"With the entire globe in chaos, the United Nations has called an emergency summit to address the plethora of ongoing crises that have enveloped the world in chaos. The summit, chaired remotely, will seek to understand and take steps to curb those events that can be dealt with.

As earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, the ever-increasing strength of the multitude of storms and several wars continue to batter a human population still fighting against the ravages of the new Omega variant of the viral pandemic, political commenters are uncertain what, if anything, can be done."

-+-

11

Runa closed all the curtains, that night, seeking to give her and her children some respite from the waxing and waning of a storm that showed no signs of petering out. Windows and doors rattled and thrummed against the swirling, penetrating winds that threatened to tear down the cottage to its foundations. But the cottage held firm. A bastion against nature's fury.

She continued to think about Fenrir, and the wolf-god's words, and it caused her great concern. The children showed little fear and she wished she had that innocence of youth. To look upon the events overtaking the world and not fear for everything and everyone. That tightness in her chest, every time she looked upon her children, showed her that she knew she could do little to save them. She could only hope that things would calm eventually. A forlorn hope, she couldn't help thinking.

After feeding Hertha, Stigr and herself, she had sent them to bathe as though everything were normal. As though the world were not shaking itself apart, aided and abetted by human fears and aggression. She could see no end to it. No sanctuary from it. When the children returned, clean and dressed for bed, she turned to the only thing she had left to her.

With Hertha curled against her on one side and Stigr sat, eager and wide-eyed on the other, she opened the book in the glow of soft lighting and the flickering of the fire's flames and began to read. She told them of the old gods. Of Odin All-Father, with his single eye and ravens upon his shoulders. Of bombastic Thor, who lived for battle and drinking. Of Loki, his treacherous, playful mischief. And of Fenrir, son of Loki.

"That's Big Dog! Mummy! That's him!" Tapping an excited finger against the page, Stigr almost bounced on the sofa, then caught himself, looking guilty. "Sorry, mummy. I'm not supposed to talk about him."

"It's fine, I suppose." She let that page remain open, lingering her gaze upon the drawing of Fenrir. It didn't do the wolf-god justice. "This is our history. The history of a proud people that ranged far from the cold of the North and established themselves as far away as the Americas before Columbus was even born."

"The gods are real, aren't they, mummy?" Those eyes, so like her father's, gazed up at Runa as Hertha spoke. She seemed almost sad at the thought. "Why have you never told us before?"

Runa couldn't answer that without betraying her own feelings. She had fled from it all. Run away from her ancestry and had embraced the new and the modern, the scientific and the provable. She had saddened her father by turning aside from everything that now came striding up to her face, demanding her belief.

Without answering, she continued to read from the book, one of a number of books that detailed, discussed and interpreted the old stories. The myths, the legends. The works of the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. The sagas and the songs. This one dealt with it all in a way children could understand, written in a bygone era, with floral language and a heartfelt passion.

She had thought Hertha too old to begin hearing of the gods. Too mature to allow the stories to enter her heart and soul, but she laid beside Runa as captivated by it all as Stigr. She didn't show it as openly as her brother, but Runa could feel her slight fidgeting as she reacted to the stories, the widening of her eyes, the sharp, quiet intakes of breath. Perhaps Runa hadn't left it too long, after all.

As the night wore on, the children fell asleep by her sides, resting their heads against her, hands clutching at her pyjamas, and she wished she had not left it so late to teach them of their legacy. A legacy that she had denied. For love and independence, yes, but she had foolishly thought, in the rush of adulthood, that she couldn't have those things and her past.

Laying the book to the side, Runa surrounded her children's shoulders with her arms, holding them close, before her own eyes began to falter and then close and she fell asleep, safe in the knowledge that, though late, she had at least begun to teach them of the North and all that entailed. All that it foretold.

The heavy knocks at the door startled Runa into wakefulness and she almost jumped to her feet, dislodging a child from each arm, but there were no children there. Upstairs, she could hear Stigr and Hertha talking, bickering, as the sound of water rushing from a tap tinkled down the stairs. The fire had reduced to embers, and the she reached across to turn off the lamp.

Rubbing both her eyes and her neck, too old, now, to sleep on sofas without a good, sturdy pillow under her head, she moved to the window nearest the door and peeked behind the curtain. There, outside, sat Mr McAreavey's quad bike, shotgun bag still attached to the back. He hadn't visited the day before. She assumed due to the return of the storm.

