The Dog in the Shadows by Henry Lewi, a tank of mead

The old man regularly took a walk twice a day from his house down on to the beachfront, once in the morning and for a second time in the late afternoon, always with his silver topped black cane in his left hand and in his right he carried a leather leash. He was often seen talking and calling out to someone or something that wasn’t there. Some passers-by thought he was possibly looking for his dog that had disappeared, others thought he was just a lonely somewhat senile old man, but he didn’t have that appearance. Tall and straight with long swept back silver hair he was always immaculately dressed in a three piece dark suit or wearing a long camel overcoat if the day was cold.

   His house was one of those large tall double fronted Victorian houses overlooking the sea, and separated from the beach by a wide road, with the double gates to his property always left open; parked in the driveway was a vintage Bentley and an old Mercedes Convertible.

  The four of them had watched the old man for a week, they had noted, checked and followed his movements and observed his twice-daily walks.

  The house they knew was packed with valuable artworks and ancient artefacts that would net them a small fortune, but it was access to the vault in the basement that they really wanted.  Their Boss had told them that the safe contained an extremely rare and valuable relic, ‘It was his,’ the Boss had said, and he wanted it back, and he wanted it back badly, and he would reward them handsomely when they bought it to him.

   There were no video cameras or alarm systems in or around the house, clearly no guard dogs, and whilst the old man always carried a leash when out walking there was certainly no dog that they’d ever seen.  He was as the Boss had said, ‘just an old man living alone in the big house full of pieces of art work and the valuable contents of his safe.’ 

   ‘Easy pickings’, they all thought, well that was what their Boss had said.

  The four of them broke into the house that night, and as they entered the large white painted front living room the lights came on, and they were confronted by the old man seated in a large armchair, his silver topped cane lying across his thighs, a dog leash lying on the floor next to the armchair.  The room was empty except for the old man in the armchair and a large long tusked Golden Boar about four-foot in height quietly standing perfectly still in one corner of the room.

  ‘Get up old man,’ said the the leader of the four, ‘get up, we know you’re all alone here, so get up and open your safe for us.’

   The old man smiled and remained seated, ‘who sent you?’ He asked still smiling. 

  ‘Nobody you’d know, but he knows all about you,’ replied the the leader of the group, ‘and he’s a very, very powerful guy, so do us all a favour, get up and take us to your safe sharpish.’

  As the old man slowly stood up and leant on his cane, still smiling he asked, ‘so what did he tell you all about me?’

  ‘He just said you were an old man, an art collector who lives by himself all alone in a big house, why, are you someone special?’ Asked one of the four.

  ‘So let me tell you who I am, I am Loki, Son of the All Father Odin, and that safe you want me to open contains an ancient heavy War Hammer.  Did he bother to tell you that I’m very very well protected; so are you all willing to brave my fury, that of my dog, and the Old Gold Boar standing over there, for the sake of a few artefacts?’

  ‘Your fury, your fury, what are you Old Man, delusional?’ Replied the leader of the four; ‘we can see that Gold Boar stuck in the corner over there, standing completely still like it's a fucking statue, but this dog you keep going on about, where’s this fucking dog?   There isn’t one we can see, we can’t hear any sounds of a dog, just that stupid leash on the floor, so clearly there isn’t one, so stop with all this nonsense about the dog, as well as that Golden Boar and this rubbish about your so-called protection, just take us to the safe Old Man.’

  ‘So he really, really didn’t say anything about my dog?’ Asked the old man.

  ‘Don’t you understand what I just said?’  Replied the leader of the four intruders.

‘No, and I’ll repeat it for you for one last time, No, he didn’t say anything, about a dog, so just do what we’re asking.’

  Still standing the old man tapped his silver-topped cane twice on the floor, and pointed to the wall behind him; all four now saw the shadow of a huge silent wolf-like figure looking as if it was about to pounce.  The old man tapped his cane yet again and suddenly on that back wall appeared the shadows of three men now standing in front of the huge wolf.  Looking round the leader of the group realised that his three companions had suddenly disappeared, leaving him now standing completely alone in the white painted room facing the Old Man, whilst the Old Gold Boar in the corner remained still as a statue.

