Soren touches my back. “Signy, look at the dates.” His eyes are on the monitor, not the map. I try to read the list quickly and see what he sees, and Talia says, “Here,” and types in more commands.
The LED lights blink out. “They’ll come on as I say the dates,” she says.
Talia begins a month ago, when the new pattern of excess sightings began. It starts in the northeast, near Montreal and New Scotland, with tiny pockets in major cities around the country. As time progresses, the troll sightings bloom toward the south and west, spilling across the map like a virus. The most intense groupings grow along the rivers from the Great Lakes down the Ohiyo to the Mizizibi, dragging inexorably closer to us here in Port Orleans.
“Did you see?” Soren asks. His palm is hot, burning through my T-shirt to my skin. “Play it again, please, and stop when I say.”
Talia starts the sequence again, and on the date of the Vertmont sighting he says to stop. Then he asks her to continue two days, until we got the tip from Ohiyo, the only positive identification of my troll mother.
“All right,” I say. “Then what?”
For three more days the lights flip on very slowly and make almost no progress south.
Then they explode on the fourth day, and Soren sighs harshly. “See? That’s the day you and I started down toward Port Orleans, Signy.” He turns me to face him, hands hard and hot on my shoulders. The spear tattoo is rigid on his dark cheek; he hardly moves his mouth as he says, “We followed the troll mother to Vertmont and Ohiyo, but after that this pattern pauses, and then started up again heading south. Just behind us. If this …” He waves a hand at the map. “If this is tracking the troll mother, it means she waited for us in Ohiyo, and then tracked us. She’s not just hunting you in your dreams. And she’s already here.”
TWENTY-TWO
AFTER EXTRACTING FROM Talia a promise of temporary silence about our discoveries and a printout of the latest lesser-troll sightings in Port Orleans in return for allowing her a personal visit with Red Stripe, we head home. My toes curl and tap in my boots as I analyze the possibilities. If the troll mother’s here, if she’s been hunting me, I should draw her away from the city and its residents, but it’s also possible the huge population has been a cushion of safety because she can’t find me here without revealing herself.
And suddenly I have questions for her, not only this black need to cut out her heart. I want to know why she came to Vinland. What choices did she make—as it’s clear she does make her own choices—that led her there? If she wasn’t from Montreal and if she truly followed Soren and me here, it has nothing to do with Red Stripe. That is both a relief and horrifying, because then what if it was only and always to do with me?
If Freya and Odin set me on the path toward her, did they set her onto me, too? Your heart, she said, as if she recognized me, had been looking for my heart. And what about Unferth? Where does he fit in?
There must be a solution to this puzzle. A refrain to this poem.
After ten minutes of silent driving along the red highway, Soren says, “Maybe she has nightmares about you, too.”
I shiver despite the heat and bright sunlight, and ask him to pull off at a rest stop.
It’s white with a pink tile roof, sheltering soda machines and candy dispensers, toilets, a Skuld shrine for travel blessings, and a stand of brochures advertising swamp tours and the Old Quarter and the Mjolnir Institute we just visited. While Soren buys a honey soda, I wash my face in one of the rather wretched sinks, then stand outside in the sunlight. It dries the water as I lift my chin, eyes closed. The evaporation is slow and prickles. What does it feel like to have your skin turn to stone?
Shaking out of the thought, I plop onto a bench. I bend down to grab a sharp chunk of gravel and carve nihtmaera, an Old Anglish word for nightmare, into the surface of the picnic table. I turn it into a binding rune and try to match it to my scar. It nearly fits.
Soren slides in across from me and adjusts the sock on his forearm before putting his elbows on the table. He doesn’t even open the soda can but regards me placidly while condensation forms against the aluminum.
I take a deep breath and pluck the front of my sundress off my chest to let air slip down. Dogs bark and cars rush past; the wind bends the pine trees lining the highway.
Finally I reach over and pop the top of his soda for him. He lifts his eyebrows. Instead of bursting out with my thoughts on what we should do next about the troll mother, I say, “I met a disir in the garden at the ball.”
