Beautiful Wreck (75 page)

Her mother did.

Hildur had worked for Heirik a long time, always in charge and yet never truly. Never powerful, like a real lady of the house. I imagined her building a bitter dream of scraping her way up to own everything. Svana, so pretty, was her ticket. Brosa would return from trading, Svana would capture his heart. Ageirr would help get Heirik out of the way, goading him until he escalated their fight. Finally, the chief would give Ageirr the license to kill him.

Except that I washed up out of the ocean and changed everything. The chief did the unthinkable and fell in love.

When Hildur succeeded in getting him to push me away, I was immediately handed to Brosa. Hildur watched everything crumble. In desperation and against her deepest beliefs, she sent her little girl in to beguile the disgusting and dreadful chief. The most powerful one.

I had come so far, and for what? To be tied up like this? Taken far from home and family?

Nei, not a chance. I had come back to live in my true home, and I would get there. I had come for this time and place. To see this sky. To challenge Heirik to give all his courage and honor to me.

With all my strength, I sat up to look, and the air seemed to lift an epic sweep of pink and flame-blue clouds until they spanned above us all. They looked solid as the land, their surfaces rough, etched with orange and gold. A spring sunset over lava rocks that stretched forever, covered with moss and cradling the light in a million tiny crannies. I breathed and watched the giant sky, until my eyes turned glassy and my head became light with beauty.

We came to a small stream and Asmund untied me, so I could take a break.

Squatting beside the stream, my enormous wet dress snagged on the underbrush. It would trip me and tangle me up if I tried to run. I looked around, scanning for anywhere to go, any way to hide. There was nothing. Twisted trees stood everywhere, all in leaf, but the forest was sparse and I could see far in toward its heart.

I had no idea where on the island I might be. To get away, I would definitely need a horse.

When I returned, Asmund gruffly told me to give him my wrists. He tied me with the rope, and I did not wince when it bit my open skin.

“Think of your own wrists.” I spoke calmly. “When you meet Rakknason.”

“Shut up, Witch,” he told me, his voice shivering, though it was not cold.

We spoke less and less.

I frightened them, and they didn’t touch me any more than they had to. I did nothing extra to scare them, only existed with my terrible clothes and skin and eyes, just like Heirik.

We stopped to camp. Asmund watched over me, sitting bleary-eyed, trembling. In charge for the night. He watched me, until I pretended to drop off into dreams. I slowed my breathing and became as patient as a stone. I heard him shifting around in the dirt, pushing at the fire with his boot, dropping in more wood. And after a long time, I heard him stop.

I opened one eye the smallest amount and saw that he was asleep. Mord snored on the other side of the fire, curled like a raggy bundle.

Asmund’s leather bag was nearby, not too far. I crawled to it, two hands at once, then each knee, stopping so many breathless times to watch and listen as the men stirred. I seemed to creep forward for hours, each inch toward the bag stretching out like a mile. But they didn’t wake. They were exhausted and slept like the dead.

With both hands, I tipped the bag over and Swimmer fell out. Merely a sliver compared to a man’s seax, still the knife felt alive and strong to my touch. Morgan had sharpened it, and her edge gleamed with 22nd century precision. A few rusty traces of rabbit blood remained, reminding me of my capabilities. My intent.

I flipped it in my fingertips like Heirik would, and I tried to channel his grace and intention. Rather than watch, I closed my eyes and felt what I was doing. Felt the tip of the knife slide under the rope. At an odd and clumsy angle, I could get only the slightest pressure against the bindings, so I sawed gently, focused, forever. My tongue stuck into the corner of my mouth, the slumbering men almost forgotten in the task of doing this complex and real and heart-stopping task. It became contemplative, and the pain of rubbing wrist-skin burned, like mowing my acre.

When it was done, I didn’t waste a second. I took the bag, took both horses, and left.

By the time I heard the shouting behind me, it was far-off, like unimportant birds.

In my daydreams, I always approached home in daylight. Dress and hair flying under an orange midsummer sky, I would reach the house. I would see it, beckoning green and yellow in the fall sun.

But it was spring, unexpected and dusky. I rode in the chill of bluish gray, still wet, freezing. I knew I was pointed away from the ocean, and with only that knowledge, I rode as fast as I dared. Every few minutes, I felt like I wanted to surge ahead, and yet felt acutely how alone I was, how I could be, right now, drifting so far off course I might never be found. Swimming down deeper instead of up, toward the air.

