Ragnar

by Joanna Bell

  The other thing that wasn't difficult to find was the camp (there seemed to be numerous different camps in the 'what happened to Paige Renner' world of online speculation) who seemed certain that I, Emma Wallis, was responsible for everything. The text messages had leaked, people were interpreting the reminder Paige sent me to wear natural colored clothing as some kind of coded cry for help. I had been there when she sent the texts, they said, holding her baby at knifepoint, forcing her to compose messages that would allow me to get away with the crime. Not that any of them bothered to go into how those texts in particular had allowed me to weasel out of my guilt, of course.

  The death threats were numerous, detailed and thrown out almost casually by people who lived across the world from me, people who had never met and would never meet me. Some of the more legitimate news websites had stories about these death threats. I scanned headlines. 'Paige Renner's Best Friend Living In Fear For Her Life.' 'Emma Wallis In Hiding' 'What Did Emma Know?'

  I wasn't hiding, though. I wasn't in fear for my life. Not then, anyway. And even after reading some of the truly vile things that had been written about me online, it still didn't quite seem real. Surely nobody could just believe that I had something to do with Paige coming to harm, could they? Without any evidence?

  That night, I went to bed bemused more than upset, still disbelieving that anyone except the genuinely delusional could think I did something wrong. I knew how the internet could exaggerate things, make it seem like a few crazies were a real movement in the real world. And I had even more security by then. Things would be fine. I would be fine. I just need to wait for the storm to pass. That's all.

  As if laughing at me, the next day the world sent me a message about the accuracy of my naive assumptions. I was leaving the Arts building in campus, buoyed by a conversation with one of my professors about my final paper, with my private security guard a few feet behind me and the guard provided by Grand Northeastern already waiting for me by my car. I noticed the couple walking towards me the way you notice anyone sharing your space – they looked like fellow students and I didn't think anything of them.

  But just as they were about to pass me, at the very last minute, one of them turned to me suddenly and spit in my face as the other began filming on their phone. In less than 2 seconds (although it somehow felt a lot longer) my guard had knocked the spitter to the ground, but this hadn't stopped either of them screaming at me, hurling awful accusations in voices that were dripping with hate-filled certainty.

  "Murderer!" "Baby murderer!" "Bitch!" "Cunt!" If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure I even caught a "Satan's whore!" thrown in for good measure as I furiously wiped spittle off my face with my gloved hands. And of course, the ruckus attracted attention and very soon there were other people moving in to observe – many of them with their phones out. The other guard arrived and they both set to restraining the two crazies, making sure I was OK and admonishing the people nearby to stop filming. Which, obviously, no one listened to.

  I stood where I was, shaking with rage, wanting desperately to lash out at the two people who were pinned on the ground – still spewing expletives and trying to wriggle free of the guards' grips – and filled with a strange kind of loneliness as everyone around just stared at me. No one offered to help – in hindsight, they were probably too shocked themselves, or maybe they thought the guards would not want them to intervene – but I remember their blank eyes as they looked at me. Oh, their faces said. It's her. Paige Renner's friend. The last person to see Paige Renner alive. The one who might even have had something to do with Paige Renner's disappearance. Paige Renner. Paige Renner. Paige Renner.

  I sank to my knees and covered my face with my hands until more campus security arrived to disperse the growing crowd.

  Almost two hours later, after Michael Rappini and the police had been called and statements taken from myself and several witnesses, I found myself next to my car with the former, who looked deeply concerned, and two security men standing a respectful few feet away.

  "Maybe you should go home for Christmas?" Michael said. "Things are just getting crazier and crazier and I don't know how long it's going to be before the public latches on to the next big thing. It could be awhile."

  It wasn't that I didn't want to see my parents, or that I didn't want a break from what was becoming near-constant vigilance for media, crazy people, gawkers etc. – it's that I had plans to spend Christmas in America with my friends and roommates. It was our senior year and we knew this would be our last holiday season together before we all scattered to the four winds to start building our post-college lives – and I was damned if I was going to let anyone ruin that for me.

  But standing there that night and seeing the look on my lawyer's face made me question myself for the first time, and in spite of the stubborn streak I had inherited from both parents.

  "I don't know," I replied slowly, too exhausted to feel much of anything by that point. "Maybe. I'll call them tomorrow."

  "Think about it," Michael said, giving me a stiff, professional hug. "And call me if you need anything, or have any questions. But I do think you need a break from all this, Emma. It's not healthy."

  4

  Emma

  I didn't call my parents the next day. I didn't call anyone. I turned my phone off when I woke up and dressed warmly against the early winter chill. Then I drove to the spot where I could see the woods on the Renner's property from the road – on the opposite side of the fields to where the house was located – and parked my car. Half an hour later I was there again, at the tree. Out of breath from trudging through the snow, and so wrapped up I knew there was no danger of inadvertently allowing my skin to come into contact with the tree, I slumped down against one of the roots and searched the stillness of the early afternoon for signs of my lost friend. She'd promised to leave a clay pot here, in 2017, if she needed to see me. But there was no clay pot to be found. No footprints. Not the sound of her shy laugh.

