by Sam Subity
“Check the forge for an intruder,” she ordered crisply. “Report to me what you find.” They nodded, drew their longswords, and disappeared inside.
She turned back to me, and her expression softened, an almost-imperceptible shift in a slab of granite. “You’ve obviously had quite a fright. Come with me.”
I followed her through the dark subterranean corridors of Asgard, eventually climbing a tight spiral staircase made of cut stones that wound upward for what seemed like an eternity.
I could feel the pressure of each second ticking by, and I didn’t have the faintest clue how to save my dad. An image of the wires attached to him curling around him snakelike and slowly strangling the life out of him came unbidden to my mind. I shook my head to clear it. I’d thought for sure that the secret I’d find in my mom’s workbench would be what I needed. But now I had … nothing. And no idea where to turn next. I touched my back pocket. Nothing, that is, except an old spoon apparently worth killing me over.
“Can I ask where we’re going?” I said at last.
But even as I asked the question, we came to a solid wall. The headmaster touched it with her fingertips, and it swung open easily. We stepped through the doorway into an enormous room that felt like a freezer in the predawn chill. As I moved farther into the room, I heard a soft whump behind me. I turned and an immediate warmth bathed my face as flames came to life in the giant fireplace we had just passed through. With the light, I quickly realized where we were. Back in Professor Roth’s office. So she had her own secret entrance into Asgard. Through the fireplace. Okay, that was … sort of awesome.
A clinking noise made me turn to see the headmaster pouring steaming liquid from a small urn into two small teacups. When she was finished, she lifted one of the cups and handed it to me. It was only when my trembling hand reached for it that I realized how badly I was shaking. I managed to take the offered cup in both hands, relishing its warmth against my palms.
“Come. Sit,” Professor Roth offered, and gestured toward two chairs near the fire.
One half of my brain wanted to scream, We don’t have time for a tea party! But to the other, exhausted half, the opportunity to sit sounded … really nice. I dropped my backpack next to one of the overstuffed armchairs and collapsed into the seat with a long sigh. Ouch. What was I sitting on? One hand reflexively went to the lump in my back pocket, but in the same moment I remembered. The spoon.
My eyes flicked up toward Professor Roth. She regarded me silently through the steam rising from her cup. “Sorry,” I said, “just, um, making sure I’m not injured.” That seemed reasonably believable.
I awkwardly looked away and imagined a scenario where I announced, I have a secret weapon that will save the Vikings! Then revealed … ta-da! … a spoon.
Riiiiight. Not unless Vale was besieged by giant monsters made of banana pudding.
They might just think I’d gone nuts too, like they all thought my mom had. Like mother like daughter. I glanced back at Professor Roth. Should I tell her about overhearing Mr. Lodbrok’s confession about trying to have me killed by a sea monster? What if she was in on it too? Could I trust her? I wasn’t sure yet.
I lifted my cup to my mouth to buy me a few more seconds while I decided what to do but was surprised when a chocolatey liquid touched my lips. My eyes shot downward. What I’d been expecting was warm tea, but instead in my glass was a thick, mocha-colored liquid that tasted like melted chocolate bars. My taste buds wanted to climb into the cup and do the backstroke through the delicious drink.
“It’s a Viking favorite,” said Professor Roth, noticing my surprise. “Much thicker and richer than modern hot chocolate.”
“It’s delicious.” I sighed as I eagerly sipped more of the thick concoction and felt it slide across my tongue and down my throat, warming me from the inside out. My lips made an embarrassing slurping noise, and my eyes jerked back up to where Professor Roth continued to study me. I shifted in my seat in the intensity of her gaze.
Her fingers flexed like they were playing invisible piano keys on the side of the cup. “You remind me much of myself at your age.”
I stared back at her wordlessly, not sure how to respond. In the firelight and with her long golden hair streaked with gray falling loose over one shoulder, she looked almost … human.
