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Chapter Text

Reynir snuggled into his bedroll with a sigh of deep relief. They were safe in the lehto. Nothing could find them, nothing could attack them, and the Kade was dead.

Tuuri … well, Tuuri was gone, but he'd come to grips with her death. She'd died over two months ago, and while it had been a bittersweet pleasure to see her spirit, he’d understood from the beginning that she couldn't stay. One day, he thought, he would pass too, and even though he was an Icelander and she was a Finn, somehow they would be back together.

But that was far away. He would go on. They would all go on.

And they were all alive.

Reynir looked around. Over there was Lalli, curled up well away from the others. Closer to the fire, Sigrun sprawled comfortably; she could sleep anywhere, any time. Emil lay close to the fire; he'd sat up for a while to watch it burn before going to bed. And Mikkel was sound asleep. He’d looked so tired that Reynir had placed a galdrastafur for restful sleep under his bedroll.

But the last bedroll was empty.

Reynir yawned, stretched, rolled over as if naturally changing position, and saw Onni by the fire staring into space. He sat with his knees drawn up and his arms around them.

Reynir was worried about the man. He had seemed hollow, empty, ever since they returned from mage space, from the battle with the Kade. Reynir hadn't meant to watch, but he had seen when the spirit of Onni's grandmother had attacked him, had driven him into the water, and had nearly drowned him. Onni had done nothing to defend himself, hadn’t even spoken. Tuuri's spirit had had to explain to their grandmother that Onni was not to blame for her death.

But Reynir feared Onni thought he was. The mage had hardly spoken during these days of travel. Only when Reynir tried to describe what happened in mage-space had Onni been annoyed enough to describe it himself. Annoyance was better than emptiness, but Reynir wished the man felt something more benign. Peace, at least.

Reynir got to his feet and joined Onni by the fire, sitting far away so as not to invade the man's personal space. Even so, Onni flinched away from him. Reynir said nothing, did nothing, stared into the fire and waited. When, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Onni settle back, he finally spoke. “You told me once the world was a terrible place.”

“It is.”

“And yet, there is happiness in this terrible place.” He waved a hand. “Here, in this lehto. We're safe here, you and I. We have no worries. And the others, they're sleeping because they have no worries either.”

Onni shrugged.

They sat in silence for a while. At last, Reynir spoke again. “We were happy there, you know, even though it was sometimes terrifying. There were times …” He looked away into the trees, remembering. “There was this one time … there was a pond. It was frozen, of course, but the wind had blown all the snow away. And so, because it was daylight, we were allowed out. We didn't have any skates, but all six of us, we went out to slide around on the pond. And I see Tuuri with her hair blowing about, and her face red from the cold. She smiled, and we were so happy —”

“Ponds freeze in Finland,” Onni said. “She didn't have to go to Denmark.”

“Well, yes. But there were other times when we sat in the tank, and we looked out through the windshield when the others were gone. I remember the way she looked at the ruins. She would turn her head, studying them. I don't think she even knew she was doing it, but she smiled at the ruins. Because, you see, we were the first people to see those ruins. We were the first to go there. And then she would go back into her little office, and she would type and type. She was happy.”

“She could have been happy here.” Onni lowered his head to stare into the fire. “She didn’t have to go away —” He broke off, and Reynir saw his jaw muscles stand out as he clenched his teeth.

After a silence, Reynir said, “She told me she was worried about you, even after she was scratched.” Reynir paused, watching Onni's profile in the firelight. “She didn't want you to know because you don't handle uncertainty well.”

Onni turned his head away.

“So, that's why I didn't tell you. But she handled the uncertainty. She never despaired. And she told me that she didn’t regret her choice, that even if she had known what the result would be, she would still have done it. You couldn’t have stopped her, Onni, no matter what you did or said. Because it was her dream. Because it was the life she wanted; it was where she found her happiness.”

Reynir turned to face the other man directly. “There is happiness, even in this terrible world. If you search for it. If you go where you will be happy. There is happiness, and Tuuri wanted you to find it too.”

Onni didn't answer, resting his face on his arms. His shoulders trembled. For a long moment, there was only the crackle of the fire and the whisper of wind in leaves, and then there was a small sound, a stifled sob. Reynir wished he could console the man, but knew even a pat on the shoulder would annoy him. Tuuri’s brother needed to feel his grief, to work through it. Annoyance would only interrupt that.

Reynir looked around at the others. Were they all asleep?

There was a glitter of firelight in open eyes.

Lalli was watching.

He wouldn't have understood the discussion, but he could see his cousin. He knew the man and would know how to comfort him. Would know if he needed comforting.

Reynir nodded to Lalli and slipped back into his bedroll.

Perhaps tomorrow would be a better day.

Chapter Text

Adventures are for the immune. Or for mages. Certainly not for Tuuri, who wasn't immune like her little cousin, Lalli, and wasn't a mage like Lalli and her brother, Onni.

Tuuri sneaked out the door and closed it before too much cold air slipped in. Her parents were asleep, and she didn’t want to wake them. If Onni wasn’t asleep, he wouldn’t come out even if she left the door wide open. He had locked himself in his room for the past two days, and would probably stay there for two more.

She stomped up the hill towards the village, thinking of Onni. He hated to go out on patrols with their grandmother Ensi. She was the oldest mage in the village, maybe in all of Finland, since she was born during the Catastrophe, and Onni was her apprentice. Or rather, he had been. When they returned from the most recent patrol, having made sure no grosslings had moved into the area, Ensi had announced that Lalli was now old enough to become her apprentice.

Tuuri kicked a pebble across the path. Lalli was six, and she was eight. If only she’d been born a mage, she could have been Ensi’s apprentice these past two years, and she could have gone on patrol instead of Onni. He feared and hated patrols so much that he spent days locked in his room before each patrol, and more days after. He’d smiled when Ensi said he was no longer her apprentice and would never go on patrols again. If Tuuri had gotten to go on patrol, if Ensi had said she couldn’t go anymore, she’d have cried her eyes out. But Onni had smiled.

She turned aside, not really wanting to go into the village. What she wanted above all was to get out, to go beyond the palisade that bounded her world. But she’d made the mistake of telling Onni that. Of saying they should steal a boat and go exploring together. Horrified at the thought, he’d refused and then told the village guards she might wander away. Now, they wouldn’t even let her sit by the gate and watch as the fishermen went in and out.

Tuuri wandered westwards, crossing the island and stopping at the cleared area that bordered the palisade. Grownups went out every year to cut back the trees so no overhanging branch gave a path into the protected area. Maybe she could crawl under the palisade somewhere, just long enough to see the outside all by herself.

But she knew that was a foolish thought. Anything that dug under the palisade would be a deadly threat to her. The whole world outside the walls was a deadly threat to her; that was why she’d had to ask her brother to go exploring with her.

Motion to her left caught her attention: Apollo, one of Tapsa’s cats. Apollo gave her a long look before turning aside and trotting along the palisade. She knew he was checking for signs of anything trying to burrow under; he was keeping her safe. And yet … and yet … he was another guard keeping her inside. She kicked another pebble and turned back into the woods.

Moodily wandering through the woods, Tuuri found herself in the lehto-to-be. This area was full of old-growth trees, tall, bent, and moss-covered. No one damaged these trees, though they collected fallen branches for firewood. Every solstice, the villagers gathered under the trees to make their little offerings, fresh flowers in summer and dried flowers in winter, to show the nature spirits and the forest gods, Tapio and Mielikki, that they would be welcomed here. According to Ensi, the ceremonies hadn’t worked. Yet.

Even here, the ground was cleared near the palisade, and Tuuri knew Apollo or the other cat, Ceres, would come by often to check for intrusions. She stood at the edge of the cleared ground with her hand on an ancient pine and stared at the blank face of the palisade. What was out there?

Tuuri had been beyond the village’s island, of course. Her family had a livestock island where they raised sheep and kept a small garden. In planting and harvesting seasons, they would all pack into the family boat, and her father and uncle would row them out to it. But the livestock island had a palisade too, hiding everything around it.

Even though she was outside the walls going to and from the island, seven people — her family and Lalli’s family — packed into the boat together meant she was even less alone than at home. And the grownups always shushed her out on the water, because noise might attract grosslings. Though, as she pointed out, there shouldn’t be any grosslings; wasn’t that why Onni had to go on patrols? They just shushed her again when she asked such questions.

Tuuri raised her fist to pound on the trunk in frustration, but stopped herself. What if she struck the tree, and the forest spirits decided the village didn’t deserve a lehto? That would be awful! She apologized to the tree as she stepped away … and stopped.

“Tree? Would you mind if I climbed you? I’d be very careful.” As she waited for an answer, a warm breeze ghosted through the forest and brushed her right braid across her cheek, almost as if to caress her. “Thank you,” she whispered before circling the tree and searching for the best spots to place her small hands and feet.

Several minutes later, Tuuri stood on a sturdy branch as high as she dared go. From there, she looked out over the younger, smaller trees and the palisade itself to the lake, still hidden in the morning mist. Gazing out, with the trees rustling and creaking softly around her, she imagined herself the lookout on a sailing ship. Or perhaps, she thought, she had climbed high above the clouds, and soon she’d see hawks and seagulls soaring around beneath her.

Over the next hour, as she stood watching on her branch, the rising sun turned the mist golden before the mist thinned and burned off, bit by tiny bit. She saw another island out there, all rocky cliffs and trees, appearing out of the mist as if the gods were making it fresh, just for her. She could hardly breathe for the beauty of it, for this sight that was hers alone.

Tuuri stood for many minutes, staring out at the island, imagining herself rowing over there, climbing that low spot on the cliff, wandering among those trees, maybe finding treasures hidden among the roots. There might be ruins over there that no one had seen since the Catastrophe. She lost herself in dreams of adventures until Ceres mewed at her from below, and she realized it was already late morning.

Tuuri climbed down, taking extra care not to harm the tree, remembering to thank it for its kindness, and promising to return another day, many more days. She would have to run home, and her mother would scold her for the pine sap on her hands and clothes and the pine needles in her hair.

But still … she had seen the world beyond the walls, and she wanted it with all her heart. “One day,” she told the tree, “one day, I'll be outside all the walls. One day, I'll be free.”

And one day, far away from the islands of Finland, she was.

Chapter Text

“Bleat!”

Reynir looked around. That sounded like a lamb in trouble. On this, the Midsummer Day of his thirteenth year, he was finally allowed to keep the sheep by himself — well, himself and his sheepdog, Gráa, now sitting on a rock that gave a good view of the valley. His father had walked away just hours ago and left him in charge, and the last thing he wanted was for a lamb to wander off.

“Bleat!”

He set down his pipes and stood to count his ewes in the small pasture. All nineteen there, and none searching for a lost lamb. All was well.

“Bleat!”

Gráa knew her flock. Though she flicked an ear towards the sound, she didn't turn away from her watch.

Reynir nodded his understanding. Not my lamb. Some other shepherd will come along and find it soon.

“Bleat!”

But what if my lamb got lost? Would I want it out there, scared and maybe hurt, until I found it, when someone was right there?

Reynir looked over at Gráa. "Take care of them for me. Please?" She gave a brief thump of her tail, and Reynir set out in search of the sound. There was a lamb somewhere that needed help.

The hillside grew steeper as Reynir climbed, and loose, friable rock crumbled and slipped under his feet. Just over the crest, he stopped, looking down at a wide crack in the rough black rock. Another bleat echoed up from the depths, and he sighed. Of course the lamb had fallen down there.

After a cautious approach to the edge, Reynir studied the problem. The lamb tottered on a narrow ledge about three meters below the edge. He'd have to climb down, with only the sharp broken edges of lava for handholds, stand on that ledge, pick up the lamb, if it didn't dodge and fall into the depths, and then climb back up carrying it. The lamb looked to be about three months old; it wouldn’t be too heavy for a shepherd, even a shepherd boy, to carry. But to carry while climbing?

He straightened and looked around for the shepherd who ought to be searching for this lamb, but nothing moved around him other than an interested seagull overhead. Maybe I should get Dad. Or a rope. I could run back to the house and grab a rope, and then … The lamb bleated again, and he knew there wasn’t much time. The little animal was frightened, possibly hurt, and if left alone too long, it might try to escape and fall farther.

Reynir gulped. It was only three meters. He’d climbed that far many times, though not carrying a lamb. And not with such a long drop if he slipped. He looked around again, but nothing moved. Even the seagull had gone.

“Okay,” Reynir said through dry lips, “I’ll get you.” Not giving himself more time to think, he knelt at a spot above a wider part of the ledge and began the climb. Though he placed hands and feet with care, the sharp rocks dug into his hands, and he hissed with pain as a knife-like edge cut his hand. Blood trickled down his palm and onto the rocks, but he climbed on.

“Stay there, little one,” he said. “Don't jump for me. If you jump, you’ll fall. Stay right there. I'm coming. Don't jump.” Over and over, he reassured the lamb until his foot landed on the ledge. He paused for a moment as a shiver of relief ran through him, then bent and held out a hand. “Come to me, little one.”

The lamb looked at his hand, then up at his face. He held his breath, willing it to cross the meter separating them. If he had to, he’d edge along the narrow shelf, but that might alarm the lamb. If it retreated too far, it would fall, and he doubted it would survive a tumble down the sharp rocks.

After a time that seemed much too long, the lamb crept forward and huddled at his feet, trembling and looking up at him with fearful eyes. “Okay. You’re okay. Just hold still and let me lift you, and all will be well.”

Reynir pressed his shoulder against the cliff, tried not to think of the emptiness to his left, and reached down. With a swift movement, he scooped up the lamb and laid it across his shoulders, legs pointing forward on either side of his head. Properly, he should hold two legs with each hand, steadying the lamb, but he needed a free hand to climb.

In fact, as he climbed back up on sharp rocks already smeared with blood, the lamb whimpered in terror and its small hooves kicked when he had to release its legs to grab a handhold. His heart hammered as he imagined the animal slipping backwards, sliding off his shoulders, and plummeting to its death. Had he only doomed it by his foolish effort at rescue?

But the lamb was still on his shoulders when he pressed himself against the cliff, grasped the lamb’s legs with a bloody hand, and reached for the next handhold. And the next. And the next.

His hand flailed at the air, and he realized he’d reached the top. Reynir crawled forward until he was well away from the edge, then struggled to his feet. The lamb felt impossibly heavy, and he stood gasping for several minutes before looking around.

