by Joan Holub
“Look! Up ahead!” Idun yelled as loud as she could. “See that huge pile of wood shavings and sticks outside the wall around Asgard? I bet Odin and everyone else built it. They must be trying to help us somehow!” Seeming to hear her at last, the falcon rallied. Putting on a final burst of speed, it headed for the wall.
Odin looked terrible, Idun saw as they swooped lower. Still, as saggy and weak as he’d become, he had obviously been watching their flight toward Asgard from Hlidskjalf, his high seat in one of Yggdrasil’s tip-top branches overlooking all nine worlds. But how is the pile of sticks and shavings outside the wall supposed to help? she wondered.
By itself, the wall did a great job of keeping Asgard safe from enemies. After it was recently repaired, the Bifrost Bridge—guarded by Heimdall and rotating shifts of students—became the only way in by foot. But both the wall and the bridge could be flown over.
“Light the pile!” Odin cried out as they neared.
“Eh? Fight the smile?” Idun heard someone call out in confusion. “Why would we need to do that? Nobody here feels like smiling!”
Some of the students must be so old now that they couldn’t hear well, she realized. They were in desperate need of her apples of youth! Luckily, someone managed to strike flint and spark a fire just as she and the falcon dove over the wall.
Whoosh! Flames shot up the very instant they were safely past. Hot on their tail, Thiazi the eagle-giant tried to pull back in time to dodge the fire. But without success. Pzzt!
“Yee-OWCH!” he yelled. The fire had singed his tail feathers! While twisting his head to blow on them, he plunged head over claws toward the ground outside the wall. At the very last moment, he somehow managed to pull up. Glimpsing Thor atop the wall, and figuring (wrongly, since he could no longer lift it) that Mjollnir must be close by, the eagle-giant decided he’d been beaten. Scree-ee! Turning tail, he winged off in the direction of his mountaintop café, muttering incomprehensible eaglespeak curses as he flew away.
Suddenly Idun felt the talons around her open. “Freya! Wait!” But acorn-Idun was already falling through the air. Plunk! After hitting the soft, snowy ground, she dizzily rolled down a slight slope.
When she came to a stop and looked up, a big squirrel face was staring down at her. Ratatosk! “Hello, little nut,” he said, scooping her up. “How did you escape my bag?” Having mistaken her for one of his message acorns, he was about to toss her into his knapsack.
“No! Stop! I’m Idun!” she yelled in her tiny voice.
“Wha—?” Opening his paw, the squirrel stared at her in surprise. Beyond him, the falcon landed on the ground with her eski.
At that same moment three grandmotherly looking women just beyond Ratatosk came shuffling up to the falcon. One wore violet boots like the ones Skade had bought at the mall. Was this really her?
Idun’s little acorn-eyes widened when she realized that these had to be her friends. They had aged so much, however, that they were practically unrecognizable! Skade’s boots were a dead giveaway, though. And Sif’s hair, being metallic instead of real, remained as golden as ever. Freya was recognizable too, since she still wore her nine strings of necklaces.
Wait a second! thought acorn-Idun. If that’s Freya, then who’s wearing her falcon feather cloak?
Just then, the falcon flapped its wings. It was going to fly off again, with the apple-filled eski clasped in its claws!
“Not so fast, mister! Aren’t you forgetting something?” Freya warned the falcon.
Mister? Huh? thought acorn-Idun.
“And where’s Idun?” asked Skade and Sif.
Thor and several other boygods moved toward the falcon, surrounding it in case it tried to leave. “Oh, yeah, the cloak,” said Loki’s voice. Loki? Sure enough, when the wearer of the cloak shrugged it off, she saw for the first time that it was him. “Almost forgot. Here you go,” he said, handing Freya’s cloak back to her.
Idun could scarcely believe it. Her rescuer had been Loki? She felt like slugging him and hugging him at the same time. Only she was still a nut and didn’t have arms!
“Where’s Idun?” all three old women repeated.
“Here I am!” Idun called out to them from her perch on Ratatosk’s open paw. But her friends, all of whose ears weren’t so good anymore, didn’t hear her.