Bedraggled, soaked, Mr McAreavey almost fell into the hallway as Runa opened the door, tying the dressing gown closed that she had grabbed on the way. He puffed out both his cheeks as he looked around to find somewhere to place the rickety box that he held in his hands. In the box, Runa could see a large bottle of milk, a bedding of straw and around half-a-dozen eggs. She stepped to the side, allowing McAreavey to pass to the kitchen.

"Sorry, Doctor MacCabe, I keep forgetting you're not an islander." He huffed as he hoisted the box onto the kitchen table. "I'll be on my way. Just a few things for you. No charge, this time. Eggs and milk and some lovely bacon under the straw. Better than that rubbish from supermarkets. Slaughtered the pig myself, I did."

"You'll stay for a cup of tea, I hope? You need something to warm you these days." She had noticed the storm had died down some, as she let McAreavey in to the cottage. Still beating winds and side-sweeping rain, but not half as bad as before. "I'd prefer it if you called me Runa. 'Doctor MacCabe' makes me feel like I'm at work. I'll get the fire going again, while the kettle boils. Get those bones warmed up."

"Nay, I'll fix the fire, Doctor ... ah ... Runa. My hands are already dirty." He lifted his hands to illustrate his point before clapping them together. "Least I can do for a lovely cuppa. If you like, you can call me Alf. If we're being all informal?"

Without waiting for her to agree, McAreavey, Alf, headed into the living room and Runa soon heard the sounds of fire-making. As the kettle boiled, she began to put away the supplies Alf had brought to her. The eggs looked fine, a nice size. The milk looked thick and fresh. But the bacon? Alf hadn't simply brought a few rashers, but a thick wedge of bacon that looked as lean and meaty as she had ever seen. She knew what they were having for breakfast, at least.

"Milk and sugar, Mr ... Alf?" The kettle had almost reached boiling point and Runa had two mugs with teabags waiting at the bottom of each. "I don't know why, but I see you as someone who takes it without."

"And you'd be right, lassie. No milk, no sugar, just as God intended it." Runa heard Alf give a satisfied sigh and she assumed he had managed to relight the fire. "Ah! A bit of reading, eh? Norse mythology. I haven't seen something like this in years."

As Runa carried the two mugs, filled with hot, steaming tea, into the living room, she found Alf flicking through the book she had read to the children the night before. He seemed both fascinated and perplexed by the book and it's illustrations, giving a little half-laugh every so often and an almost nostalgic nod of the head.

Upon seeing Runa, he placed the book down, reaching over with both his hands for the mug of tea that Runa held out to him. They stood, then, in silence for a number of seconds and Runa wished the children would come downstairs. They had spent long enough getting ready for the day and Runa had started to feel a little awkward.

"I see you still have your shotgun on your quad?" Realising she hadn't yet opened the curtains, she rushed over, flicking them back to wobble and wave and come to rest. "Do you normally carry it around? Or do you still think there's a stray dog on the island?"

"Ah, no, lassie, I don't carry it normally. But it's secured, you can have no worries about that. The bairns won't hurt themselves with it, I can promise you that." His face darkened as he looked out of the window and he took an absent-minded sip of his hot tea, making a sharp intake of breath at the hotness of the liquid. "I can't explain it, lassie. I just think, I know, that I should keep it handy. I don't know why."

Runa couldn't blame him for that. There seemed like an air of menace pervading the entire island. The world. In truth, she felt a little thankful that Alf held himself in a state of preparedness. She didn't know what for. She only knew that she, too, felt that he should keep the weapon close. For his own safety, if nothing else.

"Mummy! Mummy! Look! Look!" Stigr came rumbling, heavy-footed, down the stairs, stopped and grinned at Mr McAreavey, and then pointed to the windows. "A boat, mummy! And people! Come look!"

At that, he turned on his heel and thundered back up the stairs, where he could see the beach, and the little dock, from a better angle. Runa shared a questioning frown with Alf. She wasn't one for boats, or the sea, but even she knew that sailing within a storm like this went far beyond foolish. Placing her mug down on the coffee table, she moved to the window, Alf not far behind.