by Blair Aaron
They rode for the rest of the night, resting a bit in the morning for some breakfast. Famished from the journey and ready for some sleep, they came upon a small inn in the valley between hills that seemed to reach up to the sky. It was busy, full of burly men with hairy knuckles and bulging biceps. Freja walked close beside Elsa as they tied up their horses and approached the entrance. The closer they got, the harder she squeezed Elsa's hand. Elsa gave her one look and touched her should to assure her everything would be okay. As she followed Freja into the diner, she looked over her shoulder at an out-of-place dog in the distance, staring in their direction with a knowing look in its eyes that gave the impression of humanness. Elsa felt those eyes follow her into the diner.
Freja put on a facade of bravery and confidence, a front more than just Elsa could see through. She banged her elbows on the bar table, awkwardly getting the attention of the cook.
“Howdy pal! We're here to eat some breakfast. We've been traveling a long time and can't wait to get some sleep.”
The cook looked up. “What'll it be?”
“Ya got a menu?” Freja tried to laugh it off.
“Look lady you can't be wasting my time. What's your order?”
“Well don't you waste my time buster! Ha!” People were staring at this point. Elsa gave her a soft touch on the shoulder.
“It's OK, sir. We'll just have some grits and fried eggs.” The cook looked away to crack some eggs on the grill. Elsa looked around the diner again and noticed a hidden figure in a black garb standing conspicuously outside the main crowd, against the window. She found herself drawn to his image, even though he had his back facing her.
A fat gutted man landed his rear on the seat beside Freja, who looked straight ahead like a small dog afraid of confrontation.
“Hey baby. What you doing around these parts? You sure do have pretty arms--not!”
“Don't touch me,” Freja said, shaking now. “I'm stronger than you think.”
“I bet you are, string bean. How old and used up do you have to be to figure out you're gonna have to settle?” he asked, stroking her arm with his index finger. Tears welled up in Freja's eyes. “I--I said don't touch me.” Elsa's face flushed hot with anger and injustice. No one would talk to her friend's like this, especially after Freja rescued Elsa from her boss yesterday. She opened her mouth to say something, but noticed a hooded figure emerge from behind the fat guy sitting on the stool. In a flicker Elsa thought she saw glowing eyes from the darkness of the hood, but chalked it up to her imagination and tiredness. Freja looked up, past the burly man on the stool, to the hooded figure and screamed. Then chaos ensued, several people got up from the table, screaming at Freja, insulting her for fighting back.
“Hag!”
“Take it off!”
“Where's your cane?!”
The crowd thought, it seemed, Freja attacked the burly man, and in the commotion the hooded figure reached out for her, and she slipped down onto the floor, as Elsa followed after. Suddenly there was a violent boom and the pile of men fighting to essentially crucify Elsa and Freja were thrown across the room in equally radial directions. They hit the wall, groaning, and Elsa and Freja jumped onto their horses from the outside. As they rode away, Elsa looked back at the hooded figure shoot out from the diner in pursuit of them.
“Do you have the book?” Elsa screamed at Freja, as their horses galloped through the wind. Freja had tears streaming from her eyes, but nodded yes. Elsa's heart sank for her. The whole ordeal clearly hurt the poor thing's feelings. They continued on in the cold wind, as Elsa looked over to her left, at a black wolf, the same animal who watched her and Freja enter the diner earlier, running along the tree line, just out of sight. Elsa's spine went cold, because her gut told her this was no ordinary wolf, with his massive paws and shiny black coat. There was the same humanness to its gaze she noticed at the diner earlier, too. Elsa thought her mind could be playing tricks on her so she looked away for a split second and when she looked back, saw the wolf was gone.
CHAPTER 21
Elsa knew nothing about their destination or how long it would take to get there, so she simply put gentle pressure on her horse and followed behind Freja. They rode all night through a trail in the forest, with its giant pine trees and fairy-like atmosphere. The dense woods went on forever, and the further they rode into the abyss, the harder it was to know north from south or east from west. Elsa began to panic as the moonlight stopped illuminating the path before them. But before she could say anything to Freja, they took a sharp right turn into a tunnel underground, where Elsa could see a point of light ahead. Given that it was nighttime, she worried something supernatural would await them on the other side of the tunnel, but trusted Freja could guide them both in the right direction. In an instant, they emerged from the claustrophobic tunnel into a clearing, at the base of a mountain. In the distance, several miles ahead, Elsa could spot the glowing lights of another town, with the flickering fires of late-night party-goers, no doubt drunk and disorderly, a state Elsa's job as a waitress never failed to make her familiar with. But they were close to other people, so she definitely felt safer. They rode into the town, past the drunken men feeling up women outside the bars, to a dark and lonely motel. They tied up their horses and Freja refrained from talking aloud. She was worried they would have a repeat of the incident earlier that day so Elsa didn't push the subject with Freja. They simply walked through the door of the motel quietly.
