings so the sculptors could see what they were doing. By now most of them had finished for the day, leaving their spotlights trailing orange and yellow extension cords. The spots shone on into the darkness, framed by the twinkle lights on the antler arches at each corner of the square.
I stepped out into the cold darkness— to get away from the Brie and crackers, I told myself. That wasn’t exactly true. The gallery often got claustrophobic for me, as much as I loved it. Those four walls closed in, and I began to plot threatening notes to my accountant, who had spent so much time this fall teaching me to keep my own books. I missed being out in the field, or whatever you called it, driving the Saab Sister hither and yon, appraising stolen art for police departments, chasing forgers, hiking into the hills after strange cults. It all sounded wildly appealing just now, as inside the gallery a crusty, dandruff-laden art professor regaled the crowd with his tales of fifteen years mixing the paint to get the gray of Odin’s hair just the right shade.
Picking my way over cords and snow piles, I found one carver still hard at work. The tall obelisk of ice he worked on had yet to reveal itself, unless you counted what those Jersey boys had imagined. Standing on two large rolled snowballs at its base, a man in a dark brown Australian duster and black cowboy hat worked at the ice, pounding it with a chisel and pick.
“You must be Merle Tennepin,” I said, hoping not to startle him.
He turned briefly, his shaggy mustache covering his mouth and a good part of his chin. He nodded his affirmative and went back to work. I stepped closer, trying to get an idea what he might be carving. So far the block had smoothed-off upper corners, and that was about it.
“I’m Alix Thorssen. I’m the Chamber of
Commerce person for this event. I have that gallery across the street.” I waved toward the Second Sun. As I looked in that direction, I could see Bjarne standing on the front step, hands in his armpits, looking around desperately. I waved at him, and he started across the street.
“Congratulations, Miss Commerce,” the cowboy/chef said, his back still toward me.
“Thorssen,” I corrected. “I was just wondering what you’ll be carving. I mean, if you don’t mind revealing it.”
Bjarne jumped a snow pile by the boardwalk and walked toward us. The cowboy never stopped his infernal chip-chip-chipping, even though his progress was invisible.
“I’ll be carving ice just like everybody else.”
“I know that,” I said to myself, and to Bjarne as he walked up. Louder I said, “But what’s it going to be?”
Merle turned and jumped down from his snowball. He stabbed the ice pick and chisel into the other ball of snow with a powerful thrust. Then, fingering his mustache and taking off thin leather gloves, he looked at me from under his black Stetson and said, “You, Miss Commerce, are on a need-to-know basis.”
And stalked off into the night.
“Pleasant fellow.” Bjarne stood next to me, watching Merle’s back and shivering in his thin windbreaker. “And a helluva man.”
I glanced quickly at Bjarne. He was staring up at Merle’s sculpture, smirking with delight. It did bear an unmistakable resemblance—at this stage in its development—to a six-foot phallic symbol worthy of a state capitol building. I couldn’t believe this was Merle’s actual intention. No, it would develop into something else; he was only using the snowballs to stand on instead of carting in a ladder. The fact that they led the observer to a certain conclusion was a mere coincidence. They weren’t balls, just snowballs, I told myself, cocking my head at the sculpture.
I stood frowning, hoping no one else got the drift. A group of tourists, laughing in high spirits, moved through the embryonic ice sculptures. Besides the skiers, I thought I saw the fortuneteller and her assistant; Mistress Isa in her white-on-white was hard to miss. They blended into the skiers, then the shadows.
Suddenly Bjarne started laughing. I reached over, pulled out the extension cord of the spotlight on Merle’s phallus, and glared at Bjarne. He rolled his eyes helplessly, his dimples deep, and I had no choice but to laugh myself. I laughed until Bjarne pushed me into the snow to shut me up. Then I took him home.
we were still laughing as I pulled the Saab Sister into the parking lot of the Tetonian Motel out on the commercial strip toward the turnoff to Teton Pass. The peeling, gray motel buildings stretched along a creek. The old car bumped into the potholes in the pavement, sending us bouncing. Bjarne was in Room 19, halfway down the string of identical doorways framed in dirty white with railings listing sadly by the rental cars. I pulled into an empty space as close to his room as I could find.
Bjarne paused, hand on the door handle, looking shy suddenly. “You will come out and see me race? Cheer me on?” he asked.
“Sure. What time?”
“Ten in the morning, while the ice is still fast—but not too hard—on the tracks.”
“Ten. Got it,” I said. The Saab chose that moment to die. “Damn!” I fiddled with the choke and turned the key again. The old engine refused to catch, protesting this cold weather. “I didn’t mix the oil in the gas last time. That must be it.”
“I know nothing about cars. You want to come in and call?”
Bjarne led the way to his room, unlocking the door and turning on the light. His bed was neatly made, and clothes hung in the closet, tidy and neat. He pointed out the phone, grabbed some clothes, and went into the bathroom. I called Artie, still at the gallery, and asked him to bring out the gas can and a small can of engine oil. The old Saab had a two-cycle engine, and I hadn’t been taking proper care of it. Artie said the reception crowd was gone; Una and Hank had taken Glasius somewhere for a nightcap. He’d shoo out the last customers, lock up, then be right over.
When I looked up from the phone, sitting on the edge of a scratched plastic laminate desk in the dingy motel room, Bjarne stood in the doorway of the bathroom wearing a pair of loose flannel plaid pajama bottoms and a red sweatshirt. He had washed his face, I guessed, because it was reddened and he smelled like Dial soap. He stared at me, smiling, not saying a thing. I set down the phone and stood up.
