Bracelet of Bones by Kevin Crossley-Holland Page B

will for as long as I believe I will.
    Solveig unrolled her reindeer skin. She curled up beneath it, and before she had fallen asleep, her two shoulder companions lay down on either side of her. She could feel the way in which heavy-breathing, full-bodied Bergdis lay close to her, and she sensed the distance between her and silent, stick-thin Odindisa. She put both hands to her heart.
    Father! My father! I never thought you wouldn’t be there when I came down from the hill. Not for one moment. How could you have left without telling me? How could you?
    Solveig sighed and stretched. She gazed at the helmsman, sitting in the stern and holding the steering oar, his face lit by his night lantern.
    Just when night is darker than dark, in the hour of the wolf, Solveig and Red Ottar and all the traders were woken and shaken by the sail’s huge wing flapping, the pine mast groaning and the whole boat jolting and shuddering. Sheets of salt spray stung them, and Torsten was standing and yelling, bawling into the night.
    Everyone staggered down the deck and pressed around him. Then Solveig was thrown right off balance, tripped over a wooden chest, and went sprawling. Vigot helped herup and clicked his tongue. “Throwing yourself at my feet!” he said.
    But Solveig quickly shrugged him off—she was as scared as everyone else.
    “What?” cried everyone. “What is it? What’s happened?”
    “Out of the way!” shouted Red Ottar. “Torsten! What was it, man?”
    Torsten just went on staring over the stern, staring and pointing.
    “Whatever it was,” he said. “Whatever. Out of the dark, back into the dark.”
    “Away with you!” Red Ottar called. “Away! Back to your bedding!”
    Hollow-eyed, Torsten turned to the traders.

7

    I t wasn’t until early next morning that Torsten told everyone what had happened.
    “It loomed up,” he said. “It swam out of the dark. One moment it wasn’t there, the next it was.”
    “What did?” everyone demanded. “What was it?”
    “A ship. Pitch black. Darker than night.”
    “Even its sail?” asked Solveig.
    “That as well. The only pale thing was the lookout man, standing in the prow. Big man,” he told Solveig, “rather like your father, but I could see right through him.”
    Solveig stiffened, and Odindisa sucked in her breath through her teeth.
    “I yelled at him, but he didn’t reply. So then I angled this steering paddle and prayed for strength. Almost wrenched off my arms, it did.”
    “But for you, Torsten,” said Red Ottar, “we’d all be at the bottom of the Baltic.”
    Torsten squared his jaw and raised his eyes to Asgard. “Don’t thank me,” he said. “Thank your sea wife!”
    “Wave knock,” said Edith, as if she were remembering something. “Wave thump. Scream.”
    “That’s the point,” Torsten said. “Ships sound. Bows slice. Hulls creak and pennants rap. But this one didn’t. It was completely silent.”
    “I warned you,” Odindisa said. “Magicians. I sensed them when I reached over the water. They were on their way out from Åland.”
    “Says who?” asked Red Ottar in a scornful voice.
    “I say so,” Odindisa replied, and she spread her cloak a little.
    “Sendings,” said Bruni.
    “What?” asked Red Ottar.
    “Back home in Iceland,” Bruni said, “there are magicians who know how to cast death spells and how to raise people from the dead. They know how to make Sendings.”
    “What’s that?” Solveig asked.
    “Vapors. Sendings can grow themselves as big as giants or small as flies. They board boats and cross oceans and put people into such deep sleep they never wake again.”
    “Tell us later, Bruni,” Red Ottar told him. “There’ll be plenty of time for your stories.”
    “Sendings are not imaginings,” said Bruni. “In Iceland we all know about them.”
    Torsten glared at Bruni. “You can send yourself one for all I care.”
    “Magicians from Åland,” Odindisa repeated. “Magicians or ghosts. We’d do better