Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (19 page)

T
he invisible Norn answered the question for him:
“Flee or die!”

Archie tur
ned on his heel. “Cheerio, then.”

“Get back here!”
Jake laid a hold of Archie’s shoulder and turned him around. “We’ve got to stick together! If we go off separately, they can pick us off one by one.”

“How can we fight what we
can’t even see?” Archie threw up his hands in exasperation.

“Don’t you have a gadget for this
or something?”

“What, my Invisible Witch Slayer? Sorry, I left it at home.
With my weird-o-meter.”

“
You don’t have to be sarcastic,” Jake said in frustration. His usually polite cousin really must be hanging around
him
too much.

Jake turned back to face the clearing. “
Maybe the Norns will just…listen to reason. Don’t go anywhere, you two. I’m going to try and talk to them.”

“Jake!”

He ignored Archie’s protest, his heart was pounding with fear that he hoped did not show on his face. He took a brave step into the glade. “Hullo, anyone home? Please, ma’am, er, ladies? Norns, whatever you are—we mean you no harm!”

“Get out!”
A lightning bolt came with their reply.

Archie dove out of the way.
“Please don’t kill us! We’re too young to die!” he yelped from the nice, soft patch of moss where he had landed. “I’m sure you’re very nice Norns. I-I loved you in Macbeth.”

“
None shall pass!”

“Yes, you
already mentioned that.” Jake was losing patience.

He cast about for
some way to make the Norns listen. Then inspiration struck as he suddenly realized something that they had in common.

Trees!

Of course.
The Norns served Yggdrasil, and Jake and Archie were hereditary members of the Order of the Yew Tree.

He hesitated
to mention it, though, for it was taking a bit of a risk. If the Wyrd Sisters were bad witches, friends of the Dark Druids, then claiming a connection to the Order of the Yew Tree would only make things worse.

But when one of the
black swan-things bit Red on the shoulder, Jake had had enough. This had to stop.

“
We’re not a threat!” he repeated. “We come in the name of the Order of the Yew Tree!”

“Jake!?” Archie whispered, hearing this.

But suddenly, to the boys’ amazement, a huge head appeared, floating in the air, in the middle of the glade. “The Order, you say?”

It
was a female head, peering down at them.

I
t flickered a little like the moving pictures he had seen in the Exhibit Hall. This tipped Jake off that the head, like the voices, was probably just an illusion being projected somehow from somewhere nearby.

“
You’re a little young to be agents of the Order,” the Norn head said, looking unconvinced.

“H
e meant our parents,” Archie corrected. “Mine are diplomats; his were Lightriders. Of course, they’re dead now,” he added helpfully.

The head rotated to face Jake
, hovering closer. “Is that so? The son of a Lightrider coming to see us? Well, now, that is something. What do you want with Yggdrasil?”

“We o
nly wish to see our friend home safely. He’s got to get back to Jugenheim.” Jake pointed at Snorri.

The
head rotated once again to face the giant. “So, you’re the one who broke the seal. Naughty, naughty.”

Snorri blanched.
“It was an accident, ma’am! I’m very sorry.”

The Norn
pursed her lips in knowing disapproval. “Giants,” she said with a humph. “Very well! You may enter the sacred grove. Then we shall see if Yggdrasil will accept you.” The Norn gave a terse command that caused her vicious black swan-things to stop attacking Red.

With that,
the head vanished, and at once, the darkness cleared.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Norns

Jake immediately hurried over to check on Red. In the few seconds it took him to reach the Gryphon, the little meadow returned to its previous perfection: golden sunshine; brilliant flowers; emerald moss. The swans looked a little worse for wear, honking unhappily as they returned to their pool to smooth their rumpled feathers, snow-white once again.

To Jake’s relief,
Red was more or less unscathed. The scratch on his shoulder healed in seconds, and the great beast shook himself like a dog. It helped to settle him down after his fight.

“Good show, Red. You were grand
.” Jake reached into his pocket and gave him one of Dani’s pilfered dog biscuits usually reserved for Teddy. It wasn’t much, but it was the thought that counted; the Gryphon gulped down the treat with gratitude.

Jake
patted his pet’s scarlet-feathered head, then turned around and was astonished anew to see a girl on a tree swing slowly being lowered from the cloud-swathed branches of Yggdrasil.

He leaned to whisper in Archie’s ear, “That can’t be one of the Norns?”

“Who else would it be?” Archie whispered back.

“But she’s only our age!”

Archie shrugged. “She looks it, but if the Vikings knew the Norns, that means she’s ancient. You heard what Snorri said. Past, present, future. This one must guard the future, since she’s still a kid.”

Sure enough, the girl-witch
sitting prettily on her tree swing had not come alone. A wooden platform now began descending from the mists high above them.

