With that, she follows Michael outside, leaving me alone with Father.
Once the door closes, I turn to him. “Really, a cleansing ritual? If there’s a killer out there, they could all be in danger. We should at least be able to tell the other patrollers—”
“You heard Helga. It’s not up to us.” Father sighs heavily. “I need you on the seer campus tonight. We’re burning the body.”
By the time we reach the morgue, Helga is already outside. The torch she holds illuminates her face in the dark, abandoned campus. Once, the seer school was all Skallagrim was, before the campus grew and expanded. Shadows move over Helga’s wrinkled face, making her look even more unsettling as she says, “About time.”
Father rubs his chin roughly. “What did you do about the berserkr?”
“I spoke with her” is all Helga says.
Father and I exchange a loaded glance.
“Bring Emilía’s body here while I finish preparations for the pyre.”She crouches over and slices open her palm, dark blood welling in her cupped hand. Then she sets to work on a stave.
“Let’s get this over with,” Father says.
My stomach twists as we head back into the morgue.
Various tools are spread across a table and hang on the wall. They look like gruesome weapons, not scientific instruments. I’m reminded of how we cut open the berserkir to repurpose their parts after a hunt. The awful sight flashes through my mind, but I push it down. If the dead are cremated, then what purpose would these have, anyway?
“Come on,” Father says, heading into the room where Emilía’s body is.
As I turn the corner, I hold my breath. Father’s cloak is gone, replaced by a white sheet. Despite how still the body beneath is, I keep expecting the sheet to stir.
“Was someone else here?” I ask him.
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “Helga probably wanted to examine the body herself.”
I shiver, unable to shake the sensation the corpse could sit up at any moment.
“What are you waiting for?” Father asks. “Help me.”
“All right,” I say, pushing my unease away as I reach for her ankles.
Her skin is as cold as stone, her limbs stiff. My stomach twists, but I force myself to hold her. Together, we heft Emilía off the table. Now that her body has gone rigid, she’s more difficult to carry.
We don’t put her down until we reach the pyre.
“Be quick about it,” Helga says, growing impatient. “The sooner we get this unpleasant business over with, the better.”
You try carrying her,I think to myself.
Father and I finish laying the body down and step back. I avoid looking at Emilía as Helga completes the stave and bright fire sears my eyes, making the shadowed campus appear even darker around us.
The flame catches quickly. Thick smoke makes my eyes prick. Asthe fire climbs over Emilía, I prepare myself for the sickening smell of burning flesh and the stench of singed hair, but as she begins to burn, a rich floral scent overpowers the more unpleasant ones.
Helga begins to speak, her voice quiet yet strong in the stillness. “Mjok erum tregt tungu at hrœra með loptvétt ljóðpundara.”
She recites the Old Norse poem with a mournful melody. Her voice trembles and rises as her breath plumes in the cold night air. Some words she draws out, while others are shorter, sharper. Helga draws a harsh breath, filling her lungs between each stanza, and painstakingly sing-speaks the ancient skaldic poem.
At last, I recognize it: theSonatorrek.
Loss of Sons.
We studied the poem in class a few years ago. Egill Skallagrímsson wrote it after the death of his two sons, giving life to grief. Nils always loved theSonatorrek. He enjoyed all of Egill’s poems. Nils used to say he’d make a better skald than anything else. I never appreciated skaldic poetry—until now. Hearing it spoken aloud by Helga, feeling the weight of each word, the beauty and the sorrow.
Skaldic poems are meant to beexperienced.
