Idunn

Idunn had nearly worked the hinge loose when Thjazi came back for her apples.

She laid her palm over the bent pin. The little chest stood between her feet, its lid shut, and for a moment she hoped he had come only to look at her. Then he stooped under the lintel and held out his hand.

“Give it here.”

She kept her feet against the wood.

Thjazi looked down at them. He had carried her through the sky with those same hands made into talons. One had closed around her waist; the other had gripped the chest. All the way to Thrymheim she had heard its lid knocking beneath her, a small, homely sound above the terrible distance to the earth.

Now his hand was broad enough to cover it.

“You have me,” she said. “Leave that.”

“I have you both.”

He took the chest. She rose with it, fingers beneath its handles, until her feet left the floor. Then he shook it once. She fell against the bench.

The pain took her breath. When she could straighten, he was examining the hinge.

“If you damage them,” she said, “what will you bargain with?”

That stopped him more surely than her grip had.

He set the chest on a shelf cut into the wall. It was just above her head. From there he could see its lid without bending.

“Your husband will come,” he said. “Or someone he sends.”

“And what will you ask?”

“I shall think of something.”

He sounded pleased to have time.

Idunn thought of Bragi reaching for his cup. Before she left, he had complained that the handle was badly made. She had taken it from him, fitted her own fingers through it, and found nothing wrong. He had laughed and kissed her wrist.

She had meant to bring him an apple when she returned.

“Put it by the window,” she said.

Thjazi turned.

“They will sweat against that wall. Lift the lid tomorrow and see what you have bought.”

She did not know whether he believed her. She knew that he carried the chest to the window.

The opening was narrow enough to keep her inside, but the chest fitted between its stone sides. Cold air moved over the wood. Beyond it, cliffs fell towards the sea.

Thjazi laid a bar across the front, slid one end deep into a socket, and hammered the other into its notch with the heel of his hand. The bar pressed down on the lid. The chest could move neither forwards nor back.

“There,” he said. “Fresh air.”

After he locked the door, Idunn stood on the bench and reached up. Her fingers found the damaged hinge. She could bend the corner of the lid a little. She could not lift it.

Outside, a boat scraped over stones. Thjazi was going down to the water.

She put both hands under the bar and pulled until the bench rocked.

The bar did not move.

The Bird at the Window

The scratching began while she was looking for something to use as a lever.

Idunn stopped. A grey claw hooked over the outer sill. Then a falcon dragged itself into the light, breast heaving, one wing hanging lower than the other.

It looked at her through the narrow space above the chest.

“Idunn.”

She let go of the bench.

The bird opened its beak again. Only a rasp came out.

For a moment she saw Loki beside her in the forest, moving a branch out of her way. There were apples farther on, he had said. Better ones, perhaps. Would she not like to know? She had brought her own to compare them, and he had walked so close that their sleeves brushed.

She had called his name when the eagle came.

Now he was here, small enough for her to close a hand around his throat.

“Go away.”

“I have come to take you home.”

“You brought me here.”

His claws scraped on the stone. He was trying to fold the trailing wing and could not quite manage it.

“I know.”

Below the cliffs, the boat was a dark stroke on the water. Thjazi stood in it, drawing something aboard. Idunn could not tell whether it was a line or a net.

“Can you open the door?” she asked.

“No.”

“The window?”

“No.”

“Then what have you come to do?”

Loki lifted his head. The bird’s eyes had the same exhausted watchfulness she remembered in old men who had come to Asgard on errands and sat down carefully, as though a chair might hurt them.

“I can make you small enough to carry.”

“And the apples?”

He looked at the chest beneath him.

For the first time since he had arrived, Idunn felt afraid of something other than Thjazi.

“You were going to leave them.”

“I was going to get you out.”

She climbed onto the bench again. He shuffled aside as she pushed her hand through the space beside the chest and felt along the outer socket. The bar went farther into the stone than her fingers could follow.

“If we slide it that way,” she said, “this end will come free.”

Loki braced his feet. She pushed from below while he pulled with his beak. The wood gave a dry complaint, then stopped. He slipped, caught himself on the edge, and struck the sill hard with his breast.

She reached for him before she could remember not to.

The narrow body trembled in her hand. Beneath the borrowed feathers he felt terribly light.

“How long?” she asked.

He did not pretend to misunderstand.

“Long enough.”

“Bragi?”

“He is alive.”

She waited.

“He asked me to bring you back.”

“What else?”

Loki lowered his eyes. “He could not get down the steps to ask me himself.”

Idunn set him on the sill.

Behind the bent corner of the chest, an apple pressed against the wood. She could see a little of its skin. She had packed it herself. Her thumb knew the slight hollow beside its stalk.

She slipped two fingers through the gap.

What She Could Give

The apple would not pass under the lid.

