The Second Blind Son by Amy Harmon

2

SIDES

Hod worked like he’d gutted a fish a thousand times, and when she offered to help, he bade her sit, telling her it would be easier for him if she kept the space around him clear.

“I know what I am doing . . . but I can’t see what you are doing. So you sit still and stay out of my way. You can talk to me. I am tired of my own thoughts.”

“I don’t like your name,” she said, surprising them both.

“I am named for a god.”

“Which god?”

“Hod.” He laughed and she winced.

“I don’t know this god. Are you teasing me? My brothers used to tease me. They were very good storytellers. They would persist until I believed them, and then they would laugh when I did.”

“I am not teasing you. Arwin does not allow such things . . . though I have tried. He is almost as ill tempered as you are.” His voice was kind, and a smile played around his mouth.

“You are teasing me now.”

“No. Just trying to soften the truth. Where are your brothers? Where is your family? You said your mother was dead. Are your brothers dead too?”

“They are all dead. They grew ill, one after another.”

“You didn’t?”

“I did. But I got better. They did not.”

“You are still very frail.”

“Yes. I am easily tired. And I am even smaller than I was before.”

“Why were you on the sea?”

She did not want to talk about the sea or what had come before. She shook her head and then remembered that he couldn’t see her.

“Tell me the story of Hod,” she insisted.

“Me . . . or the god?”

“Both. But first . . . the god. I still do not think he is real.”

“I do not know if he exists . . . but he is real,” Hod said.

She shook her head but found herself fighting a smile at his play on words.

“Do you know Odin?” he asked.

“I know Odin.”

“And Thor?”

“Yes. His hammer makes the thunder.”

“Then you know about Loki.”

“I have heard his name. But I do not know Hod.”

“Hod was a son of Odin. But . . . like me . . . he was blind.” He was silent then, and she waited for more. She found she liked this story—and believed it.

“Did Hod have a weapon like Thor?” she asked.

“Arwin says his lack of sight was his weapon.”

“How?”

“Everyone underestimated him. No one paid him any mind. They thought him weak . . . vulnerable, but Arwin believes our weaknesses and our strengths are the very same thing. Two sides of the same sword.”

She didn’t understand, but she didn’t question him, and Hod continued with his story.

“Odin had many sons. Our land—Saylok—is named for one of his sons. I will tell you his story too, if you like.”

“I have not heard of him either.”

“Some are more well known than others, and some are not known at all. Some were hated, some beloved. Most beloved was Baldr, who was so loved by his mother that she convinced every living thing to agree not to harm him, though she forgot to negotiate with the lowly mistletoe. Even the fates looked kindly on Baldr and would warn him of all attempts to harm him before the attempts were made.

“Odin’s son Loki hated that Baldr was loved and that he was simply tolerated. He too wanted to be loved, but instead of spending his energy making himself useful and worthy of Odin’s affection and esteem, he spent his days trying to find the one thing that would destroy Baldr. Loki sent women to seduce Baldr with lips stained with the berries from the mistletoe. He sent warriors with weapons fashioned from the boughs. But all were unsuccessful because Baldr knew their intentions. Loki visited the Norns, the fates, at the base of Yggdrasil, the tree of life, and they laughed at his efforts. ‘You cannot kill him, Loki,’ they cackled.”

Hod made his voice sound like a crone’s, and Ghisla snickered. He was a good storyteller.

“Loki asked, ‘If not me, who can?’ But the Norns did not know. They said, ‘We can only see what can be seen.’ Loki thought that an odd response, and he left the fates with their riddle in his head. He puzzled over it for days until he came across Hod, who was hunting in the woods with his bow. He noticed how Hod listened for his prey, but never saw his arrows fly . . . or fall. Loki realized he had the answer to his riddle.”

“A blind god . . . hunting?” Ghisla thought that unlikely.

“I hunt. I fish. I do many things,” Hod said, slicing the fish he’d caught and placing it on the grate above the glowing coals.

“What did Loki do then?” she asked, sheepish.

“Only a god could kill Baldr . . . Only another god could get close.”

“But why would Hod kill Baldr? Was he jealous too?” she interrupted again.

