Giants of the Frost (29 page)

"Listen to us," Gunnar said. "Telling ghost stories in the dark like teenage girls."

"I'm going to bed," I said, standing and hugging my arms around myself.

"I'll walk you back to your cabin," Gunnar said, a hopeful gleam in his eyes. That gleam disappeared when I left him outside my cabin door without even a kiss on the cheek. I sat on my sofa and peeled off my shoes and panty hose, thinking about what Alex had said. Dreams were unconscious material that needed to be sorted. If I could believe that, then I could believe that Skripi was some kind of metaphor for one of my problems that I wasn't dealing with. Lord knows, there were enough of them. My mother, my love life, my obsessive calculating… But could I overcome my natural aversion to all things pop psychology by engaging in some self-directed dream analysis? It sounded like the kind of solution Mum would suggest to a problem.
Ask your higher self, dear
. What was important here was that I had to do
something
. I couldn't endure another day of math gymnastics. So what if the Queen of the Skeptics intended a little experimental dream therapy? Nobody would have to know except me.

Ignoring my dreams of Skripi was probably making them more insistent. Next time, I would do as Alex suggested, I would face him head-on.

"Take one step toward a mystery, Vicky, and it will take one step toward you." This was my mother's favorite saying to trot out whenever I tried to convince her that supernatural influence was really just coincidence.

"Doesn't it seem odd to you, Mum, that you dreamed your spirit guide was Cleopatra directly after you watched a documentary about Cleopatra?"

"Not at all! Seeing the documentary probably woke my sixth sense. Take one step toward a mystery…" And so on.

I vowed I would face Skripi and, shortly after I fell asleep that night, the familiar feeling of blue moonbeams was cool on my face and I wasn't in my bed anymore. I sensed that if I kept my eyes screwed shut and
willed
myself, I could be back there and fast asleep again in seconds. Instead, I gathered my courage in both hands and opened my eyes. I was standing just beside the window of my cabin, on the outside, looking into the forest. Moonlight fluttered above me as clouds swept overhead. I was cold and afraid, but I stood firm.

A rustle in the undergrowth.

"Who's there?" I called, and my voice was a thin, scattered echo in the dark.

"Will you run away this time?" A little voice, childlike and sad.

"Skripi? Is that you?"

He detached himself from the shadow of a crooked tree and tried a tentative smile. "You invited me into your dream."

I studied him closely for the first time. He was the size of a ten-year-old child, but there was something not-quite-human about his face: his irises were oily and black, his teeth were softly pointed, his nose and chin reminded me of a fox, and his hair looked like fine twigs. He wore a ragged brown tunic and pants, and dirty fur boots.

"I suppose I did," I said. I glanced over my shoulder at the window, but the curtains were drawn. Still, I knew that if they were open, I'd be able to see myself, warm and cosy in my bed.

"Why did you want me? Can we be friends?" His eyes lit up eagerly and he took a step toward me, his pointy fingers reaching out.

Instinctively, I flinched backward. "I'm facing my fears," I said. "I'm trying to deal with whatever unconscious material is making you appear." As the words left my mouth I recognized them for the overrationalizing nonsense they were, and I nearly lost my nerve and woke up. "So who are you?" I said softly.

"I'm Skripi. I'm a wood wight. I once lived in Idavíd, a forest in Asgard, but now I live here with my brother and my sister."

"You have a brother and sister here?" I glanced around.

"The draugr and the hag," he confessed, kicking the ground with an embarrassed toe.

"You're related to them?"

"We all come from Idavíd. We'll never get back there."

I thought about asking him if the draugr was the collection of weeds and fingers I had struggled against in the lake. He answered as though I had framed the question aloud.

"Oh, yes, that was the draugr. He would have made you his bride. But Gunnar had
eolh
." He held his hand up in a stop gesture, and it looked similar to the rune on the stone. "You see, you see? I told you it was important."

"Why are you here on the island?"

"The gods in Asgard put us here, all three. They sent down the hag and the draugr because they were wicked, and I had to go too because I'm related." He shook his head sadly. "We can choose many things, but family are thrust upon us."

