Mia Darien - Good Things

She was terrified, but she’d be damned—and maybe literally—if she showed it.

“What do you offer in return for this?” he asked while still behind her.

“What do you want?”

His laugh sounded more like a bark and it made her think of wolves. In the trees, large birds flapped their wings and she felt a chill. “That is not the point. I am Odin. I want for nothing. You are the one who wants. What are you willing to sacrifice to get it?”

Jesse didn’t reply at first. She would have died for Tom, but yet, she loved him too much to put the weight of her death on him. Not like this. And this was not like the devil of the Christians, who traveled around trying to buy souls. “I don’t know,” she whispered, already feeling like she had failed. “I would give my life if you demanded it, but couldn’t have him know I died for him and let him live out his own life with that. It would break him.”

“Hmm.” The king of the gods made a noncommittal noise. “So you are willing to give all for him.” His footsteps continued until his hulking form came before her again. His gaze was like steel as it stabbed into her. “You beings live in such a faithless age now. Your modern world is full of oathbreakers and those who do not value the blood they are given, or that they give. I cannot believe you will hold to your oath—”

“I will!” Jesse exclaimed, galling herself by interrupting Odin. She swallowed hard, almost wincing as she waited for rebuke, but didn’t stop. “I don’t break my promises.”

“I require your proof,” he said simply, unimpressed with her. “I will bring you to my realm, to the land of the gods, but you must find your way to my mead hall. Only when you do will I consider granting you this favor.” He held up his hand before her face just as a pair of large black birds—ravens—flew down and landed on his shoulders. She had just looked into the eyes of one of the great birds when the world went black.

When she lifted her face, she was no longer where she had been. She had no idea where she was at first and felt panic suffusing her, until she remembered Odin and what he had said about sending her to the realm of the gods. Once she remembered that, she panicked even worse.

“What have I done...” she whispered as she scrambled onto her feet, dusting off her clothing without even thinking about it. Then she thought about Tom lying on the hospital bed, needles piercing his skin, monitors stuck on, and tubes hanging around him. When she thought of him, she remembered and she squeezed her eyes shut to control the panic.

There was no chance of getting rid of it, so the best she could hope for was to control it rather than let it control her. She wiped her sweaty palms on her thighs and looked ahead to see what was before it.

The sight didn’t inspire confidence.

Stretching on towards the horizon was a grey wasteland. The land looked dead and covered in a haze, dried and broken trees jutting from the ground in random angles and the land itself parched and cracked. As she followed along the line, she saw a forest at the other side and the forest lived at the base of a mountain. At the top of that mountain sat a long wooden building that somehow managed to convey both rustic and stately.

Odin’s Hall.

Once that sunk in, it sunk to her feet as her eyes moved back to the dead ground. The only way to get there was through. She felt the call of the trees on the other side like a longing, but everything between her and it sent a chill of terror. She couldn’t imagine walking over such a land, to feel nothing beneath her. Even the concrete of the city still had the song of the Earth under it, but this, she just knew instinctively would not feel like that.

“Tom,” she whispered as she lifted a sneaker and set it on the grey, cracked dirt.

As she had suspected, it felt of nothing. She suppressed a shudder as she made each foot move one step at a time. It had to be harder than simply crossing unpleasant scenery, so she was waiting every moment for some beast of old to leap out at her or a giant to come running down that hill.

The first hint of something was far more subtle than that. A faint whisper came past her ear, like a voice on the breeze. She spun and looked, but there was nothing. She forced herself to keep walking forward. The whisper came past her other ear and she spun in a full one-eighty, but there was still nothing. Her heart felt like it had started skipping its beats while her breath shuddered in and out. Turning, she moved forward again.

Then, all at once, the sound assaulted her. A maelstrom of whispers and shrieks and groans came at her like a tornado. She could just pick out words as she clutched her ears to either side of her head, trying to block them out as the pain in her ears drove her to her knees. She was crying before the ground rose up to meet her.

“...you’re going to lose him...”

“...he’ll die and you’ll be left alone...”

“...you can’t live without him, but you will have to...”

“...going to be taken from you...”

“...be left alone...”

“...will die...”

“...gone...”

“ Stop! ” she shrieked against the wind, but it did not listen. The words kept assaulting her and she felt physically battered.

That’s when she realized that it wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t stop until she was on the other side, so the only way to get there was through. Even though she felt like her ears were bleeding, she forced herself to push back onto her feet. She started walking, then began running. Her face was wet and she could even feel her tears in her hair, but she kept running. She tried to ignore the voices, but they wouldn’t stop. Like being hit with metal rods, they drove hard into her.

She tripped more than once, but every time she did, she kept running. She wouldn’t stop, because she couldn’t stop. If she stopped, she would die.

With each moment, the trees grew closer. As she neared the edge of the wasteland, the voices became louder and their words harsher. So thick and so fast, she began to feel like she was pushing through a tangible cloud. The air itself was thick and her breathing became labored, like choking on sobs that weren’t coming.

Her eyes remained hard on the trees, knowing somehow instinctively that if she could just reach the trees, the voices would stop.

Putting her head down, she pushed ahead. She started screaming back at the voices to shut up, and she screamed so much that her voice became hoarse and incoherent to her own ears until the trees came to meet her. She ran so hard that she almost drove herself head long into one and fell to the ground just to stop, crashing in the wet grass.

As she had known, the voices stopped as she fell on the forest floor.

She stared up at the canopy, panting and gasping. There was a stitch in her side that made her want to cry again, but she had nothing left.

It seemed like forever that she laid there, but Odin’s Hall was not here. It was on that mountain, and that’s where she had to go. To prove to him that she was willing to do whatever it took, she had to climb that mountain. To find the key to saving her husband’s life, she had to get through this forest. To save the key to her life and sanity, she had to get up.

And so she did. She took one last rasping breath, she pushed herself up to her feet and started trudging through the trees. Her legs felt like lead. Jesse was a fairly athletic woman, but even she couldn’t have done all she did without feeling like she was about to die.

She would not die. She would not stop.

The forest felt so much better than the wasteland. She could feel the song of the living here, rather than the silence of the dead. She did not trust it, of course, for she knew that her test was not over. She still had more to do until she got what she wanted.