Chapter 13

Building on Wave Rider continued at a furious pace. To Linden's surprise, everyone, even Professor Faust, of the ten thumbs and two left feet, threw themselves whole-heartedly into the effort of completing the ship before the month hiatus was through. They would never make it in that time, Linden knew; there was simply to much finished carpentry that only Tranum could do, but that didn't stop them from giving it the old college try.

Or trying to get it done for the old college so they could get out an article before the end of the term, Linden thought with mild cynicism.

Whatever the cause, she and Rolf agreed that it was worth the cost of room and board to have increased the available work force by another three pairs of hands, even if two of them were rather clumsy. At the rate they were going, they would be able to open the inn again for the month of November and take advantage of the Thanksgiving trade.

Linden participated in the ship venture only rarely, finding that running a household for nine by herself to be an arduous enough job without swinging an axe for hours at a time, but she gladly lent a hand with the camera the day that the tall block of wood that was to be carved into the ornamental prow was affixed to the keel along with the plank at the stern. She readily agreed to man the old Nikon since Rolf had his own hands full raising the frame, and they didn't trust anyone else to handle the old and complex manual focus, thirty-five millimeter monster that they were using to photograph the project.

Linden had a point and shoot that they used for the black and white back-up photos, but the cranky old Nikon delivered much higher quality pictures when loaded with the re-rolled motion picture film. The stuff was messy to develop, so there were very labs that could handle it and expensive to boot, but the forgiving nature of the film when it came time to do enlargements made the effort worth while. One could blow up a frame to a twenty-four by thirty-six inch photograph without loosing any definition of features, and Rolf had every intention of getting a coffee table book out of their efforts.

"Watch the depth of field," Rolf instructed un- necessarily for a second time.

"I've got the f-stop all the way over," she assured him patiently. Rolf had conveniently forgotten some years ago that it was Linden who had taught him about photography back in high school.

The blocks were hauled upright and then lashed into place, and riveted with wooden trenails pounded in from the front side and secured with small wedges. The hoist from the jetty did most of the work but several pairs of hands were needed to hold everything in careful alignment while the wooden rivets were applied. This was a critical step. The stability and strength of the boat depended on the bond to the keel. This was where all the strakes would be fastened and Tranum and Rolf did not trust anyone else to drive and then secure the trenails.

Linden captured it all with the Nikon and back-up point and shoot, and from every possible angle, but Rolf still took the camera away from time to time and shot several of the frames again. Just in case.

Linden surrendered the camera reluctantly and went back to the laundry.

The next step in the construction of Wave Rider's hull was to build a strake frame by driving several stakes deep into the ground where the U-shaped timbers would be caulked with cowhide dipped in tar, and then raised to the sides for lashing. The ribs, or crossbeams, which were only loosely attached at every third joining along the strakes, would be rabbited and added later.

Unfortunately, this step of framing was rather larger than the existing patio and it meant pulling up some of the brick work at the edge of the garden, a task they tackled while Linden was at work in the pumpkin patch and couldn't interfere with the temporary exhumation of her old bricks.

She didn't discover the desecration until it was too late to do anything about it, and in any event, she was too tired and distracted to protest it with any authority or enthusiasm. Arguing with Rolf was a lot like arguing with a stone. Only the stone was more giving. And Rolf was quite correct when he pointed out that the bricks around the patio had been crooked. That it had been done deliberately, with an eye to the charming, antique effect sometimes used in colonial perennial gardens hardly seemed worth mentioning when she was so tired... And he promised faithfully that he would put them back. Later.

Normally, she would not have been that busy with the garden's plants at this time of year that her brother could get away with such outrageous behavior, but Rolf, having heard from Tranum about her excuse of preparing a harvest feast for the celebration of the autumn solstice, had maliciously set to her to work that morning collecting, drying, and arranging a whole plethora of greenery that he insisted was necessary for the traditional offering at the Fall Evenight ceremony.

The search for an Ash tree had taken six hours alone. They weren't popular in Monterey and they didn't stock them at the local garden center. She had to content herself were purloining a handful of fallen leaves from a neighbor's backyard.

She supposed that she should consider herself lucky that she wasn't preparing the Halloween, or Night of Specters offering, or the Winter Sunstead or Yule ceremonies. They were much more elaborate and... heathen. As it was, the thought of this ceremony gave her shivers.

