The Strange Maid

by Tessa Gratton

  When my hair is dry enough I slowly weave my fingers through it. Its color is bland like ashes and driftwood, though afternoon sun can tease out darker honey-brown strands to set alight. Separating it into sections, I put it back into a braided crown and am near finished when I hear the uneven creak of Unferth on the stairs. He pushes through the thin door out onto the balcony and I keep braiding, my back to him. My fingers slow as he sets things down, and my arms burn from effort by the time he kneels behind me. His fingers slide into my hair and he undoes the braids, gently slapping my hands away. I lift my chin, but silently he pushes my head back down.

  While the sun sets, Unferth braids an intricate pattern into my hair that requires me to lend him the use of my hands to hold different sections at different times. When I try to speak, he grunts at me to be quiet and let him concentrate or my hair will be lopsided.

  The moment he’s finished, having stuck in the final pin, I move around behind him to return the favor. As I begin separating sections, his shoulders slump in a sigh. Pink blotches his cheeks and I know he’s already been drinking.

  An arrow of gulls flies past us; to the north I hear the rustle of the cormorants spilling out of their breeding ground. I want to talk, but resist it, though I playfully tweak a strand of his long blond hair between my fingers. He reaches up and skims his hand against mine for the barest moment of comfort.

  We at last both have intricate braids like the poets and queens of old, and I don’t know what to do next that won’t shatter this temporary peace. I sit back against the round wall and glance at what Unferth brought: a bearskin blanket and ham sandwiches and a nearly full bottle of lavender mead labeled with masking tape.

  I work the stopper free and pour a mouthful down my throat. The sweet alcohol brightens my insides. Unferth pulls my blanket aside and spreads the bearskin down instead. He sits and he drinks, too, before tipping the bottle over the edge of the balcony to splash some down to the faraway ground.

  “To the Glorified Dead,” he says, “all who are and those to come.”

  “Are you worried about Baldur?”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you afraid of?”

  He’s quiet and won’t look at me.

  I tip my head back to study the paling sky, a gradation of blue and violet, and accept the bottle when he offers it. For a while we pass it back and forth. I grow warm with the bearskin beneath us and with Unferth so close and the alcohol filling in the cracks.

  Without looking at him, I say, “It doesn’t matter that Baldur is missing. Or maybe it matters even more. In the morning, I go hunting.”

  He doesn’t respond.

  “I want you to come.”

  Still nothing.

  “And if fear is what made you stop last night, then … well. I guess I’m glad. I don’t want to kiss a coward.” At that last, I turn and he’s right there, face very near and shadowed in the evening light.

  “Really, that’s what you think,” he says.

  “I don’t know what else to think.” My voice is softer than I intend it to be.

  “Don’t you?”

  I force myself to say, “Unless you don’t … you don’t want to kiss me …”

  Unferth flips his hands in a little shrug. He says, “Often shall many men, for the will of one, endure suffering.”

  “Riddles, Ned?” I hug my knees against my chest, trying to parse what he means.

  To my surprise, he murmurs, “Isn’t the heart of every relationship a riddle?”

  There’s so much regret layered into his voice that I wonder, as I study the sharp line of his nose, the last sunlight gilding his eyelashes, if ours is a riddle for me to solve, or him.

  Unferth says, “So, in the morning you leave.”

  You. Not we.

  “You’re not coming?” The words are as tight as I can make them, lest my voice shake. “I thought that you’d be with me for it; I want you with me for it.”

  Say it, Ned. Say you want to be with me, too.

  “We can’t always have what we want.” His toothy smile edges toward triumph.

  “Why not?”

  “That isn’t how destiny works.” Unferth glances away from me, out over the ocean. “We’re bound by history and our circumstances, and sometimes all we can do is let it wash over us.”

  “I won’t let destiny drag me along like an unwilling victim. I will take it in my hands, Unferth. Like I did when I climbed the Tree. I did that.” My fingers are rigid as I grasp for the right explanation. “I won’t let anybody else make my destiny for me.”

