I spat. ‘A monster? People always like monsters in stories.’
‘I thought you’d be old and ugly,’ said Freya.
‘I am old and ugly,’ I said. ‘I’m a rotting corpse.’
‘Not all of you,’ said Freya. ‘When you tie back those curls you’ll look quite pretty.’
Freya fumbled in her pocket. She pulled out some bits of rubbish, a feather, some nuts, and then a shiny, round silver box, brighter than anything I had ever seen before.
Freya gazed at the burnished little pot wistfully for a moment.
‘Put this on,’ said Freya.
I raised myself onto my elbow.
‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘A jewel? Magic?’
‘It’s called lip gloss,’ said Freya. ‘It will make your mouth shine.’ She opened the round pot and handed me the gloss. I held it up to the candle, marvelling how the light bounced off the polished surface.
‘I like shine,’ I said. Then I gasped.
‘There’s – there’s someone in here,’ I whispered, pointing to a face in the tiny round glass.
‘That’s you,’ said Freya.
‘Me?’ I said. ‘Me?’ I gazed at my reflection, myself and not myself. It can’t be … I look … I look …’ I raised my hands to my face and touched it, staring at myself in the mirror. For the first time, I saw my pink cheeks and ice eyes, my curly silver hair.
‘This is a great wonder, to see yourself so clearly.’ I stuck out my tongue. The girl in the glass mirrored me. She really, truly, was me. I wasn’t some ironwood hag. I wasn’t troll spawn.
‘Dip your finger in the gloss and smear it on your lips,’ said Freya.
I almost dropped the looking glass.
‘You first,’ I hissed. ‘I don’t want to be poisoned.’
Freya smeared her finger with pink gloss and rubbed it on her mouth. I copied her. Then I looked at myself and smiled. Now my lips matched my cheeks.
Freya was right. I did not look monstrous.
‘A new you,’ said Freya.
She would want it back. My fingers gripped the pot. I longed for this magic more than any gift.
‘Keep it,’ said Freya.
I could not stop gazing at my face. I dipped my fingers in the pot and smeared the gloss on my cheeks.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Freya. ‘It must be horrible being here.’
‘It is,’ I said. ‘It’s Hel.’
I gazed at the lip gloss. I decided in that moment.
40
GREAT GIFT LIKE this deserves recompense,’ I said. ‘Ganglot. Fetch the eski under my bed.’
We sat in silence, waiting the long while for my servant to complete her task.
Freya took the wooden box from Ganglot and opened it. Her hands were shaking. Perhaps she thought I’d handed her a box of entrails, or a septic toe …
Then she saw the nut. She gripped the eski tightly and swallowed. Then she turned to me and the joy on her face exploded around me. I have never been looked at like that. No one sees me and feels joy. That look I also tucked away, to feel its spark forever.
‘I’m doing this for you,’ I said. ‘Not for them. I hate the gods. I’ll always hate them. But my revenge can wait until the Axe Age and the Wind Age and the Wolf Age at the bitter End of Days.’
‘I’ll build a shrine to you,’ said Freya.
‘That will be a first,’ I said. ‘Don’t think you’ll get too many worshippers.’
‘Goodbye,’ said Freya. ‘Thank you. I’ll never forget you.’
‘Stay,’ I said. ‘You’ll never make it back to Asgard alive. You’re already ivory up to your neck. Here you can live forever. Just think, mortal Freya, life everlasting. Your friends and family will all be here to join you soon enough.’
Freya hesitated.
‘This place isn’t so bad once you get used to it,’ I said, slowly sitting up. ‘Everyone’s here, you know. All the greats. You can meet anyone you like. There’s no pain. No suffering.’
I was offering her immortality – of a sort.
‘I can’t,’ said Freya. ‘I have to try.’
What was I thinking? Of course she wouldn’t want to stay.
‘Go, then,’ I said. ‘See if I care.’
Freya slipped through the bed hangings onto the threshold and went back into the hall. There was the mad flutter of wings, a snarl of rage, then thundering hooves.
