The Viking Witch Cozy Mysteries

Chapter 4

We bundled up and headed out into the cold, quickly darkening evening. The streetlights were coming on one by one, their light shuttered to shine down on the road and not up into the sky. I had never seen an airplane pass overhead, but surely something must at some point. Satellites up in space, for instance. I wondered what Villmark looked like from up there. Or did the spells hide it, even from satellite cameras?

"This way," Nilda said, pulling me out of my thoughts with a tug on the sleeve of my parka. I followed her and Kara along the road away from the center of town, south to the public gardens. We followed a path through canvas-wrapped and snow-covered hedges, across the gardens and past the greenhouses to an A-framed building that stood alone on the far side.

It looked old, the wooden support beams carved into the shapes of fantastical animals. I thought it might be a sod roof under all that snow, but there was no way to be sure. The double doors stood open, and warm firelight from within lit up the cobblestone street in front of it.

I had only been to one mead hall in Villmark, and that had been a similarly old-styled building, but as soon as we were inside I knew the comparisons stopped there. That place had been dark and closed-in, filled with dangerous types who had been keeping to themselves but with an air of menace, as if it would be easy to disturb them out of that aloofness and into something a lot more combative.

The mood of this place was very different. Beyond those invitingly opened doors was a short flight of stairs, the floor of the hall set nearly five feet below ground level. This made the sod roof above soar overhead, creating a large and open space below. The tables were arranged more like in my grandmother"s mead hall down in Runde, in long rows that invited different groups to sit together. To eat, drink and make merry together.

But it was early yet, and we looked at first to be the only customers.

Then I saw Loke sitting at one of those tables with a mug of beer before him. He saw us come in and raised a hand in greeting.

"Loke!" I said, skirting an open fire pit covered with hot grates ready and waiting to start roasting meat to reach his side. "Thank you for the lovely housewarming gift."

He waved a dismissive hand as he took a sip of his beer. "Don"t mention it. It was Andrew"s idea, anyway. I was just the delivery boy."

"I thought Thorbjorn was going to be here," Kara said, looking around as if a redhead the size of a linebacker might be hiding somewhere behind one of the narrow wooden beams.

"I"ll get us some food," Nilda said, taking off her coat and hanging it from a hook on one of those beams before turning to me. "You have to have the meatballs first. I"m not even kidding. You"ve never had meatballs like Ullr"s special meatballs."

"Of course," I said. I watched her disappear through a door at the back of the hall before leaning closer to Loke to whisper. "It"s just like Swedish meatballs, right?"

Loke gave me a look of mock offense. "Don"t let Ullr hear you say that. You"ll be banned for life for a comment like that one."

"Seriously?" I asked.

"You really want to be testing the boundaries already?" he asked. "Maybe try blending in a little first."

"Loke, have you seen Thorbjorn?" Kara asked as she finally stopped searching the empty hall and slid onto the bench across from us.

you"On occasion," Loke said drily. "But not lately. I believe he is on patrol."

"Oh," Kara said. She looked dejected for a moment, but brightened when Nilda came back to the table with a plate of meatballs in each hand. A tiny young woman I assumed was a server came behind her with another pair of plates.

Ullr"s meatballs weren"t remotely like Swedish meatballs. I had always loved Swedish meatballs, but this was something else entirely. I couldn"t name all the spices that were mixed in with the meat, and the brown sauce was buttery but not creamy. And the mashed root vegetable they were resting on was rutabaga, not potato.

By the time I was mopping up the last of the sauce with some of the brown bread that had magically appeared on the table in the center of our little group, other people had started gathering at either end of the table around us. The other table was filling up as well, and the room was warm with the heat of so many bodies. Kara kept looking up constantly, and I knew she was still watching for Thorbjorn.

I wasn"t sure how I felt about that. I had known she thought he was good-looking, but anyone who saw him would have to think that. It was just empirically true.

But clearly her interest was deeper than I had thought. And for some reason, it felt like something was clenching at my heart.

But it couldn"t be jealousy, could it? Because Thorbjorn and I were just friends.

Weren"t we?