A thin smile played across her lips as she turned her head to stare into the fire. “Indeed, when I was a young girl, the thing I wanted most was to be an Aesir. To join the elite class of Viking warriors nobly hunting our greatest enemy.” She paused and made a small noise that might have been a sigh. “Alas, my special abilities never materialized. I was … devastated, to say the least.”
I dropped my eyes to the floor, silently wondering if that would be my fate as well.
“But eventually,” she continued, “I learned a new truth. That I didn’t need to be an Aesir. That I could do great things regardless of, or perhaps in spite of, my lack of any special gifts. And eventually I would come to be master of all this.” She spread her arms, indicating, I guessed, not just the school but the sprawling Viking city under our feet. “I would bring order to a disorganized Viking community and return it to its glory as one of the most powerful forces on the world stage.”
Professor Roth stood and slowly approached me. I shrank back into my seat and glanced around nervously, wondering what was happening. But then she simply bent, lifted the urn at my side, and refilled my cup with more of the syrupy chocolate.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m telling you this?”
I shrugged like the thought hadn’t crossed my mind at all. But … yeah.
The headmaster pivoted toward me so that I could feel the full weight of her stare. “It’s because I see the same enormous potential in you. To do great things. Amazing things. But to get where I am, I first had to give up something. I had to throw off the past—a legacy born in darkness, when words like ‘magic’ and ‘monsters’ were used to explain things we didn’t understand.” She reached out her hand and gently encircled mine with her long, elegant fingers. “Abby, you too need to put aside your past. To stop blindly chasing fairy tales and realize your full potential.”
I squirmed uncomfortably and finally jumped to my feet and began to pace, unable to sit still any longer, a thousand different emotions pinballing through me. What she was saying made a lot of sense, but … I spun toward her, my agitation easily readable in my face and body language. “But I saw a Grendel. In my kitchen in North Carolina. It was right in front of me.”
The headmaster waved her hand dismissively. “You saw what someone wanted you to see. What you were programmed by your years of training to see. A child’s nightmare. It’s only when you let go of the foolish traditions of the past that you can begin to see clearly.”
My blood boiled. “No! I know what I saw. Why won’t anyone believe me?”
“Abby.” She stared into my eyes. “You’ve been under a lot of pressure lately. Sometimes life asks us to take on adult challenges earlier than we’d like. And now you need to prepare for the possibility that you may soon have to make decisions that you’re not feeling entirely prepared to make should your father …”
She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to.
I clenched my hands into fists and strode angrily across the room to stand looking out through one of its tall windows, unable to process all this at once. The warm chocolate churned in my stomach. If only my mom were still here. She’d know what to do. At least she’d believe me.
Outside, the sun was just sliding above the horizon, its golden rays imbuing Vale’s campus with what felt to me like a false promise of endless possibility. Dawning on what could be my dad’s last day among the living. Before I could speak again, I heard a polite cough and realized someone else had entered the room at some point during our conversation. Looking over my shoulder, I saw one of the Viking guards from earlier approach Professor Roth and speak quietly to her.
She said a few sharp
words in reply, then stepped toward me. “Ms. Beckett—Abby—I’m afraid my duties call me away. We will continue our conversation soon, I promise you. Until then, I urge you to strongly consider my words. The choices you make now. Your next actions. Even now you are shaping your future, and whether you rise to greatness … or are consumed by the shadows of the past.”
As she started to walk away, I called out to her. “Wait. In the forge. What … what did they find?”
Professor Roth turned back and studied my face for a few seconds. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Then she turned and led the guard out the door, leaving me standing alone in the flickering firelight. I turned back toward the window, feeling lost and confused.
Then I gasped.
There in the courtyard several floors below stood the statue of Bellyflop Bjarni that I’d seen earlier. His arms were stretched in a V over his head. The angle of the morning sun cast his shadow toward me across the circular pool of water at his feet … exactly in the shape of the upside-down Algiz rune.
The death rune.
