by Laurie Dubay
I thought of his reaction to Loki, the hostility in his eyes. Of how my body had run cold at the sight of it.
“He’s better here,” she said quickly. “But he’s seen so much, so many mistakes repeated over and over. So much needless death and destruction. It would be enough to make anyone crazy. If we hadn’t all been so desperate, I would have been afraid to ask for his help. I'd probably have been afraid to approach him at all.”
I shook my head, my eyes narrow as I tried to imagine Bren in this light. Finally, I returned my gaze to hers. “I can’t believe he was so…”
“Scary.” She finished. Then she waved a hand at me. “But he’s different now. That’s the great thing about being here. You can have a past. In Asgard, we talk in the present…He fights in the battle, she marries this guy, I receive the dead…because it’s happening over and over. Here, I can say, ‘I tried anchovies on my pizza. I won’t eat them again. And I can rest assured that anchovies are in my past. How great is that?”
I smiled. Maybe I had taken some things for granted, but I wondered if Frieda understood how much we had in common with Asgardians. It was a mistake to get drunk, to date rape someone, to cheat on your wife, but people did these things over and over. I suddenly understood Bren’s frustration.
“Is it really so different here? Even after all this time?” But before she could answer, I had another, related thought. “Have you always been teenagers here? Can you choose that?”
She nodded. “There’s no physical aging in Asgard. Not as you know it here. Your outside sort of reflects your inside. We could change, if we wanted to, but this is how we’ve always felt.”
“What about Val? He looks almost my mom’s age.”
Her expression faded a bit. “He’s had a hard life. I think it’s difficult for him to leave it behind him. The memories.” She shrugged. “He’s never shown an interest in changing his appearance, and it quickly became apparent that we’d need a guardian, so it worked out.”
“Hm.”
We gazed out the window again. Two men in red patrol jackets had just arrived at the base of the mountain. They skied over to the lift and boarded it together, heading back to the summit. The snow on the pines lining the trails sparkled, reminding me of the huge evergreen at Ringsaker. As I listened to Frieda sigh, something nagged at me, some question I had meant to ask. I frowned and stared at my reflection in the window, filing through our conversation.
A sound like a handful of sand hitting the glass made us jerk away. We glanced at each other, then back out the window, and realized it was hailing.
Frieda hissed. “He’s a piece of work,” she said.
“So, this won’t be on the local weather report?” I asked, watching marble-sized ice balls ricochet off the window and back out into the night.
“The quake either.” She said. “Except maybe as some weird fluke they can’t explain.” She was restless now, biting on her pinky, her eyes shifting around the room. “I hope they’re okay. I guess I’d know.” Her speech was quick and light. She twisted her ring and as I watched her fingers worrying over the silver, my lost thought began to surface. I didn’t dare move as I reeled it in. A moment later, a chill puckered my skin and I arranged it into words.
“Frieda,” I said carefully. Her eyes flicked up to mine. “You and Skye, Dag and Val, Bren…none of you fought in the battle. Bren said you only needed one.”
I paused, watching her face soften. Her shoulders dropped.
“It’s Frey?”
She nodded almost imperceptibly, her eyes wet, and I remembered how she made Bren promise to stay with Frey, the agonized way she had looked at him. I didn’t want to ask what I already knew.
“Like Dag,” she said, a waver in her voice, “Frey is a great warrior. No one would choose to face him in battle. He’s smart, and so brave…” she shook her head. “But when he’s on the warpath he's as stubborn as a boar. You cannot tear him away until he has done what he has set out to do. Until it’s over. Even if it means…”
“Frieda I’m so sorry.” I interrupted her. I didn’t want her to have to say these things out loud. I wondered how many times she had watched her brother die in battle. It seemed like torture to me, to live knowing how much you would lose. This is why she had wanted to insure Frey’s protection, why they had all surrounded Frey and Bren during the quake. Frey was the break in the cycle, and Bren was braced in the gap, holding the two worlds apart.
