Susan Squires: A Twist in Time

“Miss?”

Lucy looked up to find the big black nurse in green scrubs from the ER.

“We stabilized your cousin. He’s going into surgery now.”

At least he wasn’t lying on a gurney in the hall. “Will he be okay?”

“The surgeon is very good. Does lots of shoulders. We’ll admit him afterward. You can be there when he wakes up. Seeing a familiar face might keep him calm. He’s a fighter.”

“I’d like that. Do you have enough blood for him?”

The nurse patted Lucy’s arm. “You go down to the basement and tell them you want to donate for a patient going into surgery. Give his name. It’ll make you feel better.”

Lucy nodded. Calling Brad could wait. She was responsible for ripping this guy out of his own time. The least she could do was donate blood for him.

As she came back up to the emergency waiting room, she sported a sticky label on her chest that said she’d donated blood today. She should go back down to the cafeteria and call Brad, but she could hardly think, she was so tired. She wandered back into the crowded waiting room. Here, too, the lights were too fluorescent and the magenta and orange flowered carpet relentlessly cheery. A large industrial clock over the reception area said it was now nine.

The problem with calling Brad was that she’d be calling in Casey, too. She didn’t trust that guy as far as she could throw him. Would they understand the danger of kidnapping a man whose deeds might be an integral part of history? Brad would think of him as a prize. He’d want to “debrief” him (and her) when they should be getting the guy back before his absence changed things too much. And there was a chance Brad and Casey wouldn’t want to risk using the machine again.

But wouldn’t taking him back, all repaired and dosed with antibiotics and germs he got in a modern hospital, maybe change the course of events, too? She had so blithely used the machine because she thought it was some kind of destiny, she hadn’t thought what could happen. And now she couldn’t think what was right to do. She had to be sure what she should do before she called Brad, or he and Casey would just take over and do whatever they wanted with the guy. She tried to think. It was all so confusing. . . .

“Miss . . .” The black nurse was shaking Lucy’s shoulder. “Your cousin is out of Recovery. We’re taking him up to a room.”

“Is he okay?” Lucy rubbed her eyes. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. The waiting-room clock now showed nearly midnight.

“Groggy and weak. He lost more blood than we could replace. But the doctor said the surgery was successful. He should be back in action and ready for physical therapy in a few weeks. He looks like he’s normally healthy as a horse,” the nurse laughed. “Say, where’s he from? Nobody could figure out what language he’s speaking.”

“He’s . . . he’s from a remote village in Denmark.” Were there remote villages in Denmark? It was a pretty small place. Uh-oh. She’d told the receptionist he was from Finland.

“Well, go on up to Room Fifteen-oh-six and talk to him as he comes out of it.”

Yeah. Like she spoke Beowulf, or whatever it was.

Galen Valgarssen opened his eyes slowly. At first he couldn’t make out anything. His vision was blurred. The place seemed to be all white. He hadn’t thought Valhalla would be white. The skalds told of a jolly great hall with wenches and drinking and a huge fire over which roasted haunches of venison. His shoulder throbbed. And his thigh. Wounds were supposed to be miraculously healed every night in Valhalla. Well, maybe it took a while. He was lying in a bed with the head raised. It was night outside. The window was black. But inside the room a round disc by his bed gave off a cone of harsh white light very unlike candles or oil lamps. The place smelled foul, like urine and something acrid. The blankets were thin but tucked tightly around him. It made him feel like a prisoner. This wasn’t his idea of Valhalla at all.

Maybe he was in Hel’s domain instead—a wintry land below the surface of the earth, according to the Old Religion. That fit with the harsh white and hard surfaces, even if he really wasn’t cold. But he had been an honorable man and a brave one who died in battle. He expected Valhalla. He turned his head. In another bed a very old man with skin like yellow, wrinkled wax breathed laboriously. That one had not died a warrior’s death.

A clear bag hung above Galen on a metal pole, a flexible sort of tube going into his left arm. That wrist was circled with a leather cuff lined with fleece and chained with short links to the metal frame of the bed. His other arm was held to his chest with an elaborate sling, immobilizing it as surely as a shackle. Panic surged up from his gut. Now he remembered. The cursed man in the soft green clothes had tortured him by poking needles into him. They had made him breathe foul air through a mask over his nose and mouth until he passed out. He was definitely in Hel’s realm. He peered down. He was dressed in a thin tunic, pulled over his heavily bandaged shoulder, under the sling.

He had to get out of here. He yanked the chain with his good arm. . . .

“Whoa there, guy, steady.”

The woman had braided red hair and fair skin and very green eyes, not unlike some of his people. He couldn’t understand her, but she took the hand of his shackled wrist and stroked his forearm, making soothing sounds. Her hands were delicate, with very clean nails worn longer than any woman he knew. She smelled like blood, though. Her clothes were black, in stark contrast to all the white around her. He remembered her now. She had appeared at the battle with the great contraption made of brass mill wheels like a Valkyrie come to take him away, and Egil had attacked her, so he had to defend her, and then . . . then he must have blacked out. When he woke she helped him to . . . wherever he was. It was probably his blood he smelled on her. “Are you Valkyrie? Am I dead?”

The only word she apparently understood was Valkyrie. Her eyes lighted up when he said it. A Valkyrie who didn’t speak Norse? She shook her head. “Not Valkyrie.” She smiled. When she smiled, he thought he might be in Valhalla after all. You’d want your Valkyrie to smile like that. She put her hand on her breast. “Lucy. Lucy Rossano.”

“Galen Valgarssen.”

“Not exactly the name I gave you.” She shrugged and raised her brows. “Finn? Norse?”

Finn and Norse he understood. He nodded. She was asking his nationality. “Danir and Saxon.” Half of each, curse be it on him.

“You are Viking?”

That he got. He nodded. “Half.”

She looked frustrated. “I wish I spoke Danish.”

Something to do with Danir. He had many questions he would ask her. He rolled his eyes around the room. “Where is this place?”

She shrugged again to say she didn’t understand.

He tried Englisc. “ Hwar es min sweord? ”

She looked surprised. “Your sword?”

She understood Englisc. This was good. “ Bring hit to m,” he ordered .

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

That was no Englisc he had ever heard. He recognized two words—“think” and “good.” He shook his head to signal that she wasn’t being clear. “ Unsael thes racetg .” But she only echoed his frustrated shake of the head. Did she or did she not speak Englisc? Or would she just not release his shackle?

The man who had tortured him earlier appeared behind her. Galen started to sit forward and demand that she release him, but pain washed over him and he almost fainted. She made a gentle shushing sound and pushed him down, smiling reassuringly. She began talking to the man very rapidly. He could understand nothing. That could not be Englisc. Were they deciding how to kill him? Were they discussing tortures? He balled his hands into fists. He was helpless here, weak with his wounds, bound to the bed, and unable to understand what they said.