Fenris & Mott, page 4
Fenris mweeped in wonder. Or maybe hunger. It was getting harder to tell.
“Have you ever seen such a place?” asked Mott.
“Certainly,” Thrudi said. “This is very similar to a dwarven hoard, only much smaller.”
“Hmph,” said Mott, disappointed. She’d wanted Thrudi to be impressed.
“Welcome!” A red-cheeked man emerged from a back room, waving a feather duster. A tangled white beard fringed his jaw. “And welcome, small wolf pup. I hope you’re house-trained. I’m Professor Griswald, curator of this fine establishment, and it is my proud privilege to present this exhibition of the unusual and unexpected. We also carry a line of high-quality souvenir keychains. Feel free to look around, ask questions if you have ’em.”
Mott liked Griswald. He’d taken in the sight of a wolf pup and an armed Valkyrie without even blinking. “I guess you’ve seen a lot of strange things,” she said, casting her gaze around for the mummified hand.
“Why, I’ve dedicated my entire life to them. The wonder! The magic! The souvenir keychains on which I’m offering a buy-one-get-one-free sale!” He scratched his beard with a thoughtful frown. “But to tell you the truth, the oddest thing I’ve ever seen has been outside my window.”
Thrudi went to the window. “What do you mean?”
“The weather,” Griswald exclaimed. “Yesterday the ocean was flat as a tortilla, but look at it now. I’m a sailor, and I know what a brewing tempest looks like. I’ve seen eight so-called ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ storms just in the past two years. There’s plenty of strangeness wherever you look: floods, droughts, typhoons, hurricanes, blizzards, and heat waves.”
“What do you think’s causing it?” Mott asked.
“You are,” he said. “And me, too. All of us, with our factories and power plants and cars and planes. We’re heating up the world and messing up the weather, melting glaciers, warming oceans, all that stuff.”
“It’s Jormungandr,” Thrudi insisted. “The world-spanning serpent thrashes beneath the waves, lifting the sea.”
“Maybe we’re using different words for the same thing,” Griswald said.
“Do you still have the mummified hand?” Mott asked.
Griswald’s cheeks lit up. “Oh, you’re a repeat customer, good! I moved it over here by the window so the sunlight catches its unpleasantly withered flesh.”
Mott and Thrudi followed Griswald to a covered glass cake stand labeled “Hand of Uncertain Origin.” Under the cover sat a thing that looked like a tarantula made from a rawhide dog chew. But it was a hand. It had four fingers and a thumb and black fingernails and was definitely human.
“Mweep,” said Fenris.
“This is one of the finest dead man’s hands I’ve ever seen,” said Thrudi.
Mott was about to ask how much experience Thrudi had with the body parts of the dead when one of the fingers twitched.
Griswald jumped back.
Fenris mweeped.
Thrudi struck a combat pose.
“Does it usually do that?” Mott asked.
“It usually just lies in the case, nice and quiet, like you’d want a dead man’s hand to behave.”
The hand moved again, more than a twitch this time. It stood on its fingertips and spider-crawled up the side of the glass dome.
“How can a dead man’s hand be alive?” Mott asked. Nobody answered, but she didn’t blame them. It was sort of a philosophical question.
The hand tapped on the dome with its index finger, tink-tink, as if testing the strength of the glass.
“Girls, enjoy your tour of the museum,” Griswald said. “I’m hiding.”
“What about wonder and magic?” Mott asked.
“Sometimes wonder and magic are awful.” With that, he and his feather duster retreated to the back room.
Mott got out her notebook and put a question mark next to “The Ship of Dead Men’s Nails delivers the dead back to the lands of the living.”
Thrudi was watching over her shoulder. “Just a question mark?”
“I’m trying not to jump to conclusions.”
“There’s a living dead hand right before your eyes, Mott.”
The hand waved at them.
“Fine, okay, I’m convinced.” She couldn’t think of a better explanation for a living dead hand than the dead rising due to an ancient prophecy about the end of world, so she replaced the question mark with a bold checkmark. And she figured she might as well put a check next to “The rust-red rooster crows to raise the dead in Helheim.” Not wanting to believe something wasn’t an excuse not to believe it. “The world is ending. And Fenris . . .” The pup licked his chops at the dead man’s hand. “Fenris is that Fenris.”
