by Sam Subity
Gwynn was the first to move, uncertainly at first but then jogging across the field toward me smiling. When she passed Chase, she nudged his gaping chin back in place with the tip of her gloved finger. “Looks like someone got owned when he didn’t expec’ it.”
Doc clapped his hands for attention at the sideline. “I think that’s enough for today. Let’s have everyone hit the showers.” He headed across the field in my direction.
Gwynn stopped in front of me and held out a gloved fist. “Wreck-It Beckett. Has a nice ring to it. You practice that move a lot?”
I bumped my fist against hers. “Uh, never, actually. It sort of just … happened.”
She nodded appraisingly. “Well, maybe you can just happen to teach it to me sometime.” She took a last glance at the shattered wall, then back at me. “Catch up with you after we get cleaned up?”
“Um, yeah. See you then.” I bent in half, breathing hard and still wincing from a brutal blow to the ribs from one of the dragon sticks.
Doc regarded me with an unreadable expression as he approached. “What did you think?”
“I think even my bruises have bruises,” I panted. “But I might have gotten the hang of it at the end there.”
“Yes, in my fifteen years of coaching knattleikr, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a move like that. You caught a more experienced defender off guard, and look what happened. I think what you discovered is that it’s not enough to only use your body. You have to use your brain too.” He tapped his head to emphasize his point.
“Yeah,” I said weakly, tapping my head in reply and wincing at even this light contact with my skull. “Ouch.”
“Viking warriors once used this game to train for battle because they also knew that relying solely on brute force nine times out of ten results in a one-way ticket to Valhalla. But enough lecturing for now. I think you’ve earned a hot shower.”
In the hallway leading to the locker rooms, I spotted Chase talking with an older man who had his back turned to me. The man slapped him on the shoulder, and Chase jogged off to the locker room. As I drew closer, the man turned, and his piercing gray eyes were unmistakable. Unferth. I also recognized the similarity of features to Chase for the first time, and a lightbulb came on in my head. They must be father and son. Chase Lodbrok. Unferth Lodbrok. One doing his best to ruin my social life. The other destroying everything else that mattered to me.
I felt the anger boil up in my chest as I made a beeline for him. Words piled on top of words as I marched toward him, ready for my emotions to explode like hot lava. But as I neared him, my resolve started to crack under the intensity of his gaze. Before I lost all my nerve, I quickly blurted the first words that came to my mind: “Why did you hate my mom? What did she ever do to you? Maybe expose you as an incompetent hack?” Ugh. Did my voice sound as whiny to him as it did in my head?
His face underwent a sea change from shock, to confusion, to anger. When he spoke, his calm voice belied the steel in his eyes. “I saw you leave Coach Ruel’s office earlier. What did he tell you?”
I looked at him with confusion, not following where he was going with this. He stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the locker room. I backed up a step, felt the back of my leg depress a lever, and suddenly heard water running. When I turned, I saw I’d backed myself into a small alcove with a drinking fountain. Trapped. The anger seeped out of me like the water gurgling down the fountain’s drain to be replaced by a tight feeling of foreboding as I realized my tactical error.
Mr. Lodbrok’s eyes regarded me coldly when I looked back toward him. “Did he say you were brought here for your protection?” he said. “Something like that?”
“I … um …” I glanced to both sides, looking for help or a way out.
“And what would we do, exactly? Surely you know from the Beowulf legend that a Grendel cannot be defeated by steel alone. No, Grendels are protected by an ancient curse that both deforms them and shields them from mortal wounds. Only a sword crafted by the forges of old can harm them. But the last one of those was destroyed, its blade melted by the blood of the Grendel that Beowulf killed.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Was all this true? Why hadn’t Doc told me, then? “Yeah, so why are you telling me this?” I finally choked out.
