The baby was dying, and by the time she gave birth, it might be too late to save it.
Her mind raced. Did she have any potions to help? Any at all? Any spells? She could feel her bedclothes soaking further now, and a strangled whimper escaped her lips as she grappled at the furs and blankets, dragged herself back against the cave’s wall, curled up around herself on the bed. And she thought and thought, and came up with nothing.
Her heartbeat had quickened, and that made her only option all the more obvious as she let the rhythm lull her into a trance, steady as the beating of a drum.
Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum . . .
She descended without even thinking, shedding her body like a snake sheds its skin, her lips forming words she didn’t know how she knew.
Sacred words. A chant. Calling back the baby, her daughter. Angrboda could almost feel Yggdrasil as she reached out, could almost skim her fingertips over the fabric binding the universe together—luckily the child had not gone that far, but Angrboda certainly would’ve risked using the World Tree if it had come down to it.
Angrboda felt her daughter’s presence and latched onto it in her mind, bidding the child return to her body. And as the witch repeated the words over and over, her own pain started to subside. Then, at long last, she felt the child kick.
Angrboda would have cried with relief were she not so terrified.
In the morning she found herself still curled up on the bed in her soiled shift, the furs and blankets around her mussed and stained. She felt numb with shock, but at least the child seemed fine.
It took until late that day for her to gather the will to get out of bed, get some water to clean herself up, and eat. That was around the time she realized that she was still too distraught to cry.
* * *
• • •
The dreams began that very night.
Having spent most of the day awake but abed, Angrboda put a few more logs on her hearth fire after supper, lit some candles for extra light, and settled down in her chair to repair the cuff on one of her older dresses. She soon found herself distracted, and before she knew it, she had nodded off.
Later, she wouldn’t be able to tell if she had been awake or asleep when she felt the presence. Felt someone circling her. Calling to her, in a manner similar to the one she used to call to her daughter. Speaking words she knew but didn’t. Beckoning her closer. Drawing her out, and pushing her down.
Someone noticed what I did.
And this someone wanted something from her.
She sank deeper and deeper and felt herself brush against the edge of the dark place—the person’s voice seemed to be pushing her toward it, pushing her to look over the edge, to plunge headlong into the depths of that fathomless void.
No. She knew what was down there, knew it from her time as Gullveig, from her days of seid—if she went down there, she would come back with things she didn’t want to know.
Things she shouldn’t know. Things no one should know.
She’d told Odin as much when she’d refused to go down there for him, and she’d burned for it. Thrice. It can’t be him again, she thought, for she could not make out who this person was; they had concealed themselves from her, and so lacked Odin’s distinct presence in her mind. Had his mastery of seid grown so powerful that he could mask himself completely?
No, she thought again. Leave me alone. She resisted, tugged herself away, and felt the chanter rear back. Felt their surprise.
And then their fury.
She jolted awake when she felt the heavy woolen dress slide off her lap and land in a heap at her feet. Her chest heaved and her hands shook as she slid off the chair and arduously bent down to pick up her sewing. When she had managed to haul herself back into her seat, she found she was too tired to continue sewing, but not too tired to realize the risk of falling asleep again, so she was at a loss for what to do.
For one of the first times since she decided to make her home in Ironwood, Angrboda desperately wished she wasn’t so alone.
* * *
• • •
One summer morning Angrboda went down to the stream, which was a challenge at this late stage in her pregnancy. She sat there for a long while, enjoying the quiet and the soothing running water, until she heard the rustle of leaves, and Gerd emerged from the trees on the other side of the stream carrying a pack basket. When Angrboda nervously sat up and greeted her, the first words out of Gerd’s mouth were, “Have you heard Skadi’s gotten married?”
“Indeed. Some time ago. Care to join me? I had planned on bathing but I can’t seem to muster up the energy.”
The offer had been made out of politeness, not friendship, but nevertheless, Gerd hopped the few rocks to the other side and sat down on the bank beside her. “I have something for you, as promised.”
And she dug around in her basket and extracted a piece of undyed linen, finely woven.
“It’s a head covering,” said Gerd as she offered it to the witch. “I came to realize my mother’s are far too fine for your tastes. Hers are all silk, or dyed, or brocaded with gold thread and tablet-woven bands. You’re a much simpler woman than she—no offense meant.”
Angrboda had to concede this. “Thank you, Gerd. This is a fine piece, and I’ll wear it happily.”
“And if you wish to make it a bit fancier and help it stay in place,” Gerd added, “I’ve also tried my hand at tablet weaving.” From her bag she pulled a long band of yarn, woven into swirls and whorls of blue and green, accented with yellow. “But you can also wear it as a belt. Or cut it up and use it as trim for a dress.”
“Your work is exquisite,” Angrboda said, awed, as she took the band and ran her fingers over the tightly woven pattern. “Thank you for this. I shall treasure it.”
Gerd beamed. “You’re quite welcome. And there’s more yet.” She then extracted from the basket some more swaths of linen, these ones soft yet heavy. “They’re swaddling clothes for your child. My mother made them as a gift for you—your potions healed my father’s sickness last autumn, and she’s eternally grateful. When Skadi told us you were with child, she insisted on making you something special.”
