Odin

Chapter 1

The sleeping platform creaked and groaned with every jerky movement of Odin’s body as he angrily turned from his side, to his back, then his other side, only to do it all over again seconds later. The noise was a near constant irritation to those nearby, but not to Odin — he didn’t even take notice of it. His mind was tortured, unable to rest as it replayed the words Lily had last said to him as he was leaving her wedding. It had been more than a week, and regardless of how he tried to dismiss her words, they constantly played on his mind.

“You should go to her, Odin. You think she’s gone on with her life and forgotten all about you. You couldn’t be more wrong. You’re her last hope.”

The more he thought of it, the angrier it made it him. What right did Lily have to presume to direct him in matters of his own life?

“If I’m her last hope, she is pitifully mistaken if she believes that I would ever offer her a hand of protection!” he snarled.

“Are you well, Odin?” Maura finally asked from several feet away.

“Of course, I’m not well! I’m a Demon! I’m not meant to be well!”

“You’re usually more well than you seem to be tonight,” she answered tiredly.

“What trouble is it of yours?” he demanded.

“Some of us are trying to rest!”

His chest rumbling, clearly showing his irritation, he got up and stomped out of the shelter he and several of those who lived in the most uninhabitable parts of Whispers preferred to live in. As he walked, setting his feet down so heavily he splashed the muddy dampness up and across his own shins and calves, he grouched under his breath about all that was swirling through his brain.

“They should mind their own damned business!” he shouted.

Growing angrier by the second, he finally managed to push Lily’s words out of his mind, only to be bombarded by the soft, gentle nudge of Kamilah’s words.

“You should find her, tell her why you disappeared so that you can have forgiveness and choose happiness.”

“What fool believes that any Demon would choose happiness and forgiveness?!” Odin bellowed to the night sky above himself.

Breathing heavily, his nostrils flaring, his face a mask of fury, his steps stuttered to a stop. He looked around himself and realized he was charting a path straight out of Whispers. He heaved a huge sigh, shaking his head. “Me! I am that fool!” he yelled. Shaking his head resignedly, he stilled his thoughts, closed his eyes, and searched deep within himself for the fragile end of the microscopic thread of connection he’d intentionally allowed to languish all his life. Seizing on it once again after all the past decades, brought with it a crippling humiliation. But it must be done. He held its tenuous beginnings carefully inside as he prepared to follow it to its other end and the female it had always, despite every effort to the contrary on his part, been connected to.

Soon he’d see for himself why he was her only hope.

“I will not help her. I will be the monster she accused me of being and leave her to her fate,” he said petulantly. Raising his chin in the air defiantly, he stepped into the shadows cast by the moonlight on the trees and quickly faded from sight.

~~~

Terrus kept himself cloaked and hidden from view as he watched the Ice Demon fight his instincts versus his sense of pride. Once the Ice Demon vanished from sight, he continued on his trek to be sure that Maura was well. He’d felt her unrest; it was the reason he was about at this time of night. Arriving at the shelter she preferred to rest in, he tapped on the outside of the wall as he called to her. “Maura? Are you there?” He knew she was there; he just didn’t know if she would speak to him. She wasn’t always receptive and he’d yet to unravel her moods well enough to be able to interpret her desires.

Inside the shelter, lying on her own sleeping platform, she sighed as she opened her eyes and stared at the thatched roof above her. She’d only just started to drift off to sleep after Odin had left, and now Terrus arrived to continue to disturb her rest. She lifted her head and looked at the others sleeping or trying to sleep. She was not the only one who’d been kept awake late into the night. She sat up, folded her quilt, and left it near her pillow when she rose from her sleeping platform to answer Terrus’ call.

It only took a few seconds until she stepped out of the two-sided shelter, her face reflecting the tiredness she felt in her bones. “What is it, Terrus?”

“I came to be sure you are safe and well.”

“Why would you think I’d be otherwise?”

“I felt your unrest and became concerned,” Terrus explained.

“I was in fact, just beginning to fall asleep when you called my name.”

“Is there a reason you were unable to sleep before? Maybe I could tend it for you…”

“Odin is the reason I couldn’t sleep. He’s gone now, so if you don’t mind, I’ll be getting back to my rest.” Maura turned her back on Terrus and took only one step before he spoke again, causing her to turn back to him.

“I believe that if you would spend your evenings with me, you would sleep better. I could provide you a better shelter, safer accommodations, there would be no one there to keep you from whatever you wish.”

Maura glared at him, allowing the red of her eyes to glow brightly from their sunken sockets. “I will spend no night in any shelter that is not expressly mine,” she said, her voice flat and toneless.

Terrus sighed. He always, always offered her an ease of living that she predictably refused. He honestly didn’t know what he was doing wrong. “Very well. The offer stands.”

“It’s not an offer I’ll be accepting. Good night, Terrus.”

Terrus watched her reenter the shelter she slept in, just inches above the dampness of the ground. She refused his help now, no matter what he offered. So, he did what little he could without her noticing. He couldn’t raise her sleeping platform without her realizing what he’d done, but he could dry the ground and prevent the insects from invading her shelter while she and her friends slept. He swirled his fingers in the general vicinity of the ground he stood on. His green mists with a hint of silver swirling within them, spread across the ground like a low-lying fog, then rose to encompass the two sided shelter briefly before dissipating.

“Good night, my Maura,” he whispered as he began to fade away, riding his own mists back to his preferred resting place.

“I am not your Maura,” he heard on the winds.

