She jiggled the ordinary-looking wooden spindle which was anything but either of those things. “Easy, light, tied to the powers.”
As she turned it between her fingers, I could see the light of powers flash and flow down the lines of the threads. I could hear the soft collision and chorus of powers singing through creation.
“That’s pretty handy,” I said.
“Yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. It’s easier to store them here and just take them out to my property instead of having everyone come by.”
“You know I don’t mind going there—”
“No, we’re good,” she assured me. “I know you’ve been…uh…busy, and you have a…uh…the tea event—some kind of crowning thing?—still to take care of. So this keeps you…uh…nearer town for, you know…”
I’d never heard her stumble over her words so much.
It made me instantly suspicious.
“No, I don’t know. Why am I staying near town?”
“For the High Tea Tide. There’s a crowning. You’re supposed to be there, aren’t you?”
I thought back on it, and really, no. I’d never said I’d be there. “Bertie didn’t say I had to be there. I have time.”
“Huh,” she said. “Weird.” She shrugged. “Well, if we’re going to my place, we’ll have to use your car, because I brought the tow truck and don’t have enough room for all of you. Drive out to my place, do the hand off, drive back here, drop me off at my rig, and hope we get back in time for me to be at the crowning.”
“You really want to be at this crowning thing, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, elongating the word. “I really do. Want to be at the crowning. Don’t you want to be at the crowning, Than?”
“Desperately,” he said so dryly, I thought I saw the grass wither around his feet.
“There you go,” Frigg said. “If you really want us all to miss the crowning…”
“Okay. I’m going to let it slide that you are absolutely trash at bullshitting.”
She laughed, and it was a big, warm sound. “Oh, when it counts, I can bullshit the spots off a leopard.”
“So putting aside you all seem to really, really want me to be at the crowning, which I will assume is because Bertie is still angry at me and looking for a little public revenge, I need to know, with total faith, that the bobbin can carry the power to where it should be stored. After that whole thing with Crow, I am not taking any chances with how the powers are kept.”
“Crow?” Talli asked.
“Long story,” I said. “Ask him sometime, he’ll make it longer.”
“It’s more than just a vessel,” Frigg said. “Here. Feel it for yourself.” She dropped the bobbin in my hand. I closed my fingers around it.
Where I had seen the colors and heard the songs of the powers before, now that I was holding the bobbin, I could feel the song rush through me, carried on a welcoming wind.
For a second, I wasn’t just Delaney, standing in a grove of trees behind the police station. I was also Delaney, the Bridge to Ordinary, standing in Frigg’s grove, in front of the hollow tree where all the god powers lay at rest, dreaming.
I could feel the connection from the grove to the bobbin, as if each were a part of a larger mechanism. Both a piece of a spinning wheel connected by pedal and band and flyer and maidens.
The bobbin in my hand wasn’t a separate piece or separate vessel to transport the power, it was a part of the storage, a part of that place brought here, to me.
It was a very lovely little bit of magic, and fully within the rules of Ordinary.
“Does that clear it up?” she asked.
I knew it had been less than a minute. Only a few seconds since she had dropped the bobbin in my palm, even though it felt like I’d been ringing with that revelation for hours.
“Yeah. Yes,” I said. “It’s a direct channel, not a vessel.”
