A Solstice Journey Read Free

jingling, too, as if there were bells on the horse—horses actually—because now it sounded like more than one. It sounded like there was a whole herd coming toward me. I quickly looked around, wondering if I could find something like a tree or a rock to hide behind. Not that I didn’t want to be found, but I didn’t know if the riders were going to see me in this snow. My coat was dark, but the snow flurries seemed heavier the closer they got, until I swore it was swirling around me like a small snow tornado. I shivered, feeling colder than I thought possible and wanting nothing more than to be home, safe, and most importantly, warm.
    The horses sounded like they had slowed down to a walk, and I took a step in the direction of the soft thuds. It felt like I was walking through taffy, an almost impossible task to get my right foot off the ground and take a step forward. The snow was suddenly to my thighs, and I felt I had been walking for a thousand years…. I resisted the urge to fall to my knees when two horses appeared—out of nowhere, I swore—in front of me.
    The horses were white, somehow paler than the snow, with a silver sheen to them. Their eyes shone blacker than coal and their bridles and saddles looked to be made of pure silver. The horse on the right snorted, and I was relieved to see its breath frosted in the air, because these horses didn’t look real to me.
    And the riders were as unearthly as their mounts.
    I assumed they were men because of the armor they were wearing. It was also made out of silver or some metal that looked like it, because even I knew that silver wasn’t a good metal to make armor out of. It was pretty, though, made from tiny, tiny chain links that seemed too fine to be real.
    They seemed to be tall, or maybe that was because they were seated on horses and looking down at me. The horsemen’s features were fine, with long noses, and their eyes were almond-shaped. They were blue, almost the same blue as mine. I couldn’t see the color of their hair because their helmets hid it.
    The horseman on the right looked down at me and demanded in a cold voice, “Do you know where you are, Álfr ?”
    I stared at him, confused, rolling the language and especially that last word around in my mind for a second or two. I had been expecting some sort of law enforcement or Good Samaritan coming to rescue me, not someone looking at me like I was the dirt beneath him. And the word was close enough to Icelandic for me to guess what it was: Elf. The man was calling me an elf . I didn’t know what he was speaking, but it did sound like Icelandic, and it wasn’t one of the other Northern languages, either, instead an echo of all of them.
    “Boston,” I told him slowly in Icelandic. “The Public Garden.”
    That earned me a bark of laughter from the two of them.
    “We know not this Boston that you speak of,” the other horseman announced. “You are in the lands of Sút .”
    I blinked in shock. Winter, I was in the lands of Winter, if I was understanding him correctly. For a moment I wondered if I had actually passed out because of the wine at the party and was slowly freezing to death in the Public Garden. It wasn’t like anyone was going to miss me. The office was closed until after Christmas. My mother would miss me on Christmas when I didn’t call her, but that was about it. And that was three days from now.
    It was all so unreal.
    “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I told them, my teeth beginning to chatter. I didn’t know if it was because of the cold or the shock. I was shivering now, and I knew I needed to either get moving again or get on one of their horses, because I was exhausted and needed to get out of the cold. “I was walking to get the train home and then there was all this snow.”
    The two horsemen looked at each other and then at me. “Then we should take you to shelter,” I was told, grudgingly. “Do you know how to ride?”
    “I don’t,” I