The Stone of Sorrow

by Brooke Carter

  Sýr is set up and giving readings at Frigg’s stand. This way they can visit with each other while Sýr reads fortunes for the villagers and Frigg sells her wares.

  When I walk over, I see Sýr and Frigg deep in whispered conversation. Sýr looks upset, and Frigg reaches out and brushes my sister’s hair from her eyes. Sýr’s expression brightens as Frigg gazes at her in adoration. They kiss, and I turn away to give them privacy.

  “Girl!” I hear Frigg bellow to me. “Have you brought me spider crab?”

  I spin back around and heft my trap onto the trading table.

  “Maybe. Have you got any butter?” I ask, and Frigg chuckles. “I’ll trade a crab for some.”

  Frigg waves me off, her arms well-muscled from shearing sheep. “Bah, never mind. You can have it.” She dips into a bin and gives me a wrapped parcel of butter.

  I hesitate for a moment. She’s giving it to me for free? I look at Sýr, who nods.

  “Thank you, Frigg,” I say. “If you come over later, we can all eat crab tonight,” I offer.

  Frigg sniffs. “Yes, of course. Later,” she says, turning her back.

  Something isn’t right. I look at Sýr. “What is it?” I ask. “Is it time?”

  “Not now, Runa,” Sýr says, pausing to look at my hand as I hold out one of the crabs for Frigg to admire.

  Ever the mother to me, she, of course, notices my injury. Sýr, twenty-seven years old now, took on our mother’s role at age ten. I try to imagine what it would be like to lose your mother as a child and to have to raise your baby sister yourself. It’s not as if she had a lot of help. Our grandmother is around, yes, but she is old and eccentric.

  “What have you done now? That cut is deep,” Sýr says as she takes my catch of crab from me and tosses it into a large earthen pot next to her. It’s filled with seawater and the various mussels and limpets I collected on shore. What we can’t sell we’ll eat. She grabs my wrist. “Sit down.”

  I obey and try to stay still as Sýr rubs a thick paste into the wound. At first it stings, but then the throbbing pulse of pain in my thumb subsides. She wraps a piece of clean woven cloth around it and then makes the rune of Úr, for healing, on the back of my hand with a mixture of ash and burnt moss.

  Frigg looks on, always in awe of Sýr’s ability. “Can you use the moonstone to heal it faster?” she asks.

  Sýr shakes her head. “No, I cannot afford to use the stone for small things. It’s almost empty of power. And every time I use it…” She trails off, looking tired.

  Frigg and I both know what she was going to say. The stone is drawing her power and strength. When people demand that Sýr use the stone, what they are asking is for her to give up a piece of her own soul. There was a time when the moonstone would have healed my cut in mere minutes, but Sýr can’t risk using it now.

  The red moon is rising. Soon we will have to contend with the desperation of other clans and the race to win control of the moonstone. Sýr needs to save all of the stone’s strength.

  “It’s okay,” I say to Sýr, fibbing a little. “It feels much better already, and I’ve had worse cuts.”

  “You’ll need to care for it. Who knows what gunk lives on those dirty hands of yours?” she teases with a smile.

  “Even my sheep take baths sometimes, Ru,” says Frigg, joking along.

  “Oh yeah?” I ask. “When do you bathe, Frigg?”

  She shrugs. “When it rains.”

  We all laugh at this, but I notice Sýr’s smile crumble, and her serious look returns.

  The looming competition isn’t all we need to fear, and I know Sýr is concerned. Without Father and his warriors, our clan is vulnerable to attack so close to the red moon coming. If other clans, such as our closest neighbors, the Jötnar, find out we’re low on defenses, they could decide to raid us.

  The Jötnar are not our enemies, but when the survival of an entire people is in question, even neighbors can become foes. Descendants of powerful giants, they used to possess the moonstone a long time ago, until my mother’s mother won it for our clan. My mother won it again during the moonwater of her time. Sýr, the one living person in our clan capable of possessing it, now holds the stone, having inherited it upon our mother’s death. That is the strength of Sýr. A ten-year-old girl inheriting a powerful moonstone and a baby all at once.

