by Kari Maaren
The other two people were really the same person. Freddy’s brain was trying to tell her they were twins, but she knew her brain was lying. The second Josiah had longer hair than the first and was dressed along the same dead-animal-skins-themed lines as the red-bearded man, but he was still Josiah.
“We’re making you some willow-bark infusion,” said the Josiah she had come here with. “It should help with the headache.”
Freddy manoeuvred herself up onto one elbow, then slumped back. The room was twirling in slow, sickening circles. “Willow-bark infusion?”
Josiah shrugged. “Basically, aspirin.”
She stared vaguely at the ceiling until the red-bearded man turned up beside her with a rough clay cup full of something hot that smelled vile. The second Josiah helped her prop herself up on some more furs before handing her the cup. She sipped the drink. It tasted vile as well.
“Better drink it,” said Josiah. “You can’t go running around through history with a sore head.”
“I don’t think I have a choice,” said Freddy, but she continued to take tiny sips of the willow bark.
The red-bearded man was beaming at her. Something about his expression was familiar, though she couldn’t think what. He didn’t look like anyone she had ever seen before.
To distract herself from the drink, Freddy said, “Why are there two of you?”
Josiah turned to his doppelgänger and said something incomprehensible. The boy nodded and replied in the same language. “He doesn’t speak English, obviously,” Josiah explained. “I’ll have to translate. There are two of me because I tend to hang around where Three is. At the moment, Three’s outside trying to explain all this to his people. He’ll be all right; he has a fantastic imagination.”
“He always does,” said the red-bearded man.
There was something not right about that. Freddy’s brain, scrambling to catch up, finally lit on what it was. “How come he can speak English?”
“Because it doesn’t make any sense that he can,” said Josiah.
“Hello, curly-haired one,” said the red-bearded man cheerfully.
Freddy blinked, then kept on blinking. After a long moment, she said, “Cuerva Lachance?”
“He’s called Loki here,” said Josiah. “And that”—as he jerked a thumb at the other Josiah—“is Heimdallr.”
The names were familiar. Bullfinch’s Mythology was, after all, one of the books that lived on the chair in the kitchen, plus there were all those movies about Thor. “Like the Norse gods?”
“Somebody,” said Josiah, glaring at Loki, “may have made some fuss a few centuries ago and got us incorporated into a pantheon. I name no names, of course.”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” said Loki. “There were extenuating circumstances. I could have been drunk at the time.”
“We technically have other names at the moment,” said Josiah, “but everyone knows we’re Loki and Heimdallr, really. They just sort of live with it. Medieval Swedes are funny that way.”
Freddy was foggily unsurprised that Cuerva Lachance was a red-headed male Viking now. She didn’t even doubt that Loki was Cuerva Lachance. The headache made everything besides itself seem unreal and therefore completely reasonable. Still, there were some details that bore explanation. “But he’s a he.”
“He is sometimes,” said Josiah. “Sometimes she’s a she. I have a distinct and painful memory of the time she took it into her head to spend seventeen years as a six-year-old girl.”
“I enjoyed that,” said Loki dreamily. “It puzzled the tribal elders ever so much.”
Heimdallr made a comment. Josiah nodded. “Heimdallr thinks it would be easier if we just started at the beginning.”
“Always taking the logical way out,” said Loki, and added something in the incomprehensible language.
Josiah and Heimdallr threw him identical unfriendly glances. It didn’t look as if Heimdallr was any less impatient with Loki than Josiah was with Cuerva Lachance. They’re the same people, she had to tell herself. Loki and Heimdallr … Cuerva Lachance and Josiah. They’re … very, very old people. Again, only the headache let this make sense.
“Okay, look,” said Josiah, “we’ve known you for a while, okay?”
Freddy took another sip. She hoped it wasn’t her imagination that the headache was finally beginning, ever so slightly, to subside. “When you say a while, you mean…?”
Loki and Josiah looked at each other. Both shrugged together. “Quite a while,” said Loki.
“Almost as far back as I can remember,” said Josiah. “Which is a long way.”
“You mean, since the Vikings?” said Freddy cautiously.
There was another exchange of glances. “Well, no,” said Josiah.
“We go back a bit farther than this,” said Loki.
She didn’t really want to know, but the question had to be asked. “How far?”
“Far,” said Josiah.
“Every once in a while,” said Loki, “you and Josiah will appear out of thin air, hang around for a bit, and vanish. It’s happened many times that I can remember, and I’ve heard Three mention other times where you showed up and I wasn’t around.”
“We always knew we would get to the point where it would actually have to happen to me,” said Josiah. “I’ve been waiting all my life to run into you. Not looking forward to it, mind. It’s a confounded bloody nuisance. I’d rather be in math class. Well, possibly not.”
“But,” said Freddy. She had the feeling there were several monstrously huge things she was missing here. “But how old are you?”
“Fourteen,” said Josiah.
“You can’t be,” said Freddy. “You used to be him.”
“He’s also fourteen,” said Josiah. “Get it? I’m always fourteen. Never younger. Never older. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve lived; I’m fourteen. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be fourteen forever?”
“Uh,” said Freddy.