Frieda laid her head back down on her arm, and I rested my chin on my hands and watched the hail, the apartment quiet except for the stiff, icy patter.
When the door opened, we both stirred and sat upright, our eyes drowsy with sleep. My mother stepped over the threshold, closed the door behind her and leaned against it, a thick wisp of hair hanging in her face. She sighed and gave us a weary smile.
“Hi girls.”
“Hi,” I said. “What are you doing back so early?”
“Early? It’s eleven o’clock.” She motioned toward the digital numbers on the microwave, but they were too far away for any of us to see them.
“What? It can’t be.” I said. I gave Frieda a pointed look and she widened her eyes at me.
“It is.” My mother lifted one foot, pried off her high heel, then did the same with the other. “Frieda honey, you’d better get home. Your uncle is probably wondering where you are.”
Frieda and I stared at my mother, then back at each other.
“Okay,” I said slowly, “I’ll just walk Frieda downstairs.”
My mother let her head fall to the side, gave me an impatient smile. “Come right back up,” she said. “I’m wiped and I want to go to sleep.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
I avoided Frieda’s frantic stare as we rose from the couch and walked toward the door.
“Bye, Mrs. Dewitt,” Frieda said as we stepped past my mom.
“Night, Frieda. And Jenna?”
I turned, my hand on the knob.
“Come say goodnight before you go to bed.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m just walking her to the lobby. I’ll be right back up.”
“Okay.”
I stared at her back for a moment as she walked into her bedroom, shoes dangling from one hand. Then we left the suite and headed downstairs.
As soon as we boarded the elevator and the door closed, Frieda turned to me, her emerald eyes glittering with panic.
“I didn’t think of this. I can’t leave you here. What are we going to do?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll go back up and wait until she goes to sleep, then I’ll meet you at the apartment.”
“No, Jenna, I can’t. I’ll be freaking out the whole time. And Bren will kill me.” She spun around in place like a cat trapped in a box.
I grabbed her arms. “Listen to me. I am going to be fine. This is a public place. Tell Bren we had no choice, that there was nothing else we could do, and that I’ll be there as soon as I can. My mother looked asleep on her feet so it shouldn’t be too long.”
The elevator doors opened and we stepped out.
“I’ll wait for you here.” She said.
“You can’t. If anyone sees you hanging around this late it’s going to look suspicious. I’m going to have to have an excuse ready as it is, in case someone sees me.” I made myself smile at her. “It’s going to be fine.”
At the sliders, she put her cell number into my phone and gave me a brief, fierce hug. “Just text when you’re coming and we’ll meet you.” She whispered. “I’ll die if anything happens.”
“It won’t. I’ll see you soon,” I whispered back.
Upstairs, my mother was already in bed when I poked my head into her room.
“Sleeping?” I asked.
“No,” she said. But her eyes were closed.
“Okay. Well, I’m going to bed. See you in the morning.”
“Homework?”
“Done.” I lied.
I hun
g on the knob for another minute, listening as her breathing grew heavy and deep, then closed the door without a sound.
I sat at the kitchen table and watched the digital clock on the microwave for twenty minutes, my book in my hand in case my mother stirred. Then I pulled on my new boots, grabbed Val’s jacket from the back of the chair and my snowboard from the wall by the door, and snuck out for the first time in my life.
Inevitably, Sydney looked up the minute I strolled back into the lobby. She gave me a confused smile.
“Weren’t you just here?” She said.
I smiled back and looked her straight in the eye. “Yep. But I’m brain dead today. I told Jeff I’d leave my board in the rack so he could tune it up tomorrow morning, which I forgot to do. And I was supposed to return a coat I borrowed from an instructor, which I also forgot to do.
“Can’t it wait?” She said. “It’s late.”
“He has a shift tomorrow morning.” I slowed and changed the subject, hoping to avoid any further lies. “I thought Mr. Neil sent everyone home. What are you doing here?”
She grinned. “I’m like a postman. I have to be here in all kinds of weather.”
