by Joan Holub
To her surprise, Odin chuckled. “Oh, we think you are special.”
Wrong! she thought. But she didn’t say so out loud.
“Frigg and I wouldn’t have brought you to our new school if you weren’t,” he went on seriously. “We were wary of bringing more Vanir to Asgard Academy right away, since our two worlds have been at war. We’ll see how things go with you and the three boygods first.”
“Um. Okay.” Nothing like putting pressure on Frey, Njord, Kvasir, and her to do well at AA. And to behave themselves! Would Odin expel her once he found out she had no magic without Brising, though? If she failed to meet his expectations—or bailed and went home—it sounded like it was going to hurt the chances of other Vanir being invited to enroll here in the future, she realized guiltily.
Odin glanced at the raven on his left shoulder. “Well, what do you think of her, Munin?” he asked it. After it cawed a few times in his ear, he looked at the raven on his right shoulder. “And you, Hugin?” That one caw-answered in his other ear. The ravens weren’t speaking in a way she could understand now, which must mean they didn’t want her to know what they were saying.
“Hmm.” Appearing to think over their replies, Odin lifted a juice glass at his side and drank from it. Then, for no reason at all, he drifted off into reciting poetry! He said:
“Breaking branch, or flaring flame,
Freya of all-seeing fame,
Welcome to my throne and hall.
Have you come to fix our . . . ?”
Frowning, he eyed her as if expecting her to supply the word he sought for his poem.
“Um, snowball? Waterfall? Heimdall?” she guessed.
After each suggestion he shook his head. Seeming a little disappointed in her, he finally said, “Never mind.”
Well, if he’d wanted a poet, why had he called upon her? She’d never been any good at poetry. Nor had she ever claimed to be. Besides, she hadn’t come here to fix anything. And Odin was mistaken if he thought she was a seer of great fame!
Seizing the opportunity that his current silence provided, Freya opened her mouth and burst out with her biggest burning question. “Can you please tell me where my amma Gullveig is?”
At this, Odin’s frown deepened. In a voice she had to strain to hear, he murmured, “I only wish I knew.”
“I thought you could see, er, that you know everything,” she said in surprise. (Obviously, he didn’t, or else he would know all her secrets, like the fact that she lacked magical talent now that she’d lost Brising!)
Odin raised an eyebrow. “As you must know yourself, seers can’t actually see everything. And what they can see is not always easily understood.”
“Gullveig did come here, though, right?” she persisted.
“And started a war between Asgard and Vanaheim!” Odin pounded his fist on the arm of his throne. He looked so annoyed that Freya didn’t dare mention Gullveig again.
Then he sighed. “A war that neither side could win. Yggdrasil doesn’t do well when there’s fighting. Not well at all. Thing is, the future of all our worlds hangs on that tree’s welfare. It provides a link between the rings, shelter from storms, homes for animals, wood for building, the list goes on and on.” He spread his arms wide and gazed out at the leafy tree with deep respect.
“If we destroy that cawsome tree . . . ,” Hugin began.
“We cawse our own destruction,” finished Munin.
Odin slowly nodded. “Another war could mean cawtastrophe, er, catastrophe!”
Was Odin saying what she thought he was saying? That if those who lived in the nine worlds could not get along, the World Tree would sicken? Maybe even die? She remembered Frey pointing out that the plants in Vanaheim got droopy during the war. If Yggdrasil and the plants all died, would that cause those who lived in the worlds to die too? This was a new idea to her. And it changed everything!
As if noting her dismay, Odin went on. “Ah, you begin to understand the responsibilities of your position here.”
“Fear not, however,” Ms. Frigg put in. “With your exceptional talent, you will undoubtedly be a big help in uniting the nine worlds.”
Odin nodded. “Tell me, how does it work for you? Your future-telling magic, I mean.”
“Oh! Um, I use a jewel,” Freya said honestly.
Odin sat up straighter, his eye gleaming with interest. “Show me.”
