by Alan Early
‘She was my mum and she died,’ he said in a low voice, not daring to look up. ‘It was a year ago. And I took the ribbon. I didn’t know.’
‘Of course you didn’t know.’ Fenrir was on his feet now, moving next to Arthur. He laid a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘But I don’t think she died, Arthur.’
‘She did! She started getting weaker and weaker. For no reason. She only survived a fortnight.’
‘No, Arthur, she didn’t.’ Fenrir sat down next to him. ‘If what you’re saying is true – if she just suddenly faded away a year ago – then I’m certain she didn’t die.’
‘But–’
‘The evil part of your mother – Hel – could probably sense Loki’s growing power in Dublin. She must have realised that the god would soon be free. But she knew that Rhona would never take off the ribbon, leaving her trapped and helpless to reach Loki. So she needed to get someone else to take it off. Hel knew this would never happen while Rhona was alive – Rhona wouldn’t allow it. So Hel did the only thing she could think of: she made Rhona think she was dying. Whatever she did, it convinced everyone around her that Rhona was seriously ill and that she died. It was a long shot – her only shot, really – but Hel’s plan worked. When she was gone, you took off the ribbon, setting Hel free. But you couldn’t have known what this would do.’
Arthur thought of his mother’s grave back home in Farranfore. He thought of the gravestone with the little framed picture. ‘We buried her, though. How could she survive underground?’
‘She’s half god. Loki survived a thousand years underground; Hel can definitely survive a few years.’
‘If she’s so powerful, then why hasn’t she freed herself from the grave?’ Ash pointed out. ‘Just wipe the coffin and earth from existence? Or why allow herself to be buried in the first place?’
‘Quite simply, she isn’t powerful enough. She’s been asleep for so long she needs Loki’s presence to restore her fully. It was the same with the Jormungand. Even I felt stronger when Loki turned up.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Arthur said, suddenly loud. ‘Who’s alive? My mother or Hel?’
‘Both. Two personalities are trapped in the one body, like two sides of the same coin: that of the original child, human and good, and that created by Loki, godly and evil. Rhona had been in charge for twenty years. But with the ribbon removed, right now Hel is ruling the coin. She’s much stronger than Rhona and as soon as Loki releases her she will suppress your mother’s personality and be completely in charge.’
Arthur looked deep into Fenrir’s gold-coloured eyes. ‘You have to help us,’ he pleaded.
The wolf-man got up, shaking his head, and walked away. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I won’t face him again. I just need to get away.’
‘Get away to where?’ piped up Ellie. ‘If Loki wins, there’ll be nowhere to hide.’
Fenrir looked at her with sad eyes.
‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I’ve lived long enough. There’s no point in fighting a hopeless battle. I just want to spend my remaining days in peace.’
‘But–’
‘You have no idea the unimaginable pain he can inflict on me. I won’t do it. Besides, there is nothing I can do against Hel. Only Arthur has a chance of stopping her.’ He turned to the boy. ‘The only way that I know of to defeat her is if Rhona can regain control of the body. And you’re the only one who might be able to get through to Rhona, to give her the strength to do this.’ He stood in the doorway, shoulders hunched stubbornly. ‘But you need to go now. Loki and Drysi are probably already on their way to find Hel. They tricked me into telling them who she is.’
No one spoke on the way back to the car. They’d left Fenrir on his boat, realising that he’d told them all he could. Despite final pleas from Ash and Ellie, he had refused to change his mind about helping them. So, reluctantly, they left.
As they walked back to the Beetle, Ellie said quietly, ‘It’s up to us.’
Silent nods between the rest of them indicated they were all in agreement. Only Arthur didn’t nod. Now they knew where Hel was, they had to assume that Loki was headed there too. They just had to reach her before he did. No discussion was required; they all knew what had to be done, even if they didn’t know how to do it. Ex turned on the ignition and they set off once more.
When they were nearly out of the city and Ex had to figure out which motorway to head for, he broke the silence.
‘Where is your home exactly, Arthur?’