  He gives me that grin again, the one that’s all teeth and

  longing. “That’s what will make you great, Signy, daughter of Odin.”

  I put my hand against his neck and caress down to the collar of this ragged red sweater of his I love so much. I start to slip under the cloth, pulling him closer to me, and he allows it, until our lips are a breath apart and he says, “Or, you’ll do something foolish and die young, never to achieve any glory.”

  I push myself away, then snatch the mead. The alcohol fills my mouth with secondary delight, gone too fast. I tilt the bottle so it sloshes gently, moving it in a circle until I find the same rhythm as the waves below. My head already swims, and when the sea wind blows I sway with it. The scar in my palm burns.

  “Signy.”

  I turn my head to Unferth. Our faces are so near I can smell the sweet drink wafting on the air between us. His eyes go silver in the moonlight. Chaos is plain in them, sharp as lightning. I inhale hard. It’s never been anything but truth in him.

  “Little raven, what is wrong?”

  “I’m drunk,” I whisper. Maybe I imagined it, and I can hear pounding, like hoofbeats on the sand. Sleipnir, the eight-legged beast, is coming for me.

  “You’ve been so before.”

  I try to tug away, but he holds on.

  “Signy.”

  “I see chaos in your eyes, Ned.”

  He freezes. It seems even the wind stops blowing and the waves stop crashing for a moment as he stares at me. I bring my hands up to his face and he grips my wrists like they’re saving his life. Like he wants me to save his life. “If you finally see my true, wretched worth, I beg you not to look further.”

  “Tell me what you’re afraid of, Ned,” I whisper.

  “Oh, everything, little raven,” he whispers back. One of his thumbs brushes over my lips. “But you most of all.”

  “Me?”

  “Signy the Valkyrie, too dangerous for her own good, who walks along the precipice of power and temptation. Longing to dive in.”

  I snort.

  But he keeps on. “Who sees into men’s hearts, who will change the courses of fate, serve at the Alfather’s side … Shouldn’t we all be afraid of the Death Choosers?”

  “Not you! Not when I—”

  Ned Unferth covers my mouth with his hand. “Don’t say anything you’ll regret.”

  “I won’t ever regret how I feel and what I want.”

  He laughs once, like a lazy dog. “If I can have a prayer, this is it: May Signy Valborn never regret.” He rolls the empty mead bottle against the uneaten pile of sandwiches, then lies down against the bearskin with his hands behind his head. He stretches, wincing as his right leg straightens. And then he opens his arm for me. Because I’m drunk, it takes little courage to put my head on his shoulder and close my eyes around the sliver of nausea poking in my stomach.

  We’re quiet again while the ocean continues to murmur, only hushed waves now against the shore. Unferth’s chest rises and falls against my cheek and he curls his arm around me tightly. I want more and more, but tonight this is enough. I close my eyes, thinking of what he’s trying to tell me with his riddles and open arms, thinking of Baldur and tomorrow and what choices I’ll make and whether he’ll be here to make them with me.

  Cold wind on my cheek wakes me. I’m alone in the dark, curled against bearskin on the tower balcony. Moonlight flashes red near my eye
s. I slowly focus on the pommel of Unferth’s sword. The one he brought with him across the moor, strapped to his back, the finest possession he owns. Once he said, This sword is an unhallowed blade. The style is old, a ring-sword with a relatively short, fat blade, a wide fuller, and a narrow crescent guard. A loose iron ring attaches to the pommel, which is embedded with a small round garnet etched with a tiny boar. That bloody eye is what winks at me in the moonlight.

  “Ned?” I call, sitting up and taking his sword in my hand. The smooth wooden grip is freezing. He never leaves his sword behind.

  A long sound like a faraway trumpet calls back. It echoes over our edge of the island and I pull myself to my feet. I lean over the rail and stare northwest toward Leif’s Channel. The howl comes again and again, layering atop of itself; an argument of low, deep screams followed by a roar I recognize in my bones.

  The signal cry of a greater mountain troll.

