The Monstrous Child Read online

  For my son, Joshua

  As far from monstrous as it is possible to be

  The sunflowers weave a golden clime,

  As though their season had no date,

  Nod to the iron shoes of Time,

  And play with his immortal hate.

  W. B. YEATS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part 1: Jotunheim

  1. Corpse Baby

  2. Bad Blood

  3. I Am Named

  4. Who Hasn’t Met a Giant With Three Heads?

  5. Unwrap the Bandages

  6. Last Supper

  7. Kidnap

  Part 2: Asgard

  8. The Sky Fortress

  9. Judgement

  10. I Allow Myself to Dream

  11. Baldr, My Baldr

  12. He Likes Me, I Know He Does

  13. One Day He’d Be Mine

  14. Crèche of Horrors

  15. Death Tumble

  Part 3: Niflheim

  16. Queen of the Dead

  17. Dragon

  18. Definitely Dead

  19. Green Like Gangrene, Blue Like Bruises

  20. Rain-Damp Sleet-Cold Hall

  21. Hel’s History of Midgard

  22. The Servant Problem

  23. Your Wolf-Gracious Host

  24. Putrid Time

  25. Modgud

  26. The Seeress

  27. Life Is Hel

  28. Dance Macabre

  29. The Mother of Monsters

  30. Boo Hoo for You

  31. Earthquake

  32. Welcome

  33. The World Weeps

  34. Let Hel Hold What She Has

  Part 4: Shining Harm

  35. Visitors

  36. I’ve Missed You

  37. Freya

  38. Dressed for the Tomb

  39. I’m a Monster

  40. Sickbed

  Part 5: Epilogue

  41. Ragnarok: the Doom of the Gods

  42. Brave New World

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  PART 1

  1

  OU’D THINK AFTER my brother the snake was born they’d have stopped at one. But no.

  Next was the wolf, Fenrir.

  And then me.

  How Mum must have hoped, when my top half slithered out, that it was third time lucky. A human head. Praise the Blood Mother. Pink cheeks. Pale skin. No scales! Two arms. Ten little fingers at the end of two dimpled hands. Oh, thank you Blood Mother, thank you Hekla the fierce one, Earth Spewer, Ancestors all. Finally, finally, I am blessed. Oh, sound the horns, bang the drums. My darling, my baby, my beauty, almost there.

  Panting. Straining. Pushing. A little god? A little goddess? Who cared, just so long as –

  And then slither. Plop. Out I come, dangling my rotting legs. Corpse baby. Carrion tot. The third monster.

  Mum screamed. Cursed the Earth Spewer and the Sun Swallower.

  Dad – well, Dad probably would have screamed too, if he’d been around. Which he wasn’t.

  And me? Yeah, I screamed. Everyone else was – why shouldn’t I join the party?

  I slipped from her hands and smacked onto the rocky ground. Ouch. Ow. Mum kept on screaming and wailing.

  I remember everything. I remember it all.

  What’s she howling about? I thought. I’m the one flopped on the floor.

  Then rough grey fur. Growling.

  A tongue licked me. I flinched. Fen’s iron breath chilling my face. That’s fitting, isn’t it, that my first smell is putrid.

  ‘Leave it, Fenrir,’ said Mum. (Thanks, Mum!) She tossed my wolf brother a bloody haunch of meat. He tore into it with frantic whimperings. I heard the hideous squelchy sound of raw flesh being ripped from bone.

  Mum looked down at me, then turned away. Her tears dribbled onto my face.

  It’s not all about you, Mum. What do you think it’s like for me? Okay, I didn’t think that then. I’m a goddess, but even I was born a mewling infant.

  I lay naked on my back and looked up at the rocky ceiling, black with smoke. This is my cold, dark, noisy, heavy world. Screaming. Slobbering. Could be worse. Could be better. What did I know then?

  Each of you must endure the ending of life in this world.

  But not me.

  Time’s iron feet don’t trample over me. Time is what I have. Time without end. A long, dull, everlasting eternity. I live in time and out of time. Time for me stands still.

  I am Hel, Goddess of the Dead.

