Chapter Nineteen

[Midgard]

Carsten ordered five days of rest, and at first that seemed like it would never be enough. I was absolutely flattened. I felt sore and afraid. I wanted to go home very badly and if it hadn't been for the hope that Vidar might return, I probably would have. My world had been twisted on its axis and I couldn't make sense of what had happened to me. Beliefs can hold their integrity through a lot, but chip away and chip away at them, and eventually they start to shiver and dissolve. How much faith we maintain in them becomes dependent only on how tight we hold on. I was white-knuckling by then. As my body recovered, I dealt with my fear by not thinking about it. I pulled all my notes into bed with me and worked at my thesis with white-hot single-mindedness. When I couldn't read anymore, I lay there with my eyes closed, performing meaningless calculations by importing Mum's lottery numbers into some of my key formulae. By Wednesday, I couldn't bear the thought of another day in bed. So when Gunnar dropped by to tell me that an afternoon tea for Gordon's fiftieth birthday was planned for four o'clock, I insisted that my missing it because of illness would be petty considering the percentage of Gordon's entire life so far which an hour's tea break represented. I got up and dressed.

"Hear that?" Gunnar called to me from the lounge room while I wriggled into my panty hose in my bedroom.

"What?"

"The Jonsok. That's the sound of Matthias and Nina leaving."

"So soon?" I called, with a fake tremor of sadness in my voice. I pulled on a turtleneck and a pinafore, carefully tucking the good luck charm out of sight.

"They'll be back, don't worry. They come four times a year."

I was a little shaky on my legs, but I was certain that was attributable to being so long in bed. I joined Gunnar in the lounge room. "Once every thirteen weeks precisely, or at irregular intervals?" I asked.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he said.

"I feel fine."

"You look very pale."

"I'm naturally that way," I said self-consciously. "Do you think Carsten will be cross with me?"

"Attending an afternoon tea isn't particularly taxing," he replied as we closed the cabin door behind us.

"I'm sure he'll understand."

Carsten stopped me in the office and insisted on listening to my lungs before letting me go to the rec hall for afternoon tea. By this time, Gunnar had already gone ahead and Magnus accosted me in the galley.

"You're better, then?" he asked gruffly.

It was the first I'd seen him since the accident and I was taken aback by his lack of warmth.

"I'm feeling a lot better, thank you," I said warily.

"Good. I need you back at work on Friday."

"Friday? But you promised five days off."

"You've had four," he said, looking genuinely puzzled.

"Yes, four sick days."

"It's not my fault you were sick on your days off. I'll need you on Friday." Then he bustled past me and, of course, 1.2 seconds later I thought of the perfect response, which was,

"Actually it is your fault I was sick on my days off because I had to save your son's life while you were busy shagging the cook." But it was too late, he was in the rec hall and I could hear him laughing and being his usual congenial self with Gordon. I was as baffled by his bluster as I was by Maryanne's pointed frostiness when she offered around the scones with jam and cream.

"Why do you think Magnus and Maryanne are being so cold to me?" I whispered to Gunnar when I could guide him discreetly into a corner of the room.

Gunnar was matter-of-fact. "Frida told me that Maryanne told her that Magnus had confessed to a secret desire for you, and that Maryanne has forbidden him from your company so long as he wants to keep sleeping with her."

It took a moment for all this to sink in. "Gunnar, there's a gossip code of conduct," I said. "If you hear gossip about a friend, you are honor-bound to inform them of it immediately."

"I didn't want to worry you. You were sick," he said, and bit off a huge chunk of fruitcake.

"Magnus fancies me," I groaned. "Just what I need."

"Who can blame him?" Gunnar said through a mouthful of cake. A few crumbs sprayed out down the front of his shirt.

"I need a drink of water," I said.

"Get me a champagne, please," he said, picking at the crumbs.

I ventured toward the bar, ably manned by Josef and Alex.

"One champagne, and one glass of your finest desalinated water," I said, resting on the bar. Carsten leaned over my shoulder. "I wouldn't recommend alcohol just yet, Vicky."

"It's not for me, it's for Don Juan," I said, indicating the corner where Gunnar stood, attempting to cram the rest of the fruitcake into his mouth in one piece.

Carsten moved on. Alex handed me two glasses and leaned close. "Don't eat the soup!" he said, with a dramatic lift of his eyebrows.

"What?"

He flashed his big white teeth and indicated Maryanne. "Whatever food she serves you is bound to be laced with poison."

"Is everybody but me in the loop?"

Josef joined in. "Carsten told me that Magnus told him—"

I held up my hand. "I don't want to know. Thanks for the champagne." Everything I hated about the mating instinct was embodied in Magnus's oiliness, Gunnar's quasi-romantic fumblings, and the eager, knowing gazes of the others, starved for excitement and glutting on speculation about my love life. In those precious quiet moments with Vidar, love had seemed so far removed from such mundanity, it had seemed something divine and eternal and grand.

As Gordon's birthday party morphed into Wednesday night drinks and beyond, I remained the only sober soul on a ship of drunken fools, which made for a change if not an interesting one. Josef was scheduled on the night shift, and Alex and Gunnar fetched blankets from the storeroom, proclaiming loudly that they were going to stay up all night in the control room too. Everyone else took this as a cue to go to bed, but I was not ready for my own company yet. I joined them, cautiously sipping a glass of flat, room-temperature champagne while sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Josef switched all the lights out so that the room was only lit by the glow of the computer screens. Gunnar and Alex shared drinking stories until Josef joined us.

"What's the time?" Alex asked, yawning broadly.

Josef checked his watch. "It's after one. You can go to bed, I don't mind being by myself."

"But it's a party," Gunnar said.

"The guest of honor left two hours ago," I noted.

"It's not a party for Gordon," Gunnar explained. "It's a party for you, celebrating the fact that you didn't drown on Saturday."

"I'll drink to that!" Alex said, raising his glass.

Gunnar was too drunk. He was leaning cosily against my shoulder.

"Well, yes, I'm very pleased to be alive," I said, shifting a few inches to discourage him.

"I thought you were going to be victim number three," Josef said.

"Number three?"

"We lost one in the lake in '84, one in the control room in '92." The numbers poised in my mind's eye, waiting to be employed in some pointless long division. I drove them out. "I knew about the drowning. But here? In the control room? What happened?"

"None of us were here then, so I don't know," Josef said.

"Wasn't it a heart attack?" Alex offered.

"I doubt it. He was only twenty-five."

"I'm sure I heard it was a heart attack."

"Now how does a twenty-five-year-old man die of a heart attack, Alex?" They bickered about this for a while, and I tried to hold my uneasiness at bay. I was angry at Gunnar for bringing it up. Denial was my new best friend.

"I bet he was nagged," Alex declared finally, a wild gleam in his eyes.

"Hagged?" Gunnar asked.

"You know. The old bitch that comes in if you dare to fall asleep in here." Mention of the hag made me feel cold and twitchy. "Yeah, but that's just a sleep disorder," I muttered.

"Really common."

"Especially common in here," Alex said, leaning forward. "You're not scared, are you?" My hand instinctively went to my throat, where the charm rested under my turtleneck. "No. But it's scary when it happens, you'd have to agree."

"I have a confession," Josef said, lying down and resting his head in Alex's lap. "You know the thirty-minute timer?"

We all nodded. He meant the timer that reminded us every half hour to check the wind direction, temperature and barometric pressure. It was the most annoying noise in the control room, intrusive and insistent.

"It has four volume settings. I have it set to the loudest, just in case I fall asleep in here and she comes. It always wakes me up before she can—"

"Steal your breath," I finished for him.

"Josef, you're so full of superstitions," Alex snorted. "It's just a dream, you know."

"I know," he said.

"The best way to deal with nightmares is to face them head-on," Alex said. "It's unconscious material trying to get your attention. If you ask this hag what she wants, you might get a very insightful answer."

"Listen to us," Gunnar said. "Telling ghost stories in the dark like teenage girls."

"I'm going to bed," I said, standing and hugging my arms around myself.

"I'll walk you back to your cabin," Gunnar said, a hopeful gleam in his eyes. That gleam disappeared when I left him outside my cabin door without even a kiss on the cheek. I sat on my sofa and peeled off my shoes and panty hose, thinking about what Alex had said. Dreams were unconscious material that needed to be sorted. If I could believe that, then I could believe that Skripi was some kind of metaphor for one of my problems that I wasn't dealing with. Lord knows, there were enough of them. My mother, my love life, my obsessive calculating… But could I overcome my natural aversion to all things pop psychology by engaging in some self-directed dream analysis? It sounded like the kind of solution Mum would suggest to a problem. Ask your higher self, dear. What was important here was that I had to do something. I couldn't endure another day of math gymnastics. So what if the Queen of the Skeptics intended a little experimental dream therapy? Nobody would have to know except me.

Ignoring my dreams of Skripi was probably making them more insistent. Next time, I would do as Alex suggested, I would face him head-on.

"Take one step toward a mystery, Vicky, and it will take one step toward you." This was my mother's favorite saying to trot out whenever I tried to convince her that supernatural influence was really just coincidence.

"Doesn't it seem odd to you, Mum, that you dreamed your spirit guide was Cleopatra directly after you watched a documentary about Cleopatra?"

"Not at all! Seeing the documentary probably woke my sixth sense. Take one step toward a mystery…" And so on.

I vowed I would face Skripi and, shortly after I fell asleep that night, the familiar feeling of blue moonbeams was cool on my face and I wasn't in my bed anymore. I sensed that if I kept my eyes screwed shut and willed myself, I could be back there and fast asleep again in seconds. Instead, I gathered my courage in both hands and opened my eyes. I was standing just beside the window of my cabin, on the outside, looking into the forest. Moonlight fluttered above me as clouds swept overhead. I was cold and afraid, but I stood firm.

A rustle in the undergrowth.

"Who's there?" I called, and my voice was a thin, scattered echo in the dark.

"Will you run away this time?" A little voice, childlike and sad.

"Skripi? Is that you?"

He detached himself from the shadow of a crooked tree and tried a tentative smile. "You invited me into your dream."

I studied him closely for the first time. He was the size of a ten-year-old child, but there was something not-quite-human about his face: his irises were oily and black, his teeth were softly pointed, his nose and chin reminded me of a fox, and his hair looked like fine twigs. He wore a ragged brown tunic and pants, and dirty fur boots.

"I suppose I did," I said. I glanced over my shoulder at the window, but the curtains were drawn. Still, I knew that if they were open, I'd be able to see myself, warm and cosy in my bed.

"Why did you want me? Can we be friends?" His eyes lit up eagerly and he took a step toward me, his pointy fingers reaching out.

Instinctively, I flinched backward. "I'm facing my fears," I said. "I'm trying to deal with whatever unconscious material is making you appear." As the words left my mouth I recognized them for the overrationalizing nonsense they were, and I nearly lost my nerve and woke up. "So who are you?" I said softly.

"I'm Skripi. I'm a wood wight. I once lived in Idavíd, a forest in Asgard, but now I live here with my brother and my sister."

"You have a brother and sister here?" I glanced around.

"The draugr and the hag," he confessed, kicking the ground with an embarrassed toe.

"You're related to them?"

"We all come from Idavíd. We'll never get back there."

I thought about asking him if the draugr was the collection of weeds and fingers I had struggled against in the lake. He answered as though I had framed the question aloud.

"Oh, yes, that was the draugr. He would have made you his bride. But Gunnar had eolh." He held his hand up in a stop gesture, and it looked similar to the rune on the stone. "You see, you see? I told you it was important."

"Why are you here on the island?"

"The gods in Asgard put us here, all three. They sent down the hag and the draugr because they were wicked, and I had to go too because I'm related." He shook his head sadly. "We can choose many things, but family are thrust upon us."

"I understand," I said, thinking about my mum. Was this the message my dreaming self was trying to convey to me? "So you're here as some kind of punishment?" I asked.

"Yes, and we're also here to scare the humans away, but they don't scare, they stay. Nobody believes in us anymore." His eyes grew serious. "We are real, and my brother and sister would love to collect your soul."

"What would they do with it?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe just put it in the lake for always. It's cold down there. And dark." He crossed his hands over his chest and shivered. "You have to listen to me. I'll keep you safe." I stood there for a few quiet moments, gazing at him, half-formed questions shifting across my mind. I began to feel vague around the edges and realized I might be slipping out of the dream. "Skripi," I said quickly, "is Vidar real?"

With a jolt and a shudder, I felt myself collide with wakefulness. I opened my eyes in my warm bed and took a gulp of air.

Far away, I heard a whisper.

Everything's real.

I flung back the covers, dripping with sweat, and hurried to the window. I pushed the curtain aside and pressed my face against the glass. I could see nothing but moonlight and shadows, and a strange disappointment washed over me.

My breath fogged the glass. "What if none of it's real?" I murmured, and an empty ache for Vidar spread hollow fingers in my chest.

I didn't get back to sleep that night and, at first light, I headed over to the galley to make myself some breakfast. When I slipped through the door, Maryanne was searching for something in the pantry.

