Freddie smiled. “Oh! I’m sorry, Jörmungandr. Go on, then…”
“So my dad says, ‘I have no brothers and sisters,’ ” he continued.
“But he does!” said Freddie. “He has one brother at least.”
“Just pretend for the sake of the riddle that he doesn’t,” said Jörmungandr, a little frustrated. “And while you are at it, also pretend I don’t have siblings either. I hate mine. I have forgotten all about them myself. They don’t exist.” He grinned broadly.
“Okay,” said Freddie. “Loki has no siblings, nor do you. Done.”
“Great!” said Jörmungandr. “So Loki says, ‘I have no brothers and sisters, but this god’s father is my father’s son. Who is the god?”
Freddie narrowed his eyes at Jörmungandr. “So I’m answering Loki’s riddle?”
“Yes.” The snake smiled dumbly.
“Aren’t you overcomplicating things?”
Jörmungandr sneered. “Maybe.”
“Jeez, that’s really tough. How long do I have to figure this out?” Freddie glimpsed Nyph peeping out, and he scratched his head to signal she should stay hidden.
Jörmungandr laughed. “Like five seconds ago.”
“Hmm,” said Freddie, appearing flummoxed. “I really do get my trident if I answer correctly?”
Jörmungandr nodded his head. “Yes.”
Freddie smiled. “Okay, well, I think I know the answer. But I’m not really sure…”
The snake licked his fangs.
Freddie bit a finger as if still pondering. He realized the snake was actually very lonely and trying to extend the rare company he had. It was sad. The riddle itself was so narcissistic and obvious that Freddie had instantly figured it out: Loki says, “This god’s father is my father’s son. Who is the god?” A riddle that went in circles, from god to son. Jörmungandr and Loki and Odin. Jörmungandr’s father was Loki who was Odin’s son. The god then was Jörmungandr.
“The answer is you, Jörmungandr.”
The serpent blinked at Freddie. “Is that your answer?”
“Because it is the correct one. Now, the trident, please.”
The serpent hissed. He was not at all pleased to have lost his favorite game.
Freddie began to back away. He tugged his ear to give Nyph the signal to grab the trident while he kept Jörmungandr focused on him.
But the pixie had trouble navigating the void, and the ballroom gown didn’t help, with all that fabric floating around her. She kept missing the mark.
“The trident please, I won’t ask again,” Freddie threatened.
“Take your trident.” Jörmungandr laughed and, with a sudden shake, whipped his tail to the skies, sending Nyph tumbling into the void. He turned to Freddie, opening his jaws wide.
Freddie pushed off the snake and grabbed his trident—it fit into his palm perfectly—and the trident sizzled with power as it returned to its rightful owner, and Freddie Beauchamp was no longer. Only the mighty god Fryr of the sun and sky stood before them, Fryr, golden and powerful and glorious, returned to himself, whole, complete. With a roar he lunged at the serpent, his trident blazing with white fire as it pierced the heart of the snake.
There was a deafening explosion, a blinding light, before everything went black.
chapter forty
Mother Goddess
She had lied to her daughter. She had lied to her husband. She couldn’t bear the good-byes and she hoped they would understand. It was better this way. The morning was still cool as the sun rose in the east, dissipating the fog enshrouding North Hampton. She gazed beyond the tall grasses, rocks, and sand below the deck, out at the yellow light that slinked on the water. To the left, Gardiners Island was covered in a blanket of mist.
Joanna knew she had to act now, before they discovered what she had in mind. Norman’s brother would not be able to help them, she knew. There was no way to repair time once it had been set. The only solution was the one that the Oracle had proposed.
“There is a way to stop this and save your daughter from certain death. But it requires a sacrifice. Are you willing?” the Oracle had asked.
A life for a life. A death for a death.
Of course, they were willing to do anything to save their daughter. On the train ride back to North Hampton, Norman had declared he would be the one: he would sacrifice himself so that Freya could live. “I’ll do it,” he had said. Joanna knew there was no arguing him out of it, so she had encouraged him to find an alternative solution—had sent him off to find his brother once more.
Because there was only one sacrifice needed here. Hers.
It was why she had been dead set on getting Tyler into a good school. She wanted to leave her home at peace. Ingrid would be happy with her detective. Freddie—he would fumble but ultimately find his place in the world. So there was only Freya whose future was uncertain.
Joanna was their mother. She would make everything all right. That was what mothers were for, to kiss away wounds, to soothe heartaches, to provide a soft cushion for hard landings, for failures. But this was her failure. She had been unable to protect her daughter from harm, but perhaps she could reverse the course of fate—her magic was one of resurrection, after all, of fixing that which could not be fixed. No mother should outlive her daughter, and Joanna would see to it that she was not the first of her kind to do so.
She would be the first to admit that she was not perfect, nor the perfect mother, far from it. Her daughters loved her, but they kept her at a distance that she could not cross, no matter how hard she tried. The girls were unknowable to the end. Freya especially—her spark plug, her wandering saint, who had so much love to give that she lost it all.