“You sit still,” he told the lamb, leaning forward to keep it secure as he examined his wounded hand. Though the cut was not deep, it bled freely, as hands always do. Fumbling out his handkerchief — not entirely clean, but not filthy either — he wrapped his hand up tightly before he took the lamb’s legs in both hands and strode uphill. From the crest of the hill, he saw his sheepdog still on watch. After counting the ewes and finding all safe, he turned away. The lamb had to have come from the west, and so westward he went.

Beyond the next hill, Reynir spotted Marino Refsson, a middle-aged shepherd he knew only slightly. The man was checking behind boulders and kneeling to check hollows, clearly searching for the lamb. Reynir whistled, releasing the lamb’s legs long enough to wave a hand.

Soon, the two shepherds met, and Reynir passed over the lamb while Marino thanked him and apologized for the trouble. “But your own sheep,” the man said, “what of them? They might wander off as well.”

Reynir couldn’t help a proud smile. “No, I’ve a good dog. She’s watching them.”

“My dog’s up in years. Just not what he used to be. He let this one wander off.” Marino sighed. “I suppose soon — well. If your dog can handle the sheep for a bit, might you have a little time to help an old man?”

Reynir’s smile widened. “If Gráa had hands, she wouldn’t need me. They should be okay for a little longer.” But he regarded the man in some puzzlement. He wouldn’t call the man old, but if he needed help, Reynir could spare a few minutes.

“Good. He’s resting down at my shelter, just off the road. I saw him walking up from the stagecoach stop, so I helped him this far, but then the lamb —” The lamb bleated in surprise as he shrugged his shoulders. “I shouldn’t leave my sheep any longer, but I don’t like to think of him struggling along the rest of the way. If you could help him up the hill, I expect he could make it down into the valley alone.”

Reynir glanced back towards his own flock, thinking about the time. He’d been gone a while, but he did trust his dog … “Of course I’ll help him. Your shelter is down there?”

Marino pointed out the crude shack near the road, and Reynir broke into a run, feeling light as a feather with the weight of the lamb removed.

The old man was white-haired, slender, and almost as tall as Reynir’s father, though he stooped as he leaned against the doorpost of the shack. Drying mud on his trousers and a sleeve showed he’d fallen in one of the muddy patches on the road. Reynir slowed down, composing a respectful address. “Grandfather,” he said, “may I help you down the road? It would be my honor.”

“Thank you, young man.” The old man took Reynir’s extended arm, and they started together up the long hill to the village. “Magnús Björnsson. I’ve come to visit my grandaughter, Katrín Jónasdóttir.”

“Reynir Árnason. I know her. Or, well, I know her son, Jónas. We used to play together. Are you a farmer, too, then?”

“Not for many years, I’m afraid.” Reynir winced, and the old man gave a wheezing chuckle. “Young man, I’m not distressed about being old. Not so many get to be this old.”

Reynir could think of no answer, and they continued in silence up the hill. As Magnús’s breathing sounded more labored and he leaned more on Reynir with each step, the boy at last ventured to say, “Grandfather, I could help you more if you wish. If you put your arm around my shoulders, I could take more of your weight.”

Magnús stopped. “The only good thing about getting old is that it’s better than the alternative.” He sighed. “The last time I came here, five years ago, I walked right up this hill. I think it’s gotten steeper. You’re a good lad. Yes, I think I need more help.” He put an arm around Reynir’s shoulders, Reynir put an arm around his waist to half-carry him, and they went on in that fashion.

At the crest of the hill, Reynir looked down at the village. He’d told Marino he’d help the man this far, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk away. After a longing glance at the hill beyond which his flock still grazed, he helped Magnús down the road.

When they reached the village, Reynir kept his head down, hoping no one — especially not his parents — noticed him. At least Katrín’s house was near the road, and he quickly delivered Magnús to it.

As they stood at the door, waiting for Katrín to open their knock, Magnús fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a few krónur along with a thin chain with a blob of dried mud on the end, and held the krónur out. “For your kindness.”

“Oh, no, no, I can’t take your krónur just for —”

The old man shook his head. “Well, then, take this thing. I fell on it in the mud. Some little trinket for your girl.” Reynir opened his mouth to argue, and Magnús chuckled. “Oh, I know, you don’t have a girl. But a likely young man like yourself? Won’t be long.” As the door opened and Katrín exclaimed in delight at her grandfather’s presence, Magnús pushed the chain into Reynir’s hand.

Remembering that his sheep were alone and he was a long way off in the village, Reynir mumbled thanks and fled, stuffing the chain and its blob in his pocket as he ran.

Reynir stumbled, panting, over the crest of the last hill and stopped to count his sheep. There was the ram, looking up at him, deciding if he was a threat. There were the five wethers and the nineteen ewes, all grazing peacefully and none searching for a lost lamb. And there, sitting on her rock overlooking the valley, was the sheepdog, Gráa. She gave him a stern look before turning back to his flock.

Weak with relief, Reynir sank onto the nearest rock to catch his breath. The flock was safe, Marino’s lamb was back with its flock, and Magnús was with his granddaughter. If he’d been spotted in town, if his father learned he’d been there, he could argue that he had a duty of hospitality to help an old man. And all’s well that ends well, after all.

The sun had slid far to the west when Reynir judged it time to drive the sheep to the pen. His father didn’t want him to stay out all night on his first day, even at midsummer when there was hardly any night at all. At Reynir’s call, Gráa darted down the hill, racing back and forth to drive the sheep forth. He followed, knowing better than to interfere with her work. Gráa had driven sheep for most of his life and needed no instructions from him.

With the sheep safely penned up and Gráa enjoying the plate of scraps that his mother brought out, Reynir went inside to clean up, change clothes, and properly disinfect and bandage his hand. The cut was shallow, and he expected it would heal quickly.

“How was your first day?” his mother, Sigríður, asked.

Reynir hesitated. Should he say he was with the flock all day? But what if she knew he’d been in town? And did he want to end his first day with a lie? “There was a lost lamb,” he began.

As he finished his story, a movement behind him caught his attention. He turned to find his father, Árni, regarding him sternly, with arms folded. “You left the flock alone,” Árni said.

“Yes, sir. I–I felt I had to. The lamb, and then the old man. He’d fallen in the mud —”

Árni rubbed his chin. “You want to be kind, but you have to do your duties, too. Sometimes you won’t be able to do both. This time — this time — it did no harm. Another time it will. Maybe much harm. Remember that, son.”

Reynir bowed his head in shame. “Yes, sir.”

“I can’t punish you for rescuing a lamb or helping an old man, but I must punish you for neglecting your duties. And so, you will not watch the sheep alone. For the next week, you will watch with Baldur.”

Baldur was a cousin, four years older than Reynir. For almost a year, Reynir had watched the family flock alongside Baldur, until this triumphant day when his small flock was separated out for him to care for alone. Having to watch with his cousin again, like a child … well, the punishment could have been worse.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we’ll say no more about it.” Árni turned to Sigríður to discuss supper.

After the meal, Reynir climbed the steep open staircase to his room in the “children’s wing” of the large house. His four older siblings — two brothers and two sisters — were all older and had left the family home for their various jobs. Sometimes he was lonely alone in this wing, but not this day. He wouldn’t have enjoyed his siblings’ response to his neglect.

After lying sleepless on his bed late into the bright night, Reynir thought to examine the chain and its mud-covered blob. Much of the mud had cracked and flaked off the chain itself, leaving flecks within the delicate yellow links. The blob, however, required more work. He laid a clean shirt on his bed and chipped at the dried mud with his fingernails, with little interest but so as to have something to do.

He thought the chain was brass and inside the blob would be, as Magnús had said, a little trinket for his hypothetical girlfriend. Once he’d cleaned one side of the object within, he found a round pendant of yellow metal, two finger-widths across, with an intricate incised design. He rubbed it on his sleeve and raised it to his eyes, wondering if the design meant something.

He dropped the pendant in surprise. “It’s not brass. Brass tarnishes. And brass is darker than this.” He picked it up again, feeling the weight. “Gold doesn’t tarnish. This is gold.”

Reynir had never seen gold before, but he knew it was the most valuable metal. The wanderlust he so often felt listening to his siblings’ stories of their travels flared within him. This “trinket” might pay for his own travels. He couldn’t leave Iceland because, as his parents often said, non-immunes like him and them were banned from travel, but he could go to Reykjavík, sell it, and from there visit the many beautiful places in his land.

Thoughts full of possibilities, he attacked the other side of the pendant, clawing the dried mud from it with fingers that trembled with eagerness. At last, a large chunk of mud came off, and he lifted it to examine it: two names within a heart outline: “Ingunn & Einar”.

He dropped the pendant into the chunks of mud. He knew those names. Einar had died two years before, but Ingunn Pálsdóttir was a friend of his mother, and had told him the story of the pendant more than once. Ingunn’s mother had given her the beautiful golden pendant in honor of her marriage twenty years before. But the chain had broken and the pendant had been lost as they moved to his village. She had longed for it for longer than Reynir had been alive.

He lifted the pendant again. Whose pendant was it, really? Was it still Ingunn’s, since she’d lost it so long ago? Or was it Magnús’s, since he’d found it? He’d given it to Reynir, but he’d meant to give a trinket in thanks for a small favor; he hadn’t intended to give something of such value. Or was it Reynir’s, since he’d received it in good faith?

Reynir looked across the room as if there would be guidance there. He could ask his parents, but he felt that this was a question for him alone. He should know the moral answer here.

Light flashed from the golden pendant as he tilted it back and forth. He wanted it. He wanted to sell it and travel far from this tiny village. Tilt. Flash. Tilt. Flash.

It isn’t mine. I didn’t earn it and don’t deserve it for doing so little.

With a last searing disappointment, he smothered his wanderlust until only the faintest embers remained banked in his heart. He was a shepherd and non-immune, so he would stay here forever, and this pendant could not change that. But then, Magnús or Ingunn?

Magnús fell in the mud and found the pendant. Does that make it his? He didn’t even know what it was. Ingunn values it. It honored her marriage to Einar. Even though Magnús found it, she’s grieved for it for all these years.

It has to be hers.

Reynir tilted it one more time, closed his hand around it, took a deep breath, and set it aside. He shook the mud out the window, put away the shirt, and went to bed. His sleep was troubled by dreams of travel far from his little village.

In the morning, Reynir joined his parents for breakfast. As they all got to their feet, ready to turn to their various tasks, he said, “I’ll take Gráa and the sheep to Baldur, but I have to take care of something first. That trinket Magnús gave me … it was Ingunn’s. I think it’s still hers, and I’m going to return it.” He held it out, looking from mother to father and back again.

Sigríður took the pendant from him, studied it for a long moment, and passed it to Árni. As he examined it, she took a step forward and kissed Reynir on the forehead. She had to stand on her tiptoes to do so, and it occurred to Reynir that soon she wouldn’t be able to do it at all. It was strange to think how soon he would be a man, perhaps a man as tall as his father.

Árni handed back the pendant and gripped his shoulder. “I’m proud of you, son,” he said, then turned and strode away. He’d never been good at emotional scenes.

With another kiss from Sigríður, Reynir left, trotting through the village to Ingunn’s small house, where she and Einar had raised their four children. He knocked at the door, the pendant gripped in his hand, and all its possibilities swirling through his mind. Still. It belongs to Ingunn.

“Yes? Reynir Árnason, is it?” Ingunn said as she opened the door. She was a small, slender woman in middle age, her black hair going gray and confined in a simple bun. Her clothes were simple and clean, but worn and patched.

“Yes, ma’am. Your pendant.” He held it out. “Katrín Jónasdóttir’s grandfather found it in the mud yesterday.” Ingunn stared at him as if she didn’t understand his words. He licked his lips and continued. “He gave it to me because I helped him a little. It was all muddy, so he didn’t know what it was.”

“That’s — it’s —” She took it from him and held it up to her eyes, then folded both hands around it and clasped it to her breast, her eyes closed. “It really is. After so long, it’s really come back to me.”

Reynir took a step back. “There, I’m glad. I have to go. The sheep, you know.”

“No, wait. I must do something …” She looked back into her modest home as if to find something to give him. Reynir knew her story. After Einar’s death, their children had taken over running the farm. They had their own families in their own homes, while she remained in the old house. Though they kept their mother supplied with food and other essentials, there would be no extras with which to reward him.

Reynir tried his best courtesy. “No, no, I’m honored to have been of service to you. I couldn’t accept any reward for the little that I’ve done.”

Ingunn hesitated, still peering into the house as if searching for a reward, before turning to him. “Then, Reynir Árnason, you must accept my blessing. May the wind be always at your back, may kindness return to you tenfold, and may you always find shelter when you need it most.”

Though no one had ever said Ingunn Pálsdóttir was a mage, as she spoke the words, a strange shiver ran down Reynir’s spine. But of course that was just the morning chill. “Thank you. Thank you. May you enjoy your pendant. Now I must go.” He turned and ran through the village.

Gráa and the sheep were waiting, and Reynir was just a shepherd boy, after all.

Chapter Text

I wrote a chapter for "Quest for Children" instead of a chapter here.

Summary:

A group of villagers, led by Mikkel, Sigrun, Onni, Lalli, and Emil, faces the threat of a troll swarm while hiking through the woods. As the swarm approaches, Sigrun quickly devises a plan to guide the group across a broken bridge, creating a bottleneck to deal with the swarm effectively. Lalli scouts ahead and guides the villagers across while Onni keeps track of the swarm and assists in the fight through magical means. A villager, Luka, uses a flashlight as bait to draw the trolls onto the bridge where Mikkel and Sigrun engage them in combat. Onni also aids from a distance using his mystical abilities. After fiercely battling the swarm, they successfully defeat it with minimal injuries. The villagers are encouraged by their triumph and reassured by Onni that they are safe. As they continue to Keuruu, Mikkel realizes that one among them is a weather mage, affecting the environment around them.

Chapter Text

“The door is stuck.”

Tuuri frowned at the monitors before her. “There’s no grosslings or anything.” Lalli said nothing. “Yeah, right. You’d know. Can you force it? Or we can wake up Mikkel.”

Lalli pressed the lever again and slammed his shoulder against the door. With cracking sounds and a peculiar tinkling, the door opened. He jumped down, producing strange crunching noises, closed the door, and was gone.

Tuuri watched the monitors as her cousin ran away into the darkness of the forest. The cracking noise wasn’t from his shoulder, then. Had he broken something in the door?