‘Farranfore, Kerry,’ he replied monotonously from the backseat. ‘But there’s no point in going. Loki will get there before us. We’ve lost.’
‘We haven’t lost,’ said Ash, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt and break through the wall of despair that seemed to have enclosed Arthur since he had learned the truth. ‘Not yet. We can still reach there first.’
‘No, we can’t,’ he said, turning to look out the window. ‘We haven’t a chance.’
He watched the city speed past, blurring into rolling green countryside. There was so much to take in from what Fenrir had said that his mind was as confused as the view through the window, shooting from one rapid thought to another. My mum was dead. My mum is not dead. My mum is a half god called Hel. My mum is a stolen baby called Rhona. Fenrir won’t help. Loki has won. Loki can’t win. Loki must be stopped. But we can’t stop him. We’ll never stop him. There’s no one who can help us now. There’s no one who’ll believe us. Loki will win. Loki’s my … in a weird way, Loki’s my grandfather.
Arthur had never known anything about his mother’s parents. All through his childhood he’d often visited his grandparents on Joe’s side of the family – and still did. But Rhona’s extended family had been a constant mystery. He and Joe knew that Rhona always became uncomfortable when they broached the subject and so they never really talked about it. When Arthur had asked his dad about them, Joe had explained that there hadn’t even been any of her relations at their wedding. Any time Joe had ever pushed her about her family, she had just simply shut down, staring into the middle distance with glassy eyes. She didn’t want to talk about it – that much was clear – and Joe, assuming that she’d had a traumatic childhood, eventually stopped asking. Now Arthur knew why she’d been so reticent. She would hardly have wanted to admit that she couldn’t remember her family at all, or maybe a part of her mind was simply trained not to think of them.
The light in the sky was dimming, turning a gradient of oranges and reds. He looked down at the ribbon around his right wrist. Fenrir had called it ‘Gleipnir’. A creation of great power and dark magic, designed never to be destroyed or broken. The one thing that had kept Hel at bay all those years, the one thing that could hold the Fenris Wolf, the one thing that had done damage to Hel before. For the past year, he’d worn it around his own wrist, not realising what a great gift it was. Could it help her again, he wondered, touching the soft silk.
‘How are you feeling?’ Ash, who was sitting beside him, asked softly. Ellie was squeezed at the far side of her, staring at a GPS map on her iPad, while Eirik was in the front with Ex, gazing with wonder at the vehicles speeding along the motorway.
‘I won’t lie. I’ve been better,’ said Arthur.
She reached over and took his hand away from the ribbon, intertwining her fingers through his to give it a reassuring squeeze. She held onto his hand as she spoke.
‘I don’t know what to say, Arthur.’
‘You don’t have to say anything.’
‘But I want to.’ A single tear rolled down her cheek as she looked at him. She wanted to say something to comfort him, to put his mind at ease. She’d like to tell him that she was sure they’d stop Loki or that his mother would overpower the Hel part of her. She desperately wanted to whisper to him that, no matter what happened tonight, she’d be there for him because she cared for him. A lot. But none of the words would come. Instead, she told him a story.
‘Before I started school,’ she began, speakin
g in a low voice so that none of the others would hear her, ‘we lived next door to this girl called Clare Pond. Clare was my age and we were best friends from the time we could walk. Anyway, Clare’s dad was a teacher in some posh private school so when we were old enough, she went there and I went to Belmont. After that, Clare didn’t talk to me any more, especially when she was with her new friends. I could hear them laughing at me when they thought I couldn’t. I was hurt and surprised and didn’t understand what I’d done wrong.’
She stopped, suddenly caught up with emotion and surprised that the story still had such an effect on her.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve never told this story to anyone before. Anyway, about a year after that, Clare moved away. Then I ran into her out of the blue last summer in town. She seemed really pleased to see me and even said sorry for how she’d been before. She regretted it, she said.’ Ash looked at Arthur’s confused expression. ‘I don’t really know why I’m telling you this. I guess what I’m trying to say – probably not very well – is that there are two sides to most people. And, eventually, most of them make the right choice. I’m sure your mom will too.’