  “Troubled, love?” Frigg asks, placing a comforting hand on Sýr’s arm. She has noticed my sister’s downcast face too.

  Sýr pats her hand. “I’m fine. I wish…” She doesn’t finish, and I suspect that if I wasn’t here, she would tell Frigg her troubles.

  “If you’re worried about the competition, don’t be,” I say.

  “Runa,” Frigg starts, trying to cut me off. “Not now.”

  “What? I think she needs to know that she is the only one worthy of the moonstone.” I look to my sister. “It’s you, Sýr,” I say.

  She casts a quick glance at me. “I’m not worried,” she says, but I know this is a lie. “We don’t have to speak of this now.”

  “No,” I say. “I see the red moon coming. I know it will happen soon. And I want you to know that you are the one who will win the moonstone.”

  “What will be is in the hands of the gods, Runa,” she says, gazing up at the sky.

  “Sýr, I know it the same way I know the stars. They do not lie.”

  Frigg grunts and starts sifting through her piles of wool, ignoring me now.

  “Have you been listening to the villagers?” Sýr asks. “Or talking to the elder women?”

  I shake my head. “Not really,” I say. “But I guess I have heard some of them whispering as they do. They’re concerned about keeping the stone in the clan, but I’m not. I believe in you.”

  Sýr nods, quiet now. It’s true that there are villagers who are nervous that Sýr is not the chosen caster, having only inherited the stone from our mother on her deathbed.

  I have never asked Sýr whether she is scared, because I already know the answer. I hear her crying when she thinks I am sleeping, and I know she longs for a simpler life with Frigg, raising horses and growing food and tending to animals. She longs for a home life free of pressure.

  While I have longed to travel, Sýr has longed to stay, to root herself into the soil of our homeland even further. And yet soon she will have to go. I wonder if everyone’s destiny is as confused as this. Is life just a trick the gods have played on us all?

  Sýr scrunches up her face. “Oh no,” she says, looking at someone behind me.

  I turn to see a village woman, Hekla Vondursdóttir, walking over to us. She regards me with contempt and focuses on Sýr. She’s a malicious person, with a hardened heart and demeanor to match. She never hesitates to use Sýr for anything she wants. I am too tired to deal with her today.

  “Sýr,” Hekla says, approaching with a noticeable limp. “I need a cure for my foot rot.” She sits down with a thud and hefts her wide foot onto the table, banging her muddy boot into Sýr’s tinctures and supplies. She then pulls off the boot. The stench turns my stomach. Her foot is green, as if moss is growing all over it. I look away.

  “You know,” says Hekla, her loud voice booming for all to hear, “I never had this foot problem until now. As well, my little horse died—the one we used to help carry our seeds—and we’ve had to live off the meat because my husband is still away with your father. Some are saying their ship has been lost in the great fog.”

  Sýr casts a sharp glance at me and shakes her head. She’s warning me not to intervene, although all I want to do is smack this woman.

  Hekla looks at me. “I won’t say anything about the weird-ling you have here. You are bad luck, eh, girl?”

  Sýr bristles but continues mixing her potions together in quiet. If I had Sýr’s power and ability, I’d punish this ugly woman. Maybe I’d make the foot rot spread to her face, so everyone could see how vile she truly is.

  “We all think this bad luck has something to do with you,” says Hekla to Sý
r, who fumbles a small pot and spills green powder on her skirts. Frigg lays a calming hand on Sýr’s shoulder and shoots a look at Hekla as sharp as any sword I’ve seen.

  “Is that so?” Sýr asks, pinching the spilled powder from her skirts back into the jar with an unhurried grace.

  “Yes,” says Hekla. “It’s the moonstone, isn’t it? It’s failing.”

  Sýr takes a deep breath. “The red moon is nigh,” she says. “According to custom, the moonstone must be charged at moonwater to render it powerful again. You know this. It is the natural cycle of things. We’ve been through this before.”

