Kim Wilkins - Giants of the Frost

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GIANTS OF THE FROST

By

Kim Wilkins

Contents

I

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

II

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

III

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Epilogue

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may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover design by Don Puckey

Cover illustration by Shasti O'Leary Soudant

Book design by Giorgetta Bell McRee

Warner Books

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Printed in the United States of America

First Paperback Printing: January 2006

Ian

Bróthir minn gerthi mér eyju.

Ek fyldi hana'sögum.

Acknowledgments

This book provided some of the toughest research challenges I've yet had to face. I claim all errors,

intentional and unintentional, as my own. However, I'd like to offer my sincerest thanks to the following

people for their patience and expertise.

For assistance regarding climatology and meteorology, boreal forest flora and fauna, and general

scientific information and logic, thanks to Hamish McGowan and Gerd Dowidheit from the University of

Queensland, John Voider of Jan Mayen Station, Fiona Gray and Rob Thompson of the Bureau of

Meteorology, Katherine Howell, Lynne Green and David Wilson.

For assistance with Old Norse language and literature and modern Norway and Norwegian language,

thanks to Martin Duwell, Kári Gíslason, Stefanie Würth, Vidar Skrindo and Hanne Grønsund.

For island design, office space, and all assistance with boats and nautical knowledge, thanks to my

brother Ian Wilkins.

For virtual horse-wrangling, thanks to Janine Haig.

For writerly support, thanks to Kate Morton, Louise Cusack, Traci Harding, Kate Forsyth, Paul

Brandon, Drew Whitehead, Selwa Anthony, Faye Booth, Stephanie Smith and Jo Fletcher.

Thanks, too, to my family for the practical stuff, and for the not-so-quantifiable stuff: Mirko, Mum, Luka.

I

Almighty love takes the sons of men, and makes of wise men fools.

—Hávamál

Prologue

[Asgard]

She had returned, and Vidar knew this before he opened his eyes. Sleep swam away and the morning

cold sucked at his nose and cheeks. His senses prickled. Halldisa was nearby. Twice-born. Most

mortals came upon the earth, spent their lives, and ceased to exist forever after. But Vidar had been

made a promise: Halla would be twice-born. All he had to do was wait.

Centuries of waiting.

And then this morning.

He rose and pulled on his cloak, cracked open the door and peered out. The deep slope of Gammaldal

to the northeast hid the expanse of Sjáfjord. Mist hung low in the valley and the grass was jewelled with

frost. Nobody in sight. No watching eyes to report back to his father, no waiting tongues to say, "I saw

Vidar drawing runes in the seeing-water." The fjord would be cold, but the thought of Halla warmed his

blood.

He stripped to the waist, waded into the shallows and waited—the water icy around his ribs—for the

surface to still. He crossed his hands over his chest. Not a movement now, not a breath. He feared that

the excited beat of his heart would make the water pulse and jump in harmony. But soon the surface

became motionless.

Vidar lifted his hand. With a graceful movement, he traced a circle in the water. Steam rose where he

drew. He waited, glancing all around him for watchful eyes, then focused and drew four runes in the

circle. His breath crystallized on the morning air as he said her name: "Halldisa."

At first he could only see his own reflection, dark hair and dark eyes and the pale morning sky behind

him. But then another face formed in the water and he recognized her instantly. Storm-eyed,

snow-haired. Seeing her face robbed him of his breath. He drew another rune, and whispered, "Where

are you?"

Danger, extreme danger. His heart chilled colder than the fjord. Odin's Island. He glanced to the east,

toward the silver roof of his father's hall, which was hidden behind the miles of misty hills and wooded

valleys Vidar had put between him and his family. Memories streamed through him: blood and fire and

the helpless shrieks of mortal suffering. "There is no love, Vidar," his father had said. "There is only fate."

"Vidar!"

A woman's voice. His young bondmaid, Aud, had woken and found him missing. With a skilled hand he

banished his seeing magic and turned to her, deliberately relaxed. "Good morning, Aud."

"What are you doing?" she asked, coming to the edge of the water.

"Catching fish."

Her smile said she didn't believe him.

