“Tyler, is there something troubling you?” asked Mrs. Henderson.
He looked up at her and stared. This was going to be a defining moment, Joanna knew. Her pulse rang in her ears and her stomach flip-flopped once again. She begged Tyler in her head to be a good little boy. He pouted.
“Tyler?” urged the admissions director.
He glared up at her. “Leave me alone!” he shot, his black lashes blinking out a tear that rolled down his cheek. He glared at the admissions director. “Leave me alone! I don’t want to be here!”
Joanna was silent as she drove Tyler back to his home. She combed through what had happened at the school from beginning to end, trying to pinpoint where she had gone wrong. Perhaps her nerves had rubbed off on the sensitive child. They had completely flubbed the interview, and while she had been successful at finally coercing Tyler to go “play with the nice lady,” the rest of the meeting was just as awkward as the beginning. If she could just get Tyler into a decent kindergarten, then she would be a good mother, not one whose children were being threatened all over the nine worlds of the universe.
Mrs. Henderson had remained unflustered, responding graciously to Tyler’s awful little temper tantrum. “We all have our off days,” she had said cheerfully. “Don’t worry about it. He’s six years old, after all!”
But Joanna knew she had flubbed it. There wasn’t going to be a second chance at Carlyle. She glanced at Tyler in the passenger seat.
“Did you have fun with the nice lady?” she asked. “What did she want you to do?”
Tyler shrugged. “Nothing.”
She sighed.
He turned to look out the window and ran his pudgy little index finger over the glass.
She mussed his hair and watched the road. “It’s okay, Tyler. Everything’s going to be okay,” she promised.
When she pulled into the driveway, Norman was waiting outside for her, shoveling snow, waving and smiling. She was relieved to see him. He opened the driver’s-side door for her.
“How’d it go?” He saw her face. “That bad, huh?”
Joanna laughed—she had to. At least it was over. Perhaps she had grown too serious about this whole kindergarten thing. You never got anywhere if you came off desperate. “I’d rather not talk about it, but needless to say I’m back to the drawing board.”
“Ouch!” Norman said, hugging her. “I have some news. I’m packing a bag upstairs. I heard from Arthur, and I’m on my way to meet him.”
She released herself from Norman’s grasp, feeling a thousand new worries as she remembered the conditions explained by the Oracle. That certainly put the private school admissions race into perspective.
“Wish me luck,” said Norman with a brave smile.
They had very little time left, and if Arthur, as the keeper of the passages, couldn’t provide a better solution than that of the Oracle… well, there was no reason for Joanna to think of that now.
“He’ll think of something, I know he will,” Norman said. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he said, echoing the words she had just said to Tyler and with just as much conviction.
chapter thirty-seven
The Monster at the End of the World
Jörmungandr was the sea serpent whose head rested near the bottom of Midgard. He wrapped himself around mid-world, long enough to bite his own tail and form a circle. He did the latter while he slept, much like a child sucking on his thumb for comfort. His fangs dripped blood and black poison that killed in an instant. He was fond of ridiculous riddles.
And now he had Freddie’s trident.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Freddie said to Kelda. “How the hell did he get it? Whatever. Don’t explain. I’m exhausted. So what? What do we do now?”
She blinked at him as if he were slow. “Duh! It’s an emergency?” She looked at him sideways. “You’ve got to come down with us to get it back unless you’re, like, not in the mood to save the world.”
Just when Freddie had thought he was going to get a good twelve hours. He covered his face with his palms, took a deep breath, and flicked a hand at Kelda. “Can you just… um…” He gestured, making a circle with his index finger. “Turn around!”
Kelda grabbed her combat boots and faced a wall.
Freddie got out of bed and found a pair of pants neatly folded on a chair, which appeared to have been freshly laundered, thanks to their industrious housekeeper. “Save the world, but how? I’m tapped out. No magic. We all are. You guys might not have thought this through. How are we even going to get there?”
“Nyph and the guys are waiting for us on Gardiners Island.” Kelda stepped into her boots and kneeled to tie them. “Just get ready. You’ll see.”