‘Thanks, Ash,’ Arthur replied, squeezing her hand back. ‘I just keep thinking about when I was young and how amazing my mum was, like there wasn’t a bad bone in her body. When I was about six, I fell off my bike at my house. I grazed my knee. It wasn’t that bad but at the time I thought it was. I just kept screaming for my mammy. She ran out. And she started crying herself when she saw how upset I was. She picked me up, held me close and carried me inside. Then she cleaned my knee, put a Band Aid on it and wrapped me up in a big hug.’
He looked Ash straight in the eyes. ‘She told me she would always be there for me, always keep me safe. I just can’t imagine how she could be like that and have something like Hel inside her.’
Ash squeezed his hand again, unsure of what to say. At that moment her phone rang. They all looked at her with wide, worried eyes – even Eirik and Ex in the front – as she pulled it out of her pocket.
‘It’s Mom,’ she said, reading the display. She hesitated, her finger hovering over the touchscreen.
‘Answer it,’ said Ellie.
‘I can’t.’ She pushed it into Ellie’s hands. ‘You do it.’
‘What? What am I supposed to say?’ She gave it back quickly. The ringtone seemed to get louder with each second. ‘You answer it.’
Ash looked down at the phone again.
‘No,’ she said. ‘She must know by now that we mitched school. She’ll want to know where I am.’
‘Make something up,’ Arthur told her. ‘Say you’re at Ellie and Ex’s.’
Ash shook her head. ‘She’ll hear the car engine. It’s not exactly subtle.’
‘It doesn’t look like she’s going to give up,’ Ex said, as the sound continued. ‘Just answer the phone.’
‘I can’t … I don’t know what to …’ She looked around at them uncertainly. ‘What am I supposed to tell her … I–’
Before she knew what he was doing, Eirik reached back, plucked the phone from her grasp, screwed down his window and threw it out. The ringing sound was cut off the instant it hit the ground.
‘Well …’ said Ellie after a moment of silence. ‘That was one way of dealing with it.’
Garda Eddie McKean was on traffic duty but Garda Eddie McKean hated traffic duty. It meant sitting in a squad car that either got too cold or too hot, parked in a lonely lay-by and aiming a speedometer gun at the vehicles whizzing past on the motorway. His wrist muscles invariably grew weary of holding up the gun and his eyesight started to blur from staring at the read-out monitor for so long. Every time a car or bus or truck went by within the speed limit, the gun would beep once. But the rare times that something was going too fast, his squad car would be filled with an irritating chirping sound that lasted ten or twelve seconds.
He was just starting to believe that this afternoon was a bust when something drew his attention to the motorway. A small, dark shape flew through the air and landed right on the grassy verge. Whatever it was, it was thrown from the window of a passing blue Volkswagen Beetle.
Garda Eddie McKean wasn’t a fan of litterers to begin with, but it wasn’t the sight of the broken phone a few yards from his car that got his blood up on this occasion. It was the sight of the Beetle itself.
He looked down at the handful of faxes that had come through on the wire not an hour previously. Sure enough, right on top of the pile was the order to pursue a 1960s pastel-blue VW Beetle. The note read: ‘Pursue but do not detain until suspects have reached final location, at which point contact Detective P. Morrissey in Pearse Street Station.’
Garda Eddie McKean smiled to himself – some action at last – dropped the speed gun on the pile of faxes, straightened his cap, revved the engine and shot off.
‘Incoming!’ said Ex anxiously from the driver’s seat.
‘Huh?’ asked Ellie.
‘Incoming! Behind us!’
All but Ex turned to look through the rear windscreen. The motorway consisted of three lanes on each side of the road, and most of the cars were doing the top speed limit of 120 kph. At this time of the evening – an hour or so before rush hour truly began – there were only a few vehicles on either side of the thoroughfare. They could see three cars coming up behind them, at various distances. But Ash knew that it was the one furthest away that Ex had spotted. The squad car was still about half a kilometre away.
‘How long has it been following?’ asked Ellie.
