Frost (29 page)

An older woman, with gray hair and a face with more lines than the DMV, approached carrying a wooden tray, a silver bowl, and a basket of dried fruits. She set the items down and turned away. I immediately dug my hand into the bowl of dried berries, intending to Hoover these, too, when she suddenly turned back and looked at me —
really
looked at me. I froze, waiting for her to sound the alarm. Instead, she dipped her head down and studied my shoes.
Crap. My shoes. My metallic, sealskin booties.
There hadn’t been any leather work boots in the courtyard, and I wasn’t about to walk through the cold streets barefoot, but now I saw just how much they exposed me.

She lifted her hawk-eyes to mine. These were no empty sockets. They were lively and spry and now taking in everything from the dirt under my fingernails to the bulge of stolen items in my pocket.
Double dang.
I held my breath and steeled myself for some sort of confrontation. When — nothing. Hawk-eyes turned and left.

I went to return the two tools to the small shelf, but instead slipped one of them into my pocket, the old be-prepared scout’s oath coming to mind. Next, I filled the silver bowl with a mixture of fruits and nuts, placed it upon the serving tray, and lifted both from the worktop. My coworker lifted her head briefly and then continued mechanically shelling nuts. The kitchen, I noticed then, was unsettlingly void of conversation. Though many workers toiled, the noises were inanimate: the hum of machines, clatter of bowls, and hiss of boiling pots. They took no notice of me, because they took no notice of one another.
Period.
There were exceptions, obviously, and I made a mental note to stay clear of the old eyeballing bootie-police. Coworkers, I decided, were like bullets, best when blank.

I followed a line of servers heading toward what I hoped was the dining room. The Snow Queen was about to be served.

The line of servers trudged into the dining hall:
hall
being an inadequate word for such a ginormous space. Interestingly, though, the room was mostly empty. One long, claw-footed table ran down the center, but it must have been built for many more. A series of many-branched candelabras spanned the length of the table, but the candles were drippy and half-used, and the tablecloth was stained and frayed. There was a stone fireplace, a massive thing big enough to roast an ox on a spit, but nothing but a smattering of ashes lay under its iron grates. The room was cold and lofty; its vaulted ceiling was supported with rough-hewn beams. The walls were wainscoted with panels of the same ebony wood, above which hung ancient-looking tapestries. Though threadbare in spots, there was no mistaking their themes. Nordic gods and goddesses in Viking garb and helmets threw lightning bolts, sailed monster-teeming seas, fought giants, and slew block-long snakes. The largest and grandest of all the scenes depicted a mist-haloed woman atop a frozen cliff with a world of barren ice below her. In one hand she brandished an icicle; from the other she dropped a black cloud; from her pursed lips funneling winds roared; under her right foot she crunched a pale yellow sun. That particular image curled my spine.

Like the others, I set my offering on the table and stepped back, receding into a line of attendants. One after the other, we fell back against the wall. I shuffled to the end of the line, which was closest to the arched passageway leading into the kitchen. It offered not only an exit strategy but heavy drapes. I tucked my booties under their folds. From the other end of the room — through a taller, grander arched passageway — entered none other than Brigid, whom I’d have recognized anywhere. She strode into the hall with a regal air. Her long, flowing, pale-blue gown billowed around her ankles as if hemmed in puffs of smoke; the tapered cuffs clinked at her wrists as if trimmed with icicles; and the sheer gem-blue overlay of her gown shimmered in an intricate pattern as if a million lacy snowflakes had been strung together.

Seeing Brigid like this for the first time, knowing it was true — that she was some sort of out-of-this-world evil queen — made waves of nausea burble up my throat. And raw potato is not something you hope repeats. My mom had welcomed Brigid into our home. My dad, for Pete’s sake, had kind of dated her. Stanley, too, had entrusted her with access to his research. And Jack had followed her around like a leashed puppy. How had she fooled everyone? With a swell of my chest, I remembered she hadn’t fooled everyone. I had never liked her. But a fat load of good that did me now.

