Veil of Fated Blood and Bone

1. Helene

Helene

Iwrestle Audra’s dying wheelchair toward the riverbank while my sister calmly recites fairy tales like an oracle at a funeral.

The motor gives a rasping, grinding cough before going silent.

Fuck this decayed battery.

Off-kilter wheels trip over the cobbled path, the angle too steep to negotiate with grace, and my lungs burn. The river’s mist curls like ghostly fingers heading for the road and secrets buried under the forest shadow whisper through pine needles along with her story.

“And Odin chose his fallen, the souls destined to die in battle, sending his trusted shieldmaidens to retrieve the slain from the battlefield, then carry them to Valhalla. In blood and gore they swept, Hellevi heralding the hunt. Her bright sword—”

I glance up and flash an apology at the stricken mother clutching her baby to her breast like the words blood and gore will cause permanent damage to the kid's ears.

“Audra, keep it down.”

We bounce over a tree root cracking open the sidewalk, and she tilts to the left. Muscles bunch, clench, and threaten to give out before I manage to right her again.

Audra’s voice carries fragments of Norse prophecy into the dusky gloom with a gruffness borne from pain with no relief.

I grind my teeth. “You read from that stolen book like we aren’t late to the fucking Longship Festival.” Sweat slicks my back. And time is a thief.

“I got it from Mom’s stuff,” Audra murmurs, her freckles standing to attention.

I pause, grimace. “Then you should have left it where you found it.”

"No can do. Those boxes need to be organized. Mom—"

"No, they don't."

"You're going to hoard us out of the house if you insist on keeping everything."

I sigh. "It's a rainy day project. Okay?"

I spare a glance down at the threaded edges of the journal on her lap, like it’s easier to delve into the past rather than face the crowds surging into the field below us.

Dampness rolls off the mossy banks of the Heath river and the belching gray fog. It can’t touch the mugginess in the late autumn air.

We don’t get the leafers in this corner of Massachusetts. Something about the way the mountains ring the county keeps the mist in place, a constant and middling ceiling of gray. The trees are dark and wet, lichen filled. The river is Lethe, ready to steal memories.

Damn car, stuck at the mechanic’s for a broken belt.

Damn festival.

Damn chair.

It has a motor on it for a reason but after a decade the battery decides today is the perfect time to meet its maker.

We’ve got a spare but it’s already at our booth, waiting for us with the lopsided banner that refuses to straighten and welcomes new visitors to Nightshade Hollow with spidery cursive letters and half-assed runes stolen from Google.

Too many people treat the Viking alphabet like stickers or temporary tattoos.

Mom used to swear the symbols carried weight, but only if you knew how to wake them.

“All her stuff is getting mold on it. If we don't do something about it soon, we'll end up throwing everything out. Ooh, over there. Ten points, Helene.” Audra sits up straighter in the chair and signals to a lone jogger with twin braids heading straight for the docks.

I flash an apologetic grin at the jogger who caught Audra’s crowed ten points remark, and she hurries in the opposite direction.

This place needs the festival like we need the battery. More so.

Potholes don’t fill themselves, and neither do government officials’ pockets. Our little corner of the world isn’t thriving. It’s disappearing.

Today the stoplight downtown stopped working.

Yesterday it was a neighborhood power outage.

Last week, every police siren went off at three in the morning for no reason. People blame technology and old wiring. It’s always old wiring.

“If we end up throwing things out, it’s not a huge deal.” I shake my head.

Audra hugs the journal tighter. “Mom marked passages.”

“Yeah, a lot of people underline phrases in books.”

“Not like they’re making a map of something.”

We race toward the riverbank, and she clutches the borrowed book in her lap. Mom won’t miss it. The dead rarely complain.

The living are another story.

And my sister is right about the mold. It’s hungry and already starting to creep across the ratty and torn cover. The gold embossing on the title has faded from age and the brush of too many fingertips.

“—a blow meant for another. The Visigoth prince held himself back in awe of the Valkyrie, the chooser of the slain, and they fought a mighty battle. Then Hellevi turned into the hit, and his axe took her life.”

I squint into a stray slant of sunlight in between the passing bloated clouds. Sedona was nicer, especially this time of year. Even the six months we spent at Mount Shasta were quieter, prettier, than this.

Why the hell did we land here?

“Don’t you want to know how this one ends?” she presses.

“It will end the same way it always does,” I say breathlessly. “Dead bodies.”

"Well, yeah, but there's always more."

