Winds of Salem (29 page)

Jörmungandr laughed. “Like five seconds ago.”

“Hmm,” said Freddie, appearing flummoxed. “I really do get my trident if I answer correctly?”

Jörmungandr nodded his head. “Yes.”

Freddie smiled. “Okay, well, I
think
I know the answer. But I’m not really sure…”

The snake licked his fangs.

Freddie bit a finger as if still pondering. He realized the snake was actually very lonely and trying to extend the rare
company he had. It was sad. The riddle itself was so narcissistic and obvious that Freddie had instantly figured it out: Loki says, “This
god
’s father is my father’s son. Who is the
god
?” A riddle that went in circles, from god to son. Jörmungandr and Loki and Odin. Jörmungandr’s father was Loki who was Odin’s son. The
god
then was Jörmungandr.

“The answer is you, Jörmungandr.”

The serpent blinked at Freddie. “Is that your answer?”

“Because it is the correct one. Now, the trident, please.”

The serpent hissed. He was not at all pleased to have lost his favorite game.

Freddie began to back away. He tugged his ear to give Nyph the signal to grab the trident while he kept Jörmungandr focused on him.

But the pixie had trouble navigating the void, and the ballroom gown didn’t help, with all that fabric floating around her. She kept missing the mark.

“The trident please, I won’t ask again,” Freddie threatened.

“Take your trident.” Jörmungandr laughed and, with a sudden shake, whipped his tail to the skies, sending Nyph tumbling into the void. He turned to Freddie, opening his jaws wide.

Freddie pushed off the snake and grabbed his trident—it fit into his palm perfectly—and the trident sizzled with power as it returned to its rightful owner, and Freddie Beauchamp was no longer. Only the mighty god Fryr of the sun and sky stood before them, Fryr, golden and powerful and glorious, returned to himself, whole, complete. With a roar he lunged at the serpent, his trident blazing with white fire as it pierced the heart of the snake.

There was a deafening explosion, a blinding light, before everything went black.

chapter forty

Mother Goddess

She had lied to her daughter. She had lied to her husband. She couldn’t bear the good-byes and she hoped they would understand. It was better this way. The morning was still cool as the sun rose in the east, dissipating the fog enshrouding North Hampton. She gazed beyond the tall grasses, rocks, and sand below the deck, out at the yellow light that slinked on the water. To the left, Gardiners Island was covered in a blanket of mist.

Joanna knew she had to act now, before they discovered what she had in mind. Norman’s brother would not be able to help them, she knew. There was no way to repair time once it had been set. The only solution was the one that the Oracle had proposed.

“There is a way to stop this and save your daughter from certain death. But it requires a sacrifice. Are you willing?” the Oracle had asked.

A life for a life. A death for a death.

Of course, they were willing to do anything to save their daughter. On the train ride back to North Hampton, Norman had declared he would be the one: he would sacrifice himself so that Freya could live. “I’ll do it,” he had said. Joanna knew there was no arguing him out of it, so she had encouraged him to find
an alternative solution—had sent him off to find his brother once more.

Because there was only one sacrifice needed here. Hers.

It was why she had been dead set on getting Tyler into a good school. She wanted to leave her home at peace. Ingrid would be happy with her detective. Freddie—he would fumble but ultimately find his place in the world. So there was only Freya whose future was uncertain.

Joanna was their mother. She would make everything all right. That was what mothers were for, to kiss away wounds, to soothe heartaches, to provide a soft cushion for hard landings, for failures. But this was her failure. She had been unable to protect her daughter from harm, but perhaps she could reverse the course of fate—her magic was one of resurrection, after all, of fixing that which could not be fixed. No mother should outlive her daughter, and Joanna would see to it that she was not the first of her kind to do so.

She would be the first to admit that she was not perfect, nor the perfect mother, far from it. Her daughters loved her, but they kept her at a distance that she could not cross, no matter how hard she tried. The girls were unknowable to the end. Freya especially—her spark plug, her wandering saint, who had so much love to give that she lost it all.

With a sigh, Joanna reread the letters she had written the other evening. She arranged them on her desk where Ingrid could find them. They contained instructions for how to handle the estate; whatever legacy she had left, she had left to them, to do with as they wished. She hoped Ingrid would keep the house; perhaps she and Matt could move in at some point and raise a family. Freya had little use for money, and Freddie even less, but it was always nice to have a little inheritance. All these long years on earth and so little to show for it, and if she was being
honest, even her children had been something of a disappointment. None of them settled, all of them a little lost. Even Ingrid had chosen a mortal to love, which could only bring her pain.

She looked at the photographs arranged on the wall for the last time. Her beautiful girls, a new one of Freddie and Gert from their Vegas wedding, Tyler holding a baby chick, and finally Norman, with his glasses pushed up on his forehead, looking handsome and scholarly. He would always be Nord, her North Star, the wave that had crashed on her shore. Joanna remembered the first time they had met. She had been sunbathing on the shores of Asgard and fallen asleep on the sand in the shade of a rock that cut jaggedly into the sky. Cold droplets fell onto her skin, waking her suddenly. When she opened her eyes, she stared into Norman’s face. He stood looming over her, dripping seawater. He held something in his hand. “Is this yours? It was blowing across the beach,” he said, holding a star in his palm.

She smiled. It was hers. She’d worn stars in her hair then, a gift from another suitor. But the starlight faded as she looked into his eyes—as green and warm as the sea itself—and she knew then that she had found her immortal mate.

Their children came soon after—Ingrid, her firstborn, the hearth to her home, the twins: sun and sky, Freddie and Freya.

She was doing this for them.

She walked out the back door, closing the sliding glass doors behind her and catching a rare whiff of honeysuckle from the breeze. Maybe it was her garden’s way of saying good-bye. She made her way barefoot across the cold sand to the water. There was no one around. She walked into the freezing depths and felt strangely warm. Her magic? Or something else?

Her red dress floated around her so that she resembled a giant poppy as she trudged ahead until the water reached her
waist. She dove headlong into its warm welcome. The sun on the waves flashed in her eyes, and she kept swimming farther and farther out. Her muscles grew weary and she was panting.

She turned around and saw her home, the stately colonial, one last look before the end. She floated on her back, letting the waves lift her, transport her, the sun on her face, a soothing sensation of water and foam.

The sound of the waves lulled her. Even if she had a sudden impulse to turn back to the shore, she had swum too far.

She was tired.

Joanna felt the sudden weight of all the lives she had lived.

She felt the water fill her lungs.

She did not fight.

So this was death.

The years did not flash before her as they say they do.

She felt the sunlight on her face one last time, the cool water above, and her eyes closed for the last time as Joanna Beauchamp passed from this world to the next.

time in a bottle

salem
north hampton
past
present

chapter forty-one

Friend of the Family