"I understand," I said, thinking about my mum. Was this the message my dreaming self was trying to convey to me? "So you're here as some kind of punishment?" I asked.

"Yes, and we're also here to scare the humans away, but they don't scare, they stay. Nobody believes in us anymore." His eyes grew serious. "We are real, and my brother and sister would love to collect your soul."

"What would they do with it?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe just put it in the lake for always. It's cold down there. And dark." He crossed his hands over his chest and shivered. "You have to listen to me. I'll keep you safe." I stood there for a few quiet moments, gazing at him, half-formed questions shifting across my mind. I began to feel vague around the edges and realized I might be slipping out of the dream. "Skripi," I said quickly, "is Vidar real?"

With a jolt and a shudder, I felt myself collide with wakefulness. I opened my eyes in my warm bed and took a gulp of air.

Far away, I heard a whisper.

Everything's real.

I flung back the covers, dripping with sweat, and hurried to the window. I pushed the curtain aside and pressed my face against the glass. I could see nothing but moonlight and shadows, and a strange disappointment washed over me.

My breath fogged the glass. "What if none of it's real?" I murmured, and an empty ache for Vidar spread hollow fingers in my chest.

I didn't get back to sleep that night and, at first light, I headed over to the galley to make myself some breakfast. When I slipped through the door, Maryanne was searching for something in the pantry.

"Good morning, Maryanne," I said.

She jumped nearly a foot in the air and shrieked. Then when she saw it was only me, her hand went over her heart. "Oh, you gave me a fright."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to." I noticed that dark circles were smudged under her eyes. "Are you all right?" A battle between wanting to freeze me out and wanting to confide in me played out on her face. She paused for a long time, blinking rapidly: 1.8 blinks per second.

"Maryanne? Has something happened?"

"I heard the strangest noises last night…" she started, in a soft frightened voice.

"Last night?" I remembered Skripi's gleaming black eyes in the dark. "What noises?"

"I'm sleeping in Magnus's cabin at the moment," she said. "It's near the edge of the forest. I heard noises. He didn't wake up. I looked out the window and I saw…"

I realized I was holding my breath. "What did you see?"

"I don't know what it was. A twig-man. Then he dived into the bushes and was gone. It was like something out of a nightmare."

An icy shiver tiptoed the length of my spine. "Perhaps it
was
a nightmare." She shook her head. "There are bad things on this island, Vicky. The forest is haunted." I couldn't conjure a single logical explanation. Maryanne and I had dreamed the same thing.

"Vicky," she said, her eyes growing troubled, "you didn't see anything, did you? Or hear anything?"

"Me? No," I said too quickly.

She narrowed her eyes. "Because… I thought I heard your voice last night, before I saw the twig-man."

"My voice? Don't be silly."

Footsteps and voices in the rec hall alerted us to the approach of others.

She turned away, dismissive. "Forget I spoke."

For an instant I was lost in a frightened stupor. I wondered if I were going insane. I wondered if I'd imagined everything, including Vidar. Somehow my body kept functioning: my heart hadn't stopped, my head hadn't exploded, I was able to put bread in the toaster. Maryanne returned to the pantry and normality seemed to be reinstated for the moment.

"Victoria?"

I turned to see Magnus standing behind me.

"Good morning," I said, attempting to smile.

He didn't respond with one of his own. "Some new transpiration sensors arrived yesterday. I want to install mem in the instrument field. It's your area of research, so if you'd like to help…"

"I'd love to." Work—that would sort me out. I could add up figures and make observations and draw conclusions and my head could be full of something other than impossible events.

"Vicky should probably have one more day in bed," Carsten said.

"I'm fine, really," I said. "I'm going crazy in my cabin."

"Carsten, give Victoria another physical this morning. Vicky, I'll be heading to the clearing around nine. I'll meet you out there." He strode off, still without smiling at me.

"I'll see you directly after breakfast," Carsten said.

It was only when Carsten and I were safely behind the door of the sick bay, and he was shining that little torch in my eyes again, that I worked up the courage to say, "Carsten, is it possible for somebody to go crazy within a couple of months of arriving on Othinsey?"

He laughed. "It usually happens much quicker than that."

