The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of Yondersaay (19 page)

“It’s well you might appear to be just a schoolboy, but I remember what you were to look like when I was to see you,” Hamish Sinclair said as he put one arm around Ruairi’s middle, lifted him clean off the ground, and carried him away, in the opposite direction of Granny and Dani, up the High Street.

“‘Look out for him,’ the skalder did be telling us all last thing at night when we’d had our tea and our bath and the spuds dug out from behind our ears and we were drifting off to sleep in our beds. ‘He’ll be pale and slight, light-colored eyes like the fins of gray or blue or greeny-blue dolphins, and hair the color of copper.’

“And here you are, pale and coppery as they come. He warned us you’d be slippery and make up a story, for why would the true Red King of Denmark come to the island he wants to claim from its people and not pretend he was just an ordinary ginger?

“You can deny it, if you like, but everyone knows, and so do I, that there’s a secret sign, a way to tell for sure that your blood is blue and from what line you come. I just … right at this minute in time, can’t for the life of me quite remember what it is,” said Hamish. “You’re coming with me till we can find out the true meaning of this and till I can remember what it is I am to do with you.”

“There’s no need for that,” Ruairi said, indicating a bench they were passing. “We can sit there while you remember. Really, this bench is a good place for remembering. Maybe I’ll remember something before you remember something, and then we’ll have all our remembering done right here on this bench.” Ruairi was trying to sound as reasonable as possible. Hamish paused and considered Ruairi’s suggestion. Ruairi gave a big grin. His arms were pinned at his sides, and Hamish’s massive arm was wrapped around him as though the boy were a big loaf of bread.

“Let’s sit,” Ruairi said, still grinning.

“No, no. Come with me. The jarl will know. We will ask the jarl.”

“Can’t we just phone him?” Ruairi asked as he maneuvered himself in Hamish’s arm and had a quick look down the High Street. He could see Granny stopping and looking around for him. “I have a cell phone. We could just sit here nicely on the bench, side by side, remembering, and we could give him a quick ring and see what he thinks. What do you say?”

Granny had spotted Ruairi; they locked eyes. Ruairi could see that Granny was calling after Dani. Would Dani hear her over the noise of the crowd?

Hamish was moving away from the bench as Ruairi spoke. As he reached the tip of the High Street, Ruairi managed to catch a glimpse of Granny and Dani, Granny’s head popping up and Dani’s fluorescent winter gear sparkling through the crowds, both of them sprinting in his direction. Hamish’s strides were longer and faster than Ruairi thought possible, even for such a big man. He was striding in the direction of the Crimson Forest.

Dani and Granny reached the edge of the Crimson Forest just in time to see Hamish Sinclair, with Ruairi tucked under his arm, wading through a shallow part of the River Gargle, just before the whirlpool. He climbed easily onto the bank at the far side and took off at a trot toward the foot of Mount Violaceous.

“Why didn’t he use whirlpool bridge, I wonder?” Dani asked Granny.

“He’s not the brightest, Dani. Maybe he doesn’t know what it is, maybe bridges hadn’t been invented yet in Viking times.”

“You think?” Dani said. “Let’s get after him; we could make up a good bit of time by not having to wade across like he did.” They took off again through the Crimson Forest, a sheltered valley cocooned in the shade of towering Mount Violaceous, a forest in name only, toward the River Gargle.

It was still very early in the morning on this particular Christmas Eve, but as Granny and Dani made their way across, the thick snow of the High Street gave way to a carpet of colorful winter flowers poking through the white. Meandering in and out of tufts of shrubberies, clouds were obscuring the sun, and away from the openness of the village and the harbor, they found the area dark.

“It’s quite gloomy in here, isn’t it, Granny?”

“Ah!” Granny shrieked and spun around.

“What is it?” Dani asked.

Granny looked all around and could see no one. “Nothing,” she said. “I thought I felt something, but it must be my imagination.” She turned around and headed toward the river again.