This leader of the Asgard gods was both admired and feared for his ability to see into all the worlds at once. She would love to know how he accomplished that. Anyway, he had already admitted that he couldn’t see absolutely everything everywhere all the time. He hadn’t seen her lose her jewel on the bridge. Or maybe he had but just didn’t realize it was that particular jewel that gave her seeing abilities?
Would he banish her back to Vanaheim if he found out she wasn’t valuable as either a seer or a poet? Finding Gullveig and discovering where those dwarfs had taken her jewel likely depended on her being able to stay here long enough to do some detective work!
Only then remembering that she had forgotten her jewel’s white pouch back on the bridge, she lifted a hand and grasped the pouch that contained the kittycart marble instead. She would pretend Brising was inside it! Crossing the fingers of her other hand, she hoped Odin couldn’t see through the pouch and figure out she was about to tell a lie. But before she could open her mouth to speak, Odin asked, “Don’t you need to take your jewel out for it to work?”
Nervously she blurted, “My jewel is shy, so I’m letting it stay in its pouch.”
Odin raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t question what she’d said.
Phew! Freya closed her eyes and pretended to get a vision right away. “I see a heart.” She was describing what she’d seen back at Gullveig’s hut, of course. Through her eyelashes she watched for Odin’s reaction.
“Tell me more,” he instructed. He gave no sign as to whether he already knew about that wooden heart or was simply interested in her vision.
Argh! She’d been hoping that he might give her a clue as to what that whole heart business was about. She decided to share one last tidbit. “Oh, and I see something about a so-called secret world?”
Instantly he straightened. His eye intensified to an even brighter blue. “Hmm,” he said, tapping his chin with two fingers. “A heart? A secret world? But that’s nonsense!” Her eyes widened as he half rose from his throne, shouting, “What I’d like you to see in your visions is the whereabouts of that gold thief, Gullveig!”
Startled, Freya took a step backward. It seemed that Odin believed Gullveig had stolen Asgard’s gold too! Did he have proof, though, or had he only heard the rumors? Just then a horn sounded. It was so loud, it caused vibrations that made the platform and everything on it shake. Freya gasped. “Was that Heimdall’s horn?”
In an instant Odin’s anger seemed to vanish. Chuckling, he plopped back in his throne. “Don’t worry. It’s only one blast. But if you ever hear five hundred and forty of them, get ready for real trouble. Doomsday!”
“Doomsday?” Freya echoed in horror. That word again. Just like in Brising’s future-telling yesterday!
At Freya’s frightened tone Ms. Frigg set down her knitting. She put a hand on Odin’s arm, which caused him to shrug and fall silent on that subject. Now he lapsed into rhyme once more:
“At many a feast I arrived too late,
Though much too soon at some;
Go eat hearty and make new friends,
Or thin you will . . .”
He paused, as if trying to come up with a rhyme for “some.” For once a rhyming word leaped to Freya’s mind, but she was reluctant to say it after failing to supply the correct word to Odin’s previous poem. Ms. Frigg lifted her eyes from her knitting and nodded at her, as if guessing that Freya had a suggestion and urging her to speak.
“Become?” Freya ventured after several seconds.
Odin clapped his hands in delight. “Yes! The rhyming word is ‘become.’ Or thin you will become. On
e of my better poems, if I do say so myself,” he said, praising his own cleverness.
He turned to Munin. “Remember that one,” he told the bird.
As the raven nodded, Freya suddenly recalled that munin meant “memory.” So did this bird memorize all of Odin’s poems as a permanent record?
“Heimdall has sounded the dinner horn. You must be hungry,” Ms. Frigg said to Freya. “I imagine you missed lunch on your journey here?”
“Well, yes,” Freya replied. “We had some apples and pears along the way, but there wasn’t room for food in our packs.”
Odin sat back in his chair and jerked his chin to indicate that she could go now. How did he do that—manage to make a mere nod of his head look so regal? “We will talk again another time,” he informed her.
“Yes, off with you to the Valhallateria,” said Ms. Frigg, smiling.
Val-hall-uh-TEER-ee-uh. Freya repeated the long word in her mind. It was a mouthful. Whatever a Valhallateria was, she would rather be there than stay here a minute longer under Odin’s all-seeing eyeball. Plus, it sounded like there would be food there. Maybe even smultringer!