"Sure. Like mead."

Audra sighs and flips the pages. “Odin’s chosen enjoyed their feasts and praise over the mortal remains of the fallen, yet none were so mourned as the loss of Hellevi and her mighty battle sword. Her defeat rippled through her shieldmaidens—”

She hiccups when we take another corner too tight.

Shift weight, drive forward, movement before thought. It’s too damn hot today.

The small-town streets of Nightshade Hollow all angle toward the Heath. Everything we are and everything we have are lost in those murky banks, and the silver water raging over stone are a backdrop to panic.

Late. We’re always late. The Festival has already started, our booth empty, friendly neighborhood busybodies marking the seconds of absence and passing the information to Mr. Barnes.

It never makes a difference how fast I run. But I run anyway.

Glancing down at my watch, the pale mark beneath the band flashes, brief. Three crooked lines.

A scar I’ve carried as long as I can remember.

I stop at the crowd of people at the base of the handicap ramp, the field leveling out, and adjust the strangling girdle keeping my breasts pushed up to my nose. They're close enough for me to smell the sweat on my skin.

Our usual empty streets, tight and quaint, are cramped with cars today.

Town lore claims Nordic sailors made history coming up the Heath but most locals claim it equally loud bullshit.

The event committee labels it all tourism.

Too gloomy here, a few travel guides have touted. But if you like haunted houses...

Instead, we have the Longship Festival.

Long, rectangular docks cut across steely water with twin longboats already anchored for tourists to explore. Had any Norse explorers managed to get this far inland, I doubt they’d have stopped here.

Nightshade Hollow capitalized the steep drop to the banks with dangerous stairs, covered bridges, and of course the death trap of the zigzag handicap ramp like the lines of the runes.

Someone painted the banner for the Viking-coded festivities a decade ago and pinned it in place against the torrent of autumn wind. Edges flap and curl and announce the two day event as “Fun for All Ages! A delight! Games and Rides! Food.”

My stomach grumbles. Food is good.

I race to the sidewalk and veer left to dodge a couple of women with strollers who angle to join the line waiting to walk through the yellow ropes into a glimpse of the past.

“Try not to mow them over while I’m in this chair, Helene,” Audra warns. “They’ll blame me. Although that could be double points…”

The breeze catches her hair and sends the brown curls spiraling in a messy halo.

I shake my head. “No, they won’t. You get a blanket pass. It cancels out the point value.”

Her kind of diagnosis almost guarantees it.

“No one is going to give a shit if we’re late,” she insists. "Besides, what are they going to do?"

“Mitzi Jones will care,” I counter. “And since she’s our neighboring tent then she’ll have plenty of shit to say to her BFFs on the town council.” My throat closes.

“It will stress you out less if you listen to this story. It’s fascinating. No one else goes into depth about Hellevi. The Fallen Shieldmaiden.” Audra mock shivers, rounding her lips on a spooky ooh.

“Because they want to hear about Brunhild. Or Sigrún.” The names float up from the abyss of my brain. “Those are the famous ones. right?”

“Hey. Fifty points if you hit him dead on.”

Her voice echoes off the blistered tin roof of the central pavilion, and the him in question turns rheumy eyes at us. He tightens his grip on his walker.

They always hear her. She makes sure of it.

The tip of my shoe hits a particularly vicious pile of soggy autumn leaves, and I lose my balance, landing hard on Audra’s shoulder. The straps of my borrowed costume pull tighter.

“I’m trying to dodge people, not mow them down with your chair. And you’re not helping by giving pedestrians point values if I hit them,” I say.

I’m done.

I’m absolutely finished if I don’t get to my booth fifteen minutes ago.

“If I’m fired, we’ll have to start selling organs on the black market,” I add. “I am fond of my kidneys. I don’t know about you.”

Audra scoffs, the sound wet in her throat and loud enough to disguise her groan of pain. “You’re worth more. And seriously, how many kidneys does one person need?”

She white knuckles the book, her index finger taking the place of a bookmark.

“I’d love to keep both, but I know it’s greedy.”

I plaster as much fake chipperness into my voice as possible. I’d be lying if I said I was sure of anything these days, but I know without a doubt that one more infraction means death.

Unemployment and eviction.

The wind trails frosted claws along my vertebrae and leaves unease and anxiety in its wake. The festival always feels wrong. Like something gathers when enough people come together.

Sounds of the crowd grow louder as we descend to the river. Through the curlicues of mist, spears of tents poke toward the unfeeling sky.