Saying the words brought a surprising sense of relief. Maybe it was better to face reality than keep trying to deny it, even if the reality was terrible.
The hand pushed the cake dome lid to the ground. Glass shattered, and the hand was free. It zigged. It zagged. It skittered between display cases. It darted around displays of keychains and knocked over a whole spinner-rack of postcards. Pausing for just a second, as if marshaling its determination, it charged the door. On impact, the door swung open, and the dead man’s hand scuttled down the boardwalk.
Mweeping with excitement, Fenris took off after it.
“No, Fenris, no!” screamed Mott, chasing after.
The hand dodged the legs of skaters and runners and walkers on the boardwalk. It was hard to know because it didn’t have a face or a voice, but Mott thought it was scared. And with Fenris right behind it, she couldn’t blame it. There was a ferocity in Fenris’s eyes Mott hadn’t seen before.
The hand hitched a ride on the back of a skateboard before leaping onto a jogger’s shoulder.
“Eyaaaaaaaagh,” said the jogger, which Mott considered an understatement.
One brave woman tried to whip the hand away with her beach towel, but the hand saw that as an opportunity and used the towel as a bridge up her arm and onto her face.
From there, it leaped from head to head.
All these actions were accompanied by much screaming, which Mott thought was the only normal part of this whole ordeal.
Swooping down from the sky, a seagull snatched the hand. Fenris snarled and leaped, rising shockingly high for a pup with stubby legs. The gull carried the hand briefly before releasing it, apparently finding it too strange to eat.
For a seagull, that said a lot.
“Get it off!” howled a roller-blader when the hand clung to the back of his neck.
Mott caught up to him and managed to pry it away, but it was remarkably strong for a withered dead thing, and it squirmed out of her grip.
“Unnnghh,” said the skater. “Gaaaaaghh.”
The boardwalk was now enflamed in full-on panic. Shouting. Running. People with phones taking pictures and video as the hand scrambled in and out of a busker’s guitar case, sending coins and crumpled dollar bills flying. Fenris ran across jewelry displays on blankets, leaving a trail of scattered trinkets and slobber.
Mott and Thrudi almost caught up to it again when a bike went speeding by. The hand got tangled up in the spokes of the rear tire, and the bike and rider clattered to the ground. The hand flew, sailing through the air and landing on the boardwalk with a thump.
Right in front of Fenris, who pinned it to the ground with two paws.
Trapped, the hand thrashed.
Fenris’s eyes gleamed.
Mott saw how this was going to end. It was inevitable.
“Fenris, don’t,” she ordered anyway. “Don’t you do it. Don’t you eat that hand.”
“Mweep,” said Fenris.
And then he ate that hand.
6
“I KNOW THE APARTMENT’S NOT very big—” Mott began.
“It is a handsome home, but Tew remains a threat to Fenris. Please tell me about your fortifications. How many warriors are garrisoned here? How long can you hold out against a siege?”
Mott wasn’t sure how to answer. “The door lock is pretty good. And we have an intruder alarm.” She keyed the number pad on the wall to activate the alarm. “If anyone tries to come in, the alarm goes off.”
Thrudi nodded. “That is clever magic. Who does the alarm summon?”
“The apartment manager.”
Trudi smiled fiercely. “Ah, a mighty soldier eager to make battle? I suggest we summon them now and prepare for conflict.”
“No, he’s just a guy named Eddie. He has a little office in the parking garage.”
“He’s not mighty?”
“Not really. But he can spit far.”
“I see.” Thrudi’s smile faded, and she returned to examining the door and walls and windows.
Mott emptied some pureed lamb meat into a salad bowl and topped it off with formula. This was the last time she’d get to feed Fenris dinner before the wolf rescue people came tomorrow morning. And then he’d be safe. And very far away.
“Do you want something to eat or drink?” she asked Thrudi, trying to perk herself up. “We have root beer, OJ, milk, water . . . ?”