I heard my father bellow, ‘I’ll soon be picking apart your carrion!’
He continued cursing as the sound of wings grew fainter and fainter. The bird girl had escaped.
Of course I regretted it immediately. Why did I do it? I held vengeance in my power. All I had to do was to let Freya leave empty-handed. Soon the gods would have been dead and gone. The vengeance I had waited for so long was shimmering and winking at me.
Why did I give Freya the nut? I’ve asked myself this question over and over.
Because she gave me a gift unlike any other? Because she didn’t see a monster?
Or was it to spite my father, whom I never saw again, though I heard his screams when the gods finally caught and bound him.
Maybe.
Maybe it was because I saw myself for the first time.
Maybe because I saw myself in her?
*
There is nothing else now but the waiting. Nothing else. I will decay here in the darkness through the slow tick tock to Ragnarok and the fated ending.
My saga is drawing to a close. I am locking my word hoard. Mortals, read the Testament of Hel I have set down. Tell it to your children, and your children’s children.
I blow out the candle, close my eyes, lie back on my bed, and I wait for the Axe Age and the Sword Age. The Wind Age and the Wolf Age.
I’m glad that one day Fenrir will swallow the sun and sprinkle the heavens with blood. I’m glad he’ll kill Odin. I’m glad Jor will kill Thor.
Till then I’ll rot on my putrid bed, till the bitter stars drop from the sky and the waters once again swallow the earth.
PART 5
41
HAVE BEEN ASLEEP. I have been asleep as long as time. And then I wake. A poem an ancient skald recited to me long ago echoes in my head as I feel the worlds shifting.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Corpses pour down from Midgard, tsunamis of the dead. I let them speak. An avalanche of frantic ghosts, jabbering about hard frosts, winds, floods, drifting snow. Biting winters. So much slaughter, so many wars. Mountains crumbling and crashing down, seas gushing forth and spewing over the lands.
I dare not hope.
I hear the battle horn booming, echoing through the worlds.
I hear three cocks crow. One in Asgard. One in Jotunheim. And one in Niflheim, rust red, rousing the gods, the giants, and the dead to battle, and I know the End of Days is here.
The End of Days.
I shout for my servants. I haven’t spoken for so long that I have no voice.
The world tree Yggdrasil shudders and shakes, then a jagged crack like a thunderbolt wrenches apart the wailing tree while the worlds quake and all bonds break.
I hear Fen howl in victory as his fetters snap. I hear Jor thrashing out of the overflowing ocean, blowing poison through the air and the water, hear the waves rear up to the skies and flood Midgard as Jor writhes in his fury, splashing venom.
All the monsters, the forces of chaos, are let loose. The dragon crawls out of the swamp, tail whipping, hungry for blood.
My dog, Garm, the bellowing untrainable wolf-dog, roars. Garm, who’d rip out my heart given the chance. I think, he is barking to save me, to make me leave, to remind me, GO GO. Get out before the flames. I
hear his chains snapping, his mad howling echoing as he races from his cave to join the battle.
The walls of my hall start to fissure and crack. Fire blazes out of Surt’s kingdom as the giant demon rides forth, Asgard-bound, the blast of scorching smoke and the crackle of embers everywhere in his burning wake.
I shout again for my servants. Still no one comes.
I must go. It’s happening and I’m not ready.
I drag my useless legs into the shaking hall. No restless ghosts. No hissing snakes. Just the roar of walls toppling and crashing around me, of benches sliding and tables splitting. My fortress walls collapse; my great iron gates shriek as they clatter to the ashy ground.
I catch a glimpse of Baldr, Nanna, as they flee.
Baldr.
Hel has emptied. I see the last to leave, my seeress mother, rising from her grave mound to join the army of the dead.
I’ve been left behind.
The dead have gone, mad for vengeance. The corpses over whom I reigned for so long have obeyed the cock’s summons and sailed off in a ship made from dead men’s nails to join the spear-clash in Asgard as the gods make their final futile stand.
