“What's your friend's name?” she asked Freja.
“I don't know. He's too old to have a name, and he's probably be called many things by villagers over the years. Myths and legends have been made about him. Lochness? The fire angel in the sky. There are many—”
“How do you know he can help me? Do you trust him?”
“He's the only creature besides my grandfather who I trust the most. Dragons, despite what you have been told, are very wise creatures. But you must trust what he says, because he only sees into the future so far.”
“What do you mean? He's an oracle?”
“Sort of. You're probably not going to understand everything he says, but you better listen because he doesn't repeat himself, and he's very impatient.”
Elsa's pulse pounded as she wondered just exactly the dragon would make her do. But her fear and anxiety dissipated when she realized that she would do anything to get Theo back—absolutely anything. She would murder, torture, lie, trade all her integrity and honesty and every whisper from her conscience in order to save him. Nothing, no matter what, no matter how, she needed to have the love of her life back in her sight.
CHAPTER 22
The women rode along the rocky coast by the raging sea, as aggressive mist spat at their horses every few minutes. On her left side view, Elsa saw the vast expanse of the ocean, and on her right, pure flat rolling tundra as far as the eye could see. She wondered where this Forbidden Forest was that Freja had warned her so intensely about. Elsa's horse slowed down, skittish, anticipating some terrible event about to befall them. Freja slowed and turn her horse to determine what was the matter.
“What's wrong?” she shouted over the roar of the waves crashing against the cliff side.
“He's scared!” Elsa said, the horse's fear infecting her as well. She just couldn't shake an uneasiness about the whole situation. Freja looked at her without responding and rode forward. Elsa pushed the edge of her heels into the horse's ribs just firmly enough that the animal got the message: time to ride. Elsa assumed they were almost there, as they had been riding for three days straight. She felt along the inside of her coat for the spell Freja had given her from the spell book, just to make sure it was there.
At first Elsa didn't notice the change, but she looked on her right after an hour or so to find the flat, empty tundra had somehow transformed to a dense forest, and the women rode between the darkened forest on one side and the relentless ocean on the other. There was a very narrow path they straddled between the two places, but there was enough room for Freja and Elsa's horses to ride side by side. Freja slowed down and trotted next to her. They were close enough to whisper.
“Do you know where you are?” she asked Elsa.
“This is the Forbidden Forest isn't it?”
“You bet, doll.” Elsa found herself somewhat excited at being so close to the place Freja described as being the most dangerous place on Earth. Some part of her thought it was all a joke, as the weight of the situation didn't fully sink in. Elsa looked all along the tree line for some sign of the danger and fear Freja told her she was going to encounter. But there was nothing.
“It doesn't seem all that terrifying.”
“That's what you think,” Freja said. To Elsa the place resembled any other forest, full of brown foliage and pale green trees. There was nothing out of the ordinary or magical about the place. But then Freja suddenly pointed to a solitary flower, crimson red, in the bushes ahead. “Look!” she said. “Oh dear, dear. This is not good.”
“What?”
“The forest is calling to you, doll. It knows you're here. It probably senses your innocence.” Elsa's heart began to pound. “Listen to me, doll. Look away now and don't listen to whatever thought pop into your head. I'll get you out of this.” Freja grabbed the reigns to Elsa's horse and trotted slowly ahead. “Just one step at a time, doll. Keep in good communication with me, you hear? OK?”
“Ok,” Elsa said.
“Did you hear me, doll?”
“Yes, I said okay.”
“Elsa listen to me. Can you understand what I'm saying?” It occurred to Elsa something was terribly wrong. In her mind, she was moving her mouth to tell Freja she understood her, but apparently nothing was coming out. Elsa entire body began to shake. She gripped the harness of the horse tightly and prayed that Freja would guide them through this mess. She wanted to ask Freja how long it would be before they were away from the Forbidden Forest but lost all her mental energy. She felt as if she were being pulled into a dream world—the image of the passing trees, one by one, along with the rhythmic trotting of the horses gave Elsa a sleepy feeling.
The forest hypnotized Elsa, telling her Theo was hiding in its deepest, darkest recesses. She looked to Freja, pulled on her wrist, but Freja didn't respond.
“Freja! Theo is in there! We have to go find him!” Freja didn't respond to her, riding on through the trail. Elsa looked up ahead and saw the forest begin to thin. She could see the tree line dissipate up ahead and the edge of the cliff over the ocean. Freja was going to walk her horse right into the water! The entire trip was a complete lie. Freja betrayed her, and she was just pretending to not hear Elsa. The woman was a liar, a cheat. Elsa pulled as hard as she could on her reigns, but the horse continued to follow Freja's lead.
“Stop! You're going to kill us!” Freja ignored her, Elsa thought. But as they emerged from between the forest's edge and the cliff, Elsa's sleepiness lifted. She opened her eyes to find Freja looking over her.
“Are you okay?” Freja looked genuinely concerned, but Elsa swatted her away.
“You lied!” Elsa screamed, her face hot with the rage she couldn't muster earlier next to the woods. “He's in there! I know it. And you almost killed us.” Freja looked hurt. She leaned back, her bony frame almost blowing over in the wind.
“I didn't almost kill you, doll. I saved you.”
“You ignored me the whole time, when I was trying to tell you we could save him. Who knows what happened to him. There's no time to waste.”
“You're right. We can't waste any time.”