With a sigh, Joanna reread the letters she had written the other evening. She arranged them on her desk where Ingrid could find them. They contained instructions for how to handle the estate; whatever legacy she had left, she had left to them, to do with as they wished. She hoped Ingrid would keep the house; perhaps she and Matt could move in at some point and raise a family. Freya had little use for money, and Freddie even less, but it was always nice to have a little inheritance. All these long years on earth and so little to show for it, and if she was being honest, even her children had been something of a disappointment. None of them settled, all of them a little lost. Even Ingrid had chosen a mortal to love, which could only bring her pain.
She looked at the photographs arranged on the wall for the last time. Her beautiful girls, a new one of Freddie and Gert from their Vegas wedding, Tyler holding a baby chick, and finally Norman, with his glasses pushed up on his forehead, looking handsome and scholarly. He would always be Nord, her North Star, the wave that had crashed on her shore. Joanna remembered the first time they had met. She had been sunbathing on the shores of Asgard and fallen asleep on the sand in the shade of a rock that cut jaggedly into the sky. Cold droplets fell onto her skin, waking her suddenly. When she opened her eyes, she stared into Norman’s face. He stood looming over her, dripping seawater. He held something in his hand. “Is this yours? It was blowing across the beach,” he said, holding a star in his palm.
She smiled. It was hers. She’d worn stars in her hair then, a gift from another suitor. But the starlight faded as she looked into his eyes—as green and warm as the sea itself—and she knew then that she had found her immortal mate.
Their children came soon after—Ingrid, her firstborn, the hearth to her home, the twins: sun and sky, Freddie and Freya.
She was doing this for them.
She walked out the back door, closing the sliding glass doors behind her and catching a rare whiff of honeysuckle from the breeze. Maybe it was her garden’s way of saying good-bye. She made her way barefoot across the cold sand to the water. There was no one around. She walked into the freezing depths and felt strangely warm. Her magic? Or something else?
Her red dress floated around her so that she resembled a giant poppy as she trudged ahead until the water reached her waist. She dove h
eadlong into its warm welcome. The sun on the waves flashed in her eyes, and she kept swimming farther and farther out. Her muscles grew weary and she was panting.
She turned around and saw her home, the stately colonial, one last look before the end. She floated on her back, letting the waves lift her, transport her, the sun on her face, a soothing sensation of water and foam.
The sound of the waves lulled her. Even if she had a sudden impulse to turn back to the shore, she had swum too far.
She was tired.
Joanna felt the sudden weight of all the lives she had lived.
She felt the water fill her lungs.
She did not fight.
So this was death.
The years did not flash before her as they say they do.
She felt the sunlight on her face one last time, the cool water above, and her eyes closed for the last time as Joanna Beauchamp passed from this world to the next.
time in a bottle
salem
north hampton
past
present
chapter forty-one
Friend of the Family
While Freya was always on her mind, there was nothing Ingrid could do to help her sister at the moment. It was Maggie’s thirteenth birthday and she and Matt made plans to take the precocious child to the city to see Somnambulists that afternoon. The play wasn’t theater exactly but more like an experience—the set occupied five floors of a building overlooking the Hudson, and the action took place simultaneously on all five floors while the audience walked through it to piece together the narrative. The Times had called it “a stormy, vertiginous amalgam of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Hitchcock’s Spellbound.” Ingrid was touched that she was now included in Maggie’s birthday festivities.
Matt had already arrived to pick her up and was waiting for her in the foyer. Ingrid slipped on her black pumps and walked down the stairs just as the doorbell rang again.
“I’ll get it,” he said, unlatching the lock. “Oh, hey, man.” He opened the door but leaned against the doorframe, barring the way inside.
Troy Overbrook stood at the entrance, a worried look on his face. “Can I come in?” he asked.
“We’re running late. Ingrid and I were just about to leave,” Matt said flatly. “We’re not going to make the train…”
“Ingrid?” Troy asked. “I’m sorry—but it’s important.”
“Matt, could you—” Ingrid asked, motioning for him to move away. Matt reluctantly moved to the side so that Troy could come inside.
“Can I talk to you… in private?” asked Troy, appealing to Ingrid.
“Whatever you say to her, you can say to me,” said Matt. He affected a possessive stance and for a moment Ingrid was worried that he would slap her on the behind again, although to be honest she had rather enjoyed that.
Ingrid nodded. “It’s okay.”
“It’s about your family,” Troy said.
“What do you know about Ingrid’s family?” Matt interrupted.
“Matt, see, Troy’s one of us—”
“One of you!” Matt said, his tone mocking. “He doesn’t look like a witch to me,” he mumbled.
Troy crossed his arms, which made his muscles appear more pronounced, biceps and pecs bulging beneath the snug navy sweater. “Well, I personally prefer the term warlock,” Troy said.
Matt snorted.
“What’s going on, Troy?” she asked.
“You know Val?”
“Yeah—he’s one of the pixies,” Ingrid said, turning to Matt so he could keep up. Matt nodded wearily. He knew all about the pixies and had booked and released them for many a minor crime. Like the Beauchamps, Matt was grudgingly fond of the little guys.
