The Islands of the Blessed

Chapter Thirty-seven GRIM’S ISLAND

“The Bard couldn’t give up that easily,” said Jack. “He must have a trick up his sleeve.” They had been sailing for what seemed like hours. The sun had climbed to zenith, bringing welcome warmth, and now was descending to the west. Clouds were beginning to gather.

“His fame will never die,” Thorgil said dully.

“If you say that one more time, I’m going to kick you over the side.”

“We shouldn’t fight among ourselves,” she replied, and Jack was immediately repentant.

“I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to say.”

“And if you tried, you’d find that I can kick harder than you can,” the shield maiden said.

They were lying in the bottom of the coracle, and now Jack noticed that the quality of the wave sounds had changed. He struggled up, to look over the side. They were approaching land. It was a rocky, uninviting place with a tall mountain in the center. The only greenery was a forest of trees at the top of this mountain; the rest of the island was barren. Whush was poling toward it at great speed, and presently Jack felt the bottom of the coracle scrape over sand.

“What’s happening? Are we going to be thrown into the giant eel pit?” cried Thorgil.

Jack heard a clicking sound in his head, which meant that Whush was laughing. Much as I hate to deprive our eels of a treat, the Shoney has decreed otherwise. Pity. He is becoming sentimental in his old age.

“The Shoney gave his word that we would be allowed to leave Notland,” said Jack, realizing that a fin man’s word didn’t mean very much.

So he did and here you are.

“Where’s here?” demanded Jack.

I need not tell you, except that it gives me pleasure to do so. Whush’s V-shaped mouth tilted up into a smile. This is Grim’s Island, where our princess met her death. It seems fitting that you should be abandoned here. The fin man hoisted Jack and Thorgil under one arm and carried them onto the beach. He dropped them onto the sand and continued on to the base of the mountain. You won’t be climbing that anytime soon, he said with satisfaction when he returned. He cut their bonds, but before they were able to wriggle free, he was pushing off in the coracle.

“Wait! That’s our boat!” shouted Thorgil. “How do you expect us to leave?”

Whush paused, well out of reach. Swim, I suppose. One word of advice: I’d find shelter quickly, because the weather is about to turn bad. It does that often here. And he sped off, poling vigorously, until he was lost among the tossing waves.

“It’s so cold! What do you remember about Grim’s Island?” Thorgil said.

“It’s dark all winter, and in summer it’s either shrouded in fog or lashed by storms,” said Jack. “Let’s see, the mermaid built Father Severus a hut shaped like a giant sea snail. We should look for that.”

They were both extremely stiff from being tied up, and they hadn’t had anything to eat since the day before. “I could look for shellfish,” Thorgil offered.

“Water and shelter are more important. Look at that sky!” Jack’s courage almost failed him when he saw the storm rapidly approaching from the north. They ran along the beach, and large drops of freezing rain began to pelt down. Soon it was difficult to see more than a few feet ahead. Jack shouted when he tripped over a lump of rock and fell onto the sand.

“It’s a doorway!” yelled Thorgil over the rising wind. “I think it’s that snail house.” They wriggled into the entrance and found that the inside chamber was spacious. The walls were as smooth as glass and the floor was of fine sand that was surprisingly dry. They burrowed into it for warmth. After a while they took turns crawling to the door and holding their hands out to gather rain to drink.

“It’s already dark,” said Thorgil as she nestled into the sand again.

“Then we should sleep,” Jack said.

“Shouldn’t we, you know, write a praise-poem for the Bard? Like we did when Olaf died.”

“The Bard isn’t dead!” Jack didn’t want to think about it.

“Not yet,” said the shield maiden with relentless honesty, “but he soon will be, sealed into that tomb.”

“Why don’t you shut up and leave me alone!” the boy shouted. “It’s one of those things you don’t talk about in the dark. Go find some other barrow to haunt if you can’t keep quiet.” Afterward he felt ashamed of himself, but not enough to apologize. He didn’t want to open a discussion. He didn’t want to think. Unfortunately, he couldn’t sleep either. He kept waking up all night, and all the periods of sleep were full of dreams he didn’t want to remember.

The morning was cold and clear. They trudged around the island and found a stream flowing out of the mountain. “At least we won’t die of thirst,” said Thorgil.

“Who cares?” said Jack. “We’ll either starve or die of cold. It only prolongs the misery.”

“You’re the one who’s always telling me to cheer up.”

“You’re the one who has something to be cheerful about. You’ve got the rune of protection. I have nothing to remember the Bard with,” said Jack.

“Yes, you do,” said Thorgil. “You have his lore. He could have chosen anyone in the world to be his apprentice, but he chose you. He said he was very proud of you.”

