Piper was a pretty level headed girl. For a nineteen year-old Viking chic, I mean. So when I lost it and started kicking snow into the air and growling like a pit-bull on steroids, she just stood there, her bow in hand.
Gladly, this only went on for about a minute, at which point I calmed down and felt foolish. “Where did they take her?”
“They have a lot of camps, Jericho,” she said, slinging her bow across her back. Pointing in the direction Chloe had been dragged away, Piper added, “But since they went west, they could only be headed to one of two camps that way.”
I perked up at that. “Really?”
Piper nodded. “Yes, but neither will be easy to get into with our heads still sitting on our shoulders.”
Checking my gauntlet, I saw that I had five and a half hours left till the next jump. It just didn’t look like enough time. Remembering Chloe’s glove, I went to retrieve it. “How long will it take to get to either one of these camps?” I asked, bending over to pick the white gauntlet up out of the snow.
“About five hours.”
I stopped dusting the snow off the gauntlet and looked at her. “Seriously?”
She nodded, a small frown on her lips. “But longer if we can get Bulwark and his men to help us.” I was already shaking my head.
“No, Piper, you don’t understand. Five hours is already not enough time as it is.”
“They aren’t going to kill her. Most likely they’ll put her to work or, if she’s pretty enough, make her their chief’s woman,” Piper said and I guess she was trying to help calm me down by telling me that.
I took a deep breath. How was I going to explain everything to her? I mean, I could rattle off the predicament in about ten seconds but if she didn’t understand, it wouldn’t help matters. The only thing I had to my aide was a fishing trip Piper and I had gone on alone that lasted about three weeks. I’d told more things to her than the rest of her brethren one night while we were curled up by a fire, huddled close so we didn’t freeze to death.
I know. Romantic, huh?
“Do you remember when I told you where I was really from?”
Instantly, Piper said, “You said you were from a different time. That was all.”
The way she’d replied so quickly led me to believe that she’d thought about the conversation more than once. “I wanted to ask you more,” she started, her voice trailing off as she looked anywhere but at me, her cheeks red.
The evening was a relatively cold one on that particular night, as I recall.
“It’s freakin’ fre-freezing,” I had said through chattering teeth while jumping up and down behind Piper, who was busy lighting a fire.
“You always sa-say th-that,” She said- not in the least bit cold but mocking me with a beautiful smile on her face, “Don’t be a baby. You’ll be warm soon enough.”
“I’m not so sure.” I said, wrapping my arms tight around me “There’s probably not enough fire in helheim to warm me up right about now.”
In a few minutes, though, Piper had an awesome fire going with a few of our catch of the day thrust on sticks above it while we sat a few feet away curled up in what they called a fishing/hunting blanket. Not exactly like that because they called it either one depending on whether or not they happened to be fishing or hunting in the frigid weather. Since we were on a long fishing trip, the polar bear skin was called a fishing blanket that night.
And, dude, but it was a cozy skin. I actually had thought about bringing one back with me but decided against it considering the Vikings, unlike me, didn’t have animal rights people at every street corner.
Probably a good thing, too, ‘cause after my three month voyage of Vikingness, I now know why the polar bears are endangered. And if you’re wondering whether or not I killed one while I was there--
No comment.
Where was I?
Oh yeah. Me and the beautiful warrior Viking girl cuddled up in bear skins in the middle of nowhere. Well, we weren’t exactly cuddled together because, I don’t know if you guys have ever had the chance to sit wrapped up in a polar bear skin, unlikely because of the you-know-who people, but those things are huge. So when I say Piper and I were sharing a blanket and you get all giggly and stuff, just let it be known that we might as well have been sharing a circus tent, ‘cause we had about that much space in our bear skin.
Also, they called them snow bears and not polar bears. Just FYI.
We talked while the fish cooked… gosh but I am just killing animals right and left in this tale, aren’t I? At least I know when I go to try and publish this thing that I can go ahead and count the animal rights people on my list of potential enemies right along with Mark Zuckerberg, Good Charlotte, Barack Obama and Beyonce’ Knowles.
And incidentally it’s because of Good Charlotte that Beyonce’ hates me. Just thought you should know that…
“You’ve got a good spear arm,” Chloe said as she checked the fish with a knife.
Considering we had just been talking about what we’d done that day I shrugged it off and smiled, saying, “Thanks, Pipe. Since you taught me I guess I should say that you do, too.”
“Almost done,” she said, sitting back and looking at the bear skin floor. I could sense that she was purposely not looking at me and I took the moment to examine her white-blonde hair, noticing the dark spots from the melted snow, which made it look wicked cool to me.
