Chapter 2: The Boneless

The bell tolling broke the dawn.

People scattered around, terror paralyzing their faces.

'They're here!'

'God save us all!'

'They're here!'

She froze where she stood horrified, when a pale-faced woman suddenly appeared in front of her out of the crowd, taking her by the hand.

'Come, quickly! Aoife!' her voice was shaking.

With trembling legs, the girl stumbled after the woman. She heard them cry, she heard them pray. She heard the bell tolling. Soon it was the only sound she could distinguish. Its clapper stroke frantically, cracking her head. Faster and faster. She pressed her palms to her ears. And faster and faster. She screamed as the volume and the speed of the sound grew unbearable. She squeezed her head as if her mind might split in halves.

Emily could breathe again when she woke up.

The buzzing sound was filling the room. Emily was lying with a splitting headache so intense she could barely open her eyes.

'Turn it down,' Emily grabbed the pillow and placed it on her head, blocking the sound.

'Turn that thing down, Amy,' she repeated again with no result.

'For fuck's sake,' she hissed and reluctantly pulled the blanket aside, her bare toes touching the cold floor.

Amy was nowhere around and her phone alarm was going off like mad. It took Emily a while to bring the room into silence again.

The door opened and her friend walked in, actively rubbing her wet hair with a towel.

'What?' She raised her eyes in an innocent surprise when she met Emily's scowl.

'Why the hell's your alarm wailing like fire alert?'

'You were going to get up, anyways,' she shrugged her shoulders and went on drying her hair.

'I had a freaking hour!' Emily rolled her eyes desperately and lay back on the bed, pressing her fingertips to her eyes. Her head still ached and the anxiety only started loosing its grip.

She used to like realistic dreams when she was younger. They gave you a chance to try yourself in a different reality.

She shivered when she remembered the tolling of that bell. The sound of calamity and danger. The sound of despair.

Double Americano worked quite well and by the time they reached the lecture hall, Emily was completely awake.

'Hi!' a sugary voice twitted somewhere above her ear. Emily shrugged. Really? Was she talking to her? At first, she thought this 'hi' was meant for someone else, but then realized that behind her there was only a wall with a portrait of Henry VIII. Such a pity he was hardly her target. They might get along. For a while. That guy had a way of having fun.

Thankfully, Emily didn't have to answer. The girl quickly passed by, heading towards the seat in the middle of the room.

That bitch has a nerve, huh?

It was Jenny. That very type of girls everybody loves. The man who Emily thought was hers happened to love her too. It was that Jenny Dave had chosen over her. She was three heads higher than Emily and one head higher than Dave. What a couple.

They planned so many things together, entered the same university and then it happened. People started talking. You learn to read lips when you're born deaf and might misinterpret some things. But Emily wasn't born deaf, and up to a point she wished she had. She covered her ears and closed her eyes but part of her couldn't help denying the bitter truth.

She hushed that part every time it got too loud and tried to act normal, because Dave was with her all of her life, and he was still there after all this started. As long as she could hold his hand and laugh at the same jokes and go to bed together, it was her Dave. The thought it may not last seemed unreal.

But it never went away, that uncertainty. It was in the air, like a fly that keeps buzzing and annoying you when you're trying to sleep.

The most painful thing was not that everything was over. When the world ends you can hardly feel anything. They might have had a fight, scream at each other but it was much more painful. The part that hurt her the most was him and what he said that day. Or, to be precise, what he didn't. She could never forget his indifference, as if everything before didn't matter, as if they were nothing.

He just left. But maybe… maybe if she hadn't started that, he wouldn't have left, at least not so soon. That maybe they might have had some time. A day… a few more minutes. Maybe that would be different. Maybe that could have changed something. Instead she spat those words in his face hopefully he would understand how much he hurt her and he would say sorry and how he wanted to mend everything, how he wanted to start over… instead he just left. Just pulled his chair back, got up, picked his jacket, threw some banknotes on the table, and left. Left her sitting there, frozen, staring into her untouched latte. And she was sure, he never looked back as he was walking to the door. And she couldn't bring herself to bid him to stay. She couldn't tell him not to leave. And people around were not the only reason why she didn't. She didn't do it because he didn't hesitate. His mind was set, not even giving her a chance to change it. Some people were turning their heads, not even trying not to stare.

But she didn't see them. They all were pitying her silently, glad that it wasn't them who was sitting at that table by the window, motionless and broken.

When Emily crashed on the seat beside her friend, Amy was fully focused on rummaging in her pursue searching for her pen.

'Gosh' she exhaled. She pushed everything out, mercilessly shaking her pursue, turning it inside out. No pen.

Emily offered her a spare one.

'Nah, never mind.' Amy shook it off.

Since their history professor almost never made it to end of the room, the back rows didn't even bother taking out their notebooks.

The door opened and the lecture hall plunged into silence. An elderly, half bald man dressed in a suit, which seemed to be quite old and started to get shabby, entered the room.