“Please thank her for me,” Angrboda said, and meant it. “These are generous gifts.”
“It’s the least I can do,” Gerd said, shifting, not looking at her. “For being so impolite to you before. I apologize.”
“I was not so polite myself. I’m sorry as well. But I find I have to ask . . . did Skadi put you up to this?”
“Of course she did. And you’re welcome.” Gerd put the cloths back into her basket. “I’ll carry these back to your . . . er . . . cave, when you’re ready. Also, Skadi wants you to know that she’s well and will soon be by to see you but is staying in Asgard for the time be— Are you all right?”
For Angrboda’s fists had clenched and her face was white. Her first contraction had just hit.
“Isn’t it a little early for this?” Gerd asked, panicking as she helped Angrboda back to her home. “So is it—is it happening right now, or—should I go get—?”
Not as early as before. This is better. The contractions were small and far apart, and Angrboda found that she was not comfortable in any position, so she just walked back and forth in the clearing. “There’s no time to go anywhere.”
“If there’s time for you to pace like that, there’s time for me to go get someone,” Gerd said shrilly, adding that she had watched her mother attend births but had never supervised one. Angrboda shook her head. Gerd sat down by the cave entrance and took to petting the goats as a way to distract herself as Angrboda continued to pace.
Gerd stayed with her, and late in the evening the contractions became so painful that Angrboda could no longer stand. It took her a while to find a position in which she found it natural to deliver; after much frantic reorganizing on Gerd’s part and tired instruction on
Angrboda’s, Gerd ended up layering blankets over a pile of furs, and Angrboda half leaned, half squatted against it.
Far later in the night, a shaking Gerd knelt before her, ready at any moment with a blanket over her hands to catch the baby. She let Angrboda hold on to her shoulders to steady herself, not saying a word about the woman’s fingernails digging half-moon welts into her skin, or anything but what words of comfort a young, inexperienced maiden could provide. For the girl’s own sake, Angrboda bit back as many of her screams as she could. But just the look of pain on her face seemed to frighten Gerd.
As the labor wore on, though, Gerd seemed to become more comfortable in her sudden role as midwife. And when the baby was finally born in the very early morning, Gerd caught it and patted its back to clear its lungs, and cut the umbilical cord. When Angrboda heard the first wail escape her child’s mouth, she sagged back against the blankets in relief.
“A girl,” Gerd said as she wiped the wrinkly pink baby off and placed her in her mother’s arms. She wadded up the blankets that had collected some of the birth mess and sat back and stared at both of them. “She’s beautiful.”
“She is. Just look at her.” Angrboda felt her eyes fill with tears as she cradled the baby, who had stopped crying—which caused Angrboda to panic for a split second, until she noticed that her daughter was staring at her in wonder, and not with the baby blue eyes of a newborn.
She has her father’s eyes, she thought, staring back at the infant with equal amazement. And she’s looking at me like she’s surprised that she’s here.
Is it right that a little baby like her should look so wise?
“Does your husband have dark hair?” Gerd asked, because the baby had been born with a full head of downy black hair, and Angrboda’s hair was a far lighter brown. Loki’s was fair as well, but Gerd did not know this.
Angrboda shook her head. “I’m not sure where the color came from.”
“Do you have a name for her?”
“Her name is Hel.” It was a name she’d been pondering for a while—it had come to her the night she’d called her daughter’s soul back from beyond, and it had stuck with her, almost as if Hel had named herself.
She put the baby up to her chest to nurse, but Hel seemed content to just continue staring at her in fascination.
“She’s . . . not a normal baby, is she?” Gerd asked. “She’s not crying.”
“She looks very concerned about her new living situation,” Angrboda agreed. There’s something curious about her, I suppose, but it’s not a bad sort of curious.
She’s absolutely perfect.
Gerd was the first to notice the problem, so engrossed was Angrboda with her baby’s pensive little face. “There’s something wrong with her legs . . .”
She was right. Hel was moving her legs, but they were the wrong color—pale white, not pink like the rest of her, and the skin was stiff and cold. And they seemed to be turning blue as the seconds passed.
Suddenly Hel started crying again, but this time it was a shrill cry of pain, and everything about the night Angrboda had almost lost her rushed back into her mind all at once. In her happiness, she had all but forgotten about it.
Angrboda said to Gerd, “Go to my cabinet. Go now, and get the pink vial in front—quickly!”
Gerd was on her feet in a second, scrambling, and grabbed the vial and handed it to Angrboda, who opened it and poured its contents down her daughter’s throat, frantically muttering chants under her breath. Hel coughed but swallowed and started to calm down. The color did not return to her legs, but they did not continue to stiffen, either. Soon enough Hel was staring at her mother again and actually seemed content to nurse.
Angrboda looked up at Gerd then, who was looking back at her with unconcealed alarm. “What just happened? What did you give her?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Angrboda whispered back. Her daughter’s legs were still cold, yet still moving. “It was a healing potion. It didn’t heal her all the way—I don’t know what it was, but I stopped it. For now.”