"Good morning, Maryanne," I said.

She jumped nearly a foot in the air and shrieked. Then when she saw it was only me, her hand went over her heart. "Oh, you gave me a fright."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to." I noticed that dark circles were smudged under her eyes. "Are you all right?" A battle between wanting to freeze me out and wanting to confide in me played out on her face. She paused for a long time, blinking rapidly: 1.8 blinks per second.

"Maryanne? Has something happened?"

"I heard the strangest noises last night…" she started, in a soft frightened voice.

"Last night?" I remembered Skripi's gleaming black eyes in the dark. "What noises?"

"I'm sleeping in Magnus's cabin at the moment," she said. "It's near the edge of the forest. I heard noises. He didn't wake up. I looked out the window and I saw…"

I realized I was holding my breath. "What did you see?"

"I don't know what it was. A twig-man. Then he dived into the bushes and was gone. It was like something out of a nightmare."

An icy shiver tiptoed the length of my spine. "Perhaps it was a nightmare." She shook her head. "There are bad things on this island, Vicky. The forest is haunted." I couldn't conjure a single logical explanation. Maryanne and I had dreamed the same thing.

"Vicky," she said, her eyes growing troubled, "you didn't see anything, did you? Or hear anything?"

"Me? No," I said too quickly.

She narrowed her eyes. "Because… I thought I heard your voice last night, before I saw the twig-man."

"My voice? Don't be silly."

Footsteps and voices in the rec hall alerted us to the approach of others.

She turned away, dismissive. "Forget I spoke."

For an instant I was lost in a frightened stupor. I wondered if I were going insane. I wondered if I'd imagined everything, including Vidar. Somehow my body kept functioning: my heart hadn't stopped, my head hadn't exploded, I was able to put bread in the toaster. Maryanne returned to the pantry and normality seemed to be reinstated for the moment.

"Victoria?"

I turned to see Magnus standing behind me.

"Good morning," I said, attempting to smile.

He didn't respond with one of his own. "Some new transpiration sensors arrived yesterday. I want to install mem in the instrument field. It's your area of research, so if you'd like to help…"

"I'd love to." Work—that would sort me out. I could add up figures and make observations and draw conclusions and my head could be full of something other than impossible events.

"Vicky should probably have one more day in bed," Carsten said.

"I'm fine, really," I said. "I'm going crazy in my cabin."

"Carsten, give Victoria another physical this morning. Vicky, I'll be heading to the clearing around nine. I'll meet you out there." He strode off, still without smiling at me.

"I'll see you directly after breakfast," Carsten said.

It was only when Carsten and I were safely behind the door of the sick bay, and he was shining that little torch in my eyes again, that I worked up the courage to say, "Carsten, is it possible for somebody to go crazy within a couple of months of arriving on Othinsey?"

He laughed. "It usually happens much quicker than that."

"I'm serious. The isolation. Has it been known to cause psychological problems?"

"What kind?"

"Imagining things? Dreaming strange creatures? A feeling that everything you believed in is made of paper and pipe cleaners?"

Carsten sat back on the edge of his desk. "Are you asking for a medical opinion? Because I'm not a doctor, and I'm certainly not a psychiatrist."

I shook my head. "Just an opinion, then."

"A lot of different people have come to this island over the years. Some of them say it's haunted, some of them don't. Whether or not that's related to the isolation, I can't tell you. But you're certainly not the first person to worry about it." He gave me a reassuring smile. "You've had a shock too. You nearly drowned, you lost consciousness. I can tell Magnus that you need a few more days in bed if you like."

"No, I'd rather be busy." I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. "I'm a bit frightened."

"I'm sure everything will be fine. Perhaps you have been locked away in that cabin for too long." He gave me a fatherly pat on the shoulder. "A walk in the forest might be just what you need." Just what I need.

I stood at the edge of the forest, knowing I had to go forward, but unable to take a step. I sensed something bad in there, something rotten and cold and primeval that I hadn't sensed before. It was as though last night, calling Skripi, had opened up a gate that had been bolted tight in my mind since I arrived on Othinsey. That forest was haunted. And while this was a notion I would have scoffed at in the past, I knew it to be true with a certainty as deep as the ancient tree roots. But my boss was waiting, and he was already impatient with me. So I had to go in. Deep breath.

One foot in front of the other, I counted my way into the trees, estimating distances between trees based on how many footsteps were needed from one to the next, converting the distances to metric, coming up with a mean, dividing it by my age, multiplying it by how many fingers Carsten had… And all the while, my breathing shortened, my heart hitched and sped, my shoulders pulled tighter and tighter. Then Magnus's voice rang out from the clearing. "Victoria? Is that you?"

"Yes," I called, hurrying my footsteps. "I'm coming."

I arrived, flushed and breathlesss, a few moments later. As I crossed into the clearing, my anxiety wound tighter.

Magnus glanced up irritably. "You're late," he said.

"Sorry," I managed, forcing my voice into an even line. My hands felt damp, I wiped them on my jeans.

"What can I do to help?"

"I want you to check the temperature and humidity in the moss at ground level," he said, pushing a box of equipment toward me with his toe. "I'm going to take foliage temps in the aspen understory." All this translated to me crawling around in the dirt while he worked nobly among the trees. Fine. It gave me something to focus on, to drive out the needling anxiety.

I left Magnus sorting out his climbing ropes and harness. A morning breeze moved branches and leaves, the ocean roared in the distance. I breathed deeply, forcing my shoulders to loosen, concentrating on the moss. I moved along the forest floor on hands and knees, taking samples, strip-testing them and writing down the results. A warm sunbeam shot onto my shoulder. Long minutes passed. I looked up and realized that I had arrived at the foot of the anvil-shaped rock.

With sudden brightness, images and sounds and feelings overpowered my brain. For a moment, I wasn't Victoria. Scott, I was somebody else. Panic had crushed my lungs, horror and despair squeezed through my veins. I had been running, but now I had fallen. I turned. Silhouetted against the sun was a massive figure, any detail stolen by the bright light behind him, an axe raised above his head. He was huge, male, smelled of sweat and blood and steel. He was bellowing at unbearable volume. In the distance, dogs barked madly.

I screamed, cowering under my arms.

Magnus was looking down at me. "Victoria. What's wrong?"

In an instant, everything returned to normal. There was no mad axe-wielding man, only neat slim Magnus wielding a digital thermometer and wearing a safety helmet.

"I thought I saw…" I couldn't finish the sentence. My heart was racing and my throat was dry. Magnus drew down his eyebrows. "What's all this about, Victoria?" His voice was suspicious. I could feel my lower lip tremble, but I was damned well not going to cry in front of Magnus again. "I'm sorry, Magnus," I gasped. "I thought…"

"Is this some kind of plot? Are you accusing me of something?"

I was genuinely bewildered. "Accusing you?"

"It would be your word against mine and I didn't touch you, and I have a number of people at the station who would attest that you have been pursuing me"

I sat back on the mossy ground, completely disoriented by the searing moment of terror. "What are you saying?" I spluttered.

"Girls like you don't get far," he said.

"Girls like me? I don't know what you're talking about."

"You think they heard you screaming back at the station? Is that it?"

"No, I screamed because I thought I saw—" A noise in the forest behind me made me whip my head around and shriek. A petrel took to the sky.

"Victoria?" Magnus said, his voice growing concerned. My terrified face finally broke through his self-justifying rhetoric. "Are you sick?" He reached out to touch my shoulder and I flinched away, scrambled back against the rock.

"I have to go back to the station," I gasped, hurrying to my feet. "I can't stay out here."

"Wait, wait," Magnus said, and this time he grabbed my arm firmly and held me still. "Is this the first time you've been out here since you fell in the lake?"

I nodded.

"I think you're having a panic attack, Victoria. I want you to breathe very deeply into your hands. Five times."

"I need to get—"

"Breathe!" he ordered. "Come on… one… two…"

I did as I was told. I focused on Magnus's eyes and breathed into my hands. The dizziness receded. Magnus was right—it was the first time I'd been out here since the incident. I'd been flat on my back in bed for a long time, too. Perhaps it was just a garden-variety panic attack.

"I had a hallucination," I said through my hands. "It terrified me."

"Hallucinations can sometimes happen if you're sleep-deprived. Have you been sleeping properly?"

"No, I haven't," I said..

"I think you'd better have the rest of the weekend off, start work again on Monday." He released me and I dropped my hands. "You shouldn't have come out if you weren't feeling right."

"I was feeling right. Until I came out."

"I want you to tell Carsten what happened, get him to check you over again." Then he added grudgingly,

"We can always send you home if you think you need some time off." That sounded like the best sense I had ever heard. Home. London. Mum. My own bed. No more twig-men and haunted forests.

"I'm sorry if I've upset your plans," I said.

He waved away my apology, and produced no apology of his own for accusing me of a false sexual harassment claim. "I'll walk you to the station. We can finish in here another time." The thought of returning to the site filled me with horror, but I told myself to be calm and that things might be very different after the weekend.

I was right.

It rained all weekend and I stayed in my cabin. Gunnar brought me food and five-years-out-of-date trashy magazines from the rec hall and offered to keep me company. I told him I needed some time alone to think. I turned Magnus's idea of going home over and over in my mind until I became obsessive about it. This meant I slept incredibly poorly on Sunday night, waking and dozing, never sure where I was or what time it was, plagued by awful dreams about dogs pursuing me, about the forest reaching out to grasp me, about bright-hot blades and big hairy men. When I opened my eyes in the grey dawn, they felt gritty and sore.

I dressed and slipped outside to head to the galley for breakfast. Before I had placed even one foot on the cement slab, I saw it perched on my doorstep.

A wooden carving of a wolf.

And scratched into its jaw was his name. Vidar.

Chapter Twenty

I was heading for the trees, my dread of the forest suddenly vaporized, when Magnus rounded the corner and saw me. "Victoria? You're well then?"

"I'm…" For a moment I was completely bewildered. I had come to associate Vidar with being alone on the island. Magnus's presence seemed like a mundane aberration; the moment in the cinema when somebody accidentally switches on the houselights. "I'm much better, thanks," I managed.

"Obviously. Off for a walk in the forest?"

"Um. No," I said. Then added, "I thought I saw a cat."

"I'm sure you didn't. There are no cats on Othinsey." I laughed nervously, wondering how I was going to escape from Magnus to find Vidar. "Trick of the light," I said. "Just as long as you don't have another hallucination like Thursday's," he said, without a trace of pity. "I'll walk you to the galley. I need to talk to you about today's tasks."

"Today?" I said, following him. How could it be possible that today I had to do anything other than look for Vidar?

"The boreal research unit at Oslo University have asked us for preliminary transpiration and flux figures from our instrument field. I thought you could do the calculations and submit them." At another time, that task would have been a dream: all day tucked away in a quiet corner with tables and figures and formulae. Today, it seemed like a form of torture.

Magnus walked ahead of me. I lagged back, glanced longingly over my shoulder.

"Are you coming, Victoria?" he called.

"Yes, yes, coining," I said absently. I figured if I could rush through the job, Magnus might let me wander off at lunchtime.

My mind was everywhere but on the task. Magnus explained the process in excruciating detail, then left me alone for a few hours to do the sums and fill out the online forms. By lunchtime I still hadn't finished. Magnus brought a sandwich to my desk, looked over my shoulder at the form I was about to submit and shrieked in horror.

"What's wrong?" I said, nearly knocking the plate off the desk.

"What formula did you use for these?" he asked.

I showed him, he went pale. "Please tell me you haven't sent these."

"I've sent about three-quarters of them," I said.

"Victoria, it's the wrong formula. What were you thinking? That's not even the right table." I looked at where he was indicating on my calculation sheet, and felt myself grow warm and squirmy with embarrassment. I had been so unfocused, I had made the kind of error a slow-witted undergraduate makes in a first-year exam. "Magnus, I'm so sorry. I mustn't have been concentrating."

"I'll phone them," he said, his voice brusque. "I'll tell them our trainee is having a few problems with her math today." He turned to pick up the phone. The conversation that ensued was in Norwegian, but I was in no doubt from the tone of his voice that I was being described in the toadiest of terms to a very eminent climatology professor. I started recalculating, wondering when I was going to be able to get away from all this petty rubbish and out into the forest to find Vidar.

Time crawled. The drizzly afternoon darkened. I fixed the calculations, found myself caught up with Carsten going down the stairs, was dragged to the rec hall by Gunnar for dinner, then finally… finally…

I got away.

I slipped into my cabin to tidy my hair, grabbed some blankets, then headed off quietly into the forest. Smells enveloped me: pine needles, damp earth, sea salt, rotting foliage. I can't explain it, but the horror of the forest had dwindled to nothing, as though Vidar's presence neutralized all fear, all danger. I followed the path to his old campsite and was dismayed to find it empty.

I stopped, turned a full circle. Branches dripped, the drizzle intensified, emptiness tapped a finger on my heart.

Then I smelled smoke.

"Vidar?" I called, following the scent. "It's me, Victoria." I hurried through the trees, soon seeing the glow of a fire through shadowy branches.

