"She's been listening."

Every muscle in my body gave. I turned away from the screen, afraid to see one of them step up to peer out at me. When I heard the apartment door open, I ran, tripping over my clunky boots, the rhythm of my own heavy breathing and the footsteps behind me mingling in fearsome counterpoint. I didn't know what I was running from, didn't know exactly what I'd heard, but the urge to escape this strange scene turned to panic as I took a longer stride to make the first wooden plank of the bridge. The footsteps behind me sped, overtaking mine, and a hand grabbed my upper arm. Bren spun me, the snow whirling around us, and backed me against the rail.

"I can't let you leave like this," he said. His breath was slow and even, but his expression was tense.

"I need to get out of here." My eyes shifted frantically. I tried to pull away from him.

"No." He had been holding my arms, but now he took my face in his hands. "Look at me."

When I avoided his gaze, he tightened his grip and searched my face. "Look at me, Jenna."

I didn't want to. I didn't want to look into his face and see that I couldn't lose him, that I would've done anything, forgotten anything, to be with him. But his voice had taken on the imposing tone I had heard the night before, and I felt like a magnet giving in to force.

I raised my eyes to his and his face softened.

"Do you really think I wanted to hurt you?" He asked. His hair lifted with a small breeze and settled around his face again.

"No," I said, my voice no more than a whisper. Hating the weak sound of it, I cleared my throat. "But keeping something from me is as good as a lie."

"I know," he said.

"And you didn't respect what I wanted."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"And what you did to Tyler makes me sick."

"I'm sorry."

"Is that all you think you need to tell me?" It was an effort to keep the goose bumps from rising when I felt his hands on my neck. I pulled back, but he let his fingers tangle in my hair.

"No," he said. "I know you heard our conversation back there. So it looks like I'm going to have to tell you a lot more than that."

Chapter 13.

I wasn't sure which one of us was waiting for the other to speak, whether this was supposed to be Q and A format, or a lecture. So we stood on the bridge and watched the snowflakes land on the frozen pond for a while.

Bren glanced over at me first. "How much did you hear?" He asked.

"Everything." I didn't want to commit to specifics, in case I had missed something. "But that doesn't mean I understood any of it."

The only other explanation I had come up with besides a secret seismology society was that they might be some group of extreme environmentalists a" the kind who chain themselves to trees and lie in front of bulldozers. I didn't know of any controversial projects going on in the area, but following tree huggers wasn't exactly a hobby of mine.

"Jenna," Bren said, turning toward me. "I won't lie to you. But let's just start with what you heard."

I nodded once, making my expression stiff so that he wouldn't notice how I had softened when he said my name. "Fine. I'll tell you what I heard. When I left, I heard Val say it was for the best." I had felt disheartened at that, only then realizing how much I had wanted Val to like me. "Then I heard something about leaving Asgard, and then a comment about Skye being able to *make me forget,' which sounded like some kind of threat." Bren smiled a little at this, but I had the feeling I was already forgetting things, so I continued.

"Then I heard Frieda say that I shouldn't be around you all during the earthquakes a" although to be honest, all of our books and trinkets and whatnot have remained on our shelves so I'm not sure what the hell she was talking about, and I am also not sure how a quake in Japan or even California would affect any of you." I paused to see if he would say anything, but he waited for me to finish. "And then there was talk about someone named Sif. And while I'm on the subject, does everyone in Norway have names like that?" I saw him smirk again. "I mean, I don't think I've met any other Norwegians, but you know, I've heard of Jacques from France, and Maria from Spain, and I even had a German friend in New Jersey, Heidi, whose real name was Adelheid, but aside from Frieda and Skye, it seems like your parents might have all been on crack when you were born." I stopped, sulking at my own meanness.

Bren laughed and ran his hand through his hair.

"This isn't funny."

"I know it isn't." He sighed.

"Are you stalling?" But curiously, I felt no impatience. It was as if I was trying to stall, too.

