Sky Wolves

by Livi Michael

  ‘Pico!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  But before he could answer, a quavering voice said, ‘Hello? Is anyone there? Oh, please don’t jump out at me if you are.’

  ‘Flo!’ cried Jenny and Pico together, so that Flo bolted backwards in fright, closing her eyes.

  ‘Wh-wh-who is it?’ she said, too nervous to recognize their voices.

  ‘Well, if you opened your eyes,’ said Gentleman Jim, rounding a large bush and nudging Flo from behind, so that she yelped in fright, ‘you’d stand a much better chance of finding out.’

  ‘Gentleman Jim!’ said Jenny, Pico and Flo, and Flo opened her eyes and instantly felt much better. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ she said, wagging her little pom-pom of a tail.

  ‘So it is,’ said Gentleman Jim. ‘It looks like it’s all of us. Apart from Boris and Checkers,’ he added, and was immediately bowled over by Checkers.

  ‘Wotcha, GJ,’ he said, bounding all the way round the croft and back again. Anyone seen Boris? He was here a moment ago.’

  ‘Here I am,’ said Boris, plodding slowly out from behind a bush. He had met Checkers several moments ago and since then had been leapt upon, sucked, nuzzled, pummelled and chewed, and so was feeling a little dazed. But he was very glad to see all his friends.

  ‘Well, here we all are,’ said Gentleman Jim, picking himself up again and looking sternly at Checkers, who was too busy belting around to notice. And none of us with our owners. Or Aunty Dot. I must say, this is very unusual. What brings you all here?’

  And immediately everyone began talking at once and trying to explain, so that Jenny, who at first had been overwhelmed with delight to see them all, could hardly hear herself think. And she was very afraid that all the noise would attract some unwelcome attention.

  ‘Stop talking, all of you,’ she said, and when no one heard she lifted her voice and cried, ‘Silence!’ and everyone stopped talking at once.

  ‘There is no time,’ she said earnestly. ‘We are all in terrible danger.’

  ‘WOOF!’ said Pico, and Flo said, ‘D-danger?’ and Checkers bounded all round everyone three times in excitement.

  Jenny raised a paw and stamped it on the ground in impatience. ‘You must listen, all of you,’ she said. ‘I have to tell you my tale.’

  ‘Tail?’ said Boris, but Gentleman Jim said, ‘Quiet, everyone. Let Jenny speak.’

  And Jenny looked at him gratefully, for she had such a lot to tell them that she hardly knew where to begin.

  ‘First of all,’ she said, as they all looked at her expectantly, ‘my name is not Jenny.’

  11

  Jenny’s Tale

  ‘I come from a different world,’ Jenny said, gazing into the far distance. ‘And there my name is Leysa, meaning “to set free”.’

  All the dogs followed the direction of Jenny’s gaze, as if they expected to see a different world appearing suddenly on the croft. Then they looked at one another in bewilderment. However, dogs very rarely tell lies, and in general they are trusting animals who believe, implicitly, everything they are told. They looked back at Jenny, waiting for her to go on, and Jenny sighed.

  ‘A long time ago, when my world was young,’ she said, ‘Odin, the All-Father, and his beloved wife, Frigg, gave birth to a baby son, named Baldur. He was not like their other children, who were harsh and violent. He was known as the fairest of the Aesir, the wisest and most merciful. He was gentle and kind and everyone loved him. He was my master, my Golden Boy, who saved me from the jaws of a wolf when I was out hunting. We went everywhere together.’

  Jenny looked at the others, with an indescribably sad expression on her face, so they all too felt very sad. ‘I owed him my life, you see,’ she said, and the dogs bowed their heads. Loyalty was a concept they all understood.

  ‘When he was born, his mother, Frigg the Gentle, Lady of Flowers, extracted a promise from all the plants in the world that they would not harm him. But she overlooked one plant, the mistletoe,’ and Jenny nudged the mistletoe dart at her feet. ‘One day, all the gods, in sport, decided to put this to the test. They shot arrows at him and threw spears, but everything missed or bounced off him harmlessly. Then Loki, the most evil of the gods, found this sprig of mistletoe and shaped it into a dart.’

  All the dogs looked at the mistletoe. It was chewed and misshapen, but they could see that it might once have been a dart.

