I opened my eyes to a crosshatch of branches; they swayed back and forth at the wind’s command. A piney bouquet filled my nose, and leaves crunched under my back. Disorientation had me fearful. As my raspy intake of air leveled, my eyes adjusted to the mottled light.

At the sound of a bird, I sat up. Before me, upon a low branch, was a yellow-breasted lark. With my attention secured, he began a longer song. Tee, tee, hoo. Tee, tee, hoo. The flute-like warble was followed by a quick succession of kerr, kerr, kerr, kerr, kerr. The song was joyous and youthful. It thus seemed natural when a giggle erupted from behind me.

I turned in the direction of the voice. Again the lark chimed: tee, tee, hoo.

“Hoo,” a voiced mimed, except that with a human inflection, I heard it as Who.

Before me the brushy undergrowth parted and a girl a year or two younger than me appeared. I was struck by her beauty: wavy honey-toned hair fell to her waist. Her gown was long and cinched with interwoven ties and she carried a basket. She gazed at me, her tawny brown eyes rounding with a mischievous expression before she released the foliage, after which I heard a scurrying retreat.

Who is she? And what does she want? The two questions formed on my lips as I struggled to my feet. I could hear her ahead of me, her feet alternately plodding on a dirt path or trampling crackle-dry leaves. I ducked into the scrub of bushes and set out in the direction of the sounds. When I crashed through a particularly dense hedge of thistle, thorns pricked at my skin and grabbed at my black cami. While rubbing at a long scratch on my forearm, I heard a rustling, this time from above. The girl sat in the scooped-out bowl of a tree’s lower limbs. She held the basket upside down and proceeded to shake it with a frown as if disapproving of its empty condition. She reached up into the tree as if to pluck or pull at something, but instead her hand opened to reveal a crumpled ball of white paper. Smoothing it against her lap, she poked at three things. She then lifted the paper to show me three large words in a childish block print: PARCEL DINKY PAL. Swinging her legs playfully, she reversed the paper, ripped it into careful squares, and released them. They rained down like confetti.

I picked one up; it was a P. As I stood there examining it, the girl nimbly hopped down from her post and took off running.

By then I was getting a little annoyed. It was obviously all a game to her. I dropped the scrap of paper and sprinted after her. I could play, too.

Once through another stand of trees, I chased her across a field. I ran full out, my thigh muscles clenching with every jarring thud. To my great disappointment, she was freakishly fleet of foot and had no difficulty with the increasingly rugged terrain. I, on the other hand, was losing sight of her. Soon the ground shifted under my feet, and I was splashing through a large puddle. No sooner was I out of that one when another dipped in front of me. I found myself skirting increasingly larger pools of water until before me stretched a swampy terrain, the kind of mossy marshland where everything — the sky, the water, the land — took on a jade-green tone.

I feared I’d lost my empty-basket-bearing, paper-tearing giggler until she stepped from behind a tall growth of rushes, pulling a small boat by its prow. She next leaned across it and patted its center bench in a get-in gesture.

I wasn’t much of an oarsman, and I didn’t yet have a good read on the girl, but I’d come in search of answers, and she appeared to want to help me. I waded through the knee-high water, climbed into the small skiff, and took hold of the oars. I expected the girl to climb in, too; instead, and with surprising strength to go with her foot speed, she pushed me away from shore. All thoughts of her wanting to assist me were replaced with the worry that she wanted to get rid of me. Too late to turn back. Her shove had launched me into a fairly swift current. Once the rapids finally transitioned into a smooth run, I’d given up all hope of seeing the girl again. The waterway wrapped around gentle curves; hanging trees fanned long tendrils into the pea-green brook. The effect was like moving through one draped doorway after another, never getting a clear look at what lay ahead.

It was fairly relaxing, given my overall sense of caution and nervousness and the perfect setup for when, without warning, I plunged down a waterfall, a vertical drop of an organ-scrambling distance. I landed with a teeth-shattering splashdown and shot out of the boat like a popped cork. Surfacing out of breath and aching from the impact, I was still struck by the beauty of the scene. The natural pool was deep and so piercingly blue it shone as if faceted like a gemstone. And it was as warm as a hug.

I spied my boat, intact and upright, a few yards away, and dog-paddled toward it. While grasping it and taking a moment to recover, I heard a voice. In a sheltered grotto, not far from where I’d landed, there was a woman half-submerged in the water. What registered first was her hair. It was so silvery white it was opalescent, picking up the sparkling blue of the water and the fern green of the cavern’s foliage. And her dress was fantastic, even though I had only a waist-up view. It was formfitting, willow-green, and made of such intricate glittery sequins that they seemed to ruffle in accordance with the movements of her lithe frame. What I’d first taken as beauty, however, was soon tainted by her behavior. A manic desperation contorted her features as she wailed, seemingly to herself. Upon closer inspection, I noticed before her, in what was otherwise a glassy pool of water, a small whirlpool. It was this swirling rotation that she was, for all appearances, addressing.

“I have no reason to doubt the success of this mission. The girl knows what’s at stake. To break the pact would be to risk everything.”

Uh-oh.