You might be surprised what you can see from up here. Iggy’s words echoed in my mind. And it was true. I’d never have noticed it unless I was looking down from above, just like now. Could the pool below actually be the mysterious Well of Weird that the tree had mentioned? Was it somehow connected to saving my dad?
A bubble of excitement swelled in my chest. I spun around, temporarily shoving aside the grim symbolism of the final rune as I snatched up my backpack, and then sprinted from Professor Roth’s office and down the stairs, taking them three at a time. Almost breathless, I hurtled into the crowd of students arriving for the start of the school day, swinging my head left and right, searching for Gwynn and Grimsby.
“Abby!” someone shouted over the noise.
I whirled around. My friends were there, picking their way through the hall toward me.
I grabbed Gwynn’s hand and started to pull her in the direction of the pool. “Come on!”
“Huh?” Gwynn said, one eyebrow going up. “Where are we going?”
“Just follow me. I’ll explain on the way.”
While we jogged through the hallways, I gave them the highlights of my return to the forge and the unsettling chat with Professor Roth afterward, finishing with the discovery of the upside-down Algiz rune.
Gwynn frowned, silently processing this new information. “So Fenris is somehow mixed up in all this?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I don’t see how everything is connected, but there must be something we’re missing.”
Grimsby panted, trying to keep up with us. “Wow,” he said to Gwynn, “you have absolutely horrible taste in guys.”
“Hey,” she shot back, “grown-ups talking here.” She looked back at me. “And you’re sure he was the same guy who attacked you on your drive here?”
I nodded. “Positive. Unless you know any other eyeless giants. The funny thing is, I never would have given the spoon a second look if he hadn’t tried to kill me to get it.”
We all went silent for a few seconds, clearly with the same thought on our minds: What about it was worth killing for?
The sound of tinkling water came from around the corner ahead. I slowed to a walk as we turned and entered the grotto with the statue standing over a small pool. The reappearance of the upside-down rune earlier had me spooked, and I wasn’t ready to rush into danger this time.
Grimsby studied the pond as we approached. “Okay, then what do we do now? Toss a penny in and the ghost of Elvis rises from the water holding this thorn we’re looking for?”
“Don’t you think it’s a little too coincidental the way it all fits together?” I said. “The tree’s riddle did mention ‘hold your breath,’ and when do you hold your breath? In water.”
“Yeah, let me just remind you, it also mentioned death.” He looked down into the serene pool. “So then … what? You’re thinking we go for a swim? Who knows how deep that is?”
“Well,” Gwynn said, “the tree specifically said ‘you will surely conquer death.’ But it does still worry me that the rune’s shadow was upside down. That makes me think if the cure for Abby’s dad is somehow down there, then it’s not like it’s going to be a pleasant dip in the pool.”
I gave an involuntary shiver as I studied the mirrorlike surface of the dark water, wondering what dangers lay beneath it. Again I wondered if maybe both my quests—my dad’s cure and the Grendel—were somehow intertwined. And if so, was there something important I was missing? Some critical connection that might prevent me from leading us blindly toward our deaths?
Gwynn paced slowly back and forth, thinking. She absently kicked a loose pebble into the pond. Suddenly her head tilted to one side and she leaned closer, peering into the glassy surface. “Weird.”
“Weird? Well of Weird?” I said. “Ha ha, very funny.”
But Grimsby was nodding his head too and stepped closer to the water. “No, I heard it too. The pebble made a little plop when it fell in, then that was followed by some sort of faint rattling sound.”
“So? It just landed on the bottom,” I said.
“No, it wasn’t that.” He quickly searched the area around the pool and plucked a small stone off the ground. He dropped it into the water. There was a plop, then several seconds later we heard a faint clattering noise. If the water had slowed its descent, it shouldn’t have had such a noisy landing.
Grimsby was perched precariously on the very edge of the pond now, squinting down into its depths, his curiosity evidently having overcome his skepticism. “There seems to be …” He trailed off and squatted down closer, stretching his arm out over the pond.