  ‘He put it into the hands of Baldur’s brother, Hod, who was hanging back because of his blindness, and said to him, “Do as the others, enjoy yourself, and I will guide your hand.” So the mistletoe dart flew through the air. But I was watching, and I knew Loki could be up to no good. Before it could strike Baldur, I leapt into the air and caught it.’

  ‘WOOF!’ said Pico, and Checkers leapt into the air too, exactly as if he was catching the dart. They all understood. Every single one of them would have done the same, for a dog’s first loyalty is always to his master.

  ‘And then what?’ asked Gentleman Jim.

  ‘Then I ran,’ said Jenny. ‘With Loki howling behind me, for if a dog disturbs the games of the gods, the penalty is death.’

  ‘That – seems a little – harsh,’ said Flo.

  ‘No,’ said Jenny, ‘for the gods do not play their games for amusement only. The outcome decides the fate of men, and the world, and even the gods themselves.’

  Now the dogs looked baffled, and Boris started to say, ‘I don’t understand,’ but Jenny went on.

  ‘Baldur was supposed to die that day, and his death was the first in a long chain of events that would bring about Ragnarok.’

  Jenny lowered her voice as she said this, yet still the earth around them rumbled and shook.

  ‘Ragnarok?’ said Gentleman Jim, and it rumbled and shook again.

  ‘Do not speak that name unless you have to,’ said Jenny earnestly. ‘It is the last battle at the end of the world.’

  ‘Battle?’ said Checkers.

  ‘The end of the world?’ said Flo nervously, and Boris, who was catching up, said, ‘Mistletoe dart?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Gentleman Jim. ‘Could you run that by me again?’

  ‘Ragnarok,’ said Jenny patiently, and the dogs all huddled together as earthquake-like tremors reverberated through the ground, ‘is the last battle, between the gods and the forces of destruction. When the evil of the world will burst its bonds, and Hel and her minions will rise from the abyss. The seas will boil, engulfing the land, the heavens will be rent asunder and the stars will fall into endless night.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Flo, feeling faint, and Checkers said, ‘Battle!’ and ran round everyone again.

  Gentleman Jim said, ‘But luckily you’ve stopped all that.’

  ‘No,’ said Jenny. ‘You don’t understand,’ and Boris was glad she’d noticed, because he certainly didn’t.

  Jenny sighed. It was hard for her to put everything she had to say into words.

  ‘The gods are angry,’ she said finally. ‘I was not supposed to alter the course of destiny. Baldur was supposed to be slain. I don’t know why. But if Ragnarok comes and Baldur is not slain – then – something terrible will happen.’

  She looked at them all earnestly.

  ‘Something terrible – apart from Ragnarok?’ said Gentleman Jim, and Flo said, ‘Can you please stop saying that?’

  Jenny just said, ‘Baldur – has to die. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It is written.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Gentleman Jim.

  ‘I don’t know where,’ said Jenny a little peevishly. ‘It just is.’

  There was a short silence, then Gentleman Jim said, ‘If you came from another world, then how did you end up here?’

  ‘I fell into the void,’ said Jenny.

  ‘OK,’ said Gentleman Jim cautiously, ‘and what void would that be?’

  ‘The great void that is Ginnungagap,’Jenny said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Gentleman Jim, and Jenny could see that he didn’t fully believe
her. She gave him a hard stare.

  ‘I set off running, without knowing where, only certain that the gods were giving chase,’ she said. ‘I ran over a field and through a river, and suddenly I was on a vast deserted plain. And round the edges of this plain a mist was swirling, and I could see nothing beyond this mist. The war cries of the gods grew faint behind me and still I ran, until the mist closed around me and I could see and hear no more. And then suddenly – whoosh!’

  Flo jumped in nervous alarm. ‘Wh-what?’ she said.

  ‘The earth itself disappeared beneath my feet,’ Jenny said solemnly, shaking her head as she remembered the horror of that moment. ‘I was falling, falling,’ she said. ‘I do not know how long I fell. Time itself disappeared. I remember nothing, until my paws struck something hard and gritty, and I was climbing out of the void, on to the ring road. There I was struck by one of the iron chariots you call cars, and Aunty Dot picked me up, and took me to Sam’s house. The rest you know.’

  Gentleman Jim looked at Boris, Boris looked at Checkers and Checkers looked at Flo. Flo looked down at the ground.