“A disir!”
I rub my finger over nihtmaera. “It was Idun the Young.”
The flash of heat rips down my arms and face; I jerk my face away. When I peek again, Soren’s hands are flat against the picnic table, his brow creased, but otherwise he hasn’t moved. “She was there?” he whispers tightly when I meet his gaze.
“Yes.”
Soren knocks the soda can over with a sharp swipe. Carbonation hisses as the liquid glugs out. He watches it for a long moment and then says, “I’m sorry. I’m … sorry.”
I cover his fist with my hands and slowly pry it open. I draw the rune love in his palm.
“How does she look? Is she … well?” he says, so quietly I nearly can’t hear it.
“Pretty, and healthy.” I catch his eyes. He looks down.
We remain posed with our hands together while the breeze and sun dry the spilled soda into a nearly invisible patch against the wood. Soren’s shoulders heave then, and he withdraws his hand.
“Soren, how is she Idun the Young? I saw it in her eyes, her godhood. I know you aren’t supposed to say more, that it was breaking enough trust to even tell me her name.…”
His glower is severe. “That’s why Freya stole Baldur’s ashes, or arranged for it, to get Astrid there and make her the Lady of Apples. That is what she wanted.”
“There was no other way?”
“Astrid … agreed. She knew it was the right thing to do, and always … always was devoted.”
“To Freya?”
“To Freya, and Baldur, and the world and … her own heart. She’s so good, Signy.”
I scowl. “If Freya wants me to kill the troll mother, she’ll get that, too. Everything she wants.”
He nods. “Freya didn’t get everything she wanted. I was supposed to forget Astrid, too. It would have destroyed me. I would not be the man I am without her in my life. It would change me as much as cutting out my frenzy.”
“Odd-eye, Soren. I should have tied her up and dragged you to her.”
He laughs sourly. “I’ll see her in a few weeks.”
“You will?”
“Four times a year, at the heavens’ holidays, I’m allowed to spend one day with her.”
“What a curse.”
“A blessing compared to what it might have been.” He covers his chest, as if it pains him, and stands up. “Can we go? I’m too hot; I need to move.”
I follow him back to the car, where he insists on driving, as it will give him a thing to focus on to stay calm until he can practice his meditation.
As we head back into the city, I wonder if I’ve been too selfish. What if I’m not Freya’s endgame, but Astrid was? What if Vinland and I and the massacre were all just consequences to her plan? Did she give us up for Astrid to become Idun the Young? Were we casualties of war? Maybe my riddle was to position me for vengeance. Maybe Freya did this for me.
And that would mean Unferth did it for me, too.
I think of his dangerous teeth, of that hidden smile behind his eyes, when his lips never moved at all. And I wonder if I’m making it all up, inventing meaning in her actions and in his, because I can’t stand the thought that he was her pawn, that he only betrayed me.
I invite Soren to stay for dinner, but he shakes his head and says darkly, “I can’t control myself right now if your Sharkman pushes me.”
I lean across the gearshift and kiss the corner of his mouth. His hands tighten on the steering wheel and he
very carefully remains still. I say, “If you change your mind, you’re welcome. Always welcome wherever I am, Soren Bearstar.”
He nods once, slowly, and I gather the rolled-up map from the backseat and climb out.
When I enter, I go straight into the garage where Red Stripe is chained. He’s crouched more comfortably in this airy room, despite the restraints, than he’s been in weeks. His calcified expression is merely uneasy instead of twisted with rage or pain. I set my map down and take a harsh cloth from the bucket of salt water in the corner. Darius, reading a book in the only chair in the room, glances up but says nothing as I wring out the water and put the cloth against the gash clinging to Red Stipe’s back and side. I lean in, scrubbing at the purple crystals that are his hardened blood. I should have asked Talia if she could guess why he’s not healing well, and wonder if maybe it’s the heat as she mentioned. But then, he was in the cold of Halifax for two weeks at least, and it didn’t heal then, either.