“Careful!” Gwynn said, taking a step forward and reaching toward him.
But at the same moment Grimsby lost his balance. He somersaulted into the pond headfirst with a cry of surprise cut off quickly by a splash.
“GRIMSBY!” Gwynn and I shouted at the same time.
We rushed to the side of the pond, but he was gone. I frantically peered down into the dark water, but all I could see was my own reflection in the smooth surface. It was as if he’d been swallowed without a trace.
“Abby!” Gwynn said, looking around agitatedly. “We need to find a pole, or stick, or … or something. Quick!”
But her words barely registered as I stood there on the edge of the Well of Weird, gripped by an old, paralyzing fear. My mind flashed back to my five-year-old self. Perched on the edge of the high dive. My toes curled around the edge of the board, feeling its rough, stippled surface on my bare feet. A drop of water rolled down my nose and dangled precariously on the tip before plunging an impossibly far distance to where it plopped into the water below. Like then, I could hear my heart beating rapidly in my ears. Thumpthumpthumpthump …
Present-day me took a deep, steadying breath. I wasn’t that little kid anymore. This time there was no backing down. No scrambling down the ladder and running, crying to my mommy.
“Abby! Wait!” Gwynn shouted, evidently reading my intent on my face.
But I ignored her. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. And jumped.
There was an initial shock of icy water. I decelerated as I plunged downward. Then, just as suddenly, I was somehow falling out of the water and picking up speed again.
Confused, I opened my eyes right as my feet connected with a hard surface and my legs crumpled under me. For a few seconds I lay there on my back in the nearly complete darkness, stunned but relatively unhurt. I looked up, then blinked, rubbed my eyes, and looked again. The water simply stopped in midair several feet above me, like I was looking upside down at the pond’s surface, still rippling slightly from my passage. I reached up toward the blue glow of the water, still not believing what I was seeing. Hold your breath …
A large, dark shape appeared above me. Then a splash. My brain realized what was happening at the same instant that Gwynn crashed down through the water and landed right on top of me.
“Abby!” Gw
ynn said in surprise, then rolled and stared upward in awe at the water above us. She reached toward it and her fingertips brushed the water’s surface wonderingly. “It’s so … beautiful.”
I lay on the ground, clutching my stomach where she’d landed. “Why didn’t you just use your wings instead of my body to break your fall?”
“Oh, right, um, sorry!” She knelt next to me, her eyebrows knitted together in concern. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “I didn’t need those ribs anyway.”
She peered around in the dim blue glow. “Where’s Grimsby?”
“Grimsby!” I exclaimed, suddenly remembering. I sat up with a grunt of pain and studied our surroundings. But I didn’t see him anywhere. “What happened to him?”
We both scrambled to our feet and did a quick search. And I mean quick because we were in a small chamber, not much bigger than, say, your average living room. It looked like either it was a natural cave or it had been hand-carved, because its walls were rough and uneven rock.
“Nothing,” I said in exasperation as we met back in the middle.
“Me either. Where could he have gone?”
“Grimsby!” I shouted.
I heard a faint “Over here!” in reply.
The echo in the underground chamber made his voice sound like it had come from everywhere and nowhere.
Gwynn tipped her head to the side, listening as he called out again. Then she stepped toward one wall. “This way. I think.”
We approached what looked like a solid wall, but then I felt a faint coolness stir around my ankles and crouched down, exploring with my hands in the semidark. “I think there’s an opening here. But it’s tight.”
I wriggled through headfirst on my stomach with just enough room. Emerging on the other side, I saw with relief that Grimsby was standing there. His grin was lit up from below by a small object cupped in his hands that was glowing a soft white.
“What’s that?” I asked as I stood and brushed myself off.
“Grimsby!” Gwynn said as she shimmied out of the tunnel behind me and ran to give him a hug. Then she stepped back and admonished him, “You need to be more careful! It’s a good thing you probably fell on something you don’t use very often. Your head.”