“Ah! Ah!” Dani shouted and grabbed the back of her head. “Somebody threw something at me!”

“Ow!” Granny said, grabbing her shin. “And at me! Quick! Behind here.” Granny and Dani hid themselves behind the only oak tree in the whole forest, perhaps the only oak tree on the entire island. They made it just in time—they narrowly missed being pelted with hundreds of little missiles that went hurtling by them and into the oak.

Dani bent down to pick one up. “It looks like an acorn,” she said.

Granny risked a look around the broad tree. “There’s no one, no one at all. But, look! Look at those two skinny elm trees over there.”

“They’re moving. They’re shaking,” Dani said.

“They’re laughing at you,” said a booming voice from above.

Granny and Dani both screamed. They hugged each other and looked up. The oak tree was talking to them.

The oak tree chuckled a bit, and as he did so, a smattering of colorful leaves sprinkled down onto the forest bed. “Allow me to introduce myself.” The oak made a theatrical bow, moving one enormous branch down and bending it in front of him, and bending another down behind him like actors do at the end of a play. “My name is Rarelief the Splendiferous.”

Granny and Dani didn’t know what to say. Dani walked all the way around Rarelief and looked him up and down. She picked one of his fallen leaves off the ground and examined it. “So you really exist!” she said.

“You’re the guardian of Odin’s treasure!” Granny said.

“I do. I am.”

“But how is that possible?” Granny said. “People must have looked here for the treasure millions of times over the years. How could they not have found it?”

“I know how to keep it safe,” Rarelief said and tapped his nose with a branch. “Those two fellas over there, by the bye, are Dizzie and Dozie, the incorrigible elm twins, who even though they’re many hundreds of years old, simply refuse to stop acting the cod. They do, however, do their haunting job fierce well, don’t you think? You have to hand it to them. You did feel haunted, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

“Is that what they were doing? Haunting us?” Dani asked. “It’s sort of hard to feel haunted in a forest with no trees.”

“Whisht, would you! You don’t want to hurt their feelings!”

“No, of course not, no. They did an excellent job,” Dani said and shouted to the two elms, “
Excellent job, you two, of haunting! excellent job
!” She gave them two thumbs up. Granny smiled awkwardly and did the two-thumbs-up sign too.

“But I sort of do see what you mean,” Rarelief said. “It’s not easy to do our job, you know, with entirely three trees in the whole forest. We only get to do this whole haunting lark one day of the year now as well. The island being all normal the rest of the year nowadays.”

Rarelief looked disconsolately at the few acorns the elms managed to pitch at Granny and Dani. “But we do our best. The shrubberies are fantastic haunters, but I reckon they’re a little on the short side. You may not have noticed them scratching at you as you wandered past them. They also do a good
oohing
noise when the wind is up. But it’s not very windy today, sorry to say. As for the hundreds of thousands of tiny flowers, well, the less said about them, the better. Their idea of haunting is to look slightly less pretty than usual. Not very effective. But sterling efforts,” Rarelief said, stressing the last bit and saying “sterling efforts” very loudly. The flowers looked pleased and flickered for a minute so that all their colorful petals caught what little sun there was and transformed themselves, for that instant, from very pretty flowers to stunningly beautiful ones. Then they turned back into their haunting poses.

“If you had a few more trees,” Granny was saying.

“We do. There are thousands of trees,” Rarelief explained. “They’re just not here.”

“Where are they?” Dani asked.

“I’ve spent most of my life on this island, Mr. Rarelief, sir,” Granny said. “And I confess to never having seen more than you, Dizzie, and Dozie here, anywhere on the island, ever.”

“But you say there used to be trees, Mr. Rarelief?” Dani asked.

“Yes, thousands of us. Right here in the Crimson Forest. All the way from the dip in the valley beyond the village.” He pointed back the way Granny and Dani had come and turned a branch toward the mountain. “All the way to where the incline starts to become steep and where the lush earth becomes solid rock, this entire valley, was home to my family, our families,” he said, indicating the two elms. “Mostly elms and oaks and some other kinds too. But they’re all gone now.”