He waded from the fjord, dripping and cold. "Come, Aud. You may draw me a hot bath and forget you

saw me catching fish in Sjáfjord."

"I won't forget," she said, "but neither will I tell." She clearly relished being part of his secret.

He spoke no further and she walked beside him in her usual besotted silence. His mind turned the image

of Halla over and over; desire warmed his veins, filled his fingers and swelled his heart. This time he

would make her his.

This time he would protect her from the brutal rage of his father.

Chapter One

[Midgard]

This is my story and it's a love story. Mad, really, as I'm a woman who at the slightest provocation has

always cursed lovers for fools. I remember one evening, drunk out of my skull after splitting up with

Adam, declaring loudly to all assembled at Embankment station that "Victoria Scott does not believe in

love." And yet, not long after this declaration, not long after the messiest broken engagement in the

history of messy broken engagements, this story commences.

This is my story. It's a love story and it goes like this.

I found myself on the supply boat Jonsok out of Ålesund, heading for Othinsey, an island at zero degrees

forty minutes east, sixty-three degrees ten minutes north, or about two hundred nautical miles off the

Norwegian coast. I was sick, sick, sick. The crew kept telling me to get up on deck for fresh air, but the

fresh air was awash with rain and salt spray. Instead, I lay down, feeling nauseous, on a threadbare sofa

in the aft cabin, listening to the hissing of a radio that baffled my every attempt to turn it off.

The ten-hour journey was made worse by the deep pit of misgivings that I mined while I should have

been sleeping. Had I done the right thing breaking up with Adam? Should I have accepted so readily this

traineeship at an isolated meteorological research station? Was it good sense to continue with my

doctorate when academia had long since become dreary and stale for me? My mother had squawked a

horrified "No!" on each count. But my mother, bless her heart, was still waiting on the big lottery win she

insisted would solve all our problems. In the meantime, I had to try out some solutions of my own.

Eventually the waves gentled, the boat slowed and I knew we must be entering coastal waters. I ventured

up the narrow metal stairs to the cold deck for my first glimpse of Othinsey.

We cruised through a passage between two enormous cliff faces into the still waters of Hvítahofud Fjord.

I saw grey water and grey rock, dark green grass and trees, and painted red buildings with white

windowsills. Those buildings made up Kirkja Station. Here, at the age of twenty-seven, I was about to

commence my first job that didn't involve burning my fingers on a temperamental coffee machine. I was

excited and terrified all at once, and felt a strong sense of… "destiny" is probably too loaded a word.

Perhaps what I felt was a strong sense of being in the right place at the right time.

A tall, neat man with a close grey beard greeted me off the boat. "Good afternoon," he said, hand

extended to help me onto the jetty. "I'm Magnus Olsen, the station commander. We spoke on the

phone."

"Victoria Scott," I said. "Nice to meet you." I picked up my suitcase and turned, nearly running into a

young man hurrying down the jetty. Magnus steadied me with his arm around my waist.

"Sorry," the young man said, indicating the Jonsok. "I'm eager to have something from the boat." He was

about my age, rangy and sandy-haired, and attractive in a boyish way, and he spoke in the same faintly

accented English as Magnus.

Magnus presented me for inspection. "Gunnar Holm, meet Victoria Scott. Gunnar's our IT man, and he's

also in charge of your induction. He'll show you around the station tomorrow."

"Remind me to tell you about the ghosts," Gunnar said with a mischievous grin, hurrying onto the boat.

I smiled politely, supposing this was some kind of frighten-the-new-girl joke and wondering why Magnus

still had his hand resting in the small of my back. We approached the assembled buildings of Kirkja

Station, which all sat on a concrete slab abutting a dense pine forest on two sides. The fjord curved

around the other two. The impression was one of civilization vainly making a stand against the deep

waters and the ancient trees.

"Come on, Victoria. I'll introduce you to the others," Magnus said. "They're all at the mess hall having

Wednesday afternoon drinks. It's one of our traditions."