  Gentleman Jim cleared his throat. ‘So – this void,’ he began.

  ‘Ginnungagap.’

  ‘Ginnun –’

  ‘Ginnungagap. It is all around us now, lapping at the edges of your world.’

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ said Boris.

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’

  ‘No, I mean I can’t see anything,’ said Boris, while Checkers ran off to find it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenny. ‘That is Ginnungagap. It surrounds the known world and leads into other worlds unknown. It is always with us, though it cannot be seen.’

  ‘Well,’ said Gentleman Jim, after he too had looked around. ‘It’s an amazing story. Quite the best I’ve heard.’

  Jenny almost stamped her paw in impatience. ‘It’s not a story,’ she said. ‘It’s the truth. I have to return.’

  ‘What?’ said Flo in alarm. ‘To certain death?’

  Jenny bowed her head. ‘The great wolf Fenrir appeared in my kitchen,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t do anything, because he was bound to his world by the cord Gleipnir, which is the strongest cord in the world. It was made by the Dark Dwarves from the footfall of a cat, the spittle of a bird, the breath of a fish, a woman’s beard, the sinews of a bear and the roots of a mountain.’

  ‘Oh, that cord,’ said Gentleman Jim, and Jenny couldn’t be sure, but she thought he was smiling. She ignored him, and carried on.

  ‘He said that if I did not return, then –’ and she whispered, so that only the trees shook – ‘Ragnarok would come to this world as well.’

  All the dogs, even Checkers, looked shocked.

  ‘I see,’ said Gentleman Jim after a short pause. ‘So you have to return.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And take the mistletoe back to – what was his name again?’

  ‘Baldur.’

  ‘How?’ asked Flo, and Jenny looked away for a moment, then said, ‘I think I must jump once again into the void.’

  ‘And then what?’ asked Gentleman Jim, after a short pause.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jenny. After a moment she tried to speak but failed, then tried again. ‘Baldur must die.’ She looked so sad as she said this that Pico nuzzled her in sympathy.

  ‘And Ragnarok –’

  ‘Stop saying that,’ said Flo, as the earth lurched.

  Gentleman Jim shook his head and gave a great snort, like a horse.

  ‘How do we know any of this is coming? It might not happen at all.’

  ‘We do know,’ said Jenny, ‘because the Fimbulwinter is already here.’

  The dogs all looked blank. Boris opened his mouth, then shut it again, convinced he would only say something stupid, but Checkers said, ‘Fimbulwinter?’

  ‘The snow and ice are the first signs,’ said Jenny. ‘Then three cocks will sound the alarm, from Valhalla, Midgard and Niflheim, and two wolves, Skoll and Hati, will devour the sun and moon. Then the great Gjallarhorn will sound, to summon the forces of the universe to do battle on the plain of Vigrid.’

  ‘Sounds like quite a party,’ said Gentleman Jim, and when Jenny just looked at him, he said, ‘I suppose there’s no chance at all that someone’s having you on?’

  Jenny stared at him. ‘It’s not a joke!’ she said. ‘It’s happening now, all around you! Look – the Fimbulwinter has begun!’

  And indeed the snow was falling more thickly and the light in the sky had disappeared.

  All this time Pico had stood beside Jenny without saying anything. He wasn’t sure he understood what was going on, but he understood that he was being buried slowly in snow and that his bones were rattling with cold. He shook the snow off him and stamped his paws.

  ‘Now look,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I know that Jenny is our friend, and if she says she’s come from another world, then I for one believe her. We all knew she was special.’

  Jenny touched her nose to his in gratitude.

  ‘And if she’s in trouble, then I for one will stand by her. She’s not jumping into this void-thingy alone. I think I’m not alone in saying that. We will all go with you, Jenny,’ he said, shaking the snow off his pelt again.

  ‘Er, well -’ said Flo.

  ‘We cannot all plunge into the void,’ said Jenny.

  ‘No, indeed!’ said Flo, and when they all looked at her she added feebly, ‘It’s getting late.’

  ‘We will all go with you,’ Pico said fiercely. ‘Even to certain death.’