“All right,” Freddie said, distracted. The clothes Gracella had washed smelled like flowery fabric softener, which somehow made him remember he needed to call Gert back although he didn’t know what he wanted to say to her. He had no clue what he was going to do with any of his women. Women! There were always so many of them around him. He slipped on the clean clothes and grabbed a hooded sweatshirt. It would be cold at the bottom of the world. He knew; he’d lived there before.
“You can turn now,” he told Kelda.
She swung around. Freddie jumped back, clutching his heart and gasping. Kelda had donned a large, terrifying mask of an ox’s head with two large horns. Though the mask was dirty and made of rubber, its verisimilitude was striking. She tilted the large ox head toward him.
Freddie studied her. “Where’d you get that?”
“Dumpster,” came her muffled voice. “Like it?”
He nodded. “Bring it. We’re going to need it.”
Freddie walked to the dresser and grabbed his cell phone. This was exactly what he needed. It made him feel like he was in Asgard again, when the world was young and he was ready for adventure. He decided he would ring Kristy on the way to Gardiners Island to let her know he had business out of town.
Ever since Freya and Ingrid had stepped through the hidden door in the ballroom almost a year ago now, Fair Haven had vanished beneath a tangle of green, even in the dead of winter. The trees and grass were overgrown. Ivy, kudzu, passionflower, and other vines swallowed the property—only the greenhouse on the southeast side of the house, which Killian had fixed up for Freya before he had disappeared, looked tidy. Vines as well as moss crept along the ground, down the dock, and onto the Dragon, Killian’s sixty-foot sport-fishing yacht, which was raised on blocks and covered in canvas for the winter, looking sadly funereal. The overall impression of Gardiners Island was that of a jungle engulfing the remains of an earlier civilization.
Kelda, still in the ox mask, led the way up the front steps. A path had been cut through the growth to the front door of the mansion, which the pixies had unlatched with a skeleton key. Inside, everything had remained intact, preserved by the blanket of foliage.
Freddie followed Kelda through an empty room with an enormous nineteenth-century painting entitled Ragnarok: The Death of Balder. An arrow pierced Balder’s heart as he lay on the ground, one arm outstretched, surrounded by Valkyries with pale skin, blond tresses, and eyes as cold as the steel of their helmets. He recognized Brünnhilde. Hilly. What a deceptive vixen she had been. There she was holding a spear. Valkyries! Feh.
They entered the ballroom where the pixies waited, sprawled on velvet divans and damask armchairs. The burgundy drapes had been drawn, the windows opened, and the moonlight cast a silver glow inside the room.
“Don’t all get up at once!” said Freddie.
Nyph, on a dusty-rose loveseat, looked up from her magazine and tossed it to the floor to pounce on Freddie. She wore a green satin gown, white gloves to the elbows, her hair up, and a boa twirled around her shoulders. The other pixies ambled over to greet him as well.
“Something’s different,” said Freddie, knitting his brow.
“We’re clean,” said Nyph, smiling up at him, her face shiny.
Freddie did an about-fa
ce. At one end of the ballroom, the wall had been crudely demolished, revealing a wooden door carved with the image of a tree. A pile of Sheetrock and rubble, along with a crowbar—the very same Ingrid had once used to uncover the ghost door—lay on the floor.
“The way to Yggdrasil,” said Val. “And Jörmungandr.” He pulled a gold watch from his pocket, glanced at the time, and straightened his ascot.
Sven, decked out in a three-piece suit, exhaled a stream of smoke from a pipe that smelled of apple tobacco. “And the trident,” he added gruffly.
“I gathered,” said Freddie. He studied the pixies, the costumes and props, and grinned. He had missed them.
They followed him to the door, where he ran a hand over the intricate design of flowers, birds, and twining branches, the tree an island in the sky.
Irdick crouched, a cigarette clenched in his lips. He pointed to a bottom section of the panel. “You walk to the end here, then you jump. Pretty self-explanatory.” He winked from beneath the brim of a 1940s felt hat.