For the harvest there would only be offerings of fruits and vegetables, some herbs, and a scattering of autumn leaves. No sacrifices or blood offerings, Rolf promised. But still she was nervous.

Linden suspected that her sibling knew she was faking her enthusiasm for offering a memorable close to the professors visit in the form of the Fall Evenight festival, but having made the excuse to Tranum, what choice did she have except to carry it through?

If she set down her spade and refused to labor, Tranum was likely to stuff her in the van and haul her off to Tahoe to get married immediately, a task he was now capable of because, in spite of her protests about safety and insurance, Rolf had been giving Tranum driving lessons in both the van and his motorcycle.

She had also found an interesting pad of paper in the washing machine, forgotten among Rolf's sheets when he'd bundled up his laundry and dropped into the pile of Monday linens. She threw it away after examining it through the bleach stains. It was covered with shaky Leif Kirstensen signatures, and they weren't in her brother's hand-writing. Apparently Rolf was busy teaching Tranum other things as well. It was no wonder that his reading lessons with her were progressing at such an advanced rate; he was getting extra coaching in the evenings.

She hoped that Rolf drew the line at introducing Tranum to his own brand of light-hearted larceny that he practiced for fun and profit. But she wasn't holding her breath. Rolf, in his own inimitable fashion, was teaching Tranum how to cope with California in the best way he knew how... It just didn't happen to be her way, or even legal.

She would work on undoing it all later, Linden thought with a sigh. If there was a later. She still didn't have a clue about what she should do and the clock was lapping its final hours with indecent haste.

The last day of Linden's reprieve dawned with all the grey foreboding that was possible along the coast. The fog, something rarely seen in September after nine o'clock in the morning, refused that day to burn away, and the weather was dank and cold enough to pass for February.

The ecstatic radio forecaster was even predicting rain later that night, a phenomena all but unheard of in California before late November.

Linden was bone weary and half-fearful, half-hopeful that she was coming down with the flu. Her nightmare had been especially vivid the night before, repeating itself several times, and causing her to wake at intervals, covered in sweat and breathing hard.

Details from the start of the dream remained somewhat scetchy, but this time the ending was clear and different. She recalled more than a vague sadness at being left on the beach while Tranum and her children sailed away in a longboat.

These weren't sad dreams she was having; they were night terrors.

Last night there was more than a lonely beach and a storm waiting in her sleep. There had been a strange, glowing sky filled with green fire and lightning. Un-natural lightning. God-fire.

The longboat that came out of the black to lure Tranum from her was not whole, but rather a battered ship with torn sails that was crewed by dead Vikings.

She knew they were dead from their filmed over eyes and grey pallor, and as they drew closer over the black waves, from their hideous wounds, bloodless but gaping with fractured bones that pistoned in and out as they pulled on the long oars. They were livid in the green light, grim with a purpose that outfaced mortal pain.

Standing in the prow of the evil ship was a tall, skeletal figure of a cloaked woman, young but ugly, except for her long, gold hair. And strong. Too strong to be human. She braced herself with a sinewy arm and used the other limb for beckoning. The green fire about the boat struck her again and again, lighting up the empty hollows where her eyes should be. She did not flinch from the fire strikes.

She had no tongue in her mouth full of rotting teeth, but she called out to Tranum by name, urging him to join them in Valhalla.

Linden cried loudly in protest, reaching out to Tranum, screaming above the tearing wind, warning him that this was not Odin's Valkyrie, but rather Hel's minions sailing in Naglfari with her crew of the damned. But in the way of dreams, though she was closer than the cloaked corpse of the fake Valkyrie calling from the longboat prow, he could not hear her. Did not see her.

She began to run through sand that grew deeper with ever step, fighting the hurtful wind, screaming Tranum's name, that she loved him, that he couldn't leave.

At last, he turned from the ship and looked her way. He raised his arm and shouted, trying to warn her of some danger, but she could hear nothing above the rage of Hel's storm, see nothing beyond the green god-fire.

And then there was the beating of wings and blackness all around. And then water, cold and deep and deadly. Waves pulled her down into the dark and held her there while she swallowed the blackness and drowned.