  “No, that’s not it, not like this,” says Hekla. “It’s you,” she says, pointing a craggy fingernail at Sýr. “You never won the moonstone. You only inherited it from your dead mother. It is ill-gotten.” She leans back and crosses her arms, her mouth curled up in smug contempt.

  Sýr stills at the mention of our mother. I want to grab the pot of crab and throw it at Hekla’s head. But I do not, because we promised Father we would keep peace while he is gone, and because I know it would only cause more trouble for Sýr.

  Hekla will not give in. “Why not let us see the moonstone, hmm?” she says, her voice taking on a forced kindness, as if she’s speaking to a child. “See it? Give it a little touch? Hmm? Why not, eh?”

  “Because you’d die,” says Sýr, looking deep into Hekla’s eyes.

  Hekla recoils but continues ranting. “Why don’t you use a wand? Or make sacrifices? We hear the Jötnar witch is powerful, maybe so powerful she will win the moonstone. Then where will our people be? We’ll all starve.”

  I scoff at this, and Sýr shoots me a look. The Jötnar don’t stand a chance of winning it back from us, as they don’t have a runecaster as powerful as Sýr. Their head witch, a mysterious newcomer named Katla, is rumored to be obsessed with dark arts and animal magic. Our older kinfolk claim our two clans could be friends and even work together to ensure our mutual survival, but the witch Katla is said to have poisoned the minds of the Jötnar leaders and elders. Tales of atrocity and violence follow the witch, and those who encounter her say she’s a nightmare in the flesh.

  Some of our clan fear the evil Katla will win the moonstone, and clearly Hekla is one of them, but a caster who is not powerful or honorable enough to hold the moonstone will perish. It doesn’t sound as if Katla has pure intentions for the stone.

  “You are fools not to worry about the Jötnar’s caster,” Hekla says.

  Sýr stands, her fury evident. “The Jötnar witch is not a runecaster,” she says through gritted teeth. “I don’t kill for my magic. I don’t wear the skins of dead people like the Jötnar witch does. I am not a wand-weaver. I am a runecaster, and I will win the stone.” Sýr is glowing with anger now, and I see her fingers trembling toward the moonstone around her neck.

  I cast a nervous look at Frigg. Though its powers have lessened, the moonstone can still cause great harm, especially in the hands of a powerful caster like Sýr. And in the hands of an angry Sýr, it could be downright murderous. With my sister pushed to her limits and under the pressure of her obligations, I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

  Frigg steps in, her large frame coming between Sýr and the now-irate Hekla. Frigg is holding a stick, a thick sheep staff she calls Trollbonker. That is all she needs to do. The tension is broken. Hekla hobbles off in the mud, carrying her boot with her and casting nasty backward glances. I can hear her cursing us.

  Sýr lets out a deep breath, her hands dropping to her sides.

  Frigg turns to me. “Runa, go play,” she says.

  “Play?” I ask, incredulous.

  Sýr’s voice is weary. “Frigg, she doesn’t play. Runa is almost a woman.” She looks at me, seeming wistful for my long-past childhood years.

  “She needs to go find a man then,” says Frigg.

  “You’re one to talk, Frigg Baldersdóttir,” exclaims Sýr.

  “I’m all the man we’ll ever need,” says Frigg, and I take this as a sign to wander off.

  Still, I can’t help but sneak a look back. I like it when Frigg kisses Sýr, because she does so with the look of someone who can’t believe their good fortune. I once asked Sýr if she had love-spelled Frigg to get her to behave such a way, but Sýr just laughed her quiet, shy laugh and said that it was genuine, and that Frigg was the luckiest thing ever to have happened to her apart from me.

  As I walk away, I clutch my runes in their pouch and wish with all my love that Sýr has even better luck than that. Please, I beg the runes, give my sister everything she dreams of.

  I spend the next couple of hours down at the shoreline, using the wind from my beloved sea to cool off my anger and blow away my worry as I reset some of my fishing lines. Hekla’s ongoing disrespect is difficult to swallow, but hers is just one voice in an entire clan of people terrified to lose the moonstone.

