by Laurie Dubay
“And there was this group of liberals who wanted to stop the madness.” I said.
Bren laughed, the tension lifting from his face for a moment. He closed his fist on the flake in his palm. “Yeah.” He said. “So this group of gods had the idea that if they could find the god Ullur, they could get some good advice on how to do this."
“Who’s that?” I said. The names were getting stranger, and my hopes that a “Zeus” or an “Athena” would be thrown in were waning.
“Ullur was an ancient and very powerful god who had existed in time before the first cycle of Ragnarok. His vision wasn’t bound by the events of the cycle, so these ‘liberals,’ as you put it, thought he might know how to get around it. When they finally tracked him down and made their case for wanting to end Ragnarok, they found that Ullur had grown tired of watching the events of the cycle unfold over and over to no avail - and had maybe gotten a little bored-” he smirked at this, “and that he was willing to shake things up a little.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Uh, that’s not reckless or anything, messing around with human fate because there’s nothing good on TV.”
Bren held up a hand and laughed. “It wasn’t like that. He liked humans. It was just that up until that point he had seen so much of human nature – and god nature for that matter – that he had become too frustrated, and then disheartened, to intervene. Nothing ever changed, you know?”
“So what made him suddenly care?”
Bren shrugged. “There was a passion about this group of gods. The liberals.” He gestured toward me to give me credit for the phrase. “They meant it. They were ready to do something. Change things. I guess he was inspired.”
“So what happened?” I said it like I was indulging a kid who had just seen an action film, but I found that I wanted to know the ending.
“So Ullur told them what to do. He said that the cycle would be broken if even one of them who had played a part in Ragnarok left Asgard, because each time the battle occurred, each individual would have to fulfill his role for the cycle to be completed.” Bren stopped, allowed me to process.
“But there was a small catch.” He said after a moment, gazing out across the hills in the distance. They were no more than chalky shadows, the snow falling hard now. “If they wanted to leave, they had to make it across Bifrost, the bridge connecting Asgard to Earth. Crossing the bridge was forbidden, and if they made it, their powers would be weakened, meaning that any of them, individually, could be caught and hauled back by an older or stronger god.”
“Did they make it?” I nearly broke into his last word.
He gave me an amused look, then continued. “Ullur knew the only way they’d make it for sure was if he went with them. He was more powerful than any of the gods in Asgard. He couldn’t be taken alone if he was found, and he could protect the others if they stayed close to him. Also, Heimdall, the guardian of the bridge, was a good friend to Ullur, and Ullur knew that if it came down to it, he would let them pass. So they waited for a time when they knew there would be a lot of commotion in Asgard, and they escaped over Bifrost to Earth.”
He paused and a gust of wind rushed in my ears.
“They didn’t get caught?” I asked.
He clasped his hands together and looked down at them. “No.”
“So, what? They just ended up roaming around the Earth?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“So then why haven’t I heard of them?” I turned to face him.
He glanced up at me. “Maybe because you have an intolerance for bizarre names.”
I waited, confused.
“Volundur, Svipdag, Freyr and Freyja. Ring any bells?”
I shook my head. His gaze was heavy on mine. I felt a tense pressure, as though a teacher had asked a question I couldn’t answer and then let the class go silent, determined to wait until I got it.
“I’ve never heard of any of them,” I said.
He continued to stare and I focused on his eyes, the amber irises, the slightly lighter coronas ringing the pupils. They seemed to shrink and flare, pulsing. I heard the names in my head again. Volundur. Svipdag. Freyr and Freyja. A mental blink. Val. Dag. Frey and Frieda. The names of the gods, just changed a bit to sound more pronounceable. More human.
“So.” I said. “You guys are like, a cult or something? You’ve picked the names of your favorite Norse rebels and worship them?” I couldn’t figure out if it was a gaming thing, or some spin-off religion.
Bren’s expression was so intense I nearly turned away.
“We don’t worship rebel gods.” His body went still. It was as if he had turned to marble.
“We are the gods,” he said.
Chapter 14
I never, even for a second, thought he was kidding. The look on his face was as serious as that of a nuthouse inmate who shuffles around in his hospital gown and slippers telling people he’s been sent from the future, or that he’s Napoleon. My first, my only thought was that they were, indeed, a devout gaming sect…a group of role-players who had worked each other up to the point where they’d fallen off the edge of reality. Maybe their game involved GPS, which could have been why they traveled. I wondered how many more of them there were, and in how many other parts of the world. And then the disappointment deflated my chest and filled it back up with a dull ache.
Everything else about him was perfect. I might have even gotten over what had happened with Tyler. Or, maybe in the face of this craziness, their attack on Tyler just seemed more acceptable. But this last sentence – a thing he could not unsay -- was not something I could ignore.
He was watching me, motionless and pale, a ghost.
“You don’t believe me,” he said finally, nodding to himself with a wry smile.
I huffed and let my hand drop from the railing. My fingers were numb.
“You meant that literally,” I said.
He nodded again.
“Then no, obviously not.”