Thrudi rose from her knees, where she’d been peering judgmentally at the keyhole. “I do not know what root beer is, but it sounds interesting.”
Mott popped open a bottle of Raging Bear with her pocketknife bottle opener and poured it into two chilled glasses from the back of the fridge.
Thrudi took a sip and her eyes went wide. She downed the rest without taking a breath. “This is delicious,” she declared after an excellent burp.
“I know! Are you catching the subtle cinnamon bite and the chocolate aftertaste?”
“What is chocolate?”
“You don’t know what chocolate is?”
“No, we don’t have such a thing in Asgard.”
“This is important: let’s get some chocolate in you right now.”
“First, I shall pee.”
Thrudi was weird. Awesomely weird.
Mott showed her the bathroom and went back to check on Fenris in the kitchen. He was trying to clean a little bit of lamb stuck to his nose by smooshing his face against the floor. Then he noticed his own tail, growled at it, and presented his belly to Mott. Mott dutifully scritched him.
“It’s hard to imagine you eating the moon and ending the world. You’re so tiny and silly.”
Thrudi came out of the bathroom, her hands looking pink and freshly scrubbed like a normal person’s.
“My mom will be coming home soon,” Mott said. “We’ll need to come up with a story to explain you.”
“There’s nothing to explain. I’ll hide in a bush and guard your home from the outside.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I assure you, I’m used to rustic accommodations. Heh, reminds me of the time I slept inside a dead elk.”
“Oh, my god.”
“It wasn’t bad at all. The elk was freshly killed.”
“You’re not sleeping in a dead elk, Thrudi.”
Thrudi seemed confused by Mott’s concern. “I’ll be fine. This way I’ll be able to spot any trouble early. If something happens, I’ll call out for you and you can press the alarm to summon Eddie the Spitter.”
Mott tried to convince Thrudi that sleeping in the bushes was silly and unnecessary and that it made Mott feel like a bad friend, even though they weren’t friends. But she couldn’t talk any sense into her.
Stuffed purple hippo in hand and a brown bag containing a tuna sandwich and a banana, Thrudi left the apartment.
Seconds later, there was a knock on the door.
It was Thrudi. “Can I take a root beer with me?”
The next morning, Mott was in the alley behind the apartment building with Fenris, trying to keep his snout away from a worm crawling along the pavement. Thrudi stood watch.
“Someone approaches,” Thrudi said, wary.
A forest green SUV rolled up the alley and came to a stop. A sign on the door said, “Wolf Friends: Wolf Rescue & Rehabilitation.”
Mott petted Fenris with last-minute desperation. His fur was so soft and clean under her fingers. His little tail wagged with energy and joy. His cute “mweeps” shattered her heart.
A woman with short silver hair and gold-wire glasses stepped out of the truck. Her eyes were kind, and she looked exactly like the kind of person who devoted their life to helping animals. Mott was disappointed. If the woman looked like a villain, Mott could have convinced herself that it was better to keep Fenris for his own good.
“I’m Bev. You must be Mott?” She addressed this to Thrudi, probably because Thrudi was standing and looking strong and powerful and in charge.
Mott raised her hand. “No, I’m Mott. That’s Thrudi.”
Bev stared at the sword handle poking from Thrudi’s bag. “Is that sharp?”
“Very,” Thrudi said.
“Cool. I have a nice collection. I’m into medieval stuff.”
Now Thrudi stood there looking strong and powerful and confused.
“So that’s the fluff, huh?” Bev gestured at Fenris, and her eyes got even a little kinder. “The shelter was right. He’s definitely a wolf.”
“Yes,” Mott said. “That’s why I can’t keep him.” Her voice shook a bit.
“You’re doing a good thing, Mott. Thanks to you, he gets to run and hunt with his own kind, the way nature intended.”
Mott knew this was true. She just wished it was easier to say goodbye.
“I must know more about this refuge of yours,” Thrudi demanded. “Is it well hid? Does it rest between the branches of the world tree, inaccessible and guarded by terrible monsters that even the bravest god might dread?”