“No. But Loki thought he could trick Hod. Fate would not see him coming, because Hod would not know what he was about to do.”

“The Norns could not see what Hod did not see?” she asked, trying to understand.

“Yes. If Hod did not intend to kill his brother . . . and if he did not even know he had . . . then the fates would not see it either. And they would not be able to warn Baldr.”

“We can only see what can be seen,” she parroted, and shivered a little. “I do not like the Norns.”

“Loki and Hod went hunting. Loki told Hod to shoot. Hod believed he was killing a beast. He shot Loki’s arrow, made of mistletoe, through his brother’s heart. The beloved Baldr, killed by a blind man.”

Ghisla gasped. She had not expected such an abrupt and tragic ending.

“Poor Hod,” she whispered. “How evil of Loki.”

“Yes . . . well. Loki was chained to a rock for eternity with a poisonous snake hanging over his face, dripping venom into his eyes. And that is where I got my name,” Hod replied with finality, his story ended.

He threw the fish entrails onto the flame and washed his hands and his blade in a little pool that continuously renewed itself and emptied into crevices unknown. It was no bigger than a man’s shield—not big enough for submersion of someone bigger than a babe—but it was a fascinating luxury in the stony enclosure.

“What happened to Hod after he killed Baldr?” she asked as he joined her once more beside the grate.

“His father banished him, and the heavens wept for the loss of two of Odin’s sons: Baldr and Hod. Two gods . . . inextricably linked.”

In the dirt he drew a character—two half moons, back to back, one that opened to the left and one that opened to the right. An arrow bisected the first crescent, and its shaft penetrated the second through the back.

“That is the story of the blind god, Hod, and this”—he tapped the ground—“is his rune. It is a good story, no?”

She frowned. “Why would Arwin name you Hod?” It seemed almost cruel.

“He says I must learn from his example.”

“Huh. And why did Arwin name you . . . and not your parents?”

“I had a different name once, I suppose. But I do not know what it was. I was very small when I came to live with Arwin.”

“You live here . . . in this cave, all the time?”

“Arwin is the cave keeper. There is one cave keeper in each clan.”

“I did not know caves needed keeping,” she said, doubtful, though it was a very fine cave.

“Only some caves.”

“I think you are telling me stories again,” she said.

“No,” he said. “It is true.”

“Well . . . I liked the story of Hod, the god . . . but I still do not like that name.”

He shrugged. “It is only a name. It matters little. Who gave you your name?”

“Ghisla means promise. It means a sacred oath. But my mother and father never told me why they chose it. And they certainly didn’t keep their promise to me.”

“What promise was that?”

“They left me behind.”

“But not by choice,” he soothed.

“Then they should not have sworn to me that all would be well.” Her sudden anger felt good. It burned off the clinging sadness, sizzling and snapping, and she considered it, feeding it with more thoughts of injustice. Mayhaps if she hated her family she would not hurt so much.

“It is only a name,” he repeated softly, almost defending them, and her anger flared toward him. He sighed as though he felt the heat of it, and for several moments they sat in silence, waiting for their dinner to cook. It was not until they were finished eating, their plates washed and dried and set neatly on the shelf, hot tea in their cups, that he spoke again.

“Do you worship Odin where you come from?” he asked, steering her to new, cooler waters. She let them wash over her, dousing the flame of her ire.

“The Northlands are very vast,” she answered. “I cannot speak for all who live there. I am from Tonlis. We sing songs to him . . . and to Freya . . . and to the stars and the ground and the rocks and the plants. We have music for all things.”

“You’re a Songr,” he said, awe ringing in his words. “I have heard tales of the Songrs.”

“You have?”

“Arwin says the Songrs sing the runes.”

“I do not know runes,” she protested, frowning.

“No . . . not many do. But you know the songs.”

“I know many songs.”

“Will you sing one for me? Please?” he pressed.

“I do not want to sing right now. I don’t know if I want to sing anymore.”

“But . . . why?” The note of pleading in his voice was sweet, and she almost relented right then.

“It hurts too much,” she rasped.

“It hurts your throat?”