~~~

Odin stood in the shadows watching the comings and goings of the sisters of the cloister of St. Germain de Pres in the French countryside. Many of the women simply knelt on the stone floor outside one of the many heavy wooden doors in the long, slender hallway. Most of them clasped their hands at their chests, their lips moving silently in prayer. The door opened and three more nuns exited, closing the door quietly behind themselves.

“Is she…” one of the younger women on her knees asked, looking up at the women.

The woman who appeared to be their Mother Superior gently shook her head. “She is with us, still.”

“There is still time, then,” the younger nun said hopefully.

“I cannot see how it will make a difference. She’s never come before. We don’t even know if she still lives.”

“Someone does. Donations still come in her name. Someone remembers her,” the younger woman said.

“And we will remember her as well, when the time comes. We’ve done all we can do to alert them. It’s out of our hands. All we can do now is wait for her to be called home and surround her with prayer and love in her final hours.”

The young nun nodded and began to pray again, as did all those who’d been quietly listening to the exchange between their Mother Superior and their youngest, and most passionate, sister.

Odin’s gaze left the women on their knees praying and slowly wandered to the wooden door. He knew instinctively the woman he sought was behind that door. He watched as the Mother Superior quietly made her way down the hall with the two who’d been attending the occupant of the room at her side, leaving the rest to pray for the occupant’s soul in the corridor outside her room. Turning his back on the lot of them, he moved through the heavy shadows cast on the wall by the huge arched windows in the wall at the nuns’ backs and silently entered the room.

Odin took a moment to get a feel for the room and the woman in it. He knew immediately that this was a death vigil. The woman lying in the bed was very near the end of her life. In fact, he had no doubt that the angel of death would appear at any moment to usher the woman’s soul into the afterlife.

“I can feel you,” the woman’s voice said.

Odin looked her way, but had not yet grown brave enough to move closer to the bed to see her. Her voice sounded frail, shaky. Not at all like the bright, happy tones he knew from her youth. Silently he moved a little closer. He stopped a few feet away from her bed and waited. Perhaps she was delusional in her last hours, not actually feeling him here with her.

“I’ve waited for you to come for many, many years.”

Odin’s head canted curiously as he stepped closer to her bedside. Odin looked down and his lips pressed together tightly in an effort to contain the emotion that surged through his body. She was there. His only true friend. The only person he’d ever allowed close enough to shatter his spirit, and she’d done so with ease.

Her eyes opened slowly and she gazed at him. The bright blue of her eyes sparkled just like they had in her youth as her heavily lined and wrinkled face creased as she smiled at him. “It is you. I prayed that I’d not leave this world without seeing you once again, Orin.”

“I am not Orin.”

The woman took her time and looked at him. The pale bluish-white of his skin, the spikes on his shoulders and at his elbows, the chiseled cheekbones, the full, almost blue lips that formed his mouth, and finally the translucent pupils of his eyes. “You are my Orin, no matter what you call yourself now,” she said confidently despite the frailty of her voice. She took a few seconds to rest, then opened her eyes again. “What do you call yourself now?”

“I am Odin.”

The woman smiled. “It is fitting. The God of War and Death.”

“I thought so,” he said, admitting that he was indeed the male she thought he was.

“I’ve waited for you, Orin.”

“Odin,” he corrected.

The woman lay there with her eyes closed, smiling at his correcting of her.

“Marie?” he asked quietly.

She opened her eyes again.

“Why have you waited for me?”

“To speak with you.”

“Why? You sent me away. You accused me of being the devil, a sin to behold. Why do you wish to see me now?” he asked, the hurt he still felt seeping into his voice.

“I was protecting myself.”

“From what? I’d have never harmed you! You were my friend; my only trusted friend and you rejected me simply for being me!”

This time when she looked at him, there were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“We spent every moment we could together. We sang songs and shared stories. Then just when I’d begun to trust you most, to believe that I’d truly not be alone anymore, I allowed you to see me, and you shattered me.”

“I know. I was afraid. I hadn’t seen you before. I’d only heard your words and I thought you a friendly spirit, or perhaps a sprite. When you let yourself be seen that night, I was frightened.”

“You screamed, crying as you ran from your rooms! You called me devil and screamed for your father to call an exorcist! You said that I was a sin and you’d been tricked into consorting with the devil. I’ve carried that with me my entire life!”

“I have regretted those words, my reaction, all of my life. You were never, never evil. You were only ever good and true.”

“I needed you,” he said, his own voice raspy. “I was alone. Struggling to leave behind all I’d been taught about my destiny and how I should have lived my life. Struggling to remain true to me, my own desires and remain alive as I made every effort to stay away from those who’d drag me back and exact their punishment for leaving them and their way of life behind. You confirmed my deepest fears! You proved that I was everything they said I was.”