  This is my story. This is my word-shrine. This is my testament. I don’t know who will be alive to hear it, but I want to tell my saga. For too long others have spoken for me; now I speak for myself.

  I wasn’t always lying silent and rotting on a stinking bed in the Underworld. Listening to snakes hissing and corpses shrieking.

  I am telling about the time before time, when Midgard was new and shiny and unpeopled, Asgard was half built and the gods settling into their kingdom, drawing boundaries, establishing their cruel dominion over the rest of us.

  I didn’t start off hating everything.

  I liked flowers.

  I liked trees.

  I liked mountains.

  I liked glaciers.

  It was just mortals I couldn’t stand. And the gods. And my family.

  Oh.

  Just one more thing. Before you reject me, before you hate me, remember: I never asked to be Hel’s queen.

  2

  O WHAT DO YOU need to know about my rancid family?

  My mother was a giantess. My father was a god. The gods are on top. Number one. Top dogs. Pack leaders. Goddesses are number two. All giants are far, far beneath them. Muck on their shoes.

  But lots of gods marry giantesses, have children with giantesses. Happens all the time. No one thinks anything of it. Gods can do whatever they like.

  In fact, Odin’s mother was a giantess. So when Odin gets all high and mighty, and refers to the gods as The Sacred People, and giants as so much vermin good only for building walls and having their heads bashed in, you just remember all that giant blood coursing in what he likes to think of as his godly veins.

  The god Frey’s wife was a giantess. Thor’s mother, Jord, was – no prizes for guessing but you got it – a giantess. Are we starting to see a little pattern here? The great giant-killer, the great skull-smasher Thor, is half giant himself. He was probably braining his cousins and aunties with his hateful hammer without even realising it.

  But goddesses do not, I repeat, do not, fall in love with giants or have children with giants.

  Until one did.

  Yup. My grandmother. My father’s mother. (Thanks, Gran.)

  Granny Laufey was a goddess (keep up). Skinny and bony, so she was nicknamed Nal the Needle. Mum always spat when she said her name.

  ‘Nal’s not coming near you,’ said Mum. ‘Stuck-up sow. I can’t bear the way she looks down on me. I never asked for Loki’s attentions. She can stick to her own and leave us be.’

  Got that? It’s important. Loki’s mother, my granny, was a goddess and his father was a giant. Oops. Wrong way round. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. Because then whose side are you on? The gods? Or the giants? You’re betwixt and between. Children are always meant to follow their father’s clan. My grandmother’s lapse made Dad an enemy within Asgard. Take a bow, Granny.

  What’s that saying? Better to have your enemy inside the tent pissing out, then outside pissing in.

  Doesn’t always work.

  So let’s get this straight, once and for all.

  If your dad’s a GOD and your mum’s a GIANTESS – good. That�
�s how it should be. Welcome to Asgard and here’s your gleaming hall. Just look at that stuck-up giantess Gerd when she flounced off to marry the god Frey. They couldn’t open the Asgard gates fast enough for her and her wealth.

  But …

  If your dad’s a GIANT and your mum’s a GODDESS – bad.

  In fact very bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.

  So bad it only happened once.

  And so my fate was sealed. I had bad blood. Bad blood from my mother. Worse blood from my dad. Can’t really argue with that. I mean, just look at my brothers.

  3

  OU STILL WITH ME? Good. Hang in there – it’s worth the journey. Just think of all those foolish mortals who try to unearth the secrets of the dead, and lucky you – you get them without risking your life sneaking down beneath the World Tree before your days and deeds are finished.

  So where was I? I’m born, I’m naked, I’m lying on the freezing ground looking up into frightened faces. I’m cold and angry. All around me I hear wailing. But I’m quiet. Even then, I wasn’t one to make a fuss. There’s an awful smell, sweet and foul.

  The wolf cub sniffed me, then snarled. I tried to move my legs, my black feeble legs, which barely budge, my hands curled into red fists. Mum kicked him away. I doubt I looked good enough to eat, but with Fen you never knew.

  Fen howled. Hard to believe, but he was like a puppy then. A puppy with big, slashing teeth, but still … You could pretend he was just playing. That he didn’t mean it when he ripped open your face.