“It hurts my heart.”

He was silent, and she thought he’d accepted her refusal.

“Arwin says the pain will become strength if we embrace it,” he said.

“I do not like Arwin.”

Hod laughed, the hot brew he’d just sipped spewing from his mouth.

“I do not think he exists. I think he is like the blind god,” she added, taunting him.

“You do not think Arwin is real?”

“You’ve never seen him, have you?” she countered.

He laughed again. “You are a very clever girl! And you are smiling. I can hear it.”

She was smiling. How surprising.

“Why do you not have hair?” she asked, needing something new to talk about.

“I have hair.” He rubbed his palm over the stubble that covered his skull. “I just prefer it this length. Hair holds scent. I don’t want to smell myself. Hair also attracts crawling things.”

Ghisla scratched her head and then winced when he grinned like she’d proven his point. The boy did not need eyes; he could hear her every move.

“There are no crawling things in my hair,” she argued, but the mere suggestion had her shaking her locks and swatting at her head.

“Come here.” He patted the ground beside him. “I will help you.”

She frowned, considering, and then acquiesced, scooting closer to him.

He gathered her hair in his hands and parted it, tossing each weighty, tangled half over her shoulders, exposing her nape to him.

“What are you doing?” She tried to look over her shoulder, but he straightened her head so she was once again looking away, her hair curtaining her face on either side.

“Be still.” He ran something sharp over her neck. It tickled and . . . stung. He soothed it with something wet and warm, smearing it with a swipe of his thumb.

“Are you drawing something on my neck? A rune?” she asked.

“There,” he said.

Her skin crawled and she slapped at her forehead as a bug skittered across her brow. Another fell into her lap, its legs waggling in outrage, before it flipped over and fled.

“Ew!” Ghisla screeched. Two more, one a spider with spindly legs, crawled over her hands, and she squeaked and brushed them away.

“What did you do?” she demanded.

“It won’t last, but for now, your hair is your own. I have nothing to help you untangle it . . . but I can comb through it with my hands and bind it. Like a rope.” He added, “I am very good with my hands.”

She could comb through it with her own hands. She could braid it too. But she was suddenly hungry for companionship. For touch. Her sister had often brushed her hair. It was something they had done for each other.

“All right,” she agreed.

Hod was careful, starting at the ends of her hair and moving upward through the strands. His nails were short and his patience long, and her eyes began to droop as he worked.

“You are bending like a bowstring,” he said.

“I am sleepy again.” But it was not weariness that made her sway. It was comfort. She had missed the touch of gentle hands.

“It is not as neat or as tight as my weaving . . . but I don’t want to hurt you. It will do for now,” he said as he finished.

“Thank you.” She scooted away but felt obliged to give him something in return. She had been taught to reciprocate kindness with kindness; a favor must always be answered with a favor.

“I suppose I could sing to you,” she said. “One song.”

“I would like that very much.”

She opened her mouth and closed it again. She didn’t know what to sing. All the songs in her heart and head were of her home and her family. Her thoughts raced, and the only song that came to mind was a song Gilly had sung about a toad. I’ll sing you a sad little ode about a sightless toad. It had been stuck in her thoughts since Hod had told her his name. Hod rhymed with toad.

She sang the song without thinking, changing the words as she went.

There once was a boy named Hod.

He was a sightless toad.

He croaked and hopped,

To escape the pot,

And ended up squished on the road.

Hod’s brow furrowed, and his lips pursed, and Ghisla felt a wash of shame. Maybe her song was cruel. She had meant to make him smile, but he was not smiling.

“I look like a toad?” he asked.

“No! You look nothing like a toad.”

“I did not think so. I have held one in my hands. They are slippery . . . and quite unpleasant.”

“I’ve always liked toads,” Ghisla said meekly, trying to fix her blunder.

“Did you compose it for me?” he asked. “Just now?” Hod’s voice did not sound wounded. Only curious.

“No. It is a silly song my brother used to sing. Gilly was always crafting songs about funny things. Regular things.”

“Surely he did not know a boy named Hod.”

“No,” she said. She sang the song the way Gilly had sung it, using the original words.

