by Joan Holub
Freya sighed. “Okay. I agree to the deal.”
“Yes!” Mason shouted, hopping up and down in a happy circle atop her table. “I will build the wall in three days!” he crowed for all to hear. “When I succeed, I have been promised the sun and the moon. And Freya’s heart, too!”
Freya hunched her shoulders, embarrassed. She was already regretting her decision. How had she let Loki and peer pressure talk her into it?
As if he’d guessed what she was thinking, Loki whispered to her, “Don’t worry. He won’t get it done.”
Freya nodded curtly, wondering if she should have trusted her earlier instinct not to trust him. “You’d better hope not!” she whispered back fiercely.
“Off the table—immediately!” a bossy Valhallateria lady shouted at Mason. When the boy jumped down, a crowd gathered around to pepper him with questions about how he planned to accomplish his task.
The entire room was now abuzz. Freya hoped people didn’t think she was really in like with Mason. If so, they were wrong, wrong, wrong!
“Are you really okay with this?” Frey asked, having come over.
When she shrugged uncertainly, Loki frowned. “I hope you won’t break your promise. If you do, you’ll hurt Mason’s feelings big-time. And probably gain some enemies around here. Odin won’t like it if he hears his new students aren’t getting along.”
“The Vanir don’t break promises,” Freya assured him.
“Good!” said Loki. Seeing that Mason was looking toward them, he shot the boy a cheery grin and a thumbs-up, as if to say that everything was going as planned.
“Awesome! Guess I’d better go get to work!” Mason called out happily. He sent Freya a thrilled smile. Then, even though it was already dusk, he hurried off to begin repairing the wall.
Freya took a step in his direction to stop him but then halted. She didn’t want to hurt Mason’s feelings or make everyone here at school think she was a liar by backing out. But, oh, how she did want to back out! Promise or not. In her role as the girlgoddess of love, she took the giving of hearts very seriously. She had never crushed on a boy and did not intend to crush on Mason. But what if he somehow succeeded in building the wall in three days? Fingers crossed on both hands that he wouldn’t!
“Well, see you,” Loki told her, ambling off. Probably afraid that if he stuck around, she would start yelling at him. Which she might have done if she’d thought it would help this situation!
“Hey, it’s okay,” Frey said to her after Loki was gone. “Nobody could build that wall in three days. Mason does look kind of skinny and weak. Not like me.” Grinning, he posed for her, making a muscle with his arm. It wasn’t a very big one, however.
She was in the middle of grinning back when, from the corner of her eye, she thought she caught a movement within the large painted friezes that covered the walls. Then something so weird happened that she jerked in surprise, momentarily forgetting her troubles.
“Frey! Look at that frieze,” she hissed, pointing to a scene of heroic warriors marching through a grove of fruit trees. “Did one of those warriors in it just move?”
Frey followed her gaze and gasped. “Yeah! And that one did too! And that one, see?”
At first it was only the blinking of eyes or the twitch of a hand, as if those carved, painted heroes were waking up from a long sleep. But soon they were all moving around within their friezes—stretching, walking, and even running!
“What’s happening?” Freya wondered aloud. Nervous murmurs swept the Valhallateria as other students noticed what was going on too.
Suddenly every figure within the sculpted carvings seemed to come alive. And because they were all warriors, they immediately went into battle mode. Painted hands grabbed turnips, carrots, and crab apples from painted fields and trees or from platters on carved feast tables, depending on the scene. Arms drew back. Fists punched forth from the friezes. With resounding battle cries, warriors hurled food across the room at warriors on opposite walls!
“Food fight!” someone yelled.
Heads, arms, and legs extended from the painted carvings as far as they could without the warriors themselves actually leaving them. The moment food was lobbed out of a frieze, it temporarily turned real. A dozen turnips from one frieze arced high overhead and entered another frieze on the other side of the Valhallateria, whacking the warriors carved within. Thwack! The attacked warriors pelted back deviled auk eggs and wild plums. Splat! Thump!
Meanwhile, the Valkyries had sprung into action from their watchful positions near the friezes. They rushed here and there, shooing students out in an orderly manner, as if they’d known this was going to happen.