He leaned over the rail. Clasping his hands in front of him, he ducked his head and glanced over at me. "Maybe. I'm a little afraid to tell you the truth."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not sure you want to hear it. And because it will change things. Everything."

"Between us?" I stared at the ice.

"Between you and everything."

"Bren," I started, unsure of how to proceed. "If you are a part of somethingaI meanaif you guys are doing things you shouldn't be doing out of concern forawhatever." I watched him frown, trying to keep up. "Well, it's not like I've never heard of anything like that before. I mean, people protest all kinds of things." His brows made a deep "v" as I continued. "Or, you know, investigate things on their own maybe?" I thought again of their talk of the earthquakes. I had heard of amateur astronomers finding things in the night sky that NASA would just as soon have kept quiet. Near earth objects and such.

Bren sighed. "I see where you're going," he said. "But I think maybe it's time for me to talk." He raised his brows, waiting for my consent. I gave him a wary nod.

"How much do you know about Norse mythology?" He asked.

"Norse Mythology?" I thought I might have heard him wrong but he just stared.

"Not a lot," I said. "I had a mythology class, but they didn't really go into the Norse stuff. Thor." I blurted the name as the only specific that came to mind.

He gave me a rueful smile. "Right. Thor."

"Hammer of the gods a" that was his," I added. It was the only other thing I could think of.

"Actually, that was Led Zepplin's," Bren said.

My mother still had a Led Zeppelin tee-shirt that my aunt had brought her back from a concert that she had been too young to go to, but I didn't get the connection.

"The Band?" Bren tried.

"I know they're a band," I snapped. "What does that have to do with Thor?"

"Forget it, forget it." He waved a hand. "Thor has the hammer, right. Well, the home of the Norse gods, Thor and all the others, is Asgard."

"Asgard. Okay."

"Okay. So," he continued. "There are a lot of faiths that believe that creation is a cycle. That there is the beginning, and then a certain number of events happen over a certain amount of time, and then there is some sort of destruction which wipes everything out, and then it all starts over. "

I nodded. The concept sounded familiar so I gestured for him to go on.

"So in Asgard, there is Ragnarok."

"Ragnarok."

"Heard of it?"

I shook my head.

"It's the end of the world, both in Asgard and on Earth. The destruction. It begins with a pretty brutal war among the gods in Asgard a" a fight that causes the earth to shake with natural disasters and superstorms, and finally sparks an outbreak of human battles -- and it ends with the deaths of many of the gods, the fall of Asgard, and the complete annihilation of Earth. Once it's over, the cycle starts again. The gods are reborn, and the earth is renewed with life. So Ragnarok is said to ensure the restoration of hope when the worlds are on the brink of disaster."

"Okay" I said. I watched a flake fall between us, Bren's face only slightly less pale. He opened his hand on the railing and the flake shifted and floated into his palm.

"It's a little known fact," he said. "Very little known a" that there was a small group of gods who were opposed to Ragnarok. Who wanted to see the cycle end."

"Why?"

"Different reasons. Some were tired of watching their friends and families die in battle over and over. Some suffered worse fates than death during Ragnarok. And there were a few who believed that the earthly annihilation clipped the wings of humans a" stopped their progress before they could make something truly great of themselves."

"You said it only happened when things were on the brink of destruction."

"But how would they really know if humans were on the brink of destruction? Humans had never been allowed to continue beyond the cycle, had they? They'd never been allowed to push themselves past their obstacles."

"Well maybe the gods were on the brink of destruction, then." I said.

Bren smiled and nodded, his eyes narrow, like I had just caught on to some conspiracy. It was the way my father used to look at me when we talked politics or history, and I had made some realization about the fix being in.

"Right." Bren said. "Because it's people who stop praying to and worshipping and wanting connection with gods, not the other way around. So maybe once the gods lose all their power with humans, Ragnarok doesn't look so bad. Then there'd be a whole new set of humans to impress."