  TEN

  IN THE MOONLIGHT the trolls are like a river of ice and marble, shining white and blue and gray-silver as they roar past. The herd gallops over the black rocks toward Jellyfish Cove. Their path will not bring them here but will pass the tower by.

  I lean out over the railing, gripping it so tightly my knuckles ache.

  What are they doing here? So far south, across the channel! How did they get here? The ice is too broken up now; they should be migrating back north for the summer or hunkering down in their ruined cities.

  They could destroy the entire island. Panic squeezes my throat.

  I turn to the signal bell that, thank blessed Freyr, still hangs lopsided from its lintel. There’s no clapper, I know, or the hard sea winds would make it sound. I touch it, then slap my hand against the cold metal, causing only a dull noise that dies fast. My heart rages at me to get going, to leave it and run to town, but this will warn them fastest. That’s why it’s here.

  “Ned!” I scream, and turn in tight circles, hunting for a thing to beat the bell with.

  His sword is in my hand.

  Flipping it around, I grip it with the pommel down and take a deep breath before slamming it with all my strength into the bell.

  Pain jars up my arm, but the shock of the signal bell’s cry knocks me back into the railing. It reverberates through my skull and beyond, fading into silence. Even the troll cries are diminished.

  I hit it again, and again, and again. Gritting my teeth, letting tears of effort fall cold onto my cheeks. The warning bell fills every space inside and around me as I ring it until my feet are numb, until my eyeballs vibrate and my bones crack.

  It continues to sound as I run down the tower stairs with nothing but Unferth’s sword. I grab an armful of troll-spears from the disaster of a third level but can’t carry heavier swords or shields. We’ll have to make do.

  I burst out of the tower, crying Ned’s name again, but he’s not anywhere.

  The terrain is wet from melting snow and uneven. Cold air slices down my throat as I fight to keep running even as I slip and fall in the loose earth. Unferth’s sword weighs me down, and the spears are awkward in my arms. Hidden pockets of snow catch my feet and send me down hard. My wool dress becomes heavy at the hem with water and mud. I’d never make it if I didn’t know the way in all this darkness.

  The two kilometers from tower to town has never been so long. I struggle and pant, fear like lightning in my veins, but a thrill, too. The trolls came to me. They’re here. As if it were meant to be: my stone heart, served to me on a platter!

  If only I can remember my training and survive. The mother is the leader. Stop her, stop them all. Use my whole body against their weight. Stab, not slash. The eyes are a good target. Run.

  Fear and excitement in the same breath. Oh, Alfather, be with me.

  The first screams hit me as I round the hill that shelters the Cove from the harshest ocean winds.

  The herd has reached the festival site before me and half the booths are destroyed, two on fire.

  People and monsters dash madly about, flames casting deeper shadows, shadows that fool my eyes. I raise Unferth’s sword and throw myself into the terrible lunacy.

  A massive troll blocks my way, canceling out the moon. His tusks are sharp and straight down like a saber-toothed cat’s; he’s wider than Red Stripe and reaches for me. I drop all the spears but one and hook its butt under my boot. He charges into the blade. He howls, hot sweet breath blowing at me, and his weight shoves me and the spear back.

  I stumble under his weight but manage to lift Unferth’s sword and jam it up into his neck. It grates against rough skin as I drag it out again. I haven’t killed him—it’s not so easy—but as he grabs at his wounds I seize the scattered spears and run on.

  I have to find the mother. Stop her, stop the herd.

  Where is Ned?

  Firelight and smoke war with the moon to cast shadows and an argument of light into the fray. Trolls tear through the circus. They bash through walls and rip down the canvas booths. I see our Beowulf George in silk pajamas hacking at a pale gray troll with one of the warrior swords. The blade sparks against the hard skin.

  “George!” I scream. “Stab! Not slash! Lever it … with your weight!”

  I drop the spears again and crash into the troll from behind, Unferth’s sword an arrow in my hand. The point pierces through tough skin. George’s eyes are wide holes and he fumbles to follow suit. The two of us stab and hack, but the troll punches out, knocking George away with a roar and charging toward a few of its brothers.

