Crystal and the Shield Maidens

Crystal was treading water next to their houseboat, waiting for her mother to finish climbing up the ladder. She and her mother went out snorkeling or scuba diving at least five times a week. This last month they had been wearing extra-thick cold-water wetsuits, even though the water in southern Florida was quite warm in the summer. They were practicing for their next expedition: recovering artifacts from a fifteen-hundred-year-old Viking longboat at the bottom of a Swedish fjord.

When it was her turn to use the ladder, Crystal climbed up slowly, the weight of the scuba tank threatening to pull the eleven-year-old back into the water. When she was near the top of the ladder, she heard her father call out. Even though his voice was muffled by the wetsuit headgear, she could tell he was excited about something. Dragging herself into the boat, she flopped on the deck and looked around for her mother; all she saw was an air tank, flippers, and a face mask.

Crystal called for her mother to help her get her out of the scuba gear, but she got no response. After calling for help three more times, she got bored and began to wiggle out of the equipment by herself. Given enough time she could figure out all the buckles and straps—it just wasn’t easy. Besides, weren’t mothers supposed to help with things like that? Crystal decided that her mom must be inside tending to her father’s latest emergency. It had better be something important, or she was going to give them a piece of her mind.

Crystal forgot her irritation when she walked into the living room and saw the packet of papers lying on the coffee table. They were the latest sonar readings and robotic submarine pictures of the Viking boat. She closed her eyes and silently thanked her mother for working so hard to get them on this expedition.

Crystal loved exploring and discovering new things and could hardly wait for this adventure to begin. She immediately sat down and started looking through the pictures, imagining what it was going to be like when they were on the research ship anchored out in the fjord. She wouldn’t be allowed to dive all the way down to the Viking boat, but she would definitely be in the water as they brought the artifacts up in baskets. She would see them before anyone onboard the ship did.

Then her parents walked into the living room together and stared at her with strangely gloomy faces. Her father looked like he had eaten a few too many bean burritos and was struggling not to stink up the room. Her mother hadn’t followed the usual routine of brushing out her curly brown hair the moment she took off the wetsuit hood, so her hair stuck out in all directions. She looked like a cartoon character who had stuck her finger in a light socket.

They kept looking at Crystal, not speaking, their mouths starting to form words then shutting before any sound could escape. An icy chill ran up Crystal’s spine. This behavior was not normal for them. She could tell that something was wrong.

“Crystal,” her mother finally began, “you better sit down. That was your brother on the phone.”

Oh God! Something must be wrong with Eric! She loved her brother. He was thirteen years older than her, but he had always been kind to her and treated her with patience and respect. When she was little, he was the one who read her a bedtime story at night and got her out of the crib in the morning. When she got older, he was the one who showed her how to swim, how to canoe, and all of the other essential lessons her parents were too busy to teach her. Heck, he even taught her how to tie her shoes. She thought he might just be the best big brother in the whole world.

She still remembered the day he got on the plane and flew off to college. Of course, she didn’t understand what college was back then. All she knew was that her big brother was going away and that he wouldn’t be there to help her or protect her or teach her anymore. And then her father made it all worse by trying to leave the airline terminal before the plane took off, without letting her cherish every second of being close to Eric. She had screamed and slumped to the floor, fighting her father’s attempts to pry her hands off a chair leg until Eric’s plane pulled away from the gate and she couldn’t see it anymore.

Crystal set down the sonar readings and looked up at her parents, her stomach twisting, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “What is it, Mom? Did he have a car accident? Oh, please, let it be a small accident where no one got hurt.”

She could tell by the look on her mother’s face that she had guessed wrong. Her thoughts went to an even darker place. She began to feel nauseous. “He’s not sick, is he? Does he have cancer or something?”

“Calm down, dear,” said her mother. “It’s nothing bad like that at all. In fact, it’s good news. His university has given him permission to go with us on the Swedish expedition and use it as an independent study credit for his master's degree.”

Crystal could feel the icy chill begin to melt. Her brother was okay. In fact, this would be a really good thing. She would get to spend a whole month with her brother on an exciting adventure.

But she could still see the worry in her parent’s eyes. Something wasn’t right. “So, what aren’t you telling me?”

