Page 83 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings
I gritted my teeth and did just as she asked. The thick, coppery liquid slid down my throat, and even after it was all gone, I waited several moments before I unplugged my nose and resumed breathing. Áma handed me a cloth to wipe my lips, and when I did, the cloth came away a diluted scarlet. My nose wrinkled, but I turned my attention to Áma so I didn’t have to dwell on what I’d done any longer.
“Very good. Now let that settle into your stomach,” Áma said with a smack of her thin lips, “First thing’s first.” Her wrinkled palm smacked the side of my face with a strength I didn’t know she had. My hand instinctively found my throbbing cheek, and I stared at the woman in disbelief. “You will be an attendant to Freyja, Goddess of Fertility, War, and Love, and you will join her council. There will be many things you won’t know how to do, but you will uncover the answers you seek, always. You will have a council of people to help you. You will never be alone. Even now, you’re not alone. Do not see my help as a weakness. You hear me?”
“Yes, but did I really need to be slap?—”
“You don’t think you can locate Odr, but if you believe it, it will be so. You are young, with much to learn, but you are powerful already. Even the gods see it. Do not squander this opportunity on self-doubt.”
“I’m not squandering it,” I growled out.
“I heard you pacing, child. Do not lie to me. You don’t have faith in yourself. Tonight, when you lay your head upon a pillow of god, you will have a vision of someone other than yourself. Say it!”
This woman is ill in the mind!
“Say it!”
I swallowed and lowered my hand from my still-throbbing cheek. My dry lips parted, and I repeated her words back to her. “When I lay my head upon a pillow of a god, I will have a vision of someone other than myself.”
“When your eyes close and your mind goes elsewhere, you will see the God of Inspiration and Frenzy. You will find Odr. Say it!”
“When my eyes close and my mind goes elsewhere, I will see the God of Inspiration and Frenzy,” I echoed, not just saying it to appease her this time, but feeling the words down to my marrow.
“Good. Now, climb into his bed,” Áma said, her knuckles pointed toward his impressive slumber mat. I did as she said, the pounding of my blood in my ears, mixed with that of five others.
When I was tucked under his bedding, Áma stood to the side and took my hand. Her dark gaze softened as she brought her hand over my face and gently closed my eyes, humming to me as she did.
“With closed eyes, your mind opens,” she sang, her voice rough. “With open palms, what you seek finds you.”
My arms rested at my sides, palms up, just as Áma sang. I felt a cool wash on my skin as Áma painted shapes across the inside of my hands and up my wrists. My eyes remained closed, my mind focused. My visions usually found me in my dreams, a tangled web while I slept.
Not this time.
My chin tilted, eyes rolled to the back of my skull. I was mildly aware of the surroundings of my waking body, but the images that flicked through my mind were all I saw behind closed eyes.
Splashes of color drenched my skin as I peered down at myself. The odd pigments reminded me of the surface of a sparkling fjord when the high sun greeted the water’s edge. My hands were strong, the tips of my fingers shaped in hardlines meant for wielding, creating. Upon noticing a patch of unpainted skin, I reached for my brush, only to notice the color I needed was gone.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
This wasn’t right, couldn’t be right, until the color I needed was mine once more. How had I not realized I was running low on the shade? It shared the pigment of the sun when cast behind the clouds, the way it lit the sky in shimmering beams of light the perfect balance between pink and blue.
My brush clattered against my tools, and I, too, was gone. A rainbow swallowed me whole and spit me back out in a land of white. This new place was one my heart beat for but my mind could not place. Golden spheres rolled upon the ground and trees bent, forming tunnels for me to walk through, a shade from the blinding sun.
I knew where I needed to go, but as I walked, walked, walked, I moved no closer. The pigment began falling from my skin, leaching into the soil below me, until I, too, fell beneath the dirt and roots of the realm. I was pulled down and down and down until I sat within the roots of the very tree that had stolen me. My hands were empty and my heart was too as I realized I was colorless, pigment-less.
My gaze fell upon my hands, memories moving across my palms much like the plays I often watched on Asgard. My home.
I stirred with a gasp, sitting up right, my arms flailing out on either side of me.
“Settle,” Áma spoke in a low, steady tone. “You’re here, back within yourself.”
My fists clenched the damp bedding, and I took three breaths before I threw layers of quilts and furs off myself. I ran to the easel in the far corner of the room and ran my fingers over the canvas. My eyes flicked to the empty jar of pigment, and before I knew what I was doing, my finger dipped inside the jar andrubbed the sides for remaining residue. When I held my finger up, a shimmery purple coated the side of it.
“What are you looking for?” Áma asked, peering over me. I jumped to the side, not realizing she had snuck up on me.
“Where would someone go for pigments such as these?” I asked, motioning to the collection of jars and dried brushes. “I’ve never seen anything like them on Midgard.”
Áma picked up a jar and rolled it between her fingers. She hummed before she said, “That’s because the properties within don’t exist upon Midgard. These are laden with seidr and rare elven elements.”
“Elven?” I asked, staring down at my finger still stained the unique shade of a cloudy sunset.
