The Viking Witch Mysteries: Books 4-6

Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

I stayed up later than I had intended to, eating and talking with Nilda, Kara, Sigvin and Nefja. Any worry I had that I might have trouble getting to sleep in my house was gone long before I stumbled inside in the wee hours of the morning and collapsed onto the bed, completely exhausted.

I was vaguely aware of Mjolner hopping onto the bed and making himself comfortable on my pillow. He curled up against the back of my neck and immediately started loudly purring, but by about the third purr sleep took me and I knew no more.

I woke a handful of hours later when the first rays of the rising sun beaming in through my many windows reached the head of my bed.

I would have to decide at some point if I was going to be a morning person now, or if curtains were in order. But not yet. The only thing on my mind at that moment was coffee and the need to go downstairs to make it.

Once I was dressed and had a cup of coffee in me, I finally turned my attention to the day before me.

I was supposed to start my lessons with Haraldr today, only I didn't know when or where. I opened my front door and looked for any sort of message, then crossed the front garden to check the gate, but there was nothing.

I went back inside, uncertain what to do. I knew some Villmarkers had cellphones, but I doubted Haraldr was one of them, and even if he were, I had no idea what his number was. And it was barely past dawn, way too early to wake anyone else up to ask for help.

I wandered over to my art corner and looked at my carefully arranged supplies. I had half a thought to just start sketching something to kill the time until it was a reasonable hour for other people to be up when Mjolner came down the stairs. He stopped at the bottom, stretched with an enormous cat yawn, and shook himself from the whiskers around his nose to the tip of his tail, then gave me a look.

I knew that look. He wanted me to follow him.

I stopped at the door to bundle up in parka and boots, hat and mittens, but Mjolner went on ahead without me in that way he did where he apparently just walked through walls. I had never seen him do it, but there was no other explanation for how no door was ever an obstacle to him.

Outside it was another sunny but cold day, the light reflecting off the snow almost blinding. Mjolner was pacing outside my garden gate, but the moment I stepped out into the street he immediately turned to the south, towards the public gardens. Despite my mittens, my hands were still cold, and I thrust them deep inside my pockets before I followed.

The house he led me to was much like the others, of a minimalist but modern Scandinavian design that favored clean, straight lines and lots of south-facing windows. I had half-expected a cottage like the witch Halldis had lived in just a couple of blocks away, with its round Hobbit door and peaked roof.

Mjolner hopped up onto one of the fence posts across the street from this house and started l*****g his paw and grooming himself, completely heedless of the cold that was making my cheeks burn.

I hustled up the walk and knocked on the door, the sound a bit muffled by my mitten.

I hoped I had the right place. It was still on the early side to be waking strangers or interrupting their breakfast.

The door was opened by a girl of maybe thirteen with dark blonde hair in two braids that hung over her shoulders. My heart sank. Haraldr was too old for this to be his daughter; I had gotten the wrong house. I shot a glare back over my shoulder at Mjolner, who ignored me, then turned back to apologize to the girl.

"You're Ingrid Torfudottir?" she asked me in careful English before I could get a word out. She was peering up at my hat as if hoping for a glimpse of my distinctive red hair to answer her question.

"I am," I said. "Is this Haraldr's house?"

"It is," she said. "I'm Fulla. I'm Haraldr's... assistant?" She gave me a questioning look, and I nodded that she had the right word. "I help in his house and in his library. He's expecting you. Will you come in?"

"Thank you," I said, stomping the snow off my boots before stepping inside. She shut the door behind me, then helped me hang up my parka. She took my hat and mittens and stuffed them down my parka's sleeve as I undid my bootlaces and stepped out of my boots. Then she led me down a long corridor to the heart of the house.

There were a series of doorways on my right leading into first a little sitting room, then a dining room, then a kitchen. But Fulla continued on to the only door on the left, knocking briefly but not waiting for a response before turning the handle and opening the door.

"Haraldr, Ingrid is here," she said. I couldn't see whom she was speaking to. All I could see were books. Shelves and shelves of books. The room ran the length of the house and was two stories tall with a little balcony running all around halfway up those towering shelves. The morning sun was shining in through low horizontal windows set across the tops of the cases.

"Oh, dear," Fulla said, turning to Ingrid with a frown. "I thought he was in here already. Can you wait here? I'll go find him."

"Certainly," I said with a smile. Then she went back out the door, closing it carefully behind her, and I was alone with all those books.

It seemed wisest not to touch anything, so I folded my hands together behind my back as I made a slow circuit of the room. Some books were new, hardcovers from New York publishers on a variety of topics. Others were old, bound in leather that was cracked and faded with time. There were also racks of scrolls and even stacks of wooden staves that had been carved with runes like the unbound pages of a wooden book.