“You wanted to know the truth,” he said. “Here it is: We are not engaged in a child’s game. You can forget about any so-called protection. If your mother was correct, and a Grendel still lives”—he paused and glared hard at me—“then there is absolutely nothing that you—or any of us—can do to stop it.”
He held me with his glare for a few seconds, then spun on his heel and strode back toward the field and out of sight.
The bitterly cold air caught me like a slap to the face, momentarily driving the breath out of my lungs when I burst through the rear doors of the arena and into the late afternoon. I couldn’t remember ever feeling as lost and alone as I did at that moment.
I hurtled across the snowy field, intending to run until I couldn’t run anymore, but soon pulled up short at a steep embankment. The stream that bisected Vale’s campus barred my way. That struck me as the ultimate irony: Among all my other failures, I couldn’t even succeed at running away.
I stamped my foot in frustration. “Aaaahhhhhhh!”
“Aaaaahhhhhh!” came a cry from behind me.
I whirled around.
A few yards behind me, Grimsby fell toward Gwynn, who caught him as she came up behind him. He pointed at me accusingly with the giant foam finger he’d been wearing earlier. “Maybe warn a guy next time you decide to practice your Viking battle cries, eh?”
“What … ? Where did you guys even come from?” I said.
Gwynn gestured back toward the arena. “We saw you run out the back doors of the longhouse. Figured something was up.”
“Yeah,” said Grimsby, “we’ve been following you like halfway across campus calling your name.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. There’s sort of a few things on my mind.”
“Anything we can help with?” said Gwynn.
I sighed. “Well, it’s a long story.”
“Does it look like we’re busy?” Grimsby said, holding the giant finger to the side of his face like he was thinking.
So I filled them in on my conversation with Doc and the ensuing encounter with Chase’s dad, leaving out only the part where we were all going to die grisly deaths at the hands of an army of mythical baddies.
“I can feel something building,” I finished. “First there were the attacks on my dad and me. Then there’s this weird journal that leads us to a sea monster in the school swimming pool. And now I find out there’s someone hunting the Aesir. I wish I knew where it was all leading. Or even who … or what is behind the scenes, pulling the strings. But I can’t put all the pieces together.”
Gwynn stared at the ground, deep in thought. “Well, someone wanted you to have the journal. Seems like whoever it is wanted to help you.”
“Help?” said Grimsby with a snort. “Help? Thanks, but I don’t need the kind of help that ends with us being sea monster food.”
Gwynn spread her hands. “But we didn’t. That’s the point. I think it’s more like some kind of test.” She looked at me. “You know, to prove that you’re worthy of the truth. Or something like that.”
I nodded slowly. “That kind of makes sense. So what do you think the next test is?” My whole body shivered, but not completely due to the cold.
She shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
“You mean find this world tree or whatever it is?” Grimsby said. “If you remember, we’re sort of stuck on that one. It’s not like there’s a blinking neon sign somewhere that says ‘This Way to Ye Olde World Tree.’ ”
We all fell silent, probably thinking the same thing: dead end.
I raked my hands through my hair in exasperation and turned around, staring helplessly at the frozen stream. Wait. The stream … the stream … Why
did that remind me of something? Then a flash of inspiration hit me. I looked both directions up and down the stream’s course.
Then I spun around to face my friends. “Maybe not a sign, exactly, but the next best thing. Gwynn, do you still have that old surveyor’s map we found in the library?”
She swung her backpack off her shoulder and started to rummage through it. “I have it somewhere … Yeah, here it is.” She slid out the map and handed it to me. “Why?”
I quickly unrolled it and held it out in front of myself, my friends crowding in to look too. “Because I thought I remembered … Yeah, there it is. See that symbol we thought was the greenhouse earlier? Notice any recognizable landmarks around it?”
Grimsby gave a little grunt of recognition, then stabbed at the map with his foam finger. “Sorry.” He slid the finger off, then traced the curve of the stream. “The stream seems to run right past it.”
