Freyja's Daughter

by Rachel Pudelek

  I addressed the crowd of Wild Women. “It’s an email…from the Hunters.”

  I looked down and swiped at my phone’s screen. We had a special email account only for their correspondence. It didn’t used to be this way. Before the internet, because they weren’t allowed to know our names or where we lived, we had no communication with them other than our monthly screenings. But now we were at their beck and call through the advances of technology. I hoped to soon use technology to our advantage, starting with the map of their complex on our smart phones.

  I opened the email and sighed. The note shouldn’t have shocked me, though it did. They knew about me. They knew what I’d done the night I’d blacked out. They may have even known what I’d done on the mermaids’ island.

  “It’s a summons,” I announced.

  Wilds gasped, but I couldn’t pull my eyes from the screen to see which Wilds.

  “I am to report to the complex tomorrow morning, by myself, for a random screening.” Random, my ass. “I’ll fail and they know it.” They had me where they wanted me.

  “But we still have another week of training and planning before we’re ready,” Azul said.

  “They want to dispose of her before we’re able to dispose of them,” Aunt Patricia said.

  She was right. The punishment for killing a human or a Hunter was death. And from the dark bark patch on my back, it was obvious I’d killed since my last check-in. While I’d been able to take down two Hunters on the mermaid’s island, there was no possible way I could fight off a whole complex of them by myself.

  I peered past the Wilds to the evergreens behind them. How could I be sure there weren’t Hunters right now, on our property, watching us? Azalea caught my eye with a shake of her head as she stared straight at me. I’d forgotten about the powerful Wilds from Maine. Who knew a rusalka’s presence could bring me such comfort? There was a first for everything, I supposed.

  You all are, she spoke into my mind.

  She had a point. We each were powerful in our own right, however deep those powers were currently buried.

  I’d gone through so much to bring these females together, to align them. They’d traveled so far. We were supposed to organize a proper attack, and those take time and a lot of strategy, not one night of training and a couple of crap ideas thrown out there. If they followed me to the complex in the morning, they’d be annihilated. I’d brought all the American Wild Women together to be slaughtered in one fell swoop. I might as well have handed our kind to the Hunters on a silver platter and said bon appetite.

  These women came to help with hopes that rescuing Shawna would lead to the rescue of their own loved ones. And now, without the proper training and planning, all they could do for me was die. I refused to ask that of them. Dying wouldn’t return Shawna to my life. It wouldn’t help my mother or the others, and if any survived, they’d hate the huldra with everything in them. If I survived and this went badly, I was damning my daughter and my nieces. Shit, maybe I was placing a big red target on all huldra throughout the world.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d regret it later, but I shot Marcus a quick, nondescript text asking if he’d heard anything new, if I should be on the lookout for anything. I waited a few seconds, still racking my brain for my next step as though it would magically appear to me moments after plowing into a roadblock.

  I looked up from the cell phone and addressed my guests. “You should all stay and train, and continue on as planned, attack the complex during the regularly scheduled huldra check-in. I’ll enter their complex tomorrow morning and if they choose to hold me, for whatever reason they’re abducting Wilds, then I’ll hopefully be reunited with Shawna and be waiting to help from within when you attack. If they try to kill me for failing my check-in I won’t go down without a fight. I’ll try to thin their ranks as best as I can.”

  “No,” Olivia exclaimed. She walked to the other members of my coterie and stood beside them. “We’re not going to let the Hunters take another member of our coterie. We walk into the complex together, or we don’t walk in at all.”

  I forced myself to smile. Out of every Wild Woman in these woods tonight, my sisters and aunts were probably the least prepared to go up against the Hunters. We hadn’t had a cattle prod pressed against us or mastered the art of controlling the energy of another. We hadn’t lived a life of freedom on an island or learned how to control minds. My sisters and aunts still had an inner huldra waiting to come out. And if their experience would be anything like mine had been, their transition and learning to work with their huldra would take time, guidance, and practice. Three luxuries they no longer had at their disposal.

