Quite Contrary (10 page)

t should be dead. Even a bear would be dead. I’m not taking any chances. Pin it down, Son of Thor.”

Eric set his foot on the hunched shoulder of the fairy beast and pressed down. Valdis crouched, pinning the thing’s head with one hand while the other set her knife to its neck.

In Fairyland, the dead fairies had been made of glitter and clay. Valdis sawed with her knife and blood welled up around the cut, meat gaping out on either side. My stomach rolled, and I faced the other way. They couldn’t see me wince with every grinding sound. What had we just killed? Had it been smart, a person, maybe just angry we’d stranded it here? I didn’t want that on my conscience. Please, let it have just been a murderous animal. I had to remind myself that at best, it was a fairy, and they hadn’t seemed right. Like bugs in a hive mimicking people rather than real individuals.

Whatever. It was dead now, and if I’d helped murder someone, there was nothing I could do about it. It had acted like an animal and it had surely been eager to kill us. A choice between him or me, that I could deal with.

“That about does it. Do you think it was a troll?” asked Valdis when the sawing noises ended.

Eric sounded blandly uncaring. “I don’t know what they look like, but it was a monster, whatever name you give it. Brand won’t be happy that his goats aren’t coming back, but at least he won’t lose any more.”

I heard cloth noises, and risked a peek. It revealed Valdis wrapping the head up in a leather bag, which Eric slung over his shoulder as soon as she had it tied. With the bag and his giant crossbow, he looked like a pack mule. Whatever. I wanted the topic to move away from cutting off heads.

“If you’re taking me back to your home, how far away is it?” I demanded.

“It’s still early,” Valdis mused, staring at the sky, “If it was just me and Eric we might be able to make it back tonight if we hurried.”

“Then, we’ll make it back tonight,” I declared flatly, stomping past the two of them. They’d come from across the bowl with the hot springs, so I walked that way. I was a great walker, and I could barely feel the ground in these shoes.

They laughed, which made me want to walk faster, but I wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction. Anyway, it became clear enough that they’d taken me at my word, because we walked.

And we walked.

And we walked.

It didn’t take me long to start missing my mp3 player. To start missing it a lot. My music collection was out of date and pretty tiny, but I wanted to drown myself in
Les Miserables
. I wanted to escape the boredom. The boredom that went on and on and on. The boredom, and the uncomfortable feeling that I’d been dumped in someone else’s life that didn’t suit me. By the time Eric and Valdis started chatting with each other, I was too bored to follow their gossip.

The landscape changed. The farther we traveled, the more rocks and moss were replaced by flatness and grass. Small groves of trees, too.

We walked some more.

The sun sank. It took forever. It dropped below the horizon, and my calves and butt started to hurt. We kept walking. It took forever to get dark, but as the landscape dimmed, I got some relief. I saw lights ahead. They were way too far away and my calves were killing me, but it was a goal.

The sky turned black. Except it didn’t. I knew light pollution was a problem in the city, but this … where did all these stars come from? The sky glowed with them!

“There we go,” Eric cheered, “Peaceful Meadow. Our home.”

“Halfdan, who founded our village after crossing to Nieflheim from Midgard right after Ragnarok, had a sense of humor,” Valdis quipped.

I looked around. With a mostly full moon and all these stars, I could see fairly well. Aside from the village lights up ahead, flat grassland surrounded me. So, add Viking comedy to the list of things I didn’t understand.

The village itself was surrounded by a wall of sharp-tipped logs, with a huge wooden gate. Eric thumped it with his fist a couple of times, sending an echoing knock.

“Eric!” declared the graying man who opened the door. From the way they hugged each other, I figured this was Eric’s father. The one other than Thor.

Lamps emerged from houses, and a crowd drifted up. Far ahead of all of them, arrived a second man. He was … well, big. A hulk of a man softened by age, but not softened much. Except for the traces of black hair in the white of his hair and beard, he looked like he should be Eric’s dad. He didn’t look even slightly like Valdis, but she was the one who threw herself into his arms. “Our children are home, Nall, without a scratch on them. And with a foreign guest. A very foreign guest.”

“And with something else to show us, judging by the smell,” Eric’s father—Nall—chuckled.

The big guy kneeled down in front of me, and he was still taller than me. “Your dress tells me you are from Midgard, stranger,” he told me, “I am Magnus Leifsson. My friend here is Nall Fells. If we speak together, the rest of Peaceful Meadow accepts our word. If you will give us your name, we offer you the village’s hospitality.”

“Freaking Jesus,” I almost swore, “I’ll offer you a different deal. I’ll tell you my name if you’ll stop all the ceremonies and speechmaking right now.”

“They say Midgarders are an informal people,” Nall commented dryly. He did a good kind-old-man smile. He couldn’t fool me. He wasn’t happy because of me. He still had his hand on Eric’s shoulder.

“They are.” Bowing his head, Magnus answered me, “I accept, but I’m throwing in our hospitality anyway. Take it or leave it.” Being teased stung, and my lips tightened, but he was teasing me on my terms, right?

“Okay, fine. My name is Mary Stuart.” I let out a sigh, but bit back any more sarcasm. These guys were being nice to me. My back was up from the chaos of the last two days, and I shouldn’t take it out on them.