After a careful study of the monitors and a quick glance at her sleeping team members, she opened the door. No strange noises. With only the dim light of the monitors and telltales inside the tank, she could see nothing unusual outside. Still puzzled, she closed the door, planning to investigate further in the morning.

At least the rain had stopped. It had been cold and cloudy all day. When the expected rain started just after sundown, Mikkel and Reynir had cooked supper inside, and the team had eaten with the patter of rain on the tank as accompaniment.

The next morning, before dawn, Mikkel set out to fetch supplies for breakfast. Though he opened the door without trouble, as he jumped down, there were again crunching noises. He stopped, peering around in the dim pre-dawn light.

Tuuri left the monitors to ask, “What is it?”

“The grass is … hard. It broke under my feet.” Mikkel took off his glove and knelt to feel it.

“Hey, close the door! You’re letting in the cold!” Emil complained from his bunk.

There was a soft crack, and Mikkel stood with something in his hand. “Look at this. The grass is coated with ice.” He handed her an icicle perhaps half a centimeter thick and as long as her finger, with a piece of dead grass running up the center. More crunching noises as he took a few steps to the side and tapped on the side of the tank. “More ice on the tank. I think the whole tank is encased in ice.”

Sigrun came to stand by Tuuri. “What’s going on?” Tuuri passed her the icicle to examine. To her surprise, Sigrun licked it. “Huh. This happens sometimes when the wind blows spray onto the shore. But this isn’t salty.”

“We’re also far inland, nowhere near the shore,” Mikkel said from outside. “I’m going to get breakfast supplies. We’ll figure this out when we’ve got some sunlight. Right now I don’t know what could have caused it.”

The icicle had melted from being passed from hand to hand by the time breakfast was ready. No one knew what could have caused it, and the Sun seemed to dawdle on its way to rising.

Thump

Lalli climbed in, yanked the door shut, and said, “Drive.” He pointed. “That way.”

“What’s wrong? A swarm? But the Sun’s just rising!”

“No danger. Drive.”

Tuuri ran to her driver’s seat while the others rushed forward. “I don’t know what’s going on. He said there’s no danger.” Switching to Finnish, she added. “There’s no road over this way. I was looking at the map, and there’s a bridge we have to cross.” But she drove even as she spoke. If Lalli thought they had to move, well, then, they had to move.

“Stop.” It was as well that he told her to stop, for otherwise she might have forgotten to do so as they came out of the trees.

The tank came to a halt at the edge of a low drop-off into the forested river valley. The same ice that had coated the tank had coated the bare branches of the trees below. Now, the dawn-light struck the ice at an angle, reflecting and refracting in red, green, gold, blue … every color Tuuri could imagine, shifting with the wind, as if the valley were full of gems. No one spoke until at last the Sun rose higher and the brilliant colors dimmed to glittering white.

“Now we can go,” Lalli said.

Chapter Text

At least the ground was soft and easy to dig today. Emil had levered two chunks of broken pavement out of the way and dug where they’d been. Now, there was an acceptable latrine: close to the tank but screened by debris, with a good pile of dirt (well, mud) beside it to throw in for sanitation. After a month, he was well-practiced in digging latrines.

Emil shouldered his shovel. He should go back to the tank and find out what other chores Mikkel had for him. Or maybe Sigrun would want to take him hunting. That was fine — better than fine — but he felt so inadequate around her. He’d learned a lot on this expedition, but he still knew less about troll-hunting than a child half his age in her clan. He didn’t think he was entirely ignorant, but nothing he knew seemed to apply to his current life.

Except the explosives. He did get to blow things up now and then, and he was very good at that.

He glanced at the nearby tumbledown house. If there were a grossling in there, just a little one that he could deal with alone, he could show he was useful for more than digging latrines. But, of course, there were no grosslings anywhere around here. Lalli always checked campsites in advance. Emil sighed and dropped his gaze to the ground, turning away towards the tank.

But … wait.

Emil turned back. Had he really seen … Yes, there was something green in the snow and dead weeds. Not that it mattered, but it wouldn’t take long to examine it.

A few rather tattered green leaves remained in a clump of similar dead leaves. Something about their shape was familiar. Laying down his shovel, Emil knelt to study them more closely, but the cause of the familiarity danced just out of reach. What were these plants?

Emil looked around at dead weeds, leafless saplings, a sickly holly bush, and a weather-worn post. Beyond it, another post. In fact, posts surrounded this area, remnants of a square fence. But if it was once fenced, then it was once a garden. And if it was a garden …

Before the fire, when Emil’s family was still rich, they’d had a beekeeper and gardener, Viveka Johansson. On some of the many days when his father didn’t come home, Emil visited the gardens. He had to be careful not to step on the plants, or Viveka would shout at him. Though he’d learned from his father that servants were beneath them, Emil knew the vegetable garden provided fresh food for the table, and he obeyed her orders. Sometimes, Viveka would even look up from her work and offer him a taste of the raw plants: mint, chives … and sorrel.

Emil stared at the green leaves. Sorrel? Mikkel did his best to make their food palatable with salt and mint and what few herbs he could find in the winter. Sorrel would help. But this might not be sorrel, might even be something poisonous.

He pinched off a bit of green leaf, and it didn’t burn his fingers. When he held it to his nose, it had no strong smell. Greatly daring, he put it in his mouth and bit down. And Viveka laughed in his memory: “Sour, isn’t it? That’s sorrel for you. Good for adding a bit of flavor to your supper.”

This plant didn’t have many green leaves, but if it would grow in a pot, they could have sorrel for every meal. Emil pressed his fists against his temples, searching his memory for Viveka’s words about sorrel. It was sturdy stuff; she could transplant it easily, though it had a taproot that you had to be careful of.

With a quick glance at the tank — no one was looking to assign him another chore — he took up his shovel and dug around the clump of leaves. Carefully, carefully, don’t break the root … Lacking human care, it was small, and he soon had it out, root-ball and all. Leaving the shovel behind, he lifted it in both arms and carried it away. He made a note to remember to return for the shovel, for Mikkel would be annoyed if he lost a tool. Especially if this plant wasn’t sorrel.

Emil winced at the thought. Mikkel would know what the plant was. If it wasn’t sorrel, he’d make a joke about Emil’s ignorance. That thought was enough to make him want to drop the thing, grab the shovel, and go find a chore. And yet, and yet … if it was sorrel, Mikkel would be pleased with him.

“What is that thing?” Sigrun asked as he made his way to Mikkel, now scrubbing clothes in a tub beside the tank.

“Sorrel, I think.” Emil held it out to Mikkel, who dropped a shirt in the tub and jumped to his feet.

“So it is! This is excellent, thank you, Emil.” As Mikkel took it from him, Emil thought the man’s expression was almost greedy. “Plant it in a bucket, keep it watered, it’ll perk up,” Mikkel said, not looking at the others. Perhaps he was talking to the plant. “Lots of vitamin C in these leaves to stave off scurvy. I’ve been worried about that. Makes the food taste better, too.” Still talking, he disappeared into the back compartment.

Sigrun gave Emil a delighted smile. “That’s my right-hand man!” She clouted him on the back, staggering him. “Kills trolls and captures plants!”

Chapter Text

“Don’t despair. You’ll be so very appreciated for your ‘farm magic’.”

Reynir didn’t remember what he’d said to the teacher who’d just crushed his dreams. Some polite farewells, he supposed. He didn’t even remember picking up his backpack of books, though it was on his back. Now, he leaned against the outside wall and gazed at the distant volcanic smoke silhouetted against the sky.

Tuuri would have loved to see that volcano. I wanted to bring her here someday … When I talked to her, I didn’t understand how she felt, why she would rather risk death than stay behind walls. I told her, “If I get home, I'm never leaving again!”

He left the school and wandered down the street, stepping out of the way of busy shoppers. He should go home, but he couldn’t bring himself to face the others he’d miss so much: Sigrun, Mikkel, Emil, Lalli. They’d stayed with his family for a month, but he could feel their growing restlessness. Soon, they would leave him behind.

But now that I’m home, it’s so quiet. So boring. Now, all I want is to learn battle magic so I can join Sigrun’s team and help her hunt trolls. And they won’t let me! “I'm afraid that's not an option for you. The Norwegian armed forces require immunity from all the mages they employ.” I’m just as much a prisoner of my genes as Tuuri was.

His feet had brought him to a greenhouse bright with flowers. Not greatly interested, but not wanting to go home yet, Reynir went inside to look around.

A slender older woman in a faded flowery apron, with her graying red hair in a bun, hurried forward. “Ah, welcome, young man! Have you come to appreciate our flowers? Perhaps buy one?”

Caught up in her enthusiasm, Reynir followed her around the greenhouse, nodding and joining her praise of the flowers she pointed out, until they reached a row of bushes in large pots.

“And these,” she said with a broad, triumphant smile, “are the finest roses in Iceland! Look at them! These buds are just about to blossom. Now, we have red, pink, and white. They all have their own meanings, you know. Red for romance, pink for friendship, and white for remembrance. You’ll want red for your girl, of course!”

Reynir looked down at the buds as all excitement drained out of him. He’d never had the chance to give Tuuri a red rose. Maybe no one had ever given her a rose.

“Ohhh,” the woman said into the long silence. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t recognize you. These old eyes — but you’re Reynir Árnason, aren’t you? Dear me, dear me. I should have thought — your girl — here!” Flustered, she brought out her shears and hurriedly clipped a long stem. “Here. White for remembrance. I’m so sorry about what happened.”

Reynir fumbled for a coin. He hadn’t meant to buy a rose, but it was already cut …

“No, no. You take it. A gift from me. In remembrance.”

Accepting the rose with mumbled thanks, he fled the greenhouse. Once, he would have been thrilled to be recognized by a stranger in another village, but now … now and for the rest of his life, he’d be recognized and reminded of what he’d lost. He’d be a simple Icelandic shepherd who knew a little farm magic, while his much-loved friends, people he’d risked his life with, went off into danger.

Without him.

Reynir trudged home, holding the bud protectively before him. It was doomed, but would still live for a time, with care. And that reminded him of Tuuri again. Even after six weeks, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Perhaps he never would.

Back at his home, Reynir took a tall glass from the kitchen to his bedroom. Full of water, it served as a vase for the bud. He set it on a shelf in the corner where his “roommates” wouldn’t notice it. Since he, Emil, and Lalli didn’t share a language, if Emil asked about the bud, he’d have to ask Mikkel to translate, which he didn’t want to do. Lalli wouldn’t ask, and no one could translate Finnish anyway, but he might touch the bud and maybe damage it.

That evening, as he studied his farm magic book out of a dull sense of duty, his two brothers and his sister Hildur made their goodbyes. They were all immune, and they all had responsible jobs far from his sleepy little village. As he joined the farewells, Reynir realized his other sister, Guðrún, hadn’t left with the others.

Even as she told him she had a beau in the village, the man approached with a bouquet of wildflowers (not roses). She meant to stay and marry him. Reynir felt encouraged for a moment, supposing his mother wouldn’t rely on having him around so much anymore … but what did that matter, when he couldn’t go anywhere? Sighing, he turned back to his studies.

Later that evening, as Reynir lay awake listening to Emil snore, Lalli leaned over him, tapping Reynir’s forehead and then his own. He got that message clearly: Lalli wanted to meet him in mage-space, where they could talk without translators. That sent a thrill through Reynir, for Lalli had never asked before. Indeed, Lalli had always been … not hostile, no, of course not, but not friendly in mage-space.

Reynir closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep. As he opened them again, his island haven lay before him, sheep grazing and sheepdog on watch. “Vó-voff! Come on! Lalli wants to see me!” With the dog at his side, he sprinted out onto the sea that goes on forever, scanning the eternal mist for the thin spot that would lead him to Lalli.

As he ran, new hope sprang up within him. Even after he was left behind in Iceland, he could still help his friends. Lalli couldn’t walk on the sea; only Reynir could do that. Well, other Icelandic mages, too, but Lalli didn’t know any others. Maybe Reynir could take him to speak to Onni.

Onni had thrown Reynir out and told him never to return, understandably since Reynir hadn’t told him Tuuri was infected. Not that Onni could have done anything about it, and Tuuri hadn’t wanted him to know while she was still unsure.

Still, when last they’d spoken, a month before, Onni seemed to have forgotten all that, even forgotten punching him in the face. Perhaps it all seemed like a dream to Onni. Not to Reynir; he remembered everything from his visits to mage-space.

But if Onni had forgotten, then he might allow Reynir to visit. Not just convey Lalli to him, but sit down and talk to him. There was so much Onni could tell about mage-space and magic, even if he couldn’t teach an Icelander magic.

Buoyed by these hopes, Reynir smiled broadly as he and his dog ran up to the raft in Lalli’s modest haven. Lalli didn’t return the smile. “You talked to Onni before he left. Did he tell you where he was going? Where?”

Startled, Reynir searched his memory. “It, ah, it started with an ‘S’?”

Lalli stared at him for so long that Reynir began to fidget. He’d answered as best he could; he didn’t know the names of any Finnish towns, and at the time he’d been worried about Onni’s strange memory lapse.

As he opened his mouth to apologize, Lalli clenched his fists. “He lied to me. He lied!”

“Hey, don’t take it to heart. Everyone lies occasionally. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“No. Onni never lies. Sometimes he won’t tell you things, but he doesn’t lie.”

They stared at each other in the silence of mage-space. At last, Reynir ventured, “Do you want to go check up on him together?”

At Lalli’s nod, Reynir offered his sleeve, which the other took with a grimace. Reynir knew the man didn’t like to touch him or even be that close, but the physical connection, even through his clothes, allowed Lalli to walk on the sea as well.

The mist opened before him as it should, and they walked across the waves together, Vó-voff the dog trotting ahead, ears up, alert. They walked … and walked … and walked.

“It’s definitely this direction,” Reynir said at last, “but I do feel like we should have reached him by now. This is really far away. Is it because he’s farther away in real life?”

“I don’t know. I’m not an expert. Didn’t you just go to school for this?”

“They didn’t teach a lot of cool stuff. Things like this are in the advanced courses, and I didn’t qualify. They only take the —”

“Intelligent people?”

“Immune people!” For a moment, Reynir wanted to snatch his sleeve away and leave Lalli to sink in the sea. The man would be fine. He would just wake up back in his bedroll on the floor of Reynir’s room.

But that wasn’t fair. Lalli had probably tried to make a joke. It wasn’t a very good joke, but at least he’d tried. Reynir led on, as reeds appeared in the sea, growing taller and taller until they waved far above the men’s heads.

