Infinite 01 - Infinite Sacrifice

ugly with unkempt, dark hair all over their blue-pale skin. Then she speaks of the light elves that are the protectors of a house. They live in the sunlight, and you can see them dancing in circles in the early hours of morning or right as the sun is going down. They are beautiful and live forever. Last, she talks about the Loki, evil giants that roam the world’s outer realm. She shows me the necklace her father gave her, the large hammer of Thor that she has to wear for protection from these creatures. She pulls out another one for me and places it over my head.
    “Two circles?” I ask as I stare at the two connected circles of intertwined reeds hanging on the leather string.
    “I made this for you. It’s not a symbol of a god, but it came to me in a dream.” She drops it over my head. “It will keep you safe wherever you go, even if it is without me.” She laughs, since I even follow her to the outhouse and wait outside for her.
    As soon as the sun rises, I wait for Thora outside the house, and once she comes, we go running out into the fields to do her light chores or play in the pastures. I help her roll beeswax candles, collect the honey, feed the small animals, and work her loom. Her mother is too busy commanding the other workers around, jingling the keys she hangs on her waist for the outbuildings, and making sure the carts are loaded to bring to market. She has to run the farm alone, since Thora’s father is away so much of the time. She hardly notices me at all.
    Every once in a while, I’ll hear her say when she sees Thora sitting beside me, “Remember his place, Thora.”
    Which I never understood; this farm is my place now.

Chapter 3
    One rainy day, Thora brings me a honey cake to my bed and says, “It was a year ago you came to live with me, and since we don’t know your birthday, I will celebrate it today.”
    The small cake is covered in sticky honey. I put my little finger in it and suck the sweetness off. “How old do you think I am now?”
    She thinks about it. “Six years maybe?”
    I try to remember if my mother had ever told me my age and can barely remember anything from before coming to Denmark. I look up at her and ask, “And how old are you, then?”
    “I will be thirteen next month.” But she looks away. “I will be married at a great feast that night.”
    I glance up. “Does that mean you will leave the farm?”
    She looks into my eyes, her light green eyes sparkling. “I will leave the farm but never you.” She tousles my hair the same way Da did and laughs. “You are coming with me whether you want to or not.”
    There’s a great ruckus outside, and Thora springs to her feet to see what it is. I run beside her as a workman comes running out of the barn with a large shovel behind his head. A skinny grey wolf darts out before him with a fat, dead goose dangling from his mouth. The man pitches the shovel at the wolf, narrowly missing him as the wolf shifts to his right and escapes under the fence to freedom.
    “Did he get only one?” Thora calls out.
    “Got her and her whole brood,” the workman replies as he goes back into the barn.
    That goose had six fluffy goslings that hatched the other day. I run to the barn with Thora and see five little yellow balls of fluff spilled out on the hay.
    “One is missing,” I tell Thora.
    She nods and looks around. A high-pitched peeping begins, and the three of us move every lump of hay in the barn trying to locate where it’s coming from. I turn over a bucket and see the little frantic puff run out and into a clump of hay. I reach in and pull it out as it squirms in my hand, calling for its far-away mother.
    “What will we do with it?” I say to Thora as the workman walks away with the shovel full of the rest of its sleeping brood.
    She smiles at me. “Now you will have something to follow you around everywhere.”
    I name my new little friend Borga: saved one. After spending half the morning chasing her as she runs away from me squeaking for her mother, she finally stops and begins to stay close to me. I take her to the water bowl to drink and watch as she snaps along the bottom of the bowl with her orange beak, lifts her head up to drink as she watches me with her golden eyes. I hold grain in my hands for her to eat and enjoy how she follows with her tiny yellow wings out when she runs. At night, Borga snuggles in with her head on my neck and makes little peeps that lull me to sleep.
    One month later, Borga goes