The following day, Maddie woke up early in the morning. She made herself ready and went to check if she could find Jörmun asleep on the sofa.

However, as she reached the dining area, she noticed nobody around. A covered plate on the table with a small note caught her attention.

“We already had breakfast. Please join us in the workshop once you are done.

Jörmungandr”

“What a neat handwriting,” Maddie whispered to self as she read the note once again. She stuffed the small paper in her pocket, then revealed the contents of the plate, which consisted of a cold omelette, a slice of bread and some smoked salmon fillet. She nodded appreciatively at the sight and eventually sat herself to eat.

The girl wondered what was the situation like in the workshop, where she was being waited for. She pondered upon how Birger was feeling about things, now that he had the chance to sleep over the events. She could only hope for the best, even if her heart feared for the worst.

Once done, she washed her empty dish and made her way to the secondary building through the crisp air of the morning. Despite of them already shily stepping into summer, she couldn’t help but shiver when she had the first contact with the outdoors.

Maddie walked to the workshop and paused when she heard Jörmun speaking to the man. She leaned closer to the wooden door, separating her from the rest, and listened.

“I find it remarkable how you managed to restore the wood back to this state. If only the people at the museum knew- I am not sure if they’d dare to put you into trouble or decide to use your talent for the best of their discoveries,” Birger laughed.

“Well, that would risk the ship being taken away from me once again. I wouldn’t want for that to happen. Would you?”

“I- I don’t think I would even grasp at the idea of stealing it in first place.”

“I don’t think it can even be called stealing, if I am only taking back what’s mine.”

“That’s a fair point, but you’d have to make that clear with them and I have a feeling they wouldn’t take it as lightly as I did when you presented me with it.”

“Why didn’t you make a fuss out of it? It had me curious.”

“There was something in me that didn’t let those feelings flow.”

“You’re a kind man, Birger. When I will be reunited with my father, I will make sure someone will write a poem to praise your name and doings.”

Maddie’s eyebrows twitched up at the sound of Jörmun’s words. He surely did not shy away from details and grand promises. She had never been offered to have created for her any artistic opera to praise her near-death sacrifice, which she made for his escapades.

However, just as she drifted away with her thoughts, she failed to hear the footsteps approach and only awkwardly discovered herself caught eavesdropping by the door.

“Good morning!” Jörmun greeted her with a broad smile. “Come in, I was just showing Birger the additional mending I was able to do for the Skuldelev.”

“Oh, were you?” she followed him inside the workshop, partly still annoyed with what she previously heard, and partly wondering if Jörmun knew all along that she had been listening.

---

A few days after the required work evaluation, the group came back together to conclude their thoughts on the following steps in order to finish rebuilding the Skuldelev.

“After a careful investigation, I have approximated that four months is the time I need to fill in the gaps and make your boat able to float once again. I could do with a bit more time, but this is the best I could come up with.”

“Sounds great to me!” Jörmun exclaimed, satisfied with the news. He caught Maddie smiling at the update too; she seemed less tense in regards to Birger.

“However, I did not count any potential repairs that the sail may need. While your magic may be able to resolve bits, as it did with the rest of the boat, I am unsure whether it will be enough or not.”

“First off, we don’t have the sail. Not yet,” Jörmun put out his fingers as he counted the facts. “Second, myself and Maddie could take care of that if we find it in the meantime, while you can continue your work on the body of the Skuldelev.”

“That would be an ideal scenario.”

“What would I need to do exactly?” the girl asked, confused with the sudden task she had been assigned with.

“Stitch and sew,” Jörmun shrugged, unsure whether that was truly the only repair needed for it or not. He watched Maddie accept the task with a quite indifferent nod; it sounded like something she could safely deal with.

“Do you know where the mast was found?” Maddie asked Birger while browsing her notebook, where she kept all the information they put together so far.

“My first guess would naturally be that it was located where the body of the boat was, however, if that was the case, then it would’ve been at the museum and not lost in a small village, between the fjords.”

“The same goes for the stempost. We found it in the forest,” Jörmun added.

“I intend to believe that wherever it may be, it has to be somewhere not too far away. You didn’t travel north for any bit of the boat, did you?” Birger asked and looked at the pair in turns; they shook their heads in response.

“We will try to look over what we have again and see where we can pick it up from there,” Maddie suggested. She saw no better alternative for the time being.

“Would it be all right with you if we left in the following weeks to look for the sail?” Jörmun asked the man, who agreed with a humm.

“I have plenty of work to busy my days with,” he chuckled, thinking of the half-done state of the vessel. “I have shared with you my phone number,” Birger checked with Maddie. “Should you need help to carry it with the car, if you find it, please let me know.”

“That’s very kind of you, but we have other means of carrying objects of questionable sizes,” Jörmun smirked at the man. Birger recalled how his own work was now stored in a toy worth version of the real replica.

“Well then, it sounds to me as if you have everything you need.”

“We will be sure to reach out if we need your support,” Maddie smiled, not wanting to make the man feel as if he had his helping hand rejected. He was doing enough for them already. He even offered them the bedroom he shared previously, so that they wouldn’t need to pay any accommodation for as long as the Skuldelev was in the works; the kindest offer for Maddie’s bank account, which was steadily losing all the savings she had.