I met all eight people at Kirkja that afternoon, and—sleep-deprived, bewildered—forgot their names as

soon as they were spoken. I know them all now, of course, and it was Frida Blegen who made the

biggest impression on me. Like me and Gunnar, she was in her twenties (everyone else was well past

forty), and she had spiky hair, a swarthy complexion and eel-like lips. As Magnus stood there pointing

out faces and assigning them names, I determined to try out some of my beginner's Norwegian. I said, "

Hyggelig å treffe deg," which means something like "Nice to meet you." Frida snorted with laughter and

I never spoke another word of Norwegian in my whole time on the island.

Finally, Magnus showed me to my cabin, one of nine laid out three-by-three behind the station. Mine was

in the farthest corner to the northeast, crowded on two sides by the dark forest. I put down my suitcase

at the front door.

"I assigned you this cabin as it's quieter here," Magnus explained, extracting the key from his pocket and

unlocking the door. "In light of the sleeping problem you mentioned on your employee information form."

"Oh. Thanks for that." I'd had to fill out a four-page document about myself and had listed my chronic

insomnia in the box headed "psychological disorders for which you have received treatment."

"The rec hall can get very rowdy at night." He opened the door and stood back to let me through, giving

me six inches of distance from him for the first time since I'd arrived. "I'll leave you to it. You probably

want to unpack and settle in."

I peered into the cabin. The words "chilly" and "dingy" sprang to mind. "Um… yes."

"I'll see you in the office at 8:00 a.m. sharp. It's downstairs in the admin building." He gave me a charming

smile along with the key to the cabin. "I hope you'll like it here at Kirkja. Sleep well." With a wave of his

hand, he left me alone.

The cabin had clearly been designed with scientists, not artists, in mind. Four perfectly square rooms, all

of precisely equal size, stood left and right off a narrow hallway. Left, kitchen; right, lounge; left,

bathroom; right, bedroom. There was a pleasing regularity about it. At least I wouldn't be awake at night

shaving off imaginary percentages to make it even in my head. I dropped my suitcase on the dusty

gingham bedspread.

The back door stood directly in line with the front door at the end of the hall. Outside, two moldy deck

chairs sat on the slab.

Then the forest.

Spring rain fell lightly. I still wore my anorak, so I pulled up the hood and headed a little way into the

trees. The smell was wonderful after the diesel and fish smells on the boat (just thinking of that brought

back an echo of the nausea). I was about a hundred feet in when I realized I was counting footsteps. I

stopped myself, took a breath and banished sums from my head. There was something familiar about this

place and I wondered why. Had I been somewhere similar? In my head, I tracked back over places I'd

visited and couldn't recall. The sense of familiarity was very deep, very strong, like a memory from

childhood that won't be pinned down. Mum would know. Had we been on holiday near a forest? Given

we were so poor we hardly ever left Lewisham, I couldn't imagine we had.

Two hundred and forty-eight, two hundred and forty-nine…

Damn it, I was still counting. I turned and made my way back to the cabin, subtracting a footstep each

time from my total. I used fewer footsteps going back, probably because I was more confident about

where I was going. I had eight left over.

Evening shadows crowded in and by the time I had unpacked and eaten the plastic-wrapped sandwich I

had bought at Ålesund, I was exhausted: the result of four days of sleep troubled by new-life trepidation.

I showered and snuggled under the tie-dyed bedspread.

It was nine o'clock. If I wanted to be at work at 8:00 a.m., I would have to wake up at seven, so I set

the alarm on my watch. But maybe I needed to rise earlier, as I had to find the galley. Why hadn't I

asked Magnus what time breakfast was available? Was there food in the cupboards in the kitchen here?

Would I have to make my own breakfast? I obsessed about this for a while, realized it was now eleven

o'clock and if I wanted eight hours' sleep I'd have to nod off precisely then, and of course that chased

sleep away. So I calculated some more: most people really only needed seven hours' sleep so I had an

hour to nod off, unless I decided to get up earlier. No, I wouldn't get up earlier, the galley couldn't be

hard to find. And now it was after midnight, and I was still doing sums and trying to convince myself that

six hours' sleep is all one really needs to feel refreshed and finally I gave up and got out of bed.