Vidar was sitting on a log next to the fire, his head bent so that his long hair fell forward to hide his face. Two large animal skins had been strung above him to protect his camp from the rain. He looked up, pushing his hair behind his ear, and gave me a guarded smile. My heart filled with air. I know him, I know him. The feeling was so intense that it hurt me.

"Hello, Victoria."

"Hello, Vidar." I moved nearer. He was wearing the strange clothes again. "That's a weird outfit."

"Not where I come from."

I sat next to him, dropping the blankets at our feet. "Where do you come from?" He lifted his eyebrows. "Asking questions already?"

A loud noise from the trees made me jump to my feet, my hand over my heart. "What's that?" He took my wrist and pulled me gently to my seat. "Don't be afraid. It's only Arvak."

"Arvak?"

"My horse."

"You have a horse in here? How did you… ?"

He touched a gentle finger to my lips, then withdrew it reluctantly. "Once more, I can only say that I will explain everything to you, but not now."

A horse. Then it was obvious that he had never left, that he must have been on the island all along, living in the forest unnoticed. "When will you explain?" I asked.

He tilted his head as though considering. His black eyes gleamed in the firelight. "That depends on what happens next."

I laughed. "This is crazy. You say crazy things but I keep letting you get away with it. Why do I feel that way? Why do I feel like I know you?"

"You do know me. We met last month."

"No, no. Like I know you from before!"

"How long before?" he asked, turning to the fire.

"Before… I don't know." I watched his profile. "Before everything," I whispered, feeling myself falling out of time again. It didn't matter that the bright lights and humming instruments of Kirkja Station were just twenty minutes away. With Vidar, I felt as though I were somewhere dark and silent and lush; in a place that had long been banished from the busy, chattering world. Anxieties and questions and calculations melted away, became profoundly insignificant.

He didn't answer. Instead, he knelt before the fire and added another log. I could see the muscles in his shoulders through the red-brown cloth of his tunic. Desire caught my breath on a hook, yanked it out of my lungs.

"Did you bring the blankets for me?" he asked, without facing me.

"Yes, I thought you might be cold. Or wet." I looked up at the roof of skins above us. "But I hadn't reckoned with your Boy Scout skills."

He gave me a bemused look. "What's Boy Scout?"

"I'm sorry, you speak such good English that I assume you know everything." Vidar settled in front of the fire and pulled one of my blankets over his knees. "Will you stay for a while, Victoria?" he asked.

"Oh yes," I replied, and spread out the spare blanket next to him. I lay on my side and gazed at the fire.

"But it's going to be a long evening if you don't tell me anything about yourself." He nodded slowly. "I can tell you some things," he said. "But there are important things that I—"

"Can you tell me about where you live?" I asked. "When you're not here in the forest, that is."

"I live at a place called Gammaldal."

Finally, something to hang on to. Something to know him by. "Go on. What does it look like?" He closed his eyes to conjure it in his imagination. "It's a tiny farm two miles from a calm bay. A colony of gulls lives amongst the rocky cliffs which lead to the headland. Some mornings it's very misty, as though the clouds have grown weary of staying in the sky and have descended to sleep on the land. My home is behind a deep slope. The grass is lush and green, and in the warmer months wildflowers spring up all over it. On summer days, the sun spends a long time on that slope, and the shadows of clouds race over it, and the birds come from inland, and bees hum and catch the light on their wings. Over the other side is a still fjord. Trees grow all around it, so it's often in shadows. There is a shallow shelf if you enter the water from the east, but it's deceptive. For when you step off the shelf the ground slopes away to a terrifying depth. The water is very dark, still but not serene. I sense there are things moving many fathoms below the surface. It's a mysterious place."

"And what kind of house do you live in?"

"It's just a small house, made of wood. I built it myself."

"You built your own house? Wow. I couldn't even knit myself a pullover."

"I like to be busy. I like to work with my hands and body. Otherwise, I think too much." He sighed. "My mind betrays me."

Moment by moment, he was becoming a person. As he opened up, I felt myself opening up to him.

"What do you do all day?"

"There are many tasks to be seen to. Mending the fences, milking cows, sowing in spring and reaping in autumn, fishing and hunting."

"Do you live alone?"

"I have no neighbors for many miles. But I have a… friend living with me. Her name is Aud." I held my breath. He had hesitated over the word "friend." Was she an ex-lover, an ex-wife? "Tell me about her," I said.

"Aud is very beautiful, and very accomplished, but she is very sad. She's a long way from her home and family, and she has come to rely on me very heavily. I think she has feelings for me that I can't return…" He leaned forward to poke the fire and I sensed that he was embarrassed. "I can't bear her sadness sometimes, and I try not to see it. Instead I try to be kind to her, but sometimes my kindness hurts her."

"Because she wants more?"

"I think that if she were back home with the people that she loves, she would soon forget about me. She's young."

"So why doesn't she just go home?"

Vidar shook his head and dusted his hands off. "It's too complicated to explain." He nodded toward me.

"What about you? Where do you live when you're not on Othinsey?"

I talked a lot. Maybe I talked too much. I told him about the upstairs flat at Mrs. Armitage's, with its peeling floral wallpaper and noisy pipes; I told him about my best friend Samantha and about the mad holiday we'd taken once to Paris; I told him about my years of hard labor toadying to rude tourists at London Bridge Cafe. I even told him about Patrick and Adam and how I'd agreed to marry each of them simply because everyone around me expected it.

"But you didn't love either of them?" he asked.

We were on dangerous ground, and I chose my answer carefully. "Perhaps I did. But… not enough."

"How much is enough?" he asked, his dark eyes holding mine steadily. The rain intensified overhead, dripped mournfully off the sides of the skins.

"I never felt lifted out of my life with either of them," I said. "I never felt as though I were anything more than a collection of flesh and bones named Victoria, wandering about the planet like everyone else. It wasn't enough."

A long silence ensued. Vidar watched the fire, I watched Vidar.

Finally, he said, "Enough love touches your soul." He took a deep breath and his voice sounded sad. "It's older and brighter than the sun, and it's ancient and always new."

"Exactly," I said. Or at least I think I said it. An image laid itself over my vision; another hallucination, but this time it wasn't frightening at all. In it, Vidar and I stood at the edge of a stony beach, the sun setting on us, deep orange and dazzling. My hands were in his and I felt an intense and profound sense of connectedness: to Vidar, to myself, to the sun, to the earth, to time and the tides. Then the vision was gone and I was back in the drizzly forest. I pressed my fingers into my eyes.

"Victoria? Are you unwell?"

"Weird things have been happening to me ever since I arrived here," I said. "It usually frightens me but tonight I'm not frightened."

"Why not?" he asked, though I sensed he already knew what my answer would be. I met his gaze. "Because you make me feel safe," I said.

His brows drew down and his eyes grew intense. "While we sit here in the forest together, you are safe," he said. "But, Victoria, I can't protect you from everything."

A cold fear touched me on the toes. "What do you mean?"

There was a sudden thump and rustle which made me gasp and snap my head around. A chestnut stallion emerged from the trees. "Oh, God, he frightened me," I said.

"It's only Arvak," Vidar said, rising to go to the horse.

"I'm afraid of horses," I said.

"Why?" he said, stroking Arvak's nose.

"They're just so big and smelly."

Vidar gave me an amused smile. "Not so loud, Arvak's very sensitive." He beckoned to me with his free hand. "Come here. I'd like you to meet him."

I rose warily and made my way over to the edge of the cover. Arvak was wet and, I swear, giving Vidar a mournful look. I touched his nose tentatively. "He doesn't look happy."

"He's used to a warm, dry stable." Vidar rubbed the horse's ears. "Aren't you, old friend?"

"Have you had him a long time?"

"Since I was a boy."

I didn't know much about horses, but this didn't seem to add up. Arvak was not one of those saggy old horses with grey whiskers. "How old are you?" I asked.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven."

"I'm a little older than that." He smiled, his eyes twinkled.

"You're being all mysterious again," I said. "What's your star sign?"

"I don't know."

"When's your birthday?"

"I don't remember." He patted Arvak on the neck and sent the horse back into the woods.

"What's your mother's name?"

"Her name is Grid."

"What's your father's name?"

All smiles were withdrawn. "I cannot tell you."

I shrugged. "I can't tell you my father's name either. Mum's determined to keep it a secret, even though I keep trying to frighten her with the possibility of me accidentally marrying a relative one day." I sat back on the blanket. "I'm a Virgo, September 3, by the way. I don't believe for a second you don't remember your birthday."

"Where I come from, only children celebrate birthdays."

"What about Christmas?"

His face darkened. "Nobody celebrates Christmas." He sat on his log again and considered me in the firelight. "Nobody would dare to mention Christ."

The possibilities raced through my head. Religious cult? That would explain the clothes. Vidar leaned forward and touched my knee lightly. "I can see you guessing, Victoria. And I can tell you for certain that whatever you're guessing is wrong."

I glanced at my watch. "I should go," I said reluctantly. "I'm working tomorrow, and I'm already in trouble with my boss."

"You'll get wet if you leave now," he said, as the rain intensified overhead. "Stay until the rain eases. If you need to sleep, you can curl up there by the fire."

I needed little persuasion. "If you don't mind me staying…"

His voice was very soft. "Victoria, I would have you by me all through the night." A warm flame of longing ignited within me. I was gripped by a desire to go to him, press my mouth against his, slide my fingers under the rough cloth of his shirt to find the hot skin beneath. "I will stay," I said. "Right here. And sleep by the fire."

"Good."

But I didn't sleep, and neither did he. I talked, and he talked too, carefully but warmly. He told me stories from his childhood, stories about his mother, recited me some poetry in his own language, told me how much he despised his brothers, and explained how to build a house. I told him nearly everything that was important about me, and many things that were unimportant. We talked until our voices seemed to detach from our bodies and echo between the trees. We talked until my eyes were gritty and my head ached from tiredness. Strange feelings found paths through my body and mind, and I wondered, cautiously, if I were falling in love.

Pale light streaked the sky and I had to go.

"Tonight," I said. "I'll come back."

"I'll wait for you," he replied.

I reluctantly headed back to the station, hoping to catch a couple of hours' sleep before breakfast. I slept for four hours; I was late for breakfast. Nobody was in the galley to mind, however, and I still had fifteen minutes before I was due to start my shift. I smeared my toast with marmalade and slurped my hot tea, reliving the night's sweet moments in my imagination. "Vicky? You're up late." I turned around to see Gunnar, with four empty coffee cups, making his way to the sink.

"Yeah," I said. "Couldn't sleep last night. I only dropped off around five." I indicated the cups. "Cleaning out your cabin again?"

"Yeah," he said, opening the dishwasher. "You missed all the excitement this morning."

"Excitement?"

"Maryanne's lost her mind," he said, without humor.

I smiled. "What are you talking about?"

"Now she sleeps in Magnus's cabin, she swears she hears noises in the forest all night. She says she's being haunted."

I thought about Vidar and Arvak out there. "Wouldn't it just be the wind making noises? Or animals?"

"I think she's become a little obsessive. She doesn't sleep, she sits up at the window, watching." He sat down at the kitchen table with me. "She told us this morning that she's seen monsters in the forest. She looked insane. Her hair was unbrushed and her eyes were…" He did an impersonation of Maryanne, paranoid glance darting all over the room. "She says that she's heading home next time the Jonsok comes. Magnus looked positively devastated."

"Do you think he loves her?"

"I think he loves shagging her."

"It's not quite the same thing." I checked my watch. "I have to get to work. I'm in hot water with Magnus." I took my plate and cup to the dishwasher and headed for the door.

"Vicky," he said.

I turned to him. "Yeah?"

"You look nice today."

"Thanks," I mumbled, and left as quickly as I could.

The rain poured down all morning but had lifted by the afternoon. One or two brave stars even managed to peek through after dinner. I made my excuses and went to my cabin, grabbed the extra blankets and sneaked off into the forest.

When I arrived, Vidar was saddling Arvak.

"Are you going somewhere?" I asked, dropping the blankets by the fire.

"We are," he said, adjusting the bridle and patting Arvak's flank. "I've decided to cure you of your fear of horses."

"I can't ride a horse."

"You don't have to ride him. All you have to do is hang on to me." An ache moved up my ribs. "I can do that," I said.

He turned to me and smiled, put out his hand. "Come on."

The saddle seemed a long way up, but once I had my arms around Vidar's middle and my cheek pressed against his back, I decided the fear was worth it. Vidar pressed his hands against mine on his stomach.

"Hold on very tight," he said. "Don't let me go."

"I won't." Ever.

"Are you ready?"

"I am."

His hands withdrew, he picked up the reins and we moved. I held my breath.

"We'll leave the forest slowly," Vidar said. "We can pick up speed when we reach the beach." Pick up speed? It already felt as though the world were moving past in a blur. I closed my eyes and tightened my hold on Vidar. A few minutes passed like that, then Vidar's hand patted my own again. I opened my eyes. We were emerging from the trees. The ocean was hammering the beach, a pale blue half-moon hung in the sky between silver-rimmed clouds.

