20. NOPE, NOPE, NOPE

20

NOPE, NOPE, NOPE

" W hat do you mean?" I took a step back, "Your sisters just said you're the bitch of the three of you, no offense, but how do I know you're not just trying to get rid of me?"

Kleteria shrugged. "None taken. They are not wrong. I will say what must be said which often makes me the least favorite of our visitors."

"I only want to know how to stop what's happening. Are you telling me there isn't a way?"

"There is and there isn't. That's up to you and what you do next." Kleteria stayed standing and her sisters sat, heads bowing toward her. Those milky white eyes of hers were wide as saucers. "You finish the curse."

I frowned, not sure that felt like the right answer. "Okay. What curse?" Did she mean the curse I had as a golden retriever ?

"And you can go to Hel," Proferia said, very clearly in English.

"Fuck you," Bebe snapped.

Kleteria glared at her sister, but Proferia acted as though she didn't notice. "Hel is where you must go. That is where the three deaths will occur. That is where the curse must be broken."

"Okay, but what about the tree of life? Suvenia is dying, rotting away, and I swore I would help save her." I couldn't do that if I was dead.

All three Norns looked to me and spoke in the same kind of freaky unison. " The tree will fall, there has been too much damage, there is no way to save it. The realms are destined to fall with it. Unless destiny is changed. "

Shaking my head I took a step back. "No, that would…that would destroy everything. It won't matter if I break a curse, or if three wolves die" —fuck this was sounding worse and worse— "if the tree of life falls! Don't you think?"

That seemed to slow their rolls.

The three sisters put their heads toward one another, their lips unmoving, their eyes staring straight at me while they silently conferred.

After a few unnerving minutes, Kleteria spoke slowly. "You present a conundrum, child of destiny. Because your life is outside of our jurisdiction, we will not guide you in this further. Your fate is yours, and yours alone to discover. The survival of all rests on you, and you alone."

My eyes about bugged out of my head. "What?"

Kleteria's face and voice hardened and suddenly I understood why it would have been best for her not to speak. Not because she gave bad news, but because she clearly did not want to be a part of the solution.

I wanted to pull my hair out. None of this made sense. I read history for shits and giggles, read mythology of all sorts, dug into the legends of so many cultures but this bullshit…made zero sense.

Let the tree of life die? Just hope the chips fell in a half decent pattern?

The three Norns settled back, eyes closing, speaking in full unison. " You must leave now ."

Except…Proferia opened one eye. "Go to Hel." Then she pointed to her right, my left.

That was the second time she'd said that. Go to Hell, or go to Hel? Hel was, as I recalled, daughter of Loki, sister to Jor and Fenrir.

Daughter of Chaos. Overseer of the dead. Damn it, I wished I still had the journal with me.

Or maybe it was best that I didn't know which path I was on. The journal hadn't exactly been leaving me feeling like there was any good ending for my story.

But Proferia…she seemed to want to help. Helestia opened her eyes and tipped her head in the same direction, mouthing the words .

"Go to Hel."

Two out of three wasn't bad in terms of getting a direction, I supposed.

I turned to the left and a path opened, leading me away from the Norns if I put my foot onto it. Why would Kleteria not want to give any advice? They were the weavers of destiny, the ones who should have helped me. Their lives were at stake too—if all the realms and the tree of life fell, we were all done for.

The Norns were still, their eyes closed, breathing quietly.

All three of them were huge, and getting a closer look at them would be difficult.

"What are you doing?" Bebe whispered.

"I'm missing something here." What had Fenrir said? To be myself?

I took in a deep breath, scenting the air. Something was there, a scent that was faded and yet familiar. I followed it over to the Norns and looked at them as best I could from the ground. I barely came to the bend in their knees. Could just look up into their laps. The smell was there, just at the edge of the three of them.

Proferia and Helestia were still, but Kleteria fidgeted like a child being asked to sit through a three-hour sermon. Could she be hiding something? A clue to all this?

"Bebe," I motioned for her to come close, then scooped her up and tossed her into Kleteria's lap before I could think better of what I was doing. "What do you see?"

"Gods, why would you do…oh…oh shit. Yeah, I got it!"

Bebe shot forward and grabbed something from the Norn's lap.

She leapt off as the giantess rumbled. "That is mine."

"Bebe!"

"Yeah, we gotta go!" She mumbled around the thing in her mouth. I turned and sprinted to the left, down the path that would lead us to Hel. Or Hell, depending on the day I supposed.

The rumble and groan of the Norn behind us had me moving as fast as I could go, dodging the tree sized mushrooms. I didn't know just how pissed off a giant could get, and really I didn't want to. Bebe was at my heels and together we raced through the oversized fungi farm, the slope of the land taking us down and down.

The temperature dipped, and my breath came out in puffs of condensation.

A quick glance over my shoulder gave me a moment's relief. "She gave up."

Bebe spun and looked back, then spat out the item she'd snagged from Kleteria. "Why did she give up? "

"No idea. Let's keep moving though."

I bent and scooped up the thing Bebe had spat out, as I continued down the path. A thin string, like a piece of fishing line, or maybe of spider web, had been wrapped around a long-pointed item, over and over. A hundred times or more.

"What is it?" Bebe stood on her back legs, trying to get a look. "It smelled funky."

"I'm sure this is what I smelled too. It's familiar. But I can't nail it down." I ran my hand over the wrapped item. Like a mummy wrapped in layers of thin cloth. I tugged at the edges with my fingernails, trying to find the starting point.