There was also art. Little carvings were arranged in glass cases that appeared to be locked. I recognized Norse artifacts, arrowheads and sewing needles and other bits of daily life from centuries past. But others looked to my eye like Ojibwe work.

A massive desk stood at the southern-most end of the room. There was a large window here, but it was set high above the level of the balcony that stretched across it like a catwalk. On the wall directly in front of me, behind that desk's chair, was a massive drawing of the World Tree.

It had been painted directly on the wall, and the closer I stepped to it, the more intricate I realized it was. I scanned image after image worked among the branches of Yggdrasil. Gods fighting giants, Norns gathered around a well, a dragon talking with a squirrel. Was every Norse legend I knew somewhere in this drawing? I suspected it was, but it would take hours and hours to be sure.

"Ah, Ingrid," Haraldr said, standing directly behind me. I hadn't heard the door open or his footsteps as he approached, and I jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice. "It is a work of art, isn't it?"

"Did you do it?" I asked.

"No, that was my grandfather's hand," he said. "Come, let's sit together at the other end of the room." He waved for me to follow him. I gave the mural one last longing glance, then turned to follow Haraldr to the north end of the room.

There was no window here, just one massive stone fireplace, the hearth spanning nearly the entire width of the room. The bookcases ended a respectable distance away, as if roaring fires were commonplace on that hearth. There was nothing burning there now, but still Haraldr pulled up a three-legged stool and motioned for me to sit there, then pulled another over for himself.

"Now," he said, rubbing his hands over his knees and looking around as if for inspiration.

"What spells are we going to start with?" I asked eagerly.

"No spells, not yet," he said. Then he seemed to remember something and hopped up from the stool, shuffling over to a little cabinet built into one of the bookcases and digging around inside.

When he returned to his stool, I saw that he had a little leather bag in his hand. He loosened the bindings, then stirred a finger around inside. I could hear wooden pieces rattling against each other, and when he pulled out a single tile and showed it to me, I was scarcely surprised to see it was a rune.

"Tell me what you know of this particular rune," he said, holding it out towards me on his open palm. I made no move to take it from him. I didn't know for sure if that would be taboo, but I knew how some people felt about other people touching their Tarot decks and decided to err on the side of caution.

"That's called Fe," I said, glancing up at his face to see if I had that right. His face told me nothing, and I looked back down at the rune. It looked like a letter F, but rather than two horizontal strokes there were two that angled up at about forty-five degrees. "It makes a 'fff' sound?" I added, even less sure about that than I had been about the first thing.

I expected him to sigh, to show some exasperation, but he didn't. He just retracted his hand and looked at the rune tile as if double-checking before he spoke. "You are correct, so far as you go," Haraldr said. "Do you know anything about its meaning?"

"Not really," I admitted. "I've only ever used the runes to spell out words in my illustrations. I know it's the first rune in the futhark, though. Hence the 'f' in futhark."

"Very good," he said as he put the tile back in his leather bag. "So tell me, what came first in the creation of the world?"

I nearly said, "the Big Bang," but bit my tongue just in time. "Fire and ice?" I said instead.

"The uplift of your voice at the end of that sentence tells me you know that's not quite right," he said. "Think. You know the stories."

I remembered something about a giant's skull, but I was sure that had come a lot later than the fire and the ice. But wasn't ice the oldest thing of all?

Then I remembered. "The cow."

"Audhumbla," he agreed, nodding.

"She's l*****g the ice, and she licks out the first three gods. Odin and his brothers."

"See, you knew more than you thought," he said.

"Well, I'm pretty sure it's barely scratching the surface," I said.

"It's a start," he said almost sternly. "That's your learning's start. Know now there is no end to your learning. Not with the runes, not with anything worth knowing. Seeking true knowledge is walking a road with no end."

"Okay," I said. I was a little worried I had made him angry, but then the sternness melted away and he started turning the rune tile around and around on his hand.

"The runes are three sets of eight. You know this?" he asked. I shook my head. "Yes, this is so. The first set of eight belongs to the god Frey. They are runes of creation, of the origin of certain things, but even of all things. All life comes from these runes, and everything that happens has its beginnings here."

I nodded, wishing I had brought a notebook.

"So Fe is the first cow, what does that suggest to you?" he asked.

"Milk?" I guessed. "Wait, didn't her milk make the Milky Way?"

"Yes, but forget Audhumbla for a moment. What does an ordinary cow represent to a family?"

My hands twitched. I was so much better at answering these sorts of questions if I could just let my mind go and draw, then look at my drawing later. But if I drew a family with their cow, or cows maybe, what would that mean?

"Wealth?" I said, very tentatively. "Milk and butter and cheese from one cow can keep a family alive. From a lot of cows, a family could make more than a living."