Fen’s jaws will gape so wide they will touch both the heavens and the earth. He will swallow One-Eye with those jaws before Odin’s son Vidar rips him in two. I suddenly remember Vidar trying to play with Fen in Asgard.
I have outlived the one who banished me to Niflheim.
My banishment is over.
But I don’t have time to gloat as my quaking kingdom dissolves around me.
I stagger through Eljudnir’s ruins, stepping through the rubble and smashed stones and the crushed bodies of snakes. Great billowing clouds of savage smoke engulf me.
Niflheim has become a furnace. I smell burning cinders, watch ash raining down like clouds of flaking skin.
I am free to go. I am free to go.
I leave everything.
Soot covers the precipices and valleys, fluttering like a shower of burnt stars. I’m walking through the funeral pyre of my world.
I approach the Echoing Bridge, still glowing in the smoky gloom, but glowing with embers now, as a stream of molton gold rains into the river below. Modgud isn’t there. She’s vanished, along with everyone else. Modgud. I’d forgotten about her. It’s strange how someone living can just fade from your mind, as if they’ve withered and died.
The river hisses and sparks. The water is alight, and a wall of fire blocks the fog road.
I wait a moment on my side, because I want to hold the thought of freedom in my mind. Just in case I’m wrong, and One-Eye’s magic outlives his death and I remain trapped here.
I am too scared to move. What if –
I’m like a hawk freed from a cage, a wolf cub freed from a trap. I can’t believe the door is open; I want to stay and bite.
I put out my hand and touch the glowing railing. It’s hot, so hot. But I’ve touched it.
And nothing holds me back as I set my foot on the smoking bridge for the first time. My stumbling steps stomp and echo. I can’t breathe.
I quicken my pace until I am lurching across. I’m suddenly frightened that I won’t make it. I totter, grip the melting railings to heave myself over. I’ve never felt such panic. If Nidhogg were tracking me, I don’t think I could have felt more fear.
Leaping flames barricade the exit, hissing and snapping. I won’t be stopped: I walk through them.
My legs are on fire.
And then I reach through the blaze onto the other side, gasping and choking. I beat down the flames, roll on the ground.
I’ve escaped.
The long fog road back to the world of the living lies before me.
I don’t look back. I have a memory of someone who looked behind him and … and …
The memory is gone. Too bad for him, I think.
I stumble up the fog road, climbing through the deepest, darkest valley, now fire, now ice, pockets of rustling embers lighting my path. My feet slosh through the ash like melted snow.
There’s no rush. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t run. There’s a whooshing in my ears, and I realise it’s silence. The empty burnt-out kingdom of death falls behind me with every step.
Tears keep springing to my eyes, and I wipe them away. My legs tingle and ache. I am not used to movement. But I won’t stop. The stink of burning keeps wafting up, even here.
My enemies are all dead. What I longed for, hoped for, waited for, has happened.
How do I feel?
Empty.
I’ve spent an eternity hating. I am bitter and toxic with hatred. I search for the hate within myself, and I find it has gone. I start to cry. I never, ever, cry. Not since the first moments when I arrived in Niflheim, not since Baldr rejected me. But now that I have started, it’s as if all the tears that have been dammed up inside me are pouring out.
Great gulping sobs burst from my belly.
I have lived an eternity of hating, and for what? Hate has ruled me, gnawed me. I spent eternity lying on a stinking bed. Sunk into myself, plotting and moaning and … dying. The greatest skalds and poets and musicians and thinkers were mine and what did I do? Nothing. I bewailed my bad fate. I loved so desperately, so terribly, and I let that love devour me.
Where did all that love go? All that hate?
What was I thinking?
I am two halves, life and death. And I chose death.
I thought it was love that moved me. Whatever I felt wasn’t love. I know that now.
42
LOST COUNT OF the nights I spent struggling up the fog road. One of your years is my eye-blink. Time is different for me. Always was. Always will be.