Whatever was inside was indeed funky , as Bebe had said. I lifted it to my nose and breathed in, trying to identify it. Harder in this form, I was sure I could have figured it out as a wolf or golden.

"Is this why she wasn't helpful you think?" Bebe was in front of me now, leading the way. "You think she…shit, you think she was bribed? Or spelled?"

That gave me pause. I found the edge of the string and began to unspool it, fast as I could.

It didn't take long, and the item encrusted inside the strands of white material flipped out, through the air, and landed point down into the path in front of us.

A piece of dark wood, shaped like a small dagger. I grabbed the handle and pulled it out carefully. The tip looked as if it had been dipped in blood. The smell was stronger now, and I recognized him.

"Sven. This was a piece of that bastard." He'd used a piece of himself to what…influence the Norn?

"Well shit, that's going to put a bug in the margarita, isn't it?" Bebe said. "What do we do now? Is this even the right path? They could be working for him, screwing us over."

I rolled the wooden dagger over in my hand. "Yes. Proferia and Helestia told me to go this way. Even if their younger sister tried to be difficult, spelled or not by Sven. I think she was the only one affected." I hoped.

I brought the backpack around and tucked the dagger in. Maybe we'd need it. Maybe we wouldn't. But if it was used for controlling one of the Norns, I needed to take it away.

Bebe bobbed along ahead of me again. "You know, I love the idea of strippers and ice cream, but I don't think we're going to get that."

I laughed. "No, I don't think we are."

"That's okay, I don't think I need the strippers anymore." She paused. "I think I might be falling for your brother." Bebe shot me a look, her eyes uncertain. "But he's been lovely to me, and doesn't treat me like I'm stuck like this—which I'm not now. He's…he's special. And I see how he treats you. How protective he is. "

I played dumb. "You mean Richard? He is handsome. But he can be overbearing, are you sure you want to take a swing at that?" I grinned, happy that my best friend had seen what I saw in Richard. Strength. Loyalty. Kindness. "Although, he does like his women curvy as fuck, so you've got that down pat."

"Hell yeah." She swished her tail. "I wish…I wish I wasn't a cat shifter now. But I suppose my curvaceous booty will make up for my diminutive size."

"Are you going to ask me for permission to pursue my brother, is that what's happening here?"

She sniffed. "You wouldn't say no, would you?"

"Then we'd be family for real," I said softly. The air around my face was a solid fog, I could barely see her at my feet.

Bebe froze and her head drooped. "Girlfriend, don't you know? We already are family. We don't need me banging your brother to seal the deal."

I laughed and held up my hands. "I don't want to think about you banging my brother. Thanks. But go for it. Have at Richard."

"You're the best, girlfriend." Bebe sighed.

We walked in silence and if not for the fact that we were headed toward the land of the dead, I might have enjoyed it. The air was sharp and cold, and the forest around us was slowly devolving from giant mushrooms to bare trees that reached for the sky, covered in thick frost .

"Bebe…does that tree look like something to you?" I motioned at a tree that was on our right, the two main arms of the branches were a little more straight out, less upward than the others.

"Like a cross maybe?" Bebe shook her head. "Why…oh, it's got eyes?"

I picked up my pace. "Yeah, that's what I was seeing too." And hoping that I was wrong.

The ice crackled around us, the trees lifting their roots and stepping toward us. "Bebe, up."

She leapt up to my arms and I set her on the backpack. "You watch behind. I'll watch the front."

"Good plan." She shivered as she hunched down in the space between my back and the top of the bag. "Maybe Loki gave you a blow torch in here?"

I picked up the pace but didn't run. Not yet. I was going to ascribe to a notion I'd read when I was a little girl, in a book I could no longer recall the title of. Don't run from the supernatural. You'll draw its attention.

I kept my pace steady even as the frost covered trees came to life around us. They groaned and swung their arms (branches?) but didn't seem to be coming at us. "What are they doing?" Bebe whispered.

"No idea," I whispered back, keeping my eyes peeled as the path sloped downward. I had to jump to the next level of land. That sharp movement was all it took. That, and I landed on a small sapling that was running around, arms flailing like a toddler .

It cracked under my left boot. Let out a pitiful cry and went still.

Fuck. "Sorry!"

The trees bellowed, spitting splinters and bark toward us.

I didn't wait around. I sprinted down the path, staying tight to it but weaving and dodging the creatures that were—rightfully so—pissed that I'd stepped on one of their young ones.

"Faster!" Bebe said. "They're coming in hot!"

I was moving as fast as I could. The thump of huge feet, the crackling of ice as they broke free of the weather filled my ears.

"Jump!" Bebe yelled. I didn't question her, I just leapt straight up as high as I could. A tree slid under me, the boom of it hitting the ground shaking the air around us. I landed lightly on the trunk as it slid down the path, arms flailing, branches still reaching for me. But it had no mobility to reach behind.

I balanced sideways, as if I were surfing.

On the path below I could see a…well it looked like a hole in the middle of the world. Nothing around it, nothing above it, just darkness within.

"Bebe, we're headed for that!"

"Nope!" She dug her claws into my shirt, skimming my skin. "Nope, that's a terrible idea!"

I caught movement out to one side and ducked as another tree took a swipe at us. "We don't have a choice!"

Besides, I had no doubt that was where we were headed. A whole lot of nope, right into Hel's waiting arms.