“I see you’re in fine spirits.” Hugh paused and studied Thor’s face.
“He probably thinks you’re still feeling the effects of the mushrooms,” Freyr whispered. “You know, the ones you yakked up earlier.”
“Yes, I know,” Thor said. “And you probably don’t have to whisper.”
Hugh frowned, then a glimmer of knowing sparked in his dark eyes. “I see,” Hugh replied in a much louder voice. “Is this better, then?”
Thor winced at the volume and felt the beginning of a tension headache at the base of his neck. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Hugh eyed him carefully and then took a slow step backward.
“That’s good,” Freyr chuckled. “Keep it up. Make him think you’re still tripping. Or just bug-crazy.”
“We agreed that you would remain by the creek to pursue your vision,” Hugh said.
“We didn’t agree on anything that I recall.” Thor gestured to the water. “But as you can see, I am indeed still by the creek.”
“He shoots, he scores!” Freyr cheered behind him. The attempt at humor landed with a thud.
Thor frowned over his shoulder at his cousin. Freyr was overcompensating. Thor knew it, and Freyer knew he knew it. “Shut up, will you?” Thor grumbled.
“I didn’t say anything,” Hugh answered.
Thor sighed. “No, not you. I meant . . .” He looked past Hugh to see if he could spot the Bigfoot hunters in the trees, but Cammo Man and his band of merry videographers were apparently hanging back out of sight.
The whole situation was way too complicated, even if he could think straight. He didn’t like the idea of having an audience to what probably looked like a drug-induced break with reality while he chatted with a native guide who probably had a serious psychological malfunction. But then Thor considered the shade of Freyr, and he wasn’t sure a non-drug-induced break with reality was any better.
Thor shook his head and growled. “Never mind.”
Hugh gestured toward the ground. “Let’s sit here and rest. You can tell me about your vision.”
“I want to keep moving.” Thor pushed past the guide and continued downstream. “And I want you to tell me what’s happening with Sally.”
Heimdall was the first to stumble onto the creek bank. Not being able to see as well as Laika and Fenrir in the darkness, he splashed into the water before he knew where he was. At least now he understood why Laika and Fenrir had suddenly stopped just inside the tree line.
Opal emerged from the woods behind Heimdall. He called out before she could make the same mistake, and she caught herself with her walking stick.
Heimdall stepped up out of the stream and tried to shake the water out of his boots as he peered into the woods. “You could have warned me.”
Laika poked her head out of the underbrush and snorted. Heimdall swore she was laughing at him.
Fenrir walked out of the woods on two legs. He looked past Heimdall and Opal and glanced around the creek. “I do not see the Rune Witch.”
“But she was here, right?” Opal asked.
Fenrir nodded, and Opal sighed with relief. “At least we’re still on her trail. Right?”
Heimdall didn’t look at her. He lowered Opal’s backpack to the ground, then bent down by the stream and cupped his hands in the cold water. “This would be a good time to refill.”
While the girl was busy digging a pair of water bottles out of her pack, Heimdall eyed Fenrir. “Where to now?”
Fenrir stood at the edge of the water and looked both upstream and down. Laika sniffed at the dirt around the sharpened claws of Fenrir’s not quite human-looking feet. She glanced up at him, and he nodded.
Heimdall didn’t like this new bond between his wolf-dog and the Fenris Wolf. It was auspicious that they were working together to find Sally, but he’d have to make sure this friendship didn’t develop any further.
Fenrir turned to Heimdall. “This is where her trail ends.”
“Would she have traveled in the water?”
“Maybe, but that would make for some chilly toes.” Fenrir shrugged.
“She didn’t just disappear into thin air.” Heimdall huffed and turned away from Fenrir. He nearly stumbled over Opal crouched beside him as she filled her bottles from the stream.
“So, we meet again,” a woman’s voice came from the trees on the opposite side of the creek. Heimdall looked up and found Moon smiling at him in the darkness.
“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you in the forest,” she continued in a pleasant tone.