“Hurry! Off to your dorms! Girls go to the right for Vingolf Hall. Boys turn left for Breidablik Hall! Find a pod within your hall and get settled in for the night. Sleep well! Classes begin tomorrow!”
Leaving behind whatever food remained on their plates, students bolted from the Valhallateria, giggling and dodging flying food. As Freya raced for the door, her boot heel struck a plum. “Whoa!” She slipped and fell to her knees, then scooted under a table to avoid being trampled by students streaming around her.
When the coast was temporarily clear, she leaped out. Thonk! A bread roll struck her shoulder and she grabbed it. Laughing, she took a bite of it to kill off the last of her hunger as she dashed out the exit.
Outside she shivered in the cold air. It was dark now, and a light snow was swirling. Too bad she didn’t have her cloak; it was in her backpack, which Heimdall had sent ahead to the girls’ dorm. She looked left, then right. She’d already forgotten which way to go.
Luckily, Od happened by. “Vingolf dorm is that way!” he told her, motioning with his arm. Flashing her a smile, he ran the other way. She followed his directions but somehow wound up standing before a building with a sign that read BREIDABLIK. Hey, wasn’t that the name of the boys’ dorm? Had Od tricked her? Was he going to turn out to be like Loki? She hoped not!
She got directions from another boy, who pointed her in the opposite direction—to the other side of the Valhallateria. No other girls were still outdoors when she finally saw the sign that read VINGOLF. Which meant she was the last to straggle inside the girls’ dorm.
11
Podmates
FREYA SAW A NOTE HANGING on a noticeboard in the mudroom beyond the front door to Vingolf Hall. It read:
Welcome to your dorm at Asgard Academy, girls!
—Odin and Ms. Frigg, principals
Racks full of wet boots and skis from other girls lined the mudroom walls. Freya slipped off her red-and-white-plaid snow boots and set them on one of the racks. Then she pushed through another set of doors and padded into the main hall in her wool socks. As she came to a halt, her mouth fell open in awe.
Vingolf was as big as the outdoor village square back home! Only, the dorm was round, not square, and enclosed with a roof. A hole at the top vented smoke from the fire that burned in a pit at the room’s center. Game tables, reading nooks, and gathering spaces were positioned all around the roaring fire.
She moved farther inside, bypassing a bunch of stools and small tables set with oil lamps carved from soapstone. Light for students to do homework by, she supposed.
Where did everyone sleep, though? Maybe through the doors all along the wall? She counted eighteen of them. She peered through the first open door she found and saw it did indeed lead into a bedroom with six hammocks for beds. There were six light-elves inside, all giggling and twirling, having so much fun that they didn’t notice her.
Like petals growing outward from the center pistil of a flower, the eighteen rooms were evenly spaced all around the edge of the circular main space of Vingolf. The next room she passed was occupied by girl dwarfs. Catching sight of Freya, a silver-eyed one sent her a hesitant smile, probably thinking that Freya wanted to room with them. “Sorry, no space,” the girl called out, shrugging in an apologetic way. “There are five of us and only five podbeds.”
“Okay, thanks,” said Freya. So the hammocks were called podbeds? Interesting. She returned the dwarf girl’s small smile with a big, friendly one that made all five dwarfs blink. She was still hoping to make a good impression on behalf of her world and didn’t want anyone around here to think the Vanir were standoffish or unfriendly, in spite of what Angerboda had hinted at back on the Bifrost Bridge.
Freya moved on. The other open rooms she passed were of various sizes, some smaller and others larger, with podbeds for four to eight girls. Each room also had a small window on its far wall and a large rug woven with the big initials AA, for “Asgard Academy.” The central fire was making the dorm rather warm, so many of the windows’ shutters were partly open to let in some air.
So far the rooms she’d passed were already filled with girls putting away their stuff and chatting. Some looked at her curiously, but none invited her in. Like Njord had noted on their trip here, students from the same world were sticking together. Even in these podrooms, it seemed.