---

Later that day, after bringing in everything else from the room they rented in the nearby village, Maddie and Jörmun came together to look over a physical map that Birger had lingering in a dusty drawer.

“Let’s use these coins to pin down where we picked the other parts from. Maybe this will lead us somewhere,” Maddie suggested as she took out from her wallet a few pence.

“We retrieved the body of the ship from Oslo, but that’s not where it was originally found,” Jörmun pursed his lips as the girl placed the coin there.

“That’s right. Let me check where it was originally found,” she took out her phone for a quick search. She then adjusted the position of the coin to the correct place on the map. “This should be it.”

“Then, we found the stempost around here,” Jörmun placed another coin in a mountain area, near where he could recall the placement of the old wooden cabin.

“And the mast here,” Maddie concluded with the last location, which was their current one. However, it posed the same trouble as the body of the Skuldelev; it was not truly the place where it has been taken from. That was long forgotten by time.

Even with all the coins spread across the map, no matter how accurately they may have reflected the findings, there was still nothing that could indicate them the path to the next and final piece of the puzzle.

“What could someone do with an old sail?” Maddie thought out loud.

“My worst fear is that they tore it apart and dispersed it throughout the land or even beyond the borders.”

“That would be bad, wouldn’t it?” she sighed and threw a quick glance to the other. Jörmun didn’t seem pleased with the possibility. “Are you sure it wouldn’t work if we were to have a new sail?”

“Each part of the boat must have at least one bit of its original remains in order to make it work.”

“What if we really won’t manage to find any of it? It’s cloth. It could’ve decayed long ago.”

“It’s Asgardian cloth. It’s remarkably resistant.”

“All right, let’s say it’s somewhere in this world, but we don’t know where and we won’t be able to locate it in a timely manner. What then? Everything else falls to pieces?” Maddie pressed on, despite noticing the reluctance on Jörmun’s side. He didn’t seem ready to accept such a scenario. She could even read a trace of concern in his eyes, despite his efforts of trying to mask it.

“We will have to find it. At least a piece of it,” he emphasised, with an subtle urgency in his voice.

“No pressure at all, working against a ticking clock.”

Maddie wanted to understand more of it, since Jörmun was letting out only what was convenient for him. She was aware that he needed the ship to set sail at the Midwinter Solstice, but she was never given to learn the underlying details. As far as she could tell, it was never as simple as he made it sound like.

“Oh, spare me of your obvious observations,” Jörmun clicked his tongue and with a half eye-roll he stood from the table. He could tell where Maddie was headed with her remark, but he didn’t feel like sharing any additional information. That would’ve only helped unleash yet another avalanche of questions from her side.

“Well, excuse me for trying to help you with a limited amount of information. Did you know that for the most part, it feels as if I am only following your lead by chasing a shadow that keeps on turning at every corner? It’s frustrating.”

“Your attitude is frustrating,” he snapped.

“If you were neck deep into trouble as I am, then maybe you’d understand better why anything revolving around our mission is so hard to deal with. Unknowns over unknowns! Questions pilling up! And you’re just dismissing me as if I am the torn around here,” Maddie stood up as well, as if willing to make herself heard better.

“You believe you have it hard?” Jörmun’s eyes narrowed as he approached the girl. “Hel is not even your family to begin with; if she is gone, it won’t be you that’s responsible for it. The stolen Skuldelev? You didn’t even touch it at the museum; you’re safe from any trouble minding it. What else is on your plate that is potentially so heavy for you to chew through?!”

“You’re such a headache, Jörmun! You simply don’t get it that in this world things are not as simple as, I am bored of this problem so I will shove it away as if it never existed.”

Jörmun’s jaw clenched at the sound of her words, while a heavy load of feelings filled his heart and mind. “You should be grateful nobody in Midgard is having the power or authority to do that. You have the chance to struggle and fight against whatever upsets you.”

“A true blessing. Born to struggle. What a life worth of envy, isn’t it?!” she scoffed.

“Shut up, Madeleine.”

“This is getting serious. Are we now using our full names, Jörmungandr Lokison?” she crossed her arms with an attitude, while a smile actually fought its way through to be displayed on her lips. “A true pity you don’t know my last name.”

“Bellamy?”

Maddie gasped. She quickly tried to recall if she ever said her name in full in his presence. She never aimed to keep it a secret, but it was odd enough that he was aware of it. Did he, by any chance, looked through her belongings?

“Is this a wild guess?” she tried to play it off with a small laugh.

“I registered you at the hospital. They found you through your medical… What was it called?”

“Insurance?”

“Yes.”

“You knew all along,” she concluded in a whisper.

“What a shocking information to be presented with,” he licked a smile off his lips, thankful that the tension dispersed. As much as he disliked Maddie’s panic exceeding limits, he didn’t enjoy himself having arguments with her either.

“It simply didn’t cross my mind that you needed that. Thanks for sorting it out back then.”

“It’s all right,” Jörmun said as he sat himself back at the table. They were getting nowhere either with their searches on the map, nor with their heated discussions. He could only tell that both of them were beginning to pile up considerably on the troubling thoughts; it was the least they needed while navigating mysterious territories.