  "Why did you leave me to deal with all this?" I asked aloud, as hopelessness pressed in all around me. I missed Paige deeply, but my anger hadn't disappeared. I lay in bed sometimes at night, trying to come up with ways she could have prevented the storm that was now swirling around me. Why hadn't she left a note, saying she was leaving with her dad and her baby, going to Belize or Brazil or somewhere where she knew they wouldn't be found, but that she was OK and Eirik was OK and her dad was OK and no one was to worry or try to find them?

  Knowing that wouldn't have worked, that if anything it just would have stoked the flames of the great mystery higher, didn't stop me from imagining it. Paige could have done more. She could have left some sign, some hint, that I wasn't involved in any of it. I couldn't get past that thought, and I couldn't get past my growing resentment over it, even as I knew that what was happening wasn't anyone's fault, not really.

  Mostly, I just wanted someone to talk to. I pulled one of my gloves off as I thought about how close she might be, the one person on earth – and at any point in time – who would understand what was happening to me. She could have been less than five feet away, depending on how you looked at it. My bare hand hovered over the ridged bark of the tree and I snatched it back at a sudden disorienting wave of dizziness when it dipped just a little closer.

  Had I imagined it? I didn't know.

  You can come straight back. Maybe she's there right now? Maybe she wants to talk to you, too? She said she wouldn't be near the tree but how could she know where she would be months later?

  Suddenly, and without allowing myself to think about it for one more second, I flattened my palm against one of the tree's roots, gasping in a last gulp of air and instantly regretting my impulsiveness as that strange darkness swallowed me again, just as it had months ago when Paige first brought me to the past.

  And then, just as suddenly, I was once again lying on the ground in a wood. I peered up through the bare branches of the trees to a sky that was no longer a bright, wintery blue but i
nstead heavy and grey. Familiar. Real.

  I got to my feet a few moments later and tried to orient myself. It looked different, without any of the lush summer greenery, but the path was the same as it had been before. I took a first few tentative steps down the narrow path, towards the sea. And as I walked, the quiet struck me once again. Back in the forest on the Renner property, as peaceful as it had seemed to be there, there was still the sound of traffic in the background, the distant roar of a plane's engines as it cut its way across the cold blue sky, the hum of machinery – a snow-blower, maybe? – from the next property.

  In the place where I was at that moment, there was only a billowing quietness, so all-encompassing that it amplified every tiny sound – the snap of a twig, the slight, icy crunch of a bird landing on the frosty ground before spotting me and taking off again. And then, a few minutes later and as I was too distracted to be paying nearly enough attention to my surroundings, the sound of the sea. My pace quickened without my even noticing it and then I was there, at the top of the small bay with the slate-colored sea laid out in front of me. An odd little moment of homecoming passed through my heart, then, a wobble of recognition that stung my eyes and made me clasp my hands together. For this was no foreign place, this was no exotic destination. This was the North Sea, along whose beaches I had walked as a child with my parents and my grandparents and our dog on many a Sunday morning outing.

  There were no ships in the North Sea that day, no great vessels stacked with shipping containers of plastic toys and cars and blue jeans from factories in the far east. There was nothing – only whitecaps and a biting wind I couldn't help but lean into, so familiar did it feel.

  I walked through the grasses at the top of the beach and then down onto the beach itself, losing my footing slightly on a patch of slippery seaweed at the high tide line and laughing at myself.

  I won't stay long, I told myself as the wind carried my laughter away. Just a little while. Maybe Paige is here? Maybe she'll come to the beach with her father or her husband and see me? Maybe I can tell her everything that's happened?

  I bent down at one point, fascinated to see a little white clamshell of the kind I used to collect as a child and store in a glass jar that sat on our doorstep, and eagerly stowing it away in my pocket. Soon I came upon a pebble of about the right shape and carried it further down the beach, almost to the water's edge, so I could attempt to skip it over the surface like my father had taught me. It didn't work, the waves were too rough, but I tried again and again with different pebbles, entirely unconscious of the fact that I was trying to occupy myself as the minutes ticked by, hoping against hope that Paige would just emerge from the trees and give me the big I-understand-what-you're-going-through hug that I needed.

  Paige didn't emerge from the woods as I chucked beach rocks into the sea, though. Someone did – two someones, in fact – but neither one of them was my friend. I heard them before I saw them, because I was still facing the sea, and a frisson of fear and hope ran through my body. What if it was her? What if it wasn't her?

  I almost cried when I turned around to see two men, neither of whom I recognized from my previous visit. They looked similar to the two I'd met before, though – small and dirty and disheveled. Even in the cold they were still in tunics, although they were long-sleeved now, and looked to be made of something heavier – wool, maybe? They each held what appeared to be crude spears – and they were both staring at me. It only took a second or two to remember what Paige had said to me only a few months previously – wear something drab, Emma. No bright clothing.

