Chapter Eleven
Victoria lit another candle. This time she was wearing her thick leather boots and jeans. She had on one of her long sleeved cotton blouses and her sheepskin vest. Just in case. It seems Hell can be both hot and cold. She pointed at her fresh chalk circle and at the moment her digital clock flashed 12:00 she said, “Jasper!”
He seemed glad to see her. “Victoria.” His little demon eyes glanced at her closet. She had cleverly left the door open and lined up her most outrageous shoes. In front were the red pumps with the faux fur bows and the pink stilettos with the genuine cubic zirconia accents on the heels. Jasper’s eyes glittered.
“I want you to take me back to him.”
“He told me not to. He says you are not ready yet.”
“I insist. Besides, we made a pact.” She showed him her finger. “Did you make a pact with him?”
He looked uncomfortable. “No.”
She walked over to the closet and picked up the pink pumps with the cubic zirconia heels and swung them on one finger. She watched his eyes sway back and forth. She raised an eyebrow. He put his little monkey lips together in a straight line and shook his head. Without taking her eyes from his she bent and picked up the red pumps with the fur bows. Jasper began to tremble. “Both,” she offered as she swung all four shoes from both hands.
The little monkey demon jumped up and down in his chalk circle. “He will be angry if I bring you back! He said he will hurt me!”
“I once walked three blocks in these,” she showed him the pink ones, “wearing real silk stockings.”
Jasper nearly peed himself. “Done! Done!” His little hands reached for the shoes. “But I can’t be there when he sees you.”
“Done,” she agreed.
This time she appeared in a gloomy landscape somewhere in the northlands. No trees near the ford, but farther up the sides of the mountain. Very north. Was there a northern part of Hell? She looked down at herself. She had been clever to put on the boots and the vest, but now she wearing a long woolen dress of homespun gray with a wide apron and leather flats on her feet with ties around her ankles. Jasper cringed close to her knees and clutched his precious shoes to his chest. His eyes were big when he looked up at her.
“He is over that hill. There is a farmstead there. He is inside.” With that Jasper disappeared in a puff of smoke, only a faint sulfur scent remained.
Victoria remembered what Mr. Magnus had said about courage. She straightened her dress and began the slow hike over the hill. The mist dampened her hair and by the time she crested the hill and began down the other side she was dripping wet. The breeze that came off the distant fjord bit her through the wool. Her teeth chattered and she wished for warmth from the fires of Hell.
The longhouse on the shore had gray smoke spiraling up from a hole in the center of the roof. No one was in the yard. The sun was a weak glow on the horizon and there was no sky, just a thick and low overcast. It was probably going to snow soon. She hugged herself and stepped up to the narrow window that was tightly shuttered with rough boards. She peeked through a crack. She was surprised the animals were inside. The longhouse was basically a barn with a place for people at one end. I guess that makes sense, she thought. Who wants to go out in a blizzard to feed the animals? Why not have them inside with you? The manure piles and body heat of the cattle and horses would help with the heating bills. She was trying to stand on a rock so she could see a little closer to the central fire pit when she felt a hard hand on her arm.
She was spun around and lifted off her feet. She hung there in the grip of a huge Viking. But not her Viking. He squinted down at her, obviously as surprised as she. He had a long yellow beard and longer hair. His eyes were icy blue and he had lost some of his teeth in a blow that left a ragged scar from his lower lip to his cheek under the opposite eye. He smelled like old butter and sour milk. She tried to smile a greeting, perhaps use some of her high school German on him. She didn’t know any Norwegian.
“Guten…abend.” It was evening now, for sure.
“Bah,” he sputtered. “What the Hell are you doing here?”
Appropriate use of language, though it couldn’t possibly be English. She gave it a try. “I am looking for someone,” she answered truthfully. “And I got lost.”
In answer he dragged her to the double doors and kicked them open, causing a chicken or two to flutter to the rafters. “Look what I found outside!” He roared.
Three men of various ages stood from their places around the fire. A middle aged woman stood as well and came forward. Victoria began to wonder if Jasper had double-crossed her. The men were bearded Norsemen like the one who had her in a death grip. They had been busy with various tasks and held their tools in their hands. They looked her up and down. The woman put down a basket of apples and came forward.
“Lars, put her down.”
Lars let go. Victoria rubbed her arm and tried to look friendly and harmless. “I am lost and looking for someone,” she said.
“I am Sigrid Eriksdattir. Who do you belong to?”
It seemed like a reasonable question. The woman asked it with no malice and only a little curiosity. She was being practical. Victoria would tell her who she belonged to and one of these huge men would take her home. But Victoria did not know the answer. Any answer would be wrong. And if she made up a name there was the chance that family lived just on the other side of the valley. She smiled. “I am Thor’s woman.” As good an answer as any. No one named their kid “Thor”.