“I’ll wait in the car. Artie says he’ll be over in a minute.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s freezing out there.”
“But you’re ready for bed. I don’t want to keep you up.”
“Come, we’ll watch some TV. Maybe those Vikings will be on.” Bjarne sat on the edge of the bed and flicked the remote control. A rerun of Cheers appeared, much laughter.
The double bed was stiff, and the bedspread a worn floral quilt with its polyester threads coming loose. I eased down on it. “No,” I said, “the Vikings lost in the playoffs. They’re done for the season.”
“Too bad.” Bjarne stabbed the remote with his thumb, and the TV went black. He turned to me, causing me to blink. “What if I was to kiss you?” His voice was husky and soft.
“Oh. Well.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know.”
“We could find out,” he whispered. I didn’t argue. He leaned toward me, pressed his lips against mine for a short while, and pulled back. “Well?”
“It was okay,” I croaked. I touched his chin and pulled him back, this time longer.
“Better?” He pulled me close against him this time, the warm, clean smell of his skin, the laundered smell of his shirt, the masculine odor of desire rushing over me.
A car horn honked outside. I jumped out of Bjarne’s grasp, standing, blinking in the yellow light of the cheap motel room. I swallowed and licked my swollen lips.
“That’s—that’s Artie.”
Bjarne stood up and walked to the door with me. Just before I stepped out, he pushed my hair aside and kissed me on the neck. “I’ll see you Saturday, then.”
“Saturday,” I repeated, touching his tanned cheek for an instant.
Artie had the hood open on the Saab and the gas and oil ready for my instructions. He looked up from unscrewing the oil cap, an elfin smile on his face.
“Keeping warm?” he asked.
and that was why I didn’t keep tabs on Una and Hank and Glasius that evening. I didn’t know where they went, what they talked about, or how Glasius had managed to get himself killed. I didn’t have the strength to interrogate my mother that night. It was four am when we drove back to my apartment in the back of Roscoe Penn’s Cadillac. I told Artie to sleep in and sent him home. It was too late to open the sofa. I collapsed on the bed next to my mother, a shadow of disapproval crossing her face before exhaustion erased it Just before I drifted into a leaden sleep, I smelled Bjarne on the pillowcase. I should have been entertaining my resident artist, but I was fooling around with a skier instead. And what about Carl? I didn’t even want to think about him just now.
As I drifted off to sleep, I comforted myself with the remembered sound of my brother’s voice, his warm humor and strong sense that whatever happened, I could handle it.
Bigger balls than Odin? Yeah, right.
Chapter 5
Runes wilt thou find, and rightly read,
of wondrous weight, of mighty magic, which that dyed the dread god,
which that made the holy host and were etched by Odin.
Roscoe Penn called at eight o’clock. Una and I sat at the round oak table, shell-shocked, with coffee. She startled, straightening. I set my hand on her shoulder as I rose to get the phone.
“Morning, Miss Thorssen.” Roscoe Penn sounded awfully awake. But then he probably hadn’t tossed and turned, his stomach in knots, visions of Glasius Dokken hanging upside down from an ash tree with a sword/ice pick in the ribs dancing in his head all night. That particular juxtaposition of Odin in the mural and poor Glasius would stay in my mind, Glasius in the face but fully clothed in his
tweeds with a long gray beard and his own white hair trailing on the ground. The spear in his side trailing blood just like Odin’s, his eyes open toward the ground where the rune staves were strewn.
“Good morning,” I replied, clearing my throat. Una and I hadn’t spoken yet, going about our morning rituals in silent shock.
“The hearing’s been set for ten o’clock. If you and Mrs. Helgeson could come to my office about nine-thirty, we can walk over together.”
I agreed, thinking that an hour and a half might be enough time to get both of us looking presentable. Una had bags under her eyes. Her hair was matted and uncombed. She wore my old yellow chenille robe, the one Carl had split down the back last summer. Her flannel nightgown peeked through the rip, its cheery roses only emphasizing our demoralized state.
I told Una the plan. She got up stiffly and went to the bathroom to get ready. I drank more coffee then took my turn under the shower, feeling more human. Downstairs in the gallery, I took a last look at Glasius’s murals. They seemed silent and subdued this morning, their dark backgrounds fading into shadows, questions. Odin still hung suspended, getting the information about the nine worlds, the three norns, the eighteen runes. While many cultures venerated the four directions, the Vikings were fond of nines. Everything in nines.
The dream of Glasius hanging with a spear/ice pick in his side flashed in front of my mind, and I turned away from the paintings. I wrote out a note for Artie, for whenever he showed up to open the gallery. Crate the murals, it said. Rearrange and rehang whatever you can find. It wouldn’t be easy for him to do by himself. But I didn’t want to look at them anymore.
Roscoe penn, esq., held court in a low log building a block from the town hall, a building more suited to the Ponderosa of Bonanza fame than the legal profession. Inside, the well-oiled walls were hung with medicine shields and Indian blankets. The receptionist’s desk was topped with a huge slab of red sandstone cut in a naturally uneven oblique circle. On this she tried to balance a computer monitor; a wadded-up tissue was wedged under one corner. She was a pretty girl with long blond hair that needed constant attention to keep out of her face.
Nordic Nights (The Alix Thorssen Mysteries) Page 5