I set up my laptop on the coffee table in the lounge room and worked on writing up my thesis. Inside, the

light was yellow and the bar heater warmed my toes. Outside, the forest waited, peaceful and cold in the

rain; dense and dark and vaguely, vaguely familiar.

Any insomniac will tell you that they can nearly always sleep between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m., which is a pity

as this is when most alarm clocks in the world go off. I'd been sleeping for just over an hour when a

knock at the door of my cabin woke me. I resisted coming up; I willed the knock to go away. But my

visitor knocked again and, with a groan, I pulled myself all the way to wakefulness. Checked my watch.

Five minutes to seven.

Gunnar waited on the other side of the door. "Sorry," he said, when he saw how bleary I looked.

"Magnus sent me. He forgot to tell you about breakfast."

It occurred to me that both my exchanges with Gunnar had commenced with him apologizing to me. "I

had some trouble sleeping last night," I explained.

"Ah. Magnus told us you have insomnia."

"Not every night. Just when I'm tense. Would you like to come in?"

He slouched in, eyes averted from my blue-hippo pajamas. "Take your time. Get dressed and I'll show

you around the station this morning."

I had a quick wash, threw on a skivvy and a pinafore, and applied some mascara and some lipstick. I

had a phobia about my very pale hair, skin and eyes making me look washed-out. Silly, really, as Gunnar

was by far the most eligible man on the island and he had already seen me in my pajamas after a bad

night. My mother's fault: I'd have been far lower maintenance if her most-uttered phrase hadn't been,

"Dress up nice in case there are boys there."

We stopped for breakfast in the galley, which was at the front of the rec hall, across a narrow walkway

from the admin building. Toast and tea for me; disgusting pickled fish thingies for Gunnar. I almost

couldn't eat watching him wolf them down. Maryanne, the cook-cum-cleaner, was flirting shamelessly

with Magnus in an outrageous Manchester accent as they smoked together in the rec hall. We said hello,

then Gunnar led me to the front of the admin building.

"Isn't Magnus married?" I said to Gunnar. "I saw a ring on his finger."

"Separated. He's on the prowl."

"Maryanne?"

"Anyone—but Maryanne is easy prey. I don't think he's really interested. I think he just likes to see the

naked adoration in her eyes."

"How come your English is so good?"

"My father is English, and I lived with his family in Cambridge for two years." He indicated a large stone

set into the ground. "Did you know that 'Kirkja' is Old Norse for church?"

"No."

"This is the foundation stone for an early-eleventh-century church that once stood on this site. It was

discovered when the plans were being drawn up for the station. Historians excavated the area while the

main building was being constructed behind it. There was a television program about it."

I indicated the three-meter-wide satellite dish mounted on the roof. "Tell me about the communications

system."

Gunnar was just as happy to talk about technology as he was to talk about history. He took me around

the whole station, showing me the water tank and desalination machine, which sat at the back of the

station next to the water, and the generator shed and hydrogen chamber on the northern fence. An

instrument enclosure, full of pluviographs and anonometers and celometers and a score of other gadgets,

lay between the admin building and the cabins.

We entered the admin building via the back door, through a lino-floored storeroom and into a

remarkably neat office. Magnus was at his desk, as was Carsten (Danish), the registered nurse who

doubled as administration manager. Up a flight of spiraling metal stairs was the control room, where we

found Frida, who was a maintenance engineer, and Alex (American) and Josef (Icelandic), who were

both meteorologists. The other meteorologist, Gordon (English), had been on the night shift and was

wisely in bed. The room was lined on all sides by desks, littered with stained coffee cups and

half-finished paperwork, computers and other electronic devices. Both Alex and Josef were glued to a

computer screen, complaining about a permanent echo on the radar. Gunnar took me out onto the

observation deck. Rainy mist swallowed the forest and the other side of the island.

"There are raincoats in the storeroom," Gunnar said, noting my efforts to shrink back toward shelter.

"It's all right. It's only drizzle."

He raised his arm and I caught a whiff of his musty sweater. "It pays to take a walk out east through the

forest. It's very quiet and beautiful and brings you to the beach on the other side in about forty-five

minutes. The beach can be really cold if the winds change; sometimes they come straight off the Arctic,

but the prevailing winds are westerlies and the cliffs protect us from them. The lake is nice too, though

that's where the ghosts live."