When, next, up from the spinning vortex, Brigid’s icy voice rose, I felt the water ripple around me from my pounding heart.

“You and King Marbendlar are fools, Safira, if you think that girl will cooperate. She’s headstrong and rash and too young and foolish to comprehend the enormity of the situation. You’d do best to throw in with me now.”

Safira? As in Queen Safira? OVQ had just gone OMG scary. Dread pressed the oxygen from my lungs. “I do grow impatient,” Safira replied, her voice carping and bitter. “Though I’ve dispatched one of my most loyal servants, I admit to misgivings. My forbearance will not last much longer.”

“Together we have the power to revisit missed opportunities, to change the universe. Why do you not seize this opportunity?” Brigid was raging. The waters’ rotation intensified, and an icy mist rose from its core.

“Should the pact fail, Marbendlar and I do not deny the necessity of such recourse. But until then —”

“You disappoint me,” Brigid snapped. “It is my tolerance that is now tested. My offer does not stand for long.”

With that, the vortex spun downward, creating a recessed bowl, until it snapped back to a glassy surface with a splash. Safira slapped at the water with such fury that the force of her action caused a tidal wave upon which my boat and I were borne like flotsam. I don’t know how I managed to hold on to the side of the skiff, but I did, knowing probably it was my lifeline through this treacherous ordeal. The wave did eventually break, and I managed to catapult myself back into the boat. I lay on its hard, cold hull recovering and replaying the two queens’ exchange.

Finally I coasted onto a sandy bank and was surprised at the sight of a group of women at the base of a large, silver-trunked tree.

What on earth now? Until it jarred me like flying glass, this wasn’t earth at all.

I slipped from the boat and padded across sand and then grass. The women took no notice of me even as the reeds and rushes swished at my feet.

The oldest of the group, a woman with long white hair, spoke with an air of authority. “Gather, maidens. I have need of your divine counsel.” She perched on a velvety stool. Women assembled before her — nine, by my count — and sat at her feet.

“First my box, please, Fulla, for I have heavy burdens to store,” the older woman continued.

A beautiful young woman with long golden braids stood. “Yes, Goddess Frigg.”

“Frigg” as in the queen of Asgard, surveyor of all the universe, and Odin’s wife? Where the heck am I?

The braided blonde, bearing an ornately carved box upon her open palms, approached Frigg. The box was opened. With bent heads, the two of them whispered for several minutes.

While they conferred, I studied the others. They were an interesting group: young and physically beautiful. Each was dressed uniquely and wore or bore an object of distinction. A very dark-skinned, raven-haired hulk of a woman wore a shield and carried a sword. Another, pale and freckled and boyish of figure, wore loose-fitting pants and strapped a leather satchel across her chest. A heavy book sat upon the long-skirted lap of a third, a full-figured redhead. A golden bowl rested in the elbow crook of a high-cheekboned, lively-eyed brunette who whispered with another of similar features and holding a mortar and pestle. Another clad in all black wore a veil from under which only the shadow of her face was visible. The final two were identical twins and seemed younger than the others. Their white-blond hair — a shade much like my own — matched their all-white gowns, over which they sported capes of white feathers.

Frigg and the one she called Fulla concluded their private conference, after which the box was snapped shut. The commanding Frigg then clapped her hands. “We proceed, for all is amiss, and I have need of your talents.” The maidens drew closer to her. Suddenly, she cocked her head to one side, stating, “Silence! Did you hear that?” She stood abruptly from her stool. The women turned in unison to where Frigg was looking, right in my direction.

Holy crap. I froze. Had I done something? Made some kind of disturbance?

The women stood now, also peering in my direction and chattering nervously among themselves.

“Silence,” Frigg said with a slash of her hand.

I heard it, too, then. It was a distant howl so eerie and discordant, my heart throbbed with an irregular beat. The sound of it — caterwaul defined — became unbearable. Frigg and her maidens scattered, disappearing behind tall grasses. I began to shiver and pulled my arms across my body, rocking back and forth and feeling as if I were dissolving into subparticles.

When I awoke, I was outside the sweat lodge, and Jinky had thrown my jacket over me on the ground.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” I said through chattering teeth.

“Can you dress and walk?”

“I can try.” My upper and lower jaws felt like slabs of cold marble slamming together uncontrollably.

She helped me with my clothes, even tying the laces of my boots for me. We trudged back in silence. I couldn’t have talked if I’d wanted to. It was all I could do to hold my racking frame together and get one wobbly step to follow the next.

When we were finally over the fence, Jinky asked, “What happened to you?”

I bit my trembling lip. I knew I was playing with some powerful stuff. Whatever that shriek had been, it had jarred me to my marrow. If accepting Jinky’s shaman services was a gray area, confiding in her was not: Marik had been clear on that point.

“I don’t think I can say.”

She gave me a look that could skin a rat. “You and Marik both, huh?”

I twitched my mouth to the side.

She stomped off in the direction of the car, lighting a cigarette and blowing back a huff of smoke. It probably wasn’t good karma to piss off a shaman, even one in training; I had enough figures in my “foes” column. But there was nothing I could do about it right now. And I didn’t care how mad Jinky was or how much I owed her; she still wasn’t smoking in my car.