Eager to comply with Ms. Frigg’s gentle order, she spun around, ready to head for the ladder. But that wouldn’t take her all the way to the school, so . . . Pausing, she sent a questioning look over her shoulder at her hosts. “Um, how do I get there?”
Having picked up her knitting again, Ms. Frigg pointed a knitting needle toward the empty space beyond Freya. Instantly the blue door reappeared. “Go on. Through that portal,” Ms. Frigg instructed.
“Thanks,” Freya said gratefully.
Odin was still eyeing her. Somewhat suspiciously, she thought. It kind of made her want to come clean about her shortcomings. Yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to admit the truth—that she now possessed no more magic than a Midgard human. Which meant no magic at all!
What would Odin do when he discovered she couldn’t meet his (extremely high!) expectations of her? she wondered as she headed for the blue door. Maybe instead of just sending her back home, he’d toss her off a high branch like a sack of leaves! She shuddered at the thought. Somehow she had to get her jewel back before he figured things out. And before the dwarfs who had stolen Brising discovered its magic power. Because not only would they never give it back then. They’d keep it to use themselves!
8
Brising
MEANWHILE, DEEP DOWN IN THE world of Darkalfheim, the gnarled hand that had caught Freya’s jewel withdrew under the earth into a dim tunnel. “Oho! Lookee what we got here,” said the greedy voice of a dwarf named Alfrigg.
A trio of other dwarfs, all holding torches, crowded around to admire the teardrop jewel. Lit by the torchlight, it glittered in Alfrigg’s palm. “It’s clear. Must be a diamond!” he said.
“WHAT DID HE SAY?” asked Berling. After years of banging hammers in the mines, he didn’t hear very well.
“He said ‘DIAMOND’!” Dvalin yelled into Berling’s ear.
“Grabbers keepers! Losers weepers!” A dwarf named Grerr grabbed the jewel from Alfrigg and ran off with it, laughing. “This diamond is perfect for that new necklace we’re making. And since I’ve got it now, I should get to design its setting!”
The other three dwarfs dashed through the tunnel after him. “Give it back!” Alfrigg grumped. As the foursome turned down another tunnel—one among many in an underground labyrinth of caves—Alfrigg managed to snatch back his sparkly prize. He and Grerr began fighting loudly over it.
“Shush!” Dvalin warned. “Odin may have only one eye, but he can see just about any place with it if he knows where to look. If he learns what we’ve found, he might take it from us.”
All four dwarfs hunched their shoulders and studied their surroundings as if spies might be listening. “He can’t see down here in the tunnels,” scoffed Alfrigg. But he spoke in a hushed whisper, appearing a little worried.
“Just in case, let’s skedaddle,” Grerr suggested.
“WHAT?” asked Berling.
“HE SAID, ‘LET’S SKEDADDLE’!” yelled Dvalin.
“Hey, I thought you said to stop yelling,” complained Grerr.
“WHAT?” asked Berling.
Alfrigg rolled his eyes and thrust Freya’s jewel inside his knapsack. When he took off running, the other three followed. The dwarfs wound down, down, down, deep into the earth, till eventually they reached their workshop.
9
Valhallateria
FREYA STUDIED THE BLUE DOOR that hovered before her, her back turned to Odin’s and Ms. Frigg’s thrones. Several rows of buttons had popped up on the door this time, each labeled with a place name, such as Vingolf, Breidablik, Gladsheim, and Valhallateria. It seemed that from this office you could go anywhere in Asgard Academy!
She pressed the button labeled VALHALLATERIA. Immediately she heard that harp sound as the blue door opened. However, she wasn’t instantly sucked up through a vine, as she had been back at the Bifrost Bridge. Instead, after pushing through the door, she stepped straight into a grove of amazingly beautiful trees clad in fluttering red-gold leaves. Wow!
Snick! The blue door shut behind her and disappeared again. Now there was no way to get back to the office. Perhaps the blue door became visible only when Odin or Ms. Frigg wanted to transport you—or themselves—somewhere.
