Infinite Sacrifice (21 page)

Rolf notices her and yells, “Una
come here!”

I feel like freezing this moment so
it can never happen. But as tight as I shut my eyes and clench my
fists, time continues on. Una walks up and rests her buckets down
as Ragnar leers at her up and down. He hands Rolf the bag, and Rolf
empties it out on the ground to inspect it.

When he sees that every item
promised is there, and silver at that, he nods. “Una, you are now
Ragnar’s property. Go gather your things and leave with
him.”

I throw up by the side of the barn,
and as I wipe my mouth, I watch her run to our dugout. I hurry in
after her, and I’m surprised to see her eyes are dry. I push Borga
off my blanket with my foot, and she shakes her tail in upset.
Folding my blanket, I bring it over to Una.

“That is your mother’s blanket,”
she says, shaking her head.

“I want you to have it.” Tears
brim, burning to be released. “Thora will always give me a new one,
but he looks like he won’t give you a thing.”

She nods and accepts the blanket.
“I will take good care of it and give it back when I make my
own.”

She bends forward, gives me kiss on
the forehead, and wraps her strong arms around me. She turns and
pats Borga on her back, sending her running to me.

She tries to laugh. “I’ll see you
at the festivals.”

I see her brave smile as she walks
out. I crumple into a ball and cry, causing Borga to get worried
and poke my face with her wet beak.

Chapter 8

That night, as if the blood money
Ragnar left behind is cursed, Thora runs into my lonely dugout and
cries, “Erna’s sick!”

I hurry into the side room, where
Thora brought her bed away from the rest of the family. There lies
little rosy-cheeked Erna, crying with a deep sweat, her glassy eyes
rolling closed in delirium.

Thora picks her up, trying to
console her as I ask, “What can we do?”

Thora frets. “I have pressed all
the herbs Hela taught me and made it into a liquid, but she won’t
drink it. Oh, I wish Hela was here!”

She brings her free hand up to her
lips in worry.

I take a spoonful of the green
liquid and try to put it into the child’s mouth, but she keeps
turning her head and screams louder. Thora puts her lips to her
head and says, “She’s burning up!”

Inga enters in her long shift dress
with her palm out. “Let me.”

Thora, holds the child tighter, but
when Inga keeps her arms out, she passes the clinging child over.
Inga takes the spoon of liquid from me and holds the child down.
Erna clenches her mouth tightly, but Inga pinches her nose and
waits until the child is running out of breath. Erna gasps for air
as she pours the medicine in quickly. Erna swallows and chokes,
then lets out a piercing scream. Thora grabs her up immediately but
thanks Inga, who nods and goes back to her bed.

I sit up with Thora, who holds Erna
all night. Sometime after she takes the medicine, Erna falls asleep
and the flush disappears from her little face. Thora finally
relaxes and falls asleep, feeling the worst is over. I see the sun
breaking through the terrible night and go out to my dugout when I
hear Thora scream, “She’s gone! She’s gone!”

I spin around to see the pale and
limp child in her arms. Thora screams, clutching her to her body,
“My little nymph! My little girl!”

Rolf and Inga run in, and Rolf
attempts to take the child away from her, but she fights him hard
and runs off into the fields we used to dance in. I find her with
Erna laid there on the ground as if in deep, sweet slumber. Thora
is picking the wildflowers around her and laying them about her
beautiful baby. I say nothing to her and help her pick all the
flowers in that field, and we conceal her with them. Rolf comes,
takes Erna away that night and brings her into the village for Hela
to prepare for burial. Thora doesn’t come out of her house for
months. I try to keep myself busy doing Una’s chores, exhausting
myself so that I’ll fall asleep instantly instead of thinking about
the sorrows of my life.

I walk out of my dark dugout and
look out on the low fog surrounding the farm and resting between
the surrounding hills. Looking up I see a giant rainbow starting
from our farm but ending in the far woods. It has such vibrant
colors it hurts my eyes to gaze upon it, compelling me to follow it
to see where it leads. I run out, jump the fence like I watched
Gunhilda do, and dart to a deer path at the edge of the woods. I
let the bushes sting me as I whip past them and have to concentrate
on the ground since I’m moving so fast. I trip on a loose stone and
go rolling into a large clearing. When I look up from the ground, I
see the rainbow glowing all the way from the canopy of the trees to
the dried pine needle ground below. All around me, I see different
shapes and sizes of mushrooms. But there, sitting on a large
red-and-white-dotted mushroom in the very center, is Erna. Erna,
wearing a large, coned, red hat, giggling and eating the mushroom
she’s sitting on.

“Erna!” I call out and run to her,
but the rainbow vanishes and so does the dream.