I’ll sing you a sad little ode,

About a sightless toad,

He croaked and he hopped

To escape the pot,

And ended up squished on the road.

“That is a sad little ode,” Hod said, smiling. “Sing me another. Sing me the one you sang in the sea.”

“I sang many songs in the sea,” she whispered. He had circled back to his original question.

“Why?”

“I wanted my family to hear me. I wanted Father Odin to hear me . . . and let me join them.”

“You sang his name . . . Odin’s name. I heard it. It is a song the keepers in the temple sing.”

“Father Odin, are you watching?” she sang, knowing what song he spoke of. He nodded, eager, and she continued. “Father Odin, are you watching? Do you see me down below? Will you take me to the mountain, where the brave and glorious go?”

“That’s the one. Sing it again,” he whispered.

She did, adding in verses, supplicating Odin. She did not fear death, so she knew death would not come. Fear was like that. Fear called out to fate, and fate always answered.

When she was finished, her song still echoing through the cave, she looked at Hod. He had closed his strange eyes and his back was rigid.

“Hod?” she asked, startled. She reached out and grasped his hand. “It is a death song. I should not have sung it,” she apologized. “Mayhaps you believe in such things. I did not mean to frighten you.”

His hand curled around hers. “I was not afraid . . . but I could see the mountain. Your voice paints pictures in my mind. I thought your voice was a gift from Odin himself and listened all night in the storm. I could hear you. But I did not see pictures. I did not see . . . colors. It’s . . . wonderful.”

“My voice paints pictures?” she gasped. She had never heard such a thing. But . . . she had never sung to a blind man before.

“Will you sing more?” he asked, still holding her hand.

She sang him the song of the harvest—the gold of the apples, the red of the wine, the blue of the sky, and the leaping orange of the flames they danced around. As she sang, Hod’s hand grew tighter and the other joined it, until he was gripping her arm like he was afraid she’d escape . . . or leave him behind. His face was suffused with wonder, and the firelight glowed in his cloudy eyes.

“I did not know what they were called. The colors . . . I see them in my mind . . . but I did not know what they were called. Will you sing it again so I can see them?”

How could she refuse him? She sang it from the beginning.

“The gold of the apple,” he marveled. “That is gold? What else is gold?”

She thought about that. “My hair is gold.”

He touched it, rubbing a strand between his fingers, his brow furrowed in concentration, like he was memorizing it.

“And your eyes?” he asked.

“Blue. Like the sky in the song.”

“Blue like the sky,” he repeated. “Blue . . . is a glorious color.”

“Yes. It is. Sometimes the sea is the same blue as the sky. But it changes its color. Sometimes it is green with white mist . . . like your eyes.”

“My eyes are like the sea?”

“Yes. They are like no eyes I’ve ever seen before.”

“Do you know a song about the sea?” he asked, hopeful. “I should like to see it.”

She thought, and it came to her easily, the melody that rolled like the waves and reflected the grays of the sky and the purple of the mountains. Throughout, Hod sat, facing her, his legs crossed and his body still, turned to stone. Everything was frozen but his hands. She did not tell him to loosen his hold. His grip was a distraction from the agony of the songs. His wonder distracted her too.

“Please don’t stop,” he begged when she slowed, and she sang herself raw like she’d done on the sea. If she could not sleep, she might as well sing.

Hours later, she crawled onto the nest he’d built for her and left him sitting by the fire, his legs crossed and his appetite—at least for now—sated. She’d sung him every song she’d been able to conjure.

“Good night, Hod,” she whispered, but he said nothing in return. It was almost as though he hadn’t heard her at all.

When the sun rose, it lit the cave from the entrance to the first curve for several minutes before the angle changed and the light retreated once more. It was enough to rouse her for good. She groaned, unable to ignore her thirst and her discomfort any longer. She was sore, achy, as though instead of being tossed on the sea she’d swum to shore. She could see the prints of Hod’s fingers on her skin. He must have bruised her while she sang to him. The marks were a deep purple like the circles beneath his eyes, and he was in the same position he’d been in when she’d retired the night before.