Crystal hated airplanes, and she hated airline food. The only food they served on this flight that she would even consider eating were the little courtesy bags of peanuts. The very difficult to open little courtesy bags of peanuts. She had struggled with this particular bag of peanuts for what seemed like an hour and could not find a way to open it. Under normal conditions, she would have given up by now and asked her Mother to open the bag for her. But today she hated her mother as much as she hated airline food; which was about as much as she hated her father; which was still less than how much she hated her rotten older brother.

Thinking of her older brother must have given her a burst of strength. The bag tore straight down the middle, sending a shower of salted nuts high into the air to rain down on everyone sitting near her. She wanted to cry. She had worked so hard on opening that stupid bag and ended up with nothing but sour looks from other passengers. It wasn’t fair.

She looked across the aisle and scowled at her family. This whole trip wasn’t fair. She should be the one going on the expedition with her parents, not her brother. She always went with them. Being home schooled meant that she could go along with them whenever they got an assignment, without having to worry about make-up work or attendance rules or special meetings with the principal.

Hadn’t she spent the last month studying about Vikings? Hadn’t she been practicing scuba diving and snorkeling almost every day? Hadn’t she sat at the dining room table with them, studying the pictures and sonar readings? So why wasn’t she the one going with them?

Her brother looked over and smiled at her like nothing had changed in the five years he was gone. Five years of only being with her for a couple of days at Christmas. Five years of making quick little phone calls on her birthday. Didn’t he realize that he had abandoned her for almost half of her life?

Now this near stranger with the fancy college degree had waltzed back into their lives and pushed her aside. Suddenly he was the center of her parent’s attention and she was just a little girl who had to sit quietly on the couch and let the grown-ups talk. Suddenly this creep was going on the Viking expedition and she was getting sent off to a summer camp full of strangers.

And it wasn’t even a good summer camp. It was some stupid Swedish camp full of people who probably ate weird food and couldn’t even speak English. It was obvious that her mother didn’t pick it because it was a good fit for her. She picked it because it was located on the same fjord as the Viking boat so Crystal would be nearby on her birthday. Her mother probably wanted to save long-distance phone charges when the family gave their quick little “Happy Birthday” phone call.

Crystal hated the entire twelve hours she flew in that crowded, uncomfortable plane, and things did not improve for her after they landed. She had to stand in long, slow-moving lines for passport and customs, all the time surrounded by people jabbering in languages she couldn’t understand. She was tired, her feet hurt, she was starving, and her stomach just wouldn’t stop growling.

Then they took a pint-sized plane to some little airport near the fjord. Eric insisted on sitting next to her, and that just made everything worse. He kept pretending that things were like they used to be, back when he cared about her feelings. He tried talking to her. He tried kidding around with her. He even tried to reminisce about the good old days. Crystal just ignored him. She had resigned herself to summer camp and just wanted to get there (and away from her family) as soon as possible.

When they finally got off the horrible little plane, she broke from her family and ran alone to the baggage claim area. Determined not to go hungry on this trip, Crystal had packed an entire suitcase with peanut butter, graham crackers, ramen noodles, and protein bars. The food called to her, shouting her name, promising to fill her mouth with her favorite flavors; her stomach growled even louder than before.

Back in Florida Crystal had marked her two suitcases with bright red tape to make them easy to find, but now she only saw one of them. After searching the conveyor belt three times, each time more carefully than the previous, she realized that her food cache was not there. Her clothes were there, her parent’s bags were there, and even her rat-fink brother’s suitcase was there. But her food was missing.

She spun quickly around, instinctively looking for her mother; she would know what to do. Then, at the far end of the terminal, she saw that her luck really was stuck on ‘Bad’. A tall man with long dark hair was ripping the red tape off her bag as he quickly walked away from baggage claim. Crystal took two steps towards him and then stopped. He was only about five feet from the exit, and she knew there was no way she could catch up with him. She was going to call out for help but didn’t know how to say, “Stop that man—he’s taken my suitcase of food!” in Swedish.

Crystal wanted to scream and slump to the floor and cry and hold onto a chair leg until someone brought her something to eat. Right now, she’d even settle for a pepperoni pizza with anchovies, and she hated anchovies.

Just then a beautiful girl’s face suddenly appeared in front of Crystal. It looked like it was surrounded by flames, as if she were emerging from a fireball. She had piercing blue eyes and a friendly smile that flashed beautiful white teeth. Her skin was freckled, but the freckles just added to her natural beauty.

Then the face spoke. It had a melodic voice that made her talking sound almost like a song. “Hello, Crystal,” the face said in lightly accented English. “Are you having a problem?”