Onni’s haven hadn’t had reeds around it before. But then, Onni had waved a hand to throw up a palisade to block Reynir out. If he wanted a border of reeds, Reynir supposed he could make one.

Vó-voff turned back, ears down, and sat in their way, looking up at Reynir with wide eyes.

“My dog wants to leave, so we should.” Lalli didn’t move as Vó-voff ran past him and back the way they’d come. “Trust me, he knows stuff. Let’s go back and try to figure things out in a safe place.”

Reynir turned to follow the sheepdog, and his sleeve slipped from Lalli’s hand. The Finn sank, but not far, only ankle deep. When Reynir looked down to see what he stood on, he gasped in horror. They’d been walking above a charnel house. Beneath the water lay skulls, skeletons, and boats with their hulls stoved in. Lalli himself stood on a skull.

Lalli stared straight ahead, stepping forward onto another skull and then the prow of a sunken boat. The sheepdog whined, watching him.

“Stop!” Reynir grabbed his collar and pulled him back. “We’re leaving, okay?” Lalli stood now on the sea, but still stared forward. “Lalli, listen. Something’s clearly off with Onni, but we can’t help in any way if we get in trouble here.” At last, Lalli looked back at him. “Come on,” Reynir said gently. “I don’t even think this is Onni’s dream place.”

They walked off, but before they reached Lalli’s haven, he faded away and was gone. Reynir stopped. “Do you think Onni’s still keeping me away? He didn’t seem angry at me anymore. But if I can’t reach him … and Lalli doesn’t much like me … Maybe I can’t even stay in touch with them. Just stuck being a shepherd …”

Vó-voff didn’t answer, and Reynir returned to the real world and restless sleep.

The next day was very quiet. Reynir studied galdrastafur that he didn’t want to use. Twice he went up to his room to check the rosebud. He hadn’t chosen the white rose for remembrance, but now, as it seemed everything was ending, it felt meaningful.

Sigrun, Mikkel, and Emil all wandered around the village, and Lalli disappeared into the hills, coming back only in time for supper. “Meet up tonight again?” Reynir suggested. Lalli must not have guessed his meaning, because when Reynir and Vó-voff trotted across the sea to his haven, there was no sign of him. Reynir shrugged, returned to his haven, and played his pipes for his sheep and sheepdog. He would try again the next night.

In the morning, when he crawled out of bed, Emil’s gear was still there, but Lalli’s was gone. Reynir rushed downstairs to ask what had happened. Mikkel reported that Lalli had left a note poorly translated from Finnish to Swedish, which he interpreted as saying that Lalli was returning to Finland alone to look for Onni. As he finished his explanation, all of them — Sigrun, Mikkel, and Emil — rushed away to pack. They meant to find him and go with him.

Reynir followed Emil to his room. As the Swede struggled to stuff his gear into his backpack, Reynir wandered to the back corner to examine the rosebud. To his surprise, not only had it bloomed, but it was not white at all.

What had the woman said? “Red for romance, pink for friendship, and white for remembrance.”

The rose was not white, but pink. How had this happened? Had the woman made a mistake? No, he thought, this is a message from the gods, not remembrance, but friendship. He touched the flower with one gentle finger, then turned to pack his own gear.

He might be only a farm mage, but he was the only Icelandic mage they had, and he would go with them to the ends of the Earth.

Chapter Text

Hiss!

“Yai!”

Sigrun spun to see what had distressed Tuuri and the kitten. The little creature was clawing her way up Tuuri's chest, headed for her shoulder, only partially impeded by Tuuri's gloved hands.

“What’s —” She stopped, gagging, as the stench hit her. Mikkel was already backing away from the door that he'd just pried open, pulling his shirt up over his nose.

Sigrun's dagger was already in her hand, and as she looked around, she saw that Emil had drawn his pistol. She hadn't yet sufficiently impressed upon him that blades beat bullets in troll country. Beyond Emil, the scout had backed away from the door to join his cousin. Sigrun couldn't understand what Tuuri and Lalli said, but she understood their tones, Tuuri accusing and Lalli defensive.

As they argued, Sigrun asked the world in general, “What is that stink? He said there weren’t any trolls.”

“It's not trolls,” Mikkel said. “It's bird droppings.”

Sigrun turned to stare at him in astonishment.

“I grew up cleaning chicken coops. That stench is bird droppings.”

Sigrun ventured a cautious sniff. Yes, that was the smell. And as she looked up, she spotted several pigeons peering over the side of the building.

“Ninety years of pigeon droppings,” Mikkel said, retreating from the reeking open door.

Earlier that morning, they had crossed the bridge to this small island, and Sigrun had seen the spire projecting above the rest of the ruins. Mikkel, who seemed to have studied everything about Copenhagen, had identified it as Vor Frelsers Kirke, a cathedral famous for having a staircase that wound around the outside of the spire. Since the steps were copper, he’d explained, the staircase should have formed a green patina, but was probably intact.

“If it’s intact,” she’d said, “from up there, we could see the whole city.”

“Not the whole city,” Mikkel had begun, but she’d waved him to silence. They could see a lot, and that’s what counted.

And so the scout had gone out and found a way to the building. Here they were before it, confronting the ammonia stench of ninety years of pigeon droppings.

A soft cooing came from within.

Sigrun looked up. And up. And up. Beyond the pigeons, the spire hung above her, offering a possible view of the city.

“We’re still going up.”

Everyone else looked up wordlessly for a long moment. Mikkel broke the silence. “It’s not safe to breathe that stuff. Let’s go back to the tank. We have to take the kitten back, and we need to find something to cover our noses and mouths.”

As they walked back, Emil caught up with Tuuri, who was still struggling to keep the kitten from fleeing. “Do you have a spare mask?”

“Oh, yes. But Reynir's wearing it.”

As Sigrun chuckled at her recruit’s resigned sigh, Mikkel joined her. “There might be masks in clinics or hospitals.”

“Is there a clinic or hospital nearby?”

He rubbed his chin. “No, not that I know of. Not nearby. We should look for masks in the future, but for now, I suppose we can use bandages.”

So, with the kitten secured inside the tank, and bandages wrapped around the lower faces of the immunes to cover their noses and mouths, the team returned to the open door of the cathedral. After a deep breath of relatively fresh air, Sigrun led the way inside.

They soon found a staircase inside a brick tower going up, switching back as it went up. For safety, they walked in single file close to the wall, where the supports were most likely to be intact. Mikkel went last, without comment. If he hadn't, Sigrun would have told him to, for if he fell, she didn't want him to fall on anyone else.

The stairs were slippery from the bird droppings, which shone white under their flashlights. The air was warmer than outside, and noisy with pigeons swirling and calling at the invaders. Feathers fluttered about the team, and insects and rodents skittered away into the mess.

After many steps, the steps became wooden, and several had rotted away. The team slowed, testing each step before risking their weight. Passing an area full of rusted bells, cut off from the stairwell by rusty wire mesh, Mikkel commented, “That kept the tourists away from the bells.” Sigrun shrugged. She had little knowledge and less interest in “tourists”.

At length, the staircase became open wooden stairs so steep and narrow as to be almost a ladder. The team climbed on, and at last, they stood on a platform before the door to the outside. When Mikkel forced the door, Lalli went out first, looking around, and then moving off to his left. Reynir followed next as Tuuri commented under her breath, “Spent all his time chasing sheep over the hills, hmph.”

Sigrun waved Emil and Tuuri forward, and they stepped out together, pausing with a gasp at the view beyond the low, ornate, gold guardrail. After only a brief hesitation, they turned and went up the steps. Tuuri led, eager as always, and Emil followed close behind.

“Okay,” Sigrun said with a quick but unseen grin at Mikkel, and she stepped out herself. More pigeon droppings streaked the green patina of the copper steps, and pigeons swirled, dislodged by the other four. After the warm, stinking air of the cathedral, the wintry wind outside felt like a blessing from the gods. With a smile behind her bandage-mask, Sigrun made her careful way up the slick steps. The low railing, while beautiful, would do little to prevent her falling, she thought, especially since the bolts had probably rusted.

The metal steps rang with each step, both her own and those of the four ahead of her. Sigrun had circled the spire once when it occurred to her that there were no footsteps behind her. She stopped, listening. Mikkel should be close behind her, but there was no sign nor sound of him. She couldn’t believe he’d fallen; surely even Mikkel would scream if he fell from this height.

Something was very wrong. Sigrun backtracked, circling the spire, and saw him ahead. Mikkel stood, shaking, white-faced, wide-eyed, with his back pressed against the wall and his fingers clawing at the metal sheathing, barely three meters from the doorway. Despite the wind, she could hear his ragged breathing.

Sigrun stopped, recognizing what had happened. She’d seen it before in a young hunter who froze at the edge of a cliff that the team climbed down in order to lure a giant to fall to its death. The hunter had finally moved, climbed, when the threat of the oncoming monster overcame his terror of heights. She hadn’t expected Mikkel to suffer a crippling fear of heights and, seeing him, she thought he hadn’t expected it either.

The first step seemed to be to shield him from that terrifying drop. Though the steps narrowed farther up, here at the base, they were wide enough for two. Sigrun stepped in front of him. “Mik—”

Mikkel flung his arms around her and jerked her off her feet, crushing her against his chest. “Danger!” he said, his voice choked.

Sigrun had thought Mikkel was strong. Now, as she struggled to draw in a breath and felt her ribs creak under his grip, she realized she had underestimated him. How to escape? He’d pinned her arms to her side, but she could still kick or perhaps knee him. At that thought, the railing seemed even lower and more fragile. No, a physical struggle could kill them both, but his panicky grip could kill her.

“Mikkel, let go.” She managed another gasping breath. “You’re hurting me. You’re crushing me. Mikkel, let go.”

He focused on her face, which at least distracted him from the drop before him, and loosened his grip without releasing her. “Don’t — don’t fall.”

“I won’t. And you won’t either.” Perhaps it would be best to let him hold on to her. “Now, I want you to slide your foot to the right. Just a little, and you’ll find the step. Good. Now, step down. Slide a little farther …”

Step by step, she talked him down the staircase and through the door. As soon as he got inside, with walls around him, he set her on her feet and turned away. “My apologies,” he said shakily. “My apologies. I hurt you. I should …” His voice trailed off.

“That’s okay. I’m fine. Look, I didn’t know you have, uh, what’s it called …”

“Acrophobia. Fear of heights.” He still faced away from her. “I didn’t know.”

“I’ve seen it happen before. Hunters get it, too. No shame in it.” Mikkel’s broad shoulders twitched as if to shrug off her words. “Listen, right now we need to get you down to the ground. You can wait in the tank. Your clothes are filthy, and ours will be too. So you can get started washing.” Mikkel always seemed happier when he was cleaning.

“I can go down alone. You go up and see the city.”

Sigrun opened her mouth and closed it again, remembering the young hunter. Others had teased him about his terror, and when they made it back to Dalsnes, he’d asked to be assigned to the Home Guard. His confidence destroyed, he’d never hunted again.

The last thing she wanted to do was crush Mikkel’s confidence. They needed him functional. Trapped as they were in the Silent World, they needed everyone functional. So, if he wanted to go down alone, she should let him go, even if she feared he’d make the trip on hands and knees.

“Okay. I’ll see you on the ground.” And with that, she left him and climbed the spire of Vor Frelsers Kirke. The spire rocked in the wind, the steps narrowed, and even she had begun to feel shaky by the time she reached the others.

Tuuri’s face was red from the icy wind, but her smile was broad as she greeted Sigrun. “Look!” she said, gesturing at the view as if offering a gift. “There’s the Sund, and if you squint, over there to the east is the coast of Sweden!”

“We’re that close?” Sigrun obediently squinted at the dark line that was the coast, but her chief interest was in the city around them. She shuffled around the high spiral, noting watercourses, burned areas, and trees. Always trees.

“Where’s Mikkel?” Emil asked after a while.

“He went back down to clean up. All these droppings. You know how he hates dirt.” Mikkel’s fear of heights had never been a problem before and, with luck, would never be a problem again. There was no need for the others to know of it.

When all had had their fill of the view, they made their cautious way back down. Sigrun led the way, as the steps at the top were too narrow for two people to pass. Mikkel was, to Sigrun’s relief, nowhere to be found in the cathedral.

Back at the tank, Mikkel had the washtub out and his own uniform already scrubbed and hung up to dry. “Everyone strip right here,” he ordered. “Your clothes are filthy, they stink, and they probably carry disease. Leave the bandages here, too.”

As the team obediently stripped, Tuuri took off her mask, gasped, and held her nose. “Gah! I had no idea! No wonder you wanted masks!”

“We really need more masks,” Emil said. He’d been very quiet on the way down. “See, I remember something from the Cleansers. You know what's in these droppings? Potassium nitrate! We could gather some up and make —”

“No!” three voices chorused.

Chapter Text

The tank was clean, the bedding and dirty clothes washed and hung up to dry, and the lunch dishes scrubbed and put away. Lalli was asleep, Sigrun and Emil had gone hunting, and Tuuri and Reynir were practicing his Swedish.

All was quiet, and there were no chores to do.

Mikkel returned from the back compartment with a thick tome that had caught his attention. Leaning back on his bunk, he paged through it: interesting, but not helpful for his purposes. Just as he reached this conclusion, Reynir and Tuuri strolled over to ask what he was reading.

“ ‘Mammals of the World’. It contains the taxonomy of most mammal species, especially those in Europe.”

The two gave him identical blank stares.

“Do you know what taxonomy is?” They did not, of course. Even Tuuri, skald though she was, hadn’t heard the term. “It’s a way of classifying organisms — mammals in this case — based on their shared characteristics.”

At their continued puzzlement, Mikkel suppressed a sigh and explained, “Dogs and wolves are different, right? But they’re quite similar, so we put them together in one box. Cats and dogs are also similar, but less than dogs and wolves, so we put cats in a box alongside that box of dogs and wolves. Boxes within boxes, you see? And then there are other animals even less similar to dogs, like … like horses. So we have a box containing horses, and a bigger box containing that and the cat-and-dog box.”

“All that is in that book?” Reynir asked.

“In summary, yes. This book describes all those boxes, from the largest to the smallest boxes, the ones that contain just one species.” He smiled down at the book. The precision was enjoyable even if not useful to him. Raising his gaze, he added, “In here are the scientific names of all the species of mammals, so scientists from all the countries of the old world, speaking all their languages, could use the same names.”

