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