What will I find when I finally reach the top? Would Midgard be as burnt as Niflheim?
Will there be a sun? A moon? Am I passing from one grave mound into another?
I have been walking through pitch dark. Even with my goddess eyes, I can barely see one foot in front. Occasional sparks illuminate the road, like dying stars.
And then it seems to me that I can see two feet ahead. Then three, then four.
The closer I get to the top the more light I see. Faint glimmers of soft, shining light.
A new sun has risen to replace the old.
I heave my body faster and trip over Garm’s broken chains, rusting on the ground. I pick myself up and press on until I emerge at last from the cave into sunshine. Great golden sheets of sunshine.
My legs buckle, and I collapse, drunk with light.
I breathe fresh air, so sweet in my graveyard lungs. I breathe and breathe as if I cannot get enough. I’m dizzy with air, intoxicated by its crisp tang. Everywhere there are signs of fire and flood: scorched earth, blasted and toppled trees, seaweed, dead fish, shells, driftwood. And yet there are flashes of green, tiny buttons of moss pushing their way out of the blackened ground. And red poppies, flecked with ash. In the distance I see the careless ocean, retreated back to its basin.
I sit up, stretch out my shaking legs, lift my face to the red-orange sky. Floating above the acrid reek of burning is the scent of new grass. And –
Something has changed.
I don’t smell me.
My legs are still withered, but I don’t stink any more. And beneath the charred skin I see – a flash of pink.
Now I smile.
I am the last of the giants. I am the last of the gods. I am destruction and creation, death and life. Daughter of a giant. Daughter of a god.
Death has ambushed everyone else. The Nine Worlds are empty.
A shadow crosses the sky. I look up and see the shining serpent, Nidhogg, flying over the plain, carrying corpses from the Last Battle.
I’ll deal with him.
His corpse days are done.
In fact, I think death is done. I will banish death. I am the last goddess and it’s down to me to remake the world.
The old gods didn’t know how to create a better world. They couldn’t change their story.
Can
I?
I don’t know. But I can do better than One-Eye. I won’t be hurling anyone into Niflheim for a start.
Asgard is burnt-out, empty, corpse-strewn, and I don’t want to live there. I am a mountain-dweller, and that’s where I’ll go.
I will strive to do better with my new world. I have never created anything but I can try.
I see two fallen trees, an ash and an elm, their roots ripped from the earth. I raise them, first one, then the other, and slowly, clumsily, begin to carve.
You never know where you’re going to get a good idea. The first sentence of this novel came to me on the New York subway, and I instantly heard Hel’s cool, sarcastic, funny, adolescent voice. Once I realised that the Norse Goddess of the Dead was a child like her brothers, then I knew I had a story. I’ve never written in the first person before, and I loved it.
As always, I’d like to thank the teams at Faber and Profile, especially Andrew Franklin, Stephen Page, Leah Thaxton, Alice Swan, Hannah Love and Will Steele. (And my extraordinary illustrator, Olivia Lomenech Gill, who has exceeded my wildest dreams in the beauty and depth of her drawings.) Many armfuls of thanks to Steven Butler, my dear friend and on-call book doctor, who has yet to find a plot problem he can’t solve. My husband, Martin Stamp, is a thoughtful, forensic reader, who could give up the day job to become an editor, while Dr Mary Clayton is always game to answer any questions, however absurd.
For myth enthusiasts, H. R. Ellis Davidson’s PhD thesis The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature (Greenwood Press) could have been written to order for this book; as always I find all her books incredibly illuminating and insightful. John Lindow’s Norse Mythology: a guide to the gods, heroes, rituals and beliefs (Oxford University Press) was an invaluable reference work. I’d also like to thank my stand-by Icelandic scholar Dr Emily Lethbridge for recommending Lotte Motz’s article ‘Giants in Folklore and Mythology’, which was a great help in untangling several traditions about giants and their tortured relations with the gods.
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