Linden shuddered at the memory and pulled her robe tight.

Maybe baby or not, it was definitely a morning for fully leaded coffee, she decided, standing by the kitchen window and gulping down a second cup of the scorching brew as she watched the sun try vainly to burn through the morning fog.

Not even as a child when she had had nightmares after her father's death had she known dreams like these. Clearly she was stressing to unhealthy levels. It was time for her to come to some decision about what to do with Tranum. And about getting married. And the baby, if there was one. This worry couldn't go on!

...Oh Lord! what was she going to wear to get married in? Grandma's dress? Should she go shopping for something more appropriate? What was appropriate for a quickie, September wedding? She knew it was idiotic to worry about this minor detail, but her brain had fixated on it because it was something it could cope with. A simple task with an easy resolution.

Linden gulped more coffee, noticing the tremor in her pale hands. Tranum's opal was stark against her skin.

She would have to think about these things. But first, there was breakfast to get. And robes to finish sewing for the festival that night. The rest of the altar fruits had to be harvested...

She would decide what to wear tomorrow, if she got married. Maybe she would buy something in Vegas or Tahoe, or where ever they went. Something bright and cheery. After all, weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning. Or so the psalms said. And weddings were suppose to be happy.

Linden realized that she was hearing her grandmother quoting scripture again. Grandma Kirstensen seemed to be constantly at her side these days, clinging to her grand- daughter like an unhappy, ghostly shadow.

It was time, she decided, for an exorcism. Grandma and the nightmares had to go.

Linden put down her cup, resolutely stuck her head under the stainless steel tap and turned the cold water on full. It was rather radical therapy on a cold morning, but incipient hysteria caused by Grandma's haunting had to be dealt with in a quick and effective manner. She was too busy right now for a case of the screaming meemies.

This prickling of her skin and feeling of doomed oppression was nothing more than a lack of sleep, and a low pressure system preceding the storm. She always felt lousy when the barometer was falling. It was allergies affecting her sinuses. There was no need to ascribe this feeling to divine interventions and a deceased grandparent when two anti-histamine and a hot shower would cure it.

This day, too, would pass. She would just spend the afternoon huddled in the ground with the other burrowing mammals, pop out long enough to light a few candles in the old oak grove, and then come back inside and drink some hot, mulled cider made from the apples she'd pressed the day before. Then she and Tranum would go to bed-- together, for once-- and sleep.

Feeling somewhat more calm and a great deal cooler, at least in a physical sense, Linden reached for a tea towel to mop her face and bathrobe, and then went to the pantry to fetch what she would need to make herbed biscuits and baked peaches for breakfast.

The morning meal was going to simple since so much time had gotten by her, and the natives were already showering. That meant they'd be in the dining room in half an hour and expecting to be fed.

The canned peaches could be glazed with plum jam and zapped in the microwave in less than two minutes. Biscuits took ten and were faster than pancakes or waffles. The coffee and juice were already made.

There would even be time to change her clothes so that there would be no need to make explanations for her very wet robe, Linden decided.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child," she recited without thought, while measuring out flour and carelessly tossing it into the bowl. "I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man-- woman-- I put away childish things."

Reciting Biblical verse kept her calm while she rolled out the dough and began cutting biscuits, but Linden wished that she could think of something more cheerful than Corinthians. Unfortunately, the only other verses that came to mind were from Ecclesiates, and they were even less comforting than Grandma Kirstensen's Corinthians rendered in Old Danish. To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven might be an appropriate quotation for the day, but the part about a time to die was as cheerless as the grey September sky lowering overhead. And after her dreams of the night before, she didn't want to do any more thinking about storms, or fate, or dying.

Tranum looked down at Linden and smiled suddenly. She knew that it was a reaction composed of at least in half by the satisfaction that she was attending the Norse ceremony. She really hadn't intended to do any more than hover in the back- ground, but Tranum had talked her into standing at the place of honor near Rolf's altar by chaining her at the wrist with his favorite manacle, his own very hard hand.

"You're grinning," she whispered, pulling a strand of hair out of her mouth with the limb that was free. The wind had been gather force for the last ten minutes or so, sending the smoke from the torches streaming over the small oak grove, and messing up her unbound hair. For once, she was very grateful for the heavy wool garments Rolf had insisted that she wear that evening. They were rather itchy to skin unaccustomed to raw woolens, but they were thick and warm and covered her from neck to ankle.