“What good was that?” the boy cried. “I couldn’t save him from—from—” Jack walked off before he could break down, and Thorgil wisely left him alone. Instead, she waded out to some rocks to gather winkles. Her feet were blue with cold by the time she got back, and she had to jump up and down to get the feeling back. She heaped up a stack of driftwood. Jack was sitting on a rock, looking out to sea.

“Could you call up fire?” Thorgil asked him.

Jack tried, but his mind wouldn’t settle.

“Never mind,” the shield maiden said. “Winkles are good raw. Olaf used to eat them all the time. You dig them out with your fingernail, see?” She had found sea tangle and dulse, two kinds of seaweed, and rinsed them in the little stream to get the sand off. Little by little she induced Jack to eat, and gradually he felt better. But only slightly.

“I wish we could climb that mountain,” said Thorgil, looking speculatively at the thick grove of trees at the top. “I’m sure there’s food up there.”

“Father Severus tried,” Jack said. “He couldn’t even get up there when he was trying to escape from—” His throat closed up and he couldn’t say more.

“Well, I’m going back for the ropes Whush left. They might come in handy.” The shield maiden walked off along the beach, and after a while, reluctantly, Jack followed her. She had found the ropes and something else they hadn’t noticed in the rush to find shelter the day before. Next to the mountain, where Whush had walked the day before, was a small chest about a hand-span wide and a hand-span deep. It was made of the same dark wood as the chairs in the Shoney’s audience chamber. Like them, it was inlaid with ivory.

Thorgil opened it and gasped. It was filled with jewels. Red, blue, yellow, green, and clear as ice, they sparkled in the sunlight. And among them were pearls as large as hazelnuts. “The Shoney must have sent them,” she said. “But why, if he means us to perish?”

“He liked you,” said Jack. “You were envious of his wealth-hoard and that made him feel good. And you told him stories about pillaging. I guess he thought you’d like to feast your eyes on a wealth-hoard of your own before you died. He can always send Whush back later to collect it.” Jack spoke bitterly, wanting in a perverse way to destroy Thorgil’s pleasure. How dare she be happy when the Bard was dead. If he was dead, the boy amended. He wasn’t ready to believe it.

But Thorgil was too delighted to care. “This is what Beowulf asked for after he slew the dragon. I remember the words from the saga: ‘Run quickly, dear nephew. Despoil the dragon and bring me a banquet of jewels to feast my hungry eyes.’ He sure knew how to die!”

“You’re both crazy,” said Jack, turning away. Then he noticed the sky. It was full of the kind of clouds the Northmen called sky silk, and he remembered Rune’s words. When you have the wind at your back and sky silk moves to the right, it means a storm is coming. These were certainly moving to the right. And swiftly. Even as he watched, the clouds thickened to a milky haze.

“Uh-oh,” said Thorgil, shading her eyes.

“It’s a storm, isn’t it?”

“Look at the gulls. They’re fleeing before it,” she said. The seabirds were coming in from the sea. They screamed to one another as they circled distractedly before landing in the forest at the top of the mountain.

Jack remembered something about the smell of the air before a really big storm, something about metal. He could smell it now. The clouds had already changed from milky white to gray.

“We have to get to higher ground,” Thorgil said urgently. “Storms like this produce giant waves.”

“What about staying in the snail house?” said Jack, beginning to catch her alarm.

“If you want to drown. It’s too close to the sea. Hurry!” Thorgil handed the rope to Jack, hefted the chest, and ran for the mountain.

They looked for a way up, but all of the apparent paths ended only a few feet above the beach. By now the sky had deepened to an ominous slate blue, and wind began to buffet them, threatening to knock them over. “Drop that cursed chest!” Jack shouted. For Thorgil, always somewhat clumsy because of her paralyzed hand, was dangerously so with the heavy box under one arm.

“Don’t touch it!” she screamed when he tried to yank it away. They both slid down the boulder they were attempting to scale and into a deep crevice in the side of the mountain.

“Put that down, or you won’t be able to climb up!” Jack ordered.

“It doesn’t matter. We can’t get out anyway,” said Thorgil, panting and hanging on to the chest.

Jack looked up. It was true. They had fallen down much farther than he had realized, and the rock was perfectly sheer. The wind howled over the top, and waves had begun to crash so violently that the spray reached them even where they were trapped.

“I guess this is it,” said Thorgil. “You can tell the sea enters here because of the barnacles. It’s certainly going to be flooded during this storm.” A wave hit a rock and the ground trembled.

It was growing dark although it was only midday. The sky—and Jack could see only a small slice of it—was boiling with evil-looking clouds. The speed at which the weather had changed was astounding, and the far end of the crevice was so deep in shadow, it might as well have been night. He edged toward it, hoping to find a way up. He put out his hand to feel the rock and found—nothing at all.

It wasn’t a shadow after all. It was the mouth of a cave.