And Thork! Most of all, Thork!
Ruby’s heart ached for her Norse husband who was Jack but not really Jack. Her sweet, ferocious Viking who had suffered so and then died. They’d had such a short time together.
It was all so confusing.
Suddenly inspired, Ruby went back to Jack’s library where she pulled several encyclopedias off the shelf. With each enlightening paragraph she read, Ruby’s heart beat faster and her head spun. Good Lord! York, England, had indeed been called Jorvik during the Viking period. A Norse king, Sigtrygg One-Eye, did marry a sister of the Saxon King Athelstan, and the vain Harald, high-king of Norway, did have many wives and children who fought bloodily among themselves for his crown.
“How could I have known all those things?” Ruby wondered aloud.
Reading more, she found that eventually Eric Bloodaxe, Thork’s half-brother, became the king of Jorvik, and, in fact, was the last of the Norse kings to reign in Northumbria. Young Haakon, Thork’s other half-brother, later called Haakon the Good, ruled Norway. Perhaps Athelstan’s scholarly court had influenced Haakon in the right direction.
The revealing information stunned Ruby. Unable to absorb any more for now, she put the books down.
“Mizzus Jordan, I’m leavin’ now.”
Ruby jumped in alarm at the voice and went out to the hall. “Rhoda, what are you doing here so late?”
“I was jus’ finishin’ up the ironin’. Do ya want me to come two days next week soz I kin start on the windows?”
Ruby nodded, then smiled, seeing the National Enquirer rolled up under Rhoda’s arm.
“Ya okay? Ya look awful funny.” Rhoda scrutinized her myopically through her bifocals.
Oh, yeah! I’m just bloody wonderful. Did you happen to see a longship in the backyard? Ruby quipped silently, but kept her thoughts to herself. She didn’t need ditzy Rhoda involved in this nightmare. Calmly she answered, “I’m fine. Just tired.”
” ‘Member what I toldja ’bout that bug that’s goin’ ’round. Read about it in my papers. Came all the way from China. Only thing that kin cure it is garlic pills.”
Ruby paid her, with a grin, and shooed her out the door before Rhoda launched into retelling one of her tabloid stories. She’d probably explain Ruby’s whole time-travel experience as something involving aliens from outer space.
What now? Ruby wondered as her nerves unraveled one strand at a time. Perhaps a shower would help. After that, she would try to resolve the mess she’d made of her life, try to understand what was happening to her.
Standing in the bathroom, about to remove her clothes, Ruby happened to glance in the full-length mirror on the door and saw something sticking out of her jeans pocket. She gasped on recognizing it, then sank to the floor. All the tension she’d been holding inside exploded with loud, shuddering sobs that racked her body.
Ruby cried for Thork and his death. She cried for the short time they’d had together and the love they’d shared too briefly. She cried for the two “sons” she’d left behind and mourned the primitive life-style and brave, fierce people she had come to love and would miss dearly. And she wept for the mess she’d made of her life with Jack.
And all the time she clutched in her hand one of the priceless dragon brooches Thork had given her. She really had traveled back in time—whether in a dream or actuality, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter. All Ruby knew was that somehow she’d visited there. The experience had been real, not imagined. What she had to figure out now was why.
When the tears dried up and Ruby could cry no more, she stepped into the shower and let the hot spray soothe her. Afterward, like a puppet being led by someone else’s strings, Ruby rummaged through her closet until she found just the item she wanted—a black teddy Jack had given her years ago before she formed her own company. She always wore it on special occasions. After she dressed, she went down to the kitchen and made another cup of coffee. It was only seven p.m. She felt caught in a time warp.
Ruby opened the freezer door and searched for the box of phyllo dough in the back, hoping it wasn’t freezer-burned after all this time. She took the paper-thin dough out, along with the other ingredients, and began to make a tray of baklava.