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Chapter Twenty Five: Wiggle Room

Meredith

"She died?" Meredith blinked.

"Died? N..no. Hel is a de..death goddess." Remy took a Snickers bar out of his pocket.

Meredith's stomach growled, she couldn't remember when was the last time she ate anything.

He opened the packaging and held the end of the Snickers bar to her lips. "Eat."

Unless it was a really old Snickers bar, Meredith didn't need to be told twice. Luckily that wasn't the only Snickers bar he had on him. Meredith wolfed down about five of those things before she noticed they were no longer alone. In fact, it was the first time she thought to look around and actually see where she was being held.

They were tucked away in a small room with only a tiny arched window near the pitched ceiling. The only exit was a trap door in the middle of the floor. So, based upon that evidence, Meredith assumed she was in an attic.

A woman with stringy blood red hair and eyes stood in one of the shadowy corners.

Remy looked over his shoulder, "can I have a fe…few more min..minutes? P..please Blooughadda."

The ghostly looking woman stepped into the pale sun light. "Mother said to feed her and then to put her back to sleep." She lifted a water bottle.

Remy took it and sighed, "Sorr..sorry." He unscrewed the cap.

Meredith shook her head, "no, Remy, please don't give me that." She tried to push backwards but found that her arms were wrapped around a column and her hidden knife was digging into her bicep.

Blooughadda stepped forward, her icy fingers pinched Meredith's nose.

Meredith tried to hold her breath but it was no use. As soon as she took a breath Remy shoved the water bottle in her mouth. They repeated this process until she finally passed out.

Meredith hoped she would find herself back at Hermes's post office, but this time she wasn't that lucky. A chill ran down her back as she floated on a wisp of mist under a black sky. There were no distinguishing landmarks, so she had no idea where she was, but what she did see was a wolf lounging in the distance.

As she grew closer to the wolf he grew in size. An elderly looking woman in a ragged cloak approached the wolf from the opposite direction. The wolf opened one of his golden eyes before closing it again. Meredith felt like shouting at the woman and telling her to turn around and go the other way, but she knew that wouldn't do anything. Her eyes widened as the woman got closer to the wolf. It was like watching an ant standing next to a coke can. The woman was the ant and the wolf was the coke can.

"Welcome home, brother," her voice cracked.

He licked his lips but kept still.

"Now Fenrir, is that anyway to greet your baby sister," She made a tisk tisk sound with her lips. "I see you are growing in size. This is good, but you are still too small."

If she could, Meredith would have gagged. He was huge.

"Hel… give me food and I will grow. Otherwise leave me alone." He scratched his ear with his back paw.

"Ah, I have nothing to give you but information." She chuckled, "our time is nearing once again. But this time we will survive the day and rule all."

Fenrir flopped down once more as he yawned, "Tell me and be quick about it."

"Our enemies have been reborn. Most of them have survived to reach puberty," Her eyes narrowed as if such an offence was a terrible thing.

Fenrir lifted his head as he sat to attention.

"Find them and feast on their flesh and you will grow stronger with each Aesir you consume." Her decaying jaw grinned.

"And father? Have you found him yet?" The wolf stared at his sister.

"He eludes me. Loki was always good at hiding. He is likely protecting his current body without realizing it," she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"I will eat the Aesir and find our father." He licked his chops.

"Be quick about it. The longer the Aesir linger the stronger they become. The undercurrent of the approaching Ragnarock increases each day. This time we will be the victors and all of the mortal kind will be extinguished from Midgard. That will only leave the other pantheons. In their confusion we will bend their will toward ours and absorb their levels of reality into our own." The hag grinned as a worm wiggled its way through her exposed decaying jaw. She plucked it from her withered hand and sent it back into her mouth.

"So be it." Fenrir began to glow into a blinding light causing Meredith to look away.

When she thought it was safe to open her eyes she tried to rub the white spots away, but was unable to do so. Apparently she had woken up without even realizing it. Mud clung to legs through the tattered holes in her jeans. No longer was she being kept in an attic, but instead she was outside somewhere.

Gray light broke through the holes in the canopy of pine trees that loamed like massive pillars all around her. It was one of these pine trees that she was tied to.