My eyes ached watching the darkening horizon, willing one of the cairns to appear—the ones I’d seen on the way to the Thing, on the way to the coast, anywhere, any combination of rocks that pointed the way to Hvítmörk.

The horse’s ribs expanded and fell in a hard rhythm under me. She was tired. The second horse kept pace, watching me with one wary eye.

After more hours than the horses and I could stand, we topped what seemed like the hundredth small rise. I dragged my gaze up to look ahead, knowing I would see more of nothing ahead of us, and yet hoping for something. I held my breath and appealed to Saga. I’ve come, I told her.

And I saw them, like giants moving against the night. The stone sisters.

My heart soared like a hawk, and then my chest contracted and I sobbed, a rasping, empty sound. Fear and anger and uncertainty had blasted through me, leaving me hollow, and now the promise of home filled every space. Now I knew. I would get there. Not tonight, but I would.

I dropped down off the nameless horse, and the three of us stumbled the last mile, near to collapse with exhaustion. We made it to the base of one of the giant women. A pool of warm water barely touched the earth’s surface, just enough for us to drink mouthfuls that tasted of sulfur and wet wool. The animals chewed weeds. I rummaged in Asmund’s bag and found dried fish. I would be able to eat, too.

Leaning against the terrifying maiden, her head looming high above me, I crunched on fish and named the horses. Rifs, Plunder, would be the bony one, because I’d stolen such a fine girl. Lisi was the one who watched me all day. It meant something like Small Fish. They chewed and nosed close to me, and I wrapped their reigns around my wrists. I laid down next to the little pool and watched the sun drop from the sky. We would rest, and then I’d switch horses. That simple plan was all that remained in the world. I laughed at how easy it sounded, as my eyes drifted closed.

The next day, I put the stone women on my left and followed their path home.

The house sat curled into the hills, the grass on its roof blending with the land around it. It waited for me, a patient animal. In my delirious hunger and desire for this place, I could feel it perk its ears up like a giant beast and know my presence.

The horses and I crossed our river at its narrowest point. They walked right through it without a second thought, and my skirt hems skimmed the water. We rode up the path, past homefield and cows and sheep. As we got closer, the chickens came to regard us with their cocked heads.

I felt satisfaction. No skyward reaching of my heart, like when I’d spotted the great stone sisters. Not the outpouring of wonder and elation I’d felt at seeing the vast and velvet sky, the safety and glory of Hvítmörk. None of those things I’d imagined I would feel. Just a sense of numb completion. I was here.

Hildur stepped up to the threshold.

Vaguely aware of a handful of people in the yard, I saw only her pinched and vile face. I dropped down from the horse without taking my eyes from her, and I began to cross the yard, my dark skirts ragged from sleeping on rocks, a hundred and three days of hunger and pain in my chest. Every ragged edge of my heart was her work. Every brittle icicle that was left in my soul had been shaped by her. It was too much, her daring to stand there in my place.

She backed away as I approached, backed into the mudroom, her face gone white as a spirit. I followed her calmly, as she fled into the house. She was afraid of me. Good.

In the hearth room, with nowhere else to go, she stopped and faced me, and from a sheath at her belt she drew a knife. Like Swimmer, it was a cooking knife, no longer than a hand. Made to cut the heads off fish. But she raised it to me as though it were a battleax.

I’d always been docile. Even as Hildur’s eyes widened in fear as they roamed my face and dress, I could tell she still thought of me as little Ginn, the one who mooned over the chief and let myself be hurt at every turn. I had always been the weak and yearning one, full of hope and love. My strength was in my capacity for those sad and romantic notions.

Not for this.

I breathed in, and even as my foot traveled, I saw the whole movement as though complete. I felt my leg unfold, my skirt a massive blue-black wing that traced the shape of my kick, defined it in the air. It was the most graceful thing I’d ever done. I felt the connection, and could hear it, too—the moist, solid crack of bone.

I kicked Hildur, and I watched her face crumple, watched her fall. Her head bounced hard off a bench and she was down.

I drew Swimmer and calmly gripped it, not even breathing heavy. The little knife glinted with confident intent, an invitation to fuck with me. But no one else here would.