“Who’s coming with?” asked Freddie.
The pixies stared at him. Sven made a show of yawning. “I’m beat!” he said.
“I need to change for dinner,” Kelda muttered from inside the ox mask.
Val shuddered. “I can’t st-st-stand Jörmungandr. He gives me the jitters.”
“The kid’s got serious halitosis,” added Irdick, studying his fingernails.
Nyph snorted with disgust. “You’re all a bunch of cowards! I’ll go, Freddie.”
Freddie patted her on the head. “Okay, but don’t bring the boa.” He glanced at Kelda. “And let me have the mask.”
Kelda pulled it off and tossed it at Freddie.
He took Nyph’s hand in his and together they walked toward the portal.
chapter thirty-eight
Sliding Dates
Ingrid climbed the stairs to her room. The familiars leaped off the bed and clambered at her feet to say their hellos. Siegfried rubbed hairs off on her leg. Oscar stared up at her with mournful eyes while Buster snorted at her feet. “Hello, pumpkins!”
She tossed the books in her arms onto the bed so she could play with the familiars before she took a shower. One of the books fell open, and something on the page caught her eye. She stared, then picked it up and ran to her mother’s study.
“Mother!” Ingrid held up the book as if she were about to swat someone with it. She shook her head, unable to speak, her color drained.
“Darling, what is it?”
She handed Joanna the book held opened to the offending page.
It was a list entitled PERSONS HANGED IN SALEM FOR WITCHCRAFT DURING 1692. A date she had never seen in the list before had been added. In this new list, the death toll began on June 10—as it always had—the date the first of the accused, Bridget Bishop, had hanged. But between June 10 and the date that usually followed it, July 19, when five more hanged at Gallows Hill, was an entirely new date: June 13.
“See what it says—right there—two new names… I’ve never heard of them before—but look at the third…”
“Freya Beauchamp,” Joanna whispered.
“Freya’s been hanged!”
“No—look!” Joanna said.
Mother and daughter watched as the names faded from view and the list returned to the original one she knew with no anomalies. Nineteen hanged and one person pressed to death. No Freya. Before their eyes, the list became evanescent, changing, names vanishing and reappearing, then going back once again to the original. Freya Beauchamp, hanged, June 19.
Ingrid thought she had glimpsed June 13 originally instead of June 19 for Freya’s death. It had faded so quickly, she wasn’t certain what she had seen.
“What’s happening?” Ingrid whispered. “Why is it changing?”
Joanna took the book from Ingrid and set it down on her desk. Her hands were shaking. She turned to her oldest daughter. “Remember when we saw the Oracle in the city?”
“Yes. You said he was unhelpful.”
“That wasn’t quite truthful. There was nothing he could do to help us, but…”
“But?”
Joanna told her what the Oracle had told them, about how time was fluctuating, undulating, and if Freya were to die while the passages were closed, how she would be doomed to remain in the underworld forever.
Ingrid sank to the couch. “No,” she whispered. “No.”
“But it’s all right, her death hasn’t been set yet. See? That’s why the ink keeps changing. It means it hasn’t happened yet—only that there’s the possibility that she could die. She’s still alive, Ingrid. There’s still some hope. Father has gone to… to see Uncle Art… He can help us. He will help us.”
“And if not?”
“If not…” Joanna clenched the book’s edges tightly. “Well, we will come to that bridge when we cross it.”
chapter thirty-nine
Trickster’s Son
Nyph placed a hand on the door, whispering the ancient password that would open it. The door gave way, swinging open onto a silent, enveloping darkness. Freddie stuffed the rubber mask into the front pocket of his hoodie, Nyph lifted the hem of the green satin gown, and together they stepped through to the other side.
Once they had crossed they found themselves standing in a dense green thicket. Beads of dew clung to the grass and leaves, glistening like jewels in the soft moonlight. “This way,” Nyph said, leading them down a path toward the void.
Freddie explained his plan for retrieving the trident as they trudged ahead. “I know it’s not much, and we’ll probably have to wing it in the end,” he added. “You know how Jörmungandr is. You never know what to expect.”
They heard crickets, cicadas, and katydids, but also the croaking of toads and the occasional startling screech of a barn owl. The air was thick, moist with the perfume of rich soil, mushrooms, and the grass that crushed underfoot. Enormous roots rose around them and snaked along the ground. Eventually, they arrived at the heart of the tree that held the path between the worlds.
Freddie held on to a root and swung out into the void. He peered down. Beneath, he saw something resembling stars, floating white lights, some stagnant, some shooting in sprays across the darkness.
“Here we go!” he said, swinging back. “You remember the plan?” Nyph nervously nodded yes.
Freddie took the ox mask out of his hoodie pocket and pulled it over his head, hoping his plan would work. He took the pixie’s little hand, and they jumped.
They fell sideways, floated upward, spun fast then slow. The air held them like a net. This went on for some time—turning and turning until neither knew what direction they had gone altogether. The end of mid-world was somewhere in the middle of the glom, the twilight space, right before Limbo, before Helheim, before the abyss.
Through the slits for eyes in the ox-head mask, Freddie peered into the wide-open jaws of Jörmungandr. The black poison coating the snake’s fangs dripped into the void as it hissed. Irdick had been right about the halitosis. A fetid wind wafted at Freddie, smelling of onions and sour, rotting meat.
Behind Jörmungandr’s head, a little ways off, Freddie spied his golden trident floating in a nest of white lights. Nyph poked her head out from behind one of Jörmungandr’s scales, where she hid, keeping an eye on Freddie.
Jörmungandr yawned. “Nice try, Fryr!” He had a lethargic way of speaking, carefully enunciating his words, and his S’s rasped with extra sibilance. “Thor tried the ox-head-as-bait trick on me once before. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice—”
“Shame on me,” said Freddie. The Midgard serpent spoke so slowly, it was difficult not to complete his sentences.
Jörmungandr smiled.
Freddie hadn’t forgotten the story and was depending on it to help. Once upon a time, back when the world was young and Asgard whole, Thor and the giant Hymir went fishing for Jörmungandr, using an ox’s head as bait. Thor caught the sea serpent with the bovine lure, but terrified of the mons
ter, Hymir cut the line, setting Jörmungandr free. Freddie hoped Jörmungandr would feel pleased not to have been trapped by the same bait this second time around. He was counting on Jörmungandr’s vanity to lull the snake into a false sense of confidence so that the monster could be coaxed into offering a riddle in exchange for the trident. The serpent’s riddles were easy enough to solve, but even if things went awry Nyph would snatch the trident while Freddie kept Jörmungandr distracted. She was his backup plan.
Freddie pulled the mask off his head, which was the signal for Nyph to stay hidden but also that they were moving on to phase two. “So how did you know it was me under the mask?” Freddie examined his fingernails.
Jörmungandr gave a grin. “Well, I figured you would come sooner or later. I do have your trident, after all.” The sea serpent turned his head to glance at it just as the pixie ducked. He turned back to Freddie. “It’s not like I get many visitors down here.” His large reptilian eyes blinked. “You want it, don’t you?”
Freddie shrugged sheepishly. “I kind of do…”
“I could offer a riddle? If you answer it correctly, I’ll give you back your trident. It’s not like I need it. I was just holding it hostage, because I’m bored.”
“I don’t know,” said Freddie. “Your riddles are much too clever, my friend. What about I fight you for it?” Freddie ran a hand through his hair, examined his arm, flexing the muscles.
“No, no, no, I’m not in the mood,” said Jörmungandr. “I have a good riddle. Please?”
Freddie pulled his eyes away from his arm. “All right,” he relented. “I’ll give it a try.”
Jörmungandr blinked happily. “So… my dad…”
“You mean Loki,” said Freddie.
“Yes, Loki, my dad,” replied the serpent. He loved to weave Loki into the conversation whenever he could, as Jörmungandr was very proud of his Asgardian heritage. “But that’s not the complete riddle. I’m not done yet.”