Vidar leaned forward and said something to Arvak in his own language, and we took off. I shrieked, but it was lost behind me. The wind roared in my ears, the tangy air froze on my lips and nose. The ground beneath us seemed to give way, then catch us again. Overwhelmed with sensation, I opened my mouth and laughter poured out of me. Vidar said something to me, but I didn't hear it. The motion and the cold and the sea were exhilarating. We sped through the night like souls escaping the gravity of living.

Finally, reluctantly, we slowed.

"We're about to run out of beach," Vidar said, indicating the rocks a quarter mile ahead of us. "Let's rest and make a fire."

I nodded, heedless of the knowledge that he couldn't see me nod. Arvak stopped and Vidar helped me down. He had brought kindling and firewood, and in a few short minutes had a fire going. Clouds had moved back over the sky and I watched them nervously. Rain would ruin everything.

"You look worried," Vidar said, settling on the sand next to me. Arvak wandered back toward the trees.

"It might rain," I said.

"It might not." He smiled at me, and I sensed that he was growing much more relaxed in my company. He stretched his arms above his head and heaved a sigh. "I love to ride. It fills me with wild feelings."

"Wild?"

"Wild and melancholy. Like happiness."

"You think happiness is wild and melancholy?" I asked.

"Don't you?"

I considered for a few moments. Then said, "I don't know. I'm not sure if I've ever been happy. I mean, it's more than just the absence of sadness, right?"

Vidar took my hand in his and turned it over, palm up. "Of course it is. It's wild. And it's melancholy." He traced a tiny circle on the inside of my wrist. "Your skin is so soft."

"Thank you," I said, but my voice seemed to come from a long way away. I wondered if he would kiss me. I was convinced that if he did, I would probably die.

He didn't kiss me. He dropped my hand gently and wrapped his arms around his knees, almost as though he regretted touching me in the first place.

"Why melancholy, though?" I asked.

"Because anything that causes deep joy casts the shadow of its possible loss." His gaze was far away to sea. I knew for certain one of those shadows preoccupied him at that moment. I watched his face for a long time: his straight nose, his broad forehead, his serious eyebrows, and his soft dark eyes smudged with some weary anxiety he wouldn't disclose. I felt wild feelings, and melancholy ones too.

He turned, saw me watching him, and an expression crossed his face: intense, desperate, lonely. I was certain he was about to say something to me—something profound and familiar that might reveal a hidden truth about the universe—but he said nothing.

Instead, he said, "Tell me why you're so fascinated with the weather." I found myself talking again, trying to cajole more details out of him with limited success. The rain set in around midnight, so we went back to his campsite and curled up among the blankets. We talked and we shared long silences, and he didn't touch me again, nor mention happiness. I spent the entire night in a state of heightened physical awareness, as though my body were preparing for any possibility: to ran away, to make love, to die. Dawn threatened a grey glimmer through the drizzle and it was time for me to leave again.

Vidar stood when I did, and hovered uncertainly while I packed up the blankets.

"I'll be back again tonight," I said.

"Victoria, how do you feel about me?"

At first I thought I hadn't heard the question right.

I paused, a few silent moments. His face was soft in the firelight, shadows gathered around him.

"I shouldn't have asked," he said quickly.

"No, no," I said. "I'm glad you asked."

He took a step forward and picked up my left hand. He pressed it against his chest, his heart beat beneath my fingers. "Victoria," he said again. "How do you feel about me?" I was overcome by conflicting thoughts and couldn't make a coherent answer. Part of me, the part that had two broken engagements behind her, warned me to be wary. "I don't know, Vidar. This whole thing is mad. I feel like I've known you forever and yet I know so little about you."

"I've told you many stories now," he protested, dropping my hand.

"But you've kept so much a secret," I said, feeling that this exchange was going very badly, that I'd ruined something beautiful and perfect.

He shrugged. "I understand. I will see you again this evening."

"Good night," I said softly.

"Good morning," he said, smiling ruefully.

I turned, I walked away, I took a deep breath. I felt wild and I felt melancholy. It wasn't happiness; it was love.

I stopped, glanced over my shoulder. Vidar was tightening the knots on the animal-skin tarpaulin above him.

I wavered a moment.

Then walked back to him.

"Vidar?"

He saw me and dropped his arms. "Victoria?"

It seemed that even the dark forest held its breath.

"Vidar," I said, reaching for his fingers and for my courage. "Vidar, I love you." With a sharp breath, almost as though I had wounded him, he seized me violently in his arms. I could hear his pulse thundering through his veins as he pressed me against his chest. Then he tipped my face upward and placed one hot, gentle kiss on my chin. I tried to return his kiss, but he pulled away sharply and touched a finger to my lips.

"No," he said, "not yet."

"Not yet?"

"Tonight," he said, his dark eyes glinting in the firelight. "Tonight I'll tell you everything."

Chapter Twenty-One

I walked, dazed, back to Kirkja, going over the possibilities in my mind. He was royalty, he was a fugitive from the law, he was escaping from a cult, he was a figment of my imagination. I wondered if my feelings for him would change once he had revealed his great secret. The old me, the love-shy London girl who had arrived at Othinsey a few short months ago, would have a cynical quip waiting on her lips for fools like me. You don't even know him. He could be a murderer. You're thinking with the brain between your legs.

She would be profoundly wrong. The love I felt was deeper than the Atlantic, and more powerful than its fiercest currents. The sight of the station up ahead between the trees confounded me for a moment. My mind had to force the connection between my night in the forest with Vidar and the daytime mundanity of my work. I shook my head to clear it, felt in my pocket for my key.

Just as I broke from the trees, Magnus stepped out of his cabin and spotted me.

"Victoria?"

"Good morning, Magnus," I said, and I know that I looked guilty. I know that my eyes didn't meet his, that I kept my head too low, that my voice gave away my desire to pass unnoticed. None of these things were lost on him.

"What are you doing in the forest this early?" he asked.

"I've been out for a walk."

"It's barely dawn."

"You're up," I said, as though that explained everything. If he was out of his cabin, then why shouldn't I be?

"I'm getting tea for Maryanne. She's had another terrible night." He nodded slowly. "And I'm starting to think I know what caused it."

If I'd slept at all, I might have retained enough wits to grasp what he was implying and neutralize his impression immediately, but I shook my head, and in a too-innocent tone said, "What do you mean?" His eyes flared with suspicion. "In my office. Thirty minutes," he said, pointing an accusing finger at me.

"What?"

"You heard." He was stalking away from me in the grey half-light. I watched him go, realized that he meant he had identified me as the nighttime menace about whom Maryanne had been complaining, and called out, "No, Magnus, it's not me." He didn't hear me. "Shit," I said, unlocking my cabin. I had really been hoping for a nap before work. I was absolutely knackered. I gazed at my bed longingly with my gritty eyes, as I changed and tried to tidy my hair. Sleep, sleep, I needed sleep. I needed Vidar. I needed to curl up in his arms in front of the warm fire. The last thing I wanted was a confrontation with Magnus.

I hurried over to the station. Magnus sat in his office chair, fingers steepled together like he was some international criminal mastermind in a James Bond movie. I don't know whether the pose was genuine or an affectation. I sat down, tense and cautious.

"I know it's early, but I thought I'd save you the embarrassment of seven other people witnessing this. And besides, you were already up."

"I was hoping to get some sleep before work," I said.

"So you were up all night?"

"You know that I sleep poorly. I went for a walk early. Magnus, I hope you're not implying that I'm deliberately trying to upset Maryanne because—"

"I'm not implying anything. I know what's going on. It's quite clear. You're trying to scare her with strange noises in the night. You know she's gullible."

I shook my head vigorously through this whole tirade. "No, no! Magnus, I swear to you, I've not done anything to Maryanne. I've not been making strange noises near your cabin, I've no reason to do anything like that."

"No? Not jealousy?"

I was stricken into complete silence for four heartbeats. "Jealousy?" I gasped at last. "Magnus, you're nearly twice my age."

This was entirely the wrong thing to say. His face flushed deep red.

"Victoria, the facts before me are these." He struck them off violently on his fingers. "Maryanne moved into my cabin; she started to hear frightening noises in the forest directly afterward; she mentioned having heard your voice once; I caught you this morning in the forest near my cabin before dawn. I may be an old man, but I am not a stupid one."

I was too tired to gather energy for a fight, even in the face of his infuriating allegations. I shook my head again. "No. Not me. I sometimes hear noises in the forest too. You're neither an old man nor a stupid one, Magnus. I don't mistake you for either. I'm tired. I just want to go to bed." His lips twitched into a cruel smirk. "It's nearly time to start work."

"I've got four hours—"

"I'd like you at work at seven. I have a lot for you to do today. It's nearly six, so you'd better have some breakfast." He shot out of his chair. "I'll speak with Maryanne. I expect you to be here waiting on my return."

So he was going to make me do penance. I returned to my cabin for a quick shower and a cup of coffee to wake me up.

A helpful Gunnar brought me breakfast in the office before leaving me alone with snake-eyed Magnus. He was smart enough not to give me any tasks that involved complicated thought processes. Instead, I spent the day rewriting file labels in the storeroom, yawning until I longed for bed. The hours crawled, time lost its shape, and my head throbbed. By afternoon tea, I could see the prize: quitting time, bed for a few hours, then back to see Vidar.

But Magnus still had another surprise up his sleeve.

"Victoria," he called archly, as I was heading to the rec hall for more coffee.

"Magnus?" I replied, turning and forcing a civil expression.

"Gordon is ill," he said. "He was scheduled on the night shift." My mind tried to grasp the personal ramifications. "And… ?"

"I'd like you to do it instead."

"But I've just worked all day."

"Go to your cabin now, have a few hours of sleep," he said. "I just want to make sure that you're not free to go wandering in the forest tonight."

"I keep telling you, Magnus—"

"If you're so adamant it's not you making the noises, then you should be happy for a chance to clear your name."

I fought to comprehend. No sleep. Work all day. And now the night shift? What about Vidar? What about his secret? What about the hot kisses he promised me?

"Victoria?"

"I simply can't, I—"

"Refusing isn't an option," he said, leaning close and dropping his voice to a harsh whisper.

"But Carsten always schedules at least—"

"Carsten is not the station commander. You are not the station commander. I am." I held up my hands and took a step back. "Fine. Send Gunnar over to wake me at seven." A combination of caffeine and frustration made sleeping difficult, and I only managed half an hour before my wake-up call.

This meant that as I sat down at the desk in the control room and logged on for my evening shift, I had slept only five hours in the last forty-eight.

I heard footsteps on the stairs and braced myself for another appearance by Magnus. It was Gunnar.

"I brought you some dinner," he said.

"Is it dinnertime? I've lost track."

He put a bowl of undercooked ravioli in front of me. "This is illegal, you know. He can't make you work this many hours in a row."

I waved his comment away. "It's probably a good thing. At least he'll know that it's not me frightening Maryanne."

"He's an idiot," Gunnar said, settling on the couch. "Maryanne's obsessed with a stick-man she says she's seen. That's obviously not you." His eyes twinkled. "Or is it? Should I be checking your cabin for a costume?"

"I've dreamed about the stick-man too," I said. "Remember?"

"Have you told Maryanne that? You're both from England, so maybe it was something you saw on TV as kids."

"I can't talk to Maryanne," I replied. "This ravioli tastes like cardboard."

"Mmm, cardboard," he said, rubbing his stomach.

"I hadn't thought of that, by the way. That it was something we both saw as kids. Though Maryanne's older than I." A flutter of relief, a flutter of disappointment; too tired to process it. He shrugged. "Reruns. Can't escape them."

"So, why are you here?"

"To bring you your dinner. And I thought I'd stay a while. Keep you company."

"That's very sweet," I said. But he wasn't Vidar, and I glanced out the big glass windows at the forest below. Was he waiting for me? Did he think I'd changed my mind?

Gunnar chatted to me while I worked, made me coffee, entered some data for me. I was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate so, around 1:00 a.m., I sent him off to bed. He left, I sensed, reluctantly. I dimmed the lights and stepped outside onto the observation deck. Visibility good, light drizzle, wind from the northwest, heart sick with longing. It was cold, like summer had changed its mind about coming. I shivered and backed into the heated control room, sliding the door shut. I had half an hour before my next entry was due, and Magnus had left more files and blank labels for me. I turned up the lights and sat on the sofa to start work.

My head was heavy. I rested it just for a moment on the back of the sofa.

Sleep rushed upon me, and I startled back toward wakefulness.

But I couldn't wake up and I couldn't move. My body was unconscious around my panicked brain. I tried to sit up, but my limbs were encased in concrete.

