One
Thyra
Firelight fills the room. I hear murmuring echoes that seem to come from great distances, voices I almost recognize. One voice is velvet soft: "Thyra, you must let them go. You'll hurt them."
I don't know where I am. England maybe. But I think I'm two or three. Mother's beautiful face swims out of the night, smiling down at me. She appears annoyed, as though I've failed some test of humanity. Behind her, firelight dances over the log walls, and I remember that all morning I've been crawling around, gathering the fluttering orange wings on the floor and trying to scoop them up. They've been talking to me, scolding me for trying to catch them. I don't understand why I can't grasp the half-transparent butterflies in my hands.
"Here." Mother reaches up to clutch her silver pendant. "Hold my hand and help me release them."
I place my small hand in hers. As a flood of warmth fills me, the orange wings flutter upward and disperse in a hypnotic dance across the ceiling. I watch them with my mouth ajar. They are so beautiful.
Mother's necklace dangles in front of my eyes. She sees me looking at it. "Someday you will be a great seeress and this will be yours. You will be able to walk in and out of our Helgafell as though no door existed at all."
Helgafell. I don't know what that is.
Mother bends, picks me up, and carries me to the fire-warmed wisent hide spread before the stone hearth. Hanging on the wall beside the hearth is a metal staff and a glittering sword etched with runes. The sword's name is Hel. Over and over Mother has told me the story written upon her shining blade. The runes tell of the giant goddess of the underworld, after whom the sword is named. The goddess, Hel, is half-black and half-white and lives in the hall of Eliudnir, the hall "sprayed with snowstorms," in Helheim. Her bed has a name, Sick Bed, and her bed curtains are Gleaming Disaster. Her dish is Hunger, her knife Famine.
My empty stomach squeals when I look at the sword. Hel sings me to sleep at night, her voice sweet and high, like wind through standing stones.
An iron cooking kettle hangs just above the hearth flames, but I smell only the mineral scent of steam rising. Mother is bundled like a dying skeleton, in a ragged blue cloak with a gray wool blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The angles of her cheeks are sharp as lance blades.
Even now, when I think of her, I am filled with a tremendous sadness for which I can find no reason. I remember that she could change into a deer. I saw her do it. I remember her long ivory hair and the gentleness of her hands. And I remember screams that day. Her screams? I've been trying to remember all my life.
A knock comes at the door.
Mother turns. Brightness crosses her face like summer sunlight striking the glaciers, breathtaking and fragile. "Oh, thank the gods, your father is home. I'm sure he caught a bird or fish to throw in the stew pot."
A man enters-not Father-whispers something to Mother, and a panicked expression creases her face. She grabs the man's arm. "Are you certain of this? But why? Why would he do this?"
"When Pallig defected to join the raiders ravaging the south coast, the king heard rumors that the Danes were about to kill him and his councilors, then take his kingdom. He decided to act first."
"Is Pallig-"
"No one know for certain, but Sweyn fears for your life and your daughter's."
Shouts outside. Three men run past the open door. The man talking with Mother whirls to look, then licks his lips. "The traitor wants Eyr badly. We can't let him get his filthy hands on her."
Mother hesitates for an instant before she grabs an iron rod from the pegs above the door and shoves it into his extended hands. Then she strips her necklace from her throat and gives it to him. "Give these to Avaldamon. He will need them. And, Baldur, I know you're an accomplished Seidur practitioner, but don't use Eyr unless you must. And never use the pendant and Eyr together! It's too dangerous. I can barely control them. You-"
"I'm so sorry, Veth-"
"No time for regrets. Go! I'll be behind you."
I seem to have gone blind, or perhaps I've fallen asleep, as children do in the midst of the most dire things. I see nothing now ... but I hear Mother's footsteps hurry toward the rear of the room, then she gasps as another door squeaks open on rusty hinges. The room is drowned in darkness, though the firelight continues to shine at the edges; the roof and walls appear to be a mosaic of amber shards.
From out of the dark, Mother's eyes appear-just her eyes-filled with tears, staring at me with enough love to last me a lifetime.
A man orders, "Quickly! She's a myrkrida, a darkness-rider. Don't let her touch her sword or staff. Grab them from the wall. And make no mistake, he wants her alive."
... then the screams. Voices tangle. I've never heard Mother scream before. Is it Mother?
Hard hands grab me and swing me up into muscular arms. I see no faces, but I smell smoke, hear people running and children sobbing.
Outside, my vision returns. Ashes, white as snow, bathe the air with brilliance. The man carrying me mounts a horse.
As we gallop away, the town is a dream born of moonlight, sculpted in icicles, dying in fire.
... That's the last thing I remember. Ice and flames.
My next memory is of a new family, a new home, a place where ghosts haunt the hidden crevices in the floor. I live in Denmark now. I have a baby brother. I'm happy. I am loved.
Are my dreams of that other mother, that other home, just the fanciful creations of a child's mind?
Possibly.
I don't know why it matters any longer.
Except that sometimes at night I hear that other mother calling me as though she's still trying to find me.
And I desperately long to go to her.
Copyright © 2015 by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear
