6

Present day

A weathered gray farmhouse crouched a few yards back from the road. Warm yellow light filled the kitchen windows. In the picture window at the center of the house, wan blue light flickered.

I climbed the steps—old wood, worn and stripped of paint but recently-repaired—and rapped once on the screen door. Metal mesh sagged in the window frame. The storm door beyond stood open, allowing a breeze through its gap.

“Come in.” Maureen’s voice carried, raised from somewhere deeper inside the house.

I let myself in. The screen door creaked and latched with a solid click behind me.

Fragile evening light glowed against cheery yellow walls and blue gingham curtains. The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee mingled with the fetid, sterile breath of morphine and impending death.

“Iris, dear. Coffee?”

Maureen came into the kitchen from the living room turned sick room. Beyond her, the rasp and rattle of labored breathing outlined the upbeat voices of news anchors. Blue television light flickered against the wall I could see through the doorway.

Everett Cox lay in the hospital bed shoved flush against that wall.

He had been a vital man when I first met him, silver hair and ruddy cheeks and eyes alight with life. Disease had suctioned flesh from beneath his skin, leaving wrinkles hanging on a skeletal frame. His white hair lay in sickly, yellowed patches against his skull. His mouth hung slightly open, in an endless, silent moan of despair.

The same pain that bound Everett to his bed bound his wife there, too. Anguish pulled tight around Maureen’s eyes and haunted her attempt at a smile. Maureen held a half-empty mug in one hand and motioned toward the coffeemaker with the other.

Any subconscious urge I’d entertained to tell Maureen I’d be leaving town flickered and faded. The woman had enough on her plate. And how could I begin to explain my reasons for fleeing, when Maureen and Everett had been so good to me? Guilt twinged at the back of my neck as I realized that if I abruptly vanished, they’d have to hire someone new to run the rental office. Train that person. Maybe try out a couple of people before they found someone who worked out.

“No thanks.” I feigned a smile of my own. I held up the folder of reports Maureen had requested before setting them on the chipped, white-painted kitchen table. After a second’s hesitation, I asked, “How are you both doing?”

To her credit, Maureen’s face revealed no bitterness. “Same deal, different day,” she said, and weary resignation filtered through her words.

No one who asked that question expected news of improvement. Everett would not get better. The only hope anyone held out for him was that he would slip peacefully from the terrible grip of pain and into death.

It was a horrible thing to have to wish for.

Instinctively, I reached for Maureen’s hand. The other woman set her coffee mug aside on the counter and wrapped her arms around me. The embrace was stiff, both of us no doubt aware that allowing too much comfort would break down the strength Maureen required to see her husband along the last, miserable steps of his journey.

It will be better, I thought but didn’t dare to say. It will be better when he goes on. Helgafjell is a good place, with feasting and warm hearths while the souls wait for the renewal of the worlds. Plenty of room for everyone in that holy mountain. You can join him someday.

Or so I believed. In truth, I of course couldn’t see that dimension with my own eyes. Frigg, with her fey ways, had claimed to catch glimpses of it.

Maybe if she’d seen less of other things, I wouldn’t be here.

As Maureen released me from the embrace, I selfishly wished that I’d taken greater pains to keep Maureen and Everett out of my life. They touched off emotions I’d been trying for years to bury—love and grief and loneliness.

At the same time, as Maureen picked up her coffee mug and turned to the pot behind her—as much to give herself a moment as to top off her cup, I suspected—I caught myself wishing I could share some bit of personal knowledge that would comfort Maureen.

Would it really help, though? The gods understand death, but that doesn’t help them welcome it.

“There’s this story,” I heard myself saying anyhow.

The word “story” brought Heimdal’s long-absent face sharply into my memory. I shoved it away.

Maureen turned and regarded me with her weary eyes.

Wishing now that I hadn’t started, I had no choice but to continue. “The ancient Norse, they believed in gods. And other worlds.”

Back in the days when the Aesir had deigned to have anything to do with Midgard. Back when this world was considered equal and not a lesser world.

“They told… a story about something called Ragnarok. The end times.” I paused, working my way around the edges of the full truth.

Not a story. A prophecy. Something Frigg had foreseen.

And something the Aesir were determined to prevent, so maybe this attempt at reassuring Maureen was as ill-fated as I was.

Maureen tipped her head.

“Which sounds terribly dark,” I hurried on. “And it begins that way, certainly. There’s a war at the beginning of it, between the gods of Asgard and the Jotun—one of the other worlds. It will be a terrible battle.”

I paused. Wasn’t I supposed to be making Maureen feel better?

But I was in it now, so I hurried on. “But the important part is that after all the pain and struggle, the worlds are remade. There will be a new beginning. And in the meantime, the souls of the departed wait inside a paradise with brightness and beauty and…”

I caught the look on Maureen’s face and trailed off.

Maureen’s smile was faint. “Yes. That’s what I was raised to believe—something like it, at any rate. An end to struggle. A renewal of life.” Maureen paused long enough for a weary sigh. “It’s hard though, when you’re the one in the thick of things, to hold onto that hope.”

Regret choked me. What a stupid story to tell. It never comforted anyone, not even the gods. Only an Alfar would believe there was any good to be found in the end of the worlds. And I was the only one of those left.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

A pained expression flickered across Maureen’s face. Shaking her head, she clasped my hand. “No, dear. Don’t be. Your intentions are good.”

I summoned a faint smile. Here I’d thought I could comfort Maureen, and Maureen was comforting me instead.

Maureen let go of my hand and sipped her coffee. “You’ve studied Norse mythology?”

My smile turned awkward. “I know a few of the stories.”

I lived them. And what I didn’t live, I heard directly from the gods.

A fresh pang of homesickness struck me. A familiar restlessness, bordering on panic, welled up behind it.

I need to leave. No more attachments. I don’t need any more heartache.

I summoned another smile and tapped the folder on the kitchen table. “Your reports. If you think of anything else, I can get them first thing in the morning.”

If I’m still here.

“Of course, dear.” Maureen’s gaze drifted toward the living room turned sick room. Her voice sounded distant, as if she were withdrawing from our conversation and bracing to go back to her usual world. “Thanks for taking the time to drop those by. Get yourself home, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

My polite smile assured Maureen that was the truth.

But I wasn’t so sure she would.