“May we have a room? We're tired and have been riding all day,” Freja asked the innkeeper, whose low hanging jowls gave them impression of a jolly fat man. He smiled with a twinkle in his green eyes as he handed them the key. Their room consisted a window along the south wall, where the lights from the town gave the entire room an amber glow. There was a sadness to the scene, as Freja walked to the bathroom and shut the door with a soft click, leaving Elsa in the room alone. There were two twin beds centered in the room, with two matching dressers on the east and west sides of the room. Elsa sat on the edge of the bed to dress into her sleeping gown, rubbing the sores from her feet. She sat there for a minute, giving herself a massage, and thought about what happened in the diner today. The image of poor, frail Freja trying her best to ward off the insults and hatred from the crowd truly upset Elsa. She worried if Freja had encountered similar episodes in the past and whether her status as a single woman with no children was any result of her past. She wanted to ask Freja about her life, for Elsa's own sake, so she could rest a little easier knowing Freja at least had someone to keep her companionship into her old age. But at the same time, Freja may become upset at Elsa's prodding into her private life. After some consideration, Elsa decided that was a risk she was willing to take. Just then Freja stepped out of the bathroom; in the darkness the amber glow through the window illuminated only half her face, casting shadow over the other half. Elsa looked at her for a moment, studying the contours of her nose and wrinkles which traveled down like estuaries of a canyon, disappearing into the corners of her mouth and eyes, hiding a long and secret history. Elsa took a breath.
“Freja I have to ask you something.”
Freja pretended that she had not spent the last twenty minutes crying in the bathroom, as she turned her back to Elsa to rummage through her bag. “Shoot from the hip girlie.”
“Have you ever--had a relationship?”
“Have I ever been with anyone, you mean?”
“No not just that. Have you--have you ever been in love?”
Freja stopped rummaging for a second, then turned to face Elsa. “Why do you ask?” She stepped closer to Elsa, perhaps too quickly given the air of the conversation, and Elsa's core felt a curious predatory vibe emanating from Freja's eyes.
“Well you seemed pretty upset back there.”
“You talkin' 'bout those punks at the diner? Nah, sister. I done forgot all about them.”
“I don't believe you,” Elsa smiled, trying to lighten the mood between them and maybe encourage Freja to
trust her a little more. Elsa truly wanted to help her.
Freja looked at Elsa, scanning her face to determine whether she could trust her. “OK. Yeah, I was upset.”
“I knew it!”
“But what can you do? It's over and done with. It's not the first time it's happened. Those guys are just jealous of my sex kitten status,” she laughed and looked at Elsa while dancing around the bed, like a magical fairy in the woods. Elsa watched her twirl around the room, then Freja stopped and went back to rummaging in her bag.
“Well why haven't you tried finding someone, then?”
“Honey, it's not my job to find him. It's his job to find me.”
“Don't you get lonely at your age, with no friends or family or spouse to spend your time with?”
“Of course I do. But I haven't found the right person, that's all. I've only ever loved one guy, to be honest. My one great love; we were inseparable. When I was in grade school, I was always skinnier than the other girls. I was also not the prettiest girl, but I did have the biggest heart. I knew what it felt like to be left out, at lunch time, on the playground when I was very little. And later, I knew what it felt like to be rejected romantically when all the other girls got the upper hand because they had bigger boobs or curvier figures. The thing is,” she laughed, thinking back, “I was so convinced they knew something I didn't about relationships. I was just certain they had some access to a secret circle about what love was--true, passionate love. And then I met Kellen after I left school to work on the farm with my grandfather. He started out as a farmhand, working to pay off some debt of his family, and I'll never forget seeing him for the first time. We were picking cotton in a field, and it was windy. There were specks of cotton floating in the air, hovering, just like magic. It was the most romantic thing,” she said.
“I bet,” Elsa said.
“He was strong as an ox, girl. He had the most beautiful back, which I could see because always had his shirt off. I remember thinking the first time we made love, what did he see in me? I was the unloved, the left out, skinny girl from school. Eventually he told me there was just something about me he connected to, and I believed him. Oh, I was so in love,” she stopped, tears welling in her eyes.
“Well, where is he?”
“Well he turned out to be someone other than what I thought.”
“What did he do?”
Freja laughed out loud. “He murdered my grandfather.” Elsa's stomach hit the floor upon hearing Freja's confession. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, as she didn't know what to say. Freja continued to look down at the floor for long moment, long enough to make Elsa wonder if she were about to break down. Elsa put a hand on Freja's shoulder and noticed that she was shaking again, trembling.
“I know I told you that everyone ran my grandfather out of town, because they thought he dabbled in black magic. The truth is that I made that up because I didn't want you to feel sorry for me. The truth is that my grandfather was the man who raised me and the only person I ever knew growing up. He was the model for how to be a decent human being. In fact he was the best person I've ever known, and I strive everyday to be just like him.”
“I can't believe Kellen did that to you. Why?”
“Money. My grandfather had tons of money, and instead of paying his debt, he would rather have killed my guardian.” Freja sighed, remembering the past pain she'd endured. “You have no idea what it's like to lose someone so close to you, because they were taken away by the one other person you thought you could trust.”
