Chapter 30
Eiti stood at the entrance to his workshop and ushered the girls inside. “Knock when ready,” he said to Freyja when the last girl entered. Then he stepped outside and closed the door.
The first thing that Crystal noticed when she entered Eiti’s workshop were six dummies dressed in armored breastplates against the wall where Eiti had outlined Crystal with chalk. The girls’ names were written on the wall above the outlines, and a pile of white cloth was at the base of each dummy.
Freyja spoke first. “Put on the blouse and pants that are laying in front of your armor. You may ask questions now while you are dressing. Once that is done, I’ll have Eiti come back in and we’ll make sure the armor fits correctly. Eiti and I will speak to each of you individually during the fitting.”
Bubbles was the first girl to ask a question. “Where is Freckles?”
Freyja took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Freckles did not bond with a horse. She cannot be part of this preparation. If I had convinced Odin to let her remain awake and brought her with us, she would have died quickly, accomplishing nothing.”
Shorty asked the next question. “I just want to get this straight. The year is 2014, and you’re saying that we must help the ancient Norse Gods fight monsters or everyone in the world dies. And we are supposed to believe you because we made friends with a horse. Is that right?”
“It’s not just a horse,” Crystal chimed in. “It’s a unicorn. I could see the horn coming out of the horse’s forehead.”
Shorty chuckled to herself and shook her head.
“I thought we were past this, Shorty,” said Freyja.
“You could just be some escapee from an insane asylum named Freyja who thinks she’s a God,” said Pumpkin. “How are we supposed to know who you really are?”
“Okay, what can I do to prove to you that I am the Goddess Freyja?”
Pumpkin thought for a moment, then said “Make the roof fly off of this building right now.”
Freyja casually waved her hand and with a loud noise the roof exploded outward into a thousand pieces, as if a large bomb had gone off in the building. Blondie screamed and dove under a table as fragments of the roof fell into the workshop. Shorty shouted a war-cry and grabbed a piece of wood off the floor, using it as a shield against the falling debris. Crystal maintained her composure and ran over to stand next to Freyja, who seemed to have a force field around her deflecting all but the smallest bits of the roof. Pumpkin and Bubbles just fell to the floor and curled into the fetal position, crying.
After a minute, the debris stopped falling so the girls walked over to the armor again. Pumpkin looked at the Goddess sheepishly and said, “Oh, you’re that Freyja.”
Blondie raised her hand. “I have a question. We can see that you are very powerful beings. But how do we know that you’re the good guys? Why do we want to be on your side and not the other side? You could just be tricking us.”
Freyja walked into Eiti’s storeroom and returned pushing a large cage in front of her. In the cage was a seven-foot-tall creature with black eyes, pointed teeth, gills on its neck, and webbed hands with claws extending from its fingers. The Giant roared, and every camper in the room jumped in fright.
“This is the other side,” said Freyja. “You’ll see plenty more of these before this fight is over. If anyone wishes to switch sides, please do it now. If you aren’t sure which side you want to be on, I can put you in the cage with Smelly here and you two can discuss it.”
Blondie lowered her eyes to the floor and resumed dressing in the new clothes while Freyja returned the Giant to the storeroom.
The next girl with a question was Crystal. “Can you tell us how the Giants are bringing back the monster, and what we have to do to stop them?”
Freyja was very brief with her answer. “Yes, but not right now.”
Pumpkin asked, “If you have to fight monsters, why do you want little girls fighting with you? Shouldn’t you go to the government and get soldiers or something?”
Freyja pondered a moment on how to answer this. “We had human heroes in the last battle, and they were the difference between victory and defeat. But they were true Vikings and believed in us. If we went to the government now, we would be locked up—either for the treatment of a mental disorder or for scientific study. To win this battle we once again need allies, and to get those allies we need Shield Maidens. That’s all I can say for now.”
Shorty called out, “We’re talking about Giants and Gods and monsters that can come back from the dead. If the Gods are immortal, how can the bad guys hurt you? If Giants and monsters are immortal, how can we hurt them?”