"I'm not bothered by ghosts," I said, annoyed that he was continuing with the prank.

He smiled at me. "No? You don't believe in ghosts?"

"I don't believe in anything. And I don't scare easy. Save it for the next trainee."

The door opened behind us and Magnus stepped out. "Awful weather, isn't it?" he said.

"Sure is," I replied.

"We don't make it, we just forecast it," he said. "It's 8:00 a.m. Time to start work."

Gunnar backed away, apologetic hands in the air. "I'll leave you with Magnus. If you need anything, just

let me know. I'm in the cabin directly in front of yours."

I spent the day doing little more than filling out forms.

Magnus was obsessive about administration. The last form he gave me was a questionnaire about

meteorological instruments… well, he called it a questionnaire. To me it looked like one of those

multiple-choice exams I'd left behind in my undergraduate years. It asked me to list the daily jobs in a

weather station in their correct order.

"I don't know anything about the daily work," I said. "My degrees are in math and geophysics. I've never

used any of the instruments. I have no idea what kind of reporting relationships are set up here."

Magnus smiled his charming smile. "Go on, just fill it out. See how you go. You might surprise yourself."

I got two items out of ten right. Magnus thought this was funny. I thought it was a unique way to

embarrass me. By the end of the day, I'd had enough of him and everybody else. I stopped by the galley

and asked Maryanne if I could take dinner back to my cabin, and I holed up there in my pajamas and got

really, really homesick.

Someone knocked on the door around seven. I resisted the urge to shout, "Go away."

Gunnar again.

"Sorry," he said.

"Stop saying 'sorry' every time you see me."

He held out a bottle of red wine. "I'm really sorry. I need to explain something."

"Come in." I led him into the lounge room, a faded brown-and-grey room where I had the bar heater on

high.

He sat in one of the armchairs while I found two glasses that looked like they had been jam jars in a

previous life.

"So what do you need to explain?" I asked, sipping the wine.

"I wasn't trying to make fun of you with all the talk about the ghosts."

"No?"

"No. Seriously, no. You thought I was playing a trick on you? Like an initiation?"

"That's what I thought, yes."

"I'm so sorry, Victoria. I want you to feel welcome here. Magnus is the expert on embarrassing people."

"He's very good at it. And you can call me Vicky."

Gunnar laughed. "Really, Vicky, my intention wasn't to make you feel stupid or afraid."

"I'm neither," I said, too tersely.

"I know that."

"Then why mention the ghosts?"

"I'm really interested in history. Othinsey has a fascinating history and the ghosts are part of it. It's part of

the story of the island."

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

He shrugged. "Who knows?"

I pulled my legs up onto the couch and made myself comfortable. "Go on, then. Tell me."

"This island was settled by Christians in the eleventh century. They built the church. One day a boatful of

new settlers arrived to find everyone on the island dead. Slaughtered. Hanged with the intestines of the

calves they'd brought, or burned, or pinned to trees with spears. As there was no sign of anyone having

landed or left the island by boat, the story began that they were killed by vengeful spirits, sent by the old

gods."

"And nobody tried to settle it again?"

"A few attempts were made. Nothing lasted. It's a long way from the mainland and too small to be

self-sufficient. Rumors persist of ghosts—strange noises, sightings down near the lake—which frighten

the less rational away. The handful of scientists we have here don't care about those rumors. You don't

believe in ghosts."

"I'm about the most skeptical person you'll ever meet. My mother is another story. Every week she visits

a new psychic, who tells her she's going to win the lottery. She uses the same numbers every week—I

know them by heart—and even though her psychic says they're the right numbers, they never come up.

But…"

"She still goes back. I know. People need something to hope for."

"If she'd invested the psychics' fees and lottery ticket money into a mutual fund, she wouldn't be living

upstairs at Mrs. Armitage's in Lewisham."

"What does your father think?"

"I don't have one. I mean, I suppose he's out there somewhere. My mum raised me alone, unless you

Kim Wilkins - Giants of the Frost

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