Loki glanced down at the ground around him. “Oops. I must have accidentally dropped her. Has anyone seen an acorn about so big?” he asked, pinching his thumb and forefinger together and leaving an inch gap between them to indicate Idun’s current small size.
“Over here! I’ve got her!” Ratatosk called out. He hopped up and down, as excited as if he’d just discovered he was holding the winning ticket to a lottery. “I thought she was one of my message acorns,” he explained as he scurried over to Loki and handed acorn-Idun to him.
Loki grinned at acorn-Idun and then set her on the ground by his yellow shoes. “I bet you’re surprised to see me!”
Before she could reply, Loki murmured some magic words and poof… Idun was instantly her girlgoddess self again.
14 Young Again
WELCOME BACK! WE WERE SO worried about you,” grandma versions of Freya, Skade, and Sif cried out to Idun.
“Yeah, ditto. Here’s your eski,” Loki said brightly, scooting her cart over to her. Idun just scowled at him. Any urge she’d felt to hug him had passed. So had the urge to slug him, but that did not mean that she was in a forgiving mood.
“Hey, everyone. Come and get ’em! Youth-restoring golden apples!” Turning her back on Loki, she reached into her eski and began to hand around the apples of youth that remained in it to all who had aged in her absence, including Odin and Ms. Frigg. “I don’t have enough for everyone, so just take a few bites and share these for now, okay? I’ll pick more soon for dinner and for breakfast tomorrow. Promise!”
Though everyone showered her with gratitude, she barely had time to acknowledge their thanks. The most important thing now was to reverse the aging process that had occurred in them as quickly as possible.
Nevertheless, she paused in her task and did a double take when a bald old man with a long white beard wandered over. Catching her eye, he exclaimed, “As you probably knew, we were worried about you!”
Rhyme! Then this had to be… “Bragi?” she asked in astonishment.
It was just yesterday that she and her friends had come upon Loki and him on their way back from shopping and heard the boygods ask Heimdall how long it might take before they could grow beards. At the time the girls had laughed, trying to picture the two with hair on their chins. Who knew that only a day later, Bragi would be sporting not just the beginnings of a beard, but a long white one at that! Only now, him having a beard didn’t seem so funny.
“That’s my name, I’m one and the same!” Bragi replied. As if to prove it, he took a big bite of the apple. Instantly the added years melted away until he was restored to his former youthful self. Then he passed his apple to Thor, who also took some bites and instantly de-aged before passing the partly eaten apple on to yet another elderly student.
“I… um… I need to tell you something,” Bragi said, following Idun as she moved on to distribute more apples from her eski. “While you were gone, I realized I might never get a chance to say it if you didn’t come back, so…”
“Yeah?” she asked. Winding up her arm, she pitched an apple to two elderly girlgoddesses who were waving their hands to attract her attention.
Bragi reached into the eski and began helping her toss apples to more students. “I… uh… Do you remember how Loki teased me yesterday? About you being the apple of, um, you know, my eye?”
At the mention of Loki, Idun frowned. “Yes, but Loki says a lot of things that aren’t true, so don’t worry about—”
“Wait,” Bragi interrupted her. “I… um…” Glancing around at the others near them, he lowered his voice so that only Idun would be able to hear him. “It’s kind of true that I like you. I mean, like-like you.�
� He rushed on. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know, that’s all.” Looking a little embarrassed now, he ran off, his energetic boy-self again thanks to her apples.
Stunned, Idun stood still and stared after him. Slowly a smile bloomed on her face. “I like you, too,” she admitted softly. She knew he wouldn’t hear, and he didn’t since he was pretty far away by now. Which was just as well. She needed to think about what he’d told her for a while. If a crush was destined to happen between them, it would unfold in its own good time. No rush.
“Hey! Over here,” called Freya’s brother, Frey. “Got any more apples?”