“Thor Thorkellsson or Thor Magnusson?”
One of the men set down his knife and rubbed his cheek. “What about Thor Stevensson?” His brother nodded. “Could be Thor Eriksson. I heard he just got married.”
They all looked at her expectantly.
“Ah…” she blinked. She was now in dangerous territory as any of these Thors could be promptly fact-checked.
She looked around the inside of the longhouse for a clue for something to say. Anything.
Sigrid tried again, “What is your name, girl?
She said the first name she could think of that was not her own. “Maggs.”
There was a crash and the sound of breaking boards in an unseen room at the end of the longhouse. The men dropped their tools and rushed toward the sound. Sigrid frowned and sighed as she followed them with her eyes. She turned back to Victoria. “Come in, Maggs. Let me get you dry and warm. We will take you home tomorrow. It is going to storm tonight.”
Victoria was led to a seat on a bench beside the rectangular fire pit in the center of the floor. She looked up to see the smoke disappear through the central hole. Some water dripped down, but not enough to put out the fire. A warm cup of something fragrant was pressed into her hand and Sigrid picked up her basket of apples and sat on another bench. From somewhere behind her, Victoria heard the sounds of a fight. She took a sip of what tasted like warm cider. It was good. Someone was getting soundly beaten in another room. She looked at the woman. Sigrid met her eyes briefly with a half smile then returned to paring the apples. Apparently people were beaten up in her house all the time.
Victoria set her cup down. Now the sounds included muffled cries and groans of pain. Soft thuds and hard whacks punctuated loud curses. She cleared her voice and asked softly, “Is something wrong?”
Sigrid smiled again. “No. The boys have to keep him quiet.”
“Ah,” she said as if that made sense. “Who?”
“Torgal”
“Oh.” Victoria lifted her mug of cider and sipped it as another blow was landed. This one sent a body against the inner wall, causing some dust to sift down from the thatch.
There was a moment of brief quiet, then a door flew open and a man stumbled out and fell against the far wall. He slumped to the floor, breathing hard enough to be heard at their end of the house. He dragged long thick chains from each of his wrists. The ends of the chains still had pieces of boards attached to them.
Victoria and Sigrid both stood. Sigrid cried out when she recognized the man and ran for the front door. Victoria just stood there blinking. This man was not one of the four she had met. This must be Torgal. Sigrid was gone.
The front door was wide open and the cold rain blew in and rattled the shutters. Torgal limped to opening and leaned out, looking both ways before backing in and shutting the door against the weather. He turned around to face her.
She gasped. “Thor!”
He glared at her. “It’s Torgal.”
His eyes were not yellow, but a clear blue. A heavy iron band circled his throat with a protruding hinge on one side and a circle on the other that held a fragment of chain hanging to his waist. He had been chained like a dog, and now was loose.
“Oh my God.”
“Victoria. What are you doing here?” There was an exasperated sound to his voice that was not welcoming in the least.
“I could ask you the same thing…but I won’t.” She went back to the fire and got her cup of cider and gave it to him. He looked terrible. Blood dripped down his chest where the collar of iron chafed him. It had been there a long time. His eyes were puffed and black from his beating and blood still dripped from a broken nose. His eyes thanked her before he drained the cup, the chains clanked.
“Should we run away? Sigrid will be back with the neighbors.”
He glared at her again and went to a barrel behind her for more cider. “Nearest neighbor is five miles away. Uphill. It is dark and storming. We have time.” He drained a second cup and a third. His throat bobbed behind the iron band as he swallowed.
Victoria stood there feeling foolish. She was glad to see him. Sort of. She tried to remember him the way he looked in her car that time at the Mall, and later when the two of them spied on Jack and Maggs on their wedding night. He had been ruggedly handsome then. Now he just looked rugged. His blond hair hung limp and unwashed and tangled over his shoulders. His clothes were rags and there were huge welts on both wrists under the heavy manacles. A wave of pity washed over her and he looked up sharply from his mug.
“Don’t pity me, Maggs.”
She couldn’t help it. She imagined he had just beat four men unconscious or worse. He looked like he needed a bath and a massage. And bandages. And antibiotics. Maybe surgery.
He gave her a short laugh. “Very well. Come on.” He set his mug down and reached for her with a bloody hand. The knuckles were raw and bleeding. “Let’s go before Sigrid comes back with her brothers.”