  The leader of the group watched, mesmerized by the dancing shadows on the white wall opposite, as the Shadow Wolf appeared to leap and attack the now silent shadows of his three men, who were projected onto that white wall; and all the while, the old man looked on silently.  

 ‘That dog,’ said the old man finally, ‘that dog,’ he repeated, ‘is my Hellhound, The Embodiment Of My Son The Wolf-God Fenrir, a Silent God who only keeps to the shadows.’

 ‘NOW GO!  Go tell your Boss, and YES, YES I know that your so-called Boss is my idiot brother Thor; so go tell him that his brother Loki says, that if he wants his Ancient Hammer back he knows where to come, and simply ask for it; and whilst he’s at it, he can also have Gullinbursti his old Golden Boar back as well; it keeps crapping all over my carpets.’ 

About the author  

 

Henry is a retired Surgeon and member of the Canvey Writers Group. He has published a number of stories on the CafeLit site. 

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DELIVER US FROM EVIL by Rob Molan, pint of mead

Braithwaite’s house lies close to Ely and our band of men is a dozen strong as we march in its direction led by my brother, Tom, who is the tallest of us. The wind is bitingly cold and my woollen tunic barely keeps me warm.

By the time we arrive at our destination, the sun has disappeared behind the clouds and the light is starting to fade. The building has thick stone walls and two storeys. We believe he is conducting his vile work in the former stable at ground level which is entered by a strong oak door. A staircase at the side leads up to the living quarters of his family.

Tom strides up and bangs on the door with his left fist.

‘Braithwaite, you fiend, come out and show your face.’

Crows caw in the trees to our left as we wait for the cur to appear.

‘We know you’re in there. Come out and face us.’ Tom beats the door again. The chorus of our angry voices wells up behind him.

A door creaks open above and we look up to see Braithwaite gazing down on us from the top of the staircase. He is a lumpish man with a pock marked face and straggling red hair. A short man with arms like tree trunks and holding a club stands beside him.

‘What business do you, Tom Cox and your motley companions, have with me?’ he asks.

‘To demand that you desist from evil and let us honest folk continue our lives in peace.’ We roar our support.

‘That which you consider to be evil is but the work of honest men.’

‘You’re in league with the Devil and will go to Hell when you die,’ I shout.

‘Hark at you, Richard Cox. Since when did you become a preacher?’ He laughs and spits on the top step. ‘I am not beholden to the likes of you,’ he bellows. ‘Go home before I lose my temper. If you return another day, I guarantee you’ll regret it.”’  The sidekick grunts his approval

With that, he and his companion turn their backs on us and leave, slamming the door behind them.

‘Damn you, Braithwaite,’ Tom cries, his body shaking with fury.

I walk over to him and put an arm on his shoulder. ‘Come, brother. Let us go back to our families before nightfall. There is nothing more we can do here at present.’

‘That maybe so but this will not be the last time we call here.’ There is a steely glint in his eyes.

 

This time of the year I rise in the dark and return in blackness, tired after a long day working at my trade. Tonight, my eyes are wearier than usual but - as I enter our cottage - Sarah’s welcoming smile and rosy cheeks cheer me, as does the welcoming smell of pottage from the cooking pot. I see Tom has joined us. He eats with us some evenings now that he is widowed. He looks more haggard in the candlelight.

 ‘Good evening, brother,’ he says quietly.

‘I’m glad you have come as we have much to talk about.’ 

I stand by the stone hearth in the middle of the room and warm myself while Sarah serves our food from the pot. Her long blonde hair is tied back.

The boys are already asleep in the corner. They are ten and eleven years old respectively and we are blessed to have them but what does the future hold for these young ones if that abomination is let loose?

The three of us sit down at the table to enjoy the repast.

‘I saw Braithwaite this afternoon,’ Sarah says. ‘He and another man were riding alongside a small horse drawn wagon. He is such a brutish looking fellow and his companion was no better.’ She wrinkles her nose.

‘They were no doubt protecting the vile cargo carried in the wagon,’ Tom mutters.