  There are so many of them.

  I turn toward more yelling to see other actors caught in the attack. Some flee; some are stock-still, some fighting poorly. “Here!” I throw two of them spears and have three left. The first troll, gushing dark blood from his stomach and neck, comes at me again and I drop the spears to put both hands behind the sword. I thrust it with all my power, and he knocks me aside with a wild swing. My shoulder explodes and I hit the ground, its blood a hot mask on my face. It sticks my lashes together and I think of Valtheow, I think of Sanctus Hervor and her vicious fighting. Suddenly I’m flooded with more joy than fear.

  I suck in a breath of sticky cold air and get up.

  The herd heads for the Cove. I grab the discarded spears again, throwing them into whatever hands I can, using this flare of excitement to rally others. We run behind the trolls down the rocky hill toward town.

  Everything is alive with fire and screams.

  Coveys throw iron pots and use their own swords to attack, broken tables as shields. There’s a barrier built between two houses, and an actor helps me clear out the troll hounding the residents. He snarls at us and we both drive spears hard into his chest. He hits one house hard enough to shake us all but still lives, still swings back at us, baring his twisted tusks. “Get out!” I yell at the families. “Go to the docks; take the boats while you can!”

  Racing forward, I drive Unferth’s sword up into the troll’s softer neck. He falls back, dead weight nearly ripping the sword from my grip; the first one I’ve killed.

  A scream of victory feels like laughter tearing up my throat.

  Here’s Peachtree, a butcher knife in hand and human blood staining half her face. “Signy.” She grasps my arm, crying and choking. “Come on, we have to get out.”

  I take her face in one bloody hand. “Peachtree, gather as many people as you can and go.”

  She shakes her head desperately but obeys, stumbling away from me with her arms out.

  My eyelashes stick together when I blink, and my left shoulder and arm hurt with a constant pressure. My ears ring. I’m alone in a pocket of town where the battle has passed on. We’re barely killing any of them, even with my heavy spears. Our only hope is to keep them off until the sun comes and pray for no cloud cover. My body shakes with adrenaline, but already my legs are like lead. I might not make it until dawn.

  And where is Ned? He’s the only other person here who knows how to deal with these monsters. We should be fighting side by side
. Where did he go?

  The Shipworm. That’s where Rome and Jesca will be. Stepping over bodies, I run toward the center of town. In the darkness a troll looms up, reaching with his massive, crushing hands, and I swing my sword. He catches the blade. I rip the sword free, slicing open a shallow cut in the beast’s palm. He roars and I trip backward. I hit the ground. The troll looms over me, grabs my arm to haul me back up. An excruciating pop as my shoulder jerks out of joint. I scream and he puts his curled yellow tusks to my face and roars again. His fetid breath blackens my vision and I kick desperately at him, take his tusk in my good hand and yank. I punch him in the eye.

  He bellows his pain and flings me away before charging on.

  Loki’s luck and the cobblestones together jar my shoulder back into the socket. I scream through grinding teeth.

  There’s a metal taste clamped to the back of my throat. My fingers are numb, and thank Fate it was my left arm. I roll over, grabbing for Unferth’s sword. Purple blood stains the blade, is caught in the creases of the pommel, and runs down the fuller to drip onto the cobblestones.

  Pushing to my feet, I stumble toward the center of town again. Nausea pulls through my veins, and my skull throbs; my shoulder burns.

  The Shipworm is alive with light and people, surrounded by trolls waving fists and broken doors like threats. People are trapped inside, high up, who must have run for the roof instead of out.

  A sixth troll enters the courtyard.

  She’s bigger than her children, huge, five meters at least, white marble with gray and blue veins. Her stone skin gathers the littlest strands of moonlight and glows. She’s a ghost with flaccid breasts and silver rings piercing her nipples, her ears, her nostril. A looping collar of iron and bone hangs from her neck. Tusks spiral out of her mouth, ivory-yellow and curling gracefully, impractically.