“Obviously,” he said. His tone was condescending. It made me feel common. Beneath him.
“Look,” I said, my voice wavering, “maybe you’re some gamehead who walks around in character and messes with people’s heads just because you can afford to live outside the box with your action figure friends, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to play along with you.” I pushed myself off the rail, folded my arms and brushed past him.
“Jenna.”
I could tell he hadn’t moved, so I stopped and stared into the snow. It was falling so hard that I could barely see the outline of the lodge ahead. When I didn’t turn around, I heard him take a step.
“Do you want to see for yourself?” He asked. And although it took me a moment to admit it to myself, I knew that I did… that I wanted, more than anything, for there to be some real explanation for what he was saying to me.
“What?” I said into the snow. “Are you going to outride everyone on the mountain? I’ve already seen that. It doesn’t make you supernatural.”
I heard him walk toward me, his footsteps muffled by the new layer of snow on the bridge. He stopped at my shoulder and we were silent for a moment. I listened to us breathe. Then he said: “Are you going to come with me? Or run away?”
I shook my head, incredulous that he had gotten the upper hand in the conversation. He had just given me enough lunacy to have a man in white come and scoop him up with a huge butterfly net, and yet now, somehow, I was the flight risk.
“What could you possibly show me?” I said in a long, white sigh, feeling the heat of him warm my back.
“Only one way to find out,” he said.
I waited for him on the bridge while he went back into the apartment. I wouldn’t have gone with him and he didn’t ask me to. A moment later he came out carrying his board and wearing a white jacket I had never seen before.
“What are you planning to do with that?” I asked in a flat voice, nodding to his b
oard.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “We have to get yours first.”
I shook my head at him. “You know I’m not good enough to ride with you.”
He grinned and walked past me, heading to the lodge. “Let’s go.”
It wasn’t the command that got me moving this time. It was his expression. Confident, patient, expecting me to trust him. I had learned in these last few months not to believe in words, but I was still conditioned to rise to expectation.
Bren waited at the bottom of the stairs while I plucked my board from beside the lodge doors where I had left it. I glanced through the glass, but my mother was nowhere in sight. When I returned to where Bren was standing, he turned again and started walking. I trudged along behind him.
We rode down the bunny hill -- Bren swiveling at a graceful creep behind my choppy, angled run – then picked our boards up at the bottom and walked past the lifts for the terrain park and the raceway. The lines were long, and loose groups of skiers and riders milled around at the bottom of the runs, but nobody even glanced at us as we passed. Finally, we came to the very last lift on the north face. It was closed, its empty chairs rocking in the snow. As we moved toward the hill, a row of towering evergreens obscured us from the other runs and the bunny slope beyond.
Bren looked at the sky for a moment, then bent, his russet, snow-laced hair hanging in his face, and buckled into his board.
We seemed to be playing a little silence game, so as he stood upright, I crouched and buckled my own feet in. I felt a momentary flutter of terror at the thought of getting off the lift with both feet trapped as I rose.
The seconds formed and overfilled like drips from a faucet.
Finally, I broke.
“I’m not riding up that lift with you.” I said. “I know you guys play with the lifts after hours and you don’t ever seem to get caught, but I’m not doing that in the middle of a busy day. My mother works here,” I added, crossing my arms. It was a good excuse. My father always said you never messed with a person’s livelihood. Although taking advice from my father about messing with someone’s livelihood was just about as stupid as following a snowboarder with a god complex onto an abandoned run.
Bren waited. When my eyes found his, he said: “We’re not taking the lift.”
This should have calmed me, but instead, I felt another shot of terror. I stiffened to hide the panic.
He waited again, but I hung on. We stared into each other’s eyes, one mirror gazing into another.
Finally, Bren took a long, deep breath, held it for a moment, and said, “do you want to change your mind?”
No fear, I thought. But I was afraid. That I would not be the same when this was over. That nothing would.
I shook my head. Bren nodded, then hopped until he was directly behind me, the front edge of his board nearly touching the back edge of mine. A second later, I heard his voice low in my ear.
“No matter what happens, no matter what you see, just listen to what I tell you. And trust me.”
My stomach trembled.
“Okay?”
I nodded once, inhaled a ragged breath as he coiled one arm around my waist, and closed my eyes at the feel of his fingers pressing into me. As I began to imagine him trying to slip me some mind-altering drug - Special K or Tussin, or some other health class warning – in the hopes that my eyes would roll back in my head and I’d start screaming that he was right, he was a god, and that I wanted to join his cult, the ground began to vibrate beneath us.
Bren pointed up the mountain. It was rippling, first slightly, the way things do when you try on someone else’s glasses, then more intensely, forming perfect white waves which continued from our feet all the way to the visible crest. I clutched his arm.
“Easy.” Bren said in my ear, dragging out the word in his smooth voice.
I think I might have started a syllable -- what or how -- but lost it as the peak of the hill began to sink with increasing speed toward its own center, as though a pole had been pulled from the middle of a tent. I had one last thought that this was some roofie-related hoax before the ground heaved toward us in a tidal wave and I was sure I was going to die.
