Sif pulled back the curtain and looked out across the blinding snow. The gales were so strong they were blowing the flakes sideways. Ulfrun was at the fire, gazing deep into the flames. Sif dropped the heavy fabric, shutting out the cold. She joined her sister at the hearth.

“Can you see anything today?” she asked. Ulfrun had been learning how to speak to the spirits. They came from the fire sometimes, giving her signs.

Ulfrun smiled slyly. “I always see things in the flames, Sif,” she said.

“Why do they use the fire with you, and not with anyone else?” Sif asked, jealousy curling along her spine.

Ulfrun laughed, feeling her sister’s desires. “I could teach you,” she said.

Sif crawled with the power of the wild magic. The spirits chattered within her. “It is like reading the runes?”

Ulfrun shook her head. “It is like becoming the fire,” she whispered.

Sif squatted next to her sister, peering into the flames. She saw nothing there except the red glow of fire, the soft blue and white where it licked the logs. She concentrated, letting the power carry her. See…see…see…Sif inhaled the smell of the smoke, feeling it twirl through her.

   Ulfrun sighed with pleasure, as if the fire were a lover. The sound drew Sif back to the room where she crouched next to her sister at the hearth. Ulfrun’s delight unnerved her. “You’ll be carried off,” she scolded.

               Ulfrun laughed. “Would it be so bad?” she asked, her voice thick with power. Her hair had gone white and her eyes were like the snow that was piling outside their house. The wild magic moved between them, carrying the call of the spirits. Dangerous…

               “It would be bad to be without you,” Sif said. Sif had only been given the white garments of the Bairns last winter. There was still much she could learn. She wanted Ulfrun to mentor her. She had been one of the Bairns for five years. Her ease with the wild magic was akin to Freya’s, or Helga’s. But she was not as careful with it, something that Sif had noticed in the last few months. Ulfrun had been learning new ways from Mjoll, and Sif did not think it wise.

               “What are you two doing?” their mother asked. She was sitting in a chair, wrapped from head to toe in a thick blanket. She had been asleep most of the evening.

               Ulfrun’s eyes returned to their normal darkness as the power flowed out of her. Sif felt the rush of it moving, like an upturned jug spilling across the floor. “Ulfrun…” she whispered in awe, in terror.

               “It’s not too much, Sif. Not if you know how to hold it.” Her smile was wicked. She looked like the Skuld, half human, half spirit.

               Their mother rose from the chair. “Not answering your Madir?” she grumped.

               “Sif is learning how to read the fires,” Ulfrun said over her shoulder.

               Their mother snorted. “Read the runes. Read the fires,” she mumbled. “Next you’ll be reading the stars. Reading bones.”

               Sif shut out the angry hissing of the spirits. She didn’t admit that she already knew how to read bones. Madir would not like it.  

               “You should use the fire to do something about this cold,” their mother said, wrapping her arms around her thin frame. She moved towards the fireplace where here daughters crouched, then paused, hanging back with wariness. She changed her mind—Sif felt the shift in her emotions, carried to her across the wild magic—and sank back into the chair instead.

               Ulfrun called the wild magic, letting the power flow through her. She opened like a rose bud, drinking in the rush of it. Sif breathed heavily, resisting the pull. She cowered in her sister’s presence—her control of the wild magic was too complete. Sif shut her ears to the chatter of the spirits. A lump rose in her throat, fear that Ulfrun has called enough to carry both of them off. Ulfrun closed her eyes, drawing more, until her whole body was white, like the snow outside.

               “Ulfrun!” Sif gasped.

               But Ulfrun didn’t reply. She rose from the hearth, walking straight towards the door. She threw it open, marched determinedly into the howling wind, the driving snow. She did not close the door behind her.

               “Ulfrun!” Sif called again, racing to the doorway, eyes stinging with wet flakes. She watched her sister use the power of the wild magic to quiet the gusts. The wild magic blew against the force of the wind, driving it back, until the air grew still. The snow that had been driving hard as iron a moment before swirled gently down to the earth. All was quiet for a moment. Ulfrun let the magic flow from her, her hair returning to its normal reddish blond. She collapsed into the snow.

               Sif ran from the house without bothering for her cloak. She called to the wild magic. The spirits heard her cries, some wailing, some laughing. She dropped to her knees in the snow where Ulfrun lay. Her hands and face stung from the biting cold.

               “Ulfrun,” she said, stroking her sister’s face. She was pale. Sif pressed two fingers to her neck. Her heart had a steady beat. The wild magic lent her the strength to lift Ulfrun’s body from the snow. She carried her over her shoulder, back to the house, pushing past their shocked madir and into the back of the house. The door opened before her, moved by the power of the wild magic. She laid Ulfrun on their shared bed.

               “Here,” her madir said, coming behind her with her own blanket. She laid it over Ulfrun’s still body. She stirred, groaning. Then she smiled. She smiled. Sif frowned.

               “You are reckless,” she scolded, feeling the frown in her entire body.

               Ulfrun’s smile relaxed. “Not so cold now, though, is it?” she replied, glancing at their madir.

               She scoffed. “Why you girls chose this, I will never understand.”

               “You don’t know the power, Madir,” Ulfrun said, eyes closing from fatigue. “If you did, you wouldn’t have to wonder.”

               Sif kept her mouth shut. Ulfrun was right, of course, but she was still angry with her. She would be carried off if she was not careful—and Ulfrun was rarely careful about anything.

               “The fire is harder to read than the runes, Sif,” Ulfrun said, opening her eyes. “But if you can read the fire, then you can carry more of the wild magic. Then you can command nature the way I just did.”

               Behind her, their madir scoffed. Sif didn’t turn to regard her as she moved away. Their madir shut the door of their tiny bedroom, leaving the sisters alone to talk of the wild magic and the other things she didn’t understand. Sif knew she was not pleased that neither of her daughters would marry, would not bear children, would spend their days communicating with the spirits. He called them the dead. Sif wasn’t sure the spirits were dead women. Some of them were, surely, but some of them seemed wilder than human. Not all of them could be the ghosts of their ancestors.

               “You learned these things about the fire from the Skuld?” Sif asked, curious. The Skuld had never mentioned this advantage to reading the fire.

               “I did not,” Ulfrun said. “The spirits told me.”

               “Ulfrun,” Sif scolded, “you know some of the spirits will try to trick you.”

               “But this wasn’t a lie, Sif,” Ulfrun sat up, threw off the blankets. “They showed me how to do it, and now I can.”

               Sif frowned again, worry crawling through her. “What if they are trying to carry you off?” she asked.

               “Why are you so scared of it?” her sister asked. “Plenty of Bairns are carried off.”

               “And where do they go?” Sif argued. “Nobody knows.”

               “Same as death,” Ulfrun said. Her eyes held a strange expression, a dancing light that Sif did not think came from the reflection of the fire in the bedroom’s hearth.