Winds of Salem (35 page)

When Ingrid and Troy returned from the woods an hour later, the village had turned eerily silent. All the afflicted girls wandering outside had vanished, doors and windows shut tight. They checked into the inn. Mrs. Ingersoll was elusive and taciturn when Ingrid questioned the quiet. The woman said the village was observing a day of silence and prayer.

Troy gave Ingrid a look. “It wasn’t silent before, an hour ago when we arrived!”

At that Mrs. Ingersoll decided to observe the silence. She frowned, left the room, and returned with the bread, fruit, and cheese they had requested, gesturing for them to bring it to their room.

“I vote for a nap,” said Troy from the bed, hands clasped behind his neck as he watched Ingrid pace the floor.

She was tired, but the bed was too small, and there was so much of Troy in the room.

“Mrs. Overbrook,” he said. “You must rest.” He patted the spot beside him.

She came over and sat down. She lay on her side, her back to his, careful not to touch him, awkward and uncomfortable
in her tight and cumbersome clothes. The bed creaked as Troy turned toward her. “Aren’t you going to take that heavy thing off?”

“No. It’s a nap. Just loosen the laces for me, would you?”

When he finished pulling at the laces, he rested a hand on her back, an invitation, a question. “It’s been a long time, Erda,” he whispered. “I’ve missed you.”

She inhaled and turned to him, and put a hand on his face, as if seeing her friend for the first time. They had a history, she had told Hudson, and so they did. The god of thunder had been her first suitor, and she had spurned him, but she had kissed him once before sending him away, and she remembered that kiss a little too well at the moment. “I can’t,” she said. “I love Matt.”

“I knew if I didn’t find you soon you would find a love of your own.” Troy sighed. “You lied to me, you know, when you sent me away you said you would never marry.”

“I am still unmarried,” she said gently.

“You’ll marry him, that mortal,” Troy said, a petulant tone in his voice. “I know you will. I can see it. You’ll marry him and make little half gods, and he will die and you will mourn him forever and still you will not have me.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Are you sure you want that?” he said bluntly. “Mortals…”

She remained silent. Everything he was saying was right. Loving Matt would only lead to an immortal lifetime of pain. Was that what she wanted? To choose love and pain? She saw herself standing at Matt’s funeral. He would be old and gray and she would be the same, only a few gray hairs to fool the mortals, when in truth she would be ageless and heartbroken forever.

When here was a friend, a friend from home, a friend who knew and understood everything about her and her family. They could be together for eternity. Thor and Erda. Thunder and
hearth. She would tame the wrathful god, build him a home, a fire, bring him the immortal children he craved.

A future lay before her—she could see what could happen if she chose it—he would kiss her and she would kiss him back, and then he would pull her against him, slip his hand inside the bodice he had just loosened, his hand on her skin would make her shiver. It could be done. It was so easy. Perhaps this was what she was waiting for all her immortal life.

Then the vision faded as she remembered Matt’s sweet smile and his bravery. He was flawed, mortal, weak in comparison to Troy… but he was hers.

“No,” she said aloud. “I mean yes. It is what I want. I want Matt. I love him. I’m sorry, Troy, but you and I—we were never meant to be. You know that. You only chase me because you know I will say no.” She smiled.

He smiled back and kissed her forehead. “Fine, have it your way. But I can hold a torch for a long time, just you wait and see.”

Someone knocked, and they exchanged a startled look.

“A moment please,” Troy called as he helped Ingrid back into her clothes. This was the visit they had been expecting: Mr. Putnam.

Ingrid fixed her lace cap and tucked her loose strands of hair inside it, and answered the door. “Abby!”

Abigail Williams rushed in, her cheeks flushed. She curtsied, then straightened her apron. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am. I would have come sooner, but I had to sneak out of the parsonage. My uncle has ordered silence and prayer for the remainder of the day. They believe I am still in my room.”

“Why have you come? What do you have to tell us? Is it about Freya?”

Abby nodded. “Yes. I have injured her I am afraid, and I have come to make penance. I am so very fond of Freya. I did not
think it would come to this. But it has. My uncle is very angry—he found this—” She thrust a black book toward Ingrid.

“What is it?”

“Freya’s diary.”

Ingrid scanned the pages. It was all there, written in Freya’s recognizable and pretty handwriting. It was practically a confession, detailing her practice of magic and witchcraft, and meeting young men in the woods. As if they needed any more proof. “Who has seen this?”

“Mr. Putnam, my uncle, a few magistrates…”

“And?”

“That’s what I came to tell you. Freya and her friends James Brewster and Nate Brooks are being held in prison in Boston. Tomorrow a few of us are to travel to the city for the examinations.”

“Examinations?”

“To prove Freya is a witch.” Abby told them that Mr. Putnam and her uncle had arranged with the magistrates of the court of oyer and terminer for a special tribunal to take care of the highly dangerous triumvirate, who were believed to be the leaders of the witches in Salem Village. After the examinations, the three would be brought to the village for a special session of the court, conducted à huis clos, without the public’s knowledge. The next witch trials weren’t scheduled until June 29, but this one, of the greatest urgency, was to take place before, on June 13.

Mr. Putnam had persuaded Governor Sir William Phips that this would bring an end to the torments of the afflicted. The sooner the three hanged, the safer the inhabitants of Salem Village and its surrounding regions would be.

“And the richer Mr. Putnam will be,” Ingrid added, when Abby explained that upon Freya’s death her holdings from her deceased husband would go to Mr. Putnam, her patron.

“Which is why you, too, are in danger here,” Abby said. “You would jeopardize Mr. Putnam’s plans. And it is said that Mr. Brooks died under suspicious circumstances. Mr. Putnam is very powerful, Mrs. Overbrook.”