'Morning, people!' he greeted the students putting his briefcase loudly onto his desk. 'Today we'll continue our discussion of our topic "The Viking Invasion". We're going to start with the invasion of the great heathen army, but before, who would be so glad to remind me where and when the Viking's raid first hit our lands?'

'796?' someone said hesitantly.

'793, almost correct,' he nodded his head in approval, 'the island of Lindisfarne. Well, later in 865 the great army, or the great heathen army, as it's called, landed to the shore of the East Anglia. Under the lead of Ivar the Boneless and his brother Ubbe. Although, they had settled at York for a winter and hadn't attacked until 866.'

'Our country was relatively unprepared for the intrusion and some kingdoms had to pay them huge taxes so that their lands were left untouched by the raiders. The term Danegeld was the name of the tribute to buy the Vikings off.'

'What of those who didn't or couldn't pay?'

The Professor turned to the direction of the asker.

'Hm,' he smiled ironically. 'I think you can guess what happened to them. The Vikings' so-called religion even encouraged to kill their enemies, so I doubt they showed mercy.'

Yes one can only guess how many people died a horrible death during that time, Emily thought bitterly. She suddenly felt guilty as if she was responsible for this. As if she was to blame that she's alive now and those people are not.

'Is it true that Ivar the Boneless couldn't walk?' One of the girls asked suddenly. 'What? I've seen it on the Vikings,' she shrugged noticing that her question was met with perplexed looks.

'Might be. There is a number of evidence proving this fact. His disability is mentioned in Sagas and legends. Yet we can't be fully sure as the gap between the times when he lived and when Sagas were written is hundreds of years.'

Emily was half listening. What's the point of talking about the invasion of some crazy cripple when she was totally invaded by Alex's messages, far more interesting than the lecture?

Amy also seemed to be interested in Alex's messages for Emily even more, and was giggling and commenting on them until the professor turned his attention to their desk.

'Miss… eh… Feather?'

'Heather,' she smiled at him showing her white teeth.

'Aren't you going to take notes?'

'Sure, I am,' She gave him an innocent look, batting her thickly painted lashes.

He humbly coughed in his fist and retreated.

'Got a pen?' She looked at Emily and sighed, rolling her eyes.

'Well, where were we? Right, there are many theories on the point. Some historians believe that he was quite normal and his nickname was misinterpreted. Some even suppose there were two people with the same name. One Ivar, who was disabled, was here in England and the other ruled in Ireland.'

Emily's heart sank all of the sudden. She felt panic creeping up her spine. She clenched her pen in her fist, the world suddenly blurred around her. Blood was pounding in her ears mixed with the tolling of the bell. She heard cries. And saw bodies on the ground. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. She focused on her breathing, gradually coming back to reality.

It's been long ago since she last experience something like this. When she was about six or seven she started having panic attacks and couldn't sleep with the lights off thinking there were wolves in the darkness. The last one happened when she was sixteen when she was coming back home from a friend's party. It was so dark and quiet in the street that for a moment she forgot how to get home. She never told her mom, afraid she would send her to a mental doctor. And it never happened until now.

'He was believed to have left no issue,' the professor went on, 'due to his… well… physiological disability to do so.'

'Phew, His life was hard…' one of the boys remarked.

'I'd rather say – soft,' the other one sneered.

Emily's state went unnoticed as the students were still laughing at various suggestions on how hard/soft Ivar the Boneless's life was. Although, she's almost managed to calm down.

'Yes, quite an enigmatic figure…Even his burial place is an object of disputes. One of the suggestions is that he might have died in England and his grave could be in ….' He stopped here. 'Maybe any of you knows where it is?'

The question quickly washed the smiles off the faces and the room was quiet again.

'I guess…' Emily's voice broke the silence of the room. 'Repton?'

'Absolutely, correct' His index finger pointed in her directly.

'Jeez, you're a nerd. Amy gave her a mocking side look.

'Scientist do not fully agree on whose bodies they have found. Some claim he and his army were buried in Repton. Some say his body was found in Denmark. But it's been more than a thousand years, and all the suggestions remain only theories so far.' He glanced quickly at his watch. 'You rattled me, students, we're almost out of time.'

They wrote down a couple of things more and were finally dismissed.

'It's Jack's birthdays this Friday, you're invited,' Amy announced as they walked out of the lecture room.'P.S. it's not negotiable,' she added anticipating Emily's rejection.

'Jesus Christ, I won't survive so much drinking, and, by the way… I know I'm invited,' she smiled enigmatically at her surprised friend.

'That's my girl!' Amy's face beamed with a smile. The puzzle pieces were not hard to put together.

Emily suddenly realized she liked the feeling of not being completely lost after the breakup. However, when she let herself imagine she'd be with someone else, her heart gave a worrisome pang, and she felt something was breaking inside of her.