"You look very nice, Linden." Tranum's smile grew. "These look just like the baptismal clothes that the Bishop gives away on Christening days."

"Bishop? I thought you didn't have anything to do with the church back home."

Tranum shrugged. "Many people from the village would go and be baptized whenever they needed new clothing. My friend, Oleg, was baptized twenty times. But he stopped going when the quality of the cloth became inferior."

Linden fought back a smile. "Did he not understand the purpose of baptism?" she asked. "It is not like bathing, you know. The effects don't were off after a few days."

"Yes, but many went any way since it was good for trade to visit with the Christian merchants, and they needed the clothes. Wool can always be dyed into something attractive."

"Hmph!" She allowed herself a small smile and began to relax for the first time that day. "They probably liked the idea of pulling a joke on the Christians. I bet it gave your friend a real thrill to get away with such nonsense."

"Is religion nonsense, pretty Linden? Why then does this ceremony disturb you?" Tranum asked quietly. "Is it not just another game?"

"I'm not disturbed exactly. But it isn't a game."

"All this day you have been strangely silent, staring out the window at nothing, listening at empty rooms."

Linden looked up into his eyes. They were black by torch light, the pupil expanded until the iris was only the thinnest of bands.

"It is the storm that's coming. I've been having dreams about storms," she confessed quietly.

Tranum frowned. "What manner of dreams? Portents?"

"Dreams where you leave me," she answered softly, and then flinched when a pair of large crow flew overhead and settled in the oak's twisted branches. Linden glanced up uneasily. It was not like the garden pests to come so close to an open fire. "Dreams where a ship comes to lure you away. And then last night--"

"We are ready. Let us begin," Rolf interrupted before she could tell Tranum about her nightmare.

Her brother stood at the make-shift altar they had erected at the north end of the small grove of oaks where he held his ceremonies. It was crowded this evening because of the extra guests. When Rolf had chosen the site, he had thought that he would be worshipping alone and privacy had been his only consideration. It was a tight squeeze, but the contact kept everybody warm.

Beyond the altar torches hung a banner of black decorated with a silver Odin Rune. In front was the smaller banner devoted to Sif, the patroness of this feast. To the left was a banner rune of Sif's husband, Thor, and to the right, a banner rune of Freya.

Beneath the penants and along the altar, Linden had laid out a small autumnal feast. Twists of herbs, braids of garlic and tomatos left on the vine, apples polished with wax until they shone, and a few early bunches of grapes. She had also scattered leaves from the sacred Ash Tree, but the wind had long since blown them away.

Normally she would not have included flowers for a pagan altar, but since she had refused to play the part of the Godia and the ritual called for a female presence, she had generously sacrificed the last of her mums to make a bouquet for the ceremony.

The only other decorations were the torches that Rolf had set out at the four points of the compass and before the cloth insignias. They were still dark, except the for the flame before the Odin Rune, and they would remain un-lighted until the proper moment in the ceremony.

Without any particular fanfare, Rolf began the rites. He had to pitch his voice to be heard above the wind and distant sounds of water, but he restrained any urges he might have had towards the dramatic.

Linden realized for the first time that for Rolf, this truly was religion and not just more theater. Tonight he was Godi, priest, and it gave him an unusual dignity. Responsibility, so rarely see in his company, sat well on his shoulders.

O Great Odin, Sky-Cloaked Wandered

From the far, ancient lands of our people,

We call thee to be here with us.

We call thee across all time

And all the worlds of the Gods.

Linden tried to stop the shudder that galloped up her spine at Rolf's opening words, but she could feel the skin tightening alone the back of her neck, the hair lifting along her arms. She had never attended Rolf's ceremonies and so his invocation came as an unpleasant surprise... We call thee across all time... She didn't like the sound of that at all.

"Hail, Odin," Tranum replied firmly to Rolf's cue. Everyone else was silent. They had come to observe, not participate.

Linden had to bite her lips to keep back her request that he also remain silent and not call Odin's-- or anyone's-- attention their way.