"And what can you do with money?" he asked.

"Spend it," I said. He just looked at me, and I realized he wanted me to say more. "Save it, I guess. Or invest it."

"And how do you get money in the first place?"

I was starting to warm up to this. "Earn it, like with a job, or inherit it. Like land."

"Or like cattle," he agreed, nodding. "The proper nature of money is to be always in motion. Earned or spent, saved or invested, but always moving through society. Through my hands or through yours. It's like energy, always on the move."

"Okay," I said. "So cows are money."

"Not just money," he said with a little wave of his hand. "Money is only part of it. There is another thing that's more important. Do you know the word hamingja?"

I had heard it, but I had never quite understood it. "Like karma?" I said lamely.

"Similar," he said. "But karma concerns just one soul. It extends across one's previous life and current one and future ones, but still it's just one soul. Hamingja is similar, but it's like a soul that belongs to an entire family line."

"Like how my grandmother is a volva and I will be too one day?" I asked.

He made a little tipping motion of his head, and I knew he only partially agreed with that assessment. "It's not the same as a calling, although sometimes that's part of it. It's more like luck, a luck you inherit based on the good and noble deeds of your ancestors. You inherit some amount, and you can either increase it throughout your life through good and noble deeds, or diminish it through weak or dishonorable ones. Then, when you die, whatever amount you possessed passes on to your descendants."

"I guess like money," I said. "If I inherit a fortune and squander it, there's nothing left for my offspring."

"Or if you inherit nothing but amass a fortune, that is where they will start," Haraldr said.

"I'm not sure I like that idea," I said after thinking it over for a moment.

"Why not?" he asked, completely unoffended.

"Well, it doesn't seem fair," I said. "I mean, life's not fair, sure, but that seems particularly unfair. Some people are born luckier than others? I mean, weren't they already lucky just to be born to lucky parents?"

"Ah, you're already getting it," he said with a wide smile. "Everything in life is easier when luck is on your side."

"But still," I said. "It feels like it should be spread around more equally." Although how I thought that was going to happen, I had no idea.

It wasn't like I quite believed these gods were real. I knew the magic was, and I knew trolls were real, but Odin and Thor and the rest? It was a pretty big leap for my mind to make.

"If you don't like what you started life out with, it's within your power to change it," Haraldr said. "And when you do change it, you make life better for those that follow you. Of course you don't really have to worry. Your family line is one of the strongest we know. Perhaps the strongest."

I squirmed on my stool. Somehow, knowing the world was unfair, but I was benefiting from it just made me feel worse about everything.

"Isn't there anything we can do about the people who are born unlucky?" I asked.

"They must do it themselves or it means nothing," Haraldr said. "A person born into such a family will have to understand how their low hamingja influences how others see them, certainly. But there is no reason for them to feel trapped by those circumstances. Our gods more than most love an underdog."

"I suppose," I said. It seemed best not to speak my earlier thought out loud, about not really believing in these gods as real. Although I was pretty sure Haraldr guessed it from how he was looking at me just then.

"Here," he said, getting up from his stool and going back to that cabinet. He put the leather pouch away, then scrounged around again until he had a stiff square of plain cardboard in his hand. He then went to the cold fireplace and jabbed a finger into the ash pile. Then he scrawled the Fe shape onto the card with that sooty fingertip before handing it to me. "Take this home. Meditate on it. See what you discover."

"I will," I promised, looking at the dark, gritty shape on the card. If I put it in my pocket, it would surely smear. I kept it in my hand.

"Oh, one word of warning," he said as he opened the door back out to the hallway. "This will be true with all the runes, so mark me well. We'll progress through them one at a time, and as we go, you'll learn how to bond with them more quickly and surely. But when you first start meditating on them, it's not unusual to start seeing their shape everywhere in the world around you. This is a very positive rune, so you might not find that alarming, but keep it in mind for when we get to some of the others. This will just be your mind being too focused on one rune at the expense of all the others. It's not a true omen of any sort."

"I'll remember," I promised.

"I'm sure you will," he said, nodding as he spoke, but it felt like he was agreeing with himself. Like I was already out of his mind.

"When should I call again?" I asked.

"Hmm?" he looked up at me as if surprised to see me still standing there. I was about to repeat my question when he spoke again. "Oh, tomorrow morning will be fine. Meditate on that rune. And I'm sure you'll dream about it, whether you want to or not. Then, in the morning, we'll talk about your impressions."

Then he shut the library door before I could say another word.

I looked down at the card in my hands. I had gotten some vague homework assignments in my day, but this one just might take the cake. It almost made me miss my grandmother's freestyling teaching.

Almost.

I held the card in my teeth while I got back into all my winter gear, then trudged home to see what I could do with a Fe rune.