Freddy said, “We’re changing the past right now.”
Josiah looked to Loki for help, but Loki had stopped paying attention and was gazing raptly at the ceiling. Josiah sighed. “Stop thinking like that, all right? There’s no way to change the past. There are no mystic rules about not killing your own grandfather. The past has already happened. You already did whatever you did in the past. It didn’t change the past; it made the past.”
“But I haven’t done it yet,” said Freddy.
“You haven’t done it yet on your personal timeline,” said Josiah. “Your personal timeline now has nothing to do with actual time.”
“Usually, I’m the only person who ever has to deal with any of this,” said Loki, coming abruptly back to earth, “and it doesn’t really matter for me. I eat paradox for breakfast. I’m also fond of waffles.”
“Waffles haven’t been invented yet,” said Josiah, “just for the record.”
Someone knocked on something, and Josiah and Heimdallr turned together towards what Freddy could just see, if she squinted into the murk, was a door. Heimdallr called out, and the door opened.
The man standing framed in it wasn’t very old; Freddy thought he looked eighteen or so. He had a beard, but it was short and wispy. He said something, giving it what seemed to be an interrogative twist. Heimdallr got up and went to speak with him.
“Bragi Whatsit?” said Freddy.
“Boddason, yeah,” Josiah said. “Three.”
“What’s all this Three stuff, then?” said Freddy. The panic was bouncing up and down and clamouring for her attention. Brutally, she shoved it away. It didn’t matter that she was twelve hundred years in the past. She just was.
“Well,” said Josiah, “it’s complicated. There are three of us, really. But you should finish your willow bark and rest for a bit.”
Freddy narrowed her eyes. Josiah didn’t seem to have got the hang of distracting people effectively.
She was about to protest when she happened to look over towards Bragi. Their eyes met, and he smiled. It was amazing how much meaning he managed to pack into that smile. She saw sheepishness and sympathy and understanding, all bundled up together. Yes, said the smile, I know this is insane, and I know exactly how you feel. Just grin and bear it. She found herself smiling back, though she thought her smile may have been more of a grimace and wasn’t sure it said anything besides Help.
In the meantime, she had given Josiah a chance to duck out on her. “I’ll be off, then,” he said, already halfway to the door. “Must pretend to help arrange things for the feast tonight.”
“I thought there was just a battle,” said Freddy.
“It ended with everybody swearing brotherhood and exchanging expensive gifts,” said Josiah. “I find it’s best not to ask. Do get some rest if you can. Bragi’s gone and heavily implied that you’re the goddess Freyja, initially due to a mispronunciation of your actual name, and you may find that people are curious about you.” Before Freddy could respond to this, he had nipped out the door, dragging Bragi and Heimdallr with him.
“He’ll explain about Three eventually, you know,” said Loki. “He’s a bit ashamed of getting you into this. I’m not sure why; he’s had millennia to get over it. I think I’ll nip in to see Cuerva Lachance. It’s been a while since we talked.” He turned and walked straight at the wall. Then he simply wasn’t there any more.
Freddy, alone, pulled the furs up to her chin. She slipped a hand into her pocket and wrapped it around her key. It wasn’t as comforting as usual. There would be no lock to fit it for twelve hundred years.
8
Josiah told her later that if they had stayed in her own time, he would have taken her to the hospital. There was more wrong with her head than the school nurse had realised. However, Josiah had also remembered her head injury from when he had met her before, and he had known she would eventually get better from it. She still thought it was stupid of him to have let her walk into the past with a head injury. There weren’t proper doctors here. There was mostly just Loki, who had given her willow bark and wandered off into the future.
Freddy tried to get up several times, but when she did, the room started going around and around, and she had to return to her pile of furs. She dozed off and on. Occasionally, Heimdallr or Josiah would be there when she woke up. They were attended by a succession of teenage girls who seemed to need an excuse to look at Freddy. The girls kept bringing her little gifts. Freddy soon had several small cakes and a collection of dried fruit sitting beside her furs.
She lost all sense of time. When Josiah returned and told her the feast was about to start, she had to force herself to think of it as evening. As far as her brain was concerned, it could have been any time at all.
“I don’t feel very well,” said Freddy. Everything had gone grey and tired.
Josiah eased a hand behind her back and slowly guided her to a sitting position. “I know, but we have to be there. We have a certain status here, and thanks to Bragi’s wild inventions, you share that. Besides, Loki’s vanished. The Jarl doesn’t take it as an insult only because he knows Loki’s Loki.”
“The who?” said Freddy.
“It’s the same word as ‘earl,’” said Josiah. “Very powerful man. We’ll see him in the mead hall.”
“I thought the mead hall got burned down,” said Freddy, who had confused memories of her arrival in this place.
“Singed,” said Josiah. “But that’s all been smoothed over now.”