I glanced over at Loke, half expecting him to be watching my face and reading my thoughts with a teasing comment at the ready.

But he wasn"t looking at me. His gaze was directed across the room. Then he got up without a word, pushing through the crowd as he headed towards the doorway before returning with a companion in tow.

Roarr.

"Hey, all," Roarr said, his face flushed as if embarrassed by something. "Can I sit with you?"

"The more the merrier," Nilda said, and I moved over so he could squeeze in between me and where Loke was resuming his place.

"I had to rescue him from the clutches of far too many predators," Loke said as he turned his attention back to his meatballs.

"I wasn"t in need of rescue," Roarr said, but the way his cheeks further reddened made me think that wasn"t entirely true.

"Still getting swarmed by suitors?" I asked. As if in answer to my question, that little serving woman appeared out of nowhere to put an overloaded plate of meatballs before Roarr. He just barely glanced at her and mumbled a quick thanks before digging in.

"Excuse me," Kara said suddenly and hopped up off the bench to run to someone just coming in the door.

Nilda sighed and shook her head, but there was an indulgent smile on her face.

"This is new?" I asked.

"What, Kara? Yeah," Nilda said. Loke and Roarr were speaking together in low voices directly across from her, so she slid into her sister"s spot and leaned across the table towards me.

"How are you doing?" she asked as she took my hands in hers. "Homesick yet?"

"No," I said. But it suddenly struck me what an odd thought that was, being homesick. I had only lived in Runde for a few months. Before that, I had spent my entire life in St. Paul. I had spent nearly every night of my life in the same bed, in the same bedroom, in the same house, until one day I just didn"t anymore.

And I had never missed it. I hadn"t even realized I hadn"t missed it until just this very moment. I had never been homesick for St. Paul. And I didn"t feel homesick for Runde now.

But maybe that was because I had never felt at home before? I had always used my art to escape to other places, other worlds entirely, ever since I was old enough to clutch a crayon and make marks on paper. Was that because I had been searching for a home all this time?

Was Villmark that home?

It was my turn to heave a sigh. "I don"t know?" I finally said.

"Sleepover at your house, then?" Nilda asked. "I"m sure Kara will be up for it."

"No, I"ll be okay," I said. "It"s time for me to be alone in that house, I think."

"Of course," Nilda said, and gave my hands a squeeze. "But you know where I live if you ever need me."

"I do," I agreed. Then I saw Kara returning. Nilda turned to follow my line of sight, then got to her feet as her sister came back to the bench with a pair of blonde twins in tow. Sigvin and her sister Nefja. I had met them separately before but was seeing them standing side by side for the first time.

They gave me the same welcoming smile as I reached across the table to shake their hands. But then one of them stopped smiling, her face falling despondently. I tried to remember which was which. I knew that one of them had their little freckle on the left and the other had it on the right, but I couldn"t remember which sister went with which freckle.

Then I realized Loke had just disappeared, leaving without a farewell, and I unlocked the mystery.

If Loke had just fled, the only person I"d ever met who could be so sad to see him go - and, in fact, the only person I had ever seen him flee from - was Sigvin.

So the crestfallen one with the freckle on her right cheek was Sigvin. Which made the sister with the freckle on her left cheek, the one desperately trying to catch Roarr"s eye, Nefja.

Poor Roarr. He seemed frozen on that bench, trying not to meet Nefja"s eyes while simultaneously sneaking looks around, trying to figure out where Loke had gone.

I sat back down beside him and leaned over to whisper in his ear, "don"t worry. I"ll keep you safe."

He gave me a puzzled look, like he hadn"t understood my words. Then the serving woman was back, leaning between us to refill his mug with ale. By the time she had finished and had disappeared again, Roarr seemed to have worked out what I had meant. He gave me a grateful smile, then reached for another plate of meatballs that had magically appeared on the table in front of him.

He might balk at all the attention he got as a single man in Villmark, but clearly it had an upside. And if he truly had no interest in any of these women, they would soon have him fattened him up enough to be a less hot item on the dating market.

Somehow, I didn"t think that concept would bother him at all.