The Monstrous Child (16 page)

37

FREYA

SMELLED HER FIRST.

I smelled the rich overpowering whiff of life. So did the restless corpses, agitated that flesh was coming. Garm barked madly.

Bit late
, I thought,
you useless wolf
.

She came, disguised as a falcon, flying down inside Hekla, the volcano which is one of Hel’s, shall we say, lesser-used entrances. I felt the whoosh of her wings, heard the
flapping falling, the great
thunk
of her landing. I thought,
Oh gods, here we go again
. Another
shaman’s spirit taking on a bird shape to try to wrench some dead soul from me.

Then I heard her footsteps thudding across Modgud’s echoing bridge, and I realised that this was no shaman’s spirit but a mortal.

An actual mortal. The first and only living mortal ever to come here. A living, breathing person. Who was she? Who had sent her? I did not know what to think. How had the pulse managed it? Clearly she had unusual powers.

So for which corpse was the mortal going to beg and plead? I didn’t care: the answer would of course be no. She wouldn’t be returning to Midgard anyway.

I heard her clatter across my threshold like a bear sniffing fish. This mortal was either very brave or very stupid. I sent Lazybones to bring her to me. At the speed that old woman moves, the driftwood was in for a long wait.

As I lay hidden in my chamber, I heard voices. The tones grated on my ears, so long accustomed to silence. The mortal must have spoken to the corpses, and, boy, were they taking advantage. Snippets of conversation drifted to me.

I heard her pleading to know where she could find me.

Let her wait.

Let her enjoy her last moments of life.

38

DRESSED FOR THE TOMB

HE MORTAL STOOD
outside my bed hangings. I heard her loud breaths, felt her fear. She stood there, still, uncertain, until I put my hand through the curtains and beckoned her in. I wanted to get this over with.

I lay there, eyes closed. The odour of her living body repelled me. Finally, she spoke.

‘I’m looking for Hel,’ she said. ‘I need to speak to her urgently.’

Yeah well, the time-trapped are always in a rush. And what arrogance for driftwood to say it needed to speak to me.

‘Excuse me,’ she spoke again, ‘I need to see Hel.’

Her voice was light, insistent. The creature was young. Very young. What madness possessed her to come here? How had she survived the journey?

Whoever she was, she didn’t recognise me. The mortal is face to face with Death, and doesn’t know it.

I opened my eyes.

‘I heard you the first time.’

The girl’s face went white with shock.

I stared at her battered, bruised cheeks, her mottled-ivory arms and hands, at the ivory creeping up to her throat, her filthy frosty clothes and scratched legs. Her hot breath.

This was the first living mortal I’d ever seen. The noise she’d made entering my hall made me imagine
she was troll-sized. Yet she was very small, puny even.
One-Eye had nothing to be proud of if this was his best attempt at creation
, I thought. Her age? I’m hopeless at guessing ages – not really a skill I need, is it? – but I didn’t think she was much more than a child. Like me, in fact. I had a sudden sense that if I’d been mortal and able-limbed, I could have been her. I pushed this thought away, as it served nothing.

‘Why are you here before your time?’ I asked.

The girl nervously ran her fingers through her curly hair, tugging it. She began to babble. The dying Odin had sent her (I trembled just hearing his hateful name), blah blah blah, she was trying to rescue Idunn. She’d turn into ivory and be frozen forever if she didn’t succeed. Loki had …

I might have guessed the wolf’s father was the reason for her coming.

So she wasn’t here to whine for her mama.

That made a change.

I watched her shivering in the cold, wrapping her arms around herself. She wasn’t dressed for the tomb.

‘I know Loki is here somewhere,’ she said. ‘He stole Idunn. I must find her and bring her back to Asgard. The gods are dying. The world is dying. I am dying.’

I smiled inside. If only I could make the world die faster.

But while she spoke a memory stirred in the back of my mind that I couldn’t quite grasp, something someone had told me long ago …

Then I remembered. The seeress. She’d warned me a mortal hero would come. That the hero would somehow affect me, affect the End of Days.

This little …
girl
couldn’t be that hero. How was that possible? An ugly mortal girl recklessly named after the goddess Freyja but nothing like her?

And yet Odin had sent this child. Obviously senility had affected his judgement … and his eyesight.

I cursed the seeress for telling me too little.

The girl held out her ivory arms. Clearly she was under some kind of curse. The Old Wizard, most likely. Join the party, mortal.

‘Help me,’ she said.

Help her? I’d sooner chop off my hand. I sat up a little and the blanket slipped, revealing my oozing legs. I saw her face: revolted and horrified, her eyes sliding away from mine as I covered my body again.