‘We cannot truly celebrate Yule with this shadow hanging over us,’ Sarah says in a sad voice.

I catch her eye, reach over and gently squeeze her right wrist. A silence follows for a short time which I break with unwelcome news.

‘I spoke with Francis Hood today. He has been to London and saw that the affliction now menacing us is already wreaking harm there.’

Tom grunts. “It’s a form of witchcraft. Like the others, Braithwaite learned his dark art when he travelled over the sea to the land of the Germans and brought it back with him. ‘

‘How long will it take before it damages us?’ asks Sarah.

‘Months rather than years I fear when it happens,’ Tom replies. ‘But I refuse to accept we’re defenceless in the face of such evil-doing.’ He punches the palm of his left hand.

‘We should go to the cathedral tomorrow morning and pray for our salvation,’ Sarah says looking at me. I can see the reflection of the fire in her brown eyes.

‘Yes, we must do everything we can to preserve ourselves,’ I reply.

 

As Sarah lights a candle, I see Father Michael at the back and hasten down the aisle to speak to him. He seems more stooped than the last time I saw him.

‘What troubles you, Richard?’ His kindly eyes study me.

‘Have you heard what’s happening in Braithwaite’s house?’

‘Yes, I’m aware of it.’ He knits his bushy white brows.

‘Surely, he should be excommunicated from the Church for such wickedness?’

‘I understand your concern. But only the Pope can do what you ask for and our bishop has not told us of any decrees issued for such acts. In any case, Braithwaite is an ungodly man and would not be discouraged if he was condemned in that manner.’

There is nothing more to be said about the matter. We leave the cathedral and walk across to the barn with snow crunching beneath our feet. It will be empty until the next delivery of grain and it is big enough for us all to gather together with our wives. The hubbub is loud as we enter and I can see Tom in deep conversation with Francis who looks like a dwarf beside my sibling.

Tom jumps on a box and claps his hands loudly. The place quickly falls silent.

‘Francis has just returned from London and has seen for himself what the new curse has done to many of our brothers there. I will ask him to stand up in a moment to tell you what he witnessed and - once he has spoken - we must decide how we can stop the same thing happening here.’

We are not naturally men of violence but we may need to resort to that to defend ourselves.

 

The year of our Lord 1476 started well.

A friend of Tom overhead Braithwaite’s female servant telling another in the market on St Stephen’s day that her master was going to Cambridge a week later with his family and sidekick, and were staying there for two nights. Tom told our group to gather at his cottage on the morning of their departure. Once we had gathered there, we headed to the forest near the reprobate’s house.

When we got there, we searched for a fallen tree and soon found a sturdy one which had been uprooted in the recent storm. We cut it from its roots and the branches were sawn off, and we carried the log on our shoulders to Braithwaite’s house. On arrival, we placed it on the ground and watched and listened for any sign of life. Once we decided they had departed, we picked the log up and used it as a battering ram to break down the door. It withstood the first few charges but finally we heard the sound of wood splintering and burst inside to find a callow youth with blonde hair standing by the printing press. His face dropped and a tool fell from his hand.

 The monstrosity was exactly as it was described to Francis by our brothers in the capital, resting on a wooden bench supported by four legs, with a large screw mounted on the side designed to press the upper plate on which paper was mounted against an inked plate below.

A few books lay on a table beside the press and I picked one up and turned a few of the pages. Just as I expected, the paper was cheap in quality and I spotted an error on the first page.

‘Are these the first books to have been printed?’ I glower at the boy.

‘Yes. Mister Braithwaite received an order for them last week.’ He looked like he was going to cry.

‘We’ll take pleasure in burning them.’ I threw the book down.

‘Let’s set about the main task,’ said Tom, beckoning to Francis who brought over the bag holding steel bars and handed them out to us.

We feverishly attacked the press, starting with the hinges attached to the upper and lower plates and pulled it apart. Before long, it was reduced to a pile of wooden and metal parts.

‘These machines cannot ever replace the trade of scribing,’ Tom proclaimed. ‘Skilled artisans like us will continue to faithfully copy manuscripts onto sheets of parchment and preserve the words of the Bible and great works in the form they should be read in. “’Every one of us cheered.