“Well, Val came over to my place this morning and he told me they’d found it, Freddie’s trident, they found it somewhere on the yellow brick road but they couldn’t bring it back, so Freddie went after it, with only Nyph with him…”
“So we’ve got to go and rescue Freddie?”
“No. Freya.”
“Freya?” Ingrid asked.
“The passages are open again. Val thinks the trident fixed it maybe—there was some huge explosion at the end of the world, which means Freddie must have gotten it back somehow. Freddie’s the only one who can wield its power.”
Ingrid sat down to absorb the news. “Where’s Freddie now?”
“He’s down in the abyss somewhere. Val said they were all going after him, make sure he’s all right. Sounded like the rest of them felt pretty guilty that they didn’t go with him, but with the passages open, he should be okay. He should be able to make his way back here.”
She nodded.
“Look, we don’t have much time—we don’t know how long they’ll remain open—but we have to go.”
“Go?” Matt asked. “Go where?”
“Back in time… to save Freya, of course, and bring her back here,” said Troy as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“You’re leaving?” Matt said, turning to Ingrid.
Ingrid stood up and tightened the belt on her trench coat. “I have to go. This can’t wait. The passages might close again, and then we could lose Freya—forever,” she said, thinking of what her mother had finally confessed to her.
“You’re going with him?” Matt lifted his chin at Troy.
Troy tried to make himself as small as possible. He slumped his shoulders and fiddled with his hands.
Ingrid pulled Matt aside. “I told you, Troy and I are just friends,” she whispered emphatically. She couldn’t believe they were quarreling right in front of Troy. She was mortified, but she did realize she was putting Matt in an awful position. She hated doing this to him, today of all days.
Matt’s shoulders slumped.
Troy looked at Matt, then Ingrid. “I’ll wait outside. Let me know what you decide, Erda.”
They watched Troy exit the room, and they both waited until they heard the front door close behind him.
“What did he call you?” asked Matt.
“Erda… it’s my real name,” she said.
“And you never told me?”
“I didn’t think it was important.”
“It is to me,” said Matt, looking hurt. “I want to know everything about you, Ingrid.”
“You will,” she said. “I promise. But right now I have to help my sister, Matt. I want to see her again. I don’t want her to die.” Her voice cracked. “You have to understand. This isn’t about Troy. It’s about getting Freya back.”
“Of course—I know. I just—it’s not about Maggie’s birthday. It’s that—I want to help you. I want to go with you, through these passages, or whatever. And I know you won’t let me. I’ve let you into my life, but you won’t let me into yours.”
They stared silently at each other. Ingrid realized what he was saying was true. She had shut him out of that side of her life.
“I wish you could,” she whispered. “But…”
“I might not be magic, or a warlock, or whatever he is, but I am a trained officer of the law,” he said, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.
“But then who would take Maggie to the Four Seasons and the theater?” she said as she hugged him tightly.
chapter forty-two
Black Widow
In her sleep, Freya wiped the ant crawling across her cheek, its tickling of her face like the tendrils of the wind upon her hair. She felt Killian—or James, as she must call him here in this lifetime—stir beside her. They had left Salem the night before and had hidden in the woods when no one would offer them shelter for fear that they were carrying the pox. After what happened with Mercy, they could not bear to be together again. It was too dangerous, too risky. She was far from home, far from safety, and was lying on the forest floor next to a man who was her true love, but they were in danger. She snuggled closer to James as she dreamed of her home by the sea. In her dream, she saw her mother floating in the ocean. Joanna seemed to be sinking in
to the water—and Freya felt a twinge of fear. She grimaced and heard the sound of water breaking on the shore.
The waves crashing on the rocks.
No—a different noise…
Branches crackling underfoot…
Footsteps!
She opened her eyes to scream but it was too late.
They had been found!
She was yanked by her wrists to her feet, woke to an ambush. They were surrounded by men carrying guns, constables and marshals sent by Thomas Putnam to retrieve his property. She was glad that this time she was fully clothed, although with the way the men were looking at her, she might as well have been naked.
“James!” she screamed, fighting against the men who held her too closely, the better to feel her body against theirs.
It took the whole group of them to subdue him; James put up an incredible fight, but like her, his magic was useless in this instance, and in the end there were too many of them and he was handcuffed and bruised, half of his face swollen from the fight. She would not cry, she would not show them how scared she was, how defeated. James glowered silently as a marshal read their arrest warrants.
“Freya Beauchamp, you are hereby accused of adultery and witchcraft, tormenting in spectral form Ann Putnam Senior, Ann Putnam Junior, and Mercy Lewis in the house of Thomas Putnam Junior, and also bewitching to death your husband Nathaniel Brooks. James Brewster, you are hereby accused of the theft of a horse, adultery, and the demise of Nathaniel Brooks by conspiracy with a witch.”
“Adultery!” Freya said. “How could we commit adultery when I never married him? And what is this you say? Nathaniel Brooks is dead?”
“You were married in proxy,” the marshal explained. “Shortly before Mr. Brooks was found in his deathbed.”
“So I am a widow.”
“A rich one,” James said grimly.
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