Not this again. I remembered taking the ward off that morning to shower, but being so tired I forgot to put it back on. I forced my eyes, but the lids wouldn't budge. And yet, with a peculiar tickling sensation on my forehead, I could perceive the control room, albeit in nightmarish colors and shadows: blues and purples and greys. And a strange emptiness lay over it all, as though nobody had set foot there for centuries. It was at once familiar and unfamiliar, and it unsettled me. I wanted to shake off this sleep paralysis and see everything as it really was: bright lights and coffee cup rings and other mundane things. I wondered whether every ordinary setting had an empty, surreal form within it, ready to reveal itself in nightmares.

I struggled against the inertia to no avail. My best hope was that the thirty-minute timer would go off before the hag came.

Then I heard the door slide open.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" I shouted in my head. My new sight ranged out and found her, sidling toward me, her hands folded behind her back like a schoolgirl hiding something. "Wake up, wake up."

"You must stay away from him!" she hissed, dropping to all fours and crawling the remaining distance to the sofa. Her lips didn't move when she spoke, the words appeared in my head like dull echoes. In my mind's eye I could see the ward on the bathroom sink. I longed for it. "I don't know what you mean."

She pulled herself up, using my knees, and leaned forward. Her breath was rancid, her eyes were black and her fingers dug into my flesh. "He is the son of a mighty man. A wise man." She averted her eyes, and her face took on a sad expression. "A man surely wise enough to call me home one day."

"Get off me! Wake up, Vicky, for God's sake, wake up!"

The hag's face swooped up to mine, all bruised colors and purple shadows. "Stay away from him," she repeated. Then her crooked hands grabbed my hair and yanked my head forward so that my mouth was pressed against hers. I tried to breathe, but she was sucking the air out of my lungs. My chest ached, and I was momentarily convinced that this was real, that my poor limp body would be found here in the control room in the morning and nobody would know what had happened.

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

I sat up and gasped. The control room, the bright messy version, was back. I could move and nobody was there but me.

"Thank you, Josef," I said, head in hands, leaning on my knees. It took me a full minute before I realized my skin hurt where the hag had clawed me. I stared down at my jeans, wondering if I'd find two bruises beneath the denim. I decided not to look. Until Vidar had spoken, everything was on hold. I guess I already knew the mysteries would all link together, somehow.

I managed to stay awake until four. I changed shift with Alex and headed outside. It was raining, I had my head down, and ran straight into Gunnar.

"You're up early," I said.

"I came to find you. I need to talk to you about something."

I glanced over my shoulder at the growing light in the east. Was Vidar waiting for me? Perhaps, if I wandered into the forest, I would find him, curled up asleep under the animal-skin tent. Perhaps I could curl up next to him, feel his warm, strong arms around me…

"Vicky?"

"Can it wait, Gunnar?" I asked, trying to sound patient and warm. And failing.

"I know you're tired," he said, "but I only need five minutes." I simply couldn't respond. So many things were prioritized above Gunnar—Vidar, food, sleep—but he was always so good with me, so kind and thoughtful.

"Vicky? We're getting wet."

"Of course," I said.

"Come back to my cabin," he said, smiling his relief.

We hurried inside. Gunnar indicated I should sit on the sofa while he made me a hot cup of tea.

"Magnus shouldn't be allowed to get away with scheduling you day-night," he called from the kitchen.

"I'll get over it."

"Will you? He's got you scheduled on again tonight."

"Again?" I nearly jumped out of the sofa. If I was supposed to be working again tonight, then I had to see Vidar immediately. I told myself to sit still and be patient with Gunnar. Vidar would still be there in an hour. There was no rule about me only meeting him in the dark.

"I think so. You'd better check." He put a steaming mug in front of me and sat opposite.

"So what do you need to talk to me about?"

"I got an e-mail this morning from the New Zealand Meteorological Service."

"New Zealand?"

"I applied for a job there. Vicky, I've only got a month left on Kirkja." I was bewildered. Gunnar was leaving? "Have you? Why didn't you tell me before now?" He shrugged. "It seemed a long time off when you first arrived, and since we've become closer I didn't want to mention it in case you thought…" He trailed off, but I filled in the blanks. Gunnar didn't want me to think he was using his imminent departure as a way of pressuring me into romance. "You know I like you, Vicky. We make jokes about it, but you're more than just my mate."

"I'm sorry, Gunnar." Gunnar was one of the nicest people I'd ever met: genuine and smart and funny and warm.

"I know you said when you first arrived that you were still hurting from the others. It's been a few months now… that hasn't changed?"

"Gunnar, it's not even that. It's just… I don't feel that way about you. I don't know why." I thought about Vidar, and felt the pull of the moon on the tide. I had never experienced attraction like that before, and certainly not with Gunnar.

He smiled and propped his feet on the coffee table. "So I may as well head off to New Zealand?"

"I'll miss you. Really, I will."

"You can come and visit. It's very pretty." He shot out of his chair. "Do you want to see some pictures?"

"Um… sure."

He paused. "Look at you. You're so tired and here I am being an idiot."

"You're not being an idiot. I'd love to see pictures of New Zealand."

"Lie down. I printed them off the Internet and they're under a pile of work orders. Take me just a moment to find them."

I lay down and pulled a cushion under my head. "Take your time. I've got all day." That was the last thing I remembered until I woke up nine hours later.

Gunnar had left me a note, telling me how peaceful I'd looked and he hadn't wanted'tö wake me. I screwed it up with one hand and lobbed it across the room. Damn it! I had woken in time for the staff meeting, then, if Gunnar was right, my night shift. And I still hadn't seen Vidar. I raced over to the station to check the schedule, praying, crossing every finger, saying please, please, please in my head that Gunnar was wrong. But he was right. Magnus had crossed out Gordon's name and put mine in. It was all too much for me to bear. I burst into tears.

"Victoria?"

I spun round, sniffing back my tears and forcing a smile at Carsten. "Hello."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing."

He peered over my shoulder at the roster. "Is that right? Did Magnus make you work day-night yesterday?"

"We had a disagreement," I said, hearing my voice tremble. "He wants me on night shifts for a while." He shook his head. "No, no, that's not right," Carsten said. "I won't allow it."

"He's the station commander."

"I'm the medical officer. It's an occupational safety risk. You go back to your own cabin. Go to bed and have a long rest. Let me take care of Magnus."

I could have kissed him. "Really?"

"Really. Go on."

"But the staff meeting?"

"Forget the staff meeting. You need to rest."

I raced off to change and moved into the woods.

"Victoria. I thought I'd scared you away."

"I had problems with my boss," I said, standing uncertainly before him. Afternoon sun revealed to me a warmth in the color of his eyes and tawny highlights in his dark hair I hadn't seen before. I realized that the sunlight might be less kind to me with my pale coloring. My hands went self-consciously to my hair, pulling it over my cheeks.

"You are beautiful," he said, as though reading my thoughts. He pushed my hands away and swept back my hair. "I could look at you forever."

I fell into his arms and it felt like the safest haven I would ever know. Silence settled on us. I wished I would never have to speak or think again. This moment in his arms, just breathing, was too precious to ruin with anything so coarse as language and logic. He started pulling away and a sense of dread descended, as though I knew that what he said next would change everything.

"We cannot proceed another step until I've told you my tale," he said, touching his lips to my hair. My heart rose in my chest. It was ridiculous; why was I frightened? "Go on, then."

"Let us sit down. Victoria, I will tell you things that might seem impossible at first, but if you listen and don't push my story away, eventually you'll start to believe."

I lowered myself to the fur he had spread next to the fire. I felt like a small child, afraid of stories and words. "What do you mean?"

"Some of these memories are yours, but some belong only to me," he said. "You need to hear them all."

"Memories?" The familiarity of the forest deepened to such an intensity that my senses flared into hyperdrive. Everything grew brighter and louder.

"What's happening to me?" I asked, and my own voice frightened me.

"Memories of us," he said, grasping my fingers. "You know, don't you?" I tried to take comfort in his warm, firm hands. I wasn't sure what he meant. "I don't know anything."

"Then listen," he said. "Don't say a word, just listen. And remember."

Chapter Twenty-Two

[1024 Anno Domini]

I have done many things of which I am ashamed. I have waded deep in cruelty and pain, without an eye blink of thought for consequences. I have tasted much blood and breathed much battle dust. I don't tell you this to frighten you, or to make you feel awe. I tell you this because it is true and I want to tell you only the truth.

My family are the Aesir. You may not have heard much of them in this life, but you knew them once. My father, Odin, believes himself a god. My brothers, uncles, sisters and aunts believe it too. I once believed it of myself, for we age slowly and only die if careless, but I no longer believe we're gods. I know now that we are just a race of people; petty, brutal, stupid people. Centuries ago my family had many men to worship us. They built temples in our name, sacrificed their livestock, fought wars and had children for our honor. Every man in this part of Midgard had a story oh his lips of us. Then, spreading from the warm parts of the world and moving up slowly through the rain and snow, came word of the man we called Hvítakristr: the White Christ. It was a tide that we couldn't hold back. Odin hated this new way of thinking. A god who rewarded meekness, gentleness, turning away from confrontation! He watched events on Midgard with horror. The king of Norway, Olaf Tryggvason, declared his kingdom part of the Christian kingdom, but many ordinary folk kept up the old faith. With Olaf's death the country slid backward. The missionaries redoubled their efforts, taking the Christian faith to the new settlements. One of these missionaries was named Isleif Grímsson. I see a flicker around your eyebrows, Victoria, you recognize this name. This was your mother's brother, and it was with him that you first came to Odin's Island.

This island does not belong to Midgard, nor does it belong to Asgard. It lies between the two worlds, much as a stepping-stone lies between two banks of a stream. Odin had long used it as a place to exile the smaller creatures of Asgard who angered him, like your friend Skripi. By leaving them here, he hoped also to discourage settlements of mortals, and that has mostly worked for the last two thousand years. Isleif Grímsson was young, energetic and extremely charming. He had brought Christ to many settlements in Iceland and the Faroe Islands, but he was very ill. A cancer grew inside him and he knew that it would kill him within a few short years. The turn away from Christ in Norway dismayed him and he wanted to finish his days in a Christian place, surrounded by Christian people. Odin's Island already had a reputation among the folk of Norway as a place where any new settlers would be punished severely if they dared to make it a home. Isleif, I presume, did not believe in these folktales. He brought seventeen members of his family here, he built a church and he renamed the island Church Island. Odin was at first unconcerned. He had creatures on the island to frighten the new mortals, he had a groundswell of renewed love for him in Norway. He thought the Christians would leave. Even after the church was built, and the three little wooden houses sprouted by the side of the fjord, he thought they would leave. The months went by and they did not leave. The wood wights frightened them, certainly, but rather than run away, the Christians began to ring their bells, morning and night, in the forest, over the water, so loudly and vigorously that we could sometimes hear it in Asgard, echoing over Bifrost on random updrafts.

At the time I lived in my father's home at Valaskjálf. I had just returned from a battle on the borders of Vanaheim and barely had time to wash the blood from my hair before I received my orders from Odin. Go to Odin's Island, and put all mortals there to the sword.

I was once my father's favorite son. I know this because he told me and everybody else, including his other sons. But don't imagine some fond scene where he dandled me upon his knee and sang me nursery rhymes because of a special connection he felt with me. No, I was his favorite because I was marked out by fate. My destiny is one day to save his life at Ragnarök, the prophesied end of our world. So he took particular care in my education, taught me swordsmanship himself, kept me close by him. As I grew into a man, I could see how my brothers despised me for this, but Odin would not let them lay a hand upon me. I was too important. For a long time, I was completely unaware that his affection relied on necessity. I gloried in his favoritism, I rose to his faith in me time after time. I killed for him, over and over. And this went on for many years and I never questioned it, just as I never questioned breathing. At around the time when Christ's name was first mentioned in our home, the questions began to bother me. If Odin was all-powerful, why was he so anxious? Some nights he would worry until he had to bend his head to the fire and vomit. If Odin was all-wise, why couldn't he explain what would happen to us if Christ's word did take hold in the northern lands? Instead, he would grind his teeth at the question and promise to hack the head off the next person who asked it. And if Odin was all-knowing, why didn't he know that I had begun to doubt him and the life he had laid out for me? In my desire to please my father, I had turned my heart into a stone. And yet, somehow, it had begun to beat. In my last campaign, I had offered mercy to some of my enemies if they were old or frail. I had started to think about my mother and wondered about her life in exile. I was waking out of a long, dark dream.

Still, the idea of butchering mortals caused me only the faintest disquiet. It would be unpleasant, but I would do it quickly and keep the peace at Valaskjálf. When I arrived on Odin's Island I was not the man I should have been; my resolve was vulnerable, and I had not reckoned with meeting you. These are your memories too, Victoria. I've held them for a thousand years. As they unfold back to you, you may feel strange or even frightened. It is all past, now. The threads have been unraveled and cast back into the dark. There will be time for fear, but later. Not now, not here with me. Close your eyes if you wish and see yourself as I saw you that first morning in autumn.

I had arrived the previous night and camped. When morning came I set out toward the settlement with my sword in my hand. You must imagine it, a gleaming immortal sword with a broad flat blade, perilously sharp and battle-hardened, forged by fire giants and called Hjarta-bítr, the heart-biter. Mortal flesh would be butter beneath it.