To her relief, Freya eventually spotted her backpack on the floor outside one of the podroom doors. She hurried toward it. Did finding it here mean she’d been assigned to this particular pod? When she straightened from picking up her pack, she saw that there were already some girls in the room. Angerboda and five other girlgiants. Oh no!
“Want something?” demanded Angerboda, seeing her standing there.
“Um . . .” Freya poked her head through the doorway and glanced around. There was one empty bed.
Angerboda followed the direction of her gaze. “We’re full,” she said quickly.
Freya frowned. It was not like she wanted to room with this mean girlgiant! Still, she did need a place to sleep. A wave of homesickness washed over her, and she wished she were back in her village in Vanaheim in her own cozy home with her own comfy bed. Back there she’d had many friends and everyone had welcomed her!
“Hey!” said a familiar, friendly voice behind her. It was Skade. She took Freya’s enormous bag from her, slinging it over one shoulder like it weighed nothing. Half-giants were strong! “C’mon. Want to room with us?” Skade asked.
“Us?” echoed Freya. Two more girlgiants, she assumed Skade meant.
Skade nodded absently but didn’t elaborate as she headed off. Uncertainly Freya followed her across the hall and past the fire pit to another of the bedrooms.
“Don’t worry about Angerboda,” Skade advised. “She’s always on some kind of rampage. In Jotunheim her kenning is ‘distress-bringer.’ ”
“Well deserved,” mumbled Freya, which made Skade laugh.
The two girls already inside Skade’s dorm room looked up when Freya and Skade entered. One of them was Idun, the apple juice girl from the Valhallateria. The other was a stranger.
Upon seeing Freya, the unknown girl smiled curiously and twisted a strand of her long hair around one finger. It was stunningly beautiful—the golden color of wheat in sunlight. “Come on in,” she told Freya, waving her inside. “I’m Sif. That’s Idun.”
“Yeah, we’ve met,” said Freya. She smiled at Idun, who paused to smile back while in the act of hanging a white linen shift in a small closet.
“We have one hammock—I mean, podbed—left,” said Sif.
Freya eyed the one empty hammock uncertainly. There was already stuff on the floor alongside it. A pair of skis and ski poles, and a pair of ski boots, too. Her heart sank a little. Had it already been claimed by another girl who wasn’t here yet?
She nodded toward the empty hammock. “That one? But there’s someone else’s stuff—”
“Oops, that’s my junk. Sorry,” said Skade, running over to gather up the ski stuff. Then she set Freya’s pack on the hammock, sending it swinging.
Still Freya hesitated. They all seemed friendly, but if she roomed here, she would be the only girl from Vanaheim in a pod of three Asgard girls. On the other hand, if they were willing to give her a chance, she’d give them one back!
“So did you all know each other before coming here?” she asked the others as she opened the small closet that stood beside her bed.
Idun shook her head, causing her long light-brown hair to sway. “Nuh-uh. Asgard is a big place. None of us had ever met before, even though we’re all Aesir.”
Learning that the other three girls were also new to one another made Freya feel a little better. Relaxing some, she said, “Vanaheim is big too, with lots of villages. I haven’t met everyone there, either, not by a long shot.”
Freya turned to her hammock. “Hó!” she exclaimed. It was an expression of surprise she’d learned from Gullveig that basically meant “whoa!” “Is this thing a real seedpod ?”
“Mm-hmm, all the hammocks are. Minus the seeds,” said Skade.
“We think they must have come from the World Tree, judging by how humongous they are,” said Sif.
Freya nodded, eyeing her hammock’s nearly six-foot length. Ropes tied at either end of it were attached to sturdy hooks in the ceiling. The minute she touched her pack, the seedpod bed went swinging again. “This hammock thingy is going to take some getting used to.” She moved her pack onto the floor beneath it for now.
As she straightened again, a large black bird holding something that looked like a baby-size red wool sock in its beak came flapping in through the room’s only window. Its arrival startled Sif into dropping the fistfuls of ribbons and other hair accessories she’d just pulled from her bag. Some fell onto her podbed, and the rest tumbled to the wood-plank floor.