“There is an energy in the universe that humans cannot see or hear or smell or touch,” explained Freyja. “Your senses are just too primitive. Even with your inventions, like infrared cameras and radiation detectors, you are still only aware of a small part of the universe that surrounds you.
“The Gods, Giants, and monsters are all made directly from this energy. As we fight, you may see flashes of light. That is energy escaping through a wound. As an immortal loses energy, they get weaker. If the energy gets too low, then they can’t hold their shape, and just sort of disintegrate. If you need an analogy, think of video games. But in this game, when your player’s energy bar gets to zero, the game’s over.”
The room was deadly quiet. If that was true, then Freyja and Odin were truly risking just as much as everyone else.
Bubbles had one more question. “If you can blow up the roof with a wave of your hand, why don’t you just blow the Giants apart?”
A grim smile came across Freyja’s face. “I wish it were that easy. As I said, we are all just energy. If I project my power at something physical, like the roof, it has a significant effect. But projecting power at a Giant would be like shining a flashlight on a light bulb. It wouldn’t do the Giant any harm and might even make them stronger.”
Crystal was the last camper to ask a question. “Will we win?”
Freyja looked at Crystal for a long time, then said, “Yes, we can.”
Crystal realized that Freyja didn’t really answer her question but was glad she had gotten better at giving pep-talks.
Freyja saw that the girls were now dressed so she knocked on the door. Eiti bustled into the workshop and began adjusting the armor for Freyja’s Shield Maidens.
Crystal noticed that the breastplates went on just like the life vests that they wore in the canoe races. You put them on over your head, like a poncho, then fastened them at the sides with the exact same type of clasps. Eiti probably custom made the life vests like that so the girls would be familiar with how the breastplates worked. Freyja had really thought this through. Or maybe Freyja had seen the future and knew what to plan for.
It was now Crystal’s turn, and Freyja and Eiti came over to check her breastplate.
“You will do fine, young lady. I knew from start that you were right person for job,” said Eiti, as he adjusted the straps.
“Do you have any questions for me?” asked Freyja.
“Yes,” said Crystal. “Why me? Why a spoiled brat from America?” When Freyja didn’t answer right away, Crystal added, “My parents have something to do with this sea monster, don’t they? Ragnarok is going to be their fault. Like you said, people shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to them.”
Without hesitation, Freyja pulled a large egg out of one of her pockets and smashed it on the top of Crystal’s head.
“Hey,” said Crystal, holding back a string of curse words she had learned from watching TV.
“You’re mad, aren’t you, Crystal?”
She wasn’t just mad, she was furious. Some bullies had done this same thing to her on Halloween a few years ago, and that night she had fallen asleep crying about it. Now, someone she thought was her friend had done it to her. She was angry and confused and hurt, which is a terrible combination.
“You’re darn right, I am angry!” she sputtered.
“Who are you mad at?” asked Freyja.
Tears were beginning to leak out of Crystal’s eyes. “You! I don’t care if you are a Goddess or not, you’re acting like a bully.”
Freyja smiled at her. “You’re not mad at the egg, then? It’s not the egg’s fault?”
“No! It’s your fault,” barked Crystal.
“In that case, Ragnarok is not your parent’s fault. They are just being used by bullies. They are no more responsible than that egg was.”
With that, Freyja turned and walked to the center of the room, leaving Crystal behind to think about what had just happened. Freyja clapped her hands twice. “Okay, listen up. Now that your armor is fitted, I want you to go to the indoor pool at the New Building. You will practice jumping into the deep end of the pool, with your armor on, and taking it off under water. Drag your armor up to the shallow end, put it back on, then do it all over again. Jump in five times, and then come back here.
Don’t worry about drying off, Eiti will have his forge going to warm it up in here and your clothes will dry while you’re wearing them.”
Turning to Crystal, she added, “While you’re at the pool, I’d like you to play lifeguard and make sure nobody drowns. And please, take a shower first and get the egg out of your hair. There’s nobody left on punishment duty to scrub the pool out.”
The girls headed out of the workshop, but Crystal hung back for a second looking at the shortest dummy, its white blouse and pants laying on the ground untouched. “We need you Freckles,” she whispered, then turned and ran after her teammates.