“If I could I’d get up and kneel before you, begging for your forgiveness. If only five more minutes of life could be granted, I’d go back and tell you how beautiful you are. Yes, I was startled, because you were nothing like I expected. But I’ve spent almost a century reliving that night, and I remember the look of you like it was yesterday. You were just a smaller version of the male who stands before me now. Still beautiful. Still so hesitant to believe that you are inherently good. Still the same male whose memory got me through all the years of my life.”

“I came here to demand you explain your actions. To learn of your reasons for being so cruel back then.”

“I was a silly, ridiculously misguided child who never thought about things like Demons being anything other than the way they were portrayed by our church.”

“Still, you should have known no matter what occurred that I’d never harm you!”

“And I did, after the shock wore off and I was left with my thoughts and having to face my own behavior in the absence of your presence.”

“I never planned to see you again,” he said, his voice somewhat calmer.

“Please, please, forgive me. I’ve cost us all of our time. I’ve cost us our friendship. I’ve cost us so many possibilities.”

“I hated you.”

“Then why are you here now?” she asked.

“I was told that you needed me. That I should find you, help you with whatever it is that you need help with, and make peace with the past so that I can finally let it all go.”

“You want to help me?” she asked.

“No. I wanted you to ask me for help so I could deny you. Then having gotten my revenge I would leave you wanting.”

Her lips turned up in a smile and she started laughing. She laughed so heartily that she started wheezing and ended up coughing.

“Why are you laughing? Please stop!” Odin begged.

“Because I fully deserved that. And I wouldn’t have expected any less.” She started chuckling again, and her coughing followed.

“Don’t laugh like that! It keeps you from breathing!”

“It doesn’t really matter. My life is finished anyway.” She lay in her bed and gazed at Odin’s face. “I wish you’d have come so long ago. I’ve missed you.”

“I was hiding.”

“From?”

“Everything, everyone. You, anyone else that could hurt me. I was angry, ashamed.”

“Oh, Odin. I’m so very, very sorry. I wish you’d have come to rail at me sooner so that you could have had all these years free from my memory.”

Odin shook his head. “I will never be free of your memory. You were my only friend.”

She lifted her hand toward him, the skin wrinkled and the knuckles swollen and gnarled. “Can you forgive me?”

Odin stepped forward and took her hand in his. “I can. I have. Will you forgive me for staying away for so long?”

“There is nothing to forgive. You have always been my Orin. At least after I grew up enough to realize my foolishness. No, it was much sooner than that. I missed you, I missed everything about you.”

Marie closed her eyes and grew quiet for a few moments.

Odin knelt beside her bed.

When next she opened her eyes, she smiled at him again.

“The same blue eyes…” he said.

“Inside an old woman’s face,” she said, laughing weakly. “And you, what a magnificent male you’ve become. I suppose even if I hadn’t driven you away, we’d have come to this. Me, old and dying, you young and strong. Ironic that no matter the path you take, you always end up exactly where fate planned for you to be.”

“I wish that I could do it again and have us both make better choices,” Odin confided.

“I do, too. I’m so sorry I hurt you,” she said.

“I should have come sooner. I should have returned and made you look at me and know that I wouldn’t hurt you,” Odin said. “At least we’d have had one another for company. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so hostile and resentful all these years.”

“I hid, too. I lived my whole life here alone for the most part.” She looked at Odin. “I’m very happy you’re here now, no matter what your plan was for coming.”

“I am, too.”

“Do you live in a grand home? Have servants and comforts unimaginable?”

“No. I live in a swamp.”

She lay quietly for several seconds and he thought surely she’d find it distasteful at least.

“I wish I could have seen it. It’s fascinating, I’m sure.”

He thought about it. “It is, actually. Trees, animals, waters. And despite my preferences, there are many people there. There’s always someone about so that even though you’re alone, you’re never really alone.”

Marie looked at the walls of her bedroom, her gaze moving slowly across the walls, taking in every little nuance of them. “Do you know that I’m one-hundred-and-three years old and since I was twenty-three years old, I’ve only ever seen these walls, or those of the rest of these buildings? No one should live to be one hundred and three years old. No one should outlive their children and their children’s children. No one should have to spend their lives within the same four gray walls. Would that I had it to do all over again.”

“You had children?” he asked.

“Once, long ago.” She returned her gaze to his face and smiled at him. “Tell me of your swamp and the people who live there.”

Odin let go of Marie’s hand and stood up, looking around at the four walls Marie had looked at for most of her life. He made a snap decision. “I have a better idea. I’ll take you to see it yourself.” He threw back the covers layered upon her body, grabbing only one of them to wrap around her before he slid his arms beneath her, lifted her easily, cradling her against his body, holding her close.

“Odin!” she gasped, startled as he lifted her from her bed.

“Hold tight, Marie. I’m taking you away from here.”

“But I’m dying,” she protested.

“Maybe, but you’re not dead yet.”