  And there I was standing in front of two men from the 9th century in a bright green parka and a matching hot pink scarf and gloves set. Good thinking, Em. Always planning ahead, aren't you?

  The three of us stayed where we were, examining each other for a few more moments. I didn't perceive any threat from the men – if anything they looked more worried about me than I was about them. Finally, when I couldn't stand the anticipation anymore, I spoke first.

  "Do you know Paige Renner?" I yelled, because they were far enough away to necessitate yelling. "Paige? She has a son named Eirik - her husband is a Viking?"

  The men looked at me, and then at each other, and then back at me. Finally, one of them took a few steps towards me – although he reversed course pretty quickly when I did the same.

  "Stay back!"

  I stopped moving, figuring that if two men with spears – small men, yes, and rather flimsy-looking spears but spears all the same – wanted me to stay back, then I would stay back.

  "What do you say?" The other man shouted eventually, when they seemed reassured that I wasn't about to charge them like a bull in my green parka and my pink accessories.

  It was an unfamiliar accent, so rough I could barely understand the words. But I thought he'd asked me to repeat myself.

  "Paige!" I shouted back. "Paige Renner! She has a baby boy and her husband is a Viking! I'm her friend!"

  The men conferred with each other and I caught the word 'Viking' being repeated. At that point I couldn't stay where I was any longer – if these two knew where Paige was, I wanted to know, too, and I wanted to know right away. I began to walk towards them again, holding my hands up in the air when they noticed me and both crouched down into defensive positions.

  "I'm not going to do anything," I laughed, not taking the situation anything like as seriously as I should have been. "I don't have a spear – I don't have anything! I'm just looking for my friend Paige. Her husband – at least I think he's probably her husband – is a Viking. Do you know her?"

  The taller of the men, who probably stood a good 3 or 4 inches shorter than me, straightened up a little. "What is this 'Viking' you say?" He asked, eying me suspiciously. "Where are you from? The estate?"

  The estate? Where the hell was the 'estate'? "The what?" I asked impatiently. I didn't want to talk about where I was from. I wanted to find Paige. "I'm, uh – I'm not from here. But I'm looking for Paige. Paige Renner. Do you know her?"

  "Paige is running?" The shorter man asked, obviously deeply confused. "Who is Paige?"

  "No!" I barked, before taking a slow breath and calming myself down – yelling at people wasn't going to help. Not in 2017, not in 817 – or whenever it was. "I mean, I'm sorry, Paige is my friend. I am trying to find her. It's very important that I find her. Do you know where she is?"

  By this point, both of the peasant men – for that is obviously what they were, with their tattered clothes and their jumpy, deer-like watchfulness – seemed to be entranced by me. Or, to be more accurate, my clothing. Their eyes explored the shiny, smooth fabric of my parka and their fingers twitched fearfully as they reached out to touch the glove covering outstretched fingers.

  "Paige," I repeated as they examined me. "Paige Renner. Please. I need to find her."

  "Her teeth!" Exclaimed one of the men to his companion when I smiled to show how friendly I was. And then they were both leaning in, shaking their heads like they couldn't believe what they were seeing.

  "We don't know Paige," one of them said as they craned their heads, trying to get another glimpse into my mouth. "And we shan't be talking to you any longer. You're a higher, from the estate. Why do you speak to us?"

  "Because I'm looking for my –" I began, when all three of us became simultaneously aware of the sudden sound of a horse's hooves on frozen ground. So quickly was the animal approaching that it was there by the time we managed to lift our heads. And on the back of the beast was a pale man with a heavy, dark cape around his shoulders. He took one look at my two conversational companions and lifted his hand, which I saw held a whip, and bringing it cracking down without ceremony on one of their backs.

  "NO!" I screamed, leaping forward and snatching at the whip, at which point all three of them turned and stared at me like I'd just sprouted a few extra arms and begun speaking in tongues.

  "Don't!" I continued, put on the spot by three pairs of staring eyes. "Why are you hitting t
hem? I was just asking –"

  "AWAY!" The man on the horse bellowed at the cowering peasants, ignoring me completely. "Away, dogs, or I'll whip your backs bloody!"

  I don't know what I was expecting. Some kind of fight-back, maybe. An under-the-breath protest. Something. But there was none of that. The two shabbily dressed men bent at their waists and averted their eyes from the other man's gaze as they cowered and groveled their way back into the woods.

  When they had disappeared, the imperious man on the horse turned back to me. I was very conscious of the fact that he still held the whip in a position to strike at any moment. His eyes were dark and set deep in a face that seemed to be constructed entirely of a series of sharp, cruel angles.

  "What are you doing out here, lady?" He asked as his eyes scanned me from top to toe. There was no friendliness to his tone, only a civility that hadn't been there when he addressed the peasants. On some level, and for some reason, this man thought I was someone to speak to, rather than strike. "Where have you come from with such colorful dressings? Come closer, let me see you."