  “They are huldra, Faline. You are huldra.” Vernonia of the rusalki stepped forward to join the group. Her coven had been hovering at the group’s edges, watching. Her brown hair fluttered gently in the breeze. “Huldra were the Wild Women’s first protectors.” She addressed the crowd of females. “They have a mind for strategy, for survival, for engaging and subduing the enemy.”

  The sensation of ghostly fingers massaging my scalp came on strong and I wanted to sit to enjoy the pleasure more fully. I caught Vernonia’s eyes. She gave a slight grin and continued working her magic. My brow unfurrowed and my forehead relaxed.

  I knew the rusalka was placing these thoughts of confidence in my coterie’s and my minds, but the belief grew in my heart where the rusalka could not penetrate.

  “What time did the email say you’re to report to their complex?” Aunt Patricia asked, unknowingly pulling those ghostly fingers from my mind and snapping me into the stark reality of the moment.

  I blinked a few times before answering. “Seven in the morning.”

  “Is she not the Mother of War?” Vernonia asked, changing her focus to a cluster of mermaids. “Should we not follow her into battle?”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” I said.

  Aunt Patricia wrapped her arm around my shoulder and leaned in until our temples touched. “This coterie has always made decisions based on what’s best for the group, not the individual. Losing your mother felt as though someone hacked off an arm from the body of our group. Losing you and Shawna would kill us. Not to mention it was you who brought all these Wilds together, and without you I suspect this will all fall apart.”

  My aunt pulled away and addressed our guests. “If Faline is to lead us in recovering our abducted Wild Women and overthrowing the Hunters, her death will only stop the revolution before it’s begun. The mermaid’s wise woman spoke of Faline for a reason. We can’t just hand her over to the enemy.” When a few Wilds nodded their heads, my aunt continued, “The Hunter’s complex is about a thirty-minute drive from here. Those who decide they want to join us, we’ll be leaving at six-fifteen.”

  “I fully trust the premonitions of our late wise woman. We will join you,” Azul said. She flashed deep blue scales across her chest and allowed them to fade into her tan skin. “But we will enter the property by way of the river.”

  We didn’t have time to argue anymore. Aunt Patricia nodded. “As long as you’re able to get to the complex in time to help us overtake the Hunters.”

  “We will fly in,” Eonza of the harpy flock called out. “We have not yet learned our siren’s call, as Gabrielle had promised to teach us, but we are still strong and our talons can do much damage.”

  The rusalki coven and the succubi galere said nothing.

  “Thank you,” I said to Azul and Eonza once I relocated my voice. “We appreciate your bravery.”

  Aunt Patricia closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. When she opened them again she wove her arm through mine. “We must go petition to Freyja for wisdom and strength in battle, and for victory. I suggest you all pray to your goddesses as well.”

  The members of my coterie stood around a fire pit lined with river stones behind our common house. Aunt Patricia opened an old splintered box and removed Norse bracelets, one for each of us with one remaining in the box. Each silver bracelet twisted in on itself w
ith braids and a growling wolf’s head at the two ends.

  The glow from the fire danced along my sisters’ and aunts’ faces in the night. We wore only the bracelets.

  We rarely petitioned Freyja in such a manner. And we’d never come to her as warrior daughters. Yet, it felt natural, as though my soul had memories of similar rituals, hidden deep within my cells.

  Power filled the space as we passed a dagger around the circle. Aunt Patricia made a small cut in the palm of her left hand and squeezed to drip a few drops of blood into a copper basin. Each of us followed her lead until Aunt Abigale joined her blood with ours. She then swirled the basin and passed it back around the circle. I held the copper basin with my left hand and dipped my right finger into the blood mixture of my coterie. In this way, we were connected, that we may live by blood or die by blood, Freyja’s choice.

  The ritual called for complete focus on our intentions. No one spoke. Not until we called to Freyja.

