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And I spake:

I squint hard at the next lines. They aren’t Old East Norse, but something deeper in etymological history. It’s not anglicized like the rest but rather written in runic rather than Latin letters. Scrabbling from my chair, I kneel in front of Dean Shea’s massive mahogany bookcase and dig around for a Runic Norse alphabet and dictionary. Viking Language 1, with a picture of a terrifying carved wood creature on its cover, stares back at me. Flipping to the glossary, I return to the desk, pulling the pencil from behind my ear.

It’s slow going, but it begins to take shape.

This is a way to live forever.

We take the body and we crush it, we make it something new under the eyes of the old gods, we set ourselves an oath

‘Hail Óðinn, he who triumphs over death

Who sacrificed himself to himself

Struck by spear and blood running

Bound to root, screaming, you took

The runes for mortals to mold magic,

We offer ourselves in this same way

In the sacred waters’ boil

And the char-sharp spear

Returning to walk this Earth

One thousand years.

We place our souls into revenants

who offer themselves, prostrate, before us.”

I told the warrior king to bring his brother. We ended him quick as the rest, forced him to walk the earth as wraiths until the end times come, and Yggdrasil cracks.

The warrior king’s brother was my husband. May I have peace now.

It is signed “Marheiður Þorsteinsdóttir.”

Shaking, I close the journal. This is the thing that kept them alive, becoming, passing villainy between their hands so they could outlast their welcome on this planet, isn’t it? That oath, the one told to the warrior king, it’s the point.

Shoving back from the table, I grab my phone and text Marcella:

They killed them

Therese and Laurel

I found their phones and the journal

God I’m so fucking angry

Do you know anything about a Marheiður Þorstéinsdóttir?

Wait. Wait. Marcella’s father, his name was Þorstéin. Oh my god. Is this hers? A thrill travels through me.

Marcella, where are you

Please