“She’s alone, father. She needs shelter and protection,” Eric put in. I restrained myself by clenching my jaw.

“She helped us find this!” Valdis added eagerly, and gave Eric’s shoulder a shove from behind. Stepping between the two old men, he walked out into the middle of the crowd and untied his bag, then dropped it on the ground. The leather fell aside, and the head rolled out. I tried not to look at it. The smell was bad enough.

Things got chaotic. Instead of cheering, everybody started talking. More people came out of their houses, children now crowding around to look at the severed head. When I caught the word ‘feast’ I piped up loudly, “No, we haven’t eaten!” in the hopes it would get through the noise.

Magnus kneeled down in front of me again. “You’ve accepted my—” he started, and then grinned. Jeez, even his teeth were big. “I’m sorry. Would you like to eat?”

“Yes,” my stomach told him.

“I’ve met other Midgarders in my days a-viking,” he explained to me as he stood up, “The best I can tell you is that having a guest is very important to us, and it is hard not to be formal. But since you demanded it, I’ll treat you like family instead.” Then, the old jerk grabbed me by my shoulders and lifted me off the ground!

I kicked him in the gut as he picked me up. I kicked him again in the chest. He was one tough old man, because all he did was wince. “What the … crap do you think you’re doing!?” I yelled at him. That wasn’t exactly the right question, because what he was doing was pretty obvious. He sat me on his shoulder like I was some kind of freaking parrot.

“I haven’t had a daughter young enough to carry like this for ten years. Humor me, child,” he told me serenely as he started walking.

“Mary,” I corrected him, returning sour for serene.

“Magnus,” he returned.

Everyone scattered. Magnus headed for the biggest building at the far end of the village. From up here I could see the crowd better, especially as it split up, and I was surprised. Two dozen people? Three? This place was tiny.

It’s very hard to stay grumpy when you’re riding on the shoulder of a guy who must be pushing seven feet tall. My sore calves were certainly grateful for the break, and I felt like a slowly bobbing lighthouse looking down at the tops of everyone’s heads.

“So you’re the chief, or something?” I asked.

He shrugged. I was sitting on that shrug, so I could feel it really well. “I was the last time we had a war. Other than that, we’ve never had to worry about who is in charge. Nall and I are respected, that’s all.”

The smell of cooking meat hit me, and I thought I’d faint. “So there is a feast, right?” No question was more important right now.

“Not what I’d call one. The best I can offer without making you wait,” he replied.

We reached the door to a huge wooden lodge. He had to duck under it so that my head would clear, but he didn’t miss a beat. I clenched my jaw again, this time to hold back a giggle.

At least half the building was one huge center room. A roaring fire backlit a big table, and Magnus set me down in a chair by the head of it. “Here. You’ll have to accept a place of honor,” he teased me as he sat at the very end. Eric’s dad, Nall, was already sitting across from me. Valdis fell in next to me. I forgot all of them, because a plate of freshly roasted beef was set in front of me.

All they’d given me was a knife, so I hacked off a slab and bit into it. No, not beef. Mutton? Who cared? It tasted so good. Magnus gave me a cup I had to wrap both hands around, and I lifted it to my—

“No beer. No beer, no wine, no whatever,” I snapped at him, pushing it back, “Have you got milk? You’ve got to have water.”

“Whatever makes my honored guest feel at home,” he declared, theatrically grandiose. I kicked him in the knee. He acted like he didn’t feel it. I was actually kind of impressed. These shoes hadn’t gotten any less like hammers.

The milk came, and I really set into eating. The meat was juicy, the bread sweet and sticky with honey, and I even tried the asparagus—it wasn’t bad. Everybody talked, and I didn’t listen. It had been a dull, tiring day and I wanted to gorge myself. As I got full, I started to feel comfortable, and I wanted to enjoy that. Valdis told the story of how they killed the fairy, and Eric seemed happy to watch her tell it without adding anything himself.

I really did feel comfortable, and the room was warm, and I wasn’t sure when I fell asleep.

I woke up in a very dark room. Fur blankets on top and underneath stifled me with heat. Still, they were soft and padded what felt like a plank of hard wood that formed my actual bed. Orange light peeked through the cracks of a door, turning blackness into murk. Valdis lay asleep on another bed of logs and furs, and between the two of us, we filled most of this small room.

And I was naked. Completely naked. My jaw clenched. If it hadn’t been Valdis who undressed me, someone was going to get kicked in the teeth, not the …

Oh, of course it was Valdis. My clothes lay right beside the bed, and I slipped them on while keeping the covers over me as best I could. As hot as the room was, my cheeks got hotter as I slipped my shoes on. How had I slept so deeply someone could undress me and put me to bed? I never slept like that. My mom said I slept with one eye open. Damn right, I—crap. Sorry, Rat.

With the heat and the furs and the good food I felt deeply, completely comfortable, and that made me uncomfortable. I dropped off the bed as lightly as I could and pulled the door open very slowly, slinking through the smallest crack that I’d fit, and out into the main room of the lodge. It worked. Valdis didn’t stir.