Tuuri looked intent. “The same names? In all languages?”

“Yes. For example, if we want to talk about a dog, I would say ‘Hund’, Reynir would say ‘Hundur’, and you would say …?”

“ ‘Koira’. And Englishers would say ‘Dog’. But you’re saying there’s one name for dogs? And it’s in that book?”

“Indeed. The scientific name for dogs is Canis lupus familiaris, for all scientists everywhere.”

Reynir stared at him. “Then that's its true name.”

“You could put it that way.”

Reynir and Tuuri looked at each other. “Its true name,” Tuuri repeated.

“We need that book,” Reynir said. “If I know the true names of things, I can make galdrastafur that will guide them to us, or drive them away.”

Mikkel looked from one to the other. They believed this. The idea was absurd.

But in a world with ghosts, who was he to say binomial nomenclature might not be magic? He closed the book and handed it to Tuuri, who hugged it close as she smiled up at Reynir. Mikkel wondered, just for a moment, about the weight of what he’d just done.

Chapter Text

Michael Madsen couldn’t complain. Certainly not with his sister, Kirsten, striding along before him, and her son, Morten, by his side. And with nine-year-old Mathilde’s little red wagon rattling and bouncing behind Morten.

Michael had good reason to complain. Three days before, he’d been on the ferry from Copenhagen to Rønne, meaning to leave his cat, Magnus, with Kirsten while he travelled for business. But with the ferry halfway to Bornholm, the authorities shut down the ports, the airports, and even the international roads in an effort to stop the spread of the Rash disease. Since he couldn’t get back to Copenhagen, his unreasonable boss fired him over the phone, even though he couldn’t have travelled for business anyway.

The ferry had made it to Rønne, but now he was unemployed, staying with his sister on her farm with her three adult children, a daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter, and probably trapped on Bornholm for weeks or even months. This morning, Kirsten had said to him, “Fish and guests stink after three days. I’ve put up with you bemoaning your fate for three days, but now, you’re either a member of the family, or a stinking guest. Which will it be?”

Michael had opted to be a member of the family. But he hadn’t expected that being a member of the family meant hiking for several hours to Rønne for supplies. “It still wouldn’t take more than a couple of liters to go there and back,” he muttered. “And you’ve got a year’s worth of supplies, anyway.”

Kirsten ignored him. Thirteen years his senior, she could make him feel like a whiny child even now, when he was thirty-five. She’d answered his argument already. She did have emergency supplies, but any extra they could get might make the difference, depending on how long the lockdown lasted. As for driving, there was no telling how expensive fuel would be when the lockdown was lifted. So as long as the weather was nice, it was better to walk than to drive. And then she’d tapped his gut and added that he could use a good walk.

Perhaps others had thought to save gasoline as well, for only a handful of vehicles passed them on the road. After a hike that felt endless, they reached the city of Rønne. It was already different from the city the ferry had docked at. Few people were on the streets, and those that were, wore paper masks and scurried from place to place as if speed could protect them.

Kirsten led the way into a supermarket. The masked crowd within was quiet and orderly, shuffling past shelves already almost empty. Kirsten and Michael separated to gather what they could. Kirsten had assigned Michael to buying as much salt as the store allowed (four boxes), aluminum foil, and what cleaning supplies he could find. As he knelt to seize the last bottle of bleach, a woman’s small hand — sturdy, with nails neatly trimmed but not polished — picked it up. He raised his gaze to her face and blinked in surprise.

“Signe?” He’d met her on the ferry, where she worked. They hadn’t hit it off initially, as she’d mocked his efforts to get back to Copenhagen, but they’d bonded for the last hour of the voyage as they worried over what would happen to them during the lockdown.

“Michael! I thought you were going to stay on a farm somewhere.”

“Yes, my sister’s.” He stood and looked around. “I don’t see her, but that man out front guarding the wagon, the one with the scraggly beard, is my nephew, her son. Kirsten and I are shopping.”

“I can see that.”

“So, did you find somewhere to stay?”

“We — all the ferry crew — are sleeping in the terminal. They’re not paying us, but at least they’re providing sandwiches. The chairs are disgusting, though. Hence the bleach.”

They walked together to a long line before the harried clerk. “We’re not accepting credit cards,” the clerk said. “Cash only.” A murmur ran through the crowd, and several people backed out, heads down and avoiding others’ eyes.

Signe sighed and held the bleach bottle out to Michael. “Guess it’s yours, then, if you have the cash.”

He dropped it in his shopping basket with muttered thanks, knowing Kirsten would be pleased he’d gotten it. Signe gave him a professional smile and slipped through the crowd and out. As the line moved, Michael shuffled forward until he reached the clerk, pulled out his wallet, and paid for his prizes.

By the time Michael made it outside, Kirsten had already joined Morten at the wagon. She’d scored some canned foods, rye bread, and cooking oil. Michael added the salt and other supplies, then looked around. Though Signe stood half a block down the street, her back to them, he recognized her long, wavy blonde hair.

“I need to take care of something,” Michael told the other two, snatching up the bleach as Morten set off, towing the wagon behind him. Before Kirsten could argue, he ran down the street to Signe and held out the bleach. “Here, you need this more than us.”

“That’s — thank you so much. I don’t know how —”

“I’ve got to go. They’re already leaving.”

“Hey, I’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to do. May I walk with you for a while? I’d like to see something besides that awful terminal.”

Michael shrugged, and they quick-walked after Kirsten and Morten.

“What kind of livestock does your sister have?” Signe wasn’t even breathing hard, Michael noticed.

“Some cattle. A small flock of sheep. Chickens.”

“Hmm. I know how to milk cows. I can card wool, too, and spin it into thread.”

“You’re kidding,” Kirsten said as they caught up. “How do you know how to do that?”

“Have you ever visited a living history park? No? Well, I used to work at one.”

“I’ll bet you got fired,” Michael said under his breath.

Sigrun grinned at him. “I learned all kinds of medieval skills.” She gestured at the salt in the wagon. “I guess you plan on using that for preserving food. It won’t last very long if the lockdown goes on and on. But I know how to get salt from brine. I can churn butter, too, if you have a churn.”

“We don’t have a churn,” Kirsten said. “But I’ll bet a carpenter could make one.” She looked over at Michael.

“I’m not — it’s just a hobby — I haven’t done any in a while —”

Kirsten laughed and Michael’s face heated.

“Hey, are you planning to bring her along?” Morten asked. “You’re already worried about food with Uncle Michael camping out with us and —”

“Uncle Michael is family. He’ll help with the farm.”

Michael winced. What did he know about farming?

“And this woman —”

“Signe Sørensen.”

“Signe has skills we can use. And if it comes down to starving, Morten, one mouth more or less isn’t going to make any difference.”

They walked in silence for several minutes before Signe edged a little closer to Michael. “So what do you do besides carpentry?”

“I’m an accountant. I’m about the most useless person you could have on a farm.”

“Are you kidding? That’s excellent! You’re just the sort of person a farm needs to keep track of all the seeds, the plantings, the animals, the — well, everything.”

“You’re assuming this lockdown is going to go on for a long time. Into Spring and beyond.”

Signe sobered. “Yes, I am. Aren’t you? There’s something about this disease, something much worse than Covid ever was. I think we’re going to be on our own for a very long time.”

Michael didn’t answer, thinking about that Stine woman’s warnings they’d heard on the ferry, about the way the nations of the world seemed to be panicking …

In that moment, walking with Signe in the sunlight, he felt paradoxically invigorated. They might be trapped on Bornholm for a long time. They might all starve. But he would contribute something of worth to his family. And maybe to Signe, too.

Chapter Text

“Mathilde’s birthday is Wednesday,” Michael said. “She’ll be ten.”

Signe looked up from the diagram she was sketching. “Are you going to have a party for her?”

“Mette said she’d bake a cake.”

“I thought we were out of flour.”

“We are. I mean, for practical purposes, but I set aside enough flour for this cake.” Michael shrugged. As the family bookkeeper, he kept track of supplies. It wouldn’t be hard for him to hide a few cups of flour for the child, but Signe wondered what else he might have hidden. “And Kirstin will give her some of Marcus’s old clothes,” he went on. “Hem them up and add a belt, and they’ll be okay.”

“And your present?”

“I can carve some toys … well, not toys precisely, but little keepsakes.”

Signe added a line to the diagram. “I don’t have anything to give her.”

“Oh, she won’t expect —” Michael’s face reddened as he looked down at the wood he was whittling.

“No, I suppose she won’t.” Signe returned to her sketching, but his answer still rankled. Mathilde wouldn’t expect anything from her because she wasn’t family. And yet, over the past four months, she’d done her best to fit in. She’d worked as hard as anyone, taught anyone who’d listen the skills she’d learned as part of living history, even designed a Franklin stove to warm the main room as they suffered through the coldest winter in Kirstin’s memory.

But she still wasn’t family.

Signe decided this time — this time — she was going to prove she was part of the family. She had four days to find a suitable present for little Mathilde, and she was going to do it.

The trouble was, she’d arrived at the farm with nothing but the clothes she stood up in. She hadn’t brought extra clothes or toiletries for a job that was nothing but smiling prettily while cleaning up messes as the ferry went to Bornholm and back. Mette had had to give her pajamas and a change of clothes when she arrived.

And now … if Michael built the spinning wheel as planned, if they successfully sheared the sheep, an activity which no one had experience with, then she could make thread. But that wouldn’t be for another month, so she couldn’t give Mathilde a skein to knit with.

Signe stared at the diagram. Did the treadle really attach that way? “I’m going blind looking at this. I’m going for a little walk.”

At Michael’s grunted acknowledgment, she went outside, grabbing her coat on the way out. The wind in the farmyard was still brisk, though it was April. Tiny green shoots poked through compost in the vegetable garden, and chickens scratched and clucked in their fenced yard. A cow lowed far off in the field. All was well, but all belonged to the Madsens already. Nothing here was Signe’s.

She peered up at the trees. Are there birds’ nests? Maybe a crow’s nest with something shiny? But even Signe, with all her natural optimism, couldn’t convince herself to climb up and check all the birds’ nests on the off-chance there might be something valuable.

Signe walked on, reached the fence that marked the edge of the property, and looked out at the Andersen farm. The Andersens had not returned from their visit to Copenhagen on the occasion of the birth of their daughter's first child.

The Madsens and Signe had intruded into their house when the power went out for good. Kirstin had pointed out that the Andersens had given her their key to watch over their house, and they would hardly appreciate her leaving all the perishables in the house to rot until they came back. That was when everyone still hoped they would come back. Most of the food had gone into a days-long feast along with the Madsens’ perishables, and Signe had shown how to preserve the rest.

Before the power went out, the Madsens had been online, and everyone had checked the news when they had the time in between getting the house ready for a long lockdown. The news had been bad to begin with, and got worse quickly. Only a tiny fraction of the population was immune to the disease, and those who got it, died. Or worse. Though the authorities tried to depict the situation as under control, more and more videos came out of monsters roaming the streets. And of people turning into monsters that roamed the streets.

Signe no longer believed the Andersens would return. Copenhagen had become a deathtrap, and even if they’d somehow survived as human beings, there were no ships to carry them to Bornholm.

Kirstin had left the door unlocked. Signe took off her shoes in the doorway, reluctant, even now, to track dirt into the Andersens’ immaculate home. There was a cold spot on the ball of her foot as she walked through the house: a hole in her sock that she would darn as soon as she had some thread. Maybe the Andersens had some thread. She looked for that as well as a gift for Mathilde.

The Andersens had turned a spare bedroom into a nursery for the grandchild so dearly desired. Signe passed that room with a shudder. The baby rattles and hanging mobiles were no gifts for a ten-year-old and only reminded her of the grandparents’ terrible fate. And, in turn, of her own parents’ fate. She hadn’t gotten along with them, hadn’t even spoken to them for years … but still. Maybe her father, at least, had survived. Last time she’d heard from him, he’d been in South America.

Signe had seen nothing for Mathilde and was about to turn back when she noticed the ceiling hatch that hid a pull-down stair into the attic. With a shrug, she pulled the dangling string, unfolded the stair, and climbed up.

Dust drifted in the dim light from a small, grimy window, and cobwebs hung from the rafters. No spiders were visible, and she hoped they had all hidden away from the cold. The attic lacked a proper floor, having only boards laid across the joists, not even nailed down. A few cardboard boxes on these boards caught Signe’s attention; one proved to contain men’s clothing.

She held up a jacket, wrinkling her nose at the mothball smell. Clothes for a big man. Mathilde would drown in them. Michael, though … he was better off than Signe was, since he’d left a few clothes at his sister’s house on his last trip. Still, he could use these clothes.

She shook the creases out of the jacket and draped it over her shoulder to take back with her. A quick check of the other boxes revealed bedclothes and Christmas ornaments. Signe studied the ornaments. Would any of these do as a birthday present? Not really. She closed the lid and gave the attic one last look around. There was a crutch lying on a board. That might be useful someday, but for now she turned away.

Or … she turned back. That shape wasn’t quite right for a crutch. Signe made her careful way along the boards to examine the object.

A pole with handles and … footrests? She picked it up, turned it, and recognized it.

“A pogo stick! Perfect!” Her voice echoed in the silent attic, and she shivered. With the jacket over her shoulder and the pogo stick under her arm, Signe picked her way back to the hatch. As soon as she left the house, she hopped onto the pogo stick and bounced down the driveway. If only there were a second stick … but surely Mathilde will share. She’s a good kid.

Soon, she was on her way back to the Madsen farm. She stopped by the chicken coop to hide the pogo stick. Since caring for the chickens was her chore, Mathilde wouldn’t know about it before time.

Michael accepted his new jacket with true gratitude. Signe thought for a moment that he would kiss her, and wondered why she felt so disappointed when he only thanked her repeatedly.

On Wednesday, Mette baked a cake, and Kirstin presented Mathilde with a stack of hand-me-down clothes. Michael gave her a carved wooden cat, and her parents gave her several candy bars they’d stashed away. Marcus gave her his old schoolbooks, and Signe, last of all, gave her the pogo stick.

Mathilde had never seen a pogo stick, and so the party devolved into the adults showing its use. Michael passed, admitting that he was too heavy for the stick, but everyone else took a turn before Mathilde demanded the return of her present.

As the family cheered her on, the birthday girl bounced around the farmyard.

Boing! Boing! Boing!

Chapter Text

Ingrid Andersen didn't recognize him at first.