They could hear the creaking of pulleys and, oddly enough, the rattling o
f fine china and glassware as the platform approached the ground.

When the platform
came near enough for them to get a better look, Jake noted that it was suspended by thick, hairy vines at each of the four corners. It had a little railing around it to prevent anybody falling off, and as it came to earth, settling on the grass before them with a loud noise, he was delighted to find that the two older Norns had come prepared to offer the weary travelers hospitality.

They had
a pretty table and chairs set up for an elaborate tea party, right there on the platform in the heart of the beautiful meadow.

The girl-witch hopped off her swing
and skipped over to the table, where a sweet old lady with white hair was sewing in a rocking chair, and a smiling middle aged woman who looked like the perfect mother beckoned to them. “Anyone hungry?”

Jake
frowned. Witches. They knew just how to tempt you.

The table was arrayed with
little sandwiches and cakes and tea and chocolate, and his stomach was already grumbling.

But he stopped himself. That smiling mother-witch looked familiar. He was fairly sure she was the one behind the giant head.

He sent his cousin an uncertain glance. “What do you think?” he whispered confidentially. “They don’t look so bad to me. Is this how they were in Macbeth?”

“
Not at all,” Archie whispered back. “Shakespeare showed them as warty old hags who danced around a cauldron. Mad as hatters, very nasty.”

“
No giant heads?” Jake frowned. “Maybe they’re a different set of Wyrd Sisters.”

“Or maybe the Bard used
poetic license—”

“We can appear to you
gentlemen as we did to your silly Bard, if you prefer,” the mother-witch called in amusement. “But since you are friends of the Yew Tree, we thought this would be nicer for you.”

“How did she hear us?” Jake breathed, baffled.

“I don’t know, but we’d better not be rude. That might not be…healthy.”

“Right,” Jake said. W
ith that, they ventured over to the table.

Jake was glad to let Archie ta
ke the lead in this matter. His aristocratic cousin had much more experience than he did in the art of how to conduct oneself in polite company. “This is very kind of you, ladies.” Archie offered the Norns a gentlemanly bow; Jake quickly followed suit.

The mother-witch beamed with approval. “Join us
.” She beckoned them over. “Would you like some tea and sandwiches?”

“No,”
the boys said in unison while Snorri gave an enthusiastic “Yes!”

“Never eat magic food,” Archie whispered angrily to him.

“Oh! Er, sorry, I mean no,” Snorri said in disappointment. “Thank you, ma’am, Norns.”

As the boys approached the platform, Jake remained on his guard. This was all much better than lightning bolts and a giant floating head, but even in their nice aspect, all three of the witches still h
ad a devious look in their eyes.

“
Oh, look at the little Lightriders!” the granny Norn cooed. “Aren’t you adorable? Come here you two little cherubs and let me pinch your cheeks!”

Jake
halted, bristling. “She cannot be talking to me.”

“
I think she’s talking to both of us,” Archie whispered.

Criminy, they were o
n a mission, a quest! Heroes on an adventure did not, as a rule, have grannies doting on them.

B
oth boys pretended not to hear.

“You can at least sit down, can’t you? Unless you’re always rude?” the pretty
young girl-witch challenged Jake.

“He is
,” Archie jested.

Jake scowled at
him, but the boys cautiously sat down at the table.

Snorri lowered his bulk
onto the ground nearby. Red sat on his haunches between the boys’ chairs, eyeing up the food.

“Beautiful gryphon you’ve got t
here. I haven’t seen one of them in ages. Wherever did you get him?” the mother asked as she poured some tea for granny.

“
I inherited him,” Jake replied. “So, um, if you don’t mind, could you please tell us how to get up the tree to Jugenheim? We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

“Why is that?” the granny
asked, stirring her tea.

Jake got distracted watching the girl slather strawberry jam all over a piece of freshly baked bread.

It was torture, all this lovely food.

Archie elbowed him.

“Huh? Oh. Right, we just don’t want to get caught in the forest after dark.”

“V
ery sensible of you. The trolls are restless this time of year. Hungry, too, just waking up after their winter’s hibernation.”

“Trolls?”
Archie’s eyes widened. He turned to Jake. “Did she say trolls?”

Jake tried to
look calm about it and cleared his throat. “Ahem. So what’s the trick to how we climb this tree of yours?”

They a
ll three laughed.

“What a silly fool!” the girl burst out merrily.

“Skuld, don’t be rude,” the mother chided the girl. “The truth is, you can’t climb it, and it’s certainly not
our
tree. Nobody owns Yggdrasil. The water, darling,” she reminded her daughter, or youngest sister, or whatever they were to each other.

“Yes, Verdandi
.” The girl rose and went to fill a watering can that sat beside the stone pool where the spring water was loosely captured.