Clutching her water bottles, Opal rose to her feet. “Where is she? What have you done with Sally?”
Moon leveled her gaze at Opal and narrowed her eyes. On instinct, Opal shrank away, spilling water with every step.
Heimdall caught her elbow. “It’s okay,” he whispered.
“So, you choose to interfere in my tutelage.” Moon crossed her arms over her chest and stepped to the edge of the bank, the water rushing between them. “I suppose you’re retrieving this one now that you’ve already absconded with Sally.”
Heimdall let go of Opal and looked hard at Moon. He could barely make out her features in the darkness, though he was pretty sure from her tone that she wasn’t messing with him.
“I’ve not absconded with anyone,” Heimdall tried to keep his voice even and calm. Moon wouldn’t get a reaction from him.
“You took her away!” Opal shouted, now standing firm beside Heimdall. “I want you to show us where she is, right now.”
Moon offered a tight-lipped smile. “You have courage, where your friend is concerned.”
“I’ve got a lot more than that.” Opal put down her water bottles and crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking the guide’s stance. “Push me, and you’ll find out.”
Heimdall cracked a smile. Opal wasn’t the most willful witch—that title would belong to Sally in perpetuity—but she did have her moments, especially when it counted.
Moon dropped her hands to her sides. “If you do not have Sally, then I can’t help you.” She turned and stepped toward the trees.
“Wait!” Heimdall called out, startled by Moon’s abrupt exit. Laika charged across the water in pursuit, but she skidded to a graceless halt just before reaching the trees and whined loudly at the sudden flapping of wings.
“What just happened?” Opal stared wide-eyed into the upper branches. A raven called down from somewhere above.
Laika splashed back across the creek, shook herself mostly dry, and sat down at her master’s side.
Heimdall rubbed his jaw with one hand. Short on sleep and food, he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to count on his own clear-headedness. If Moon didn’t have Sally, who did? Was Sally wandering in the wilderness on her own, lost? And who or what was Moon?
“I’m not sure what we’re dealing with here. Have you seen this before, Fenrir?” Heimdall glanced around the creek bank and then checked behind him. “Fenrir?”
He heard only the night songs of tree frogs and the snuffling sound of Laika tending to her paws after miles of tracking.
“Blasted Randulfr.” Heimdall balled his hands into fists and clenched his jaw tight. Stupid. He was grateful Odin wasn’t there to see him. Had this been Fenrir’s plan—to lure him and Laika away, then strand him with Opal conveniently out of the way? Seemed like a complicated nuisance. And out of the way of what? Heimdall looked up at the night’s thick blanket of stars and waited for something dark and ominous to swoop over them.
“Heimdall? What’s going on?” Opal was at his elbow. He could smell the coppery scent of her anxiety. The sky was clear. No evil portents loomed overhead that he could see. Heimdall peered into the woods on either side of the bank.
“We need to move,” he said quietly.
“But this is where Sally’s trail leads,” Opal protested loudly. “We can’t just leave without knowing what happened to her or where she might have gone. We have to . . . Oh!”
Opal rushed i
nto the shadows and made a grunting, rustling sound before reappearing. She dragged a second backpack behind her.
“Sally’s bag!” she exclaimed. “See? She has to be nearby! She wouldn’t go far from her pack—“
Heimdall grabbed Opal and pressed his palm over her mouth. He leaned close as she struggled against him. “We’re sitting ducks if we stay here. Do you understand? Nod if you understand?”
Opal nodded.
“And you’re going to be quiet, right?”
She nodded again. Heimdall let her go, and he leaned down to pick up Sally’s backpack. He frowned at its weight—too light. Sally hadn’t packed well for her trek, or she’d given priority to tools and supplies for her magickal working. More likely, her parents had splurged on ultralight gear that Sally would probably never use again.
Opal slipped her water bottles into the outer pockets of her own pack, hoisted the bag onto her shoulders, and took up her walking stick. Laika stood between them, feet twitching and anxious to get moving.
“Quietly now,” Heimdall said in low tones. “We’re heading downstream.”