‘Not so pretty, am I?’ I said.

That shut her up.

You want your mother back? Tough. Your husband? Too bad. Your friend, your granny, your child? Yah boo sucks to you. Nothing doing.

But Idunn? She wanted
Idunn
? Did the mortal have
any
idea what she was asking? The presumption, the arrogance, was breathtaking. I’ll send the driftwood to Nidhogg and end this now, I thought, before the begging and pleading starts.

But, as I moved, the bed curtains parted and Loki sauntered in. He made himself comfortable at the end of my bed, as if I were his poorly guest and he was checking to see how I was.

The girl’s face went purple with anger. She looked as if she’d like to rip his eyes out.

I had ordered him to keep away from me, and here he was entering my chamber at will.

How dare he disobey?

‘Who said you could come into my bed closet?’ My voice was ice.

Loki laughed. ‘I go where I please.’

‘Not here you don’t,’ I said. ‘Hel is
my
kingdom. You’re here because I allow it.’

Dad’s viper eyes flickered.

The mortal began to scream at him.

‘Where is Idunn? Give her back to me!’

‘Who’s the pulse?’ he said, jerking his thumb at the shivering girl.

‘You know perfectly well who she is and why she’s here,’ I said.

Loki pretended he’d heard nothing.

‘I’ll show her out,’ he said, then looked at Freya. ‘You don’t belong here.’

‘
You
get out,’ I ordered. ‘Leave us alone. I don’t often get to speak to someone with skin on their
bones.’ I would decide what happened to the mortal, not him.

‘Where is Idunn?’ screeched the girl. She was so fixed on her mission she didn’t even notice her reprieve.

‘Safe,’ said Loki.

‘Everyone is dying because of you,’ said the mortal.

‘Good,’ said Dad. She shrank from him, trying not to touch the curtains, trying not to touch my bed.

‘I know what my fate holds,’ he said. ‘A man’s fate should be hidden, but I know mine. One day the gods will catch me, bind me to three sharp stones with the guts of my own son, and a snake will drip poison on my face until the End of Days. Drip. Drip. Drip. Who wouldn’t do whatever they had to do, to avoid such a fate?’

No wonder he’d stolen Idunn. Had to hand it to Dad, he always knew how to justify himself.

‘Bring Idunn back to Asgard,’ the girl said. ‘The gods will be grateful.’

‘No chance,’ said Loki.

My mind began to wander as they argued, away from their story. I kept seeing my father shackled and I longed to make this happen.

‘All the gods will be dead soon,’ Loki continued. ‘Then I’ll return to Asgard and thwart my fate. I’m writing a new ending. No being chained to a rock with poison dripping on my face. Just me. One god. One all-powerful, immortal god.’

A new ending. I tucked the phrase away in my word hoard, to consider later. I’m not stupid. When the gods died, Dad’s take-over plans wouldn’t include me. Most likely he’d keep me trapped here.

‘I hate the gods,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t mean I want
you
ruling, Dad. Now leave us alone and get out of my hall.’

My father bowed. ‘Whatever you say, Queen of the Dead,’ he said. He edged round the bed and went to the chamber’s entrance. Then he turned. ‘What in the name of the accursed gods do you think you’re doing, you ugly little troll?’ he hissed at me. His red and green eyes
glared.

‘I rule here, Father.’

‘Why not keep the mortal if you like her so much?’

I laughed.

‘I can wait. Let her have her brief moment of light and warmth. Everyone ends up here in the end.’ Then I turned over and faced the wall.

Loki slipped out. I knew he’d be waiting nearby, watching and waiting to strike.

I turned back and looked at the little girl. I’d used her against Dad: now he was gone, her usefulness to me was over.

‘Will you help me?’ asked Freya.

I paused for a long time. The mortal never took her pleading eyes off my face.

‘How’d you like to spend eternity lying in a sickbed hung with curtains called Glimmering Misfortune, and be waited on by two servants called Slowpoke and Lazybones who move so slowly that they might as well be dead again because no one would notice?’ I said,
raising my creaking body to sit up. ‘I never get out, I have no friends – in fact, everyone hates me. I have to spend my time with gangrenous, rotting raven food. I just lie here all day waiting for a cup of wine, then all night waiting for it to be removed.’

The girl sat there, listening. Her face in the shadowy candlelight was masked.

‘I’m glad the gods are dying. They kidnapped me when I was a child, then Odin took one look at me and hurled me here, into this dark world below the worlds. “You’ll like it,” he said. “You’ll be queen down there.” Well, I don’t like it. Not at all. So, no, I won’t help you. Now go away.’