  My other brother, Jormungand, slithered over to me and hissed. He always scared me, my brother the snake. Even now those words are horrible to write … my brother the snake.

  Mum, screaming, kicks him away too. Stomp on his head, Mum! Go on, you can do it. That would have saved so much fuss and bother. But no. Jor lands smack on the table. Bowls and cups and drinking horns fly everywhere. Fenrir snarls at Jor, hackles up, jaws dripping. Jor bares his fangs, spitting poison. The two of them, always spitting and fighting. Always eyeing me, as if I were a hunk of carrion they’d like to devour.

  Have you gathered how much I hate my brothers?

  Hiss. Growl. Hiss. Growl. Hiss. Growl. Amazing I learned to talk, really, with the conversation that went on around me.

  Hello! Is no one going to pick me up?

  Nope. Seems not.

  I remember the cave filling with visitors. They were frosty and snow-covered, stamping their feet and shaking out their sleet-heavy cloaks, spraying slush everywhere. Someone, not Mum, finally lifted me with their icy chapped hands and I was swaddled in furs, only my top half on show. My mother huddled in the corner, rocking back and forth on her haunches.

  ‘Angrboda. What a pretty baby.’

  Oh, how nice. Who said that?

  Great. It’s Dad’s brother. My blind uncle, Helblindi. Compliments from a blind god. Brilliant. He’s standing next to my father, Loki (hi, Dad! Glad you could make the party), who is definitely wishing he wasn’t here and pretending he has nothing to do with any of this.

  My mother’s grey eyes flash. She’s fierce, my mother. You do not want to mess with her.

  ‘Unwrap it,’ she says. Pokes me with a stick.

  The cave is suddenly silent.

  A troll picks at my swaddling with her flabby hand and holds up a torch. I hear her suck in her breath and step back. The troll behind her screams. Another swaybacked ogre, his nose broken with huge twisted knots like the horns of old rams, skulks off on his bent knees.

  What? Even a troll recoils from me?

  Who are you, you ugly troll, to scream at the sight of me? Am I so hideous, so revolting, that the foulest creatures alive can’t bear to look? What am I?

  Loki turns away. ‘Kill it,’ he says.

  ‘You let the others live. Why start now?’ says Uncle.

  ‘It’s half corpse,’ says Dad.

  ‘She’s a goddess. She won’t die easily,’ says Uncle.

  Dad hesitates. I start to cry.

  Can we just pause here for a minute? My dad wants me killed. And Mum isn’t even lifting her head. It’s the father’s choice, if the baby lives or dies. But come on, Mum. Defend me. Protect me.

  No? Nothing?

  I try to kick off the rest of my swaddling. Why don’t my legs obey me? They feel weak and wavery, as if they are part of me, but somehow not.

  ‘Have it your own way,’ says Dad.

  Yay. I get to live. I seem to be the only one who’s happy about this.

  My mother raises her head. She doesn’t touch me.

  Loki shrugs and sprinkles water on me. My uncle names me Hel. It means to cover. Stupid name, but believe me it could have been so much worse. I could have been called Blood Hair, or Dung Heap, or Mud Face. Giants don’t give great names. My own mother Angrboda’s name means distress-bringer. What was my grandpa thinking? Who’d name their own wee girl Distress-Bringer and bury anguish in her name? It’s almost as if you’re asking for trouble. You’re sprinkling the naming water on the screaming brat, and calling on the Fates to bring misery. Isn’t there enough sorrow in the worlds without seeking it? You’re shaking your fists at the Fates and shouting, ‘Yoo hoo, ladies, look down, do your worst.’

  And boy did they ever.

  *

  But I am leaping ahead. It’s hard for me to think in a line like you fate-bound ones.

  Dad didn’t lift me on his knee after he sprinkled water on me and Uncle spoke my name. There was a murmuring. Mum snatched me instead.

  Look, Mum! No claws or scales. Be grateful for what you have.

  ‘Let’s see it again,’ said Dad.

  Again with the it.

  Angrboda unwrapped me.

  ‘Uhhh,’ he said, recoiling. He held his nose. ‘Disgusting.’

  Mum dipped her drinking horn into Hymir’s brewing cauldron, which he had supplied for my birth feast, and hurled the mead in his face.

