Game One. The rink is a rectangle of light under the star-filled sky.
Team Isobel line up in white jerseys, the black hockey pants, and white stockings. Louhi are dressed in purple and green, like Jokerit Helsinki used to wear in the Nineties. Tuula Leskinen skates forward and sings the Finnish anthem. The other Finns join her. Of course the Canadians don’t understand a bit of it. Finnish is neither Germanic nor Latin and has no recognisible words, except sauna, but how often does that come up? The language tends to strike non-speakers as otherworldly, especially when sung. Tolkien based Elvish on it for a reason. When they’re done Jacinthe feels a shiver. She turns to Kaitlyn and says, “That was spooky.”
Kaitlyn agrees, making a note. She has a large sheaf of papers in front of her. She has done a lot of preparation.
“Dead air is death,” she tells Jacinthe. “Think you can handle colour commentary? You don’t have to call the plays. Just talk about context.”
“I better see those notes.”
“Okay. Shhh. Here I go. Hello, and welcome hockey fans in Canada, the internet, and ships at sea. We’re gathered here at the Silver Lake Ice Arena in … Sweden … to watch the first game in the championship series between Team Isobel and the Daughters of Louhi. I’m Kaitlyn Abbas, your play-by-play announcer, with colour commentator Jacinthe Bailey.”
“Hello.”
“We’re just waiting for the two teams to line up and referee Agnes Blanchard to drop the first puck. The opening line-up for the Louhi squad are Raikannen, Helminen, Momonen, Jarvenpaa, Honkavarra and Ek in goal. For Team Isobel we have Wood at centre, MacDonnell, and some other names I’ll mention later because the puck is dropped! Wood takes the face-off, sends it back to Spenser, up to Gallant, who gets the zone. She waits for Butler, a pass, Butler shoots! Oh! High and wide. And now the puck is in the snow. They’re looking for it. And, so, Jacinthe, what a beautiful outdoor venue.”
“It certainly is, Kaitlyn. It’s one of the premier outdoor facitities in use.”
“It reminds me of the open air rink at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Olympics, without the Adirondack Mountains of course.”
“How?”
“I read about it in a book!”
The puck is located, play resumes, and Team Isobel goes on to a 5 to 3 victory. The players shake hands and everybody agrees that it’s a stunning success. Agnes makes a note to get more pucks. Louise skates over to Jacinthe and thanks her warmly for reviving her interest in F5. Hanne talks to Agnes, then comes over and congratulates Jacinthe for helping the Finns feel so much at home. Josey skates around playing with the puck while this is going on, then skates up and ruffles Jacinthe’s hair with her gloved hand, for no apparent reason. Jacinthe watches her skate away, wondering.
Game Two. This one gets off to a good start for the Isobels. They rapidly put three past Ek, who is clearly off her game. After potting the third Emily returns to the bench pointing to herself and holding up her index finger, meaning she now has the individual goal-scoring lead. Josey says, “Team play, babes, team play.”
One of the factors differentiating SLHL hockey from most other varieties is the absence of boards. No boards, no boarding. So when Henrietta bee-stings Marita into the snowbank Agnes is forced to improvise a new penalty called snowbanking. The signal is a violent shoving motion.
Henrietta: “I never heard of it!”
Agnes: “I’m makin’ it up! Get in the box!”
Louhi go on the power play and score.
Josey glides over to Agnes and asks, “Are there any more new penalties I should know about?”
Agnes: “Unsportsmanlike conduct covers sarcastic tones.”
The Finns dig down and come back to tie it. The Isobels spend most of the third period in their own end, blocking shots, and taking delay of game penalties for chipping the puck into the snow. When Jacinthe blows the play dead at the expiry of time the Isobels collapse and congratulate each other on the tie.
Agnes says, “Shoot-out.”
Josey drops her stick and skates up to her.
“What the fuck?!”
“’In the case of a tie, a shoot-out will ensue.’”
“Don’t act like you’re quoting. You just made it up!”
“Am I league president or not?”
Josey skates away, looks over her shoulder and says, “I voted for Emily!”
The Isobels win the shoot-out on a nice deke by Irene, but they’re not pleased.
In Game Three Hanne shows why she got that job in Switzerland. She puts one past Jodi on the first rush and goes on to score seven, surpassing Emily in a single period. Under the stress of getting slaughtered the Isobels begin to show some of their internal divisions. On one shift change the three Isobel forwards come off and F5 jump on the ice. Agnes whistles the play dead and assesses a penalty for too many women.
Josey to Emily: “What were you doing?”
“We’re a unit.”
“You’re a unit.”
The two make a tight, threatening orbit around each other before their friends guide them away.
Kaitlyn: “Isobels evincing a modicum of dissension. Jacinthe.”