I turned back toward campus, holding the old map out in front of me at arm’s length. “But something doesn’t seem right. According to this map, Vale’s main hall should be over there.” I pointed in the opposite direction, toward where the soccer fields were now located.
Gwynn slapped herself on the forehead. “Of course! I can’t believe I forgot. The original campus was moved a long time ago. Something about the ground underneath being unstable.”
A tingle of excitement shot through me as I turned back to follow the line of the stream to where it disappeared into the forest behind Vale. “So if we just follow the stream …”
Grimsby was nodding. “We find ourselves a world tree.”
Overhead, dark clouds billowed across the sky, threatening an incoming storm. An icy breeze tugged at my hair and clothes.
Seeming to read my thoughts, Gwynn said, “We’d better get going if we don’t want to be caught outside in this storm.”
We jogged along the bank of the stream, soon arriving at the tree line, where dense undergrowth blocked our progress.
“Are there any trails that run close to here?” I said.
Grimsby scuttled down the embankment and first tried pressing one toe onto the ice, then his whole foot, and finally his entire weight. “Seems pretty solid to me. Makes as good a trail as anything, don’t you think?”
Gwynn and I looked at each other, then shrugged and scrambled down after him and followed him onto the ice. If I was careful and slid my feet, I found that I could walk on the frozen stream without too much trouble.
As we entered the forest, the treetops overhead swayed ominously in the increasing wind. I turned up my collar against chilly gusts that gave me the eerie feeling of ghostly fingers sliding across my neck, grasping and hungry.
We stared around as we walked, looking for anything that resembled a world tree. But they all just looked like normal trees. Venturing deeper and deeper into the forest, my earlier feeling of frustration slowly crept back. It occurred to me that even following the stream we could very easily walk right past the tree, and with it what was probably the only chance to cure my dad. A solitary snowflake jerked and twisted toward the ground in the wind like a lone sentinel at the front of an army of white.
Grimsby froze suddenly, waving for us to stop. He cocked his head to one side. “Do you guys hear that?”
My heart raced as my eyes darted around. What had he heard? Was someone following us? I froze, but all I could hear was the wind. The creaking of the swaying trees. The … Wait, what was that? I stood as still as a statue. The sound was very faint, but when I strained my ears to listen, it sounded like …
“Is that someone singing?” Gwynn said, her eyes narrowing.
Grimsby cringed. “If you can call that singing. It sounds like one of those tone-deaf American Idol contestants.”
“What do you think?” I said. “Should we go check it out?”
Grimsby stared ahead into the darkening trees. “Creepy forest. Three kids all alone. What could go wrong?”
Gwynn shook her head and stepped past him. “Did anyone ever tell you that you have an overactive imagination?”
As we followed Gwynn along the streambed, the singing grew louder. I still couldn’t recognize the song, but the voice sounded distinctly male. There was also a dim light up ahead now. Had we circled our way back to the main Vale campus?
Suddenly we stumbled out of the trees into a large clearing that seemed to be illuminated with its own soft glow. The singing immediately went silent, like we’d tripped some sort of switch as we’d left the trees.
In the center of the clearing stood an enormous tree—so large that the stream split in two and circled around its base. The wind had died, and when I looked back, there was a distinct line where the stream magically transitioned from a block of ice to a happy burbling flow like it was the middle of summer. We all craned our necks upward, looking into the tree’s canopy, which was so high we couldn’t see the top from where we stood.
Grimsby whispered, “Just a wild guess, but I think we may have found the world tree.”
I looked around the clearing. But where was the mystery singer?
“Hello?” I called.
Hello? I winced as my own voice echoed loudly back to me. I guessed it had something to do with the acoustics of the clearing.
I knelt down next to the stream, letting my fingertips skate across the surface of the water. It was surprisingly warm. My frozen fingers prickled as they thawed, and then the warmth continued all the way up my arm. In my reflection in the water, my eyebrows pressed together in confused wonder as the feeling spread throughout my body, filling me with a peaceful, golden glow.