As I approached the lake, a flash of dazzling white caught my eye and I paused among the trees. The dappled light illuminated you there, kneeling by the lake. You had been drawing water, but had stopped to watch your own reflection. At first, it was only curiosity that made me wait and gaze at you. Your hair and skin were so fair and the effect of the sunlight on you was to make you look like a carving. You wore a dress the color of the leaves fallen around you. You were stiller than the surface of the water, but then a breeze picked up your hair, trailing a strand across your face, and you brushed it away with your fingers and sat back, looking up toward the branches moving above you.

I could see your pulse beating in your throat and the faint blue lines of your veins. And a sudden understanding Was upon me. Mortal. You were so vulnerable, only a soft blink away from death at any time. All I had to do was spill the blood in those veins, still the pulse in that throat, and your light would be extinguished. An unfamiliar ache swelled inside my chest and I dropped my sword.

"Is someone there?" you called as the weapon landed in the undergrowth. I stepped out from my cover. A sunbeam flared in my eyes and you were swallowed by light. I shielded my vision with my left hand and saw that you were smiling at me.

"Who are you?" you asked. "Have you just arrived on the island?"

"Yes," I said. "My name is Vidar."

You rose and brushed a fallen leaf from your skirt. "I'm Halldisa Ketil's-daughter. Everyone calls me Halla."

I see the twitch of recognition on your brow again, Victoria. You recognize the name by which you were once known. By now, I hope, this story has begun to seem real to you and not the mad ramblings of a desperate man. Though I am desperate, make no mistake.

Still, you were smiling at me, and I wondered at how trusting you were.

"What are you doing here on Church Island, Vidar?" you asked. "Have you come to join my uncle's mission?"

I recoiled involuntarily and you laughed, freely and beautifully, as though we had known each other for years. "So, Vidar," you said, "you must learn to hide your reluctance to be part of Isleif's good Christian kingdom. All my brothers and I have. You must simply make a very somber face and talk endlessly about damnation. That keeps him quiet."

"I do not know Isleif," I said. "I am a stranger here." You tilted your head. "We are all strangers here, Vidar." You sighed. "I yearn every day for my home and my friends, but that life exists many miles over the sea. It goes on without me." I was fascinated by you. I had never talked to a mortal before and the idea that you yearned for something touched me unexpectedly. "What does it feel like when you yearn?" I asked, moving closer and putting the sun at my back.

"That's an odd question," you said.

"Can you answer it?"

You closed your eyes and drew down your brows. "It feels like my heart is being pulled from somewhere far away." Then you opened your eyes and laughed again. "That sounds like nonsense."

"No, not at all," I said. "That's how I feel when I yearn." You sat on the ground among the fallen leaves. "What do you yearn for, Vidar? Sit down and tell me." I shook myself. A few minutes ago I had been prepared to murder you, but now I was being invited to sit by you and tell you what I yearned for. Confusion held my tongue.

You scooped up a handful of leaves and threw them at me. "Come on, we'll be here until Michaelmas."

"My family doesn't celebrate Michaelmas," I said.

You shrugged. "I don't care what your family does. I asked you a question." I was overwhelmed with strange feelings. All I knew to do in such a situation was kill something or retreat. I turned and, without a backward glance, walked away.

"Vidar, where are you going?" you called.

I scooped up my sword and disappeared into the forest. You didn't follow, and for that I was glad. I spent the day pacing the beach, trailing my sword in the wet sand. I felt the keen discomfort that only a man who brings shame upon his family can know. My brothers would laugh at me, my father would bellow until the hall shook. I could not kill you. I recalled the light in your eyes when you laughed, and knew it was too precious a thing to extinguish. Confusion drove me up and down the water's edge. My father's hall and all the brutal laws that filled it had seemed as fixed as ancient stone, and yet the sand was moving underneath them, just as it slid and skidded under my feet. Why kill the mortals? Why spend my days winning battle glory against the Vanir? Why snarl and set my eye only on the honor of my family, when my family had so little to honor—their petty quarrels, their trivial desires, their cruel humor?

I began to shed my family that day, adding up their wrongs, finding the sum too great to measure. The tide crept in. I thrust my sword up to its hilt in the sand and sat back on the beach to watch as the sea swallowed it. The afternoon grew pink and mauve, the wind was cold, the sun disappeared. Odin would know, of course, that I had not killed you or your family. I believed I would have to convince Isleif to leave the island and take his followers with him. The next morning, I dressed for battle and rode Arvak down the edge of the fjord toward the church. Three little girls played in the grass, an elderly woman hung wet blankets over a tree's branches, and Isleif Grímsson stood at the entrance to his home—one of three unfinished ash cabins—at the side of the water.

"Ho, stranger," he called. "Have you come to find God?" I did not reply. I rode up to him, and I could see unusual strength in his face. He must have been frightened of me: I was a stranger, I wore a bloodstained coat of mail and a scarred iron helm. Isleif betrayed no fear. Rather, he emanated an odd serenity, a bemused acceptance of whatever it was that I was bringing to his family.

"You must leave this island," I said as I drew even with him.

The elderly woman had paused to watch from a distance. One of the little girls ran toward us and the woman tried to stop her.

"All is well, Gudrid," Isleif said to her. "Let the child come. This man means no harm." The little girl snuggled under Isleif's elbow. "Who are you?" she said to me.

"My name is Vidar," I said, without dropping Isleif's gaze. "I bring you a grim warning. You must leave this island. This island belongs to Odin."

"Odin isn't real," the little girl said confidently.

"I assure you he is," I said.

Isleif patted the child's head. "Odin only exists because God permits it," he said. "I am not afraid of him or of his family."

"You must be," I said, "for you have angered us greatly by building your church here. You and your settlers are all in danger." I looked around, and noticed that one of the cabin doors had opened and two young men peered out. You were with them and you were still smiling.

"God will see to it that no harm comes to us," Isleif said. "Would you like to give yourself to God, Vidar?"

Anger tightened my guts. I spat on the ground. "No, I would not," I said, "for among my family, God's name is abhorred."

"If you change your mind, I'll still be here," Isleif said, and turned his back on me, still with the little girl under his wing. I had never seen anyone turn his back on me before, leaving himself so vulnerable to the point of a sword. I had little time to wonder if Isleif were brave or foolish, because the two other little girls had run toward me and were asking me if I'd let them ride my horse. Arvak whickered anxiously—he was used to armed warriors, but little girls' probing fingers were new to him—so I turned him sharply and rode out of the mission, into the trees.

I paused when I was out of sight and rested my face on Arvak's mane. What had just happened? I had ridden in like Death himself and none of them had flinched. How was I to convince these people that they must leave?

I heard a voice then, from the edge of the forest.

"Vidar?" It was you, following me into the trees.

I dismounted and pulled off my helm, waiting for you among the shadows. "What do you want?" I asked as you drew closer.

"I'm not afraid of you," you said.

"You should be."

"I believe in the old gods," you said. "I believe in them more than I believe in Isleif's God, because he's mysterious and nobody has ever seen him, but my brother, Hakon, once saw Thor on the battlefield at Gokstad."

"Then why aren't you afraid?"

"I said I'm not afraid of you," you said. "There are many things I'm afraid of, but as for Odin or Thor or God"—you lifted your shoulders—"who knows what they want from us?" I took a step forward. I wanted to seize your shoulder, but I was afraid to touch you, to feel the warmth radiating from your skin. "I know that Odin wants you to leave. You must convince Isleif." You smiled mischievously. "You seem very sure, Vidar."

"This is not a joke," I said.

"I'll tell him," you said. "Will I see you again?"

"You must leave," I said. "You must never see this place or me ever again." As I said it, an unexpected melancholy descended and I had to turn my back on you. "Go, Halla. Tell Isleif to leave this very night or tomorrow. I can't guarantee your safety any longer than that."

"Vidar, don't go," you said.

But I jumped on Arvak's back and urged him away at speed.

My plan had been to wait until nightfall to return to Asgard. Now a seed of some new dissatisfaction had been sown within me and I found it impossible to imagine myself leaving just yet. I felt impatient, and vulnerable, alternately filled with energy or gripped by torpor. I wanted to range the forest all night, then I wanted to lie down on a bed of skins and think about the soft curve of your throat. Sleep was unthinkable. Returning to the mission was out of the question. I settled for a compromise. When evening descended, I sat at the outer edge of the fjord and watched the church and the three little houses, knowing that you were inside one. Perhaps you sat by the fire spinning, or perhaps you were eating, or sleeping. I sat for many hours in the cold and the dark, while the black water rippled silent and deep at my feet. A snatch of an old tune stuck in my head, a love song that one of my father's servants always sang. The night soaked me up, its gloom suffused me. I pulled my cloak tight around myself and wondered what was happening to me.

Then I saw a figure approaching. Your fair hair caught the starlight and at first you didn't see me, and then I must have moved just enough to draw your eye. You revealed no surprise, but you were more cautious than you had been in the daylight.

"I thought about you and you appeared," you said.

"Good night, Halldisa Ketil's-daughter."

You approached and sat next to me. "Good night, Vidar Odin's-son. For I know for certain that is who you are."

"It's true. There's no point in denying it. I was sent from Asgard to persuade your family to leave."

"What does it feel like to be a god?" you asked.

"I don't know if I am a god. I know what it feels like to be Aesir. It feels like shame."

"You feel shame that you come from a great and powerful family?"

I turned to you, impatient. "What are you doing here?"

"I have thought about you all day."

"Because I am Aesir?"

"Because you are Vidar. Because you have hard hands and soft eyes. I could fall in love with a man with such hard hands and such soft eyes," you said. Then you burst into laughter and I found myself laughing too.

"You speak very plainly," I said.

"I see no use in doing otherwise. Tell me, if Odin has only one eye, is he always bumping into things?" I laughed so hard I couldn't answer.

"And Thor? He must smell like a goat."

"He does. And has the manners of one." Nobody had ever made jokes about my family before.

"Heimdall's beard, from the stories, must be long enough to trip over."

"Not yet," I said, "but it prevents any of the ladies of Valaskjálf from finding his face beautiful, and so he is forced to observe them from afar."

"Your smile suggests the ladies do not know he watches them." You leaned down and picked up a stone, which you skimmed across the water.

"He keeps his hands occupied," I said, and felt a wave of fear and guilt. I banished it. Nobody in Asgard could hear me now.

You laughed and pushed your hair off your face. "It sounds just as petty and boring as families in Midgard."

"I would rather hear of your family," I said. The chill air and the distant stars were already weaving magic between us. "I grow tired of thinking of my own."

"Mine are worse," you said. "Isleif dragged us all here to be good Christians, but half of us still worship the old gods or nobody at all. He'd be appalled at some of the things I've done." You raised your eyebrows knowingly. "Would you like to hear?"

"Of course."

You reached inside your dress and pulled out a moonstone set in silver on a fine chain. "Thou shalt not steal," you said. "I stole this back in Egersund, before we came on this hellish trip. It's to remind me of everything I had to leave behind."

"Stealing is forbidden by your God?" I asked.

"He's not my God," you replied. "He's Isleif's." You held up a pale finger. "Thou shalt honor thy mother and father. I call my mother a fool and a coward, and if she had any mettle we'd be back home with all my friends, but Isleif is her brother and she quakes when he speaks. As for my father, well, he's been dead six years, but he was a liar anyway."

I smiled at you. Your irreverence was gentle, not savage. Your voice was infused with warmth, even as you told your tales of mischief. "Any more?" I asked.

You lowered your voice, pretended to look around for listeners. "Well… I don't know if I should tell you…"

"Go on."

"Thou shalt not commit adultery," you said, "but I once lay with my cousin Asbjörn, on my sixteenth birthday."

New desire stirred within me. "You did?"

"Just to see what it was like," you replied lightly. "Asbjorn has since taken a wife. The three little girls you saw today are his. But he hasn't forgotten." You bit your lip to still a laugh. "I'm too wicked, aren't I?"

"You are far from wicked," I said, thinking about my sins and what they amounted to.

"Asbjörn is one of the most pious of Isleif's followers," you said. "No doubt his feelings about me are what leads him to press so hard that I marry Ulf."

"Who is Ulf?" I said, ready to tear out his heart.

"One of the others. He's too old and too pious for my liking, and Isleif would never force me." You grew serious. "What of you, Vidar? Does your family try to marry you off?"

"I have lived the life of a warrior," I said carefully. "Marriage and children have not been spoken of."

"Though you must have loved?"

I thought of all the women I had desired, how easily those desires had been satisfied, and how quickly the women were discarded. "No," I said, almost surprised to hear myself say it. "I have never loved."

"Nor have I," you said softly, "though I can imagine it well enough." You leaned toward me and turned up your face. "If you kissed me…"

I placed a hand on your hair, trailed the silky strands through my fingers. "You are so mortal, Halla," I said. "I don't understand you."