“You’re fourteen now.” Josiah waved his hands distractedly in the air. “Imagine this year of your life went on for five years. Now imagine it went on for fifty years. Now imagine it went on for a hundred years. Now imagine—”
“Okay, okay,” said Freddy, “you’re fourteen.”
“It makes him bad-tempered at times,” said Loki. “I’ve tried to persuade him to try some other age, but no. Apparently, there are rules.”
“Just because you ignore them doesn’t mean they’re not there,” said Josiah.
“There’ve always been the two of us,” said Loki, leaning back and clasping his hands over his knees. “I’m not sure how far back it goes; I don’t remember the bit at the beginning. I’m sure it was very exciting, though.”
“He bends the rules,” said Josiah. “I uphold them. It’s always been that way.”
The headache was definitely growing less. As it dwindled, the panic rose. Freddy tried to postpone it by dealing with the outrageous lie Josiah had just told. “You uphold what rules? What about school?”
Josiah’s face went vicious. “School doesn’t count. Oh, it thinks it’s all about rules, but it’s wrong. Go to class. Sit in rows. Mind the teacher. Mindless dictates that mean nothing and are more chaotic than the chaos they’re meant to stave off. The rules of your society say fourteen-year-olds have to go to school, but they don’t say they can’t devote all their energy to getting kicked out.”
“In an odd way,” Loki said, “Heimdallr always follows the rules, even when he seems not to.”
In Norse mythology, Heimdallr was the guardian of the fiery rainbow bridge that led to the world of the gods. It made sense that the person who had served as the model for him would be a stickler for rules. Loki, on the other hand, was the god of mischief, who would supposedly bring about the end of the world. Freddy had a growing suspicion she was in over her head here. “So what are you guys?”
Loki cocked his head. “We’re us.”
She looked at Josiah, but he just shrugged again. “
Yep.”
“Gods?” said Freddy. “Demons? Elves? Angels? People who drank some magical water?”
“None of the above, as far as we know,” said Loki. “Do you always have to put things in little categories?”
“Yes,” said Freddy, but she changed direction. “You said you’d seen me a lot of times.”
“Quite a lot,” said Loki. “Isn’t the fire making an interesting pattern on the wall?”
“Twelve centuries, and still no attention span,” said Josiah under his breath.
“Don’t deflect,” snapped Freddy. “Why can’t we just go home?”
“We can’t,” said Josiah. “There are rules … understand? Time travel is impossible.”
“I bet he can do it,” said Freddy, jerking her chin at Loki.
Loki tore his attention from the patterns. “I couldn’t deprive you of the strange and wonderful adventure on which you are about to embark,” he said, making his eyes big and innocent. “Besides, I clearly don’t help you at this point. I wish I had a biscuit.”
Freddy glared at Josiah. “You say time travel is impossible, and then you say we pop in and out of history—”
“There are slightly less impossible ways we can manage,” Josiah conceded, “but it’s going to take us some effort to get back.”
“How much effort?” asked Freddy. “How long are we going to be … whatever this is?”
There were way too many significant glances being thrown around. She sat up properly, despite her head. “Just tell me.”
“I don’t know,” said Josiah. When she glared at him some more, he threw up his hands. “It’s true. I could tell you about all the encounters I remember, but as Loki said, there are others I don’t. And when we came—I mean, even if I did know, it would be better for you to know as little as possible. If I tell you what you’re going to do, you’ll fight it pointlessly. Things go wrong when people start thinking of the past as something they can change.”
Freddy said, “We’re changing the past right now.”
Josiah looked to Loki for help, but Loki had stopped paying attention and was gazing raptly at the ceiling. Josiah sighed. “Stop thinking like that, all right? There’s no way to change the past. There are no mystic rules about not killing your own grandfather. The past has already happened. You already did whatever you did in the past. It didn’t change the past; it made the past.”
“But I haven’t done it yet,” said Freddy.
“You haven’t done it yet on your personal timeline,” said Josiah. “Your personal timeline now has nothing to do with actual time.”
“Usually, I’m the only person who ever has to deal with any of this,” said Loki, coming abruptly back to earth, “and it doesn’t really matter for me. I eat paradox for breakfast. I’m also fond of waffles.”
“Waffles haven’t been invented yet,” said Josiah, “just for the record.”
Someone knocked on something, and Josiah and Heimdallr turned together towards what Freddy could just see, if she squinted into the murk, was a door. Heimdallr called out, and the door opened.
The man standing framed in it wasn’t very old; Freddy thought he looked eighteen or so. He had a beard, but it was short and wispy. He said something, giving it what seemed to be an interrogative twist. Heimdallr got up and went to speak with him.
“Bragi Whatsit?” said Freddy.
“Boddason, yeah,” Josiah said. “Three.”
“What’s all this Three stuff, then?” said Freddy. The panic was bouncing up and down and clamouring for her attention. Brutally, she shoved it away. It didn’t matter that she was twelve hundred years in the past. She just was.
“Well,” said Josiah, “it’s complicated. There are three of us, really. But you should finish your willow bark and rest for a bit.”
Freddy narrowed her eyes. Josiah didn’t seem to have got the hang of distracting people effectively.