Sitting in the dirt by Jonathan’s fire, Sally clutched her pendulum tightly in her fingers and pressed the palm of her other hand against the ground behind her. She willed the obsidian stone to connect her to the living energy of the forest turf so she could send out a call for help.
Please, Sally begged silently as Jonathan continued his bizarre ballad, singing to her of virtues she seriously doubted she possessed. His song had taken on an ethereal, jazzy quality. His melody played up and down the scale in an unpredictable, syncopated rhythm that Sally couldn’t quite get the gist of.
“My Little Maid’s soul is like fire,” he sang, beginning what sounded like a new verse even though there was no chorus or bridge Sally could make out. He made creative use of emphasizing the wrong syllables. “She could scorch the Earth with her scorn, but her gentleness and mercy guide her words and actions. She is a goddess among mortals.”
If the rhythm had been more constant, his voice might have succeeded in lulling her to sleep—if that was his goal. Sally was, after all, very tired. And thirsty. And quite hungry as well. She remembered the protein bar she’d gobbled down the night before. Had she really not eaten anything since then?
Sally kept Jonathan in her peripheral vision as he played the cantor on the other side of the fire. She was careful not to look directly into his eyes; she didn’t like the way his gaze made her skin burn.
Who is this guy? She watched him sway to the sound of his own voice, his fingers drumming on his thighs. His song was getting jazzier by the minute.
Sally had never cared for jazz, especially the experimental stuff that poured through the windows of her family’s neighbors’ craftsman home in NW Portland. If Jonathan was trying to soothe her into a calm and more malleable state, she wasn’t about to make him the wiser by telling him how much she hated his song. She just hoped her irritation would be enough to keep her awake and sensible.
“Her eyes reflect the sky at mid-day, when birds soar through open skies and delight in their sheer joy of living,” Jonathan sang as he stirred the small campfire once again. It seriously unnerved Sally to see him plunge his bare hands into the flames without consequence. “Birds that sing in her presence are twice blessed by the serendipitous grace of her innocent smile.”
Sally squeezed her eyes closed and tried not to vomit. Not only was his music grating on her nerves, but she decided that Jonathan had to be about the worst romantic poet she’d ever heard. She wondered if he was really making up his lyrics on the spot, or if maybe he had stolen some emo teenager’s composition notebook.
Did girls really fall for this kind of stuff? Sally imagined that some other girls she sort of knew—she didn’t exactly have friends—would be thrilled by this kind of devoted attention.
Both Jonathan and his song made her skin crawl.
She did her best to tune him out. Slowly, she untied her shoelaces and slipped her feet out of her boots and socks. Jonathan smiled at her sluggish movements as she dug her toes into the bare earth. Sally tried to make it look like she was relaxing into his serenade and making herself comfortable by his fire.
Sally focused on the stone pendulum, and on her connection to the ground.
Mother Earth, Sally called mentally to the world beneath her feet. Gaia. She wished she knew more names for the soul of the living planet. She hoped her intention and focus would be enough.
When Loki had given her the pendulum at Jul a few years earlier, he’d told her the black and white obsidian was actually volcanic rock—an appropriate gift for a witch in the Pacific Northwest region of the Ring of Fire. Sally had used the pendulum for very occasional divination, but she hadn’t yet attempted to tap into the obsidian’s core as Loki had urged.
It had been months since she’d communicated with Loki, and the upsurge in tension between Loki and Odin’s Lodge hadn’t helped. Some kind of immortal cold war had been rekindled. She’d heard about the infighting and even all-out crusades of millennia past. She hoped she’d never know how much of a push it might take for that particular pot to boil over.
Sally had her own trust issues with Loki to work out. But she assumed that, eventually, they could be friends again. Someday. But for now, she had no idea where he was or even if he cared anymore.
Gaia, Sally called to the Earth again, putting Loki out of her mind. She exhaled with purpose and pushed her awareness to the soles of her feet as she sought the energetic connection with the soul of the planet.
