Page 5 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings
Sucking all the honey off a blackberry, I watched the way my pink lips closed over the fruit.
Hel, Rune.
I shook myself out of the haze, knowing no good could come from allowing my reflection to hold so much power over me. I meandered over to my wardrobe, thankful to have my own after decades of sharing one with my sisters. That was how it always was in the beginning. Nothing was your own, always shared. The next thing you knew, you’d been in the House of Wings for thirty years, and you were still sharing shoes with the girl in the room next door. You’d forgotten what it’d been like to have a night’s rest, or a meal on your own, because our belongings weren’t the only things we shared.
I yanked open the wooden doors then scoured through my many dresses, leathers, and pieces of armor. All mine, I thought as I ran my fingers down a velvety sleeve, the texture of the fabric reminiscent of yule’s past. Each piece was earned as a token of dedication.
“Rune! For the love of all things living, what’s taking you so long?” Rayna called out from the other side of my bedroom door. In the olden times, I would’ve jumped, but my nerves had since been lost. “Are you coming or not?”
I’d wondered how much time I’d wasted as I pulled a pair of leathers from the wardrobe. “Be out in a moment!”
“I’m about to remove the mirror from your bathing chamber! Asta should have never allowed you to have one,” Rayna grumbled. “You’re almost as bad as Bodil with her damn boar hair brushes. Obsessed, both of you.”
I climbed into my gear, then swung open my bedchamber door. Rayna stood just past it with her arms crossed, looking a moment away from removing it from its hinges. When she turned to me, her mouth gaped then shut like a breathless trout. “You look rather presentable.”
I suppressed a chuckle, worried she’d think I was still drunk if I broke my frozen façade. There was no way I was being left behind tonight. “Thank you. It’s from all the time I spend staring into that mirror you loath.”
“We all have our vices, Ru,” Rayna said with a shrug, leaning onto a thin wooden table lining the wall of our shared living space. “I just wish yours didn’t make me late every night.”
“There’s no rule stating you have to wait for me, you know.” I turned back to look at my sister as I walked past her, beginning our journey through the chambers Rayna and I’d inhabited for the past two centuries.
“I would see the ice of Helheim catch fire before I ever went down to the mortal plane without you.”
“Let’s go then,” I said, not being able to contain my chuckle this time. “Souls are waiting. I can taste them.”
CHAPTER THREE
THESE DREAMS THAT FIND ME
Kari
Crisp autumn days like today yanked me through a portal back to my curious childhood. Sometimes, the cause was the crunch of leaves under the sole of my wool-lined boots. Other times, it was the whispers of wind though the brittle branches of trees that’d begun their hibernations. Either way, this season was the source of my undying love for the scent of decomposing leaves, lit fires, and the need for additional clothing to warm my chilled flesh. It was also the source of sleepless nights and wicked dreams.
As I ladled steaming water out of my iron pot and into a clay mug, I pondered the dream that had found me last night. The twisted images my mind constructed were muddled over the past several weeks. I spent each morning sorting them as I sipped on mugwort tea I’d made from market ingredients and from what I’d grown in my own garden. I jotted down any symbols I recognized and attempted finding patterns within them.
I curled in on myself as I brought the mug to my lips and used the power within the brewed leaves and stems to help piece my mind together. Sure, the tea was meant to be drunk before sleeping to elicit clear dreams, but I figured there was no harm in a cup upon waking as well. The first few moments after rising were always the most crucial, and I kept charcoal and birch bark on the table beside my bed to prevent me from missing important details. For if I did, the meaning of my visions could be twisted into falsities. Just because future truths came to me in the night didn’t mean I always knew how to decipher them. I needed to perfectly understand their meaning if I were to know what was coming for me.
Leaning back in my chair, I set the birch bark on the table, close enough so I could still read what was on it. There were drawings of a setting sun, whooshing winds, of feathers and darkness. I saw flashes of gold, death, death, and more death. The dreams that replayed in my mind were hauntingly beautiful and so very dark. I wasn’t sure if there was a way to stop what was coming, and I was thankful no one lived in my mind, for they would discover I didn’t know if I wanted to stop it at all.
The woven basket on the far side of the table began to shake just before Tove jumped out of it and launched himself at me.
“Tove!” I yelled out as he extended his claws. My heart thrummed in my ears at the scare, even though it would have no impact. The feline’s attack was like that of his attack on the flies, and his small body passed right through my body and landed on the dirt floor behind me.
“Must you do that every day?” I asked, my voice raised a little too high. “One of these mornings, you will become corporeal and sink those claws right into me.”
Tove sat up properly and gave me a slow blink as an offering of peace, but I knew better than to trust it.
“We will make peace when you allow me to have mine,” I grumbled to the cat. In my mind, Tove was still an orange fur ball, he and I alike in our unique coloring. But when I took a moment to truly see him, it was only then I noticed I could see through him, that he had a blue tint around his edges, which always allowed me to tell the living from the dead.
Tove wasn’t the only ghost I saw each day—far from it. Stormheim was littered with them. Many were fresh souls wandering over from neighboring villages who had been slain in battle. The valkyries were getting a little lazy if you asked me, because I couldn’t go more than an hour without hearing one of their wails. Some complained about dying in rather pitiful ways that wouldn’t allow them into Valhalla, and others hadn’t quite realized they’d lost their lives in the first place. Sometimes, when I was alone and the spirit was close enough, I would help guide them on their way, but seeing them only allowed me to do so much. I could never deliver them to where they needed to go. That was the job of the gods and their attendants.
When Tove flopped onto his side and began grabbing at his tail, it reminded me that I had work of my own. I decided I’d spend a few more moments jotting down runes and trying to decipher what I’d seen in my slumber. By the time I was finished, my tea had grown cold, and my legs were itching for a walk. I set the charcoal down, knowing it was time to move on. I had a pinecone to collect anyway.
Once outside, I took a deep lungful of clean, crisp air. I wished I could bottle autumn air to savor for the rest of the year, but my many experiments as a child had always proven futile. There was nothing to do but simply enjoy it while it lasted.
I wandered about the land for a while, gathering natural necessities for potions and tonics. The woody scent of heather filled my nose, and my hands grew damp with dew and sapas I dug beneath exposed tree roots and through the forest’s underbrush.
I got lucky, finding a few animal bones polished by time, the most pristine pinecone, and a few handfuls of pine needles. A conspiracy of ravens cooed and clicked in nearby trees, and I wondered if any of them were messengers of the Allfather. I laughed to myself. Since I was a child, I couldn’t see a raven without thinking of Odin, but who was I to think he’d watch over such a small village such as Stormheim?
