All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 11: Calling the Norns ~ Randy Astle

Yeah, I’d given up on finding pants. When in Rome…

“Good. Let’s go.” Pepper, or whatever her name was here, started walking fast, and I had to scramble to keep up. Not used to carrying babies around the woods, after all. And we were in the woods—big tall trees, pretty thick, the kind with whitish-gray bark mostly—but every once in a while I saw a hut about the size of ours tucked away to the side of the path. So this was our town—not exactly Santa Monica anymore.

I trotted to catch up with her. “So, um…” I couldn’t remember her name and didn’t want to risk the punishment, so now I had to avoid saying it—great. “Could you remind me again where we’re headed?” She turned and looked at me—then slapped me right across the mouth. Hard. I almost dropped the baby.

 “What the hell?!” I yelled. “I know there’s some kind of marital contract and you evidently think you’re running this show, but let me tell you something, missy!” She just stared at me, waiting. And something about her unnerved me a bit, you know? Not sure exactly what it was—and it wasn’t just her knife. Something in her eyes… So I quickly felt my muscles relaxing, even though my face still hurt. “You can’t just go around slapping . . . I’m not just your boytoy punching bag . . . I mean, that hurt!” I finally admitted. Man, I’d only been here a few minutes and I was already convinced this was not the Pepper I wanted to be with. Emma. I’m here for Emma.

 “Good,” she hissed. “Get back in your place! So help me, what is wrong with you today?” She turned and stormed ahead. “You know as well as I that we’re going to see the volva for the naming ceremony.”

 My stinging face wasn’t why my mouth dropped open. Did I hear that right? We were going to see the—? Images of giant floating lady parts, like something out of a porno Wizard of Oz, started dancing in my head. And at this point I wouldn’t be surprised—things were getting stranger and stranger with each new universe.

I kept a few steps behind her as we hurried through the village—I thought again about running, but the men obviously weren’t running the show around here and it was probably still best to just keep toeing the line, ‘til I could get my bearings a bit more. But something Pepper’d said kept nagging at me . . . that we were going to another ceremony. I kept thinking back to the white temple, the water falling, Emma’s face. She knew she loved me—was that so impure? I guess I was realizing that, for the people here, these experiences are real. They’re not just characters in my own private fantasies—they’re real people who really keep on living in these worlds after I shoot out into another part of the multiverse. And that means that somewhere there’s a virgin Emma who’s suffering for my mistake that I made during her priestess initiation ceremony. It was real. I guess I’d started thinking about it all like levels of a computer game, but this—all of this—was real.

“Don’t do anything to mess this up,” Pepper whispered as she came to a halt. Like she could read my mind. I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. We were in a clearing in front of a large log house, easily five times the size of the other huts and made with larger tree trunks lashed and cemented together. Above the large door was a horizontal carving: I couldn’t make it out at all. There were lots of marks like writing, nothing I’d seen before, and some kind of tall oval opening in the center, like… Oh, I got it. We were at the vulva’s house.

The door opened—this one had doors that opened—and a little old woman in a long cloak emerged. I let out a sigh, half in relief, half in disappointment, and Pepper shot me another dirty look, which I was totally used to. The old woman carried another cloak, which she handed to Pepper. I just watched, trying to not mess up, as Pepper knelt before the woman and accepted the clothing. The old woman pulled the sleeves on, raised the hood, and tied the cinch just below Pepper’s chest. I admit I got distracted there for minute until the woman finally spoke: “Froken Sigridke, is the young one prepared?”