“See how her skin glows even in darkness!” Jonathan continued his annoying song. “My heart sings to see her resting so peacefully in the serene forest of time.”
Sally winced and silently cursed his distraction. She tried again to make her connection, but it was no use. Communing with the spirits of the wilderness really was an impossible task while this strange purple dude waxed poetic about her complexion, set to a tune that sounded more and more like fingernails on a chalkboard.
She opened her eyes and lifted her empty hand to get Jonathan’s attention. “Um, excuse me?”
He waved her off. “This next section is the best part,” he sang in the same meandering rhythm. He took a deep breath. “When the sun rises again in the cradle of creation, when the Little Maid stands upon the peak of her true destiny, her eyes will embody the glittering sheen and eternal glory of the snow-capped mountains.”
Oh, barf. Sally squeezed her eyes tight and wished she had a pair of industrial earplugs in her pocket. But then she felt a startling shiver against the bottoms of her naked feet. She sniffed back tears as the tickling energy of the Earth responded to her plea. It pulsed and resonated almost in harmonic echo with the rise and fall of Jonathan’s song. Sally tried to follow the forest’s thread, listening with her senses to the light vibrations playing beneath her soles.
The Earth’s song was much more complex than Jonathan’s conjured tune. But Sally could feel Jonathan’s connection to the ground as well. His song ran beneath her and blended with the tingling running through her feet and up into her legs. She blinked her eyes open and chanced a glance in his direction. He had his arms and face lifted to the sky as he sang. If he felt Sally’s own grounding in the Earth, he didn’t let on.
“Oh, by the heavens above who weep in delight to give us the stars, the courage and beauty of my Little Maid will be heralded through eternity. The wind will whisper her name from peak to valley and valley to peak.”
Sally pressed her lips together and tried a new tactic. Eyes closed again, she pulled her focus away from Jonathan and sent out an S.O.S. in every direction but his.
Help! she screamed in her mind, pushing her feet against the soil and clutching the obsidian tighter. The pendulum’s sharp point cut into her skin, and she could almost hear the blood trickle from the branded pad of her thumb and then drop with a sizzling pop onto the dark soil.
If you can hear me, she cried silently. Thor was somewhere
in these woods, but he didn’t have any magickal sensitivity that she’d seen. Opal might be able to pick up her signal, but she was likely all alone. As far as Sally knew, it was Moon who had arranged for Jonathan to abduct her.
“Her presence is a balm to my bereaved and tortured heart,” Jonathan sang. “The lilting music of her voice soothes away the icy shell of loneliness that has so long encased my longing and desire.”
Anyone in the forest, if you are somewhere nearby . . . A cold dread seeped into her stomach. Had her funerary rite gone wrong? And were these the consequences?
I need you now. Find me! She let the last two words echo over and over in her mind.
“My Little Maid has appeared at last!” Jonathan sang full-throated to the star-filled sky. “Her promise is exceeded by the reality of her presence. Her every footstep calls new flowers up through the dark ground to greet the shining sun. Her loyalty is more cunning than a faithful dog on the hunt.”
Sally frowned. Did he just call me a dog? She banished the intrusion and went back to sending her own chant through the channels of the Earth. She didn’t allow herself to think about what might happen if this didn’t work.
“I’m curious,” Hugh commented as he followed along behind Thor, still oblivious to the shade of Freyr who walked beside him. “Why do you feel the need to keep moving? Are you compelled by your vision?”
Thor thought about turning around and yelling in the guide’s face that he should just shut up already. Hugh had been an incessant chatterbox since he reappeared along Thor’s path, and his torrent of questions was making it difficult for Thor to concentrate on anything beyond putting one foot in front of the other.
“He’s trying to keep you off task,” Freyr said, again seeming to read the big god’s mind. “And how did he know where to find you, anyway?”
“You’ve been tracking me,” Thor said to Hugh.
“Of course. Your well-being is my concern,” Hugh replied.
So that’s why you kept cracking me over the head with sticks, Thor thought with a rueful smile.
Raven Magic Page 16