"I'm serious. The isolation. Has it been known to cause psychological problems?"

"What kind?"

"Imagining things? Dreaming strange creatures? A feeling that everything you believed in is made of paper and pipe cleaners?"

Carsten sat back on the edge of his desk. "Are you asking for a medical opinion? Because I'm not a doctor, and I'm certainly not a psychiatrist."

I shook my head. "Just an opinion, then."

"A lot of different people have come to this island over the years. Some of them say it's haunted, some of them don't. Whether or not that's related to the isolation, I can't tell you. But you're certainly not the first person to worry about it." He gave me a reassuring smile. "You've had a shock too. You nearly drowned, you lost consciousness. I can tell Magnus that you need a few more days in bed if you like."

"No, I'd rather be busy." I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. "I'm a bit frightened."

"I'm sure everything will be fine. Perhaps you have been locked away in that cabin for too long." He gave me a fatherly pat on the shoulder. "A walk in the forest might be just what you need."
Just what I need.

I stood at the edge of the forest, knowing I had to go forward, but unable to take a step. I sensed something bad in there, something rotten and cold and primeval that I hadn't sensed before. It was as though last night, calling Skripi, had opened up a gate that had been bolted tight in my mind since I arrived on Othinsey. That forest was haunted. And while this was a notion I would have scoffed at in the past, I knew it to be true with a certainty as deep as the ancient tree roots. But my boss was waiting, and he was already impatient with me. So I had to go in.
Deep breath.

One foot in front of the other, I counted my way into the trees, estimating distances between trees based on how many footsteps were needed from one to the next, converting the distances to metric, coming up with a mean, dividing it by my age, multiplying it by how many fingers Carsten had… And all the while, my breathing shortened, my heart hitched and sped, my shoulders pulled tighter and tighter. Then Magnus's voice rang out from the clearing. "Victoria? Is that you?"

"Yes," I called, hurrying my footsteps. "I'm coming."

I arrived, flushed and breathlesss, a few moments later. As I crossed into the clearing, my anxiety wound tighter.

Magnus glanced up irritably. "You're late," he said.

"Sorry," I managed, forcing my voice into an even line. My hands felt damp, I wiped them on my jeans.

"What can I do to help?"

"I want you to check the temperature and humidity in the moss at ground level," he said, pushing a box of equipment toward me with his toe. "I'm going to take foliage temps in the aspen understory." All this translated to me crawling around in the dirt while he worked nobly among the trees. Fine. It gave me something to focus on, to drive out the needling anxiety.

I left Magnus sorting out his climbing ropes and harness. A morning breeze moved branches and leaves, the ocean roared in the distance. I breathed deeply, forcing my shoulders to loosen, concentrating on the moss. I moved along the forest floor on hands and knees, taking samples, strip-testing them and writing down the results. A warm sunbeam shot onto my shoulder. Long minutes passed. I looked up and realized that I had arrived at the foot of the anvil-shaped rock.

With sudden brightness, images and sounds and feelings overpowered my brain. For a moment, I wasn't Victoria. Scott, I was somebody else. Panic had crushed my lungs, horror and despair squeezed through my veins. I had been running, but now I had fallen. I turned. Silhouetted against the sun was a massive figure, any detail stolen by the bright light behind him, an axe raised above his head. He was huge, male, smelled of sweat and blood and steel. He was bellowing at unbearable volume. In the distance, dogs barked madly.

I screamed, cowering under my arms.

Magnus was looking down at me. "Victoria. What's wrong?"

In an instant, everything returned to normal. There was no mad axe-wielding man, only neat slim Magnus wielding a digital thermometer and wearing a safety helmet.

"I thought I saw…" I couldn't finish the sentence. My heart was racing and my throat was dry. Magnus drew down his eyebrows. "What's all this about, Victoria?" His voice was suspicious. I could feel my lower lip tremble, but I was damned well not going to cry in front of Magnus again. "I'm sorry, Magnus," I gasped. "I thought…"

"Is this some kind of plot? Are you accusing me of something?"

I was genuinely bewildered. "Accusing you?"

"It would be your word against mine and I didn't touch you, and I have a number of people at the station who would attest that
you
have been pursuing
me"