"And there was this group of liberals who wanted to stop the madness." I said.

Bren laughed, the tension lifting from his face for a moment. He closed his fist on the flake in his palm. "Yeah." He said. "So this group of gods had the idea that if they could find the god Ullur, they could get some good advice on how to do this."

"Who's that?" I said. The names were getting stranger, and my hopes that a "Zeus" or an "Athena" would be thrown in were waning.

"Ullur was an ancient and very powerful god who had existed in time before the first cycle of Ragnarok. His vision wasn't bound by the events of the cycle, so these *liberals,' as you put it, thought he might know how to get around it. When they finally tracked him down and made their case for wanting to end Ragnarok, they found that Ullur had grown tired of watching the events of the cycle unfold over and over to no avail - and had maybe gotten a little bored-" he smirked at this, "and that he was willing to shake things up a little."

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Uh, that's not reckless or anything, messing around with human fate because there's nothing good on TV."

Bren held up a hand and laughed. "It wasn't like that. He liked humans. It was just that up until that point he had seen so much of human nature a" and god nature for that matter a" that he had become too frustrated, and then disheartened, to intervene. Nothing ever changed, you know?"

"So what made him suddenly care?"

Bren shrugged. "There was a passion about this group of gods. The liberals." He gestured toward me to give me credit for the phrase. "They meant it. They were ready to do something. Change things. I guess he was inspired."

"So what happened?" I said it like I was indulging a kid who had just seen an action film, but I found that I wanted to know the ending.

"So Ullur told them what to do. He said that the cycle would be broken if even one of them who had played a part in Ragnarok left Asgard, because each time the battle occurred, each individual would have to fulfill his role for the cycle to be completed." Bren stopped, allowed me to process.

"But there was a small catch." He said after a moment, gazing out across the hills in the distance. They were no more than chalky shadows, the snow falling hard now. "If they wanted to leave, they had to make it across Bifrost, the bridge connecting Asgard to Earth. Crossing the bridge was forbidden, and if they made it, their powers would be weakened, meaning that any of them, individually, could be caught and hauled back by an older or stronger god."

"Did they make it?" I nearly broke into his last word.

He gave me an amused look, then continued. "Ullur knew the only way they'd make it for sure was if he went with them. He was more powerful than any of the gods in Asgard. He couldn't be taken alone if he was found, and he could protect the others if they stayed close to him. Also, Heimdall, the guardian of the bridge, was a good friend to Ullur, and Ullur knew that if it came down to it, he would let them pass. So they waited for a time when they knew there would be a lot of commotion in Asgard, and they escaped over Bifrost to Earth."

He paused and a gust of wind rushed in my ears.

"They didn't get caught?" I asked.

He clasped his hands together and looked down at them. "No."

"So, what? They just ended up roaming around the Earth?"

"Pretty much."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"So then why haven't I heard of them?" I turned to face him.

He glanced up at me. "Maybe because you have an intolerance for bizarre names."

I waited, confused.

"Volundur, Svipdag, Freyr and Freyja. Ring any bells?"

I shook my head. His gaze was heavy on mine. I felt a tense pressure, as though a teacher had asked a question I couldn't answer and then let the class go silent, determined to wait until I got it.

"I've never heard of any of them," I said.

He continued to stare and I focused on his eyes, the amber irises, the slightly lighter coronas ringing the pupils. They seemed to shrink and flare, pulsing. I heard the names in my head again. Volundur. Svipdag. Freyr and Freyja. A mental blink. Val. Dag. Frey and Frieda. The names of the gods, just changed a bit to sound more pronounceable. More human.

"So." I said. "You guys are like, a cult or something? You've picked the names of your favorite Norse rebels and worship them?" I couldn't figure out if it was a gaming thing, or some spin-off religion.

Bren's expression was so intense I nearly turned away.

"We don't worship rebel gods." His body went still. It was as if he had turned to marble.

"We are the gods," he said.

Chapter 14.