Then, for some crazy reason, I blurted, with my arms wrapped around my knees drawn to my chest, “I’m not from here, Piper. I’m from another time.”
When I say crazy reason, I mean this: because I really thought the world of Piper, realized it as she shyly complimented my spear arm and looked at the ground, and decided that I wanted to be honest with her. So yeah, that was my crazy reason.
Sue me.
“I really like you, you know,” she said, her eyes still on the skin covered ground. “I don’t know when you plan on leaving but I’d rather you stay if you can or take me with you if you can’t.”
This was a lot for Piper, who wasn’t much on talking. I’d been with them almost three months and she wanted to leave with me. Most guys would think this a real score.
I was thinking this was the exactly what I was hoping Piper wouldn’t say. I mean, I’d seen her looks at times, felt her gaze, heard the jokes her friends made to her about me and all, but I thought I’d be gone before she got the courage to tell me anything like what she was telling me right then.
What was I supposed to say? Did I like her back? Well, duh! I mean, I was currently on a three week fishing trip with just her; clearly I liked her company, but was that all? Did I just like being around her and causing her to blush and smile with my twenty-first century flirtatiousness?
Or did I really like Piper, the Viking warrior chic from 794 A.D.?
Since I wasn't, I said, after an awkward pause, “Piper, I think you’re awesome. But I can’t take you with me when I leave.”
See? That sentence didn’t say whether or not I did or didn’t like her. I’m awesome.
“Why?” Piper asked, looking up at me and my heart melted. Sometimes in my time-traveling I’m presented with a situation that makes me think, “What the heck, Jericho? What’re you doing, man?”
Piper’s heart-wrenching look was one of those times.
“Because I have… duties.” I tried.
“Like what? I could help,” she said hopefully, causing me to feel like a cad even though I hadn’t done anything.
“Not with these kind of duties, sweetheart.” I said, “I’m a teacher of sorts where I come from and also a soothsayer/seer/know-it-all and in severely high demand.”
Piper looked at me a few more seconds, making me feel dreadful, before simply nodding, checking the fish one last time, and saying, “Food’s done.”
And that was pretty much it. The trip lasted another two days and we went back to the village. I was there a few more days and left.
To say that I hadn’t thought of P
iper at all when I went home would be a lie. I had thought of her and about what she’d told me. I had also been rehearsing what I would tell her when I saw her again because I was definitely going back one day.
But right then, after Chloe had been abducted and I was trying to explain to Piper why I needed to ride like the wind after her, I still didn’t know what to say.
“It’s fine,” I told her, “I wasn’t exactly my smoothest that night.”
“What about where you’re from?” Piper said, changing the subject. Which was fine but also scary because what if she hated me now?
“I’m from the future,” I said simply, “I guess the best way to say it is that I’m from tomorrow.”
Pulling her eyebrows down in thought she asked, “How far in the future?”
“Well, it’s 794 now,” I said, figuring it in my head, “And I’m from 2012, so twelve-hundred and eighteen exactly.” Then, just for the helheim of it, I told her, “And, just FYI, I wouldn’t go the Britain this year if I were you. It sounds great and adventurous but you guys aren’t exactly welcomed with open British arms in 794. Just saying. I’d go around 1033 because relations are really smoothed out by then.”
Piper was staring at me like I’d just told her I was a girl. “You’re serious?”
Nodding, I said, “Look, I know it’s a lot to take in but it’s true.”
“So you can just go anywhere… anytime you choose? How?”
Tapping my gauntlet, I told her, “My gauntlet. This is what takes me to anytime I want.” I decided that explaining the mechanics of it and where it had came from wasn’t exactly important right then so I left that out. “But here’s my dilemma, Piper, I can’t control where or when I’m going for a while and it’s saying that I only have a little over five hours left here before it takes me somewhere else and if Chloe’s not here with me when that happens, she’ll be left and probably never see her father again.”
Piper’s brows were still furrowed but I could see she was starting to catch on. “So… it’s broken?”
I was taken aback, “What? No, the gauntlet isn’t…” But then I thought of the fact that it was basically taking me on joyrides that I wasn’t exactly digging and, to be honest, that didn’t sound fixed to me. So thanks for nothing, Dr. Atrium Sparks.
“Essentially, yeah, I guess it is broken,” I said, “So now do you see why I have to go after Chloe, like, right now?”
Without another word about my when, where, what, who or why, Piper started walking. “We’ll need horses.”
“That’s my girl,” I told her, falling in step behind her as we trotted toward her village.
This wasn’t going to be neither easy nor fun, I knew it. But I was really glad Piper was helping me because right then, in the snowy mountains of Svalbard, she was my only hope.
Or more specifically, Chloe’s only hope
Chapter 24