Bauldr's Tears

by Alydia Rackham

  She made it to the border of oaks, and peered out at the person standing.

  Bird. His arms folded, gazing off into the distance.

  “Hello?” she called.

  He came out of his reverie, and turned his head toward her. He smiled.

  She waited.

  “Hello, Marina,” he murmured. “How do you suppose that rosebush is doing without you?”

  Marina sighed, her chest loosening, and she stepped out onto the road toward him.

  “I wondered if it was actually you,” she confessed.

  “Hm,” Bird chuckled, glancing down. “Yes, Loki is something else.”

  “I don’t like him,” Marina decided, lighting by his shoulder. “He’s arrogant and awful.”

  Bird considered her, his brow furrowing.

  “I wish you wouldn’t say that.”

  Caught by his tone, she lifted her eyes to his.

  Lit by the moon—they were fathomless, ethereal. And earnestly sad.

  “Why not?” she wondered.

  He said nothing for a moment, then glanced out ahead of him.

  “I’ll just say this,” he told her. “One of the greatest storytellers, magicians, poets, musicians, healers and warriors alive sat at the table with you this evening. And it was not me. And it was not my brother.”

  Marina’s mouth tightened, but all at once she couldn’t bring herself to argue with him. Instead, she memorized the way his beautiful profile looked in this light.

  “What are you watching?” she wondered.

  “Home,” he murmured. Marina turned…

  Yggdrasil’s majestic shape spread across the horizon, black against the night sky, its branches and trunk twinkling with a thousand lights that reminded her so much of fireflies.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Marina muttered. She felt his smile.

  “Sometimes I can’t either.”

  For a long while, they stood silent.

  Marina couldn’t take her eyes from him. And a deep pain started in her ribs.

  “Bird,” she finally whispered, very softly. “Is your name really Bauldr?”

  He did not stir for a long moment. At last, though, he slowly faced her, and drew himself up. And as the silver moonlight cascaded over him, something in his bearing changed—softened, aged. He looked deep down into her eyes, his own bright as crystal. He nodded, once.

  “Yes.”

  Marina’s brow tightened as she searched his features.

  “Why did you start coming to my house?”

  A soft breeze touched his feathery hair. And as it did, sorrow drifted across him—and pierced Marina in the heart.

  “Marina,” he whispered. “I’m going to die.”

  Her throat closed. She didn’t move.

  Bauldr glanced out toward Yggdrasil again, his movement heavy.

  “For several years now, I’ve been having dreams that I would be killed,” he went on. “I know all the old stories that you learned on Midgard—stories that I’ve taken to be prophecies. Yet, in my visions, I can never see whose hand actually shoots the arrow. I can never be sure. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve learned enough to know that trying to stop a prophecy from coming true might actually make it happen.”

  Marina tried not to tremble. It didn’t work.

  “Marina,” Bauldr said again, earnestly coming back to her. “If I told you that you could help me, if only you’d be brave and willing…Would you?”

  “Of course,” she gasped. She nodded hard. “Of course, what do you want me to do?”

  He took up her right hand and held it in both of his. And the next moment, she felt three small, smooth, cold objects in her palm, where there had been nothing before. She turned her hand over…

  Three round, glassy stones sat quietly in the cup of it. One dark blue, one blood red, and the other deep green. They felt warm against her skin. Bauldr cradled her hand.

  “These are Wishstones,” Bauldr told her. “The blue one is hide, the red is unbind. The green one is flee. You only need to hold one tight in your hand and tell it what you need it to do for you, and it will be done.”

  Marina watched the way the moonshine whispered across each icy surface.

  “I know that I am utterly selfish to ask this of you,” Bauldr said, bending close to her. “And I never would, if I feared only for myself. But I don’t. Whatever evil thing is to happen to me, it will also twist around my brother, my mother, my father, all my friends—and my realm. I can feel it. And you are our only hope.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Marina asked him, lifting her face again. He halfway smiled.

  “You’ll know when it’s time.”

  And he slipped his hand around to the back of her neck, stepped in and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  Warm, golden light swelled through her mind, and chills shot through her arms and fingers.

  He drew back, lowered his head and gazed at her.

  “Thank you, Marina,” he whispered. “Now you should go back to bed.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.” It just fell out before she’d calculated. But he just smiled gently.

  “The best way you can help me now is to rest,” he said, stroking her cheek. “It will be all right. I promise.”

  “But…” Words failed her. All of a sudden, she could think of nothing she’d rather do but lean up and kiss his fair lips…

  Bauldr stepped back from her, and dropped his hand.

  “Goodnight, Marina,” he said, inclining his head. “I’ll see you soon.”

  She closed her fingers around the Wishstones and pressed her fist to her heart. She nodded.

  “Okay,” she breathed. “Goodnight.”

  And she turned, and walked back up between the towering shadows of the oaks, toward the great mead house. She pulled the door open, stepped in, turned left into the corridor that led to her room—

  Jerked to a stop. Her heart jumped into her throat.

  Loki stood there, arms folded, leaning sideways against the first window frame, gazing out across the front lawn. He wore black nightclothes, and in this light, his russet hair caught edges of gold. His pale brow knitted in thought, his eyes silvery. He turned and looked at her. The edge of his mouth quirked.