A year later, we continue to freely ply our craft and no other man has dared to set up a printing press in our town. My boys will soon start to learn the trade and can look forward to many years of practising our trade.’

 About the author 

 Rob lives in Edinburgh started writing short stories during lockdown. To date, he's had several tales published by Cafe Lit and others in various anthologies. He likes to experiment with different genres and styles of writing. 

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The Fusing by Laura Shell, chili -infused mead

She heard the collective shrill from the trees above, breaking the early morning birdsong. Somehow, she knew what was coming because she hunched her back and closed her eyes. Her skin knew, too; gooseflesh formed all over. And then they fell from the tree, a horde of them—red, hard, segmented bodies, two inches long, with stingers at their asses, antennas on either side of their heads.

 

They fell from a long height but landed as one unit; like a blanket, they covered her back, and as soon as their legs straightened, they bolted, scattered, and ran down her outstretched arms, around to her belly, down her legs, across her chest. She screamed, and some of them entered her mouth.

 

She pulled at her lips, fell to the dew-covered grass, on her side, and coughed purposely. Her eyes still squeezed shut; she had to get them out of her mouth, so she dug for them in a panic, and pulled a few of them out, but not before they had buried their rigid stingers into her soft, fleshy cheeks, in between her teeth, along the gumline, three spots on her drying tongue, one on the roof of her mouth. Cough, cough, fingers in her mouth, digging, grabbing, pulling the bugs from inside her face. Some still had their stingers and when she caught them, they stung her fingers. Felt like nails going in through to her bones.

 

She couldn't get them all, so she thought, Screw it, and chomped down, eating them, their hard bodies so very crunchy, not tasting like anything. That's when she noticed the pain.

 

Hot pain. So much pain. In her mouth. She imagined being bitten by a snake inside her mouth.

 

Hot pain. All over her back, her arms, her legs, her crotch. She then realized she'd been rolling from side to side in the wet grass, the movements not saving her from being bitten by these insects that seemed to have an agenda—cause as much pain as possible to this human being.

 

But what had she done to deserve this? Nothing. Just stood in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

The insects that had jammed their stingers into her flesh had run off into the grass. The rest still dashed along her skin, their stingers still intact.

 

The hot, burning pain beneath each stinger was still erect in her skin, and there must have been hundreds of such sites; she wondered if poison accompanied the pain, and if so, what was the poison going to do to her?

 

Not too many bugs left. She swatted at the ones that still crawled on her. Then she tried to stand. She managed to rise onto all fours, her sweaty hair dangling down, the ends touching the indented grass. With heavy breaths, she spat out the crunchy bits of dead insects.

 

Suddenly, her feet fused together.

 

She screamed and looked back as her flesh became black and lobster-shell hard and pointed...like a stinger. 

 

About the author

 

 Laura Shell has been published in NUNUM, Maudlin House, Citron Review, and many others. Her first anthology of paranormal stories, The Canine Collection, was released this year, and she is currently working on her second anthology. You can find out more about her at https://laurashellhorror.wordpress.com. 

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The Servant’s Tale by Penny Rogers, a flagon of mead

Edward was crowned in 975 following the death of his father Edgar.  Edgar’s death had precipitated a power struggle between supporters of his older son Edward and those who favoured his younger son Æthelred.

 

 In March 978 the teenage King Edward visited Æthelred at Corfe in Dorset. There is no certainty about exactly what happened, but we do know that Edward was murdered as he waited to be admitted. There is much conjecture concerning the role of Ælfthryth, Edward’s stepmother, in the assassination of the young king.

 

I, Hrothgar, am the loyal servant of King Edward.  He had desired to visit his half-brother Æthelred; for what purpose I knew not, and Kings do not have to give their vassals a reason. We journeyed to Corfe, that Royal Hall of feasts, kinship and plotting, but when we got there the gates were closed. We were told that Lady Ælfthryth had not completed her preparations for her stepson’s visit.