“I see.” Ingrid placed a hand on the young girl’s shoulder. “Do not worry,” she said. “We will go to Boston. You have done the right thing coming to us, Abby. Best you run off before your uncle finds you are missing.”

Abigail nodded. “And you will help Freya? I could not bear it if—” She held Ingrid’s hands in desperation.

“We will leave for Boston immediately,” she said, feeling sorry for Abby. When they had clasped hands Ingrid had been able to tap into Abigail’s lifeline. She saw the years of loneliness, desolation, remorse, illness, and misery ahead of her. The witches were not the only victims of Salem.

chapter fifty-one

In the Land of the Blind… the One-Eyed Man Is King

Freddie blinked at the tall figure standing at the end of the hallway, holding his golden trident. The man wore a tall white hat and a black patch over the eye he had sacrificed for his wife’s hand—although the tales varied, some claiming the eye had been sacrificed at Mimir’s spring in exchange for wisdom of the ages.

“Odin?” Freddie whispered. “Is it really you?”

Odin. The most powerful god of their kind. The head of the White Council. Not Loki, whom Freddie had been expecting all along, but Loki’s
father
.

Odin’s two ravens perched on his shoulders—his familiars Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory.

Tall, handsome, and charismatic, Odin possessed the same dazzling green eyes as his boys, known in Midgard as Bran and Killian Gardiner. His hair, once streaked with gold and fire, was as white as the hat he wore. At his feet curled and crouched his wolves Geri and Freki, or Greedy and Fierce. His eight-foot-tall steed, Sleipnir, was the only one missing, and Freddie wondered
if the horse was waiting for his master somewhere in the void. He noted that Odin’s infallible sword, Gungnir, hung in a scabbard by his hip, and the hand that rested on its hilt bore the ring of ancient dragon bone that allowed its bearer to travel between worlds and time.

Freya had told Freddie that Loki had stolen Odin’s ring and that it had crumbled in her fingers—but there it was, whole and unharmed of course. No one could destroy Odin’s ring.

What was Odin doing down here in the darkness of the abyss? Was he… waiting for him? For Freddie? But why?

“We’re so sorry, Freddie!” Nyph wailed.

“He threatened us!” said Kelda self-righteously, striding up to Freddie.

Sven and Irdick shrugged.

Nyph yanked on his sleeve. “He said he would send us straight to Helda if we didn’t do as he told. He’s the one who made us steal your trident so he could destroy the bridge, and later he made us plant it on the
Dragon
so that it would give Killian the mark on his back. He was behind
everything.
And he told us to bring you here. We didn’t want to but he scared us!”

“We’re too young to die!” said Kelda.

“Sorry, man,” mumbled Sven, while Irdick looked mournful.

Freddie turned to Odin. “What are they talking about? Why are you here? Why have you brought
me
here?”

“Welcome, my friend.” Odin smiled, flashing his blazing white teeth. “Back to where you belong,” he said, wagging a finger. “Naughty boy. You don’t think you escaped on your own, did you?”

“Actually…” Freddie said, backing away and colliding into a wall that hadn’t been there before. He stumbled, and Odin laughed raucously, throwing back his head, and his ravens alighted from his shoulders to flap dramatically through the empty space.

Odin held up the hand with the ring, wriggling the fingers. “Don’t even try. There is no escape this time. So you noticed I have this back. Did you and your family really think Loki was behind it all? I suppose I could see how you would think that, since he was the one who unleashed
Ragnorak
and poisoned the Tree of Life. But his powers are much too weak to be able to block the passages and take away that hot little sister of yours. Oh, no. He’s just a god with a touch of Munchausen. Poor kid.” He shook his head. “Likes to stir things up, then fix them. Enjoys the sport of it
and
the attention. An easy mark, plus he never did get over Freya. He loved her, poor delusional fool, which made him useful for a time.”

“So the bridge—that was you, too?” said Freddie.

Despite his age, Odin had a youthful, blithe quality, a swagger even as he stood. “Yes, yes, I destroyed the bridge, set you and Loki up—that son of mine was getting a little too mischievous, shall we say, and needed to be taught a lesson, so I cast him to the frozen depths and locked you up in Limbo. Of course I let him out after a while—can’t have my own boy locked away forever now, could I?—but you… you escaped somehow. You’re a hard lot to control, the Vanir.” He snickered to himself.

“But why?” Freddie asked. “I don’t understand.” Odin wasn’t their enemy. He was feared but known as a benevolent, magnanimous god.

“Why not?” Odin yawned, looked down at his sword, and clasped the handle, drawing it from its scabbard.

Freddie needed more time. He couldn’t fight Odin, not without his trident. He needed to come up with a means of escape. He supposed he had the pixies on his side, but once again they had proven themselves utterly useless. “Why did you do this? Destroy the bridge and destroy my family?”

Before Odin could reply, a harsh light lit the room, revealing
every smudge on the walls and the dust in the corners. Odin shielded his good eye.

“I know why!” said Norman, rushing into the gallery, accompanied by Val.

“Oh, what a bore!” remarked Odin, removing his hand but appearing to struggle with the glare. He planted the tip of his sword on the ground and twirled it.

“Dad!” Freddie gave a sigh of relief. “How did you get here?”

“Well, I was looking for your mother at first,” Norman explained. “Then I ran into this little guy, who confessed everything and brought me here to help.”

Val nodded. “We’re sorry, Freddie. Odin wiped our memories and then he threatened us.”

“Yeah, your friends already told me,” Freddie said.

“Stand back, son, this is not your fight but mine,” said Norman. “He destroyed the Bofrir to hoard all of the gods’ powers. The Vanir had become too powerful, so he decided to stop us and punish his sons, who had grown too rebellious and hard to control. He certainly doesn’t discriminate. No nepotism there, eh, Odin?”