“Yes!” shouts Ylvin as she throws her hands above her head. Her eyes widen as a wild smile grows on her face. “Keep going!”
“I… I just—” It’s too cold. I instinctively drop the stone, watching it sink to the bottom of the river.
Ylvin laughs, howling like a wolf.
“Well done, girl!”
“I dropped it.”
“Who cares? You can make fifty more.”
“Yes, but I… I did it…”
“You did! Congratulations. Now you can make little objects cold. Fucking useless, but it’s a start, right?”
I nod. I can’t believe it. I can do it. I never thought?—
“Welcome, my dear,” says Ylvin before she grabs my cheeks and lands a wet kiss on my forehead. “Welcome to the circle. You are a Volva.”
She’s right. I’m not useless. I can learn, practice, and grow. How did I even do it? I’m not sure. A thought hits me.
“Did you enchant it beforehand?” I ask with a sly smile.
“You really don’t trust me at all, do you?”
“You drugged me!”
“To help you, not to hurt you.”
“Still, you sent me beyond the veil! Without forewarning. Isn’t that dangerous?”
She laughs. That primal, vicious laugh.
“Very dangerous. You would either return as a Volva or a dumber slave.”
She grins. The grin of someone playing with the minds of others, playing with people’s lives. Maybe that’s what Volvas do. Decide for others. My eyes roll of their own volition.
“You! You are unbelievable,” I laugh.
“Yet you believe.”
“I do now.”
“I will share a few lower enchantments you can practice down at the farm,” says Ylvin. “But first…”
Ylvin swims to the riverbank, raising herself from the water. Droplets glitter on her bare skin as she walks to find her drying cloth.
“Come, girl,” she orders me. “I have something for you.”
I stand, my naked body stroked by a warm wind carrying the scent of plants and animals—life. I feel its warmth, yet it makes me shiver. Ylvin waggles her eyebrows as she looks me up and down.
“Not afraid anymore?” she asks, making me giggle.
“It’s just us.”
“That’s right. You’re a lucky girl,” she says, eyes on my shapes.
She tosses me the linen I had brought to dry myself. Nude in the woods. I would never have believed it. And yet, now, I understand. There is nothing to fear. Ylvin’s rants have helped me see. The two of us are meant to be here. We are in our natural essence. Women in our bodies. Animals in the woods. Wild.