When I’ve scraped off the blood crystals as best I can, I stroke a finger along his short tusk and whisper, “It won’t be much longer.”
“Lady?” Darius says.
Putting my back to Red Stripe’s hard marble chest, I lean into his arm, which props him up like a pillar. And I look at Darius. He’s back in his uniform now, the long black vest and black pants, black boots. It leaves his arms bare. The left shoulder is marked with a family crest tattoo: a rampant eagle spreading its wings, in its claws a round-shield divided into quarters: two are blacked out, one holds the rune for strength, and in the last is a crossed hammer and anvil. Beneath the crest is a small phrase in medieval script.
“What does not a leader, but a man mean?”
He puts his book upside down against his knee. “It reminds me that when dealing with such power as turns in my chest, with the god of madness, I must be a man first before I can expect anyone to follow me. My father used to say it, and I had it added when I was made captain.”
“You must have been young.”
Darius shrugs. “Young but strong, Lady Valkyrie.”
“Strong,” I murmur.
“That isn’t something you need to worry about. I saw your strength when you charged at the herd, all alone.”
I push away from Red Stripe. “I wasn’t thinking about it. It was just what I had to do.”
He nods as if to say, Of course.
“Darius,” I whisper.
The captain sets his book on the floor and leans his elbows onto his knees. He regards me intensely but only waits.
“The troll mother is here. Near here, at least.” I take a long, shaking breath. “I think she followed me, and maybe even somehow was in Vinland because of me and my riddle. I can’t explain how, but the goddess Freya is involved, and I suspect she’s capable of manipulating nearly anything.”
He nods once, slowly. “What would you have us do?”
I push my temple against the hard, smooth surface of Red Stripe’s knee until it hurts. “I want to go out tonight and see if I can find out about where she might be. Through the lesser trolls. If I can find some iron eaters, maybe I can bargain with them. There’s so much water here she could be hiding in—the Wide Water or the ocean, or any of these massive swamps. If I can’t narrow it down, we’ll have to do something to draw her out.”
“Which would be more dangerous.”
“Exactly.”
“We’ll go with you. Sharkman and I, and leave Thebes here with Red Stripe.”
“No, I should go alone.”
The long look Darius gives me makes plain his disagreement.
“You’ll scare them—especially iron wights, Captain. Probably I’ll scare them, even if I’m gentle. But I’ll fare better on my own with getting them to talk instead of run.”
“This sounds more like madness than bravery.”
I throw him a half smile. “I’m better with madness.”
“As am I,” says Sharkman as he clomps down the stairs. “You see? We belong together.”
I laugh, and it feels good.
Sharkman gives me the smile that earned him his name.
TWENTY-THREE
NEAR MIDNIGHT I slip out the front door in jeans, boots, and my black Mad Eagles hoodie despite the warmth that lingers in the night air. Thebes is on guard duty in Red Stripe’s violently bright garage, and he whispers “Good luck” as I strap Unferth’s sword over my shoulder.
I spent three hours with my berserkers going over the maps of troll sightings in Port Orleans to pinpoint the best possibility for me encountering the least dangerous iron wights. The majority of the sightings are near the river and bridges, of course, or near highway overpasses and up north by the Wide Water. Darius suggested I avoid deep water if I’m truly uninterested in danger, and we isolated a seven-block area south of here between the trolley tracks and river where there’ve been sightings of mostly iron wights. So that’s where I’m headed, and alone in order to be less of a threat to the curious little trolls. There are some cheap silver rings in my pockets to bribe them with, and a handful of colored paper clips I found in a kitchen drawer. My other pocket is full with a cell phone, at the captain’s insistence. Just in case.
