The Journey to Find Mimir

Chapter Twenty: Fee-Fi-Fo-Thumb

The next morning, my brain spoke at my first hint of consciousness. 

Dad's dead. 

I kept my eyes closed for a moment longer, wallowing in grief. When would it end? My body felt heavy and cold. I cracked my eyes open.

"Helheim."

A layer of frost covered me. The tip of my nose, still healing from the night I met Hearthstone, felt like an ice cube. My cheeks resembled two round ice-skating rinks. A drip of snot had frozen to my upper lip. I was almost freezing. A cold wind blew in through the door. It was like I had been sleeping outside.

I sat up and began to warm my hands together. Thankfully dwarves have some immunity to extreme temperatures. That, along with being a child of Freya, meant I was especially resilient. This level of cold would have killed any other mortal. 

Wait -- Hearthstone. Had he set up the tent? Worry overtook me. Suddenly, I was on my feet and leaving the room as fast as possible, trying hard to get my frozen legs to move. My question was answered as soon as I got to the main room.

The tent was nestled in the trees about fifty meters from the house. I could easily hear him snoring away. I was shocked by how loud it was. The tanning bed must muffle the noise, because I never heard anything like that back at the apartment. At least I didn't have to listen to him all night. I sighed with relief and went back to my sleeping bag. He was fine. And probably much warmer than me. I remembered our conversation last night and cringed. I was going to have to apologize for the way I acted. There is no excuse for the way I acted.

I slumped back against my sleeping bag, looking at the ceiling of the room. Sleep began to creep into my subconscious. My eyes began to fade as I looked at the black ceiling. In the light of day, the walls no longer looked black, but a deep green... 

Without warning, the ground began to shake between my feet. My heart jolted in my chest. There is only one thing in Jotunheim, the land of giants, that could make the earth shake. (Hint: it's giants.)

I shrunk into the back of the room. Maybe if I stayed hidden, they wouldn't find me. As I slipped into a rounded corner of the room, a thundering voice boomed across the valley.

"Gert, you need to be more responsible," said the first voice.

"But Ma, it was an accident! I didn't mean to lose my glove," whined a second, much younger sounding voice.

"Let's hope it's nearby. If not, one of your hands will be very cold this winter."

The booming footsteps got closer and closer. My heart pounded against my chest. Suddenly, I remembered Hearthstone. Had he woken up? What if he got stepped on! I had to warn him.

I peeked around the corner of my cave and tried to listen for his snores. Just as I did, I saw Hearthstone's head peek out from the tent. His hair was slicked to the side, as if he had just woken up. His eyes were wide.

What is that? he signed. 

Two giants, I signed back. He made a move to leave the tent and run for the cave when I signed, Stop. I pointed to the sky. Hearthstone looked up, up, up. His mouth dropped open. He hopped out of the tent and ran into the woods. I lost sight of him. The pounding was getting louder and louder. The giants must be overhead. 

"There it is!" the voice cried. "It's right there, Ma!"

Suddenly, the house I was in began to shift. The front of the house was lifted upwards towards the sky. Gravity threw me against the back wall of the room with my sleeping bag. I could feel myself lifting into the air. What was happening?

"That's weird, I think there is something in the thumb," said the young voice. It sounded much, much closer than before. "I don't remember leaving anything in here."

The thumb? I wondered. 

Reality punched me in the stomach. My brain went into overdrive, piecing everything together. The five rooms of the house were not long skinny rooms, but places for fingers. The walls could not be identified as stone because they weren't stone at all, but cloth. This was no house -- I had just spent the night in a giant child's glove. And now, he and his mom had come back to retrieve it. 

The giant began squishing the thumb of his glove, trying to figure out what was inside. 

Problem: I was inside. The walls were beginning to cave in around me.

"Hey!" I shouted, panicked. "Stop! You're going to kill me!"

"What was that?" asked the mom. "Shrink down a bit, Gert, let's see if we can figure out what is going on."

The walls of the glove began to close in around me. I found myself pressed in on all sides, my arms pinned against my sides with the sleeping bag by my feet. 

"I think it's a mortal! Maybe a human!" shouted the young voice. "Can we eat it, Ma?"

"Of course, dear," the voice rumbled. My stomach flipped. "Let's find out what type of meat we'll be having back at home. No use of accidentally letting it loose here."

"Awe Ma, just one little look!"

"No Gert! Hold tightly to the opening of the glove." The top of the glove was closed, throwing me into complete darkness. "Good, just like that. Now let's go. Your father will be waiting. Oh, he is going to be so excited!"

The thumb of the glove hugged me on all sides like a very tight sleeping bag. (My actual sleeping bag was still at my feet.) We began to move. My heart pounded as reality set in. I was moving farther and farther away from Nidavellir, from Hearthstone, from the chance to find Mimir, from safety and warmth and everything I had ever known, towards the house of some giants who planned to eat me for brunch.