“She seems all right now,” Gerd said shakily. “I mean . . . her legs looked like that when she came out. I didn’t want to say anything because she seemed fine, but if she was like that the whole time, why did she panic? Why did it get worse all of a sudden?”
“Maybe it was because she realized it. She was warm when she was inside me, and she can move them. Maybe she just hadn’t noticed.” Angrboda hugged Hel closer to her. “And maybe it will happen again. It looked like the flesh was dying, being eaten away somehow—I’ll make a better potion. To preserve it. To stop it.”
It’s my fault it happened. It has to be. If she was dead, I made her come back. It was something about how I saved her that night, something about my chants.
Or perhaps something about me.
Gerd swallowed and picked up the soiled blankets, put them outside the door. “I’ll wash these tomorrow. I won’t be able to find my way to the stream in the dark.”
She then took the cloth from her bag and handed it to Angrboda, who swaddled Hel when she was done eating, keeping the wrapping loose so she could easily check her daughter’s legs. Then Gerd assisted her in cleaning herself up and helped her into bed.
Gerd ended up falling asleep at the table afterward, and Hel fell asleep in Angrboda’s arms sometime later. But the witch herself, for all her fatigue, could not sleep.
This is my fault, she thought. I keep coming back. I cannot be killed, not by fire or a spear through my heart. Is it not backward that a mother who is reborn time and time again should bear a daughter who is half-dead?
Did I keep all the life for myself, instead of passing it on as I should have? Or did I not have enough to give?
But Hel seemed content to sleep, safe and loved. And, still unable to look away from her daughter’s perfect face, Angrboda realized then that maybe her heart was healed after all.
* * *
• • •
Gerd insisted on staying a few days to cook and clean. Angrboda thought the girl must have chores to do at home, but she was too tired to argue. And when Gerd finally left, it was only to come back a week later with Skadi in tow. Angrboda almost cried then—not only at the sight of her dearest friend, but also at the several jugs of ale Skadi had brought along to replenish the witch’s stores.
She invited them both inside for dinner and Gerd once again insisted on cooking. Angrboda was exhausted from lack of sleep—due to both her newborn and her fear of the mysterious chanter from her dreams—and let her have her way.
“So I’ll be looking for a man with black hair to castrate,” Skadi said in place of a compliment, as soon as she saw Hel. “Where is this husband of yours?”
“Don’t concern yourself with it,” Angrboda said as she cradled her sleeping daughter. “Tell me of Asgard.”
Skadi shrugged and took a sip of ale. “I take it Gerd has told you what happened?”
“I didn’t have to,” said Gerd. “She knew. How did you know, Angrboda?”
“So, how are things with your husband?” Angrboda asked hastily to change the subject.
Skadi and Gerd exchanged a suspicious glance, and then Skadi said, “We’ve separated. It only took me one night to realize I couldn’t live by the sea—the gulls and the waves are too loud. Yet I stayed nine nights, and Njord stayed nine in my hall, but he could not sleep for the howling of wolves. We parted on good terms, and I shall still see him sometimes. He’s a good man, and still my husband. And I will always be welcome in Asgard.” She took another swig of ale. “I am reckoned among the gods now. There are humans in Midgard who pray to me on hunts.”
“That must be wonderful,” Gerd said wistfully. “To be worshipped.”
“It’s nothing special,” Skadi said, but in a tone that implied it certainly was.
Skadi and Gerd stayed the night, seeming unbot
hered by Hel’s waking up every few hours to nurse, though the baby didn’t cry very much. When her friends left, Angrboda took to sitting outside, feeding the goats with Hel in a sling on her chest, and keeping a lookout for her troublesome husband, never getting her hopes up.
She found it strange that his absence bothered her less and less in the wake of Hel’s birth. Worrying about him, wondering about all the reasons he hadn’t come to visit—it would take up time and energy that she was unable and unwilling to expend. As far as she was concerned, Loki could do whatever he wanted—she had a daughter to take care of now.
* * *
• • •
Two full moons passed before she saw Loki again.
The nights were starting to get colder. He entered when Angrboda was asleep, curled up around Hel, who was set in a depression in a pile of furs so she could not roll off the bed platform, and so Angrboda could not roll over and accidentally smother her.
Not that Angrboda moved much in her sleep. Not that Angrboda slept much even before Hel was born, but she was certainly asleep when Loki came in; she was roused by the sound of the door opening and shutting.
Loki took off his shoes and put some more wood on the fire, then crossed the room and looked at the bed in silence—as if, for once, he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
Angrboda turned her head to look at him. “It’s about time.”
“I couldn’t get away,” he said, actually sounding apologetic. He carefully climbed over her and positioned himself on the other side of Hel, so the baby was settled between the two of them. “Sigyn had her child last week. If I left, I wouldn’t hear the end of it.”
“From whom?”
“From all of Asgard.”
“How is she? And the child?”
“Both healthy. The baby is a boy.”
“Ours is a girl.”
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