The night is quiet but for the harsh-pitched cry of frogs and muffled traffic, and I jog down our dim street to an avenue with better lighting and four lanes divided by a grass median. It’s lined with scraggly oak trees and a strange blend of very nice antebellum houses and sorry ranches on concrete foundations with sagging porches. I start at an easy gait, Unferth’s sword quietly slapping my butt as I go. I count the blocks, and after nine take a left onto Sanctus Charles, which is busy even at this time of night. I follow the trolley tracks for two blocks before heading right, toward the river, again, this time on a narrower street in the center of these localized iron wight sightings. This one is quiet and dark thanks to fewer streetlamps. One side is lined with gorgeous three-story town houses, the other with short chain-link fences and single-family homes. Even in the dark it’s like two cities crashing into one another.
I tuck into the shadow of a tree as a cluster of five men spreads out across the street, sweeping their UV flashlights up the sides of houses and into the branches of trees.
Hunters after the bounty Thor promised yesterday, on account of all the extra sightings.
Once they’ve passed, I step off the sidewalk to cross the street. On my left the houses are replaced by a two-meter-tall whitewashed brick wall that glows in the dingy streetlights. I slow my pace and hop onto my tiptoes to see over it.
Darker gray and white rooftops peer at me from the other side, some peaked or curved, others entirely flat. They’re decorated with stone flowers and urns, some with false windows or wrought-iron crowns. Mausoleums and family crypts.
I sink to my heels. It’s one of Port Orleans’ cities of the dead. An entire block of marble and stone that wasn’t marked on my map. This should be the center of that iron wight territory Darius identified. What better place for small trolls to hide under the sun?
With a running start, I leap to grab the top edge of the wall and drag myself up. I roll onto my side across the flat top and catch my breath. Right before my face is a crumbling mausoleum, tucked against the wall, stained gray by rain and weathering. A lush green fern grows from the top corner. I sit to dangle my legs down into the cemetery. No streetlamps invade the city of graves, but it looks like there’s a lane around the inner perimeter and two that cross in the middle to create four smaller blocks of crypts within the larger block. Trees grow near the center and along the lanes, casting additional shadows in the dim moonlight.
I hop down into the cemetery.
My boots hit the dirt hard, and I crouch with my back against the cool brick wall. I’m hidden between two mausoleums. The breeze smells like wet stone and mud, and down here the city sounds are muffled.
I touch the cool marble to my right, skimming my fingers down it. This place reminds me of the death ship beach, though crowded and claustrophobi
c. I wish I knew who this cemetery is dedicated to. Most like it’s for Thunderers, who are often buried whole-bodied in stone graves like this, or in crypts beneath one of their rock cathedrals, waiting in peace for the day Thor Thunderer summons them to his side, to travel with him to his far mountain home. But in a city like Port Orleans, there might be shared cemeteries, with portions assigned to Freyan ashes or Biblist internment or foreigners or anything.
My neck prickles. I tug the cowl of my hoodie down over my forehead and go out into the narrow lane. Moonlight shines on the rows of thin mausoleums, exactly like a row of town houses but small and gray. The tiny death homes are worn, the poems and epitaphs faded from their marble faces. What few markings I recognize are messy and eclectic: hammers carved into the lintels, or circle snakes or crosses, lambs and flowers. Long grass squeezes out a living between them, and a few of their doors are crumbled or missing and replaced with plywood. This is no cared-for graveyard like the one at the Death Hall; it’s old and forgotten even in the heart of the city.
But not everything has forgotten it.
There’s a scratching like rats in the walls. I turn slowly, see nothing but leaf shadows.
Wind brushes the edge of my hood, caresses my cheek. On my right the proper entrance appears, its iron gate locked tightly, with the name of the place arched over: Garden Cemetery No. 1. In cursive script, almost impossible to read backward, it promises, All the dead are welcome here.
A modern orange sign is tied to the bars. I pull the bottom away to read it. CLOSED FOR REPAIRS.
Putting my back to the gates, I walk directly down the overgrown lane toward the center.
Stone scrapes stone, like one of the tomb doors is opening. My lips part and I suck in a quick breath. They’re here; I was right. There the sound comes again: the scratching, the claws scrabbling across marble roofs.
I scan the black shadows between tombs, the short iron fences that mark family vaults, the sudden splashes of color from the plastic bouquets set about the place.