Opening its black beak, the bird plunked the red wool sock thing onto Freya’s podbed. Then it cawed and flew back out.
“What in the nine worlds?” Idun exclaimed in surprise.
Skade dropped the pair of boots she’d been holding and raced to the window to watch the bird flap away. “It’s one of Odin’s ravens!” She closed the shutters against the cold air and turned excitedly toward Freya. “What did it bring you?”
“Not sure exactly.” Freya held up the lopsided red thing. It looked like the knitting project Ms. Frigg had begun when they met in the throne room with Odin earlier. A note attached to the red object confirmed her guess. It read:
To replace the pouch you lost.
—Ms. Frigg
Gulp! Somehow Ms. Frigg knew she’d lost a pouch on the bridge. Did she know what it had contained? Did that mean Odin knew too? Hope not! thought Freya.
“So what do you think it is?” Sif asked as she gathered up her hair decorations and stuck them on the high shelf in her small closet.
Freya waved the note. “It’s supposed to be a pouch,” she informed the girls.
“From Ms. Frigg?” asked Idun and Skade at the same time.
“How’d you guess?” asked Freya.
“It wasn’t hard,” Skade said, sharing a look of amusement with Sif and Idun.
“Ms. Frigg is kind of famous in Asgard for her knitting gifts,” Idun explained quickly. “The yarn she spins is beautiful and strong.”
“But when she knits you something, it’s usually . . . unusual,” added Sif.
“She’s the kind of person who would accidentally knit you a holiday sweater with one arm longer than the other, or maybe a lopsided hat,” said Skade.
Smiling, Freya held up her gift. “Or a lumpy, pointy-ended pouch? It was nice of her, though. Especially since we only just met.”
“Really? You’ve met Ms. Frigg already?” Idun said. “Oh, wait. You’re the girlgoddess that Odin called to their office, right?” Having finished hanging up various items of clothing in the small closet next to her podbed, she stowed her empty bag below her hammock.
Freya tied the pouch onto one of her necklaces. “Yeah, I guess that’s how I’ll be known from now on: the girlgoddess that Odin called to the office on her very first day at the academy.”
The other girls laughed, but she sensed their curiosity about her trip to see the two principals, so she explained. “He wanted to ask about the kind of magic I do. I imagine he’ll be a
sking all students the same question sooner or later. The ones who have magic, anyway. I just happened to go first.”
Skade cocked her head at Freya. “So what kind of magic can you do?”
“I can see,” Freya replied casually.
“Huh?” asked Idun.
“I’m a seer,” Freya explained. “I can see the future.” It wasn’t really a lie. Although she couldn’t see the future right now, she definitely hoped to change that very soon by getting Brising back from those jewel-snatching dwarfs down in Darkalfheim!
“Awesome,” said Sif, studying her with new interest. “What else did Odin say?”
“He recited a poem or two that he made up on the spot. Nothing much else.” When she kneeled to open her tightly stuffed bag, it practically exploded with clothes. She began stowing them away in her closet.
“So how about you guys? What are your magic skills?” asked Freya, hoping to change the subject.
“This.” To everyone’s amazement, Sif transformed herself into a rowan tree. Then she went from that to a swan. Then back to girlgoddess shape.
“Awesome!” said Freya, clapping her hands. “Wish I could shape-shift. What does it feel like when it happens? While you’re transformed, can you understand what other trees or swans are thinking or feeling?”
Sif looked pleased at her interest. “Sort of. One time, when I was a swan, I was skimming over a lake and saw some tadpoles. They looked so delicious to my swan self that I almost ate one.”
“Eew!” chorused the other three girls, giggling.
“My ‘magic’ is skiing. I’m an ace at it,” Skade explained. “Also, I can grow bigger in a snap, which can come in handy, or be a problem if you’re in a little space.” Everyone giggled again. Then Freya, Sif, and Skade all looked at Idun.
“I just make juice, which you already know,” said Idun in her soft, sweet voice. “I’m pretty sure that’s why Odin invited me here to AA. Because I agreed to bring an eski full of the golden apples that grow in my grove to the Valkyries at the Valhallateria every day.”