But instead, the swell met us in a gentle roll and lifted us onto its back.
I grabbed Bren’s arm with both hands, my gloved fingers scrabbling at his sleeve. He made a shushing sound as a breeze blew back my hair, sending a burst of snow into my face to cool my flushed skin. Rising on this new peak, I saw that the former crest had become a valley, and that the terrain on the other side was uncertain, still wavering, as if waiting for our focus. His grip around my waist tightened and he rocked me back, our edges carving twin arcs into the newly churned powder as we glided down into his world.
Bren made every move, pulling my board with his like a kid doodling with two crayons in one hand. He took us down the first valley and around newly formed curves, the snow whipping at our faces, the ground rippling and falling, the trees and rocks riding the shifts as if they were rootless, floating. I was shaking, my legs weak, and as we approached the stream that ran alongside the raceway, Bren said, “don’t freak,” and tightened his hold on me again. We vaulted off a small rise that appeared out of nowhere and soared high into the air, the stream tumbling beneath us. I was scared to look down and couldn’t help it, the scene too enticing, and for a moment I just stared, inhaling the frosty pine scent of the air and feeling the cold sting my nose and ears.
As I glanced further upstream I saw a giant tree looming before us, getting larger in my vision as we neared it. Suddenly, it was so huge that it blocked out almost everything else in view. I finally found my voice.
“Stop!” I screamed, transfixed, unable to close my eyes against the impending crash. But all at once the tree arched to one side, its green, conical head bent in a low bow as we sailed past.
“Okay?” Bren asked. I didn’t answer, just closed my eyes and swallowed hard.
When I opened them again we were headed for another pine, but this time Bren tapped the trunk with the tail of his board to send us in a new direction, and we cleared the forest and landed on more rippling snow. As the peaks grew larger, we gained speed until we finally reached what I had, this morning, considered the summit of the mountain. Here things settled. The ground flattened and we scudded along for a while, heading away from the lifts where we wouldn’t be seen.
We stopped on a ledge overlooking the valley on the far side of the mountain. The view here was endless hills stretching back into the sky like a thousand scoops of vanilla ice cream. When we dropped down on the snow just below a ridge, Bren drew his legs up like he had this morning, to keep from nicking my board. I sat and watched my hands shake. Minutes rolled by.
“Okay?” He asked.
I looked at him like he had spoken another language. In my mind, I was turning in a circle, my hands rooted in my hair, searching for bits and pieces of anything I could hold onto. I grabbed at the first thought that came to me.
“I thought I was hallucinating.”
Bren turned to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him searching my face.
“This morning,” I said, my voice weak. “I thought I was hallucinating when I was watching you all at the terrain park. But I wasn’t. It was real.”
“It was real.” He said.
“I saw it,” I said, sounding hysterical even to myself. “I saw the trees move. I saw the hill change. I saw you…” I shook my head. “I was sitting right in the middle of it all this morning, and I didn’t believe it.”
“No one does.” Bren said.
“What you told me back there on the bridge,” I went on, freezing more thoughts into words before they escaped. “It was true?”
He nodded and looked down at his board.
I stared out at the hills, trying to remember everything he’d told me from beginning to end. About Asgard and Ragnarok. About the cycle of destruction. About gods fleeing their home to inhabit a strange place where they were no longer who
they were before. And what I found, to my utter amazement, was that I believed him.
I glanced at Bren, sure, at first, that I was convincing myself of a lie because I wanted to be with him so badly. But what beliefs did I have that I couldn’t stand to part with? The truth was, I could think of no other explanation for what he had just shown me. And more than that. The story he told me on the bridge was his own, but really, it was nothing I hadn’t heard before.
“Okay,” I said, watching the snow fall around us. My shaking had begun to let up.
“Okay?” Bren asked.
I turned to him. He had raised a brow, but his expression was grave.
“Okay. It is what it is.” I took in a long breath and sighed. “I’ll have questions once I recover.”
Bren stared at me for a moment longer, then nodded and gazed out over the valley.
“I want to show you something,” he said.
Chapter 15
This time, I was ready for the world to change. As we took off again, heading away from the north face, I tried to pay attention to the details. To the radius of Bren’s influence - which depended on where he aimed his focus and how far ahead - to the flexibility of the trees as we wove our way through glades and over small ridges, to the way jumps seemed to spring up before us whenever Bren wanted air. I never wanted air. The loss of solid ground knocked the wind out of me. It was worse, in some ways, than losing my view of reality. These seemed to be Bren’s favorite moments though, carving through the voids with perfect control, creating our future on the ground below second by second, with razor precision. He was at home in the sky.
As we left a stand of trees, a huge swell rose before us and once again we launched, crossing a run at an altitude that made the skiers and snowboarders cruising their way down the mountain look small. The thought turned to stone and dropped into my stomach. People.
“They’re going to see us,” I said, leaning back against Bren to make sure he heard me. I had lowered my voice instinctively.
His hair brushed against my face as he spoke. “They can’t.”