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I walk in circles for hours, until I’m exhausted. When I come back, the others are passed out. I feed some twigs to the dwindling campfire and sit to think. What Dulcie said has me all messed up inside. Why didn’t she tell me this before? Can she see what’s going to happen?
I rub my wrist where the E-ticket used to be. My muscles burn, and I feel a spot of fear laced with hopelessness growing larger.
There’s a rustling sound. At first I think it’s some animal, but then Balder drops next to me by the fire. He’s got Keith’s jacket around his shoulders and a bag of marshmallows in one hand. In his other is the E-ticket, which he places on the thin strip of dirt between us. He squints up at the night sky. “Ah. Do you see Hati chasing Mani? It is the ravenous wolf in relentless pursuit!”
Thin wisps of gray cloud stretch their jaws across the moon.
“That’s the moon. And that’s a cloud. No wolf.”
“You’re mistaken!” Balder says cheerily. “It is the—”
I slap my hand against the ground making the E-ticket jump. “They’re just f**king stories, okay? Like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. It’s bullshit we tell ourselves so we don’t feel afraid.”
Balder turns back to the fire, and I’m sorry for yelling at him. He threads a stick with marshmallows. “Shall I tell you a story?” he asks softly. “You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to.”
I want to say no. Or maybe yes. But my throat’s too tight to make a sound. And then, as if he can read my thoughts, Balder begins.
“I wish you could see my homeland. In the winter, the snows greet you with vigor. Every breath you take is a warrior’s breath, fighting against that worthy adversary, the cold. Ice floes drift past our longboats, and the sails are as ghosts in the mist. But in the spring! In the spring, the land is the green of a ribbon plaited in the golden hair of a village girl you’ve glimpsed only once, fleetingly, as your horses lead you on toward battle, but whose face you remember the rest of your days. Golden-grass fields rise and fall to the sea. There are mountains! Great, slumbering giants of rock who wake with a frightful noise from time to time, shaking the earth, belching heat, reminding us that change is always at hand. At the great ash tree, Yggdrasil, which holds our nine worlds, the Norn tend the roots, keeping them nourished that they not decay, deciding men’s fates with a length of string. Above it all, Frigg spins clouds that float in the ever-blue like giants’ eyes watching from a careful distance. And there is Breidablik, where all are welcome and no lies may enter through its stones. My great, gleaming hall.” His voice falters. “My home.”
Balder’s eyes twinkle with pride and sadness. I think of my dusty Texas town. Other than Eubie’s, there’s not much to miss.
“You’re not the only one who feels such pain, Cameron. There have been many times during my captivity that I dearly wished I were not immortal, that I could die. But then you came. This quest has renewed my hope.”
His eyes search mine. I nod toward the blackened marsh-mallows. Balder shakes them off, lets the fire take them, and starts over with fresh ones.
“You are like the Allfather, Odin,” he says after a while.
“What do you mean?”
Balder turns the stick in the fire. “When Odin heard of the coming of Ragnarok, of the end to the days of gods, he found no more joy. The foreknowledge of our fate was too much to bear. He refused all food and sank into despair.”
“I’m not that dramatic,” I say, because he’s making me feel like a wuss.
“You miss the point. Like Odin, you see only the coming doom and lose faith in what is here, what is good.”
I lean my head back. The moon bleeds a hole into the night sky, a wound that seems beyond healing. “So what should I believe in?”
“That I cannot say. For me, it is the dream that Ringhorn waits for me on the sea. That I shall sail through the eternal mist until Breidablik gleams in the distance. That I will return home. Here.” Balder offers me the gooey browned mess at the end of his stick. “You must have sustenance.”
“That’s a marshmallow,” I say, but Balder insists. Gingerly, I pry the bubbling thing loose, blow, then drop it in my mouth where it coats my tongue in scorched sweetness.
“Thanks.”
In the firelight, Balder’s features are sharply illuminated. I’ve never noticed the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, the weariness etched there. “The dark does not weep for itself because there is no light. Rather, it accepts that it is the dark. It is said that even the gods must die.” He winks. “But not without one hell of a fight.”
“Can I have another marshmallow?” I ask.
Balder cooks me up another one, and it’s as good as the first. “If you are in need of more guidance, I could draw a rune.” He tugs the pouch free from under his tunic. It sits in his palm, heavy with destiny.
I shake my head. “Let’s just see what comes.”
He pushes the E-ticket meter a little closer to me. He thinks he’s being clever. Vikings. Not great at subtlety. With a sigh, I pick it up and he helps me fasten it on my wrist again. The cloud shifts into a shapeless blot. A raccoon comes sniffing for food. For a few seconds, it skirts the edge of the fire, nose up, smelling. And then it scurries off into the brush.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Wherein We Discover What Assholes These Mortals Be
The hundred miles to Daytona are a rough, quiet affair. Everybody’s hungover but Balder and me. Every eight miles or so, I have to pull over and let somebody puke.
