Hidden by Donna Jo Napoli Page B

many things, including Álfheim, the world of the light elves. And Alfhild’s name is elfin. So Alfhild has things in common with him.” She looks at me as if to check whether I object to this account, but I simply shrug again. “Anyway, have you noticed that the days have gotten shorter?”
    Búri shakes his head.
    â€œWell, they have. Now Frey is bringing back the light. Today was the shortest day of the year, but tomorrow will be longer. Each day from now on will be a little longer.”
    â€œForever?”
    â€œNo. Just till summer. Then it changes again and the days get shorter.”
    â€œDon’t think about it too hard,” says Beorn. He’s holding Alof, and he kisses her on the forehead. Then he stoops and kisses Búri, too. “It’s the way the world works, and thinking won’t make sense of it, and it surely won’t change it. The important thing is to move quickly to the great hall, and if anything strange greets you, just keep walking.”
    â€œAnything strange? Like what?”
    â€œSomeone on an eight-legged horse.”
    â€œA horse with eight legs! Really?”
    â€œHis name is Sleipnir. And the god on his back is Óðinn. You don’t want to stop if they show up, because behind them run the dead.”
    â€œWhat are the dead?”
    Beorn straightens the boy’s leather cap. “I’ll tell the tale later. For now, let’s go eat.”
    I’m ready. I don’t want to hear about what the gods are doing tonight. It bothers me that I already knew everything he said about Frey and Óðinn. It’s impossible to sit around the hearth at night with a skald and not know all the god stories. I know about the long line of Danish kings who were always waging war with someone too—the first of whom was Skjøld, a son of Óðinn. The stories about these gods and kings are fabulously entertaining, I admit. But I worry that they’re entering me, sneakily, insidiously. Sometimes I can’t remember stories from Eire, and I used to love those stories. I used to make my brother Nuada tell them over and over.
    When I was lost on the boat, when Beorn was on the beaver island, it was the god Óðinn who I thought of, not Jesus. Sometimes I’m not even sure of the words to the Lord’s Prayer. Mel and I used to say it together, and without her, it’s hard to remember. The thought makes my tongue feel fat, like before I cry. It’s almost a foreign feeling to me now; I haven’t cried in a long time.
    I focus on the feast ahead. We’ve been fasting all day so we’ll have a hearty appetite now. Jól is the most important holiday. It starts tonight and goes till the new year.
    We enter the hall, and the aroma of roast pork slaps us in the face and practically makes me fall over with hunger. People are drinking ale—no, not drinking, they’re sloshing it down—and the room is so packed we have to weave our way through. A piper follows us, with a goatskin covering his shoulders in honor of Thor. His tune is all lively, so that my feet naturally want to dance. The two harpists at one side of the room join in. As one, people get to their feet, and in a snap the center of the room is cleared of food and game boards. It’s like magic. They dance, partners hand in hand.
    Something tickles my neck, and I turn to find Egill’s face thrust in mine. I laugh. “What are you doing with that feather?”
    â€œSince I haven’t much of a beard yet, I thought it was a good substitute. Come.” He grabs my hand, and we join the dancing.
    The music goes on and on, and it’s fun shuffling about. I love dancing, of course. At banquets when I was tiny, Mel and I would grab opposite corners of a kerchief and swirl each other around the hall to horns, pipes, whistles, harps. Then she got too old for such behavior, so I danced in circles by myself, waving the kerchief over my