It was silly superstition, but she couldn't help noticing that it was two weeks to the day since he had arrived in California after nearly drowning in the bay. It was the autumnal solstice, the fall moon, what little there was of it, was a morbid orange color-- and a storm was coming! After her dream the night before, that was about two portents too many as far as she was concerned. The ceremony suddenly felt like a very bad idea.

Rolf turned and lit the torch before the Freya banner. His hair was also whipping about in the strong westerly. If it had been longer Linden would have worried about him setting it afire with the flaring brands that shot up with every passing gust of heavy air. It would be appropriate for the heathen to go up as a human torch.

O Leader of the Wind Riders,

Thou who weavest fates and destinies

And before whose magics

Men and Gods do bow.

We call thee, O Freya the Fair One! Be with us here, in this rite.

"But not women! At least, not this one," Linden thought a little wildly, whispering a nearly silent contradiction to her brother. "I deny you! I don't bow before you, I don't want you here! Leave us alone."

"Hail, Freya," Tranum answered. Then in a whisper as soft as her own: "Danish, Linden. They will not hear prayers in English."

Rolf ignored her whispered pleadings, too, and turned to the Thor Rune to light another torch. One of those abrupt gusts made it flame up brightly, bathing him in orange fire.

O red-bearded Thunderer,

Friend and protector of our people,

Before whose mighty hammer

Neither Gods nor man can stand,

Yet who loves the farmstead and

The companionship of those who labor,

Be with us here in this rite.

Right on cue, lightning split the sky somewhere out at sea and soft roll of thunder, more felt than heard, moved over the land. The wind that carried the inaudible drumming ashore set the grass to rippling in dry shivers. Overhead the crows fluttered nervously.

"Hail, Thor." Tranum looked thoughtful as he glanced over his right shoulder. Linden trembled again and looked at the other attendees.

Petr and Tabby were calm but the three professors began to shift about, either from unease or excitement. They had not brought their note books and Rolf had refused to allow recordings or cameras, so they had nothing to do with their idle hands. There weren't even pockets in their borrowed robes where they could tuck their chilled appendages.

O Sif of the Golden Hair, whose magic tresses

Are as the rich gold of the autumn harvest,

We do ask that thy blessings surround us,

And we thank thee for this bountiful food

Which thou hast given us.

"Hail Sif of the Golden Hair," Tranum replied, but he wasn't looking at the altar. She could feel his gaze on her face. It was the only thing warm around her, and that felt almost too hot for comfort.

Linden shoved down another wayward strand that had chosen that moment to wrap itself around Tranum's arm.

Rolf lit the remaining torches and turned back to face them.

Now is the time.

We must prepare ourselves and our people,

Our lands, our homes, and our families

For the hard season that lies before us.

"This is the fetching in of summer," came Tranum's rumble. He carefully pulled her hair back into his hands, making her wonder if the wind was solely to blame for the tangled state of her locks.

We store up food for the body.

So also must we put in store

Strength of spirit and soul

Until Spring, and the fair seasons

Are reborn once again.

"This season marks the decline of the year, toward the sere season to come."

Let us prepare for the lean times,

For ourselves and for our people.

Hail Earth,

Mother of all!

"Hail Earth, Mother of all."

Linden knew that usually a Blot would be held, but Rolf and Tranum had agreed to substitute mead for blood, so there would be no animal sacrificed that evening.

The Godi still took up his ceremonial dagger but rather than make an oblation, Rolf laid his clenched hand over his chest and struck the time for thirteen heartbeats.

The time for our rite is ended.

Let us give thanks for this time

When we may be with the Gods. May the spirit of far Valhalla go ever with us,

With our children, with our people.

"Hail, Odin."

Rolf laid the dagger back on the altar, picked up the drinking horn and swallowed deeply. The last inch he poured out at the base of the oak under the Odin banner as a final salutation.

"Hail, Odin!" He cried as the first drops of rain began to fall. "And now, on to the feast! Quickly. The sky is going to flow!"

Tranum walked along the old jetty, oblivious to the rain. It was not cold enough to be truly unpleasant, and he wished to contemplate for a few moments away from the feasting and noise.

