RrrRRRRrrrrrRRRRRrrrr.
A shirt that didn’t fit and made it look like I thought I was going golfing, and the memory of a huge fight with my mom the night before, and now the car wouldn’t start.
I climbed out, raised the hood, and then kicked the front fender till I thought I’d broken my foot. I cursed the car and then moved on to cursing life in general.
Then, calmer, I unscrewed the air filter and leaned over to look down inside the old-fashioned carburetor.
From the carburetor, cold salt water sprayed.
I opened my eyes. The ship had caught a freak wave on the beam. The spray had slapped me awake, but only partly. I opened my eyes and closed them, wondering whether I’d ever be able to fall back to—
The four of us. Jalil, April, Christopher, me. All sitting cross-legged on the grass. Outside the school. Books open on our laps, sandwiches in wrappers, small bags of chips. Kids all around, lounging, talking, joking, eating.
Lunch. Outside the cafeteria, out on the common. It was a nice day. Not night, day. Not Starbucks, not my car, school.
“You two must have woken up,” April said, looking at me and Christopher.
Jalil jerked his thumb at me. “No, he just crossed over. You can tell by the confused ‘where am I?’ look on his face.”
“I’m here,” I managed to say. “Someone stepped on my hand, woke me up. Christopher’s looking at the stars.”
Christopher made a face. “I am not looking at the stars, I am right here looking at the three of you. Just because he… me…
the other me… isn’t here, doesn’t mean I’m deaf, dumb, and blind and you have to act like I’m some senile old man. He…
Everworld Chris… popped in yesterday evening, so I got a memory update. I know about the Viking ship and us… you, whoever… being on the way to start trouble with freaking Az-freaking-tecs.”
“Both versions of him are equally annoying,” Jalil said to April.
A second later, Christopher frowned. His face confused.
“Meeting called to order,” Jalil said sardonically. “Other Chris has joined us.”
“This is beyond nuts,” Christopher said. “Normal me can’t tell if he’s losing his mind or what.”
“There is no normal you,” I said, an attempt at a joke. I never had gotten my car going that morning. Yes, that morning. I’d ended up taking a city bus because the school bus had come and gone.
“Let’s talk fast,” April said. “I’m sleeping back under the tent with the women. Someone will wake me up any second.”
“Hey, try being out in the open,” I said. “What are you complaining about?”
April made an amused face. “I’m with the wives and the girlfriends, and these Vikings aren’t exactly discreet. Or even civilized. I’m getting my sex education class here. And I managed to make matters worse by handing out Advil to Harald’s wife, who was having cramps, and now he’s enjoying himself because she’s feeling better, and the two of them want to give me a goat as a thank-you gift. I’m trapped in the middle of Love Secrets of Norsemen. Not to mention that in the dark a couple of these guys have accidentally-on-purpose plopped down on top of me.”
“Except for that last part, I’d trade places with you. So. What do we talk about?” Christopher asked brightly. “You think the Bears will change quarterbacks?”
“How do we stay here?” April demanded, showing no interest in joking. “How do we hang on to this, to being here?
How do we stop getting dragged back to Everworld?”
Jalil nodded in agreement. “That would be Issue Number One.”
“This was fun, in an insane kind of way,” Christopher said,
“but I have a life. Okay, not much of one, but better than the life that involves getting killed by Aztecs.”
“There must be a way,” April said. “Not to… look, I don’t want to sound like a ditz, but my friends are acting weird around me. Like they don’t trust me anymore. It’s all this stuff. I mean, of course I’m different than I was. Look at what’s happening to me!”
Her voice rose to a near shriek. She took a couple of deep breaths and tried to form her face into its usual lines.
“It’s like being that bag lady downtown, the one who talks to voices. I’m living this nice, normal life, but in my head I have memories of being in Everworld, and then when I slip back across, it’s like this second personality, like me but not me, takes over. This is the textbook definition of insanity. I feel like me, only not. I’m here, only not.”
“ ‘There’s someone in my head, but it’s not me,’ “ Christopher sang. “Sorry. Suddenly I was channeling Pink Floyd.”
I remembered the fight with my mom. Freaking out and kicking my car. More emotion than I usually show. Less in control than I usually am.
April was right. We were living through something that was very close to insanity. Maybe it was insanity. How would you know?
“I want to be home,” April said.
Christopher nodded.
Jalil shot a look at me, questioning. “How about you, David?”
I started. I’d been off in my own thoughts, still assimilating the memories of the last couple of days. This was all taking place in a single night’s sleep. But Starbucks had been last evening. An hour ago there, twelve hours here.
“Senna,” I blurted. “There’s still Senna. I want to find her.”
“True love,” Christopher sneered. “Here’s a thought: Find another girlfriend. Senna’s gone. Even if she weren’t gone, she’s trouble.”
“No. I want to find her. I’m not giving up till I do.”
“Kind of a moot issue,” Jalil said wearily. “Since we don’t know how to stay here, how to escape Everworld.”
“Yeah, well, if that’s what we want to do, I think the answer is probably over there in Everworld,” I said.
“If?” April echoed, staring hard at me. “If?”