“I--I am sorry you have to go through that. I wish I could have been there for you.”
Elsa sat there speechless, unable to touch Freja in her sorrow. “My grandfather was the kindest, gentlest person I ever knew. I thought I knew Kellen, but I was wrong, and since then, I decided no one would ever hurt me like that again. I've stayed away from the other Kellens of the world. That's why I've been alone,” she said, her eyes looking up to the heavens from the window, as if she were looking for her deceased grandfather in the sky.
Elsa thought she should lighten the mood. “If I had my way, we would gather up all the horrible people in the world and put them in a cage to poke with a stick!” she said.
“I'd do more than that. I'd kill them. There's no saving those kinds of people, Elsa. The world would be a better place with them gone,” she said. “Me, I am different from those types. There's no point even bothering with them,” Freja said.
“I agree, Freja.” Elsa hugged her, anxious to make the woman who seemed to have suffered so much feel at least a little better. There was one thing Elsa hated more than anything: people taking advantage of the innocent. Her heart broke for Freja, and she vowed never to become anything like Kellen, not just because he was a murderer, but almost as bad, he betrayed Freja's trust, when she gave her whole heart. Elsa could see the sheer damage the experience had been for Freja, and how it had permanently altered her ability to trust anyone or believe she was worth being loved or cared for. The experience followed her into adulthood, contaminating her whole life and robbing her of any semblance of happiness. Freja, Elsa realized, was still that abused teenager from long ago, stuck in the same patterns, her innocence shattered forever. The thought made Elsa sick to her stomach.
For the first time, it seemed like Freja could trust Elsa, and it showed in her eyes. Smiling, Freja opened her grandfather's spell book. “I want to show you something,” she said. She opened the book to a clean page with an ornate design on the front, half of which was dark and the other half light.
“I do not have my grandfather's abilities, but he always told me there are good witches and there are bad witches. A bad witch cannot become a good one, and vice versa. The trouble, though, is that no one knows which warlock or witch you are dealing with. He also said that anyone could do magic, you just had believe in what you were doing. If a normal person were a good enough person, when trying to save someone, say, there were certain spells they could use to save the person they loved, or to protect themselves from other, evil witches.”
Elsa looked down at the page Freja had opened the book to. It was full of symbols which she didn't understand, but the center of the page had what appeared to be a small poem. Elsa pointed to the text. “What's that?”
“So my grandfather laid out the one spell a normal person could use in ordinary speech, whereas real witches and warlocks speak in an unknown tongue to cast their spells, if they even speak at all when they cast spells.”
“Have you ever tried this on someone? What does it do?”
“When my grandfather was murdered I tried this spell he showed me, in order to bring him back from the dead, but it didn't work. And honestly I don't know what is supposed to happen. This book is all I have left of him, so I keep it safe with me.” She reached into the book and tore out the page.
“Oh my gosh,” Elsa said. “What are you doing?”
“I want you to have this,” Freja said. Elsa's eyes opened wide and large.
“There's no way. This was your grandfather's! You can't give me this!”
“I can and will. You might need it. Besides, I have a whole book of spells right here in my grandfather's book.” Freja patted the book as she closed it, like a puppy she would always keep by her side.
“Yeah--a book you can't use!” Elsa said.
“You don't know that. Maybe there's something in it that might help me down the line. My grandfather was always full of unexpected things. I guess it's where I get it.”
“Well thank you so much. I really appreciate this Freja,” Elsa said, as she gave the woman a hug. She stopped for a second, realizing something. “I have just one question. Why would I need this?”
“Well that's the other thing I was going to tell you.”
“Oh Lord,” Elsa said, bracing herself for the weight of another confession.
“This world is not the only one there is, Elsa. You probably know this already, based on what you have told me about Theo. Most peo
ple don't see the alternate world of magic. They are either too dense, too unimaginative, or too wrapped up themselves to notice. when we were kids we all knew about it, because we were open to experiences that adults close themselves off to. That space between dreams and awake, that middle ground, that's where you can find the magic. There is a danger though, when you dream, that you might go too far into the other world. If you are not a witch or warlock, it will change you, permanently. In this world, if you stay when you really should leave, everything is backward or upside down. Up becomes down. North becomes South. And Good becomes Evil--”
“Is there where Theo is?”
“I don't know but--”
Suddenly the realization hit Elsa that, if Freja's grandfather was dead, where exactly was she leading Elsa? Freja cackled.
“I know what you must be thinking. If my grandfather was murdered, who exactly is it we are going to see?” Elsa nodded. “Well the truth is that my grandfather showed me all throughout my childhood what he could do with magic. I myself did not inherit his gifts, but there is someone else who might be able to help you.”
Elsa was somewhat nervous. “Who is it?” she asked.
“An old friend. He's a dragon, very old and very wise. He has been around for several centuries, as my grandfather told me about him. And I thought maybe he can help you.”