You smiled. "I didn't ask you to understand me. I asked you to kiss me." Savage desire gripped me and I kissed you. You wound your arms around my neck and I pressed your body to mine, and it felt as vulnerable as a bird's with its speeding heart and its fine bones. I was intoxicated and I felt myself letting go of my family, my past, my blood. I was free, after a lifetime trapped by the Aesir name.

You pulled back and murmured against my cheek, "I think I am in love with you, though I only met you yesterday."

I thought about our first meeting, with Hjarta-bítr in my fist and Odin's orders in my heart, and fear chilled me. "Halla, you must convince Isleif to go. I cannot safeguard you from my father, and he wants you all gone."

"I'll see what I can do," you said.

"And I'll see what deal I can make with Odin," I said. "Will you meet me again, here, tomorrow?"

"I would meet you whenever and wherever you asked, Vidar." You kissed me again, then climbed to your feet and, with a wave over your shoulder, headed home.

I returned to Valaskjálf, but my father was too drunk to speak to me. I left word with one of his servants that most of the settlers were his worshippers, so I had not wanted to kill them and had chosen to warn them instead.

"They will be gone before winter," I called over my shoulder, eager to be back in Midgard with you. "Tell him he can trust me, tell him it's all at an end."

But it was actually only the beginning.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I felt hope and I felt at liberty as I returned to Midgard the next evening. You had until winter to convince Isleif and his followers to go. And then? When you went with them? These feelings were still too new to me to understand, so I ignored the questions they provoked. Winter was many weeks away, the answer would come. I had time to spend with you, to test if my wild emotions would lose their brightness. I waited for you that night by the fjord, but you didn't arrive. My disappointment overwhelmed me. I was angry and confused. The long night grew cold and still you didn't come. When the first glimmer of dawn touched the sky, I cursed you as a harlot and pulled myself to my feet. Only moments remained for me to cross Bifrost, and I was heading into the trees, whistling for Arvak, when you came running up the bank of the fjord.

"Vidar, wait!" you called. Your cheeks were flushed and your eyes watered from the cold morning air.

"I won't wait any longer, Halldisa Ketil's-daughter," I said, "for I have waited all night."

"You waited all night?" you said. "Really?"

"And you did not come, so now I will return to Asgard while some dark still stains the sky."

"No, don't go." You caught your breath. "I'm sorry. I couldn't get away. I share a cabin with my mother and three of my idiot cousins. I intended to leave as soon as they were all asleep, but Olrunn has been vomiting all night and whining and moaning and wouldn't let me go." You nodded, that mischievous smile finding its way back to your face. "I believe she is with child to my brother Hakon, although they are not husband and wife. Perhaps when Isleif realizes how much adultery is being committed on his island, he might throw his hands in the air and leave without my persuasion."

I was still angry, but not sure how to express it.

"Come. Vidar, don't be so cross." You took my hand. "I wanted to come. I thought about you all night, and all day yesterday too. You look so grim. Perhaps you are too used to getting your own way?" I found your irreverence beguiling. You charmed me, you fascinated and intoxicated me. "Halla, before I came to Midgard, I can't remember the last time I laughed."

"I'm glad you find me amusing," you said. "Would you allow me to amuse you this morning?"

"Certainly."

"Come. Let's walk in the woods. You can tell me stories about your brothers." You held out your hand and I closed it in my own.

"First, tell me that you warned Isleif to leave the island," I said. We moved into the trees, leaving the mission and the cold water behind. "I mentioned it. He wouldn't listen."

"You must keep trying."

"You have not reckoned with Isleif Grímsson," you said. "He is determined to live out his days here, and he is determined that we all die of boredom along with him."

"But you must—"

"I will keep trying, Vidar."

"You only have until the winter. Odin expects you to go or he'll…" You let the silence stretch out a few moments, then you stopped and turned to me. "What will he do, Vidar?"

"He will have you all killed."

Your eyes held mine and I saw realization dim them. "Oh. He sent you to kill us, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did."

"But you didn't kill us."

"No. I couldn't."

"Now I'm frightened of you, Vidar Odin's-son."

Your words cut me deeply. "I would never hurt you, Halla."

"But that first time we met?"

"I was armed. I intended to fulfill my duties. When I saw you, things changed." I squeezed your fingers gently. "Everything changed."

We watched each other in the dark wood for a few moments, while the sky brightened behind me. Your eyes were intense, your brows drawn down, I could almost see your mind working. "I have been a fool," you said softly.

"I promise you, you can trust me."

"I believe that, Vidar, but what of the rest of your family? I have been a fool to take your kisses so lightly. You are something so different from me. You bring danger to us, unwillingly, but certainly. And I have behaved like a silly girl."

"I have enjoyed your laughter."

"Vidar, I will get Isleif to go. If I have to set fire to the church and all the cabins myself, I will get us off the island. Give me a few weeks to work on him." You shook your head sadly. "I think that we should not speak again, you and I."

The first sunbeam broke through the canopy and speared the ground beside you. Your hair was lifted by a morning breeze, which sent leaves spinning in its wake. The thought of never seeing you again hurt me, as though one of my brothers had punched me between the ribs. I gasped. "Halla, I would see you every day of my life."

You couldn't help yourself, you smiled, tried to bite your lip to keep it in check. "You flatter me."

"I love you."

"Can you be certain?" You pulled your hand out of mine. "Is it worth the trouble?"

"Halla, I—"

"You're not used to talking of your feelings. Let's not mention it again. Let's spend the day together as though the whole world is on our side, then when night falls we can think about this some more. About what is the sensible thing to do. I'm a sensible girl, Vidar. You should remember that." You touched my cheek lightly. "You are not to say you love me again until you are very, very certain. And nor shall I." That day was bliss. We walked in the woods, we rode Arvak, we built sand houses on the beach, and you made me laugh over and over again. I tried to match your humor with my own with very little success, until you cried laughing every time one of my jokes failed. I had never seen anyone cry laughing before. Your face flushed pink and hot tears rolled down your cheeks and settled in the upturned corners of your mouth, waiting for me to kiss them away.

Your soft skin seemed to beg for my lips to press it; your body sizzled with an irresistible sensual energy, so that my hands were useless for any other task but smoothing its contours. You forbade me, however, from knowing it the way your cousin had known it. Once again, you cited your sensible nature. "You may be gone at the end of the day, Vidar. Or at the end of the week. Next time I lie with someone, it will be every night, forever."

Every night, forever.

I had never been so enchanted with an idea. To have you by me, enclosed in my arms, as I fell asleep each night, your warm, scented hair and soft cheek on my pillow in the morning was the only bliss I could imagine. My life before you seemed bled of all its color. Empty, violent, brainless. I knew then, with great certainty, that I did love you, and I knew this meant I would have to reason with Odin. Then I would bring you back to Asgard with me, make you my princess, build a little house on the shores of the bay, far from my family.

So as the sun dipped once again into the sea, I held you and I swore to you that I loved you, for certain, forever.

"Is that wise, Vidar?" you asked me. Your eyes were hopeful, trusting.

"I don't care if it's unwise," I said. "I have done everything my father has ever asked of me until now, and that must count for something. His quarrel is with Isleif, with Isleif's God, not with you."

"Let's not proceed in haste," you said. "We have time. We have weeks and weeks until winter is here. If we spend every hour of every day together, perhaps we will get sick of each other and there it will all end." You were laughing as you said this, and your laughter lightened the dark wood and the foreboding ocean and filled me with hope.

I often wondered if Isleif and the others suspected what you were doing in the weeks that followed, for you were hardly ever at home. You met me in the morning and you sometimes didn't return home until sunset. When I asked, you waved the question away and said that Isleif didn't care what you did as long as you prayed every morning. The season grew cold and damp, and so I built a tiny cabin in the woods for us, and a shelter for Arvak. I had little inclination to return to Asgard, and the longer I was away, the weaker grew my ties to the Aesir. I confessed all their sins to you, and some of mine too. I was ashamed of my past, and felt certain that you would reject me or, worse, fear me once you'd heard of it.

"You were a warrior, Vidar," you said, smoothing my hair from my brow as we lay beside the fire in the dark little cabin, "and now you are a lover. What you have been matters far less than what you're becoming."

Your words awoke something within me. You were right: I could become something different. I wasn't constrained by my blood. I had a free will. If Odin wouldn't let me bring you back to Asgard, then I would simply stay in Midgard with you. The solution was so blindingly clear that it took my breath away. And still you said, "Wait, Vidar. Let's enjoy these last weeks and not talk about the future. Be here with me now."

This made me suspicious. "Don't you see a future for us, Halla?" I asked. "Is your love for me only now?" You touched my face with your soft fingers and an expression of deep sadness filled your eyes. "Oh, no, my love," you said, "this love is past, present and future. This love is eternal and mighty, but I dare not long to be so happy beyond a few short weeks. You are different from me, and I fear that difference will drive us apart."

Whatever struggle I felt between familial duty and the call of my heart, I didn't realize for a long time that you were struggling too. You rarely mentioned your family, and when you did you were dismissive. Every afternoon, you dutifully returned home to them, though I sensed your reluctance growing greater and greater as the weeks passed.

One afternoon, three short weeks before winter's date, you were in a somber mood without explanation. I allowed you to be silent, and I was silent too. Shared silence with you was sweet and warm.

"We should watch the sunset," you said. "This might be the last clear day for many months." So we walked out through the golden haze that misted between the trees, until we found the beach. You turned to me, nestled into my body with your ear against my heart.

"What troubles you today, Halla?" I asked over the roar of the sea. You didn't answer for a very long time. I held you and the sun fell into the water, fracturing into golden shards. As the last of them dissolved into the ocean and night spread from the east, you looked up, and you said, "I want to be with you always."

"And I want to be with you always."

You stepped back and took my hands. "To be apart from you is to fall all to pieces. There would be no center left inside me. You are my heart, Vidar." Your eyes went to the sea. "You are my heart," you murmured.

I couldn't think of words enough to answer, so I stayed silent.

"Tonight, I will not return to my mother. Tonight, I will spend next to you, and give my body to you as I have already given my soul."

Your words warmed my blood to fever and I found myself laughing.

"Are you mocking me?"

"No, my love. I wonder at how you have managed to make an Aesir warrior feel like a blushing virgin." You laughed then, and fell into my arms. I squeezed you hard.

"Tomorrow, when I wake in your arms, we'll make plans," you said, your voice muffled against my chest.

"Plans for the rest of time."

"Sensible plans?" I said.

"Yes," you said, "in spite of our stupid families."

I took you back to my cabin in the woods, and as night fell and a chill deepened among the trees outside, you laughed and said you were "wicked" for missing the evening meal at home, and I couldn't keep my lips or my hands away from your warm body. And when the time approached, you knelt before me and you unfastened the clasps on your clothes and slid out of them as easily as a petrel takes to the sky from the treetops.

"I love you, Vidar," you said, sinking into my arms.

"I love you, Halla," I replied, losing myself in your warm skin.

The wind moaned outside and the fire cracked and popped beside us. It was the last moment of true happiness that I knew. Before we could proceed another moment, I was alerted by thumping footfalls in the woods.

Your eyes went to the door. "Who is that?"

"Halla, you must get dressed. Someone's coming," I said.

You sat up and felt around for your clothes while I went to the door. A man, fair and broad with a bushy beard, stood in the trees about twenty feet away.

"Who are you? Where is my cousin Halldisa?" he said.

"Halldisa is safe," I answered. "She is here with me."

You appeared at the door then, flustered and disheveled. "Asbjörn!" you exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, harlot. How dare you bring such shame on your family with a heathen man?" You looked at me with raised eyebrows, barely taking him seriously.

"Well, Asbjörn," you said to him, "it would hardly be the first time, as you know." He advanced and I saw that he had pulled out a sword. I grabbed you to push you back inside, but you fought me off.

"Asbjörn, put down the weapon, you fool," you said. "Vidar, ignore him. I'll go home with him, and I'll explain that I intend to take you for a husband, and they'll all just have to accept it. Don't worry. I'll be back tomorrow."

Asbjörn looked glum, his sword pointing impotently at the ground. "You bring great dishonor to Church Island, Halla," he said.

"Yes, yes. Come on, let's not waste any more time. It's cold." You took his arm and turned him around, smiled at me over your shoulder, and mouthed the words, "I love you." The struggle with my impulses, which dictated I should seize Asbjörn and hack off his limbs, kept me silent. I said nothing as you left. Nothing. That nothing has plagued me for a thousand years. I wished every day that I had said, "I love you, Halldisa. I will be yours forever. No matter what happens I will make certain that we are together. Do not be afraid, not of death, nor of silence, nor of my father. I will find you, I will bring you back to me, this I promise you with all my heart." But I said nothing.

You didn't return the next day, but I allowed that you needed time to explain your intentions to your family. I passed the long lonely hours in carving, keeping my hands busy so that my heart and mind couldn't plot against me. When you didn't arrive again the following day, I quietly dressed and, with axe and spear, strode off to find you.

When I walked into Isleif's camp, two of the little girls were playing in a tree house, Isleif was talking to a woman who I guessed was your mother, and Asbjörn was fixing the beam over the door to the church. One of the girls saw me first and came running over, shouting, "Where is your horse today?" I put my hand out to stop her coming near me, and I must have looked serious and frightening enough because she pulled up and glanced uncertainly from Asbjörn to me.