“It’s in Idaho,” Bev said. “Up in the mountains. We have a big spread.”
“How far away is it?”
“Well, it took me a day and a night to drive here.”
Thrudi was getting impatient. “But is Idaho in Midgard? Or Niflheim? Alfheim?”
“It’s Idaho? The United States of America? About a thousand miles away, give or take.” When Thrudi responded with only a frown, Bev shrugged her shoulders and started digging around in the back of her trunk.
“This Idaho place doesn’t seem remote enough to hide a beast such as Fenris,” Thrudi said to Mott. “But you and I will go with Bev and use Idaho as a starting point to find somewhere better concealed.”
Ridiculous. First of all, why would Bev let them tag along? Also, Thrudi might be free to come and go between worlds, but Mott had a home and a mom and rules. Did they even have root beer in Idaho?
“Let’s just get lil’ fella into this—” Bev approached Fenris with a leash and collar in her hands.
“No, he hates leashes,” Mott warned. “He’ll run.”
She was too late.
Fenris bolted as if he were strapped to a rocket engine. Before Mott could grab him, his fuzzy rear end was far down the alley and gaining distance, carried on stubby legs that shouldn’t have been able to move so fast. Mott sprinted after him, and Thrudi took off after her.
“Fenris, stop!” Mott called when Fenris turned the corner at the end of the alley. “Stay! Heel! Bad wolf!”
Bev zoomed up in her truck a few seconds later. “Get in, girls! Quick!”
Thrudi and Mott piled into the front seat. Careful but confident, Bev drove out of the alley and onto the street.
Mott caught a flash of tail rounding another corner. “There!”
“I see him,” Bev said, pressing down the gas pedal. “Boy, he really doesn’t like leashes, does he?”
“Who can blame him?” Thrudi said. “For on a lonely crag in turbulent seas, he was most cruelly bound by a ribbon as fine as silk but stronger than iron, forged by dwarven smiths from six impossible things, such as the bones of a mountain, and the breath of fish, and—”
“Thrudi.” Mott elbowed her.
“Gleipnir,” Thrudi finished stubbornly. “The ribbon’s name was Gleipnir.”
“There’s the pup,” Bev said with a triumphant grin, focused on the chase rather than what Thrudi was spouting. She turned another corner onto a road that dead-ended with a high concrete wall. Fenris stood, his neck craned to look up the wall.
“Let me get out,” Mott said. “He trusts me.”
Bev shook her head. “I want to get a little closer.” She crept the truck forward, closing the distance to Fenrir.
Fenrir turned around to face the truck. His eyes were narrowed, his ears flattened, his teeth bared.
“Mott is right,” said Thrudi. “Listen to her.”
Bev didn’t stop the truck, continuing to inch forward. “I just want to make sure he doesn’t get past us.”
Everything that happened next happened fast.
Fenris lowered himself into a crouch.
He launched into a run, charging the truck.
He opened his jaw, and that little mouth gaped impossibly wide, and Mott was again seized with the sensation of tumbling into a depthless gulf, falling into nothing.
She took a breath to clear her head, opened the door, shoved Thrudi out, and leaped after her.
A blast of wind whipped Mott’s hair into her face, momentarily blocking her vision. The temperature dropped, sending a shivering ache into her bones. When she pushed her hair out of her face, the truck was gone.
Just . . . gone.
So was Bev.
And Fenris was a fuzzy puff, scampering away.
7
AFTER A FRUITLESS HALF-HOUR search on foot, Mott went home to fetch her bike. Thrudi sat on the handlebars while Mott pedaled and called out Fenris’s name.
A row of parking meters down Culver Boulevard were snapped in half like pretzel sticks. Water geysered from a broken fire hydrant. And at the end of the block in front of a hair salon, a woman with wet hair and a plastic smock goggled at the stump of a palm tree.
“I wish to question that villager,” Thrudi said, so Mott coasted to a stop. Reaching for her sword, Thrudi stomped toward the woman.
“Thrudi, no exposed swords,” Mott called, following her. “It’s unnecessary and dangerous and probably illegal.”
“Next you’ll tell me not to run with scissors.”