  “So you’ve gone and done it too, hm?” he asked, lifting his chin.

  “Done what?” Marina demanded, closing her fingers tighter.

  “Fallen in love with the little prince,” Loki nodded out the window, then regarded her. “There’s nothing unique in that, you know. Practically every woman in Asgard has done, at one point or another.”

  Marina clenched her jaw and started to walk past him.

  “Do you know what Lady Sif said about you?” Loki called. Marina halted, but didn’t turn around.

  “She said she thought you were another one of Bird’s pets,” Loki remarked. “You see, sometimes, when he’s on Midgard, he’ll find mortals that are ill, and he’ll feel sorry for them and bring them here to spend the rest of their days. It’s a bit pathetic, but we’ve all gotten used to it. And judging by the state you’re in, I can see why my lady made that assumption.”

  Marina twisted and faced him, clenching her jaw. He beamed, and chuckled.

  “You’re so easy to upset—look at you,” he shook his head. “Like I said before: fragile. And crooked.”

  Marina’s blood raced, but she couldn’t think of an answer. So she gave him one last hard stare, faced front again and hurried back to her room, feeling his attention follow her.

  She hurried in and shut the door, then leaned back against it, frowning at the inexplicable tightening in her ribcage. She turned around, found the lock and clacked it into place, then turned toward the fireplace…

  Traust’s face had disappeared. Only the plain, rough-hewn mantel remained.

  Biting her lip, she climbed into the bed, lay down and buried herself in the covers, clamping the Wishstones against her.

  Sunlight touched her eyelids. She drew in a deep brea
th, and sighed. She shifted her legs beneath warm blankets, turned over onto her back.

  Birds twittered somewhere outside. Her face tightened, and she stretched.

  Box-springs squeaked.

  She frowned.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  She shot into a sitting position, her eyes opening so fast she had to fight to focus.

  A small, circular room. A closet in front of her, a bookshelf to her right, a rug on the wooden floor, a window off to her left looking out over a morning garden…

  Home. She was in her bedroom at home.

  Home?

  Her hand jerked up to take hold of her hair—

  Three tiny somethings flew out of her grasp and clattered across the floor.

  She twitched. Then she flung off her covers, clambered out of bed, and scrabbled for them. Her hand landed on the first, then the second, and finally the third, near one of her slippers. Panting, she settled onto her knees, holding the little pebbles in her hand.

  One blue. One red. One green.

  Hide.

  Unbind.

  Flee.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Marina stood next to a dead pine, making no sound.

  Listening to the wind as it whispered through the highest needles of the trees.

  Gazing down into the hollow at the carved stone archway.

  Tracing the details of the Mjollnir crest at the top. The runes that marked its edges.

  Never stepping any closer.

  It would be two months tomorrow since she’d awakened in her room and spilled Bird’s Wishstones all over her floor.

  Two months.

  Every day, she left her house early in the morning and hiked around the side of the house and past the border of that forest, all the way down the hill to stand in front of the vine-covered arch and listen to the quiet.

  Every time she crossed into the shadow of the reaching trees, she had to bite back a chill, and ignore the voice of Jim Fields from the hardware store…

  “Word to the wise: don’t go out there at night. No matter what you think you see.”

  “Yeah, well…” she often muttered. “Too late for that.”

  But she never passed through the arch.

  She almost had, once. She’d stepped right up to the stones to try to make out the runes, to perhaps translate them...

  But she had stopped, breathing very carefully, gripping the little bird pendant between her fingers and staring through to the forest on the other side.

  That’s all it looked like. More forest. No foggy stone bridge, no flickering lamps.

  But she could feel it.

  Like static electricity a hand’s breadth away. She could almost touch the surface of it when she got this close.

  It’s how she knew she hadn’t dreamed it all.

  That was why she came back every day, without fail. To remind herself, when her memories started to get hazy and doubt crept through her veins.

  She drew in a long breath, then slowly let it out. She turned, and trudged back through the needles up the hill. She lowered her head and pulled her left arm close, her right hand fingers working thoughtfully against each other. And halfway up the hill, just to make sure, she absently touched her hip pocket where the three Wishstones waited.

  A breeze brushed over her tabletop and rustled the papers. She quickly picked her pen up and pressed the side of her hand down on the top paper to keep it from blowing off the slanted desk. She glanced to her left, out through the half-open window, and leaned her shoulder against the frame.

  The late afternoon slant of the July sun filled the side garden, lighting up all the buds and blooms, tingeing the tips of the rose petals with gold, and catching the wings of the white and purple butterflies flittering through the clover.

  The breeze whispered again, carrying that scent in with it—clover. She propped her elbow on the sill and touched her lips to the back of her hand, drawing in a careful breath. Absently, she glanced sideways back down at the paper underneath her right palm.

  These past few weeks, she had carefully pencil-sketched out the front of a great mead hall in great detail, making certain to include all of the knots and growling faces peering out from the corners of the wood, and decorating the borders of the page in the manner of an illuminated manuscript. Today, she had just started inking the fine lines.