As we waited, one of Æthelred’s churls asked to speak to the King. He explained that a favourite mare was having trouble foaling and they asked for my help; my skill with horses had made me famous all over the land.  The King himself commanded me to leave his side; I did this with reluctance and followed his brother’s churl. The fellow took me on a long walk to the stables where I found a contented mare suckling a colt that was clearly a few hours old. I sensed danger and asked if this was some sort of jape or trickery. The miserable churl shrugged. With a feeling of dread I turned to hurry back to my place by the King’s right hand.

            I climbed the steep path leading to the gate where King Edward and his small company of men yet waited to be admitted. It was late afternoon, and wild March winds were howling across the hills of Purbeck. As the gate came into view, through the sound of the storm I heard a scream, a wail of mortal agony. Then I heard a piercing neigh, the high pitched sound that horses make when in terror, followed by the clatter of hooves tearing away over the rocky ground.

            I ran to the gate to find Æthelred’s thanes clustered around Lady Ælfthryth. She appeared angry and disconcerted. It was well known that she had championed her son to succeed his father, but Edgar’s older son, Edward, had been crowned. Ælfthryth had never accepted it. I arrived breathless to see blood on the ground but no sign of the King or his horse, nor indeed any of our churls who were supposed to be guarding him. Perhaps the King still lived?

I heard her say ‘Find him. Make certain he is dead and his body is buried with all haste,’ and I saw three of Æthelred’s thanes leap onto horses and gallop into the fading light.

But it was I, Hrothgar, who found the King’s horse many hours later. She had galloped twelve furlongs, dragging the King over stones, through brambles and briars and water. His broken and bloodied body still hung from the saddle, the ankle gauntlet on his left leg trapped in the stirrup.

            The hilt of a blade protruded from his neck, his fuzzy boy-man beard caked in blood and mud. The anointed King had been slain most brutally. It was a sight to make strong men tremble and weep.

About the author 

Penny Rogers lives in Dorset in the south of England. She writes mostly short stories, flash fiction and poems and facilitates an informal writing group. She is a regular contributor to CaféLit. When she’s not writing Penny makes jams, pickles and preserves from home grown or foraged produce. 

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“DADDY KAYE” by S. Nadja Zajdman, a stein of mead

The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true… Danny Kaye in and as The Court Jester, 1956.

 

On Wednesday, March 4, 1987, seventy-six-year-old David Daniel Kaminsky, known to the world as Danny Kaye, died.  Four years earlier, he contracted hepatitis as a result of receiving tainted blood during a transfusion while undergoing heart surgery.  Kaye’s clown’s heart succumbed at four in the morning.  

            I remember when he was hospitalized.  In the dead of winter, at three am, I woke with a start.  In order to fill the disturbing silence, I opened a radio just in time to hear the hourly news; “In Los Angeles, Danny Kaye undergoes heart surgery…”

            Six weeks later, my father was dead.  I’d never known a world without my father, and I’d never known a world without Danny Kaye.  They were born six years apart and died four years apart, short of a month, of hearts so full that they burst; both, on a Wednesday.  The two men were manifestations of the same spirit.

            I first saw Danny Kaye on his weekly television show in the early nineteen sixties.  I was eight years old.  It was a revelation.  Here was someone as warm and fresh and funny as my father.  The identification was so powerful that I took to calling him “Daddy Kaye.”  When I was twelve, my parents purchased tickets for me and my little brother for a matinee of Kaye’s one-man show.  He was past his prime; on the last of his world tours.  No matter.  I was entranced by Kaye’s dancing fingers, his twinkling eyes, and his witty rubber face.  Later, I cut out the program cover and tacked it on the outside of my bedroom’s closet door, where it hung for years.  Whether I was practising piano or reading in bed, Danny Kaye was always winking at me.  Eventually, my mother had him laminated.  Today Kaye is perched on the wall above my computer work station.

            In the days before streaming, before DVDS and even before video, in my early teens there was a series of old MGM features being screened at a local cinema.  Two of the movies being shown were those of Danny Kaye.  There was a suggestion box in the lobby.  With an assortment of multi-coloured pencils and the forged handwriting of non-existent fans, I demanded more Danny Kaye.  I got it, too.  I was a creative writer, even then.