Brigid took a seat at the head of the table, making a great production out of settling her gown. She lifted a small glass bell and rang it with a wimpy side-to-side shake. I watched as a hunched figure shuffled into the room and dropped into the chair to Brigid’s right.

“Eiswein,”
Brigid said with a clap of her hands.

From our line of servers, a woman stepped forward. She hurried over to the table and lifted Brigid’s goblet. Upending it, she carefully dipped it into a shallow bowl. Even from across the room, I could see it had a sparkly rim. The server did the same to the other glass and then poured from a silver carafe into first Brigid’s and then her companion’s crystal goblets. The
eiswein
— ice wine? — was clear, so it hardly looked like wine to me. And was that a salt rim? Sugar rim? After a single sip, Brigid twisted her glass against the light. “Snowflakes: no two the same, and one here on Niflheim is like one hundred million on Midgard.”

A snow rim, I should have guessed.
But the conversion formula? Even my mathematician mom would be impressed by that one.

Brigid looked at her guest, who remained impassive. She shrugged as if nothing could spoil her mood. “An excellent vintage.
Skål,
” she said, holding her glass out expectantly.

“Skål,”
her guest replied in a half-dead voice, lifting his head for the first time and clinking his glass against Brigid’s.

My heart took a brief out-of-body. I heard wind rushing through the open hole in my chest.
Jack.
Brigid’s lifeless dinner guest was Jack. It took every muscle bundling together in restraint not to rush to him in aid and comfort. How could this listless creature be Jack?

“Congratulations on another day of progress, Jack,” Brigid said, setting her wineglass on the table. “With your help — today’s storms — we are closer than ever to our goal.” She placed her hand on his forearm. “You’re exhausted, I see, but know that your sacrifices are appreciated.” She gave his arm a tap and removed her hand.

Storms?
I remembered the strange activity I’d seen atop the mountain.
And sacrifices?
Not the kind of thing that ever worked out well for the offeree. Just ask the proverbial lamb.

Even from where I stood, I could hear the emptiness of her words. She was gloating, not thanking.

“Our work is not done, however,” Brigid said. “And I know you can do even better. Your skill is still developing. Your best efforts are ahead of you. I’m sure of it.”

Jack, with no acknowledgment, stared at his empty plate. I felt a lurch in my stomach. How could this shell of a being be Jack? I brought my hand to my mouth to stifle a gasp.

Brigid cast a glance toward our ranks. I went rigid with fear. Had she noticed my movement? Her gaze, thankfully, pinpointed the other end of our line.

“Soup,” she said, again clapping her hands like the despot she was and triggering one of the servants to jump to attention.

I stole a look at my neighbor, who remained impassive. Was I the only one who wanted to cuff those clappy hands of hers? For now, I reminded myself that invisibility was key. A brown broth was ladled into Brigid’s and Jack’s bowls. They supped in silence. He ate with his left hand, awkwardly clanging the spoon against the bowl, while his right lay listless in his lap. Meanwhile, my stomach lurched in pain and confusion. How could he sit there and eat with her? How could he do her bidding?

As if in reply, Brigid resumed her conversation. “What a stroke of luck it’s been discovering you, Jack. More than luck, I’d suggest. Predestined by the fates.” With this she gestured toward the large tapestry of the ice-covered world. “And to think, so recently I’d thought all hope was lost.” She interlaced her fingers and steepled them under her chin. “Soon, all the worlds will pay the consequences of their actions. Not only will we reverse Midgard’s ignorant and destructive ways, but we will have the means to bring their lands and Vatnheim’s waters under the beautiful cover of Niflheim’s mantle.” She gazed at Jack with a beatific shine to her eyes. “Permafrost at last. Won’t that be lovely, Jack?”

Jack’s spoon moved broth from his bowl to his mouth in a mechanical rhythm.

“You didn’t answer me, Jack.”

