Eleven

How those days were passed, I have no idea.

Not even my journey of remembering can take me back to that darkest of nights.

*   *   *

There had been three days, that I do recall.

Three days, and nights, of no wonders, and it seemed that the old sagas were right. The way to stop the again-walker was to hold him to the ground, with stakes of magical thorn, if possible.

Very slowly, we began to recover, but then it all fell apart.

It had snowed, fresh snow, snow again and always.

And in the snow, one night, we found Matilda.

Her throat was gone, and most of her blood.

*   *   *

It was late as we went to bed, and Eirik and I went to sleep, as usual, holding each other’s hands.

“When will it stop, Melle?” Eirik whispered to me through the darkness.

“Go to sleep, children,” said Mother, from across the room. Father stood, by the fire, sword in hand, his back toward us. He poked the fire with his sword, lost in thought.

“I don’t know, Eirik,” I whispered back, right in his ear so only he could hear. “But I’m afraid. Aren’t you?”

But Eirik didn’t answer.

Somewhere, out there, in the darkness, Tor prowled.

Looking for us.

For me, for Eirik.

*   *   *

It was always his way. His tools were his hands, and his arms and legs. My way was to think, his way was to do.

When I woke in the morning, and found that his hand was not in mine, I knew at once what he’d done.

I could see him waiting till even Father had gone to sleep, and I could see him getting up from our bed of furs and hay, and standing.

I think he probably didn’t say anything before he went. His way was to do, not to speak. But I think he probably paused to look down at me, one finger twined around my hare necklace, and then he stole out of the house, into the dark. He left me, alone.

He would have walked just for a little while, and then, finding Tor in the lanes, would have held his hand, turned, and set off, back toward the mound in the long meadow.

*   *   *

It might not have worked.

Tor might not have been satisfied, but it seemed that Eirik was right. Tor was content, in the end, to settle for just one of us, one of the children who might be his nephew, or might be his son.

For the wonders stopped, and the murders, and the hauntings.

*   *   *

I often think, though, about that grave down in the long meadow.

Surely now, surely now that I am an old woman, and soon to stop telling stories and to go to the other side of sleep, surely those bodies have become bones?

I like to think of those bones.

The large ones, cradling the small ones, in their arms.

Father.

And son.