  ‘Leave me and the monsters.’

  Dad grabbed her hair.

  ‘I’ll leave when I’m ready.’

  Mum shook herself free. ‘She’s yours,’ she hissed. ‘Like it or not.’

  4

  OTUNHEIM, MY FROST world, lies east of Asgard. Girdled with snow and sleet and ice, the wind roars, whipping the blasted trees and piling up snow in drifts against the cliffs. My iron-grey home.

  If only our mountain realm had been further out of reach of the slippery gods, I might have been safer. But it was as if they couldn’t leave us alone. Thor came to bash in our heads with his murderous hammer; others came to steal our gold. (We create nothing from precious ore, that’s what dwarves are for, but we like its glitter and shine, the cool weight in our hands.)

  The gods have always invaded our land seeking wisdom or looking for love. Yeah, you heard me. Can we smash right now the myth that giants are all hideous, ignorant brutes? Anyone who thinks giants are the lowest of the low has been spending too much time believing the lying, thieving gods.

  Giants lived countless winters before the gods raised up the corners of the earth and formed the heavens. We witnessed what happened, and we kept the sacred lore. Where do you think the gods went to get their knowledge of the past and the future?

  Yup. From us.

  Where did One-Eyed Odin get his skill in poetry? No prizes – that smooth-tongued, deceiving god STOLE THE MEAD OF POETRY FROM GIANTS! Obviously we weren’t using it – we had better things to do than spew poetry – but it was ours. A few drops spilled as One-Eye made his cowardly escape, from which mortals, unfortunately, learned to compose their twanging verses, hoping for fame. One of the absurd reasons gods think they’re so much better than giants is that One-Eye bores everyone senseless reciting great screeds of the stuff. Even mortals get in on the act, yowling and rhyming away.

  Poetry. What a waste of time. And you don’t have time to waste, even if I have an eternityful.

  You mortals have so many wrong ideas about giants. For some reason you think all giants are gigantic.

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bsp; Hello?

  The old ones from whom we get our name were huge. The ones who created the mountains by hurling rocks, and islands when they dropped earth from their aprons while fording the seas. But most of us are the same stature as the gods.

  Taller than mortals, obviously, but that’s it.

  Nor are we all thick.

  There are brainless giants and clever giants. What? In which group am I? One thing I will say for Loki’s children, we didn’t get whacked with the stupid stick. Whereas the ugly stick – yes, I’d say I was beaten long and hard with it.

  True, we mountain-dwellers, we rock-dwellers, weren’t all specimens of beauty. The god Tyr’s granny was a giantess with 900 heads. So what? It happens. (He escaped lightly, inheriting just the one.) And who hasn’t met a giant with three or six heads? But we weren’t all hideous and deformed brutes, whatever the gods say. We weren’t all fire demons and flesh-eating monsters. My mother was beautiful. You think Dad would’ve hightailed after some hag?

  Forgive me for getting a little overheated there. Few things make me angry any more. But I don’t like hearing my ancestors insulted and I can’t abide the lies.

  The victor writes the saga.

  Remember that.

  5

  S A CHILD I NEVER smiled. Ever. Or laughed. Not even when Fen got up on his hind legs and danced before biting a rat in half.

  What exactly did I have to smile about?

  I once heard a story about a rich giantess who would only marry the giant who made her laugh. She’d chop off the heads of the ones who didn’t. That would be me, surrounded by skulls.

  My nature is sombre and fierce. That’s who I am, not some jolly skipping elf, beaming and twining daisies to crown my golden locks. My hair is silver, by the way. Coiling and curling past my shoulders. Strong like a fishing line. My hair is the only part of me others want to pat and pull. I hate being touched so no one dares, but I can see it in their faces. I tried to comb it once, with my mother’s comb, and the walrus ivory splintered. She walloped me for that. Maybe Dad gave her the comb (unlikely – Dad wasn’t exactly lavish with gifts). I can’t see why she made such a fuss. I thought, Why do you beat me? Get another comb. Who cares, it’s just a comb. She’s the mother of a snake and a wolf and a half-corpse, you’d think she’d have more serious stuff to get upset about.