The Monstrous Child

by Francesca Simon

  23

  LL RIGHT. I’M feeling chatty. I’ll throw you a bone, so to speak.

  I’ll tell you what happens when you die. How it all works. Yes, the greatest secrets of all. So there will be no more need to seek spell songs to raise the dead to make them talk. I’m spilling the beans.

  Deal? Good.

  You die. ‘Wah wah wail wail.’ (That’s you by the way.) Don’t kid yourself. No one will miss you.

  If you’re shoved into a grave mound, you rot and stagger down to me looking pretty rough and smelling worse.

  If your body is burned, you waft to me in spirit form. Either way you all end up pouring down the Hel Road.

  At the bridge between the worlds, Modgud checks you’re dead, asks your name and lineage, and quietly you cross over the frosty river and into my melancholy world of sleet and weeping darkness. There’s no turning back.

  The dead whose bodies have burned on pyres pass through a wall of flames. Smoke meets smoke, and the last remnant of their mortal selves blows off, like sparks from a sword being burnished, like ash from sputtering wood.

  Fading, fading, gone. Poof.

  But, once across the bridge, everything changes. The yowling they make, you’d think they were the first who’d ever died. Well, you’re not, so get over it.

  I, your reluctant and wolf-gracious host, will greet you. Greet in the sense that I’ll allow you into my windy hall. Please do not look for any more recognition because expectation will always be disappointed. Don’t imagine you can please me. No one can please me. NO ONE.

  Hopefully, you’re bringing lots of gifts. Remember, grave goods are a tribute for your new lord – me. You will not need anything with which you’ve been buried.

  Please note: I have enough wooden serving platters, buckets, spindles and broken swords to last for eternity. I like goblets, carved ivory animals and brooches. You can’t have too many of those. And gold. I love gold.

  In fact, let me repeat: NO MORE WOODEN PLATTERS. I know some mortals make greedy lists of the gifts they desire when they marry, and circulate this among their kin and their friends and followers. Here’s my list: just gold and silver.

  And, please, no looms. No one’s weaving down here. Leave looms behind. No need to lug a loom down the fog road. Load your wagon with treasure instead.

  Treasure. Sadly, all too rare. Too many relatives planning to place that gold armband in the grave, snatch it back at the last moment and substitute – for shame – a broken old pot. Or a rusty axe instead of a jewelled spear. No wonder there’s so much shrieking and gnashing down here when the dead sift through their possessions and discover a pile of junk.

  My entrance requirements are minimal – that you’re dead.

  That’s it. Modgud, my bouncer, lets everyone into the club. We’re not exclusive. No VIP section. No velvet ropes.

  Welcome.

  My gate slams on your heels. Your name passes out of use like withered grass.

  Goodbye. Good riddance.

  You who are full of easy time, gloating and careless, singing in your chains –

  Remember.

  Everyone is mine at the end.

  *

  While we’re on the subject of death journeys, here’s a useful tip. Pack your jewels and inlaid shields and gold arm rings and ditch the rest. Because you would not believe the junk the deceased bring with them. Hams. Sheep’s heads. Apples. Mead buckets. Why? Did they think it was going to be one non-stop feast here? One eternal party with dancing bears and fighting? Swords, axes, brooches, pots, coins, cauldrons, grindstones, helmets, sickles, stools, goblets, horses, dogs, slaves, hawks. Thanks awfully for the silver spoon and I can always use another gold ring, but no thanks for the broken pots and bent swords.

  When the corpses find out that I take everything valuable they’ve brought for tribute – which is only fair, mind you; they are living here for eternity, the guests who never leave, the guests who stink like long-dead fish – they yell and scream even more. But what were they hoping to buy – a new body?

  Once I’ve grabbed what I want, the gold and jewels to decorate my hall and fill my treasure rooms, I have the trash flung outside. Let them fight over it. They drift about rustling like dry leaves, gripping some old cup as if their life – ha ha – depended on it. I tell you, it’s like a grisly bring-and-buy sale held on a reeking rubbish tip.