  I used to think that all a person needed was power, and then everyone would respect and care for them and treat them as they deserved to be. But I have learned through watching Sýr that having power can turn you into a slave of sorts if that power serves the needs of many. Our clan is lucky that Sýr isn’t selfish, for she could use the moonstone to satisfy her own worldly desires. Instead she uses it to cure foot rot while her own feet go untended.

  Despite my protests, we never require payments or trades to cast runes, as that is against the runecaster code. Instead we rely on our patrons to offer us things in exchange for our services. In older times, a caster would be a guest of honor and treated to fresh milk, organ meats, and a place at the head of the table. She would be bestowed with fine woven wool and gloves and hats. Those customs of the past are from a more prosperous time. Many of our clients are poor, though they are grateful for our services. They’ll bring us a heel of bread, dried fish, a pinch of herbs, a bit of wool, whatever they have.

  We don’t often go hungry, for Sýr is talented at stretching what we have with her spells and the moonstone when needed, and I am decent at fishing and setting traps for small game. Our family is resourceful. Sýr eschews weapons in favor of her runes. I use my lines and traps. My amma uses her wits, and my father is fond of the axe.

  No one I know uses a bow and arrow, as they are the domain of the wealthy and the elves, and my eye problems make it difficult to use the sling. My aim is terrible. Instead, like Amma, I use my smarts to trap things, setting deadfalls and snares for rabbits, creating basket traps for eel and crab, and pulling in nets of smallfish. So much of survival is preparation and patience.

  I walk to the edge of the water and watch as it advances and then rolls away, over and over. Lately, I’ve been dreaming of deep water and of something circling me. Every time I have the dream it gets closer. I wonder how long I have left before it strikes.

  There’s something else about the dream. I keep seeing a face in the water. A face much like my own except older and sadder. She appears for a moment and then disappears into the depths so fast I’m not sure what I saw. It’s as if my heart knows her. She isn’t me, not the me I used to be, but she’s someone important. My mother? I wish I had the courage to grab hold of her in the dream and follow her down into the cold, black water, but I’m afraid of what I’ll find. I’m afraid I’ll never wake.

  My lungs fill with the salty air as a gust of wind blows over the bluff and hits me full force in the face. For a moment it feels as though I am deep underwater. I shake my head, willing the dreamy feeling away. I don’t want to have an episode of my sickness right now.

  Images of Sýr flash in my mind, and I keep seeing her face as if it is underwater. I’m dizzy, and I feel a hard lump form in my throat.

  “No,” I say aloud. “Don’t do this here. Not now.” I clench my hands until my fingernails dig into my palms. Sometimes the best way to stop the sickness is to hurt myself. I live inside the pain and focus on it until the sickness goes away.

  When I feel calm again, I continue along the shoreline, passing by piles of broken clamshells a
nd buzzing insects and stacks of kelp. A seabird circles overhead and cries out. I look into the reddening sky and squint at its brightness. The sky feels like a great, open mouth, widening to swallow us all.

  “Hey!” a voice calls out.

  The sudden noise shocks me enough that I can get out of my head for a second, and I look down the beach. Two girls are walking toward me. They are my age, and that’s where the similarities stop. They are both tall, with golden blond hair and bright eyes that do not wiggle around in their heads like mine. They’re smiling and waving at me, and for a second I wonder if there’s someone standing behind me. I look over my shoulder, but there’s no one there. I raise my hand, but I don’t wave. They walk toward me, chattering to each other. Their apparent happiness makes me suspicious.

  “Hallo,” they both chirp in unison. They look at me as if expecting something. From afar they look like twins, but up close they have different features. One has a sharp nose and brown eyes. The other has an upturned nose and green eyes. Haraldr the Elder’s daughters, Gerd and Siv. Haraldr is one of our clan’s oldest people, and he fathered his children late in life. Some say that is why his daughters have an odd countenance.

  “Um, hi,” I say. In my drab clothing, I feel like a dark cloud that has invaded their sunshine.

  Their eyes dart up and down my frame, taking in my garments, my hair, my eyes.