I snapped awake.
No one had stepped on my hand. No splash of cold water.
I simply woke up. Jalil and Christopher slept. Presumably April, too, back with the women.
I was relieved.
Chapter
XXIX
Sven Swordeater was there by the rail. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to be around him or not. But mostly the Vikings seemed like a fairly democratic bunch. As long as you didn’t screw up.
Then this wiry little guy named Jospin would come over and kick the hell out of you.
I got up, moving carefully so as not to wake Christopher and Jalil. They would still be back there. Sitting on the grass, nibbling Doritos and asking themselves how they could stay there.
I’d still be there, too. Part of me. That me. But they’d know that I had crossed back over. That I was in Everworld again.
I went and stood, learning on the rail, and looked up at the stars. Different stars, I was pretty sure. No North Star. A moon, but larger and more pale.
Sven was doing pretty much the same. Hanging and looking and, I guess, thinking.
When he spoke, it was with a heavy speech impediment, like he had a mouth full of sandwich. I was surprised he could talk at all. I could see the scars, even in starlight.
“My father says you escaped from Loki’s castle.”
No point denying it. “Yeah. The four of us,” I said.
Long silence.
“My father says you come from the Old World. The world of before.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Yes, we… um, excuse me for not knowing, but do you have some title I should use when I talk to you?”
Sven smiled his hideous smile. “No. Harald is lord on this ship, and should he fall then Sancho will take his place. I am only Sven. Tell me about the Old World.”
“It’s very different,” I said. “More like… I don’t know. More complicated, maybe. Lots of machines. Flying machines and cars. It’s hard to describe. It’s mostly peaceful, at least where I’m from. No swords or armor. We have guns instead. And,
you know, TV, movies, books.”
Well, David, I thought ruefully, that should paint a pretty clear picture.
“It’s very different,” I added lamely. “Tell me about this place.
Everworld.”
“It’s very different,” Sven said without missing a beat. We both laughed.
Silence again.
“Things are changing,” Sven said after a while. “Many things.
For many centuries we tended our fields at planting and harvest, sheared our sheep, and bred our cows and horses.
Twice a year we would go a-Viking. We raided along the coast of Atlantis — until they agreed to pay us a yearly tribute. And then we raided up the great Nilus River to take the gold and silver of the Egyptians, and through the swamps and fens to find the wondrous steel made by the Coo-Hatch. We took slaves and women and all manner of riches. And of course we traded peacefully when that was profitable: our fish and wool for Dwarvish swords, our wood for Greek pottery.”
“Sounds interesting,” I prompted, while my brain was busy going, Atlantis? Coo-Hatch? I glanced over, wishing Jalil or Christopher would wake up so they could hear some of this.
“There was a balance in this world,” Sven said. “And then came the Hetwan.”
“I saw one of them,” I said. It came out without me thinking about it. A sudden blurt.
All at once the friendly chat was over. Sven spun, grabbed my arms, and yanked me close. “You saw a Hetwan? Where?
Where?”
“In Loki’s castle,” I said.
“By the gods,” Sven whispered, appalled. “By all the gods of Asgard! Father! Father!”
Sven and I were no longer friends. He dragged me, half stumbling, toward the stern, yelling, cursing, calling for his father to wake up. Seconds later I was standing in front of Harald Goldtooth, Sancho, Sven, and half the ship.
“You’re sure you saw a Hetwan?” Harald demanded.
“Yes. Yes… my lord.”
“Neither man, nor dwarf, nor nymph, nor elf, nor any other creature of the Old World? But not like the Coo-Hatch or the Ett, either, but standing as a man stands, and with wings, and with—”
“With three little insectlike arms that are always moving, like they’re snatching food out of the air,” I finished. “Loki called him a Hetwan. I think he was, like, the representative for some guy named Ka Anor.”
Not a sound from any of the men and women there. I swear that hearts stopped beating. The water gurgled down the side of the ship, the sail sighed as it swelled, but not a word.
“We have been betrayed!” a man said, quickly hushed.
“What did Loki say to this Hetwan filth?” Harald demanded.
“He… well, he was basically apologizing and threatening.
The Hetwan was mad because…“ I didn’t know how to go on.
Should I mention Senna?
Jalil made the decision for me. “Loki tried to remove someone from our world and bring her here. He sent Fenrir. He succeeded in grabbing this person, but somehow she got away from him, or he lost her. That’s how we ended up here. We were carried along in her wake.”
Harald looked to both his sons, then at each of us. “I tell you now, minstrel, that if you lie to me I will kill you.”
Said quietly. Said without anger. Said with absolute seriousness.
I believed him.
“Who is this person that Loki took from your world?”
I pressed my lips together, firm. Not this time. I wasn’t giving Senna up. We didn’t have to answer. You don’t like if you don’t answer.
Christopher didn’t feel the same.
“Who is she? Good question. Loki kept calling her a witch.”
No one laughed. No one rolled their eyes. These men took that word very seriously.
“What did Loki want with this witch?” Harald asked.
“We don’t know,” I said.