A lone man walking down the ruined road? Impossible. No one went outside the walls alone. The young people — troll-hunters, they liked to call themselves — went outside, but only in groups, and they never went far from the walled village.

So this must be a monster.

She lifted her rifle, but hesitated before shooting. He wore proper clothing, not the tatters that some monsters wore, monsters that had once been human. Ingrid lowered the rifle, watching from her vantage point on the walkway behind the wall as the man approached. As she lifted the hammer that lay beside the alarm bell, the man stopped outside the gate, looked up at her, and smiled.

“Ingrid,” he said, and twenty years fell away. She was Ingrid Peterson, and the world was coming apart around her.

“Don,” she said, and tapped the alarm bell once, a call for attention, not an alarm.

The nearest guard ran to her along the walkway. “What is this? A man?”

“This is Don Wodansson. He's immune. You were just a little boy when he was here before. You wouldn't remember him, but I do.”

She took the ladder down a little more clumsily than she had a few months ago. As she reached the ground, Gøran ran up. His trim beard had gone gray over the years, and he was now head of the village guards. “What is it?”

“It’s Don. He's come back.”

Gøran stopped for a moment in surprise, then waved back the small crowd that was gathering. “Open the gate,” he said. Several boys rushed to do his bidding, and as the gate swung open, Don strolled in and looked around.

“We need to put him in quarantine,” someone from the crowd said.

“No,” Gøran said. “I know this man. I saw him bitten. He's immune. Welcome, Don.”

There was a hint of triumph in Gøran’s voice, for Ingrid had had a crush on Don in those long-ago days. But then Don had gone away, and Ingrid had married Gøran. Now, after three children and a fourth on the way, what affection she'd had for Don might have burned out. Might have.

Young people crowded forward to ask Don where he'd been and what he'd done. Don smiled, describing other villages and the long roads in between and the monsters that lay in wait. At last, as the head of the guards, Gøran invited Don to join them for the noon meal.

As the three of them walked through the village with timid children peering at them from behind fences, Ingrid said, “You see how well we've done, how Thor has blessed us.”

“He has,” Don said. “You were the first to return to the old ways, and Thor has not forgotten you.”

Without even seeing her husband, Ingrid knew he had rolled his eyes. He had never believed, but surely Thor had blessed them. Their crops grew. Their children were healthy. And even the monsters seemed less aggressive around their village than around those they'd heard of.

Still, she had sometimes doubted Thor’s favor. Maybe they were just lucky. Now, after so many years, she was grateful to hear Don reaffirm Thor’s favor.

After the meal, Ingrid and Gøran took Don around to see the village and all that they'd done. The fences that had been moved twice since he'd been there, the young people, the sprawling gardens. Gøran told him about the training they'd instituted, planning to clear the area of monsters. “And perhaps one day, we’ll clear the world.”

Don nodded, not smiling, not mocking Gøran’s idea, unlike some people in the village itself. Ingrid gave her small, private smile. Humans wouldn’t clear the world in her lifetime, or even in her children’s. But one day, someone would, and like Gøran, she hoped their people would be part of that effort.

“I must go,” Don said after several hours. “There are many other villages for me to visit.”

“Oh, of course, and I have duties as well,” Gøran said. “Ingrid, will you escort our guest?”

Don and Ingrid walked together down the main street, the only real street in the village, to the gate. As several young people ran to open the gate, Don held out a hand. “May I?”

At her shy nod, he laid the hand on her abdomen. “An echo of thunder,” he said softly. “He will do well.”

The gate was open and, with a final smile, Don trotted out and was gone.

Chapter Text

“Making butter is so simple a child can do it,” Signe said.

Nine-year-old Mathilde sat up straight. As the only child on the farm, surely she would make the butter, then.

Life on the farm was more boring than she’d expected on that morning five days ago, when Mom told her she wasn’t going to school. Mom and Dad hadn’t gone to work, either. They’d packed two suitcases for each of them and one for her, and hustled her into a cab for the ferry. She’d been thrilled at the thought of a visit to Grandma’s farm instead of boring school.

Signe spooned fresh cream from Grandma’s own cow into a pickle jar. “You only fill it half full and screw the lid on tight.” Mathilde watched intently, wondering how a pickle jar made butter, and what she had to do with it.

There was only one computer at the farm, and the grown-ups were always on it. No one would let her look at what was going on. Even Uncle Marcus, who was only eighteen and not a real grown-up, said it was something a little girl shouldn’t have to see. And then when Uncle Michael showed up with his cat, Magnus, he complained non-stop for three days. (Uncle Michael, not Magnus. Magnus stopped complaining as soon as he got out of the carrier.) Finally, Grandma and Dad took him and Mathilde’s own little red wagon to hike to Rønne for supplies. Somehow supplies included this woman, Signe.

“And now,” Signe said, “you shake it.” She handed the jar to Mathilde. “Shake it as hard as you can.”

Mathilde looked at the jar. Nothing in it but cream. Still, Signe was a grown-up, and grown-ups knew how things worked.

“How long does she do that?” Mom asked.

“You keep it up until there’s a lump of butter in there. Then we pour off the buttermilk for other recipes and wash the butter three times in cold water, and there you are.”

Mathilde shook the jar with all her strength, bouncing on her toes with the effort.

The world might be strange, the farm might be boring, but Mathilde was going to make butter.

Chapter Text

As Mikkel returned with a load of firewood, he noticed dark, wiry stalks poking up through the ankle-deep snow. He stopped, frowning. Are those what they look like?

Upon closer examination, he concluded that they were, in fact, nettle stalks dried out for the winter. It’s been months since I had nettle tea, and I find I’m getting tired of acorn coffee. Just looking at them, I crave nettle tea.

Piling his firewood out of the way, he knelt and chopped several stalks, stuffing them in his pocket before retrieving the firewood and going on. At the tank, he laid the stalks on the cutting board and attacked them with his chef’s knife. After chopping them into small pieces and crushing the pieces, he swept the green-gray crumbs into a bowl and covered them with water to soak while he set the kettle to boiling.

Tuuri and Reynir drifted close to watch. Without even being asked, Reynir pulled out mugs for the three of them.

“Honey, too, please,” Mikkel said. “And those mint leaves we picked up last week.”

Reynir nodded, rummaged, and came up with the honey and a handful of dried mint leaves.

After twenty minutes, the nettle had steeped into a deep, grassy scent. Mikkel poured it through his metal strainer, filling each mug. Reynir stirred in honey and dropped a mint leaf in each mug.

Mikkel raised his mug in a small salute, and Tuuri and Reynir did the same. The nettle tea was hot, earthy, sweet, and just a little bitter. They drank it in silence, letting the warmth seep into their bones.

Chapter Text

The broth was too salty again.

Ingrid Andersen sipped it without complaint. Grethe, her ten-year-old great-granddaughter, did her best, and salt was one thing they had in abundance. No need to scold her for wasting it.

As Ingrid shifted on the hard, lumpy mattress, getting the weight off her bad hip, a scraping caught her attention. She turned her good ear to the sound of someone opening the door, of footsteps. A figure loomed in the haze that covered her vision: a big man. For a moment, fear swept through her. But, of course, Grethe would not allow a strange man to enter her bedroom.

The haze cleared for the first time in years.

“Don.” Six decades were gone like a dream, and she was Ingrid Peterson again. “You haven’t changed.”

“I don’t age when I have a worshipper.”

She blinked away the tears that came to her eyes. “I think I always knew. But I’m afraid you’re about to lose your worshipper.”

“There are others now. But you were the first.”

Ingrid lowered her gaze to her thin, age-spotted hands, remembering rain.

“We do age if we don’t have worshippers. Sif was forgotten sooner.”

“Sif?”

“My wife. She grew old and died while I was still worshipped.”

“I’m sorry. That’s —”

“I wasn’t a good husband. After decades as a man, I’ve learned better.” He hesitated, almost as if a god could be uncertain. “There are those who remember her now. They worship her. But her throne is empty and there is none to receive their praise.”

He held out his hand. “Ingrid, will you be my wife?”

After a last, long look at the small bedroom she’d shared with Gøran, the bedroom where her children had been born, Ingrid placed the mug of salty broth on the bedside table and set her hand in his.

Thor and Ingrid walked out of the world together.

Chapter Text

The electric light died as the world died.

Until the radio stations faded and the static overwhelmed them, the wind-up radio told of disease, death, and monsters. But there were still ships on the sea, seeking their way home.

There was a light before there was electricity. The keeper tore out the new light, gathered firewood from the woods of the island, and built a fire before the great reflector.

Until the world ended, the lighthouse would call the sailors home.

Chapter Text

“Now, you dip the wand in the bowl —” Grandma began.

“This is a waste of resources.” Dad interrupted.

Mathilde glared at him. He always lectured her about interrupting, and now he was interrupting Grandma!

Grandma didn’t look at him. “We can spare three drops of detergent for the child. Now then, you have to work fast, because the water will freeze.”

Mathilde shivered. This was already the coldest winter Grandma could remember, and it was only December. Though everyone hoped it would warm up soon, Uncle Marcus said the winter would only get harder, because the cattle had grown thick coats, and the birds had flown south early.

“So, as I said before I was so rudely interrupted, you dip the wand in the bowl and hold it up before your mouth and blow gently. Everyone be very quiet now.” As Grandma blew through the loop at the top of the wand, a bubble formed and broke away.

Even as a second bubble formed, the first drifted away and, with the faintest creak, turned white. Mathilde covered her mouth so as not to breathe on the frozen bubble as it floated past her, gradually falling until it touched the snow … and shattered.

Mathilde felt like sobbing. Somehow they couldn’t go home, Dad worried all the time about “resources”, and Mom hadn’t come out of her room since the internet broke. Even before that, she’d cried so much that Mathilde felt like screaming for sheer helplessness.

But the bubble had been a kind of magic, and for a moment all the terrible things seemed to go away. And it had shattered.

“That’s all right,” Grandma said. “Most bubbles will break; that’s the way of bubbles. But if you do it just right, one will land softly enough, and you can watch until it melts. Now, you take these, and you try it.”

With wand and bowl in hand, Mathilde blew a stream of bubbles that froze and popped as fast as they froze. Grandma coached her, and at last, a single large bubble formed, floated, froze, fell … and stayed. Mathilde knelt to watch it until, without warning, it crumbled and was gone.

Mathilde stood and dipped the wand in the bowl, where a thin film of ice had already begun to form. While the grown-ups went inside to warm up, she blew bubble after bubble, watching them freeze and fall.

There was plenty more detergent, and she would blow bubbles all through that long, hard winter.

Chapter Text

“Wait! We have to find Tria!”

“Tria?” Rob pulled out the handwritten records of quarantined persons. Though he had looked them over several times over the past day, he didn’t recall a ‘Tria’. “What’s the last name?”

“Last name? I guess, um, ‘Doggy’? Daddy said we had to leave him, but we can go get him now that we’re getting out.”

Rob winced. Julie’s Daddy — and her Mommy, too — had been in the north wing. No one would ever know if they’d been immune to the new disease, as that wing of the hospital had burned to the ground in the battle against invading monsters. But it wasn’t Rob’s job to break the news to an eight-year-old that she was an orphan.

“We can’t take the time to look for, uh, Tria right now. We have to leave the hospital and go somewhere safer. Get your things now.” Julie didn’t have many things, just what her parents had brought with her to the quarantine, but gathering them would distract her from asking about her parents. And the dog.

As the convoy left the ruins of the hospital an hour later, Rob thought he heard a dog barking over the sound of motors and gunfire. He hoped little Julie hadn’t heard. Her dog was surely dead.

According to the intake notes, something — it might have been originally a rat or a small dog — had torn through the front door and attacked the family. By the time Julie’s father beat it to death with a broom, it had bitten or scratched every member of the family, including the dog. Julie herself had lost a chunk of her calf, though it should heal. At least the injury confirmed her to be immune to the new disease.

By evening, they reached the redoubt. It was an abandoned penitentiary with its solid construction, high walls, and watchtowers. As an intern, Rob was assigned to internal duties: cleaning, caring for the many injured, and distributing food. Of the two hundred survivors, only a couple of dozen were children, over half of whom were orphans, none of whom was younger than six. Just four children had arrived with both parents.

Dogs and cats seemed more likely to be immune to the new disease than humans. Rob hadn’t heard of any infected cats; they came out of the veterinary quarantine just fine. Dogs were more likely to be infected, but many still recovered from bites without developing the disease.

On the theory that children and pets could help each other, the chief surgeon, who was an air force veteran and had assumed command of the redoubt, ordered the children to be put in charge of the animals. Rob watched over both children and pets, in addition to his other duties.

“She’s a nice doggie, isn’t she?” Rob asked.

Julie brushed the dog’s long fur. The animal was a mutt with a long body, markings resembling a collie, and short legs like a terrier. “She’s a good doggie. Tria will like her.”

“I, uh, I don’t think we can find Tria.” Over the past month, Julie, like most of the other children, had accepted that their parents had “gone to Heaven”. Some of the older children had seen their parents die or, worse yet, transform; they had no doubt of what had happened. But Tria had been left behind, his fate unknown. Dr. Adams, the anesthesiologist and the closest thing they had to a psychologist, had told Rob not to argue about it. There were far too many traumatized people, children and adults, for him to deal with, and he didn’t need Rob upsetting any of them.

The winter was long and hard, and the spring came late. When the weather finally warmed up enough, everyone who wasn’t on guard worked to pull up paving and to plant packets of seeds in the resulting open ground. After his stint planting, Rob climbed a watchtower to look out at the deadly outside world.

“Look, something moved!”

“Yeah.” Martin, the man on watch, didn’t raise his rifle. “It’s a dog. We’ve seen it wandering around for the last couple of days.”

“It’s out in daylight, so it’s not infected. We could —”

“Probably not infected. Nobody really wants to go out there and bring it in, though. We don’t know what else is out there.”

Rob watched the treeline. Now that he knew there was a dog lurking there, he could trace it as it popped out, sniffed the air, retreated into the trees.

“We could use another immune dog. So many are fixed, we’re going to have an inbreeding problem. If that one isn’t …”

Martin shrugged. “It’s not my call if you can go get it.”

Rob watched the dog, glanced at the sun, already low in the sky. “Right. I’ll get a leash and go out there.”

It wasn’t as simple as grabbing a leash and asking the guards to open the gate. Rob had first to ask the chief surgeon for permission, arrange for the veterinary quarantine to receive a new dog, make sure there was still dog food available, strap on a pistol, and grab a collar and leash. Evening shadows had grown long by the time all was ready, and he stepped through the gate for the first time in months.

