فصل 37

I Am Trash-Talked by a Squirrel

I ALWAYS LIKED CLIMBING TREES.

My mom had been pretty understanding about that. She’d only get nervous if I got above twenty feet. Then a little tension crept into her voice. “Pumpkin, that branch may not hold you. Could you come down a little?”

On the World Tree, every branch would hold me. The biggest ones were wider than Interstate 93. The smallest were as large as your average redwood. As for Yggdrasil’s trunk, it was so immense it just didn’t compute. Each crevice in its surface seemed to lead to a different world, as if someone had wrapped tree bark around a column of television monitors glowing with a million different movies.

The wind roared, ripping at my new denim jacket. Beyond the tree’s canopy I saw nothing but a hazy white glow. Below was no ground—just more branches crisscrossing the void. The tree had to be rooted somewhere, but I felt woozy and unbalanced—as if Yggdrasil and everything it contained, including my world, was free-floating in primordial mist—the Ginnungagap.

If I fell here, in the best-case scenario I’d hit another branch and break my neck. Worst-case scenario, I’d keep falling forever into the Great White Nothingness.

I must’ve been leaning forward, because Blitzen grabbed my arm. “Careful kid. First time in the tree will make you dizzy.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Hearthstone still sagged between Sam and me. He tried to find his footing, but his ankles kept bending in odd directions.

Sam stumbled. Her broken shield slipped from her grip and somersaulted into the abyss.

She crouched, a look of barely controlled panic in her eyes. “I liked Yggdrasil a lot better when I could fly.”

“What about Gunilla and the others?” I asked. “Will they be able to follow us?”

“Not easily,” Sam said. “They can open another portal, but it won’t necessarily lead to the same branch of the tree. Still, we should keep moving. Being on Yggdrasil is not good for your sanity.”

Hearthstone managed to stand on his own. He signed: I’m okay. Let’s go. Though his hands were so shaky it looked more like: You are a rabbit tunnel.

We moved farther along the branch.

The Sword of Summer hummed in my hand, tugging me along like it knew where we were going. I hoped it did, anyway.

Hostile winds buffeted us from side to side. Branches swayed, throwing deep pools of shadow and brilliant patches of light across our path. A leaf the size of a canoe fluttered by.

“Stay focused,” Blitzen told me. “That feeling you had when you opened the portal? Look for it again. Find us an exit.”

After walking about a quarter of a mile, we found a smaller branch crossing directly under ours. My sword hummed louder, tugging to the right.

I looked at my friends. “I think we need to take this exit.”

Changing branches might sound easy, but it involved sliding down ten feet from one curved surface to another, with the wind howling and the branches swaying apart. Amazingly, we managed it without anyone getting crushed or falling into oblivion.

Navigating the narrower branch was worse. It bobbed more violently under our feet. At one point I got flattened by a leaf—like a green tarp dropping on top of me out of nowhere. At another point I looked down and realized I was standing over a crack in the bark. Half a mile down, inside the branch, I could see a snow-capped mountain range, as if I were standing in a glass-bottom airplane.

We picked our way through a maze of lichen patches that looked like hills of burned marshmallows. I made the mistake of touching one. My hand sunk up to my wrist and I almost couldn’t pull it free.

Finally the lichen dispersed into smaller clumps like burned marshmallow sofas. We followed our branch until it split into half a dozen unclimbable twigs. The Sword of Summer seemed to go to sleep in my hand.

“Well?” Sam asked.

I peered over the side. About thirty feet below us, a larger branch swayed. In the middle of that branch, a hot-tub-size knothole glowed with soft warm light.

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s our way out.”

Blitzen scowled. “You sure? Nidavellir isn’t warm and glowy.”

“I’m just telling you—the sword seems to think that’s our destination.”

Sam whistled silently. “Quite a jump. If we miss the hole…”

Hearthstone spelled out, S-P-L-A-T.

A gust of wind hit us, and Hearth stumbled. Before I could catch him, he fell backward into a clump of lichen. His legs were promptly swallowed in the marshmallow gunk.

“Hearth!” Blitzen scrambled to his side. He pulled at Hearth’s arms, but the mucky lichen held on to his legs like a needy toddler.

“We can cut him out,” said Sam. “Your sword, my ax. It’ll take time. We’ll have to be careful of his legs. But it could be worse.”

Naturally, things got worse. From somewhere above us came an explosive YARK!

Blitzen crouched under his pith helmet. “Ratatosk! That damnable squirrel always appears at the worst time. Hurry with those blades!”

Sam cut into the lichen with her ax, but her blade stuck. “This is like cutting through melting tires! It’s not going to be quick.”

GO! Hearth signed. Leave me.

“Not an option,” I said.

YAAAAARRRRK! The sound was much louder this time. A dozen branches above us, a large shadow passed across the leaves.

I hefted my sword. “We’ll fight the squirrel. We can do that, right?”

Sam looked at me like I was mad. “Ratatosk is invulnerable. There is no fighting him. Our options are running, hiding, or dying.”

“We can’t run,” I said. “And I’ve already died twice this week.”

“So we hide.” Sam unwrapped her hijab. “At least, Hearth and I do. I can cover two people, no more. You and Blitz run—find the dwarves. We’ll meet up with you later.”

“What?” I wondered if Utgard-Loki was messing with her brain somehow. “Sam, you can’t hide under a green piece of silk! The squirrel can’t be that stupid…”

She shook out the fabric. It grew to the size of a twin sheet, the colors rippling until the hijab was exactly the same brown and yellow and white of the lichen patch.

She’s right, Hearth signed. GO.

Sam crouched next to him and pulled the hijab over them both, and they vanished, blending perfectly against the lichen.

“Magnus.” Blitz tugged at my arm. “It’s now or never.” He pointed to the branch below. The knothole was closing.

At that moment, Ratatosk broke through foliage above. If you can imagine a Sherman tank covered in red fur, barreling down the side of a tree…well, the squirrel was way scarier than that. His front teeth were twin wedges of white enamel terror. His claws were scimitars. His eyes were sulfur yellow, burning with fury.

YARK! The squirrel’s battle cry pierced my eardrums. A thousand insults were packed into that one sound, all of them invading my brain, drowning out any rational thought.

You have failed.

No one likes you.

You are dead.

Your dwarf’s pith helmet is stupid.

You could not save your mother.

I fell to my knees. A sob built in my chest. I probably would have died then and there if Blitz hadn’t hauled me up with all his dwarven strength and slapped me across the face.

I couldn’t hear him, but I read his lips well enough: “NOW, KID!”

Gripping my hand in rough calloused fingers, he jumped off the branch, dragging me with him into the wind.