I wondered what she’d think when I didn’t come back right away, but I couldn’t worry about it now. They were waiting for me.
Outside, the wind stung my face. The hail had slowed a little, but I felt it ping off Val’s jacket and the top of my head as I stole down the stairs as quietly as I could. I slid my board into the nearest rack and stopped for a moment, staring up at the outcropping where Loki had appeared just hours before. The snow was churned up all through the trees and at the bottom below the drop. When the wind blew again I turned, the hail hissing all around me, and started toward Bren’s apartment.
The firs beside the lodge provided shelter for a while, but when I broke into the clearing I was spattered once again. The night had an eerie glow beneath the jagged sheets of purple cloud that surrounded the moon. Tiny ice pellets jumped on the hard surface of the glittering snow, and made a hollow, rhythmic instrument of the wooden bridge just beyond. I listened to my footsteps, thinking how Bren’s would sound just a little slower, a little heavier next to mine.
Instead, I heard quicker, lighter steps from somewhere behind me.
I stopped and listened. Nothing. I pivoted, slowly, peering back into the trees behind the lodge as I moved, until I finally faced the bridge again. After a few seconds of silence, I began to walk.
Soft, rapid crunches followed.
I froze, held my breath and waited. Nothing. I spun again and stared into the evergreens. After a moment, I huffed out an exasperated fog, inhaled, and smelled something cold and musky, wild. Before I could identify it, a wave of sparkle began to ripple toward me from the pines. It was about waist height, and I narrowed my eyes to grasp what I was seeing. A glittering, undulating sheet of…something. I swept my gaze over the shadow that began to take shape around it, and fear flooded my veins as I stopped on a pair of bright, yellow eyes. An animal. My heart pounded. It had to be huge, and I could only think of a bear. But even in my panic I knew that bears usually hibernated in winter. Worse for me if there was something wrong with it.
Bren’s apartment was too far to run.
As I watched, one wide paw stepped over the line of shadow and into the moonlight, and then a giant dog emerged. It was white with a gray mask and ruff, and easily the biggest dog I had ever seen. It made a low, grizzly sound in its throat and I trembled and casted my eyes to the side. I tried to remember if I was supposed to make eye contact or not, if I was supposed to stay still or back away, and thought of something I’d heard about dogs responding to confidence. It was the only thing I could think of.
I sucked in a deep breath, straightened up, and faced the dog. The yellow eyes glared, a jag of white teeth flashing in its grin.
“Hey,” I said, my voice high and shaky. I tried again, forcing a sturdy tone. “Hey there. What are you doing out here in a hail storm? Where’s your person?”
The dog cocked its head to the side, took a step forward. I curled my fingers into my palms.
“I’m Jenna.” I said to the dog. “You’re huge, buddy. What the heck do you eat?” I shuddered. Rhetorical question, I thought at the dog, please don’t answer.
It took a few more steps. Its fur was dusted with hail and shone in the moonlight. This was the shimmer I had seen moving in the dark.
“Are you cold?” I asked stupidly. “Probably not. You look like you belong out here.” This time, the dog closed the distance between us and my knees went weak with fear. It was, indeed, waist height. It nudged my stomach with its muzzle once, twice, staring up at me impatiently. I reached out my curled hand, waiting until I made contact with its ruff to extend my fingers. Its fur was as soft as down, and thick. I buried my hand in it and scratched the muscular shoulder beneath. Unbelievably, the dog closed its eyes and leaned against my legs, and I had to readjust my stance to keep from falling over. “I’ve never seen anything like you,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Fenrir.”
I jerked my head up. A tall blonde stood before me in a white wool coat, collar turned up against the weather. Despite the angles of his face, he had a boyish look, his skin flawless and pale. His hair fell in long locks which stopped just above his shoulders, and one white gold wisp slashed his forehead and curved back to bluntly graze his jaw. His eyes were dark denim blue, and familiar.