Idunn pulled harder. The damaged hinge lifted, then caught. A splinter entered the side of her thumb. She tried turning the fruit, but the gap was no wider whichever way she held it.

Loki watched her hands.

“Leave the chest. We will come back.”

“On whose strength?”

He said nothing.

She pressed the apple against the broken edge. Its skin split. Juice ran over her wrist and dripped onto the bench. The smell filled the little space between them, and Loki leaned towards it before he could stop himself.

Idunn looked at his hooked beak.

There had been a time when she could place an apple in his hand without wondering what he might do with the life it gave him. She remembered that ease more sharply than she remembered the eagle’s claws.

She worked her thumbnail into the split. A piece of flesh came away, ragged and wet.

Loki had gone still.

“Did you know he would take me?” she asked.

“Yes.”

The word left her nothing to untangle.

Below them, Thjazi’s boat turned towards shore.

Idunn held the piece between finger and thumb. She could eat it herself. She could drop it outside and watch it fall. She could make Loki tell her every word of the bargain, and all the while Bragi would be waiting at the top of the steps.

She put the apple to the falcon’s beak.

He ate so quickly that he caught her finger. She flinched. He drew back, and she tore another piece free.

“Again,” she said.

The trembling eased under his feathers. He folded the injured-looking wing, opened it, and drove it once against the air. The stroke scattered dust across her face.

Idunn wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

“Now help me.”

Loki climbed to the other side of the bar. She wedged the leg of the bench beneath it, leaned her shoulder against the seat, and pushed upwards. Her feet slid. The bar rose just enough for Loki to catch its end.

“Pull.”

He pulled. The bench lurched against her jaw. She tasted blood and kept pushing.

The far end scraped out of its notch.

For an instant the whole weight rested on her shoulder. Then Loki dragged the bar sideways, and it fell past her onto the floor.

The crash filled the room.

Idunn seized the chest before it could follow. She held it against her ribs, its broken hinge digging through her dress.

Beyond the window, the boat had reached the beach.

“Both of us,” she told Loki. “Me and what I am holding.”

“Keep hold.”

She looked at the claws that would close around her. The last time she had left solid ground, she had spent the whole journey fighting to be set down.

“Do it.”

The window rushed away from her. The chest pressed against her, then seemed to fold into the pressure of her own arms. She tried to breathe and found no room for a breath. A hard curved wall enclosed her.

Something gripped it.

They fell.

Over the Wall

The first wingbeat caught them before the rocks did.

Idunn felt the fall become flight. Each stroke reached her as a jolt through the shell. She could not see the sea. She could hear it, far below, and the quick scrape of Loki’s claws whenever he shifted his grip.

Then another sound entered the wind.

It was slower than his wingbeats, heavier, coming from behind.

Thjazi.

Loki dropped. The weight of the world swung against Idunn’s back. The shell struck something hard, and for a dreadful moment she thought it had cracked.

A claw slid across it and was gone.

The falcon climbed again.

She had no hands with which to hold on. She had no voice with which to tell him that the eagle was close. There was only the pressure of his grip and the beat that followed the beat before it.

She counted them.

Once, twice, three times, the heavier wings sounded near enough to cover both of them. Each time Loki changed his flight. Once he rolled so sharply that she heard the eagle’s beak snap where they had been.

At last voices rose through the wind.

Someone shouted Loki’s name.

He did not slow.

Heat touched the shell. It became fierce, immediate. Idunn heard wood catching fire, a roar of wings, and then Loki’s grip opened.

She struck the ground.

Air tore into her lungs. She was on her knees beside the wall of Asgard, clutching the chest so hard that she could not at first uncurl her fingers. A falcon lay sprawled in the dust beside her. Beyond the wall something vast was beating against the flames.

The gods ran past with weapons. Their feet were slow. One stumbled and another hauled him upright.

“Idunn.”

Bragi was sitting on the lowest step.

His beard had gone white. Both hands lay on the stone beside him, palms down, holding him upright. He had come as far as he could.

She tried to stand, could not, and crawled to him with the chest dragging against her knee.

The lid came away in her hand.

There were the apples. One had been torn almost to its core.

She chose another and put it into Bragi’s hands. His fingers failed to close. She held them around it, lifted it with him, and waited while he bit.

Behind her, the beating of the great wings stopped.

Bragi took another bite. His shoulders began to rise. He lifted the apple without her help, then lowered it and put his free hand against her cheek.

She leaned into it.

Across the yard, Loki had shed the feathers. He sat with his back against the wall, watching the ground between his feet. No one had gone to him.

Idunn drew the chest into her lap. She took out the torn apple and ate the small piece still clinging to one side. Then she found a whole one.

“Loki.”

He looked up.

She held it out. He came slowly, stopping an arm’s length away, and bent to take it.

With her other hand, Idunn kept the chest steady against her knees.