‘Not long,’ Ex told her. ‘Since Eirik dumped the phone.’
The Viking grunted softly and shrugged apologetically.
‘It’s not his fault,’ said Ash. ‘I bet it’s Detective Morrissey’s doing.’ The words spilled out before she could stop them.
‘What?’ cried Arthur. ‘Why?’
‘He’s been keeping a close eye on me over the past few weeks.’
He turned on her, annoyed. ‘You didn’t tell me that!’
‘We didn’t want to worry you and we thought we’d lost him.’
‘Well, I’m worried now,’ he said, gazing back through the windscreen.
‘OK, OK, I’m sorry. He must have had the cops watching out for us when he worked out we’d left school. The car isn’t very inconspicuous. But what do we do now?’
‘If we get caught, the best-case scenario is that he brings us straight home,’ said Ellie.
‘That can’t happen,’ said Arthur. ‘We don’t have the time.’
‘So …?’ prompted Ex, waiting for orders.
Arthur looked over his shoulder at the squad car one last time.
‘We have to lose him,’ he said.
‘Evasive measures, Ex,’ said Ellie.
‘Evasive measures,’ said Ex, the ghost of a smile creeping across his lips.
He pressed harder on the accelerator and wound from one lane to another and then back again, squeezed between two cars. As soon as he could, Ex pumped the speed even more and swerved in front of a huge articulated truck, giving them momentary cover from the pursuing Garda.
Garda Eddie McKean had just confirmed that the licence plate on the Beetle matched the registration on the fax when the little blue car sped up. He growled to himself, realising they’d spotted him, and leaned over the steering wheel. Time to change tactics. In all his years in uniform no one had gotten away from him and he didn’t intend to break that record now.
He hit a switch under the dash and stamped his foot on the accelerator.
‘Oh great,’ Ellie said sarcastically as the squad car’s sirens started crying and the blue lights on top flashed brightly. ‘And there’s the cherry on top!’ She swivelled in her seat to look back at her brother. ‘Ex, be more evasive than that!’
He stamped his foot further down on the accelerator. The Beetle revved, struggling to reach the speeds Ex was attempting to push it to. Meanwhile, the Garda was in the middle lane, gradually closing the gap between them. He
overtook a car in the inside lane and was rapidly catching up to the next car in his lane – a white Nissan. Arthur could see the driver: an elderly woman hunched over the wheel and squinting over her hands. She was just staring straight ahead, taking her time, and didn’t notice the squad car coming up behind her. A massively long lorry rumbled along next to her in the right-hand lane, which meant that the Garda was stuck behind the slow elderly driver and the truck was preventing him overtaking. Suddenly, the squad car accelerated more and moved into the left-hand lane. But as it did, the woman steered her car to the left, heading for a turn-off. She didn’t bother signalling and didn’t hear the furious horn-honks of the Garda as he had to break suddenly to avoid a crash. He fell behind and, for a brief moment, Arthur hoped it would stay that way. But once the Nissan was off the motorway, the squad car sped up once more, moving rapidly towards them.
Meanwhile, Garda Eddie McKean could feel his face reddening with anger. This was not turning out to be his evening.
‘Faster, Ex!’ urged Arthur. ‘He’s right behind us! Go faster!’
‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ Ex muttered through gritted teeth. ‘This is an old car. We’ll never outrun him.’
The squad car came up alongside them on the right-hand side. Arthur could see the Garda inside gesticulating frantically at them with one arm. Although Arthur couldn’t hear what he was shouting, he knew it was ‘Pull over now!’ Spittle flew out of the Garda’s mouth and Arthur even noticed a blue vein pop out on his forehead, throbbing rapidly.
But before McKean could overtake them – and force them to stop the car – Ex swerved suddenly to the right. The Garda just managed to avoid the Beetle, braking and falling behind it. He punched his fist on the wheel and the horn blared angrily. He pushed the car into gear and accelerated again. He was coming up on their left-hand side now, gesturing wildly through the window at Ellie. The blue light lit up her face rhythmically.
