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"If you drink anymore ale, we won't have any left." Ivar whispered in my ear, a small smirk ever present on his lips as I raised my cup oncemore.
I giggled like a cheerful child, glugging back the thick honeyed liquid. "If a bride can't get a little drunk, what's the point?" I smiled, kissing him gently. We'd sat like that for hours, huddled close together sharing laughter and soft stolen kisses.
In truth, I never thought the day would come when I'd be a blushing bride - utterly intoxicated by another's heart. I knew Ivar had felt much the same. Neither of us had ever dreamt of being so utterly in love. It was this odd feeling, like falling into the ocean. The surface was visible, sunlight still glistening down to kiss my skin, but with every second it became further and further from reach. I simply kept sinking, sinking deep into this seemingly bottomless ocean. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't move or see. There was nothing. Nothing except the two of us, there together in that moment.
It seemed with every passing day, I lost more and more of myself to him. And as I gave away more pieces of my heart, it seemed I gained more of his in return.
"Iris!" A voice made me jump, only making my new husband laugh at mini heart attack. Astrid touched my arm, sending me a bright smile as she beckoned me from my seat. All I could do was send Ivar an apologetic shrug as she took my hand and helped me stumble to my feet and led me through the busy hall. "Iris, come you have to meet someone. You'll love her!"
"W-who am I meeting?" I stammered, a little dizzy from the ale - and a little startled from being so suddenly pulled from the little world of my own.
"Her name is Hildr." She answered as we weaved through the large crowds of people, finally coming towards a pair of women - both with their backs turned towards me. "She's a Saxon, and a witch too. She came here a year or two ago, just before the brothers left for England."
A witch? And a Saxon?
I wasn't sure why, but Astrid's words made a chill run up my spine. Not just with the familiarity of the name, but with the feeling that followed me. A feeling so strong that it left my heart pounding right up into my throat. I felt myself grow cold and pale, time slowing as we neared the women. I could've sworn that it was some sort of hallucination, a trick of the drink or my active imagination - perhaps a symptom of PTSD or something. But as the woman turned around, I knew that it was no trick of the light. It was not my imagination.
There she was. As clear as day.
My mother.
I felt myself freeze, eyes wide in shock. She looked younger - likely by twenty years or so - but there was no mistaking her. There she was, standing right before me. My mother.
In my time, she was Hilda Cox. Born January 5th 1918 in Oxford England. 1918. Over a thousand years from now. She'd not even been born. How? How was it possible that she was here? Now? Surely what had happened to me was some freak accident. And, if my mother had known of what could happen to me in York, why hadn't she stayed? Why hadn't she stopped me from going?
"Hildr!" Astrid's voice jolted me from my trance, shooting me back to reality. "This is Iris."
"The bride." Hildr smiled brightly, and I could hear her accent as clear as day. She was still from Oxfordshire. Still the same as the woman I knew. And that ruled out at least one possibility. This wasn't some freak accident, where she'd been a Saxon that later fell through the stones and met my father. No. She'd come here, just as I had. And, at some point, she would go back. Back to my father. "Congratulations."
"T-thank you." I stammered, still unable to break my gaze from her.
"Iris was in England too." Astrid continued, noticing how I froze upon seeing the young woman. It was strange, seeing her the same age as me. "The Saxons say she's a witch."
"Oh really?" Hildr rose a brow, looking at me suspiciously - clearly trying to see into my eyes, to see whether I was anything like her, whether I understood how she suffered.
"Oh really." I answered, but not in Old Norse. Astrid furrowed her brows at me as I looked my mother dead in the eye, speaking modern English. It was a risk and, if it weren't for the ale, I doubt I ever would've had the courage to behave with such confidence. But it was her. It was my mother. If there was anyone in this world I could trust, it was her. And for over a year, I had spent so many nights wishing that I could simply see her again. And now I could. Now she was here, within reach. And all I wanted was to hug her. "I suppose I can see the future."
Hilda froze, mouth hanging agape as the words left me. But, before either of us could say anymore, Harald had stood up on the table with a cup of mead in hand, and announced that the happy couple would be retiring to bed. It took me a brief moment to realise that he meant me, and quickly Astrid had nudged me away from my mother and towards the door. I kept glancing back, only to find that she had vanished in the crowd.
When Ivar had found his way to my side again, he placed a hand on my arm. He knew something was wrong, of course he did, he always did.
But what was I meant to tell him? That there was never anything special about my journey into the past, because somehow my mother had ended up here too. And that a part of me that I thought had become buried by my love for him, had slowly begun to rise again. Seeing her, my mother, made my homesickness grow ten fold. And once again I found myself wondering whether I was truly meant to be here at all.
If my mother had returned through the stone at York, gone home, then it was possible.