  That One-Eye. What a mean trick he played on his followers, telling them that every man who died in battle would enter Valhall with as much wealth as he had on his pyre. What a death jest. What a liar.

  Those Valkyries nabbed everyone they needed in the time before time. Valhall’s doors are shut. The benches are full. No one can budge up at the nightly feast.

  Hero, you’re too late. I’m your hostess in the afterdeath.

  Hard luck.

  Bad fate.

  Yeah, whatever.

  You might as well drop that sword now and be a farmer. Forget the battle heroics and do something else. Because, whatever happens, you’re coming to me.

  Sorry to be the one to break the news, but at least this way you’ll be prepared for the inevitable rude welcome Chez Hel.

  *

  Some of you decide to stick around in your grave-mound, sitting blank-eyed and staring on your high chair, throttling any of the living who dare to break in to steal your treasure. Or, worse, you go haunting your former homes, savaging the sheep or scaring the Hel out of your family.

  If the living are wise, they’ll cover up any mirrors or water in their homes, in case the dead souls are drawn to their reflections and sneak inside to hang around Midgard a bit longer. I honestly don’t know why they bother. Is it really so much fun terrifying your family by creeping up the stairs or popping out of chests? What good does that do? You’re still dead. Face it: however much they loved you in Midgard, they really don’t want you lurching about now.

  But even you restless ones finally descend to my dark kingdom, after those who have carved your name upon your gate posts have gone, and your memory slowly vanishes from the worlds. Then you’ll drift down the fog road to me.

  The mists of Niflheim and my beckoning voice will fill your grave barrow. Slowly you’ll sink to my world beneath the worlds. And ultimately you’ll join the oldest corpses, who flit like smoke. They stare with glaring eyes from which all speculation is banished, as one so-so poet once wrote. The dead live here in an everlasting past. Then present. Then …

  However, there is no point in complaining. I never listen. I just don’t care. You’re not happy? Go somewhere else. There’s a nice dragon I know who always needs feeding …

  I’ve told you too much. Far more than I intended. But storytellers get carried away. Words spill from unlocked word hoards.

  Want to know more about my life here? Actually, I don’t care what you want. You would do well to listen until I am no longer willing to speak.

  24

  HEN YOU HAVE ALL the time in the world, how do you live knowing that each moment will pass exactly as the one before? And the one now. And the one after. Each slow drip of putrid time, on and on and on and on and on and on and –

  How do you bear it? Even when you’re queen?

  When you live in a stinking pitch-black world, a living being imprisoned inside a massive grave mound filled with the howling dead, you become a thing more dead than living. If beauty annihilates thought, then I have nothing but thoughts.

  I keep alive because of … him. Imagining a life with him. Living with Baldr in my mind. Our happiness. Our joy. We talk. We laugh. I remember when I heard him singing, his mellifluous voice. I remember his beautiful mouth.

  This is my hideous, horrible life:

  I slump on my High Seat. I lie on my damp bed. I visit my treasure room. I drink. I brood. I watch my slow servants.

  HERE –

  IS –

  GANGLATI –

  BRINGING –

  ME –

  A –

  GLASS –

>   OF –

  WINE.

  NOW –

  HE –

  IS –

  PICKING –

  UP …

  You get the idea. Wanna trade places?

  Didn’t think so.

  Once I watched the dead throwing a ball, using a seal’s head glowing with heat, with flying sparks and fat dripping like tallow. That I had never seen before and I was diverted.

  Then they stopped, the head decayed, and nothingness resumed.

  Sometimes the bodies take up drinking horns and hold contests. They pour mead into their gaping mouths, which leaks through what flesh remains and dribbles onto the ground. The newly dead take time to shuck off such mortal pursuits. I watch them drink and drink, oblivious that their putrefying bodies and jutting ribs hold no liquid. They soon tire.

  Bet you can’t wait to join us.

  Every now and then, when I think I will go mad, I listen to the stories told by skalds, for the brief time they can remember their sagas, declaring ancient histories of mortals and gods and giants.

