Karl is limping along the path, his head down. Ulva ducks into the hall of mirrors and watches him. He hasn’t seen her. He wanders into the big top and she sobs with relief. He’ll find Nina and call an ambulance. Maybe she will be OK. Please, please, let her be OK.
Ulva hurries to her caravan, her head pounding. Karl is probably calling the police right now. What if they can tell Nina was wearing a harness? She can’t keep it in her caravan; they might do a search. She could throw it away, but what if they go through the bins? The forest . . . but someone will see if she starts a fire, and the ground is too hard to dig. She’ll hide it in the undergrowth. Yes, she’ll put it somewhere no one will think to look.
Ulva enters her caravan and stashes the harness in a green carrier bag, then heads to the woods. She follows the trail for a while then turns off, going one way and then the other. There’s a broken tree that looks like it’s been hit by lightning. She stops next to it and pushes the carrier bag inside, shoving it down into the depths of the rotting trunk.
23
EVERYTHING IS ABOUT TO FALL APART
I
drop the sweatshirt and glance around the room. The bed is covered with purple cushions, the once-matching duvet cover now faded and thin. A stale sadness hangs on the air and I can almost taste the tears that have been wept here. There are no pictures or family photos in frames. The only decorations are the childish stickers that cover the wardrobe, half of them picked off to leave a sticky mess behind.
I might have a difficult relationship with Mum, but she’s always been there for me. I know she loves me and wants to protect me. It must have been so hard for Ulva when her mother left her, but it can’t have been easy when she came back either. The people here raised her; the circus is her home. Perhaps deep down she knew she was better off staying, even though it was wrong of Nina to make the decision for her.
I sigh and my breath hangs before me. It’s all such a waste. Nina thought she was doing the right thing, but she couldn’t have known that Ulva’s mum was going to let her down. One thing’s for sure though. If it weren’t for the mask, Nina would still be alive.
Ulva is out there now wearing it. She doesn’t know the power it has over her. I can’t let her hurt anyone else . . . I have to warn Stig.
I stand and then slump back down. What have I done? If Ruth tells Karl and he informs the police, then Stig might get arrested. How can I face him after the things I said, after the terrible things I thought? I wouldn’t be surprised if he never talks to me again. I chew my thumbnail as a single thought gnaws at me. How did I get it so wrong?
I get up and reach for the light switch. The room brightens and just like that it becomes clear. I’ve been using my gift to search for answers, picking and pulling at the threads, demanding to be shown what I expected to see. Grimnir’s gift is so simple that I didn’t appreciate its magnitude until now. For the cloth to reveal its truth I must empty my mind. I need to put my preconceptions aside.
I know Stig didn’t tell me the truth about things, but maybe I was too quick to judge his character. I was so fixated on the idea that he must be either good or bad that I didn’t stop to consider any in-between. He should have texted me back, but I can’t blame him for being scared after everything that happened. He hides from his problems but that doesn’t make him a bad person. He lies to protect himself, but he doesn’t deliberately set out to deceive people. Stig was right when he said, I know you want things to be black and white but sometimes they’re not. People are complicated, and so are the gods.
Even Tyr, the god of truth and justice, is capable of lying. He tricked Fenrir into wearing the magical chain in order to keep the gods safe. Tyr’s was a noble lie; he deceived the wolf to protect those he loved, just like Nina did with Ulva. Loki tricks others for his own twisted amusement. What about Odin? He’s driven by an insatiable desire for knowledge and will stop at nothing to get it, hanging himself until almost dead to discover the runes. If a few mortals are hurt in the pursuit of his ambitions, maybe it doesn’t matter that much to him.
You think you have it all worked out, don’t you? Everything black and white. Odin is good and I am bad. Loki’s right. I have been looking for easy answers. Perhaps Odin has been using my ancestors and is using me. Or maybe it’s more complicated than that. There could be reasons I don’t know, things I don’t understand. Loki wants to turn me against him, but I’m not going to fall into that trap. If I forget my idea of what Odin should be – a kindly old figure in a cloak and hat – then I won’t be disappointed.
I turn off the light then go through the living room and open the outside door. The navy-blue sky is pierced with early evening stars and I shiver to realise it will be dark soon. Loud drumming drifts on the frosty air. It’s not the music they usually play, this is wild and raucous, and then I remember the warrior women in the same costume as me – the Valkyries.
I jump down the steps and head into the site. If I’m going to save the circus and everyone in it, I have to make Ulva confess. But she’s not going to do that, not unless she sees that I have evidence. I need the harness. I know Ulva turned off the trail, but I don’t know which way she went. How am I going to find a single tree in a whole forest?
The walkways are empty apart from two security men patrolling the site. Music is coming from the big top, and I can hear the voiceover they play at the start of each performance. I have to hurry. I head to the rear door, hoping Ulva will be in the costume-change area. Maybe I can touch her clothes. The material might show me a flash of memory; some clue to reveal the direction she went. Even as the idea forms in my head, I know it’s no use. I need to see the exact route she took through the trees. I need her to take me there.
I step inside and the room is packed with performers, some putting the finishing touches to their hair and makeup and others getting dressed or lining up by the curved screen. The atmosphere is hushed but charged. It feels different to the other times I’ve been here, the anticipation fraught with worry as well as excitement.
A woman with long blonde hair is admiring herself in a floor-length mirror. She wears a short cape of brown feathers over her gown, a stunning amber necklace at her throat. I watch, transfixed by her beauty, as the man who plays Loki approaches her. He wears a long green coat and a headdress with two horns at the front, reminding me of the jester’s cap, but these are curved upwards rather than hanging down. A simple dark-green mask covers his eyes. He fingers the woman’s cape then looks at her reflection and smirks. ‘Tell me, who did you seduce to get the part of Freya?’
She smiles sweetly. ‘Why, are you jealous?’ He whispers something in her ear and she glares at him, and he laughs and walks away.
Ulva must be here somewhere. I edge around a group of dwarves and push further into the room. The seamstress adjusts the pointed ear of an elf then kneels and pins up the back of her cloak. I turn to avoid them and bump into a dressing table.
‘Look where you’re going!’ Hel is seated at a mirror, one half of her mask carved and painted white to look like a skeleton. The wooden mouth grimaces and I startle and step back, reminded of the way it howled at me in the costume trailer. Ignoring my apologies, Hel leans forward and adjusts her wig. She wears a bald cap above the dead half of her face, a cascade of black hair on the other. The wooden mask moves again, the eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and I glance around me, convinced I can’t be the only one to see it move.