I wake up in the still darkness and
almost drift back to sleep, but I see wisps of fog outside the open
window. I get up and look toward the skies to see the exact rainbow
of my dream. I start running across the farm with the thought that
somehow Erna will be waiting there for me to bring her back to
Thora; righting everything as it once was. I attempt to jump over
the fence but catch my foot and land on my face in the mud. Hopping
to my feet, I sprint off, trying to get to the end before it
disappears. I follow the path, but when I reach a clearing, I can’t
see the rainbow anymore, nor Erna in the center. I search around
me, see only the trees, and hear faint whispers. The only thing I
do see is a red-and-white mushroom growing out of a downed tree
trunk in the center of the clearing.

I’ve heard of mushrooms the
warriors eat that make them fight like berserkers, and there are
certain mushrooms no one can eat and live to tell about. The one
with the red-and-white dots are the latter. I take my shirt off,
pick the mushroom with it, and run to Ragnar’s farm up the road. I
duck between the fence rails, head right to the dugouts, and search
the open windows quietly. I know there are no other thralls on the
property, so all I have to worry about are the dogs. There, inside
the second outbuilding, lies Una, curled up, her hands tucked under
her head, and wrapped in my blanket. I check for dogs within and
then open the door slowly. I walk hunched over inside the tiny
space and tap her on the shoulder. Una leaps from the bed and flies
back across the room like I’ve never seen her do before. She pulls
her blanket up to her chest until she sees it’s me.

“Liam, what are you doing here?”
She clambers to the window to search.

“It’s still early. He isn’t awake
yet.”

She turns to stare at my bare chest
and asks, “What happened to your shirt?”

I open up the bundle, and she
crawls over, curious to see what I brought.

“A mushroom?” She seems equally
confused and disappointed.

My eyes light up.
“A
poison
mushroom!”

“For
me
?” She looks like she
is considering it.

“No! For you to
feed to
him
.”

Her mouth shuts, she glances in his
direction out the window, and then turns back to me. “Do you think
he could tell if I cooked it?”

“I was thinking you could cut it up
into little pieces and make a stew. Be sure to pretend to eat it
yourself, though.”

She scoffs. “He never shares his
food. I only get the food that is headed over to the
pigs.”

“So then try it. What is the worst
that can happen? Be careful to chop it up real small so he can’t
see the red.”

Hearing the rooster crow and seeing
her eyes widen, I shove the shirt in her hands. Running out, I leap
over the fence, this time clearing it, and then sprint all the way
back to the farm. Over the next few days, I wait for any sign that
Una has done what we’d planned. I watch the roads for carts or
pyres burning but see nothing. A week later, I see an unfamiliar
man appear, bringing Una up the road to our farm. Rolf speaks with
him while I watch from behind the dugout. My heart races as the man
leaves Una there, wearing my old shirt, and takes a small bag with
him. Rolf speaks to Una for a moment and as soon as he turns to go
into the house, she runs straight to me and embraces me so hard I
fall over.

We both laugh and hurry into the
dugout.

Once inside she says out of breath,
“I did just what you said! I cut the red mushroom into tiny pieces
and made a thick chicken-and-barley soup. I put edible mushrooms in
so that if he were to notice a piece, he would think it was some of
those. He ate two bowls, belched, and ate another before going to
bed. In the middle of the night, I heard a commotion and saw him
staggering around outside. He went crashing into everything,
mumbled the strangest things, cursed at the cows, and swatted at
the air! He stumbled onto the road and took off toward town. His
brother came a day later to say he found him dead on the side of
the road.”

“Why didn’t I see smoke,
then?”

“His brother took him to the next
village where he was from, then came back for the things he
inherited. He asked me who owned me before, and since he wanted to
dispose of me fast, he sold me back to Rolf! At half the price,
from what I could hear.”

“I am so glad you’re back.” I give
her another hug.

She smiles and pulls out my blanket
from her bag. “It’s yours again.”

Sleeping next to Una makes
everything better. Even though I had to explain what happened to
Erna and how Thora hasn’t left the house since, our dugout feels
happy again.

Chapter 9

We have one month together before
more bad news comes. Rolf returns from the village with Inga on a
Saturday. Thora still hasn’t left her bed. Rolf goes in to her as
soon as he arrives back, and Thora immediately comes out
screaming.

Rolf tries uselessly to calm her
down. “It will only be for a year or two. Chieftain Toke needs to
settle Newry.”

Newry… That name was in my old
language and brought back a well-stowed memory.

“Leave me, then!” she yells, madder
than I’ve ever seen her.

“Inga can stay and she’ll manage
the farm. You must come with me.”

She screams again and runs to the
place I knew she’d go. I find her in the spot where we covered Erna
in flowers, hunched over in tears. I put my hand on her shoulder,
and she cries even louder, reaches over, and pulls me into her.
Thora holds me and cries for a few minutes, and when she lets go, I
try to dry her tears with my shirtsleeve.

“I will come with you.”

She laughs a little through her
tears. “What would I do without you, Liam?”

“You won’t have to find that out
since I’ll always be with you.”