“Sure! Yes, sorry,” said Idun, snapping back to attention. Happily, she continued distributing apples. Murmurs of relief and delight echoed around her as the prematurely aged were made young again. Gray hair turned blond, brown, red, or black. Wrinkles smoothed out into youthful skin. Whiskers disappeared. Hearing and sight improved.
Freya, Skade, and Sif had patiently waited for her to pass out her apples to all the others who needed them before accepting any themselves. So by the time Idun approached her friends, most everyone else had begun to head back to the academy.
She held up her one remaining apple. “Hope you don’t mind sharing,” she told them, already knowing they wouldn’t. Freya had been carefully checking the feathers of her cloak, probably to make sure Loki hadn’t damaged any, Idun guessed. Now she glanced up at Idun and smiled. So did Skade and Sif. One by one, each of the three girls took a big bite of the apple, and soon all three were restored to their former youth.
“Well, that was an interesting experience,” Skade remarked wryly.
Laughing, the four girlgoddesses reunited joyfully in a huge group hug. When they finally released one another, Idun said hurriedly, “As much as I’d like to stay and talk, I’d better get to my grove to pick the rest of my apples. The V kitchen will need them for dinner tonight.”
“We’ll go with you,” said Freya.
Before Idun could fold up her eski, Skade pointed to something down at the bottom of it, saying, “Wait, what’s that?”
“Oh. They’re tree bark sheets.” Idun had almost forgotten about them. “With recipes I stole from Thiazi. I was hoping they’d give the Valkyries some fresh ideas for preparing my golden apples.”
“Oh! Thank goodness!” blurted Skade with evident relief.
Freya and Sif quickly tried to shush her.
“Aha! I thought so. You guys are tired of my apples being served in the same ol’ apple ways, aren’t you?” Idun said. “You want different recipes.”
“You’re not upset?” asked Sif. “We didn’t want to hurt your feelings by telling you. You’re always trying to help everyone, and it seemed super mean to criticize.”
Idun smiled. “Don’t worry. Hopefully some of these new recipes will prove—” But as she reached into her eski to pick up the stack of bark sheets, her smile fell. They were charred and black. “Sparks from the fire at the wall must have leaped into my eski and burned them,” she murmured. It was a wonder her apples hadn’t caught fire too, but maybe their magic had protected them.
At any rate, the recipes were ruined. Totally unreadable. With a sigh, she tossed them to the ground where they would eventually turn to compost and become part of the cycle of life.
“So much for that idea, but I’ll figure something out, I promise. I’m just relieved to be back, so I can tend to my trees and do my job.” With a sigh, Idun picked up her eski, folded it to ice-cube size, and pocketed it.
“I’m curious. Why did you think it was a good idea to invite Loki to go with you to plant apple seeds?” Freya asked lightly as the four of them headed toward the grove.
Feeling embarrassed, Idun explained about her plan to help Loki improve his reputation by getting him to perform a good deed. “I should’ve known better,” she finished. “He really is a bad apple.”
“Rotten to the core!” Sif exclaimed.
“Don’t feel too bad about what happened with Loki, though,” Freya said. “He’s fooled or tricked almost everyone here at the academy at one time or another.”
“No kidding,” said Sif, running a hand over her metallic hair.
“Yeah! That boy isn’t just a rotten apple—he’s a worm in a rotten apple!” said Skade.
They all laughed.
Freya smoothed the feathers on her cloak, which she still held over one arm. “I bet he would have kept my cloak just now if he could’ve gotten away with it.”
Idun looked at the cloak wistfully. “Hard to blame him.”
Her friends had come clean about their need for a wider variety of apple recipes. Now the urge to spill her feelings and come clean about everything she’d been holding back filled her. Words burst from her lips. “When I saw that cloak in Glad Rags yesterday, I really, really, really wanted it,” she told Freya.
“What?” Freya said in surprise. “But when I asked if you intended to buy it, you said—”
“That I didn’t. Which wasn’t true. I could tell how badly you wanted it,” Idun said. “I didn’t want to be selfish, so…”
“Speaking up for yourself isn’t necessarily selfish,” Freya said with a shake of her head.