            On a business trip to Toronto, my father found a recording of the soundtrack to the film Hans Christian Andersen, and a double album filled with musical monologues and tongue-twisting patter songs going back forty-five years.   My father handed me the records and scratched his head.  “Nu, ein Gott und ein Danny Kaye.”  I can still reel off, by heart, the lyrics to Anatole of Paris and Tschaikovsky.

            When I was fifteen, my mother took me down to New York and Broadway to see the musical comedy-drama Two by Two.  Kaye played the bible’s Noah as a beleaguered Jewish patriarch harassed by a demanding God and equally demanding children.  Just before the houselights dimmed, over a loudspeaker a disembodied voice intoned, “Ladies and gentleman, there will be a change in the program tonight…”  I gripped my mother’s hand, and I think I heard her heart stop.  An understudy was replacing Joan Copeland, who played Noah’s wife. (In real life, Joan Copeland was Arthur Miller’s sister.) I released my mother’s hand, and we both began breathing again. 

            At the curtain call, Kaye singled out a young actress in the cast, and brought her downstage to say hello to her parents, who were in the audience that evening.

            Two years later Kaye was back in Montreal to receive an award at an Israel bond dinner.  Through back channels, my mother wrangled a ticket for me. Imagine, I got to spend an entire evening watching Danny Kaye eat!  I also got to attend the kind of function which was one of the prime targets of my father’s merciless mockery.  This particular evening outdid even his wild satire.  It was an Anti-Semite’s Delight of boorishness and vulgarity.  At the end of the evening, Kaye rose to give what one assumed was going to be an acceptance speech.  Instead, he launched into a maniacal impromptu monologue parodying the idiocies of the evening.  He was screamingly funny.  Everyone was howling so hard that they failed to recognize how savagely they were being insulted.

            Two years later, Kaye returned to give a benefit concert with and for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.  I couldn’t attend because I was out of town.  I got in the same evening, and in the morning read how Kaye had entered from the rear of the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier auditorium, tossing batons at the two-thousand seat audience.  And I missed it.

            I have thought it would be interesting to compare notes with Danny Kaye’s daughter.  People would tell me what a riot it must be to live with my father.  They did not perceive the underlying fury that fuels greet satire, nor that this radiant form of outrageousness is also a form of transcendence.  The difference between a village idiot and a court jester is awareness, and these two jesters were shrewd enough to mask their brilliance in controlled lunacy, knowing that in a mad world, playing the madcap is the most creative way of staying sane.  When I’d be asked what my father was like, I’d answer, “An East European Danny Kaye.”  The parallel took on poignant irony in the TV movie Skokie, when the zany who occasionally took on dramatic roles, here, played a Holocaust survivor.

            My paternal grandfather did not have the foresight of Dena Kaye’s—or perhaps it was desperation.  Mine was a merchant in Poland; hers was a tailor who’d emigrated from the Pale.  My grandfather stayed in Eastern Europe and most of my ancestors were murdered there.  When Kaye’s father was becoming a star on Broadway, mine was hiding in Central Asia.  They entered each other’s orbits but once, at an Israel Bond Drive in 1949, when the refugee from Hitler’s Europe approached the American entertainer and shook his hand.  Struggling to carve a new life in a new land, my father shortened it, but he left my mother, my brother and me the legacy of laughter.  It is the same legacy his American counterpart left to the world. 

            My father wasn’t famous, and the only celebrity he knew was as a Pied Piper to his children and their friends.  When David Kaminsky died, I fantasized that when he reached the place my dad called The Other Side, Abram Zajdman was waiting at the gate to shake his hand, and this time he would be recognized as a kindred blithe spirit, and a chorus of jiving angels would be snapping their fingers and flapping their wings, while Louis Armstrong wailed on his trumpet as rapturously as he did in the film The Five Pennies, and what mischief and merriment there promised to be as these two saints went marchin’ in.  

About the author 

 S. Nadja Zajdman is a Canadian author. In 2022, she published the memoir I Want You To Free (Hobart Books, Oxford) as well as the story collection The Memory Keeper (Bridgehouse Publishing.) 