He liked not the sound of his Valkyrie's dreams for they spoke of an unsettled soul. Nor had it escaped him that his pretty Linden was still very uneasy about the prospect of a legal marriage, and this made a footprint in the sand of possibilities that was all too easy to follow. He did not like the track's direction either.

Tabby thought Linden's uneasiness was because she wanted to have new clothes and a party to celebrate the nuptials. But she could buy clothes at outletmall and there was nothing to prevent them from having a marriage feast. Tranum didn't believe that clothes were the problem. Linden had other wants that were more difficult to meet.

He knew what his pretty Linden desired of him. Knew it as surely as he knew the moods of the sea. For did he not wish for the same thing from his stubbornly silent Valkyrie? Did he not want to hear that she had affection for him-- an admission that she was glad that she carried his child?

He came to a halt at the end of the pier and stared out at the Pacific. The waves white capped and chasing one another with dangerous speed beyond the rocky breakers. The wind was also increasing its pitch as the temperature dropped, suggesting that worse weather from the north was headed their way and soon.

Tranum shoved his wet hair back and sighed.

Linden wanted to hear words of his love. He wanted to hear them also. Wanted to give them. Wanted to receive them as well.

Grandfather Selig would never have given them to a woman. It was not his way, not the way of the Viking. But had he not come to a new land that practiced new ways? And weren't most of these new ways good?

Why keep a close hold on these few words? What use was there to horde them? Was it not better to give them over to Linden's gentle care than to keep the painful longing hidden behind a shield of old pride? Already she had his heart in hand, why not give her this small gift of words?

Or were these the thoughts of a weakening, lustful man?

Tranum's gaze jerked skyward as a wave of liquid green fire washed over the black night. His skin prickled and then turned to ice.

"No!" he cried, recognizing the texture and color of the storm that had first killed him and then brought him here. The storm was filled with magic that might just as easily take him away again. And he had not even a sword with which to fight!

Linden had been walking swiftly along the beach searching for Tranum among the dark rocks and gullies. She should have gone back with the setting sun to get a flashlight, but her uneasiness had grown with every labored step until she was all but running through the thick sand with her wet robes pulled above her knees.

The combination of rough sand and slick rock was confounding to the feet, but she just kept running.

She had to find him! Now! Tell him that she loved him before it was too late!

Suddenly, the grey clouds were ripped apart by a sheet of lightning. Green lighting. Godfire.

"No," she whispered as the thunder rolled over her. "No!"

Another threatening crackle and roar directly over her head had Linden dropping to her knees in the relative safety of the earth. She pushed her hair back out of her eyes and looked about wildly.

She could see Tranum's silhouette standing at the end of the old jetty back-lit by the sheet of green. Beyond him the waves were growing taller and veined with ropes of white foam-- No, not foam! A sail!

"Tranum, no! Don't go!" she screamed in real panic. Grunting with effort, she staggered to her feet and began running for the jetty with all the strength left in her tired legs. Her breathing was harsh and loud enough to hear above the storm, though the mild costal wind of seconds before had grown into a threnody of howling gale that screeched angrily as it tore through her heavy robes, freezing her arms and legs where it touched living flesh.

It was a north wind flown on un-natural wings from the glacial fields of the arctic, she thought hysterically. It was also her nightmare. The green fire. The tormented water.

Tranum turned her way as a sudden wave, driven by the Hel wind, washed over her legs and tried to pull her beneath it's crest. Linden was horrified by both the sight and feel of the foam wrapping around her; the water never came that far ashore. Not even at high tide!

She lurched to the side, pulling her sodden garments out of the wave's bitterly cold grasp. The sea had coughed up these waters from its frozen belly to push Naglfari along. The waters in the bay had never been that frigid or dead.

She looked up to see that Tranum was running toward her, pointing at something behind her. Too late, she remembered the end of her dream.

She barely had time to twist around and confront the death-bringer, white stick arms surging out of the hostile water, grabbing at her robes with its whip like tentacles and pulling her into its icy grasp.

Linden went down, down into the dark among the tumbled boulders. Hel's frozen hand was squeezing her heart. Her strong, bone arms crushing Linden's lungs until the air began streaming out of her mouth and there was nothing left to do but swallow the black ice, breathe it into her distressed lungs and drown.

Club Valhalla

Copyrighted (c) 2002 Melanie Jackson

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