  Even the dead cease their relentless drone when a newly arrived skald stands in the middle of my hall and tells how the world began or how Odin sacrificed an eye for wisdom (the dunce).

  I don’t like poets, with their weasel words.

  I’ve had enough of being described as monstrous – and worse. The mead of poetry sours when poured down my throat. Not surprising, since poetry was a gift to people from One-Eye. Any wonder I hate it? I will keep my own history. I can bind time better than any.

  But, mostly, I hate. I have time – oh yes, more time than anyone, god or mortal – to stew. I am not time-fettered. The memories of the dead fade, until even their names vanish. But mine have sharpened. I live for vengeance. I breathe it in great gasping gulps. I dream of vengeance, feed on vengeance, let bile fill my veins. I drink poison, hoping others die.

  I warm myself with plans and schemes. Will any giants avenge my kidnap and steal Thor’s splotchy, buck-toothed daughter, Thrud? Wouldn’t that serve old red-beard right? Or what about Freyja’s simpering Hnoss, with her fat legs and pouty lips? Let her try living in my mother’s cave for a bit. See how long she’d last …

  And so my thoughts circle round and round.

  But, more than that, so much more than that, night after night, year after year, century after century, I think about Baldr. If only I could see him again. My thoughts about him are infinite. I know that he loves me. I know that I love him. I’ve never loved anyone before. When I feel I am drowning in despair he is the one thing that keeps me from hurling myself in Nidhogg’s way.

  I lie on my dank bed and close my eyes, my pillow scrunching and crackling under my head. I think of Baldr’s beauty. His kindness. His loving eyes. The way he picked me up and spun me round. He has got under my skin and into my heart. I can shut out the misery of the dead next door and be alone with my thoughts. I pull the bed hangings tight across, and dream of love.

  Baldr. My lovely Baldr. How can I lure him here? He needs to die. But gods don’t die. Maybe, just maybe, One-Eye will send him, seeking wisdom, and I’ll find a way to keep him. What a wonder that would be, a god in Hel. How the gods would suffer without him. How I would rejoice with him.

  I need to cling to something, some small hope of happiness, of freedom, while I lie here rotting in my prison beneath the worlds.

  I am low in spirits. I think I will visit Modgud.

  25

  ODGUD ISN’T A friend. I’m the Goddess of the Underworld; I have no friends. I don’t want any friends. I am fine by myself. I am cradled by hate and fury; I need no one. But, every millenia or so, I leave my hall and journey to Gjoll, the boundary river between the living and the dead, to see her.

  The giantess always looks the same. She does not age, does not grow taller. Time is still for her, as it is for all here. She is always pleased to see me. I think she is the only creature I have ever known who is.

  We sit by the glowing bridge on the riverbank, watching the shadows. The ground is freezing and the wind moans over the blasted hills. Neither of us speaks. The dead still stream across, silently, a never-ending line of arrivals. The fog road, dotted with fire, the last vestiges of the world of the living, looks so close, and yet for me it could be a million miles away.

  ‘So how goes it?’ says Modgud. Her watchful eyes are tiny pinpricks of light.

  I have no idea where she learns this language. So far as I know she never talks to the dead other than to ask their name and lineage. And yet she speaks words and phrases I have never heard.

  ‘My hall is filling,’ I say. ‘It’s awful.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ says Modgud, sighing. ‘It’s a non-stop procession of corpses down here.’

  ‘So much for those whining poets singing warnings that guests mustn’t overstay their welcome, as loved becomes loathed if they sit too long at another’s hearth.’

  ‘The dead don’t listen,’ says Modgud.

  ‘Once they find you, they stay forever,’ I say. ‘Hint all you like; they don’t budge. Yank ’em out, show ’em the door, they slip right back in.’

  ‘Why don’t you line every bench with red-hot pokers?’ says Modgud. She is smiling.

  I grimace. ‘They’d still make themselves comfy.’

