The Lane to the Land of the Dead
Our arrival was nothing special. We got off the train. People got on the train. Crowds jostled and moved, with businesslike politeness. The differences outside my train window had changed subtly with each passing mile but now they seemed stark. Small houses replaced the stacked buildings I had known, they flowed out from the train station, with little continuity, scattered haphazardly around. There was pavement, but it was cracked, unkempt. Lawns grew over, weeds rose up, trees were dying. The whole place seemed dusty and hotter, even though Hel was always the same temperature all the time.
Loki knew where to go, so he led the way, meandering down the streets, occasionally ducking and weaving in between people as they got in his way. He was a fast walker, long legged, and even with his backpack I still trotted behind trying to keep up.
“Autumn, we’re so close!” He spoke hopefully.
“I know, but I won’t make it if you go at this pace.”
He slowed down to a walk for a minute and then sped up, forgetting I was following him. At some point, some few minutes later he slowed to a halt.
“Here.” He whispered, walking up to the door.
“Well, go on. If this is her house then knock on the door.”
He stepped forward and gave a few solid knocks on the door.
A tall, thin, woman with shoulder length blond hair, comfortable looking trainers, and tight jeans opened the door.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you Dotta?”
“Yes. That’s me. But what do you want?”
“My name is Loki.”
“Loki?”
“And I’m hoping you can help me.”
She glanced at him, staring carefully for a minute, considering her options. I could see the concept of a person named Loki ending up in Hel for some strange reason, and then coming to her door looking for help run a cross her face, the darkness of worry clouding her eyes for a minute and then settle.
She was almost as tall as him, and she looked him straight in the eyes. Her focus narrowed, and she stretched to her full height, the questions falling out of her face and answers replacing them.
“Yes, I can help you. Come in.”
Loki walked through the door, forgetting about me, and it slammed behind him.
***
I wasn’t sure what I should do. I stood there dumfounded, a bit struck by the idea of him simply forgetting me after two days in my home, two days in a train car with me. I took off my backpack, sat down on the stoop, and looked around me at the dingy yard, bright white paint of the house, and the coarse curtains hanging in the window behind old paned glass windows.
I wasn’t sure how long I would have to wait, or whether or not I even wanted to wait. Half of my mind said to just turn around, walk to the train. He’d been helped as much as I was able to help him, and there was someone to pass him off to, so to speak. I didn’t have to do anything more. I had given him what I could, and that was going to have to be enough. But he hadn’t given me all he should have been able to, and that thought infuriated me. Surely he knew something more than how long I had been dead based on a journal I had kept at my house. I wanted more. I wanted why the poems rattled in my head. I wanted my family. I wanted to know why I remembered the uncomfortable feeling of lying on the pavement, the suffocation, the brokenness of a body beyond repair, the kick forward into Hel.
I felt like I was owed answers, as many as Loki could give me, for my trouble. In a minute the frustration had simmered over into anger, and I turned around and gave the door a solid knock, wondering how deep into the house it would carry.
I could hear quick stockinged footsteps, the turn of the doorknob, and the blond woman looked out and down at me sitting.
“Autumn?” she questioned.
“Yes.”
“We were just deciding what to do with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not sure what to do with you now that you’re here. What’s best for you.”
“Well, maybe you could discuss my options with me?”
“No.” she murmured. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I still am not following.”
“Ok, Come in. Better to talk inside than stand out here all day.”
I followed her into the dimly lit house, the sunlight barely filtering through the curtains, lights off. She shuttled me through a rough and cluttered living room, stacked with books, charts, pictures, some hung right on top of another. She led me through a doorway, narrow, old, made with heavy crude wood, into another room, this one with a low ceiling and an old dingy ceiling light. Loki was sitting in a chair at the far end of the room, clearly having a cup of tea with this woman, as the teapot and three teacups sat on a tray on the low table in front of the chairs.
“We were,” He looked at me as he spoke raising his eyebrows, “trying to decide what to do with you. I’ve made a mistake.”
“By bringing me here?”
“Yes. I should have insisted I go alone.”
“So I can just go home. You give me some answers. I go home. It’s simple. I’ll never speak of this, tell it to anyone. I’ll take those secrets to the grave with me.”
“This is the grave.”
“Well, you know what I mean.” The woman spoke, her steely eyes softening. “It’s not that simple, Autumn. You know how to unravel Hel. He gave you that secret on the train.”
“The time one?”
“Yes. He gave you the most dangerous one of all.”
“But I still can’t even figure it out yet.”
“You will. You have eternity to do so. You will get board, start playing with the idea like it’s a puzzle to be solved.” She paused, waiting for an argument. I decided not to give her that, and simply see how much she would explain if I didn’t talk, make a statement, voice an opinion.
As I predicted she went on. “But we need to figure out what to do with you. You can’t stay here. Loki can’t even stay here that long. I know they try to track what I know. Whether or not I’ve spoiled the secrets of Hel, ruined the afterlife.”
“Have you?” I asked her.
“I’m afraid even I don’t know the depths of this place.”
“But Loki has mentioned that perhaps you are closer than anyone else to knowing the paths out.”
“The paths to the other realms?”
“Wherever it is he needs to go.”
“Ah, the other lanes to the land of the dead.” She quoted imminently.
“So you know Auden.”
“Well, and Loki tells me you know him as well.”