Page 10 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings
Despite Apple’s protests, I hoisted Kari into the air and positioned her upon my saddle. This would not be a comfortable ride for her, but I didn’t care for her comfort, just her life. There was no time to figure out a better way to accommodate her. She needed to get out of this broken place full of death, for there was a more beautiful place of death awaiting her.
“Rune?” Rayna’s voice called out into the night. “Rune, where are you?”
I climbed onto Apple’s back, tempted to fly away before my younger sister could see us. If there was one thing I hated, it was when my younger sisters were right. Was I in the wrong? Yes, I knew that, but I grabbed hold of the seeress and braced her in my arms anyway.
“Rune!” Rayna called again, this time in the clearing ahead. When she spotted me, she stared me down, mouth agape in horror. Her eyes wandered to the slumped woman in front of me, then to the fresh kills on the ground between us. She moved slowly, as if not to startle me. “Set her down with the rest.”
“I can’t.” My fingers tightened on Kari’s nightdress with one hand, the other gripping Apple’s reins with white knuckles.
“Unless she’s in one of those bottles of yours, you can, and you will,” Rayna said. “I’m staring into her soul now, and there are no final moments, because she has yet to have hers. Do not deny her of them.”
“You’ve looked into her soul, so you’ve seen the way she would have died, protecting that old woman! She belongs in Valhalla, and you know it.”
Apple began to step forward, impatient. Gunhild blocked her by spreading out her massive charcoal wings, a few loose feathers drifting to the ground below.
“Yes, I did, but shedidn’tdie, Rune! You carry a mortal along with your collected souls. A mortal seeress, not a viking. She doesn’t belong where we’re going. Put her back!”
“I won’t,” I said. “I don’t want to fly away from you right now, Rayna, but I have to, before she really does die. I won’t have Freyja’s Fólkvangr sect showing up and taking her.”
Rayna shook her head in disbelief, and how could I blame her? Centuries of service, just to end up slaying and capturing mortals. When she spoke, her voice cracked. “What’s your plan?”
“I’ll bring her to the House of Wings through the tunnels and find her help. Bodil was a healer in her mortal life,” I said. “Now, come with me or don’t, but either way, I’m leaving.”
I motioned Apple forward, worried about what this interaction had already cost the seeress. Just as Apple launched off the stained dirt, Rayna screamed out, “Bodil has been trying to knock us through the ranks for years! You want to give her all the leverage she needs?”
“Fine, then. I’ll make Gro help me!” I shot back behind me. If she wanted to continue this conversation, she was going to need to keep up. I heard her grunt as she mounted Gunhild.
“You want to bring aspiritinto the house?” Rayna’s voice grew closer as she gained on me. Apple slowed, working against me. She too knew Rayna was right. When Gunhild flew over us and blocked our path yet again, Apple almost came to a full halt.
“Rune, snap out of it! What’s wrong with you?” Rayna was staring right at me now, our two pegasus’ wings beating the air around us as they remained at a standstill. My braided and unbraided hair alike whipped me in the face from the sheer strength of Gunhild’s wings, and I had to hold on to the seeress’ thin night dress to hold her in place. There was only one thing left I could do if I wanted the seeress to get out of Midgard alive. I had to tell my sister my long-awaited truth.
I took a deep breath, my face settling into stone as I revealed the woman’s identity, and said, “This isthemortal.”
Rayna’s face paled. She’d never met Kari, never seen her, but she’d known why I hung around this little village so often. Her mouth parted, and she closed her eyes right before she said, “Bodil it is. You’re lucky I have dirt on her.”
“You’ll keep her mouth shut?” I asked, ready to shoot through the sky now that I had no one in my way.
“She’ll keep it shut herself when I tell her I’ve seen the ways she keeps herself entertained on Midgard.” Gunhild flew to the side, letting Apple and me pass. As we picked up speed, the mortal rocked against my chest, pulling a moan from her dry lips.
“Tell me all about it later,” I said “I have to go slow with her. Now, leave, find Bodil, and have her prepare for our arrival…Please.”
I was thankful Rayna stood down. How did one choose between family and the object of their desire? If the seeress passed on, she would be with all the other souls wandering the expansive meadows of Fólkvangr, or wild up in Hel. She wouldn’t be able to return to Stormheim, and without her presence in the mortal realm, I feared what my nights would turn into. Who would I watch? Who would be my nightly muse?
I’d grown so accustomed to watching her through cracked doors, gaps in the walls, or even the smoke holes of her roof. I knew her longhouse like the back of my hand, and I craved to know her so thoroughly.
Apple flew slowly through the sky, careful not to send the mortal woman in my arms careening off her back. We were close, so very close to safety. When the Bifrost was in my line of sight, the knot in my gut loosened a tiny bit.
A rustle of fabric brought my attention between the seeress’ legs where her nightdress gathered.
“What the Hel?” My shouts had Apple shooting through the sky like a bug on fire. I almost lost grip of the unconscious woman in my arms when I saw a blue little creature crawl out from under her dress.
Is that?—
I stared at the creature tinted blue with death at the tips of its orange fur.
A cat? What in Odin’s great realm is the seeress’ cat doing on my pegasus?
The thing looked up at me and mewed, leaving me utterly dumbfounded. I tried my hand at settling Apple, but she was not welcoming of our new guest. On top of having no interest in war, the flying horse also feared incorporeal beings. A spirit passed through her bodyone time, and that was enough to scar her for the rest of her life.
