Sessi and the Race to Odin (A Sessi Nilsson Novel Book 2) Page 3

  “You are messed up.” I hear Sebastian say.

  I respond between bites. “Takes one to know one.”

  “Not the wittiest response, but true,” he says with that bracey smile I’ve grown to appreciate.

  “Bon appétit,” I say as I hold up a spoon full of stew. Sebastian lifts his spoon too, and we clink them together.

  “Cheers,” Sebastian says, and we eat.

  3

  Just Deserts

  After lunch and an hour of hurling any weapon we could get our hands on at the wooden target, Addy made coffee and hot chocolate. Coffee always sounds like a fun thing to drink until I taste it. I love the smell, but the bitterness reminds me of licking dirt. Yes, I went through that phase when I was about four, but I grew out of it. Why would I want to go back to that?

  Hot chocolate on the other hand is perfect. How can anyone go wrong with chocolate? And say what you want about Addy’s cooking, her hot chocolate is killer in a good way. She calls it Swedish Snow Drift Hot Chocolate, and it’s made with white chocolate. I don’t know if it’s really Swedish, but I know it’s delish!

  As I take a sip, I’m reminded of the treats my mom would make for me. The prinsesstarta or princess cake, which had layers of cream, sponge cake, and jam and the kladdkaka, which was like a thick brownie cut like a slice of pie, were my favorites. After she was gone, those kinds of treats only existed in my memories. Instead, when my dad would treat me with dessert it was either a chocolate bar or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The candy bar he would always buy me was a Marabou Swedish milk chocolate bar with hazelnuts. It has the perfect mix of nuts to chocolate. It wasn’t homemade kladdkaka from my mom, but it was still wonderfully delicious. And it was one way my dad could say I love you.

  With one hand on my mug and my other on Stark’s head, I take in the moment. It’s something so unfamiliar. It’s peace. My defenses are down. I don’t have to be someone I’m not. I don’t have to give off an attitude, pretending like I don’t care. Over the last three years, I would often tell myself that I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I got in trouble, got sent to a new home, or got sent to a new school. I would tell myself I didn’t care if I died. Now, I feel so full of life.

  I take my last sip of my hot chocolate and let the flavor cover the entirety of the inside of my mouth. It’s less than lukewarm, but the flavor is so decadent that I don’t care. I just want to hold onto the chocolate as long as possible before it becomes a memory.

  I can’t help but think positive thoughts about Addy as I watch her whisper something in Anderson’s ear and giggle. While she looks nothing like my mom, she reminds me of how I remember my mom looking at my dad. The sparkle in her eyes. The gentle smile on her lips. It’s a radiance I’d never noticed before. Addy is all right, and not just because she made me a home cooked meal and served me Swedish Snow Drift Hot Chocolate.

  That’s when Stark jerks his head up and jumps to all fours. Sniffing the air, he looks to the forest on the other side of the wall. “What is it?” I ask.

  Stark’s movement alerts Anderson who also leaps to his feet as he scans what he can see of the forest above the wall. What that means is he cannot see anything.

  Stark bursts into a run toward the opening along the wall and disappears beyond it before I can say anything. I call out for him, “Stark,” but I hear no reply. Even Sommarmorgon flies off after Stark, which I choose to think is to watch after him. I start to jog toward the entrance when I’m stopped by Anderson.

  “You don’t want to go out there.”

  “Why? I’ve been out there before.”

  “Things are changing.”

  “What kind of things?” Sebastian asks.

  “The activity. It’s different now. Creatures from other realms.”

  “I thought we secured Niflheim. Is Hel back in the forest?” I question.

  “No, Niflheim is secure. It’s the other realms.

  The other realms. I scan my brain to remember some of them. Asgard, Midgard, and Niflheim are easy. And then I remember that Niflheim is sometimes included in Helheim, and maybe they are one or two of the realms. There’s also Alfheim which should be easy to remember since my mom is an elf. I still can’t get used to saying “Alf” because of that weird TV show my dad used to watch with the alien puppet. I’ve alse encountered jotnar, so I know there is a Jotunheim. There are a couple others I can’t remember, but they’ll come to me at some point. Whatever they are, they probably have the word “heim” at the end.