“Here, boy! Here, girl!” Rob whistled, watching the treeline. Just as he turned away, motion caught his eye, and he turned back. “There you are! Come, come, you want to come home with me, don’t you?”

The dog — a half-starved young Doberman with white markings on head and chest — skulked towards him, stopping to sniff several times. As it drew closer, its tail wagged, though tentatively at first. By the time the dog reached him, its back half whipped back and forth with the vigor of its wagging.

“Good doggy. Good doggy.” The dog was well trained, pressing its body against him so it almost knocked him down, but not jumping on him. It wore no collar, but didn’t object when he buckled on the new collar and get the leash a tug. “Here we go now. There’s dog food for you, and a nice cage where you can stay for a couple of weeks.”

To his surprise, the dog pulled him towards the gate as if it knew what he’d said.

“He’s a good dog, really,” the veterinarian, Sarah, said two weeks later. She’d been a veterinary student when the great pandemic struck, and had ended up in quarantine after a bite, just like Rob. She’d lost two fingers off her left hand, but she’d survived and was the best they had to care for animals. “Not neutered, either, so that’s good. He keeps trying to dig out, but he doesn’t bite or jump on people. If you want to take him to meet the children, he should be safe enough if you’re careful.”

Sarah leashed the dog and passed the leash to Rob. The dog seemed again to know where to go, tugging gently at the leash as they made their way through the echoing corridors of the old penitentiary. The dog’s uncropped ears twitched at the sound of children’s voices from the old day-room that served as the schoolroom.

The dog jerked and twisted his head, slipping the leash. Before Rob could react, the animal charged down the corridor, claws scrabbling as he made the turn into the schoolroom. Cursing at the sound of children’s cries, Rob sprinted after him.

Though he’d feared to see the dog rampaging through the helpless children as he raced through the doorway, instead Rob found that most of the children had retreated to the back of the room, but one little girl had flung her arms around the dog’s neck. The dog’s tail flailed wildly as he licked her cheeks.

“Tria! Oh, Tria! They found you at last. I’ve missed you so much.”

Rob circled to the other children and the teacher, Miz Hannah. “I think this dog is safe. He didn’t cause any problems in quarantine, and, well, you can see she knows him.”

The children dared to approach and pet Tria, who distributed licks to them at random but never left Julie’s side. When the excitement died down a bit, Rob gave the collar and leash to her. “You have to keep him leashed, though I don’t think it’ll be a problem to keep him with you.”

Julie stood, buckled on the collar, and said, “Sit, Tria. Tria, this is Rob, who took care of me in the hospital. Rob, this is Tria Corda Doggy, my very own doggy.”

Tria offered his paw, and Rob knelt to shake it. “His name is Tria Corda?”

“Mommy said it means, ‘Three Hearts’. See?” She pointed to the heart-shaped white marks on his head and chest. “One heart inside and two hearts outside.” She hugged the dog again. “Daddy said he would always take care of me out of the goodness of his hearts.”

Chapter Text

“I’m setting up a bistro.”

“That’s a … store? Why all these chairs?”

“You’re thinking of a bodega. A bistro is a small restaurant. So I have these chairs, I’ve found a couple of tables, and I’ll put together some more from scrap. I’ve set up the kitchen over in there …”

“But why, when everyone eats at the mess hall? Where will you even get food?”

“I’ve talked to Jay. If you tell him a couple of hours in advance, he’ll send your rations to me. As to why, well, I’m a better cook, and I’ll cook it the way you want it. Want the meat rare? I’ll do it. Even (shudder) well-done. I’ll bake potatoes, roast them, even fry them, instead of mashed potatoes every day. I’ve got a window box with basil, parsley, thyme, and even rosemary. Not enough for everyone, but enough for a few meals a day.”

“What do you get out of this, then?”

“I still have to do my twelve hours. But I’ll trade: I cook your supper, and you do one hour in the field for me.”

“Couldn’t anyone ask for their rations and cook them themselves in less than an hour? That trade doesn’t make sense.”

“Doesn’t it? If you have the pots and pans and the skills and the herbs, then yes, you could do it yourself. I’m betting most people don’t have all that, and some of them would be glad to do an hour of fieldwork for me to cook a nice, special meal for them.”

“I guess so. But what about the dentist, medics, vet … What are you grinning about?”

“The chief thinks we can run this place like a military base, and I’ll concede we probably needed to this past winter. But even the military gets paid. Got paid, I mean. I’ve been arguing that we need a currency economy, and this is my chance to prove it. I won’t trade for anything but an hour in the fields. So the specialists don’t get my special meals, do they? Not until we have a currency where they can pay me something and I can pay it over to someone else to do an hour instead of me.”

“That’s … that’s really devious.”

“It’ll work, too.”

“Once we have a currency, we can have a bodega, too, can’t we? And more restaurants, and …”

“All those things. Now come with me. We need to get those tables.”

Chapter Text

“Nice shot,” Aksel Eide said. “Good job.”

Sigrun smiled without taking her attention away from her assigned area. Aksel had shot the monster, a single shot to take it down without wasting ammunition, but he wasn’t talking to himself. He was talking to his rifle.

Silly though it seemed to praise his rifle, his aim had gotten better since he started doing it. Given their limited resources, anything that saved ammunition had to be a good idea. Something moved in the faint moonlight, and Sigrun raised her own rifle.

A little closer … a little closer … now!

One shot, and the thing dropped. She thought it might once have been a fox, since it had patches of red fur on its long snaky body.

“Good job,” Sigrun muttered, not wanting to be caught talking to her rifle. But the sound of another shot off to her left covered her voice. And then another.

“Well done,” Berit Eide, Aksel’s grandmother, said from Sigrun’s right.

Sigrun jumped; she’d been so intent on the outside world that she hadn’t noticed Berit approaching. She stepped aside, letting the elderly woman take her place. “Thanks, but I think every gunshot just attracts another one.”

Even in the dim light, Sigrun saw Berit’s frown and wrinkled forehead. “Maybe. But there can’t be that many monsters within earshot. Eventually, we’ll run out of monsters.” Her voice was less certain than her words. “I’ve been keeping records these past two months. With all the ammo we’ve got and the rate we’re using it, we should have six more months’ worth. And Gunnar will have his reloading working well before that.”

Sigrun’s face heated as she knelt and felt around for her spent cases. Captain Gunnar’s boat was out of fuel, anchored in the harbor, and he’d moved in with his niece, Toril, a university student studying chemistry. The two of them were working to make gunpowder and primers from an eclectic group of items: old mercury thermometers, seagull droppings, fertilizer, matches, charcoal briquettes, and vodka.

There’d been some grumblings about Gunnar seizing all the vodka in the village, but he and Toril insisted they weren’t drinking it, and Berit had shut down the complaints in her usual imperious way. The villagers deferred to her as the oldest person in the village and the one with the most military experience, as she’d been one of the first female officers in the Home Guard.

Sigrun made her careful way along the catwalk on the back of the wall to the ladder and trotted off to deliver her brass to Gunnar. The local shooting range had provided an abundance of ammunition and spent cases and shells, and a home workshop had provided reloaders for both shotgun shells and rifle ammo. Still, it could be months or even years before they got more supplies, so every case was precious.

“Eh, toss it in the bucket over there,” Gunnar said, jerking his head at the bucket without looking up from his work grinding charcoal briquettes. He and Toril wore paper masks to keep out the worst of the dust.

Sigrun watched for several seconds before she spoke. “I’ve been thinking —”

“Bad idea.” Toril’s grin lit up her face even behind the mask.

Sigrun thumbed her nose at the younger woman. “The rifles and shotguns are great and all, but they’re noisy.”

“You can’t have a silencer,” Gunnar said. “They don’t really silence the noise, and we can’t make them anyway. It’d be a waste of effort.”

“That’s not what I was asking. People used to use bows in the old days. We don’t have time to practice and get strong enough to use real bows, but what about crossbows? Can you make a crossbow?”

Gunnar straightened and massaged the small of his back. Somehow he’d smudged black dust on his mask, his forehead, and his shirt. “A crossbow.” He looked off to his right, to the former garage, now full of spare parts and raw materials that he and his first mate, Helmer, had collected from houses whose owners, it seemed likely, would never return. “Can I make a crossbow?”

He rubbed his chin, adding more smudges. “I’ve got the remains of that rifle, plenty of good fishing line … some good steel … Yes, I can make one. Several, actually. Good idea.” He nodded at Sigrun. “Crossbows are quiet; we can reuse the bolts … You’re a wise woman, Sigrun. If this problem goes on for years, we’ll need to spare the firearms. Helmer will like this idea. He likes making things better than messing around with chemicals. Yes. He’s fishing now, doesn’t want to grind this stuff. I’ll go get him.”

When Gunnar pulled off his mask and strode out the door, Toril gave Sigrun a mock-glare. “Uncle Gunnar likes making things better than messing around with chemicals, too. So now he’s going to go do that instead of helping with the gunpowder.”

Sigrun grinned at her, but as Toril turned back to grinding charcoal, the grin faded. As Sigrun walked away, the thought came to her that this problem — this crisis — might well go on for years. Or decades. And they might all be grateful to have crossbows when the ammo for the firearms ran out.

Chapter Text

Gunnar thought of his sister, Trine, many times as the years and decades passed after the end of the world.

He had meant to go back to see Trine at Christmas. The last thing he said to her was a joke from the old “Apollo 13” movie. He’d asked, “Are the flowers blooming in Oslo?” And she’d laughed and said, “Yes, I suppose I’ve got the rash crud. But I’ll get over it.”

That was when they still thought you could get over the new Rash disease. By the time the terrible truth fell upon the world, it was already too late for Gunnar to make the journey.

Many times over the years, Gunnar stood on the deck of his boat, anchored now with no fuel, and looked south to Oslo. He hoped his sister was dead.

Chapter Text

“I don’t like this,” Katla said as she peered out the second-story window of the library. “They’re getting louder.”

“I locked the doors,” said Gabríel, her fiancé and coworker. “They won’t come in —”

“Won’t they?” She shook her head. “Remember that little bookstore near my place? Somebody burned it down night before last.”

“Could be coincidence. There can’t be that many people who think this pandemic is man-made. And even if they do, not so many will want to destroy modern knowledge.”

“No? Listen to those guys out there.” She stepped back from the window, not wanting to be seen. “I don’t know — You know, when I was a kid, I used to hang out at the library and read all the science fiction I could get my hands on. I wasn’t particular; I read anything, from any decade. So, I read a lot of stuff from the forties and fifties.”

Gabríel tilted his head and smiled. “Must have been fun.”

“Reading Cold War science fiction? Not really. There was a lot of nuclear war stuff. But I keep thinking of this one book. It was about a viral apocalypse —”

“I can see why.”

“Right. Anyway, there were just a few people left, and the leader — well, he didn’t exactly lead, which was the problem.” She shrugged. “Let me start over. There was this one guy who was a college professor or something, so the other survivors kind of let him make all the decisions. Only he didn’t make decisions; he just sat around. He did order them to leave the library alone, so they did. After a while, the library’s windows broke, and the weather and vermin destroyed all the books.”

Gabríel winced.

“And when he died of old age, his descendants were illiterate hunter-gatherers, and his great-granddaughters died in childbirth because nobody bothered to preserve the knowledge of midwifery. Nobody bothered to preserve any knowledge.”

“Seems kind of foolish.”

Katla put a finger on the window, feeling the glass shudder at the bellowing of the mob. “Maybe it made some point that was relevant right after the world war. I thought it unrealistic that the only survivors were a bunch of incompetent slackers who threw away their futures. But listening to this … I don’t know.”

They stood together, listening. Katla couldn’t understand the speaker over all the shouting, but she’d heard murmurs over the past days as the news from the rest of the world grew more and more dire. With a tiny shrug, she decided to say what she thought, even if Gabríel laughed at her. “We have books on first aid, herbal medicine, midwifery, basic medicine … enough to train a medic or even a doctor.”

“Books on the history of technology, too. Chemistry. Agriculture.”

Katla gave him a relieved smile. “Then let’s get to work.” They ran from the room together as mob continued to roar outside.

When the first window shattered under a hail of rocks, Katla and Gabríel fled out the back door with their two carts almost fully loaded. They sneaked along side streets to Gabríel’s apartment, where they wrapped up the books for protection and easy transportation if it came to that.

As night fell, they stood by the window, listening to sirens and watching the library burn.

Chapter Text

Down, girl!

You’ve got three bear beasts, a giant, and a nutso mage to deal with, and you have no business thinking about how buff your second-in-command is.

But …

But Mikkel is so hot in the buff …

Chapter Text

Freja didn’t believe the falling stars meant anything to her newborn twin sons, but the Icelandic midwife, Kristín Birtudóttir, insisted that for luck, the babes should be shown to the stars the night of their birth. It was easier to consent than to argue, so here Freja was sitting on a fallen tree in the darkness, holding the twins.

Kristín was full of such beliefs about fate. The previous day, she’d gone around closing every door and window in the house, muttering prayers under her breath. Her efforts were meant to prevent the birth, and perhaps they’d succeeded. “At least they weren’t born yesterday. Wednesday’s child is full of woe,” she’d said. “Thursday’s child has far to go. I do wish they could have held off another day, since Friday’s child is loving and giving.”

Freja had shrugged. “They have far to go? Well, don’t we all?” But then Kristín had wanted her to take the babies out, and she hadn’t had the energy to argue further. If Morten had been there — but he’d put off chores for too long waiting for the birth. Once assured she and the children were safe and healthy, he’d rushed off to take care of things and was still working late into the night.

Two stars fell together.

“Look at him,” Kristín said. “He’s looking right up at the stars. A wanderer, that one.”

Though Freja rolled her eyes at the midwife’s words, she looked down at the twins with a smile. They were wrapped up warmly, for even in August, the night air was too chilly for such young babies. The one on the right — that was Michael — was asleep. The other was Mikkel (imaginatively named by Morten; Freja would have called him Henrik after her father), and Mikkel was indeed staring up with wide and wondering eyes.

But she meant for her children to stay in the safety of the farm forever. The world outside was so terrifying. Even Rønne wasn’t safe, for all its walls and guards. Just a few years ago, the Rash had made it through the defenses, and they’d had to burn down half the city to stop it.

Freja hugged the babies to her and watched a star fall.

Chapter Text

Thunder rumbled the day Trond Andersen’s mother died.