“Where have they gone to?” Dani asked again.

“They were stolen!” said Rarelief.

“Stolen?” Dani repeated.

“How could anyone steal thousands and thousands of trees?” Granny asked.

“It’s a long story,” Rarelief said.

Granny made to settle herself on the ground. “I love a good story,” she said.

“But Granny, we have to find Ruairi!” Dani said.

“The little red-haired boy who came hurtling through here under the arm of the massive, huge Viking?” Rarelief asked.

“Yes,” Dani said.

“Ah, I could tell you a thing or two about that as well. You have time—they won’t sacrifice him till the Great Yuletide Sacrificial Festival at sundown, and we’re hours away from that yet. You’re better off being armed with the knowledge of old Rarelief here before you go any farther. Many surprises lie up yonder that way.”

“
Sacrifice
him?” Dani and Granny said together.

“Yes, yes. Apparently he’s the Red King of Denmark,” Rarelief said by way of explanation.

“He’s not the Red King of anything! He’s my little brother!” Dani said.

“It will do no use to insist on it. They’ll have made up their minds,” Rarelief said.

“We’d better get after him then, Granny,” Dani said.

“You have time, and I have things to tell you that will save you more time in the long run. Things you cannot know about the island and her secrets.”

“All the same, Mr. Rarelief,” Granny said. “We’d really much rather get on. Good-bye now.”

“Good-bye,” Dani said. They ran off in the direction of the River Gargle.

Rarelief hummed a little hum to himself. He swept the snow off one of the knobbly roots that stuck out of the ground and piled dry leaves on top of it.

“What are you doing?” Dizzie called over to him.

“I’m making a comfy bench for the girl and the old lady.”

“But they’ve gone, Rarelief. They couldn’t get out of here fast enough. You’ll not see them again,” Dozie said.

“Wanna bet?” Rarelief asked.

The elms bent toward each other and whispered. They looked up and said, “Yes, we do!”

“Oh, goodie,” Rarelief said. “If they’re back within five minutes, you take that family of squirrels that are forever tickling me every time they go up and down my trunk and give them a comfy new home in your branches.”

“Deal,” Dozie said, “and if they’re not back within five minutes, you take all the new birds that are hatched from nests in our branches until they’re potty-trained.” With this, Dizzie and Dozie turned their lower branches so that Rarelief could see white splashes of bird poo all along the length of the wood.

“You’re on!” Rarelief said.

A puffy green shrubbery a little way off in a clearing said he had a very good view of the sun and would be official timekeeper. All three trees, so all the trees in the entirety of the Crimson Forest and all the shrubberies and all the pretty flowers turned and looked toward the river. And waited.

A couple of minutes passed. Everyone was tense; no one made a sound. Even the pooping baby birds stayed still in their nests and watched.

The shrubbery in the clearing disturbed the silence. “Just let me know when to begin the countdown.” Dizzie, Dozie, and Rarelief let out loud sighs and rolled their eyes. “I’m only joking. I’m only joking,” the shrubbery called back, chuckling to himself. “Two minutes left.”

“You are easily amused,” a flat gray shrubbery near him said. The plants turned back to look in the direction of the River Gargle, and as they did so, Granny and Dani, soaking from head to foot, trudged up the bank and made their way back to the base of Rarelief the Splendiferous. They slumped down onto the bench that Rarelief had prepared. Dizzie and Dozie sighed. Rarelief beamed.

“Well now. What brings the two of you back here so soon?” Rarelief asked Granny and Dani.

“We couldn’t get across the river,” Dani mumbled.

“Excuse me? I couldn’t quite catch that. A wee bit louder please,” Rarelief said, trying his best not to sound smug.

“We couldn’t get across the river,” Granny said. “We walked over the bridge, but we didn’t get more than halfway when it stood itself up on one side, and we slid all the way back to where we started. It was sort of fun at first—”