  I’m finding it difficult to speak of why I’ve come back to Gjoll after so many winters have passed. What could I say? Instead I ask:

  ‘Why do you stay here? Why don’t you leave?’

  Modgud looks astonished.

  ‘And go where?’

  ‘Anywhere,’ I say.

  ‘I can’t,’ says Modgud. ‘I’m the Warden of the Bridge.’

  There was another long silence. We listened to the pounding water and the wind-blown shades passing over the bridge.

  ‘Even if I could, where would I go?’ says Modgud.

  ‘Have you ever tried?’

  Modgud’s salt-white face pales.

  ‘No!’

  She looked around, as if we might be overheard.

  ‘OK. Once. Oh, I was terrified. That flames would consume me. That my body would crumble into dust. I’ve never been above. I’d like to see Midgard. Even just for a moment.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ I say. ‘I won’t tell. Who are you guarding this place from, anyway? You think the living are going to stage a mass invasion?’

  Modgud’s face droops.

  ‘I can’t cross the bridge any more than you can.’

  I’m not sorry. Who was it who said that misery loves company? They were right.

  Modgud picks up a stone and lobs it into the raging river.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ I ask.

  Modgud shrugs. ‘I like the plop sound.’

  I pick up a small black rock. It feels smooth and heavy in my hands. It is good to touch something that isn’t dead, even if it isn’t alive. Something that doesn’t hold a death stench.

  On impulse I hurl it into the river. The rock bounces and splashes before sinking in the torrent.

  We sit on the steep bank and lob rocks into the water. I don’t understand this game, but the plop of the stones in the river is strangely soothing.

  Plop.

  Plop.

  Plop.

  Plop plop.

  I could do this for nights.

  Plop.

  If the dead were startled to see their queen lobbing rocks into the water, they did not show it.

  A shivering corpse meanders across the shining bridge. Modgud drops her pebbles, holds up her arm and the spectre pauses.

  ‘Before you go further,’ she says, ‘your name and your lineage.’

  ‘I was Helgi, son of Sigurd the Abrupt,’ says the dead man.

  Modgud nods.

  ‘Pass by,’ she says, lowering her gleaming arm.

  The corpse vanishes into the vapour.

  ‘Slow night for once,’ she says, sitting down again beside me on the riverbank.

  ‘What news of the worlds above?�
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  Modgud shrugs.

  ‘Many warriors have passed here, more than usual. There is much fighting.’

  The longing to say Baldr’s name out loud fills me.

  I won’t say anything, I vow.

  ‘Have you ever been in love?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ says Modgud.

  I wait.

  But Modgud does not ask me.

  Suddenly I feel that if I don’t speak his name I will burst.

  ‘There’s someone who loves me,’ I blurt. ‘And someone whom I love.’

  Of course I didn’t say that. I hide my feelings, my true self. No one may see them.

  But I want so much to say his name, to have his name fill my mouth.

  ‘I’m in love,’ I say. The words stick on my tongue like wet clay.

  I instantly regret it. If I could recall the words and lock them back up I would.

  ‘What is love?’ says Modgud.

  She’s asking me?

  ‘Love is when you can’t think about anything except the one,’ I said. ‘It is aching with love-longing. It is to have no thoughts in your head but about them. What would they think, what would they like, why aren’t they here, who are they with, over and over until you are driven mad and you would kill everyone in the world if it meant they lived.’

  Modgud’s white-lashed eyes widen. She shakes her head.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Who would I love?’

  And then it all flooded out. I told her everything. I’d been bursting to say his name. Baldr. Baldr. Baldr.

  ‘Even I have heard that name,’ says Modgud.

  ‘Is there any way – do you suppose I might – do you think I’ll ever see Baldr again?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask the seeress?’ said Modgud.

  Seeress? Seeress?

  I thought I had met everyone there was to meet down here.

  ‘What seeress? Where can I find her?’

  ‘Gods brought her body and buried her deep in that grave mound by your eastern door,’ said Modgud. ‘She remembers the age before the beginning of the worlds and can see far into the future.’