He slid his hands into his pockets, pulling his coat open to reveal a black silk shirt with half the buttons undone. The trim, defined muscles of his chest suggested that he was probably in his twenties, but as I lifted my eyes to look into his face again, I guessed he was about eighteen.
“Fenrir,” I said. “Never heard that one. Is he friendly?” My fright had already begun to evaporate with the presence of the owner.
“Apparently,” he said. He stared down at Fenrir. The dog opened his eyes and stared back for a moment, then let his lids slide closed again. The blue eyes lifted once again to mine. “Are you?”
“That depends.” I knew him from somewhere, tried to picture him in one of my classes, or wearing an instructor’s jacket.
He pressed two fingers to his temple and extended them toward me in a gesture that looked like an apology. “Forgive me for terrorizing you in the middle of the night.” He grinned, his eyes gleaming. “It would’ve been more impressive if I’d done it in the day.”
I let out a nervous laugh. “You didn’t terrorize me. I just wasn’t expecting…”
“Beauty and the Beast?”
I jumped as Fenrir grumbled and glared over his shoulder. The blonde glanced down at him. “I didn’t say who was who,” he said to the dog.
I laughed again, unable to figure it out myself. I pushed my other hand into the dog’s ruff. “What kind of dog is he?”
The blonde paused for a moment, watching me, then said, “Alaskan Malamute.” He pronounced the words slowly and punctuated each syllable, as if he were reading it aloud.
“He’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” he said, not taking his eyes from mine. “It seems the feeling is mutual.” His voice was smooth and gritty at the same time, like fine sandpaper.
I glanced away, willing my face to stay pale and cool as I concentrated on sifting through the dog’s fur. He didn’t smell like a dog, he smelled more like the outdoors…tree sap and firewood and…pine. My fingers froze in the pelt. The scent was familiar and cut through my fog. I forced my gaze upward, straightening as I did so, and met the cool blue eyes once again. They were not nearly as dark as they were the first time I had seen them, but I knew them now.
I swallowed his name, didn’t want him to see that I’d recognized him, but the way his eyes had hardened and his grin had contracted into a tiny smirk told me that it was too late.
“Jenna, isn’t it?” He said, and as I watched my name form on his lips I felt marked. Ice glazed my bones.
“How do you know my name?”
I could not keep the waver from my voice.
“How do you know mine?”
There it was. The Asgardian way of questions for answers.
“What makes you think I do?”
His laugh was a deep, menacing rumble in his throat. The last of the hail shivered on the snow and fell silent.
“Because I can smell fear,” he said just above a whisper. He stepped toward me, his eyes locked on mine. Fenrir gave a small growl and shifted his body between us. “Easy boy.” He slid one hand out of his pocket, reached down and patted the dog’s side. “I’ve not forgotten my manners.”
He glanced over me, took in my stance, searched my expression. When he focused on my eyes again, his irises were the color of a hazy summer sky.
“At the risk of distressing you further…” He pressed his right fist against his heart and bowed his head, holding my gaze, “I am Loki of Asgard.”
After a long moment, he let his arm drop. “And now there are no longer answers to be questioned.”
He took another step toward me, his thighs connecting with Fenrir’s flank, and when the dog growled he gave a little hiss to quiet him. One of my hands moved nervously in the dog’s fur, the other clenching and unclenching at my side. Loki peered down into my face, his breath licorice sweet.
“So perhaps we can talk of other things,” he said.
I stared, transfixed as I watched his gaze go dark again, hazy blue wisps swirling in his eyes like clouds across a black moon. The shadows of his lashes drew down like iron bars over the twin night skies, and I was gazing out from a dank cell. Imprisoned. Longing to breathe the cold night air, run under the moon, stir the clouds into chaos. Despair choked the space around me and I feared drawing it into my lungs. I held my breath, my pulse rocking my body, and felt a hot tear brim.
Before it had the chance to spill and cool on my cheek, I was jerked backward and spun around, hands grasping my upper arms and shaking me. “Jenna.” Bren’s voice, and then his face, and then the tear was a smear on a perfect view. I wiped it away.