 

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A New Dawn by Linda Flynn, mead in horn

“It feels like the end of the world!” Astrid slumped her yarn over the spindle whorl.

            The wooden bench shook as Asgerd sat beside her and began combing out Astrid’s hair. The movement was soothing alongside the earthy smell of the flickering firepit and the gentle baying of cattle settling at the other end of the longhouse. “Thorberg has been more of a father to us, and he’s a better farmer. Our grandparents didn’t know this when they arranged the match and now our mother is entitled to reclaim her dowry and get a divorce.”

            Astrid shook her head. “Why does there have to be a change?”

            In the glowing firelight Asgerd’s eyes glinted, her hair curling around her face like smoke. “Change brings transformation. And rebirth. Have you heard about Ragnarok?”

            “What’s that?” Astrid leaned against her sister.

            “It’s the end of the world, when even some of the gods will perish.”

            Astrid turned to look at her, “Even the gods?”

            “It’s true,” Asgerd nodded. “Once there was a man called Lif and a woman called Lifthrasir. They travelled through the nine worlds to the sacred tree in Hoddmimis Holt woods to escape the Ragnarok. There they stored up food and fuel, sipping on the sweet morning dew.

            “The heaviest snow storms began on earth, with the deepest drifts and harshest frosts ever seen. Snow piled upon snow, thicker, colder, higher. People fought for scraps of food. Swords mercilessly clashed with the crashing axes, igniting sparks of rage.

“Spring did not ease into her season to offer any release, only another winter, followed unrelentingly by another winter, with nothing in between. Rivers and lakes froze solid, dagger-like icicles hung from trees instead of fruit.

            “A sad, sonorous horn summoned the gods to fight a valiant battle, which for all their strength they knew they could not win.

            “Valleys echoed with howling. The silhouettes of the wolves Skoll and Hati ascended the sky as they chased and devoured the sun and moon. Darkness dropped. Stars stopped their glimmering lights.

            “The earth trembled. Streams of rocks gushed down mountains. Trees toppled on top of each other.

            “Jormungandr, the sea serpent coiled his body inside the swollen sea. He reared his pointed head above the frothing foam and spat venom. The writhing sea turned putrid green, the soil and land leached colour to a sickly yellow.

 

            “Amidst all the crashing and smashing, the sea roared. The swelling waves reared up, cascading over the land. The ship Naglfar, made of finger and toenails from the dead, tugged against its mooring, until at last it wrenched itself free. The frost giant Hrymr stood straight and proud at the helm. With a toothy grin he steered the vessel across the flooded land.

                        “As the water devoured the fields, the wolf Fenrir escaped from his chains. He flung himself forward with flashing blood red eyes, nostrils ablaze and his tongue lashing fire. The faster he ran, the greater his anger, the louder his growling. His mouth opened wider and wider, like a deep, dark cavern so that his upper jaw swallowed the sky and his lower one gouged out the earth.

            “In a thunderous explosion the sky cracked in two, shattering the rainbow bridge into shaken, fallen droplets of colour. Ridges of fire snaked up the mountains, spewing out cascades of burning, frothy bubbles that charred the ground. Steam rose, wrapping the earth in a cloud.

            “Silence. All hope had been drained from the land, its strength seeped away. Lif and Lifthrasir crawled weak and shivering into the stillness. They pointed upwards at a pale halo, the sun daughter, as she began to rise in the sky. Dark pools appeared in the snow from the dripping branches, revealing grassy tendrils below.

            Asgerd stroked Astrid’s hair back and laid her on a soft sheepskin hide along the bench. She watched her gentle breathing and whispered, “When you wake Astrid, it will be a new dawn.”

About the auhtor 

Linda Flynn has had books published for children and teenagers, six with the Heinemann  Fiction Project, as well as twenty-nine short stories, mainly written for adults. In addition, she has written for a number of newspapers and magazines, including theatre reviews. Her anthology of short stories, I Knew it in the Bath was released in September 2022 with Bridge House. She can be found at: www.lindaflynn.com 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Knew-Bath-Linda-Flynn/dp/1914199286