Jacinthe: “Josey’s the captain. She’s got to figure out a way to bring those players together, not inculcate unrest.”
Kaitlyn: “Word up.”
Louhi wins 10 to 1.
The next day Kaitlyn comes into Jacinthe’s room and offers her one of the earphones from her iPod. Jacinthe puts it in her ear.
“Listen to this.”
A huge choir is performing a song in Finnish. “What am I listening to?”
“That’s the Finnish national anthem.”
“But. That’s not what they sang before the game.”
“No, it is not. They sang something else. We have a theory.”
“We? Who?”
“Us. The coven.”
Jacinthe blinks, catching up. “What theory?”
“They were laying a spell.”
Jacinthe goes in search of Agnes, finally tracking her down in a quiet corner of the library.
“You never appreciate time until you don’t have enough of it,” says Agnes with a pencil in her mouth and a couple of coloured pens stuck into her braided hair. She’s surrounded by writing pads and heaps of open books.
“Agnes, I think the Finns may be cheating.”
“No, no, Hanne is allowed. That’s the whole point.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s. Well. We think. Kaitlyn thinks they may be using sorcery.”
“Sorcery? Did you say sorcery?”
“I know it sounds crazy.”
“If they’re using sorcery I’ll knock their heads off! Where’s Kaitlyn? I want to talk to her!”
Agnes storms back to residence, Jacinthe in tow. She charges into Kaitlyn’s room.
“There better be something to this.”
Kaitlyn, Fiona, Rhiannon, and Beth look up from their studying. Fiona pulls a book from the shelf and says, “Watch this.”
She arranges an assortment of sprigs on the open book, then places a little maneki neko figurine in their midst. She holds up the book and sings the anthem the Finns have been using. The figurine turns into a black cat, which takes one look around, dives off the book and out the door.
"Some kind of transmutational spell at work. We need to go out to the lake.”
Agnes: “Jacinthe, call a cab.”
They walk down to the lake. Tuula has been working on the ice but is not around.
Jacinthe: “Do we have to do anything? Join hands or stamp a pentagram in the snow or anything?”
Kaitlyn: “No, it’s all set up. Fiona just has to drink the potion.”
Fiona brings a vial out of her pocket and pulls the cork.
Jacinthe: “Phew. What’s in that?”
Fiona: “Oh, this and that, some of it from the dining hall. Squirty mustard, for one.”
Agnes: “Mustard is pagan?”
Fiona: “Depends how you use it. Anyway, here goes.”
She steps between the other three and the lake, drinks the potion, and makes a red hot pepper sauce face. The wind rises and blows her wavy locks around. They wait.
“Here it comes,” she says. She’s gradually starting to darken, her red hair fading to jet, her sunburn-prone Celtic skin going charcoal grey with black freckles. Presently she’s completely dark and featureless, like a Fiona-shaped movie screen. Then her silhouette slowly lightens. She clarifies into a window. They gather together and peer through to the scene beyond.
“Wow.”
The view of Silver Lake through Fiona is in some ways the same as the one around her. The lay of the land is the same. But instead of nestling in a hollow among hayfields and farmhouses, the lake is set deep in a forest. The forest is chiefly spruce and pine, and seems to extend beyond the horizon. And what’s more, the tree tops are sprinkled with light, as if the constellations had swung too low and got snagged in the branches. A galaxy of starlight surrounds the outdoor rink.
Kaitlyn: “Oh, yeah, enchanted for sure.”
Agnes: “How are the Finns doing this? Is it affecting the outcomes? Am I going to have to disqualify them?”
Kaitlyn: “They don’t seem to be constraining the other persons’ actions, or giving themselves superpowers. I don’t get any kind of a curse off this. I think they’re just trying to make themselves feel like they’re in their home rink.”
Jacinthe: “Magical home ice advantage?”
Kaitlyn: “Pretty much.”
Agnes: “Well, I’m going to allow it.”
Jacinthe: “What?”
Agnes: “This is no different than packing the stands with your own fans.”
Jacinthe: “But—“
“My mind’s made up.”
Fiona: “Good. Because I think I’m going to—“
She barfs.
The others: “Oooh!”
The vision fades and Fiona begins to regain her natural appearance, though in a considerably partied-out version.
Fiona: “My stomach did not care for that potion. Glegh!”
She barfs again.
“Oooh! Yuck!”
Fiona gasps for breath, bent double. “Brugh!”
More barf.
Kaitlyn rubs Fiona’s back and says, “Hey, look!”
Each puddle of barf has sprouted into a patch of wildflowers.
Kaitlyn: “That’s magic.”
Fiona pulls a dandelion out of her mouth and says, “I am going to be so hungover tomorrow.”
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