They went out into the rain. By the time they reached the fir trees of the thick forest the rain had washed his wounds. They stopped some hours later at a huge boulder that was set at enough of an angle to offer some shelter from the increasing wind and the rain that had turned to sleet. The fir trees provided a screen and a windbreak on the other side. Torgal spread several branches on the ground. They were surprisingly smooth and very fragrant. He drew her inside the tiny shelter and took her in his arms. He felt hard and powerful. He was warm, but the links of the chains that touched her were frosty. She didn’t feel the least bit afraid of Sigrid’s brothers or of the storm or of bears or anything else that lived in the woods. She leaned close to him and inhaled his warmth.
After they both had rested he breathed into her hair, “Why did you come, Maggs?”
“Why did you stop coming?” She lifted his heavy arm and set his wrist on her knees, turning the manacle in the dark, feeling for how it was made. She felt the hinge and the keyhole. She felt the links of the chain, each as large as a hen’s egg. Just lifting each arm…she guessed ten pounds. As much as a sack of potatoes at the market. She wondered if she could pick the locking mechanisms and free him.
“I was delayed,” he answered in the dark. He shook his wrist and made the chain clank.
Victoria leaned in closer to his chest, hoping to hear a heartbeat. Just silence. He breathed, however. She could hear him breathe. She shifted to get even closer. And he was warm. It was cold outside and he was warm. “How can you be chained if you are a spirit?” she asked him softly as a gust of wind shook their little shelter.
“Have you not read A Christmas Carol? Do you not remember Marley’s ghost?” He snorted in the darkness.
Victoria enjoyed the irony that Dickens’ famous story would not be written for some centuries…if she had her history right. She figured she was in ninth century Norway. “This isn’t real, is it? Like A Christmas Carol isn’t real. It is fiction. We are playing in a story. That is why I’m not afraid here. How can I be afraid of a Viking when I am from the twenty-first century? His axe would go right through me, like in a dream. How can you know about A Christmas Carol if you live in the ninth century?” She fingered his chains. “These aren’t real.”
“Feels real enough to me,” he said and his voice was rough.
Victoria regretted her last remark. His blood and the raw flesh under the manacles looked real. He seemed to be in real pain. The heavy band around his throat would leave a wide thick scar once it was removed. But dreams can be terribly frightening. People always wake up, though. She wondered. Maybe some don’t. Maybe when you are in Hell, you don’t wake up from nightmares.
She asked him, “You took me to Shrewsbury. And you were Jack. Were you Marcus too?”
He sighed.
She was sorry she couldn’t see his face. “I tried to kiss you alive when you were killed in that battle. Jasper said you sent me back to my bed. I woke up. I know it wasn’t a dream. I still have the beautiful collar from the Roman orgy.”
“Maggs.” His voice was low and soft. “You are going to have to try harder.”
She paused, then asked, “Try harder? Why can’t you just tell me?”
“Because, it is not a matter of conveying information. It cannot be told, it has to be experienced. You have to realize it. I cannot do it for you. Just like I cannot eat for you, or sleep for you or piss for you. You have to do it yourself.”
She thought about this. “Then why did you send me back home that time on the battlefield?”
“You were going the wrong way. I just turned you around and pointed you in the right direction. I was helping you, Maggs.”
“And now…”
“And now you are doing it wrong again. I have to send you back again.”
“But I thought you needed my help. Look at you.”
“I am beyond your help. I will die here. They won’t find me for months. Until the spring thaw. Dogs will find my body.”
“You don’t look like you are dying,” she challenged him.
“My liver is torn. It will take this body three days to bleed to death.”
Victoria sat up straighter. He spoke so matter-of-factly. Like he didn’t care. Or… She remembered what Jasper had said about Marcus. He is always here, the little monkey demon had said. Maybe Torgal has been here dying many times, over and over and over. She felt a little chill up and down her spine and his warmth was no longer enough to keep her from shivering.
“And Michael from Legal? Were you pointing me in the right direction then?”
“Mr. Brand had committed a mortal sin. I was sent to reap his soul. It’s something I have to do periodically. I don’t have a choice. I just arranged it so you would benefit from that particular event.”
This made Victoria feel sick. She put a hand over her stomach. “You don’t have a choice about dying here again, either?” she asked him. She knew the answer. “Nor Marcus?” She thought about Jack and her heart jumped.
His hand reached out and took her arm. “No Maggs. Don’t. It will only make it worse. Don’t. That is not the way.” He pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the lips.
She sat up in her bed again. She was wearing the boots and the lambskin vest. “No!” She shouted at the wall. She tore off her vest and stomped over to the chalk circle and glared at it. “Jasper!” Nothing appeared. She looked at the clock. Nearly dawn. The chalk circle had blurred a bit, like little feet had smeared some of the lines. I will fix it tomorrow, she promised herself.
Victoria put a hand to her face. She was supposed to take the kids to the zoo so Sharon could finish unpacking. So be it. First the zoo. Then…Shrewsbury.