  With my pointer finger, I smeared blood onto the wolf-head bracelet and whispered a prayer, verbalizing my intentions. “Goddess of life and death, of war and peace, please be with me as I fight for your honor.”

  I passed the basin to my right and heard the intentions of my sisters and aunts spoken into the night, to our goddess.

  Pride in my species filled me. We were each a link in our circular chain, praying to the goddess who created the huldra, who made us who we are.

  Once the basin made its way around the circle, silence filled the area again and we gazed into the dancing flames. My heart moved me to speak. “We pray to Freyja, who gifted us her abilities to root ourselves into the ground, forces to be reckoned with, unable to be pushed over, like the great and mighty evergreen. She gave us their strengths as assets in battle. The trees have always protected the living as we are meant to protect our Wild sisters.” I paused and watched wisps of fire like orange silk dance in the wind. “Embrace who she created you to be. Your natural self, your wild self. Release the lies we’ve been told. We are not weak. We are not evil. We are not monsters. We protect the innocent and the defenseless.” I raised my chin and my sisters and aunts met my gaze. “For this we were created and in this will we thrive.”

  The power in the clearing where we stood vibrated like a tuning fork. I felt something in my coterie members relax, unleash. Smiles beamed from my fellow huldra. Bark grew across their naked skin, originating at their lower backs and embracing their stomachs, stretching north and south.

  “Goddess, it’s almost as good as an orgasm,” Olivia gasped.

  I let out a light laugh and watched the others experience what I’d only recently learned about myself. Aunt Patricia reached her arm out in front of her and turned it from side to side. “It looks so thick, so impenetrable,” she said. “I’d heard stories as a little girl, but seeing and feeling is certainly believing.”

  I peered down at myself. I’d never tire of seeing nature’s decorations along my skin. “There’s strength and power in standing in who you were created to be.”

  “Hunters have been trying to push us over for years,” Olivia stated with awe.

  I smiled. “Tomorrow, we push back.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Only the succubi galere drove to our meeting point near the Hunter’s compound. The other Wilds traveled by their own unique form of transportation. The harpies flew. The mermaids swam via the river that led to and through the complex grounds. The rusalki did…whatever they did to get from one place to another in an instant. My huldra coterie tree-jumped through our woods, and then ran and tree-jumped the rest of the way to the Hunter’s property.

  We met up at 6:45 in the morning behind a gas station a quarter of a mile from the Hunter’s compound. There were no homes or businesses between the gas station and the complex; if someone did see us they’d likely be connected to the Hunters. We lacked the time to plan or train, so surprise was our biggest weapon.

  The gas station held very few items inside, scattered along broken shelves. Cobwebs covered each window corner. Moss grew across the porous red bricks in shaded areas behind the building. Flattened boxes littered the ground, the cardboard soaked through and mushy from the constant drizzle of rain.

  The sun crested the landscape and barely lit the sky behind thick grey clouds. An old streetlight hummed at the front of the building, leaving the back area covered in darkness.

  Olivia held her nose from the stench of the rotting building and nearby dumpster as we stood under the overhang and waited for the other groups to arrive. The other huldras enjoyed the light rain on their heads and face, but I had to appear as though I’d just walked out of the house to my car and from my car to the complex. I didn’t want to raise suspicion among the Hunters too early—as in, the moment I walked in for the “random” screening.

  The rusalki exited the nearby treeline where the parking lot met the forest. They wore their regular animal skins and fern leaf attire, with the added decoration of mud smeared on every inch of exposed skin.

  “It is a tribute to our goddess,” Azalea said, reading my mind and answering my unspoken question.

  “And a tactic to insight fear,” her sister Drosera said in a wispy voice. Her auburn hair looked as though she’d brushed it with a handful of twigs. In fact, maybe she had because a small twig stuck out from the top of her head.

  It occurred to me that the majority of the Hunters in my region had probably only seen huldra in real life and had never experienced other Wilds aside from pictures. In this, we had one up on them.

