He wasn’t out with his chainsaw, which surprised me a little since it wasn’t raining. Not that everything wasn’t still soggy as a broken wash machine’s spin cycle, but there was a little bit of sunlight shouldering through the clouds just in time for the day to be slipping toward sunset.
Seemed like it’d be a perfect time to hack out a few more flat-face bears and one-winged owls.
The other gods weren’t there yet, but I knew it wouldn’t be long. I parked the Jeep and crossed to Odin’s house, the cleansing perfume of green and wet and pine filling me.
Tucked beneath a small forest of tall Douglas fir trees, the house wasn’t much bigger than mine. Cedar shakes painted brick red, shingled roof about three years past needing both new gutters and some moss control efforts, it didn’t give off a welcoming feeling exactly.
Neither did the two headless wooden bunnies on the porch on either side of the door.
Or at least I thought they were bunnies. Beavers? I tipped my head. Nope. Ravens.
I knocked on the door. Didn’t have to wait very long for it to open.
“Delaney.” Odin glanced over my shoulder as if expecting someone to be there.
“Crow’s with Myra,” I said. “They’re on their way over here with the rest of the gods.”
He grunted and stepped aside so I could step in.
The outside might have looked like a graham cracker house that had been left out in the rain—a little soggy and soft around the edges—but the interior was quite the opposite.
The wood walls were polished to a soft gold glow. Furniture was mahogany, and the artwork leaned a bit Nordic and tribal, some from local artists, some from Odin’s personal collection that either had never been seen by human eyes, or if it had, probably belonged in museums.
It was clean, uncluttered without giving up the impression of cozy, and something about the place made my shoulders drop.
Anyone in town might expect to find a bachelor’s pad, maybe even expect unmatched socks to be balled up in the corners, or microwave dinners to be stacked on side tables. But it was nothing like that. It felt relaxing, refreshing. A retreat from the world.
Which, I supposed, was exactly why the gods had come to Ordinary. So it should be no surprise that Odin’s house was a home, and a very comfortable one at that.
“Coffee?” He was already moving toward the kitchen.
“Yes, thanks.” I drank down the rest of my latte and walked over to the stone fireplace on the opposite wall. It stacked up to the second floor which was basically a loft space that covered two sides of the upper story.
“You found the powers,” he said. “Mithra have them?”
There was no reason not to tell him the truth. “Did you know all along that’s where they were?”
He came back into the room with two huge ceramic mugs shaped like tree stumps and handed one to me.
“When they were taken outside Ordinary. There was a...sense of his disapproval I got through my power.”
“Could have told me.” I took a sip of the coffee, which was so rich it almost tasted alcoholic.
“Not my job.” He settled in the easy chair. “So Crow’s leaving town?”
“He has to. And that means you’re up next for storing the powers.”
He nodded, like he didn’t really care about that. “Never thought you’d let a warden in Ordinary.”
I didn’t ask him how he knew about that. He was a god. Just because he was on vacation didn’t mean he had no lingering abilities. Or maybe he’d heard it from someone else. Didn’t need god power if you were friendly with the town gossips.
“It wasn’t my idea, trust me.”
“Ryder?”
I nodded. “He’s also a part of some kind of welcome committee for supernaturals in the world and Ordinary in particular. Government agency.”
“Huh. That explains some things.”
“Like what?”
“Like why he came back here.”
“Couldn’t it just be because he likes the town he grew up in and wanted to come back?”
“It’s a big world, Delaney. Ordinary, in nature and design, isn’t really a very interesting place, all things considered.”
He was being awfully even-tempered about all this. “You told me Dad waited too long before he chose a side.”
Odin drank coffee, his one good eye watching me over the rim of the mug. I noted the bottom of the mug said: “#1 Beaver Bait”.
I lifted my cup to see what logging slang was painted there. It said: “Ask about my Butt Rigging.”
“Really? No pecker pole jokes?”
“There are more mugs in the kitchen.”
“My dad,” I said. “What did he wait too long to choose?”
Odin put his cup down, and studied me in that way the very old gods do, especially the ones who have known me since I was a baby. It was sort of a mix of patience and concern, like they weren’t sure I was old enough to handle what they were about to say.
“Immortality.”
Okay. That was not what I expected. We Reeds lived a long life. Well, those of us who didn’t drive off cliffs. There was one great-to-the-nth aunt who was said to have hit one-hundred and fifty years of age. I didn’t know if that was true, but most of the Reeds were capable of rolling into the early one-hundreds at least.
It was either gift, curse, or by-product of being a part of keeping Ordinary vacation-ready for the gods.
But immortality? That had never been on offer.
“What’s the catch?”
“Why do you think there’s a catch?”
I wasn’t used to Odin doing the wise-man thing. I was more used to him doing the gruff, crazy chainsaw artist thing.
“Because Dad didn’t immediately say yes.”
“True. But he had lost a wife. Had three young daughters to raise. Death changes every man’s heart.”
“Is that something I will be offered?”
“Immortality is generally only offered to a bridge. That’s you, Delaney.”
“So Myra and Jean?”
“Immortality isn’t their destiny.”
Already I was seeing the downside to this offer. Did I want to live long enough to see my sisters, maybe even everyone that I loved die? Would it be worth it to keep Ordinary safe?
“Who or what will give it to me? If I said yes. Not that I am. Saying yes.”
“A god. Of your choice.”
Something about those words felt ominous.
“And what do I owe to a god who would hypothetically offer me immortality?”
“That would be between you and the god in question.”
“Would you give it to me if I asked for it?”
“You’d have to ask me.”
“Did my father ask you for it?”
“Your father never asked anyone for it. Then that choice was taken from him, and it was too late.”
“Was he killed? Was that accident not an accident?”
Odin picked up his coffee, took a drink. There was something else in his gaze this time. I thought it might be regret.
“That is a question I can’t answer.”
“You mean won’t answer. You could know, could find out if you wanted to.”
He turned the cup in his hand. Balanced it on the arm of his chair. “I’m a god. Well, not right now, but...” he shrugged. “There is very little that can be hidden from our kind.”