As she wound through the trees along a path, Freya heard the horn blast again and quickly covered her ears to muffle the sound. Heimdall’s second dinner call, no doubt. Hearing voices ahead and glimpsing her brother, she hurried to catch up with him. To her surprise, he was walking with three other boygods she didn’t know, and they were all talking away as if they were already buds. She silently trailed them, listening in.
“You know that mythical flaming sword? The one called Firebrand?” one of the boys was asking. He had brown curly hair and was holding a musical instrument called a lute.
The others nodded. “By Odin’s might, one day it will be mine!” declared a red-haired boy. He was taller and more muscular than the other boys.
Another boygod with black hair and dark-blue eyes started laughing. “You wish! You’ll never get that sword.” Freya recognized him. It was that boy from the bridge who had tied the girls’ braids together!
“Will too, or my name isn’t Thor, the destined-to-be greatest warrior of all time!” the red-haired boy proclaimed loudly.
“Freya! Hey! What happened with Odin?” her brother called out when he noticed her.
She caught up with him then, and they all five kept walking. No way was she going to tell Frey the details of her visit to Valaskjalf with his new friends listening in, though.
“Oh, he just had a few questions about Vanaheim,” she answered casually. “No big deal.” She frowned at the black-haired, blue-eyed boy from the bridge.
“I’m Loki,” he said. Slouching a little, he flipped his hair, acting all cool. He was snacking again, this time on a pear he must’ve gotten from that orchard back near the bridge. It reminded her of how hungry she was.
“Bragi,” the boy with the lute told her, grinning good-naturedly.
“Thor,” said the red-haired boy, though she’d already heard his name, of course.
“I’m Frey’s sister,” she told them, knowing they must have guessed that. She smiled at them, and they all looked a little dazzled. She was used to having that effect, though. She was the girlgoddess of love and beauty, after all!
“So . . . ,” Frey began, and she knew he was going to ask about Odin again.
“Aren’t these the most beautiful trees in all the worlds?” she asked, gazing at their surroundings, before he could go on. As she expected, talk of growing things sparked his enthusiasm, and he began remarking on the kinds of trees they were passing.
“Yeah! See those rowan trees with the red berries?” said Frey. “Beautiful specimens. And those spruces over there are the tallest and bluest I’ve ever seen.” Then he gestured toward the forest floor, pointing out flowers, such
as the purple harebells that were growing alongside bilberry and holly bushes.
“I like those,” said Bragi, pointing at the red-gold trees.
Freya nodded. “Me too. Their leaves make a pretty fluttering sound in the wind.”
“They’re aspen trees. Their wood is lightweight. Great for shield making,” Frey informed them.
“Good to know,” said Thor. “I could use a new shield.”
They were very close to the trunk of the great ash tree Yggdrasil now, Freya saw. This entire forest grew atop a single one of the World Tree’s vast branches, which had to be hundreds of feet across and who knew how long!
Soon they entered a grove of thin birch trees growing close together, and so had to walk single file to thread through them. Freya fell back a bit, wanting to enjoy the quiet. Once through the birches, they came right up alongside Yggdrasil’s trunk.
Ymir’s freckles! How fantastic is this! Glancing ahead, Freya saw that the boys had rounded a bend in the path and moved out of sight. Did she dare? Yes! She did. She stepped toward Yggdrasil’s enormous trunk, close enough to smell the fresh outdoorsiness of its sap. Reaching out, she brushed her palm across its bark. Wait till she told her friends back in Vanaheim that she had actually touched the trunk of the most famous tree in all the nine worlds!
Ka-chunk! The section of bark she’d touched jerked to one side. A small opening appeared on a level with her face—a little viewing window about ten inches wide and three inches tall.
She jumped back in surprise. Abruptly an eye (brown like the one in that heart vision Brising had shown her) appeared in the small open slot. Weird! She stumbled back a few more steps. She hadn’t thought anyone lived inside Yggdrasil’s trunk. Except maybe burrowing bugs or a raccoon family. But this was no bug or raccoon eye.