He didn’t know she’d died, not at first, as he was on station on the catwalk behind the village wall, watching for monsters creeping up under cover of the storm. Though he hadn’t shot a monster today, several other guards had, and he held his crossbow ready despite the rain.

Thunder cracked overhead, making him jump, before it rolled eastwards up the fjord and into the mountains. Trond shook his head and told himself to pay attention to his assigned area. The rain slowed, the thunder quieted, and when his relief came, there was only a drizzle and the clouds were parting in the west.

Trond knew what had happened as soon as he walked into his home to find Grethe sobbing in the front room. There were so few villagers and so much work that even a ten-year-old like Grethe had to be given serious responsibilities. She had cared for her great-grandmother Ingrid when Trond was busy elsewhere.

Grethe looked up, wiping her reddened eyes. “I gave her broth and then — and then —” She gulped and wiped her eyes again. “I didn’t hear anything. I went in and — Is it my fault?” Her voice broke on the last words.

“No, Grandma was very old, and we knew this was coming. Wipe your eyes. Run find your mama and papa and tell them. They know what to do.” As his great-niece ran away, still sniffling, Trond went in to bid his mother farewell.

Viewed in the wan light from the windows, she seemed to smile, as if she’d welcomed death. Perhaps she had, for cataracts had cast a veil over her vision, while bad knees and hip had made walking a penance, and hands gnarled by arthritis had long since ceased to knit.

Though only forty, Trond already knew death well. He’d lost his brother two years before and his father, Gøran, eight years earlier. And, of course, over the years he’d lost too many comrades in arms to the monsters. But his mother had been his last link to those years before the end of the world. She’d been twenty at the time and had remembered it well.

Trond looked away, remembering his mother when she was only middle-aged and he was a boy. He remembered her tales of travelling the world, not just to Denmark and Sweden, but far south to lands whose names he’d forgotten, and across the seas to fabled America. Most of all, he remembered her pure and trusting belief in Thor.

He sighed. His father hadn’t believed. Though Gøran too had travelled before the world ended, he’d never left afterwards. He’d stayed to guard the village while Trond had led teams up the ruined road into the mountains to seek other survivors. So Gøran hadn’t seen how much worse things were in other villages, how much something had blessed them.

Ingrid believed Thor had blessed them, and why not? The rains came when they needed them. Sometimes when they didn’t need them, as well, but surely Thor couldn’t devote himself to keeping them comfortable.

But then, Ingrid had died in her bed at the age of eighty-three. Just to reach that age was a triumph in this terrible world, but she could never go to Valhalla. Trond hoped to go to Valhalla in the end — not any time soon, if he could help it. But Ingrid had gone to Hel, that cold and misty realm of “common” spirits.

And yet — so many of Ingrid’s friends had already gone there, not to mention Gøran and their older son, Søren. She would not lack for company. If it was cold and misty, well, the village of Dalsnes was cold and misty too. And at least she would have no fear of monsters swarming over the walls.

Trond looked back at his mother. “Farewell. You have gone to a better place.”

He stood and strode out of the room. There was work to do.

Chapter Text

As an only child, Veeti Hollola had always had his own room. In a house. On land.

He did not want to share a room with Mom and Dad, Aunt Kaino, Aunt Aino, and especially Uncle Saku, who claimed to be dying all the time. Veeti didn’t believe Uncle Saku had the new, horrible disease that was all over the world, even though Uncle Saku whined endlessly about it. Still, the endless whining got everyone else upset, even Aunt Aino, who was pregnant and ready to pop at any moment.

So sharing a room with all of them — worse yet, sharing a bed with all of them — was the most annoying thing Veeti had ever suffered. But at least it was warm, and after the boat ran out of fuel, being in bed with everyone else was the only time he was warm.

Veeti pulled the covers up a little, ignoring his father’s snoring and Aunt Aino’s grumbling as she tried to find a comfortable position. He hoped all this would be over soon. He missed his home, his room, his GameBoy. He even missed school!

Chapter Text

“And these are your quarters, Onni,” the director said, opening the steel door cut into the side of a long steel building and ushering them up four steps.

Inside, Tuuri let go Onni’s hand and huddled against his side. He put his arm around her while Lalli edged past him to put the two of them between him and the director. Onni gave the room a quick glance. It was long and narrow, with a bunk welded to one wall, a dozen pegs at head-height along the opposite wall with a shelf below, and a wooden door at the back opening onto a small washroom. Their backpacks and bedrolls were stacked at the foot of the bunk.

“We put all your gear in here. You can sort it out among yourselves. I’ll give you three days to settle in, then you need to come to my office for assignment, and the children will go to school. Do you have any questions?”

They had no questions. He had already shown them the mess hall, the sauna, the school, and the orphanage, with beds assigned to Tuuri and Lalli. Though there was much more to the Keuruu settlement, they needed nothing more at the moment.

As soon as the heavy door closed behind the director, Onni released Tuuri. “Lalli, take two bedrolls. I’ll take the other two. Tuuri, the bunk is yours.”

Tuuri turned up a face still tear-streaked. “We’re sleeping here? But he said we had to stay in the orphanage.”

“I’ll keep us together.” Onni hoped his brave words would come true. “You can stay in the orphanage if you wish.” Tuuri shuddered and hugged him. “But I’ll fight to keep us all together.”

Lalli said nothing, taking two bedrolls and laying one atop the other under the bunk, while Onni and Tuuri hung their clothes on the pegs. With the backpacks stowed on the shelf, Onni piled his two bedrolls at the foot of the bunk.

A bell rang outside, and Onni led the way to the door. Tuuri took his hand, and Lalli clutched the hem of his jacket as they made their way to the mess hall for lunch.

Onni started awake at a knock. He’d worked most of the night guarding the settlement against wandering grosslings, and had only slept a few hours. For a moment, he pulled up his cover and tried to ignore the knocking. But it might be something serious, so he pushed himself to his feet, swiped his disheveled hair into some order, and answered the door.

“Onni Hotakainen?” the woman at the door asked. A badge hung from a string around her neck, showing her to be an official. As Onni squinted at it, she stepped in and closed the door against the frigid outside.

“Are Tuuri and Lalli all right?” Onni asked, suddenly anxious. What if she was from the clinic?

“They’re quite all right, but I have come about them. I’m Helli Jokelainen, superintendent of orphans.”

Onni stepped back, steeling himself. He’d expected this moment for three weeks.

“Your sister and cousin have not stayed in the orphanage. Ever.” She looked past him, her gaze sweeping over the bunk and bedrolls. “We were aware that they were sleeping here, so we have allowed it. However, it is quite irregular.”

“Are orphans required to sleep every night at the orphanage?”

“Well, no. They may sleep over with friends if they wish.”

“Or with family?” Did he catch a hint of a smile as she nodded? “They wish to sleep over with family.” He folded his arms. “They are well fed, well cared for, and attending school. Tuuri is finding friends among the mechanics. So —”

“And Lalli?”

“Lalli will find friends in his own way and in his own time. But if they are ‘quite all right’, as you said yourself, why shouldn’t they stay where they feel safe?”

That hint of a smile had become a true smile. “The orphanage is not a prison. They may sleep here.” She raised a warning finger. “They may, so long as they remain healthy and content, and they attend school. There may be others who question this arrangement, but if you answer them as well and firmly as you’ve answered me, I don’t think there will be any trouble.”

The superintendent opened the door. “You’re a good brother. To both of them.” And she was gone.

Chapter Text

The candle’s flame trembled in slight breezes that echoed the storm raging outside, and its light scarcely illuminated the slashing rain. The earthy odor of rendered sheep fat rose along with a tendril of dark smoke.

A scuffling sound brought Árni Reynisson around to see his young son, Ragnar, in his warm pajamas and sheepskin slippers, peering from the doorway.

“What are you doing, Papa?”

Árni took up the candle in its saucer. “Come, you must go back to bed.”

“But why did you light the candle in the window?”

Árni gave the boy a gentle push towards his bedroom. “The sea is full of drowned souls, and storms stir them up and hurl them around. The candle shows them where the land is.”

Ragnar gave him a look of wide-eyed wonder before hugging him and climbing into bed.

As Árni turned away, his thoughts ran on. I caused so many to drown, and I will always grieve for them. May the gods grant that my candle leads them to their rest.

Chapter Text

What’s that smell?

The moonlit night was alive with hoots of owls and rustling of small creatures in the undergrowth as Lalli inhaled deeply, tilting his head back and flaring his nostrils. Rotting wood, mildew, fungus … the usual smells from a decaying house. And yet …

He’d always had an excellent sense of smell, a necessity for a night scout, but for almost a year, ever since his fourteenth birthday, he’d noticed unfamiliar odors around the people he knew. They had the usual odors, of course: soap, food, that flowery stuff Tuuri put in her hair. But now, Onni carried a scent of oak leaves in the rain, and Tuuri smelled of dusty books and motor oil, even when she’d spent the day grubbing in the garden.

This ruined house smelled of dusty books and motor oil, though any books inside must have long ago rotted away. The smell was impossible.

After a quick scan around with both inner and outer eyes revealed no threats, Lalli picked his way through the wreckage, sniffing for the origin of the smell. It proved to be a mud-encrusted lump the size of two fists together, and it squawked as Lalli picked it up and scraped at the mud.

Dropping the lump, which squawked again as it hit the ground, Lalli jumped back. The thing couldn’t be alive, for his inner eyes had shown him the only living things in the ruin were insects and a few mice. He stared at the lump, waiting for it to move, or squawk, or do anything, but it simply lay in the rubbish until he cautiously picked it up again.

The mud crust had broken in the fall, and he could now see the shape of the thing. There was a large sphere, flattened on the bottom, with a second, smaller sphere on the top. The second sphere sported a broad, flat projection to the front, and the larger sphere had long, rounded blobs symmetrically placed on the sides. The whole was a dingy off-white under a coating of grime.

Lalli squeezed the object, producing another squawk, which he could now hear coming from a hole in the flattened bottom. He turned his prize over several times, studying it. It still smelled of dusty books and motor oil, so he shrugged, dropped it in his pocket, and went on with his patrol. Crossing a stream on his way to the walled settlement of Keuruu, he stopped to wash the thing as best he could.

Tuuri was awake when he knocked at the door of her quarters. Already dressed for work, she let him in with an unenthusiastic nod. She’d been unhappy for days, ever since she was passed over for a job as mechanic on the Pori ferry. Onni hadn’t wanted her to apply, and she’d done it anyway. Lalli hadn’t enjoyed eating with them as they argued about it.

It hadn’t mattered in the end, since the job had gone to another mechanic, an immune man. When she told Onni and Lalli about it, Tuuri had said she would have gotten the job if only she’d been immune. And then she’d run from the mess hall, crying, and Onni had run after her, and Lalli had finished both their meals along with his own.

“Here.” Lalli held out the strange little object to his cousin. “I found this. It’s for you.” The odor flared for a moment and was gone, as if to confirm that the thing was for her.

She held the object before her eyes, twisting it back and forth. “What is it?”

“No idea. I just found it, and it … seems like it’s meant for you. It squawks if you squeeze it.”

Tuuri squeezed it more times than Lalli would have preferred, then held it before her eyes again, squinting. After a moment, she straightened so suddenly that Lalli looked around in alarm. “I know what it is! It’s a rubber ducky!”

Lalli stared at her and then at the … rubber ducky.

“Look, it’s a duck. This is its head, that’s its beak, and these are its wings. See?”

He took it from her and turned it from side to side, frowning. “Ducks don’t look like this.”

“Rubber duckies do, though.” She took it back and looked down at it, smiling for the first time in days.

“But what’s it for?”

“Children played with it in the bath. It’ll float, see, because it’s hollow. Umm … I shouldn’t waste water … Oh! I know! Come with me.”

Confused but willing, Lalli followed his cousin out the door and along the metal tube of cabins to the rain barrel, and held up the lid as she peered inside.

“There’s enough water. Now —” She lowered the rubber ducky into the water, her hands under it in case it sank. After a moment, she stepped back with a wide smile. “Look at that. It still floats after all these years. It’s still — what’s the word? — buoyant.”

Lalli edged away, still holding the lid, as she turned that smile on him. What if she tried to hug him, the way she hugged Onni when he did something for her? She was usually good about not touching him, but …

Tuuri laughed. “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t worry. Hold it for just a little longer, while I —” She retrieved her prize. “Now you can let it down.” She led the way back to her quarters, almost skipping as she told him about rubber duckies and bath toys.

Lalli had no interest in bath toys, but he listened and hugged to himself the knowledge that he’d made his cousin happy.

Chapter Text

Waaah!

Waaah!

Freja sighed at the howls. It was never just one child; when one twin started crying, the other always started as well. As she set down her mending, her mother, Susanne, dropped her knitting and rose from her rocking chair.

“I'll check on them,” Susanne said, and went into the bedroom. Almost immediately, she popped back out. “Freja, Freja, come here, you've got to see this.” Though her voice wasn't frightened or concerned, only excited, Freja hastened to the door.

“Look at this! Your Mikkel’s a little Hercules. He's strangled two vipers in his cradle.”

Freja stared at her mother, then rushed to the cradle to check on her baby. There were indeed two dark snakes about thirty centimeters long lying still in the cradle with Mikkel. After a moment of horror, she picked them up with a gentle grip around the yellow rings just behind their heads.

“They're not vipers. They're just little grass snakes. He's scared the poor things into playing dead.” She held them out to her mother. “Please take them outside while I deal with the babies.”

“It's a better story if he strangled two vipers,” Susanne said as she went out the door with the snakes, her voice just audible over two screaming infants.

Freja shook her head as she leaned over Mikkel’s cradle to check him for bites. Grass snakes are not venomous, but they could bite, and a bite could become infected. Finding no wounds, she lifted him into her arms. At once, his flailing hand caught her left braid and grabbed on. She didn’t try to peel his hand off the braid, as that would only upset him further. He would let go when he fell asleep.

“Slithered right off,” Susanne said, returning and taking up Michael. “There, there. Stop crying, now. What sort of example are you setting for your little brother?”

Freja smiled at the words. Michael was about half an hour older than his twin, and her mother liked to remind the infant of his responsibilities as “the big brother”. As the babies quieted, she told her son, "Mikkel, you’ve got strong hands for such a little 'un, but you're no Hercules."

The baby goggled at her, then gave her a broad, toothless smile and a throaty chuckle. For a moment, she felt as if he'd understood and laughed at her words. But that was silly, of course.