When her
watering can was full, Skuld went and poured it on the roots here and there, which caused a remarkable reaction in the tree.

Yggdrasil
gurgled greedily and almost seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting like a person’s chest when taking a deep breath. The roots moved a bit like giant toes wriggling in contentment.

Skuld went and got more water, pouring
it on another part. “There you are. That should keep you for a while.” Then she noticed the boys watching her curiously. “One of us always has to water the tree,” she explained, “and one of us always has to be sewing, too. We trade off. It’s easier that way.”

“But enough about us and our boring lives,” the mother witch said
, pooh-poohing her. “So! You’re with the Order. How exciting! Do tell us any news of our friend, the Old Yew. How is he?”

“He?”
Jake turned to Archie in startled confusion. “What does she mean, he?”

His
cousin ignored him. “Oh, he’s fine, ma’am. There was a bit of the shoestring root rot fungus going around last autumn—”

“Oh, no!”

“But the Old Yew and his children came through it just fine,” he assured her.

“Well, t
hat’s a relief.”

“Wait,” Jake said. “
The Yew Tree from the Order of the Yew Tree is a person? That has children?”

“He’s a
tree spirit, obviously. The oldest in England. What did you think he was?” Archie replied.

“
They say he takes up several acres nowadays, down there on the grounds at Merlin Hall. Oh, I haven’t been there in years,” the granny Norn remarked with a chuckle, busily pulling the needle and thread through on her embroidery hoop.

Jake saw she was working on a section of an incredibly intricate tapestry that showed Yggdrasil.

“I should think so,” the mother-witch agreed. “He must be going on what, nine-thousand years now, wouldn’t you say, Granny Wyrd?”

The elderly Norn nodded with a
happy sigh. “Oh, such times! He was such an adorable little sapling in those days. Barely a twig!”

“
Give him our best when you see him. And do please tell him that Cousin Yggdrasil sends his regards.”

“Certainly,” Archi
e replied with another polite nod.

“T
he Yew Tree is a
person
?” Jake repeated, still astonished. “Why didn’t anyone tell me that?”

Even Red
seemed amused at his confusion.

“
You must excuse my cousin,” Archie said to the Norns. “He was missing for eleven years, and we only just got him back. I’m afraid there’s lots he still doesn’t know. Yes, Jake. The Old Yew is obviously a tree-person. Who do you think was the judge at Uncle Waldrick’s trial? That’s why they call it the Yew Court.”

“A tree was the judge that
sent my uncle to prison? You’ve got to be joking.”

“Oh, tree
s are much more complex than most of you humans give them credit for,” the mother-witch, Verdandi, replied. “At least the Vikings understood their glory.”

Archie pushed his spectacles
up higher on his nose. “I believe that’s why every Viking chief built his great hall around a massive oak tree, if I’m not mistaken?”

“
You are correct.” Verdandi seemed pleased. “Either they built their halls around a real tree, or they constructed an artificial one indoors as a way of honoring the oak groves.”

“King Olaf’s great hall has a live tree
!” Snorri chimed in.

Verdandi nodded with a look of appreciation. “The giants still know how to honor th
e old ways. You humans, though—”

“Mother!
Don’t get her started,” the girl-witch warned with a roll of her eyes. “All that happened
long
before their time.”

“
I suppose,” the mother Norn said begrudgingly.

“Verdandi’s still peeved that the monks
persuaded the Vikings to abandon pagan worship.”

“Ahem, well, I see
.” Though Jake was still slightly baffled, he shook off his confusion and got down to business. “So, perhaps now, if you don’t mind, you might tell us how to get to Jugenheim, if one can’t climb Yggdrasil?”

“Of course.
Forgive our chattiness, boys.” Granny Norn smiled indulgently. “We don’t get many visitors up here.”

It didn’t
really seem like you wanted any, what with the lightning bolts and all,
Jake thought, but he kept this opinion to himself.

“
Very well, on to business, then. Enough of the pleasantries.” Verdandi stirred a lump of sugar into her tea. “To take your friend back to Jugenheim, you will have to make an offering to Yggdrasil. You’ll throw it in the Well.” She pointed to the stone pool where the swans floated tranquilly once more. “If Yggdrasil is satisfied, then you may pass. If not, you can’t. It’s that simple.”

Jake and Archie exchanged a worried look. They hadn’t brought anything
in their gear but the essentials.

While both boys immediately began pondering what they could spare from their supplies, Snorri asked the obvious question.
“What sort of offering does the Tree like?”

“Gold?” Jake asked
. He had plenty of that, thanks to the goldmine in Wales that his parents had left him.

Only a few weeks into
his aristocratic new life, Jake had not yet had a chance to go and see it, but he hoped to soon. Red had originally discovered it back in the Middle Ages, for, as Aunt Ramona had explained, that’s what gryphons did.