She was about to protest when she happened to look over towards Bragi. Their eyes met, and he smiled. It was amazing how much meaning he managed to pack into that smile. She saw sheepishness and sympathy and understanding, all bundled up together. Yes, said the smile, I know this is insane, and I know exactly how you feel. Just grin and bear it. She found herself smiling back, though she thought her smile may have been more of a grimace and wasn’t sure it said anything besides Help.
In the meantime, she had given Josiah a chance to duck out on her. “I’ll be off, then,” he said, already halfway to the door. “Must pretend to help arrange things for the feast tonight.”
“I thought there was just a battle,” said Freddy.
“It ended with everybody swearing brotherhood and exchanging expensive gifts,” said Josiah. “I find it’s best not to ask. Do get some rest if you can. Bragi’s gone and heavily implied that you’re the goddess Freyja, initially due to a mispronunciation of your actual name, and you may find that people are curious about you.” Before Freddy could respond to this, he had nipped out the door, dragging Bragi and Heimdallr with him.
“He’ll explain about Three eventually, you know,” said Loki. “He’s a bit ashamed of getting you into this. I’m not sure why; he’s had millennia to get over it. I think I’ll nip in to see Cuerva Lachance. It’s been a while since we talked.” He turned and walked straight at the wall. Then he simply wasn’t there any more.
Freddy, alone, pulled the furs up to her chin. She slipped a hand into her pocket and wrapped it around her key. It wasn’t as comforting as usual. There would be no lock to fit it for twelve hundred years.
8
Josiah told her later that if they had stayed in her own time, he would have taken her to the hospital. There was more wrong with her head than the school nurse had realised. However, Josiah had also remembered her head injury from when he had met her before, and he had known she would eventually get better from it. She still thought it was stupid of him to have let her walk into the past with a head injury. There weren’t proper doctors here. There was mostly just Loki, who had given her willow bark and wandered off into the future.
Freddy tried to get up several times, but when she did, the room started going around and around, and she had to return to her pile of furs. She dozed off and on. Occasionally, Heimdallr or Josiah would be there when she woke up. They were attended by a succession of teenage girls who seemed to need an excuse to look at Freddy. The girls kept bringing her little gifts. Freddy soon had several small cakes and a collection of dried fruit sitting beside her furs.
She lost all sense of time. When Josiah returned and told her the feast was about to start, she had to force herself to think of it as evening. As far as her brain was concerned, it could have been any time at all.
“I don’t feel very well,” said Freddy. Everything had gone grey and tired.
Josiah eased a hand behind her back and slowly guided her to a sitting position. “I know, but we have to be there. We have a certain status here, and thanks to Bragi’s wild inventions, you share that. Besides, Loki’s vanished. The Jarl doesn’t take it as an insult only because he knows Loki’s Loki.”
“The who?” said Freddy.
“It’s the same word as ‘earl,’” said Josiah. “Very powerful man. We’ll see him in the mead hall.”
“I thought the mead hall got burned down,” said Freddy, who had confused memories of her arrival in this place.
“Singed,” said Josiah. “But that’s all been smoothed over now.”
The walk to the hall was through darkness, over packed snow. She had the sense she was moving between buildings, but she couldn’t see what they looked like. The entrance to the hall itself blazed with light. Freddy had been vaguely expecting something out of the Lord of the Rings films and was surprised to see a much cruder sort of building. It was certainly huge, but the timber that made up its walls was rough-hewn logs, not all of them straight and many of them blackened by fire. The roof was out of sight in the darkness. Torches were set around the hall’s main doors, which were fla
nked by several men in chain mail. Freddy, looking nervously at the people streaming towards the hall, felt underdressed. She had wrapped some of the furs from Bragi’s house around her shoulders, but really, she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Everybody else was in some sort of finery. Even Josiah, she was noticing belatedly, had changed out of his usual anonymous twenty-first-century wear and into a red tunic and a dark grey cloak. He looked completely natural. Freddy knew she didn’t. The men glittered with brooches, bracelets, necklaces, rings, and hair ornaments.
“My clothes aren’t right,” said Freddy as they stepped through into the hall. It was, as far as she could tell, complete chaos. There was an open hearth in the centre, so the hall was hazy with smoke. Running parallel to each of the two long walls was a table with benches drawn up to it. People were milling about, moving from table to table, while huge dogs ran back and forth across the hall, skirted neatly by short-haired women carrying pitchers. Freddy thought she could see a high table at the distant end of the hall, but it was hard to distinguish in the general confusion.
“No one will care,” said Josiah. “Let’s find Heimdallr and Bragi.”
Bragi was easy to find; he was sitting near the doors at one of the low tables. He looked as bewildered as Freddy felt. “He’s just young still,” said Josiah, “and he hasn’t earned much honour in battle. Well, he never really will, but he’ll end up famous in the end.”
Freddy racked her brain for some knowledge—any knowledge—of Vikings. All she could think of was Thor and Hägar the Horrible and mezzo-sopranos in horned helmets. She didn’t expect those were going to help her much at the moment. “They had a thing about fame,” was all she could ultimately manage.