Outside a crowd is gathered around a tattooed man juggling human skulls. He balances one on top of his bald head and onlookers cheer as he tosses three more into the sky. Further along the walkway a masked Thor brandishes his hammer and flexes his muscles while men slap him on the back and women feel his biceps and pose for a selfie.
A teenage girl screams behind me and my heart pounds as a gang of boys rushes past, the impressions from their clothes exploding in my mind. Everything is colour and noise, a surreal, overwhelming mix of imagery and emotion.
A whoop sounds from the tent opposite. Keen to get off the crowded path, I step inside the doorway and scan the audience for Ulva. Inside are the Chinese girls in ballgowns. The one in the top hat is throwing daggers at the other, who is strapped to a round board. Knives land inches from the girl’s limbs, the final one pinning the roses in her hair. The thrower spins the board and it creaks and clunks as her partner rotates. She walks away and then whips the white-handled knife from her top hat. The audience gasps as she runs the blade across her tongue and then turns around. She’s going to throw it without looking.
A guy in the back row buries his face into the shoulder of the man next to him. One or two others cover their eyes, but most lean forward with an expression of ghoulish curiosity. That’s the thing about the circus: people are excited by the prospect of danger – the thought that the trapeze artist will lose their grip; the knife find its fleshy target. Tonight, joy could turn to tragedy for everyone here. The thought makes me queasy and I step outside and gulp down the icy air.
The site is quieter now that most people have filed into the smaller tents. I head towards the big top hoping to see Stig and Karl, but there’s no sign of them. Two performers wearing furry cat masks rummage through the bins by the food vans. They lick their paws and then bound off and twirl against a man waiting outside a Portaloo, much to the amusement of his beer-sipping friends. Freya whistles for the cats and suddenly the men only have eyes for her. A moment later she has her arm draped over them and is laughing loudly.
Something moves at the edge of my vision and I turn to my left. Dozens of shadowy dead are wandering through the dark caravan field. The thought of their cold grasping hands makes me shudder and I move away – straight into the Norns. They loom over me, taking tiny steps this way and that, and I shrink back.
‘Have you seen Karl? Or Ulva, the girl who plays Fenrir?’ I ask.
The women shuffle closer and peer into my face, their eyes glittering behind their masks. They speak at the same time, their voice like wind through the dead leaves of a tree. ‘The fetters will burst and the wolf run free. Much do I know and more can I see.’
The one with the shears grabs my wrist and I yelp at her icy touch. Her wooden mask frowns and clumps of earth and twig fall away as she points into the distance. ‘O’er the sea from the north there sails a ship with the people of Hel. At the helm stands Loki.’ Her eyes flash pale and bore into me and I pull away. It’s not an actor behind the mask.
‘I don’t understand.’ I shake my head and they mimic my movements in parody. The Norns decide the fate of every being; they know the future. ‘What’s Loki going to do? If you know, you have to tell me. Please.’ One of them cradles her chin in her hands as if she’s weeping. Another raises her arms, palms pushed flat as if to hold up a falling roof. The middle figure opens her arms and the other two women step behind her. Suddenly they scurry off, their stilts tip-tapping on the walkway.
‘Wait, please!’
Drumming sounds to my right and I spin around. Valkyries in the same costume as me march forward brandishing swords and beating animal-skin drums, and my heart thuds with each loud bang. With their fierce makeup and wild hair they make a formidable sight. They yell an ululation and the cold night air shivers. They mean war.
Members of the crew appear and jog in front of them, unravelling long coils of rope and gesturing for visitors to move aside. A few moments later, costumed performers arrive and assemble on the path, their cloaks and costumes flapping wildly in the wind.
I scan their masked faces and see Odin, Tyr and Freya along with a host of other gods, elves and dwarves. Sandrine in her falcon costume is there and so are the ravens, two cats, a boar and two wolves, plus the skeletal horse with eight legs from the hall of mirrors. The jaws of its skull snap open and closed, the person working it presumably hidden beneath its black blanket. There’s no sign of the wolf Fenrir. Where is she?
The drumming continues and more performers join the parade. Thor storms up the path, yelling and waving his hammer, and excited visitors leap out of the way. Loki saunters over wearing a long green coat and a helmet with two upturned horns, a simple green mask over his eyes. He bows and waves to the crowds, who go wild to see him.
The horde of dead follows close behind, shaking their skull poles. Dwarves leapfrog one another and an elf girl whirls her way into the middle of the line and then shimmies under the rope. Hel strides over with her head down and takes up her position near the back, looking none too happy about it.
A whining and crackling noise cuts through the air and I look up and see speakers attached to the floodlights. The ringmaster’s amplified voice booms out: ‘Welcome to Ragnarok, the end of the world and the destruction of the gods!’
I can’t tell where he is at first, and then I see a tiny figure spotlighted on a high metal platform in the field. At his words, the line of performers starts moving. Ruth said there would be a fire show after the parade. If Ulva is part of the procession, that’s where she’ll be headed. The path is heaving with visitors. I grit my teeth and make my way down, trying to ignore the impressions from people’s clothes as I battle through the crowd.
The ringmaster continues, ‘There shall come a winter unlike any the world has seen. Mankind will struggle to survive. It will be a time of axe and blood. Brother will slay brother, father will slay son, and son will slay father. The sons of the monstrous wolf Fenrir will swallow the sun and the moon, plunging the world into darkness and chaos. Yggdrasil, the great tree that holds together the cosmos, will tremble and the world’s mountains collapse!’
I get to the end of the walkway and stop to catch my breath. Floodlights stand around the edges of the field, highlighting the ringmaster’s platform to my left and the Viking ship and ring of skull poles, which now has a bonfire burning at its centre.
Oskar is there in a fluorescent yellow jacket, giving orders to the crew who rush about lighting firebrands. When no one’s looking I hurry down the sloped entrance and duck under the rope, then wedge myself between two big barrels containing water. Before me is a large rectangular area with low fencing to keep back the crowd. I’m guessing that’s where the fire show will be. If I wait here, I should be able to grab Ulva when she appears.
The cheers of the crowd intensify. Oskar unhooks the rope and the performers troop down in single file. When they get to the bottom of the slope, a crewmember hands them a flaming firebrand and they go through a gap in the fence.
The ringmaster’s voice booms through the speakers. ‘At Ragnarok, all chains will be loosened. The monstrous wolf Fenrir will escape his shackles and Loki will be free of his bonds. Jormungand, the giant serpent that dwells at the bottom of the ocean, will rise from the depths, spilling the seas over the earth. The convulsions will shake Naglfar – a ship made of the fingernails and toenails of the dead – from its moorings in the underworld. It will sail over the flooded earth bringing an army of the dead to the fight, helmed by Loki himself!’