“Yeah,” Sif agreed. “Unless maybe you’re Loki and you only consider yourself and never anyone else. But you aren’t like that.”
Freya held the cloak out to Idun. “If you still want it, it’s yours. You saw it first. I’m happy to give it to you.”
Idun reached out an eager hand, but then the look on Freya’s face stopped her. She could tell how hard it was for her to make the offer. Freya loved this cloak. And it clearly loved her. Its feathers were ruffling in distress at the very idea of being parted from her. Looking from the cloak to Freya, Idun let her hand drop and slowly shook her head. “You keep it. You’re the one it wants.”
Freya smiled, looking relieved. “Thanks so much, Idun. You’re the best. But if you ever want to borrow it, just say the word.”
Idun glanced at the sky. The sun was starting to dip toward the horizon. “Yikes. It’s almost time for dinner. The Valkyries will need those apples!” A sudden wish to try out the cloak at least once rose up in her. “Hey, Freya. The word.”
“Huh?” Freya arched an eyebrow in confusion.
Idun grinned at her. “I’m saying ‘the word.’ Like you told me I should do to borrow your cloak. So can I borrow it now to get to the grove faster? After I’ve picked the rest of the apples, I’ll catch up to you all at the Valhallateria in two shakes of a falcon’s tail.”
Freya’s mouth curved into a huge smile. “Done,” she said. Without hesitation, she handed over the cloak.
“Freya’s friend,” the cloak hummed happily as Idun donned it. It seemed to understand that this was only a temporary loan, not a change in ownership, and so accepted what was going on.
Immediately Idun felt the cloak tighten around her. A tingly sensation ran through her as her feet became clawed and her head acquired a beak. How strangely light she felt as her feathery wings unfolded grandly from her sides! Her takeoff was a little wobbly and she dipped from one side to the other over and over.
“Try to center your core,” Freya called up to her.
Center my core? The instruction confused Idun. But then she thought about how the flesh of an apple centered around its core, and the image helped her to regain her balance.
“Got it! Thanks,” Idun called back. Only what came out of her mouth… uh, beak… was just a high-pitched shriek. EeYEE! With a whoosh, she was off to the grove while her friends continued on to the Valhallateria.
Wow! Even though she was way up high, Idun could see things far below that she never could have seen if she hadn’t been a falcon. She certainly hadn’t been able to see this clearly as an acorn. Having falcon eyes was awesome! All kinds of details stood out. Especially anything moving. Like a little chipmunk she spied running across a boulder below her. Reveling in the ability to soar through the air under her own wi
ng power, she circled the sky once, just for the joy of it, and then quickly flew to her grove.
After she landed, she took off Freya’s cloak and carefully folded it over a tree branch, making sure not to injure its feathers. Hurriedly she unpocketed her eski, gave it a shake to enlarge it, and then set it on the ground. Working as fast as she could, she picked the remaining apples on her trees. She had just plucked the last apple when an eagle appeared and sailed down to land near her.
Thinking the eagle-giant had returned to kidnap her again, she raced for the falcon cloak, but then the eagle transformed into Loki. “You scared me half to death!” she yelled at him. “I thought you were Thiazi!”
“Oops, sorry,” he said with that infuriatingly cocky grin of his. “My bad,” he added, taking a seat on the edge of her eski.
“Yes, you are bad! A bad apple!” she scolded him. “You put your own welfare above mine and many others’ at AA when you let that giant kidnap me. Talk about selfish! And dumb, too. Without my apples you would have grown old like everyone else!”
“True,” Loki acknowledged. “I didn’t think of that at the time I made the deal. It’s hard to think clearly when you’re in the clutches of a crazy eagle, being dragged over boulders and trees.”
Idun had run out of sympathy for this boygod after his recent antics, so his words had no effect on her. “Yeah, tell me about it. I wound up in its clutches too, thanks to you!” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “What hurts most is that I really believed you wanted to change. But it was all a lie. Just like that magic growing spell you claimed you were casting over the seeds we planted. That was really—”