"Come here," Asbjörn said, and the little girl went to him. By this time, Isleif and your mother were watching me. Isleif said something inaudible, and your mother seized the little girl's hand and took her inside. Asbjörn stayed on my right, trying to look threatening.

"You visit us again, Vidar," Isleif said, smiling. This time, though, I could see something beneath the smile. Fear, yes, but also self-righteous piety.

"I want Halla," I said.

"You can't have her," Asbjörn said. "She belongs to our family. Go back to whatever heathen place you came from and leave us be."

I ignored Asbjörn; he was not the person who held the power in this community. "Isleif, Halla and I are in love and intend to be husband and wife," I said. "Hand her over to me. You hold her against her will."

"Her will has been infected by you," Isleif said. "Halldisa is a Christian woman, and as soon as her right mind is returned to her, she intends to take my dear friend Ulf as husband. You must leave the island so that Halla can recover her senses."

Anger burned brightly inside me and a flash glimmered behind my eyes. I knew that feeling too well, the rush of blood to my brain before battle, where images and sounds became sharp and hot. "Halla is mine," I said. "As I am hers. Bring her out here to explain."

"No, she is with her family. She will not see you again. Return to… your home; Work no more of your devil's magic here on Church Island."

"It is Odin's Island," I bellowed, and Isleif took a step back. My hands tightened on the haft of my axe. I knew precisely how it would feel to lift it and split Isleif's head open with the blade. I knew the exact weight of the swing, the sound it would make, the shudder of resistance vibrating up to my shoulders…

Then I thought about you, somewhere inside, held against your will and commanded to keep very still and quiet. You would not want me to kill Isleif. You would want me to be sensible and try to solve this problem with my brain.

I took a deep breath and forced my arms to relax. I could see Isleif relax too.

"I will return," I said, "and I will make Halla mine. But I won't spill your blood, Isleif. Tell Halla that she need not fear me."

"Give yourself to Christ, Vidar," Isleif said. "It's the only way." I bit my tongue and walked away. Shame tickled my face and neck. If my brothers could see me, backing down from a fight, letting a Christian bully me into meekness! Then I realized what my brothers thought of me was no longer my concern, and I felt liberated. Under the most pressing of circumstances, I had kept my wits and I had controlled my urge to kill. This meant for certain that I was shedding the curse of my blood. This meant for certain that I was worthy of your love and trust, that I was becoming. I had never turned from a battle before, nor had I ever tried to reason with my father. The first experiment had been successful, and that success heartened me for the second. Wisdom is not a lover's strength.

As soon as the sun sank I returned to Asgard. The long hall at Valaskjálf was alive with fires and music and chatter. From one end to another, members of my family, their friends and servants, warriors visiting from Valhalla, captives, concubines and Vanir slaves talked, laughed, sang, cooked, scowled, kissed, fought, ate and drank. These were our golden days, when my father's hall was bursting with warmth and company, not the unhappy place it is now. Smoke from the fires collected in the cavernous ceiling, escaping slowly through small holes in the silverwork. I stepped inside and looked around for Odin. He was nowhere in view and I grew irritated. I wanted to speak with him while my nerve still held, while the carefully rehearsed address was clear in my mind.

My eyes found my brother Vali across the hall. I weaved through the tables and the people and laid my hand on his shoulder.

"Brother!" he exclaimed, grabbing my hand and squeezing it firmly. His tongue slurred on the ale he was drinking. "You are returned. It has been too long since we have seen you. Come, sit, drink."

"Vali, I need to speak with Odin."

He fixed me with an amused gaze. "Really now? It sounds very serious."

"It is serious. Where is he?"

"Indisposed."

"Drunk?"

"We're all drunk." He gestured around the room. "Perhaps you wouldn't feel so serious if you were too?" He was gazing at me unevenly, a smile on his lips. I returned the smile. "It's serious enough to wait until he's sober. I'll speak to him in the morning," I said.

Vali pulled me down next to him. Two Midgard warriors were demonstrating a combat routine to a small group. I watched them battle, their spears and axes glinting in the firelight. One ran the other through and a great cheer went up as the victim fell to the floor with a crash and a groan. The victor reached for a mug of ale while his companion was dragged out in a smear of blood.

The entertainment over, Vali turned to me. "So, brother, what is this serious business? Something to do with the Christians on Odin's Island?"

"Yes, and no. They are bothersome, but not all Christians. There is one woman in particular…" I had no idea how to articulate to my brother what I felt. I knew that every attempt would sound to him like I was speaking a foreign tongue.

Vali grinned suggestively. "Pretty, is she?"

"I should like to take her as wife."

"A Midgard woman?"

"I'm in love with her." I couldn't meet his eyes, braced myself for the barrage of mockery.

"He won't let you," Vali said dismissively, draining his mug.

"He has to let me," I said.

"Why can't you find somebody here?" Vali said, indicating those around him. He singled out a dark-haired woman near the roasting spit. "How about her?"

"She is nobody. She is anybody. Halla is irreplaceable; she is always and forever all I will ever love."

"Good luck," Vali said coldly, with a derisive snort.

"If he won't let me bring her here, then I'll go there and stay," I declared, pounding a clenched fist on the table. "I'm not a prisoner."

"Of course you're not," Vali said, meeting my gaze unevenly.

I pulled myself to my feet. "Brother, I will save the rest for Odin. I have no heart for celebrating, so I'll go to my bed now."

Vali nodded, already turning away. Another fight was about to commence. "Sleep with your problem, Vidar, and perhaps by morning it will be solved."

My room was in an outbuilding at the western end of Valaskjálf and north a hundred paces. I lit the fire and lay down next to it, watching the flames for many long hours while I turned my problem over and over in my mind. I missed you wildly. I hadn't known that somebody's absence could create such an ache in my bones. I had to be with you, and in order to be with you, I had to gain my father's permission to bring you back to Asgard. Isleif could not attempt to control you here in my father's hall, nor could your actions bring dishonor to your family. I closed my eyes and imagined you next to me. Despite the echoes of revelry that occasionally drifted to my ears on a gust of sea air, I fell asleep. When I woke, it was with disquiet in my belly. A sound had disturbed me. What was it? It was still dark, but bird-song told me day was bare moments away. Then the sound again.

Dogs.

Wild dogs, released from the pit. Odin's dogs, his war companions; four feet at the shoulder and ravenous for warm flesh, and only Odin could control them. Their savage loyalty meant that anyone else who approached would lose at least a limb. If the dogs were loose, their master was not far behind. I started upright, leaped to my feet. Odin's horn sounded. The dogs barked in frenzy. I ran to my door, but found my way barred by some unseen object. I turned to the shutter and lifted it, eyes straining to focus in the mist.

A blur of animal bodies streamed past. Then Odin, on top of Sleipnir, twice as fast as any other horse known to the Aesir. His torch glimmered off his helmet, his hunching shoulders were clothed in fur, his axe gleamed. Vali, my traitorous brother, rode in his wake.

"Odin!" I cried, hoping vainly that he wasn't taking the dogs to Bifrost. To Midgard and Halla. The last shred of night was unraveling, Bifrost would be closed at any moment, and the door defied every attempt I made to open it.

"There is no love, Vidar," Odin called, and his voice whipped behind him on the wind. "There is only fate."

How can I describe to you the agony of anxiety that day brought me? By the time I had hammered my way out of the room—an oak table with a boulder upon it had blocked the door—it was daylight. Bifrost was closed.

I saddled Arvak and waited all day by the gleaming stone towers for the first shadow of night to come. Thoughts burned in my brain amid confusion and terror. Somewhere, under layers of hope and denial, I knew you were already dead, but still I constructed detailed fantasies, where Odin killed every member of your family but spared you. The sun sank behind me. Heimdall arrived, grinning at me knowingly. My panic was too focused to allow another thought in. The bridge opened, I plunged down its colored contours toward Midgard.

The world was all torn to pieces.

I could smell smoke and blood. Ice hung from the trees. A wind howled down the ragged corridors between their trunks. My heart weighed in my chest like a stone, sick and frozen.

"Odin?" I called. "Vali?" I tentatively moved Arvak out of the wood, toward the camp. There was a horse's screech behind me, the whimper and thump of brainless dogs. Somebody laughed, then the laughter faded. My family, disappearing to Bifrost and home.

The panic was hot and heavy in my mind. Arvak broke the cover of the trees and the camp was laid out before me.

There was hardly a thing left of it. The three cabins were razed and smoldering. The church burned slowly. I dismounted and moved closer to inspect it. My father or my brother had soaked the wood on the west wall so that the flames were low and green. Hanging from the wood, pinned up with spears, was Isleif's corpse. I kicked open the door and peered inside, then turned instantly and tried to forget what I had seen. The women and children, hanged and burned, like ghastly dolls. Among them, no flash of white hair. You weren't there. I felt my lungs expand. Perhaps you had escaped.

I moved through the choking ruins toward the fjord and down into the trees again. I found the remains of the men near the water. Had they tried to fight, or had they stood like hapless deer while Odin's dogs ripped them to pieces? A groan nearby made me catch my breath and spin around. Asbjorn, pinned to a tree. The dogs had started on him but not finished. I approached. His pale eyes met mine, but there was no recognition in them. He was not dead in body, but I suspected Asbjörn had long since ceased to be in mind. I carefully placed the tip of my spear over his heart and ended his suffering. He shrieked and twitched, the last mortal instinct, then fell slack against his bonds.

Still, I had not found you.

I took a deep breath. "Halla?" I called. "Halla?"

Maybe you were with my father and brother, a captive in Asgard. Even though I knew how captives were treated at Valaskjálf, the thought gave me joy. Alive, I could help you, I could speak to you and hold you. Dead, you were separated from me forever.

I gathered my courage and moved into the woods, scanning every inch around me for a glimpse of you. Until the very last moment I thought it might be possible you had survived; convinced myself of it so deeply that the sight of your hair, catching the moonlight at the foot of a rock in the clearing, almost failed to register.

But it was you. I ran to you and skidded to my knees.

Odin had done this, I knew his work. You had run from him, he had chased you here out of the cover of the trees, and he had killed you with an axe blow to the back. Blood stained your hair, but the dogs hadn't found you.

I removed the axe and turned you over, pressed myself against you and sobbed like a child. As the night deepened and the ice melted from the trees, I held you. You were cold and your head flopped about and your skin was blue instead of cream. I was covered in soil and moss and blood, my clothes were damp and I shivered with the cold and the shock. Every possibility of comfort had evaporated eternally. I laid your body down and sat back to stare around me like a simpleton.

A gleam of steel caught my eye. I rose and moved toward it.

Hjarta-bítr, rescued from the sea, thrust into the ground a bare five yards from where you had died. My hand closed over the crosspiece and I pulled it from the ground and felt its familiar weight in my hand. In an instant, I had thought of the one thing that might bring a glimmer of satisfaction. To take this blade and plunge it into my father's heart.

I released Arvak near the stables of Valaskjálf. The salty wind leaped down my throat and dried the last of the tears on my cheeks. As I strode up toward the hall, my heart pounded in my ears. Dark clouds gathered out at sea and crowded in on me, blocking out the stars. I trudged up the hill and saw the outline of the hall, and it seemed as though the walls themselves were quaking. My intention, to kill my father, was poison and ruin to our world. Lightning flashed, illuminating figures running from the hall. Odin knew I was coming, he was clearing out the usual crowd of revelers. By the time I flung the door open, the sky had fallen all around me. Hail began to beat off the roof, thunder split the heavens. Fires still burned, mugs of mead littered tables, half-eaten meals cooled, but the hall was as silent as death.

Outside my father's door, twenty of his servants formed a barrier.

"Stand aside!" I shouted, drawing my sword and noticing a smear of your blood on my wrist. They all gazed at me mutely.

"Stand aside at once or I will remove your heads from your bodies." A man, grey and stooped, stepped forward. "You will not enter your father's chamber," he said.

"Stand aside, old man."

He shook his head, planted his feet. I felt the hurricane of pain and anger and injustice tighten within me, lashed out and felled him. When I kicked the body aside, another took his place.

"You will not enter your father's chamber."

One after the other they stepped forward, and I mowed them down without thought, tasting the satisfaction like a drowning man tastes air, until there were only five left. Then Odin's door quietly opened. My heart jumped, but my father did not appear. Instead, another ten servants filed out. It finally occurred to me what was happening.

My sword, waiting for me in the clearing.

These willing victims, falling at my feet in a pool of blood and sad resignation. Odin wanted me to kill them. He wanted me to be a killer again, to be the son he had nearly lost to love. I gazed around me with a sick heart. Blood zinged on my tongue, my hands were smeared, my shoes were soaked in it.

I had tried to become something different, and with the tiniest effort my father had drawn me back to him. My breath stopped in my lungs. I surveyed the sullen faces of the servants in front of me. I quietly turned and strode from my father's hall.