  “So when you say creatures from other realms, you’re talking about…”

  “More than just wolves. I’ve seen jotnar, draugar, dwarves, and a lot of squirrels.”

  The way Anderson says squirrels is so ominous, it makes me laugh. And then I can’t resist a little mockery and say, “Oh no, not squirrels!”

  “You laugh, but squirrels may just be the most dangerous of them all,” he warns. “Haven’t you heard that speaking rashly is like a piercing sword?”

  “What is that, a Viking saying?”

  “No, it’s from the Bible. In Proverbs. You have to be very cautious with the squirrels. Their words will cut you.”

  It’s kind of hard to take Anderson completely seriously, but I did catch a ride on the back of Ratatoskr, and he wasn’t anywhere near as kind as my last Uber driver. I look back toward the forest hoping to see Stark returning, but there’s nothing. “Shouldn’t we go after him?”

  “Don’t worry about him. He’s done this several times this week. Without notice he’ll leap to his feet and dart into the woods.”

  Addy joins us. “He always comes back.”

  “What does he hear?” Sebastian asks.

  “No telling. His senses are so much stronger than ours, so he may be hearing and smelling things that are miles away. For all I know he can feel it in his fur. There is so much more out there than we can see and feel.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say.

  “We live in three dimensions. But the realms that we’re talking about are on completely different plains such that they are here and not here at the same time. Just like we can access Niflheim below the school, we can access Asgard through another passage or Vanaheim.”

  “Anaheim?” I ask.

  “No, Vanaheim. The realm of the Vanir.”

  Vanaheim. That’s one of the ones that I forgot. “What are the Vanir?”

  “They’re the gods associated with fertility, wisdom, and the ability to see the future.”

  “That could come in handy,” Sebastian mumbles.

  I look at him questioningly.

  “The future thing, I mean,” he says. “Wisdom wouldn’t be too bad either. I have no use for fertility… yet.”

  I haven’t yet given up hope on Stark returning, but the longer I stare at an unadulterated gate the more I realize he’s going to be gone for a while. Gone doing giant wolf things in the forest. I like to think he is under the watchful eye of Sommarmorgon, and she’ll come to us if Stark needs our help.

  “You two should head back to the school,” Anderson says.

  I start to protest, but as I look Anderson in the eye, I realize that it’s not an argument I’m going to win.

  Addy comes over and puts her arm around me. “We’ll let you know as soon as he returns.”

  “Promise?”

  “You will be the first to know,” Addy reassures.

  “I guess that means I’ll be second since I’m the only other one that is at all in the know,” Sebastian adds.

  After such a great day, this is not how I wanted it to end; under such a shroud of mystery. I guess that’s what life is going to be like going forward though. You don’t put an axe laced with Luciferase in Hel’s chest and think life will just go back to normal. What is normal anyway? For me that meant bouncing around to different foster homes and finding ways to get kicked out of school.

  As Sebastian and I climb the hill to our dorm, I pause and take one last look back. Still no sign of Stark. Just as I
suspected.

  4

  A Room with a Tree

  Sebastian already knows me well enough to discern that I have no intention of going back to my room. He suggests we go down to the stadium for the soccer game, but that’s only his attempt to distract me. I don’t know why he tries that angle considering I couldn’t care less about sports. It doesn’t really matter though because nothing is going to deter me from my new mission.

  That mission? The room at the top of the stairs.

  Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just an office, but something tells me it’s more. I hadn’t really planned to go there after leaving Anderson’s; but when I see Uncle Fester across campus, I know that he won’t be in his office monitoring the hallway with his spycam. I’d been thinking about the room since we left there yesterday and plotting how I’d get back there as soon as possible. Now the door is open, at least figuratively, and I’m ready to walk through.