“So you admit it, you bitch! You lied to me the whole time. You knew that is where he was.”
“No I didn't. Do you know how long it took us to go past the forest to get here?”
Elsa stopped for a second. “Must have been like thirty minutes.”
“We've been walking along the edge for seven months, doll.”
Elsa's stomach dropped like a stone in a well. “No way.”
“I told you what the forest would do to you. It calls to you, tricks you into believe something that isn't true.”
“No it can't be.” Elsa's eyes filled with angry tears. She just knew that's where he was, she was so convinced in her bones, in her soul, he was there. She felt like a mother whose toddler was kidnapped at the local market on a sunny day, and then later, saw the kid walking among the other adults, but failed to get to her child in time. The child in this instance was Theo, and she failed to save him. She worried whether she would get another opportunity. There was no mistakes that hunch she had when passing the forest's border. Was Freja telling the truth?
Freja touched her on the shoulder. “Honey, it was a lie. We have to press on, or we'll lose even more time. I told you how dangerous getting close to the Forest was. Just imagine now what will happen if you entered it. You would be lost forever. I don't know how I would handle that.”
Maybe she was telling the truth. Freja seemed truly hurt that Elsa entertained the idea she would betray Elsa. And yet, the suspicion that something else was going on continued to lurk in the back of Elsa's mind. She took a deep breath. “Ok. Let's go.”
CHAPTER 23
They continued riding for several minutes, descending down a rocky trail next to the edge of the cliff. Elsa peeked over the side of her horse at the violent waves hundreds of feet below. She could feel the vibration of the water in her chest and the view down to the shore made her sick to her stomach. She resolved to keep staring straight ahead at Freja's horse. Not once did Freja look over her shoulder to make sure Elsa was okay. Elsa just figured she was preoccupied with making sure they didn't kill themselves by falling over the cliff. By the time they got to the bottom of the cliff, the gravel trail opened out to a clearing on the shore, where the waves came ever so close to lapping at their horses' hooves, but did not quite reach them. There was a giant crack between the cliffs, a canyon that seemed even higher than how far they had traveled down. Elsa looked up the walls to the canyon, into the cold grey sky, and thought the place looked like an empty riverbed, several hundred yards in width. The riverbed stretched back as far as she could see.
They rode over the gravel bed until Elsa could see a giant hole in the cliff side.
“This is where he lives,” Freja said, and Elsa's gut sank as they approached the entrance, because the same wolf Elsa saw twice earlier in their journey appeared out of from a behind a boulder. The wolf was beautiful, intoxicating even, with a black coat and burning yellow eyes. He licked his lips as they approached, and Elsa screamed.
“Don't make a move,” Freja said as she gently dismounted her horse. She put her spell book underneath her arm and walked over to Elsa's horse, never taking her eyes off the wolf. Freja's expression, particularly the look in her eyes, surprised Elsa, because she expected Freja to be afraid as she was. Instead, she saw anger and defiance in Freja's face. This was not going to turn out well.
The wolf bared it teeth, its ears pinned back. Freja glanced at Elsa from the corner of her eyes. “Walk sideways along this wall toward the cave.” Elsa obeyed Freja but just as she did, two other wolves emerged from the darkness of the cave.
“Damn you,” Freja said. “Damn you to hell.” Three more emerged from around the corner, joining the other three. Now six giant, beautiful, but deadly wolves growled at Elsa and Freja as they blocked the entrance to the cave.
“You must get into that cave,” Freja told her.
“I can't. They'll kill me. Look at them.”
“Don't worry, I'll protect you.”
“With what? You can't cast any spells, remember?” Freja didn't respond to her, and slipped the giant book into her satchel. And pulled something out of her waist pocket that looked like a stick, as she whispered something under her breath. Elsa stood aghast as a white light seemed to emanate from her hand. The wolves began barking and growling violently. They continued to approach. Elsa slid with her back against the wall of the cliff toward the entrance to the cave, her palms sweating beads.
“You sons of bitches!” Freja screamed and seemed to throw the ball of light in their direction. There was a loud explosion and Elsa fell back into the cave. Elsa was knocked unconscious for several seconds, and when she came to, she lay prostrate on her back with the entrance closed rock solid. A shadowy figure approached her, and Elsa put her hands in front of her face to protect herself.
“It's just me!” Freja said, patting her hands on Elsa.
“You didn't tell me you were a witch.”
“There are lots of things I didn't tell you.”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“For your protection, now get up.” She grabbed Elsa by the arm, lifting her effortlessly into standing position. Elsa wondered whether Freja was on her side. She figured Freja was there to help, and now that she knew she was a witch, she felt safer than ever, though she still wondered why Freja kept that fact secret from her all this time.
“Does this mean you can protect us if something goes wrong?”
“Doll, I'm a witch, but I'm not all powerful. There's no way I can protect you from an angry dragon, even if I do know some spells.”
“Can you use this then?” She held up the page Freja gave her from her spell book.
“No doll. That one is for you. That one I was telling the truth about.”
Elsa smiled, as Freja took her by the hand. “Let's go girlie. We got an appointment with a dragon.” They continue on in the darkness until Freja held up her wand to the air, which suddenly lit the pathway in front of them. The tunnel in the cave continued on for miles, it seemed, and as they made their way deeper into the side of the mountain, Elsa could smell something burning.