Her stomach growled and she really needed to use the rest room, but she doubted anyone would let her do that. Or, well, if there was anyone there they didn't make themselves known. Meredith searched the area from the ground up to tops of the trees to see if she could see anything other than pine trees. When that didn't work she closed her eyes and listened. Only the sounds of birds and squirrels greeted her ears.

Meredith's brows knitted together and she tried to form a plan. She couldn't tell if anyone was watching her from behind the pine tree, but that wasn't going to stop her from trying to escape.

"If there are any owls out there," She whispered, "I could use your help!"

Meredith paused giving herself a few seconds to listen for any owls. The memory of her mother's voice telling her that owls are nocturnal popped into her mind. She sighed, too bad she couldn't turn her head around like an owl, but that would be asking too much.

The only thing that she had going for her was the slight wiggle room between herself and the pine tree.

Wither it was an oversight or Remy feeling guilty about tricking her, her knife was still strapped to her arm under her sweatshirt. She silently hoped it was the special ed. cutie oversight, but that might bode badly for him if his mother ever found out that he purposely left it there.

After listening for about another half hour as the sun's rays grew stronger, Meredith decided to start working on her arm band to loosen the dagger. There were several snaps that held it into place, not to mention the leather sheath, but that was something to worry about after it became loosened.

It took a great deal of patients, which Meredith was forced to practice on a daily bases having an extremely impulsive younger brother, but after what felt like an hour it came loose. The blade dropped in her baggy sweatshirt falling toward her hands. Now that would have been good if the damn thing wasn't sheathed but then again it would have likely slit her wrist in an attempt to cut the ropes that were holding her.

Bracing her upper back against the tree behind her, she wiggled her arms up the trunk so that they could let the blade slide down onto her lap. Once done, she slid her arms back down and wiggled the dagger toward her knees. At this point she was able to squeeze her knees together and lift them toward her mouth. Within a few moments, Meredith had used her teeth to unsnap the sheath and pull it from the blade.

The bad thing about all of this is that when she looked down at her prize, it was not her blade. A horrible heavy plastic toy stared up at her.

She cried out in frustration after going through all of that to find out that she had been given false hope.

Waves of laughter crashed into her as the sound of a large group of women came from behind her. There was no footfalls crunching pine needles or splashing mud, but within a few seconds ten women surrounded her.

At the center was Remy's mother. Her lips twisted in pure amusement, "my son might be thick headed, but my daughters aren't so easily fooled."

Meredith scanned the women; the one with the blood red hair was amongst them. They each looked extremely different from each other as far as coloring, their hair and clothing were concerned, but each of them had similar features to Remy and his mother.

Remy's mother plucked the fake knife from in-between Meredith's knees. "Only humans cannot sense Celestial Bronze."

"So, you're not human?" Meredith's momentarily harsh voice sounded scratchy from lack of water.

Another wave of laughter broke in Meredith's ears. "You have no idea who we are, do you Greek?"

Meredith rolled her eyes, "obviously not, umm… Canadian, and by the way I'm AMERICAN."

For some reason they found that to also be funny. "We're Aseir goddesses, stupid girl."

Meredith frowned, "Aseir goddesses, never heard of them. Greek yes, Roman yes, and Egyptian. Oh, and Norse but I don't know who you are." Her eyes scanned their clothing for clues. There was only one common denominator. They all were wet. Their skirts were dripping as were their sleeves. Some of them looked like they just got out of the shower or were caught in a sudden down pour.

"The Aseir are the Norse goddesses," Remy's mother rubbed her temples, "what are they teaching you in school?"

"So, you answer to Odin?" Meredith's eyes lit up as she started to silently pray to that god.

Once again they all started to laugh at her, "Odin's been dead for a very long time, and we answer to no one." She looked into the sky; the sun was directly above them. "Well, this has been amusing. However, it is time that we left you to be scarified."

"Scarified? You got to be kidding. Goddesses don't need to make scarifies, people sacrifice to them!" Meredith struggled with her ropes as that blood red headed goddess approached her once again. One of her sisters joined her. This one was so pale; Meredith could swear she could see her bones through her skin.

The others laughed and turned away from her. They practically floated as they walked toward the direction which they originally came from. As each of them passed her line of sight a fresh bright light blazed through the trees. Meanwhile the two daughters forced another bottle of water down Meredith's throat.