  Eonza and the other harpies landed on the pavement, their talons gripping the crumbling surface. Eonza’s golden wings flapped silently as she made contact with the earth. The harpies wore their specially made shirts with open backs. Eonza’s was white. I wanted to crack a joke about leaving the Hunters’ complex today with a red shirt instead of a white one, but nothing about her led me to believe she’s the joking type. Neither she nor her sisters pulled their wings or talons in. They waited in a huddle, peeking from their circle with jerky movements to eye each noise.

  One by one the succubi filed out of my aunt’s crossover until only Marie was left in the driver’s seat. I’d insisted they drive our car, not theirs, because their Oregon plates could raise suspicion. Especially because the crossover was the vehicle I’d use to drive onto the complex.

  “I take it back,” Marie said as she jumped from the car and closed the door behind her. “It handles better than I thought.” She joined me below the rotting awning and dropped the keys into my hand.

  The succubi all wore their own variation of ripped jeans, fitted tattoo-exposing tops, and interesting hair styles.

  “You sure you don’t need a ride there?” Marie joked.

  “I’m sure.” I eyed her. “You’ll be able to restrain them the way you did me, right? Make them crumpled, powerless heaps on the floor?”

  Marie’s smile widened, but she didn’t break eye contact. Olivia yelped from the parking lot before hitting the pavement as though her spine melted within her.

  “Knock it off, Marie,” I said, shoving the succubus. “I didn’t ask for a demonstration.”

  Marie’s smile didn’t waver. She turned slightly to see what I’d been watching. Olivia caught her breath and stood, wiping the dirt from her jeans. She smoothed her hair and pretended to reach out and strangle Marie. Marie didn’t seem to take offense.

  “You’d better be careful,” I said to the succubi leader, who still beamed with accomplishment. “When she learns to bring out her vines and branches, she will be able to strangle you from five feet away.”

  “When do we leave?” Eonza asked, peeking her head from the harpy circle. They reminded me of three birds, huddled together for warmth, with only one poking their head out from time to time to verify the safety of their surroundings.

  I checked the clock on my phone and hoped to see a text response from Marcus. Nothing.

  “I’m leaving in a couple minutes,” I announced. I knew harpi
es had hearing similar to mine, but I wasn’t sure about the succubi or the rusalki. Though, the rusalki knew my words before I spoke them, so hearing wasn’t much of an issue.

  “Remember the map of the compound,” I said, raising my voice a little louder for the succubi. “The river is to the right of the cluster of buildings as you look at it from the front gate, to the west on the map. When my coterie hears scuffling from inside the building they’ll know I’ve begun and will alert the succubi and harpies nearby. They’ll then howl to signal to the mermaids to come out of the river and join us at the building. They’ll come out from the woods to the left of the complex, or east on the map. You’ll all need to come in hard and fast, because I’ll already be in the main building, and if you’re seen, they may lock me in and lock you out. Going up against ten Hunters at the same time on my own does not sound like a picnic.”

  Olivia joined me under the awning and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. Celeste followed and stood on the opposite side of me. I missed the old Celeste, the bossy sister who seemed to know everything. She’d become a quiet, anxious person since Shawna’s abduction. Clearly, it had rocked her foundation.

  I had to leave in a minute and all I could think to do was look around the parking lot at the females preparing to go to battle. While I knew how many Wild Women were entering the compound behind me, I wondered how many of us would survive to exit the compound when this was all over.

  A speech bubbled up inside of me. “We deserve freedom. Freedom to use our goddess-given abilities for good. Freedom from painful and invasive tests or scans. The freedom to raise our daughters in peace without fear of angering the Hunters by their mere existence.” I paused and swallowed down the fears pulsing through me. What if I was about to enter an ambush? What if they somehow coerced Marcus to reveal that I was likely bringing backup? What if this was the last time I’d see my sisters and aunts? What if we weren’t able to get Shawna out of there?