“You all wait there, you hear me?”
The young people nodded, and she was satisfied they’d do as she told them. She left the room and walked to the other side of the house where she opened her wardrobe and began pushing her dresses out of the way. This one she hadn’t worn since the eighties, and that one for much longer. She smiled at the sight of them all lined up and she guessed the wrinkles on her face proved Mark Twain was right after all. She’d certainly had a good life full of fun, and not all of it wholly approvable.
At the bottom of the wardrobe, beneath a pile of old shoes were some boxes of photographs — a black and white life in two dimensions would be all that was left of her soon, she contemplated without emotion. She opened the box and found what she was looking for — a small engagement ring box, handmade from green velvet with a white silk interior.
She pulled it from the box of photographs and creaked back up to her full height, cursing as she went. Before she rejoined the young, foreign, treasure hunters in the other room, she held her breath and gently opened the tiny box.
She gasped when she saw it again. When was the last time she had seen it — maybe twenty years ago, maybe longer… she had no idea. Yesterdays slipped away like grains of sand when you were her age, she considered, and she had no idea how many had fallen through her fingers since she’d last opened the box.
And yet… it seemed like it had been literally yesterday. There it was again, as beautiful and enigmatic as ever. Anyone else would have thought the box contained an antique emerald ring — her mother’s — but she knew better than that. She knew that the little ring box also kept another treasure safe from the world.
She smiled and closed the box before joining the others and setting the precious cargo on the tea table in front of the crackling fire. She sipped her coffee and looked at their young faces one by one. She wondered if they would catch up with Billy’s killers or not, but she knew whoever those men were, they’d regret if the older Englishman ever got hold of them. It was just something in his eyes.
She opened the box and handed it around, watching the look of surprise on their faces as they witnessed its compelling power for the first time.
“This is incredible,” Lea said. “At first it looks like a simple glass bead you can see through but then you realize you can see through whatever’s behind it as well.” She studied it closely and saw one side was convex and smooth and there was a tiny hook on the flat underside at the back.
“Not everything that’s behind it,” Martha corrected her. “It don’t see through walls or nothing like that. It can only make things right up close to it disappear.”
She handed it to the Englishman and he held it to the light and then drew it closer to his eyes for a more detailed look. “Bloody hell! Talk about weird.”
Ryan held it next, holding it so Victoria was able to see it as well. “This is outstanding — it seems to be bending light somehow — a technology we’ve only just started working on!”
Martha nodded. “It was Billy’s father who gave them to him. He had a few of them knocking around the place from his father and so on up the line. You know the way it goes. And before you ask, no one knows where they came from. Billy gave me that one right there in place of the ring, just like I told you, and the others found their way into the museum. He stashed them up there because he felt they might have had something to do with the old Mi’kmaq legends. He was part Mi’kmaq, was old Billy and very proud of it.”
“What old legends?” Lea asked.
“The Invisible One,” Martha said gently. “It’s not unique to Mi’kmaq culture — the story comes up many times in traditional tribal folklore all over North America. Sometimes they called him the Hidden One or the Invisible Warrior, but it all amounts to the same thing. Billy told me all about it.”
Ryan set his cup down. “It’s a fascinating part of the culture, because…”
“Young man, do you want to tell this story or are you going to let me do it?”
Ryan blushed. “Sorry…”
Scarlet gave him a thinly veiled smirk as Martha continued.
“Billy talked to me a bit about it when we were together. These legends vary in their details depending on the culture, but they all add up to the same thing.” She paused and cast her watery eyes outside on the dying day. When she spoke next it was as if she were talking to a ghost. “The Cherokee talk about the Nennehi, a race of immortal spirit folk…”
She noticed the others share a subtle glance when she mentioned the word immortal to them, but continued without letting on she had seen anything. “The name Nunnehi really means ‘those who live anywhere’, but…”
“But it’s sometimes transliterated as ‘those who live eternally’,” Ryan said.
Martha gave Ryan another of her stares and that seemed to do the trick.
“I was going to say that there are different interpretations of Nunnehi, but yes, Billy told me immortal is sometimes one of them. Immortal means something different when you’re twenty than when you’re my age, believe me… Either way, the word means something that cannot be translated exactly into English, if you get my meaning. It means immortal, but not exactly, it means ghosts or spirits, but not exactly, it means gods, but not exactly. You understand?”
They all nodded. It looked like they understood.
“Like any legends in the world, no one knows why these things become such a big part of the culture, but they’re important enough to travel down through the generations over centuries, so we can take something from that, I guess.”
With the slightest of pauses, Martha turned to Victoria. “It was your partner who died with Billy, right?”
With a short glance at the others, Victoria nodded and finally broke her silence. “Yes, how did you know?”
“I’m nearly ninety, dear. I know just from the lookin’. What was his name?”
“Dr Nate Derby. For some reason he was up here visiting the museum but I really don’t know why. In the days before his murder he started talking to me about some strange things.”
Martha gave her an oblique look. “Strange things like what?”
“About Norse mythology — about Thor and Thor’s Hammer.”
Martha nodded and gave a sad smile. “There were rumors, sure.”
“What sort of rumors?”
“Listen carefully. Billy only told me this once, and I thought he was crazy. He told me that the Invisible One could have been part of something the Vikings used to talk about. I told him he’d been drinking and he never mentioned it again. He could be crazy like that.”
“I don’t think he was crazy at all,” Victoria said quietly. “I think this is all connected somehow.”
“Well, don’t look at me,” Martha said flatly. “I know squat about the damned Vikings. What about you?” She looked at Ryan.
“A bit, but not too much, sorry.”
“Anything will do, Ry,” Lea said.
Ryan frowned. “In the context of what we’re talking about the main thing would be that invisibility was an important part of the Norse mythological canon so there’s an immediate link with the tribal cultures of ancient America. They had many beings who they considered had the power of invisibility, and most of these, of course, were the Aesir gods and goddesses who were key divine figures. These deities such as Thor, Loki, Frigg and Idun all had the power of invisibility. It’s possible the Vikings brought the power of invisibility to North America somehow and that’s what started the legends.”
Lea looked at Ryan sharply, her face suddenly a study of anxiety. “Say those names again, Ry.”