“Did you not sleep?” she said blearily, sitting up from her circle of stones. He shifted and shuddered, but he heard her this time.

“No. My head was filled with new things.”

He didn’t ask her to sing or reach for her arm again, but his hands trembled like he wanted to. He forgot his staff when they left the cave and stumbled like he was suddenly afraid. He’d been as sure footed as she the day before—more sure footed than she. He stopped and took a deep breath. Then he turned back to the cave, retrieved his stick, and walked beside her to the creek.

“You said your hair is gold and your eyes are blue. I know you are small and that you’ve been ill—your bones are frail and your skin is soft. You are bristly, like a rose, petals and prickles with a very distinct . . . scent.”

“It is not kind to tell someone they smell.” She was teasing him. He’d been nothing but kind.

“Is it kind to call someone a sightless toad?” he asked, tone mild. “I did not say you smelled bad . . . not anymore. I said you had a distinct scent.”

“What does that mean?”

“Every living thing has its own fragrance, some more marked than others, but a scent is impossible to hide. I am not around people often enough to identify regions, though I suppose I could do that based on my knowledge of the flora and fauna from whence they came. I have been to all the lands of the clans—Berne, Leok, Adyar, Ebba, Joran, and even Dolphys—though I have been to Adyar and Leok most. They are closest. Each land and each people have a scent, and the scents merge from border to border, some notes fading, some strengthening.”

“What do I smell like?”

“You smell of grain and grass and berry juice, though those smells are hidden beneath that moldering rag.”

It was a rag . . . but she had nothing else to wear.

“You smell clean,” she said.

“I cannot abide the smell of my skin or perspiration in my robes or mud or filth if it clings to my shoes,” Hod said. “Those smells . . . blind me . . . to the scents around me. So I am always clean. It is for my own safety. We will have to find you something else to wear.”

He sounded as if he meant for her to stay, and something eased in Ghisla’s chest.

“Did your family till the earth and plant seeds?” he asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“You smell like the earth too.”

“That is where I want to be.”

“In the earth?”

“Yes. That is where my family is.”

“You are not funny today,” he sighed.

“I do not mean to be funny ever. There is nothing to laugh about.”

“Are you sure you are a child? You sound like an old woman. You don’t speak like a child . . . not any child I’ve ever heard. And you don’t sing like one. Maybe you are really an old woman. An old witch, wearing the skin of a child to trick me.” He frowned, but his voice was light with teasing. “Did Arwin send you? Is this one of his tests?”

“How am I testing you?”

“You have given me pictures . . . and now I want to do nothing else but see. My ears are dull, my nose too. It is like I am deep in the cave, all alone.” He was not teasing anymore.

“I will not sing to you again,” she promised.

“But I want you to,” he whispered, the sound so mournful that tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She had thought her tears were all used up.

“Mayhaps it was too much at once. Too many songs,” she said.

“Mayhaps.”

“The songs have made you sad,” she said. “They make me sad too.”

“No. They do not make me sad. They make me . . . aware. They make me want to see.”

“Did you not want to see before?”

“I did not miss what I never had. Now I know what I do not have.”

“It is like having a family . . . and having them ripped away. I think it would be easier if I had never known them either.”

“What were their names?”

“My mother was Astrid. My father was Wilhem. Morgana was my sister. She was the oldest. Abner and Gilbraig were my brothers.”

“Were they older than you too?”

“I am—I was—the youngest. Abner was a man . . . Father always treated him like a man. Gilly was your age. But he was smaller than you are.”

“Your people grow slowly,” he said, remembering what she’d told him.

“Yes.” And now her people did not grow at all.

“Gilly?” he pressed when she grew quiet. “Is Gilly . . . Gilbraig?”

“I could not call him Gilbraig. It did not fit. I called him Gilly, and he called me Ghissy.”

“It is a sign of affection to alter the name like that?” he asked.

“Yes. I suppose it is.”

“Then . . . will you call me Hody?”

“Hody?”

“Yes. To show . . . affection.”

“It is still a terrible name.”

“It is just a name,” he said, repeating the sentiment of the day before. “It means little.” But it clearly meant something to him.

“All right, Hody.”