She tried to keep her tone light, as if it were all about pretty snow scenes, but her rigid posture conveyed otherwise.

“Yes,” he said.

“And with conquest we will never again suffer decline because of another land’s excesses.”

Conquest. Them would be the consequences.

“Never again,” Jack said in that spooky deadpan voice of his.

“And to think, there were forces upon Midgard that thought they were equal to me. It’s quite laughable.” Except Brigid didn’t crack even the tiniest of smiles. I thought of my beloved Hulda and how old and frail and near-death she was.

“Laughable,” Jack said, his eyes as empty as his words.

“And your distant cousins, Jack, the Jötunn — the Frost Giants — are poised to return. How I’ve hated to see our lands separated by seas for all these years. But the temperatures are dropping, and the ice is thickening by the hour. Soon, very soon, it will be solid enough for the
Jötunn
to return. With their help, the
snjóflóð
will be possible.” She trawled her spoon across the surface of the bowl. “Then you understand how urgent your task is. We need to strike while the portals are still vulnerable.”

Jötunn?
Frost Giants? That didn’t sound good. How giant? And vulnerable portals?
“Vulnerable” had been the word Grim had used that awful night with Wade. I had no idea what a
snjoflóð
was, but it didn’t take much to guess that none of this was good. Not good at all.

Suddenly, a roar filled the air, its reverberation shaking the stone floor, and some kind of huge, saber-toothed prehistoric creature lunged into the room. I whipped my head side to side, expecting some kind of panic to break out among my coworkers. Nothing. Nonetheless, this was not a welcome development.
Because a spellbound Jack, a power hungry, revenge-driven Snow Queen, and ice-crossing Frost Giants weren’t enough to contend with.
The beast was a coal-black leopard or maybe a jaguar or panther. It wasn’t like I had much experience with the feline family, despite being a Kat myself, but somehow this seemed a cat of its own class. An ice panther? A black tiger? Kingdom, phylum, genus, species — whatever. The point was it was a several-hundred-pound man-eater capable of reducing this line of ours by one with a single slash of its meaty paw.
Come to think of it, what were we lined up for anyway?

I must have flinched or skunked some sort of fear pheromone into the air, because the cat stopped, locked eyes with me, and snarled.

“Grýla, come here,” Brigid said, clapping her hands and not even bothering to look at which of her laborers the cat had snapped at.

OK, so that clappy thing of hers had its upside. And Grýla — where had I heard that name?

The cat wrested its gaze from me, languidly padded over to Brigid’s chair, and dropped its sinewy rump to the floor in a well-trained sit. Brigid trailed her hand over its bigger-than-a-beach-ball head and stroked with her long tapered fingers.

“Good girl,” she said. “Nice kitty.”

Grýla arched her head in subordination, but I wasn’t convinced of her being either “good” or “nice.” That cat was black to its core. I could smell it from across the room. On cue, I sneezed. The cat popped to a stand.

Crap.

“Sit,” Brigid said.

Grýla’s angry eyes searched me out.

“Sit, I said.” Brigid’s tone had lost its here-kitty sweetness.

The beast paced back and forth in front of Brigid’s chair and shook her big blimpy head from side to side, casting agitated glances in my direction, but she sat.

Clearly, something about me raised the cat’s hackles, and as far as hackles went, hers were long and pointy and ready to pounce. I wasn’t going to wait around for dessert, the course I feared I’d become. I slipped behind the drapery panel, inched my way toward the arched passageway, slipped around the corner, and streaked out of there like a next-up-on-the-chopping-block chicken.

Behind me, I heard an angry feline roar, dishes clatter to the stone floor, and an angry shout from Brigid. I burst panting and gasping into the kitchen and was met by none other than old Hawk-Eyes. With surprising force, she collared me and hoisted me off my feet.

Dang it all. Could I never catch a break?
If it weren’t wild beasts, then it was snoop-minded old bats. The Grims of the worlds — plural — were out to get me. I was sure of it.