  Slowly, she slid the top page out of the way, tilting her head as she studied the papers beneath it. She ran her eyes across the title page, done in monk-like calligraphy:

  THE AMENDED EDDA

  by Marina Feroe

  She pushed that page aside, and re-read the first few lines for the thousandth time, written out in her usual hand:

  Bits and Notes

  The Two Sons of Odin

  Only two.

  Born to Odin All-Father, and his wife Frigga, the queen of Asgard.

  Thor: eldest and wielder of Mjollnir, the thunder-hammer. He dwells in a vast mead hall called Bilskirnir, encircled by ancient oak trees, standing beside the country highway, with his wife, the Amazonian, beautiful and golden-haired Lady Sif.

  Bauldr: youngest, bringer of light and warmth, friend to all things that grow. His kin have also given him the pet name of “Bird.”

  Marina swallowed the pain in her throat and pushed that paper out of the way too, skipping over the rest of the writing. She narrowed her eyes at the next title.

  The Three Children of Farbauti

  Loki

  The youngest, most forward, obnoxious and unconventional of the three children of the Jotun giant, his appearance seems to change with his mood—alternating from bright and flashing when he is mocking or clever; to dark and penetrating when he is calculating or cold. He is very unlike both Thor and Bauldr in manner and character, yet for some reason the sons of Odin and Frigga seem to endure him, and even enjoy his company. He is rude, conceited, flirtatious, rakish, shallow, invasive and callous, though he seems to be talented in the area of magic and illusion, which is perhaps why the other Aesir put up with him—

  Marina blew air out through her lips and shook her head. That would never work with a publisher—she knew that. She wasn’t sure any of it would, even posing as a fictional addition to the Edda, but that particular commentary had just started to sound...

  She pushed it out of the way, frowning at the next page.

  Fenris

  The middle son of Farbauti.

  Commands a pack of wolves.

  Would rather run around in the forest with them at night than go to parties.

  Marina bit her lip. She might have to leave him out altogether.

  She’d never actually seen him, after all. She pushed to the next page.

  HEL

  The eldest child of Farbauti

  Cold wind blew through the window.

  Marina sat up straight, pushing down hard on the pages even as they flapped and rustled like autumn leaves. She looked outside.

  Dark clouds rolled over the sun. The garden fell into shadow.

  And in the far distance, thunder rumbled.

  She narrowed her eyes, then pressed her left forearm to the

  windowpane and pushed down. It creaked, but the window slid shut.

  Outside, the tops of the trees began to lash. She watched the toiling sky for a moment, then pushed her stool back and got up. She needed to shut the other windows in the house before it started raining.

  Marina opened her eyes.

  Frowned.

  She stared at the dark wall and black bookshelf in front of her. Then, she grimaced...

  Realizing that she was wrapped with death-like urgency in her sheet and light blanket. And her whole body ached with the effort of curling herself in a tight ball on her bed. She groaned, shifting under her covers, her left arm twanging and tingling.

  Finally, she sat halfway up, her hair hanging in her face.

  The wind gusted around her tower, howling and wuthering. But...

  It didn’t sound right. It didn’
t sound like the full-throated roar of a summer thunderstorm. It sounded like...

  She stiffly pushed off her covers, her brow furrowing sleepily, and put her feet onto her wood floor.

  “Oh, oh, oh!” she cried, pulling them back up onto the bed.

  Her floor felt like ice.

  She blinked several times, trying to wake up, feeling goose bumps rise on her bare arms and legs. She forced herself to get up out of bed and hurry across her frozen floor to the closet. She threw the door open and dug around toward the back, finally wrenching her winter bathrobe out from where it hung on the back hook. She threw it on and wrapped it around herself, her teeth chattering, then stuffed a pair of socks on her poor feet. Then, she shuffled to the window, pushed the curtain out of the way and looked out.

  And her blood ran still.

  In the dull moonlight light filtering through the clouds, a pure white blanket shrouded the garden, and flakes pouring from the heavens drenched the full branches of the trees.

  Snow.

  Marina tossed another log onto the blazing fire and glanced over at the little flickering television in the corner. She grabbed the fire iron and re-arranged the wood. Sparks shot into the air.

  Unable to stand it, she had finally dug out her winter chest and put on her jeans, long-sleeved-shirt, a sweater, socks and boots. Then, she’d puffed down into the icy basement to try to light the furnace, but it wasn’t working. So she’d hurried up into the sitting room to start a fire and turn on the news. It was two in the morning, but all the newscasters had already worked themselves into a frenzy.

  “…all over the state, and spreading southwest at a blinding rate. The same thing is happening in Europe. Sudden frosts have swept across Sweden and Norway, and snowstorms are moving over Scotland, England, Ireland, Germany and France.”

  Marina sat back on the rug and watched as the harried weatherman, his red tie askew and his hair messy, waved his hand frantically over a world-wide map, where white clouds rapidly built and began to obscure Europe, the northern United States and Canada. Marina bent her knees up to her chest and wrapped her right arm around her legs, the sound of the weatherman’s hurried voice fading to the back of her attention.