Harald’s sword was out and pressed against my throat before I could twitch. I felt cold steel, a coldness that reached down deep and froze my insides.
“He’s telling the truth!” Jalil yelled desperately. “He’s telling the truth! He doesn’t know. Not really.”
Harld looked hard at me. “Then what does he suspect?”
“We think Loki may want to use her somehow,” April answered for me. “We… we don’t know how. You have to understand, we had no idea Everworld even existed. This is all new. All of it. In our world there are no Vikings and no Loki.”
Harald was not offended or surprised. “Of course not. When Everworld was born, the gods left the Old World and came to this new place. And they carried their people with them. Zeus and his children, Huitzilopoctli and his foul brood, Odin and his own. All the gods.”
“A new universe,” Jalil said under his breath. Then, “Why did the gods create Everworld? Why did they come here?”
Someone standing behind Jalil swatted him in the back of the head. It wasn’t malicious, but it wasn’t gentle, either. “Harald asks the questions here,” a man’s gruff voice admonished.
Thorolf. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might feel responsible for us. And if we offended, he might suffer.
Harald shook his head, considering, suspicious, but not quite ready to call us liars or spies. “Everyone back to your duties,” he said at last, dismissing us.
Grumbling Vikings went back to sleep. April looked like she wanted to hang out with us, but it wouldn’t do for us to look like we were conspiring.
I went back and lay down again. But I didn’t sleep.
Chapter
XXX
The sun rose on a Viking fleet spread across miles of ocean.
We were sailing east into the sun. Assuming that the sun rose in the east here. Assuming it mattered.
Christopher was in line to use the head. This amounted to a short platform with a hole in it. The platform hung out over the sea. I’d used it the night before. It was a good idea to hurry: The sea had a tendency to rise up and come shooting like a fire hose up through the hole. Which woke you up in a big hurry.
There was no privacy, male or female. Which took a little getting used to, and explained my own preference for going at night.
Breakfast was salted fish that had been steeped in fresh water to leech out some, but not nearly all, of the salt. There was bread, still fresh after only a day out of port. And apples. Small and wormy.
I saw Jalil writing in the notebook from April’s backpack. I went over to stand by him, not wanting to pry. He saw me and held the pad so I could see. He was using an unlined divider piece to sketch a map. It showed the outlines of the inlet containing Loki’s castle and the village. The detail was surprisingly good.
“Might as well get to know the place,” Jalil said.
He had also covered at least one page with tiny handwriting, a description of what we’d seen so far. What we’d learned.
“You writing a book?” I asked.
“More or less. A record. We don’t know how long we’ll be here. How long till we find a way to escape. Maybe we learn something and don’t know its significance till later. Maybe there are clues.” He shrugged.
I turned toward the bow and caught a shot of fine, cold spray. It made me grin. “You hate all this so much?” I asked him.
“Hate it? No. I think it’s the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. But that’s not the point, is it? I have a life. I have family. Friends, although they can get along without me.”
“They aren’t getting along without you,” I pointed out. “You’re there. You’re there and here.”
“Yeah, that’s not too strange,” he said. “Anyway, that’s my life, man. Back there. Back in my own universe. That’s my life.”
“Yeah. Good life,” I said sarcastically. “You work, where?
Burger King?”
“Boston Market.”
“We’ll both go off to college, get degrees in something or other—”
“Business major, minor in journali
sm,” Jalil said.
“Whatever. So you do what with the rest of your life?”
He didn’t look like I was getting to him. “Report on business.
You know, Wall Street Journal, CNN, CNBC, something like that.”
“Get married, have kids. Buy a nice car. Buy a house. Water the lawn. Shop with your wife. Watch TV. You ever think about that? Going to work every day, kissing someone’s butt, someone’s it doesn’t matter whose. Some boss you have to tell,
‘Yes, sir, brilliant idea, sir!’ “
“Maybe I’m the boss,” he said with a small smile.
“Maybe you are. So it’s someone else kissing your butt. Is that better? I mean, high school is four years, and it seems like forever. You work for thirty, forty years. Forty freaking years getting in the car, driving through traffic, dealing with b.s., driving home, and taking the kids to buy sneakers?”
I realized April had come over. How long she’d been listening, I didn’t know.
“And you don’t want all that?” she asked me.
“Maybe. Someday,” I said. “I don’t even know if I’ll go to college, but my mom’s looking at an MBA for me, and I go along, mostly. Why? Because I care about business? No, because everyone’s on me about my future. Gotta get the grades so you can get a good college so you can get a good business school so you can get on with some big firm where you shuffle papers and tap on a keyboard and that’s it, man, that’s your life till you get old and wonder what the hell you did with your life. That’s not life. Not for a man, anyway.”
April cocked an eyebrow. “The way you describe it, it doesn’t sound like life for anyone. That won’t be my life. You leave out all the good stuff: friends and family. Kids. The things you love to do.”
I waved my hand, dismissing it all. “There used to be adventure. You know? Going west in a wagon train, or going to war, or exploring someplace no human being had ever been before. Now what do we have? Look at Sven. Look at that guy.
He’s my age. Look at his life. Then look at mine or Jalil’s or yours.”
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