  I take Sebastian by the hand and start dragging him behind me down the zigzagging hallway. We pass Fester’s little camera and I wave, which is the opposite of Sebastian’s advice to hide our faces. I figure he’s not going to go back and watch the videos but if he does, just hiding our faces won’t help. Who am I kidding? No matter what goes wrong at this school, I’m suspect number one.

  Zipping by Festers janitorial closet, we’re at the door at the bottom of the steps just a heartbeat later. “Are you ready?” I ask.

  “For what? To put myself in mortal danger again? Is there still time to back out?”

  “No.”

  “Let the adventure begin,” he says in a less than enthusiastic manner, which is not the Sebastian I know.

  I pull the door open and start bounding up the stairs. Slowing my pace at the top, I take more measured steps and listen for voices on the other side of the door. I’m confident Anderson isn’t here, but could Dr. Tyron be waiting on the other side? Is this like a second office? Is it a study? Maybe it’s a secret library with books on spells and potions.

  Hearing nothing from the other side, I figure there’s only one way to find out. I push the heavy door open a crack to get a glimpse of the room. I can see a desk and shelves of books. That doesn’t tell me much, but the large tree branch that lazily runs across the top of the bookshelves is an odd sight. A tree growing inside? A house plant or a simple ficus tree seems reasonable, but this is a full-grown branch from a full grown tree. All I can figure is it’s from Yggy.

  I don’t remember seeing Yggy touching the school from the outside, but that is definitely a tree branch. Maybe it’s growing up into the room from underground and not from outside.

  “What can you see?” I hear Sebastian ask from behind me as he presses up against me to see through the crack in the door. It never goes well when Sebastian does this. The last time he smacked his head right into my butt when we were hiding behind Anderson’s house. This time he pushes his way through so hard that I lose my balance that I accidentally fling the door open and we both fall to the floor in a heap. I would never admit this to Sebastian, but I kind of enjoy the simple and somewhat accidental touches from him.

  My initial thought as we hit the floor is that someone is waiting for us on the other side of the room outside my line of sight, but as I scramble from under Sebastian, I quickly scan the room and find no one. What I do see is where that branch originates as it leads to what appears to be a full-grown tree just like Yggy taking up half the width of one wall. The rest of the room is just a plain old study or office, so I guess I was half right. I say “plain old” but that’s in terms of Park Sessions, meaning ornate wood trims and Nordic themes including a prime choice of weaponry. What other school would provide students with such easy access to weapons?

  I’m not sure if I’m disappointed to find that this space is just a study or happy to know it’s essentially a normal room except for the tree taking up half the wall. Instead of going over to the tree first, my eye catches a single-blade knife about a foot long in a glass display case on the desk. There is an inscription plate in front of the case that says “10th Century Seax.”

  I don’t consider myself a klepto, but with the other weapons I’ve absconded with recently, I might have to reexamine myself. Now I find myself eyeing this seax, which I’m assuming means knife, and thinking that would look good strapped to my waist or thigh. I lift the glass cover which is surprisingly unlocked and set it to the side to get a closer look at the blade. The plate says 10th century, but the knife looks brand new. The steel reflects my image like a mirror, the handle shows no signs of wear, and the sheath’s leather is still smooth and silky. Something is very special about this knife.

  “Hey, look at this,” I hear Sebastian say.

  I turn to see what Sebastian has found, but I don’t see him. “Where’d you go?” I ask looking around the room.

  “I’m right here,” he replies as he stands up from behind the desk. “You have to see this.”

  I walk around the desk to where Sebastian is standing, and I see a hole in the tree at floor level. I’m not impressed. “So?”

  “It’s a hole.”

  “I see it’s a hole. What does that mean.”

  “Take a peek inside.”

  “You better not kick me in the butt,” I tell him as I get down on all fours and crawl up to the hole. Poking my head inside, initially all I see is darkness. But just as I’m about to retreat and smack Sebastian for his dumb joke, the path in front of me begins to light up. It looks like a luminescent bridge of rainbow colors. I’m not able to decipher much around it, but the path itself radiates beauty and warmth.