  ‘Hooray!’ said Checkers, for no obvious reason, but Flo said, ‘Excuse me,’ and Gentleman Jim said, ‘Now just wait a minute, all of you. It’s all very well, this talk of wolves and battles and voids, whatever they are, but we don’t live in a world of gods and demons, we live in the real world. Look around you. There’s the croft and there are all the houses. It sounds to me,’ he said kindly, ‘as if you’ve had a very bad dream.’

  ‘That’s what I thought!’ said Boris, amazed and delighted that someone else had had the same idea. ‘I used to have terrible dreams when Mrs Finnegan started that course on experimental cookery!’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Gentleman Jim. ‘It’s probably something you ate.’

  Jenny trembled all over in protest. She opened her mouth to give Gentleman Jim a piece of her mind, but before she could say anything, there was the unmistakable sound of a cock crowing. Checkers charged off, barking, while the others looked all around, but there was no sign of a cock, or any other domestic bird. Jenny shivered.

  ‘The first cockerel has crowed,’ she said, and just as she said this, the sky started flickering.

  ‘Look!’ cried Flo.

  Everyone looked upwards. As if in appreciation of this, the sky flickered some more. Black clouds broiled, then rolled apart like theatrical curtains to reveal a blood-red sun. In the eastern corner, where the sky was clear, there was a pale full moon. But what attracted the dogs’ attention was the shape of the surrounding clouds. They looked, undoubtedly, like wolves; two great wolves in fact, one galloping towards the sun with open jaws and the other towards the moon.

  ‘Good grief,’ murmured Gentleman Jim, and his great ears flopped forward over his eyes, while Flo stared in horror and Checkers ran back and forth, barking madly at the sun and moon as though to warn them.

  ‘Skoll and Hati,’ murmured Jenny, her heart sinking in dread.

  ‘Oh dear! Oh, my word!’ gasped Flo. ‘I think one of my funny turns is coming on. OW!’ she said, because Jenny had nipped her slightly.

  ‘Come on, all of you,’ Jenny said. ‘We need to find shelter.’ And she trotted towards a cluster of lowlying bushes.

  ‘What’s happening?’ said Boris desperately, following Checkers, and Flo shrieked, ‘We’re all going to die!’

  ‘No,’ said Jenny firmly. ‘None of you is going to die. I can prevent Ragnarok from coming here. I will return.’

  Then Pico stood in the m
iddle of the circle of dogs and raised himself to his full, unimpressive height. ‘I have already said that you will not go alone,’ he said. ‘But what I want to know is, if you have changed the course of destiny once, can it not be done again? Is there no other way?’

  Jenny closed her eyes for such a long time, chasing a distant memory, that Boris thought she might have fallen asleep. ‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘There might be another way.’ Then she lowered the mistletoe dart towards Pico. ‘You must prick me with this,’ she said, ‘until the blood flows.’

  ‘Ooo-er,’ said Flo, and Pico said, ‘I can’t do that,’ looking very shocked.

  ‘You must!’ said Jenny impatiently. ‘For there will be a message in the blood that falls.’

  Pico could hardly bear to watch as he held out the mistletoe dart and Jenny drove her paw down on to it, holding it there until nine drops of blood fell on to the snow. Then shakily she held the wounded paw up and sniffed at the blood on the ground.

  ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘There is a message.’

  12

  Sam

  By the time Sam got home from school, the snow was falling fast. He couldn’t wait to take Jenny out into it. He let himself in at the back door and shouted for her, then stopped. Jenny was always there, waiting for him. Sometimes she started barking before he had even reached the back gate, and when he got to the door she would jump up and down, wagging her tail so hard that it looked as if she was doing a funny kind of dance. Once he’d let himself in they would both leap around the kitchen in excitement and then Sam would take her for a walk. But the kitchen was empty. She wasn’t there.

  Mystified, Sam dropped his school bag on to the floor and went into the lounge.

  ‘Jenny!’ he called. Jenny?’

  He ran into each room, but there was no sign of her. Panic rising, he hurried back into the kitchen. There he noticed for the first time that the dog flap fitted by their neighbour looked as though it had been disturbed, and he remembered that the back gate had been open when he had run through it. His heart gave a hollow thump. Surely she couldn’t – she wouldn’t – have run away. Why would she?

  Sam stared at the back door without seeing it. He was so distracted, he didn’t even notice the scorch marks on the cupboards and floor. His mind was filled with a single, awful thought. Suppose Jenny had run back to where she had come from?