Suddenly there was a movement in the reflected shadows above me. An almost-imperceptible shift. I spun around, craning my neck upward, my heart racing.
Nothing. The branches overhead were empty.
“See something?” Gwynn whispered, kneeling down next to me.
“Is someone there?” I called out, my voice cracking.
Is someone there? echoed back.
This is silly, I thought. I’d only seen a leaf stir in the wind or an animal scurrying through the branches.
“Silly!” I said out loud, as if trying to convince myself.
Silly!
It occurred to me that it was strange how my voice echoed back to me like this. If anything, it seemed like the dense forest around me should absorb my voice, not echo it.
“You guys feel that too, right?” Grimsby said, shuddering like he’d just seen a spider crawling across his hand. “Like there’s someone watching us?”
I walked to the other side of the clearing to get a better look around, but all I could see was the giant tree. I gestured to Gwynn to circle around the other way. Maybe someone was hiding on the other side, sneakily keeping the tree between us and them. We met on the other side. Nothing.
“Where are you?” I tried, teetering on the edge between panic and morbid curiosity.
Where are you? The echo used my words, but somehow now that I was listening more closely, it didn’t sound like my voice.
“Are you copying me?” I asked, turning in a slow circle to listen for the direction of the reply.
Are you copying me? This time it was accompanied by a little giggle. It seemed to come from behind me, but when I turned, there was still only the tree.
“Cut it out!” I said.
Cut it out!
Grimsby held out his hand. “Hold on. My little sister likes to play this game all the time. There’s only one way to get her to stop.” He paused, looking around, then said, “Cinnamon has no synonym. Try that five times fast.”
Cinnamon has no synonym. After the fifth time, all was quiet again.
Grimsby frowned appraisingly. “That was pretty—”
Six sticky skeletons.
He turned to us with his eyebrows raised questioningly.
“I … think it’s a challenge,” Gwynn said. “Let me give it a try.” She repeated the line perfectly five times, then pumped her fist in the air. “That all y
ou got?”
“Here,” I said. “I’ve got one: The stump thunk the skunk stunk.”
The stump thunk the skump. The thump … Ugh, I can never get that one.
“Ha!” I said. “Who are you? Stop hiding and show yourself.”
There was silence for a few seconds, then: My name is Iggy.
We all looked around. Nothing.
“But where are you?” Gwynn said.
I am the tree, and the tree is me.
Grimsby frowned. “Very funny. No, really. Where are you?”
You mean you’ve never talked to a tree before?
I thought for a second. “Okay, fine,” I said to the tree. “If you’re the tree talking to us, then do something, uh, tree-ish.”
I heard a rustling noise from above, then a swirl of leaves fell to the ground at our feet. Looking down, I saw that the leaves formed a picture of a face with its tongue sticking out.
“Noooo wayyyy,” we all said together.
I jerked my head back up toward the tree. “You are talking!”
What is it the kids say these days? Well, DUH … There was the sound of a throat clearing, then in a deep, resonating voice, the tree continued, I am the mighty, all-knowing world tree, supporter of the heavens and the earth. Also I like tacos. You don’t have any, do you?
We all stared at each other, then back at the tree, and slowly shook our heads. No tacos.
Cat got your tongue? Penny for your thoughts? You have vanquished me in the time-honored battle of the twisting of the tongues. So now you may ask me something. Anything.
“Well …” I said, slowly edging away as I remembered that in Norse myths the world tree was protected by a giant angry squirrel. “I’m kind of stuck right now. But I’m not sure it’s exactly something you can help with.” I shook my head. Was I really talking to a tree?
Maybe something about … your dad?
I froze. “Wait. You know about my dad?”
Uh, maybe you missed the part about the all-knowing world tree? You know, from, like, two seconds ago? Stay with me, kid. Of course I know about him. I even know where you need to go to help him.