  I can feel Sebastian tug on my foot encouraging me to come out, so I crawl in reverse removing my front half from the hole. “What is it?”

  “I think it’s Bifrost.”

  “Eww, that sounds cold.”

  “No, it’s the rainbow bridge. You know how Thor travels through that rainbow in the movies?”

  I nod, still not quite sure what he’s talking about.

  “The rainbow is Bifrost. I think this might be the bridge to Asgard.”

  “You mean if we take that rainbow, we could get to Asgard? So that’s literally the bridge to Odin?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.” I start squatting back down ready to crawl right in when Sebastian stops me. “How do you know this?”

  “I spent a little time reading up on Norse mythology this week in my spare time.”

  “Wait. We can’t just go across the bridge. It’s supposed to be guarded by Heimdall, and he has a really big sword. I don’t think he lets just anyone cross into Asgard.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, didn’t you? I mean, based on everything that’s happened, I figure it may be helpful to know what we’re up against.”

  Sebastian had a point. I wish I had used my time more wisely. My free time from the last week has been a bit of a blur. Thanks to toilet duty, I’m pretty sure the limited time I had was spent daydreaming about white wolves, blonde ravens, and battling mythological armies. I’m probably okay though, I’m sure I can Google anything I don’t know as long as I can get cell coverage in Asgard. If not, I guess I’ll have to rely on Sebastian’s knowledge a little more than I already do.

  “So, tell me more about this guy with the sword. You think he’s going to do something to a couple high school students?”

  “I don’t know. I just think we should probably do a little planning and research before we start crossing Bifrost.”

  I might be willing to accept Sebastian’s argument and agree to wait for another day, but we hear the door at the bottom of the stairway open. The sound is very clear because we never closed the door at the top. Footsteps tap on each step drawing closer to the top. Sebastian and I look at each other and then to the hole in the tree. Silently we agree that’s our best hiding spot. As Sebastian ducks into the hole, I reach across the desk and grab the seax and sheath. Ducking behind the desk just as
the mystery person reaches the top of the stairs, I join Sebastian by backing into the hole and out of sight.

  As we sit in the dark, we try to get a view of who has entered the room. Unfortunately, from our angle all we can see are shins and shoes. I can’t say that I’ve ever spent time memorizing the footwear of the many teachers and administrators at Park Sessions, but I do recognize Dr. Tyron’s voice. I can hear him pick up the glass case that covered the seax and say, “Someone’s taken it.”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?” a maternal voice responds. “I thought this is what you expected.” Her voice seems familiar, but I’m not sure if it’s just the fact that her voice is like every 40-plus female teacher I’ve ever had. It’s funny how they all sound the same. I wonder if there’s a class they all take on how to sound like a teacher? Chapter One – The Annoying Voice. Chapter Two – The Boring Lecture Voice. Chapter 3 – The Late with your Homework Again Voice. And so on.

  I’m so focused on deciphering the mystery voice I don’t notice Sebastian giving me the death glare at first. When I look over to him to see if he knows the voice, I realize I may have done something not worthy of his approval. I smile sheepishly at him and show him the knife strapped to my leg. That’s when he shifts his body slightly in an effort to cross his arms to show as much displeasure with my actions as possible. Instead, his foot makes contact with the multicolored bridge, which takes hold of him like a vacuum and pulls him further away from the entrance. I’m not fully aware of what’s happening until Sebastian grabs the corner of my jacket, and I’m pulled onto the bridge too.

  I blurt out, “Hey, let go!” Not realizing that I’ve revealed our hiding place. It doesn’t really matter because before we know it, we are enveloped in a world of polychromatic ether, and being whisked away from home on our way to an unknown realm we assume will be Asgard.

  As we disappear, I can see Dr. Tyron stick his head through the hole and see us flying away. I can’t confirm nor deny that I wave to him maybe more out of instinct than to say goodbye, but I have no idea how he takes it. If we return, I’m sure I’ll find out.