Loki observed the still-sleeping baby with uncertainty. “What did you name her?”
“Hel.”
“Hel? What kind of a name is that?” Loki laughed, and Hel stirred at the sound. She screwed up her face to cry, but when she opened her eyes and saw him, her features went slack and she looked him dead in the eye and held his gaze.
“She does that,” said Angrboda. “She really enjoys staring at people. Sometimes I think she can see into my soul.”
But Loki was staring back at the baby, and his entire expression had changed. He was as much in awe of her as Angrboda had been on the day she was born, and Hel in turn seemed enamored of her father—so much so that, all of a sudden, she smiled widely at him with her little pink tongue lolling out.
“She’s been sort of smiling sometimes, for no reason,” Angrboda said, surprised, “but this is her first real smile. And it’s for you.”
Loki was not paying the least bit of attention to her. He was suddenly smiling at Hel like Angrboda had never seen him smile before, and he reached out his finger so the baby could grip it in her tiny hand.
In that moment, Angrboda realized she was witnessing love at first sight.
Hel, attempting to stick his finger in her mouth, kicked happily and the blanket fell off her feet. Loki’s eyes widened. “Why are her legs . . . ?”
“She can feel them. Look.” Angrboda squeezed one of her daughter’s tiny toes, and Hel squirmed. Angrboda then found the words spilling out of her faster than she could stop them as she told him about the night Hel had nearly been lost.
“You can do that?” he said when she was done. There was an eagerness in his voice that Angrboda did not like. “Bring back the dead?”
“I’m not sure she was dead,” Angrboda said, but she was still uncertain. “But aye, I saved her.”
“And you think this has something to do with her legs?”
“I don’t know, but they’re dead. Dead flesh, but growing with her. I’ve tried potions and salves—none are harmful to her, I would never do that, the worst they do is not work—but nothing seems to reverse it. If I just keep trying, maybe I can revive them, but for now the most I can hope for is to stop her legs from rotting further—”
Loki leaned over and silenced her with a kiss. “We’re odd. She’s odd. She fits right in, does she not?”
“That’s . . . abnormally sweet of you.”
“I have my moments.”
Hel seemed determined not to close her eyes until she was sure her father wasn’t going anywhere. But eventually she fell back asleep, nestled between her parents without a single care in the world. Like a proper baby, Angrboda thought.
“How long will you stay?” Angrboda whispered, right before she fell asleep.
“As long as I can,” he whispered back and kissed her again. And it seemed to her then that all would be well, if only for a time.
* * *
• • •
In the days that followed, Loki spent most of his time with the baby, sitting on the bench with his elbows on his legs and Hel set between them, with his arms held out on either side of her to keep her from falling, his hands cupping her head. This was an optimal position to stare at her and have her stare back at him in return. He was willing to part with her only when she needed to eat—and, as promised, when she soiled her swaddling clothes.
At least Angrboda had been able to coerce him into going down to the stream and washing the baby’s dirty linens; that was more than she had expected from him. She even suspected that, during the times she took short naps or went out to do her own washing or gardening, he might have changed Hel once or twice himself. As a result, she found herself wondering if her husband would ever cease to surprise her. She rather doubted it.
“You’re not bored with her yet?” Angrboda asked as she swept the inside of the cave. The head scarf Gerd had made her turned out to be quite useful in keeping the hair out of her face, and Angrboda had quickly gotten used to donning it every morning. She found she liked Gerd’s tablet-woven band better as a belt and wore it over her plain leather one, from which hung her antler-handled knife for decoration.
“She can fit her whole fist in her mouth. I wish I could do that. Such talent! I wonder if we can teach her some tricks.”
“She’s not an animal, Loki.”
“She tried to put her foot in her mouth, but she didn’t like the taste. She made a face. Probably because of all that green stuff you keep putting on her.” Loki very much enjoyed giving Angrboda constant narration of everything she already knew Hel did. She supposed it was better than his not caring at all.
“They’re salves to stop her flesh from rotting off,” Angrboda said for the millionth time. “Not just green stuff.”
Loki ignored her. “Though I suppose the ‘dead flesh’ bit might be why her feet taste bad. Isn’t that right, Hel?”
Angrboda continued sweeping. “Whatever you say.”
“She burbled. That means yes.”
“Then what means no?”
“Cooing.”
“Once again: whatever you say.” Angrboda set the broom aside and sat down beside him on the bench, holding her arms out. “Now, if you’re quite finished hogging my daughter—”
“Our daughter, thank you. Hel, do you want your stinky old witch mama to hold you now? Feel free to coo and stay with me forever.”
Hel burbled.
A beat passed.
“Fine,” said Loki, and passed Hel over to Angrboda. “She must be hungry. Surely that’s the only explanation. Or she’s about to have explosive diarrhea and wants to spare me, bless her little heart.”
“Or perhaps she’s just fonder of me.” Angrboda smirked. She unpinned the front of her dress to nurse Hel—she’d extended the keyhole slit in her neckline downward, to provide easier access for her fussing child—and in doing so realized that she and Loki had actually been fully clothed more or less since he’d arrived.
“I highly doubt it,” said Loki, scoffing. “Sorry, Boda, but I’m her favorite.”
“Why does she have to have a favorite?”
“Because I said so, and I’m her parent.”
“I’m her parent, too, don’t forget.”
“Yes, I suppose, but—”
“You suppose?”
“She looks more like me than you. That means I’m her favorite.”
“As if she can control what she looks like.”
“I’m a shape-changer; she could be, too! What if she saw me and decided that she wants to look more like me than like you because I’m her favorite?”
“She looked like you before you graced us with your presence.”
“Yet more evidence supporting my argument.”
“I don’t even know how to argue with you.”
“I’m the best at arguing, so it’s a futile endeavor on your part.”
Later on, when they had successfully put Hel down for the night—or rather, when Angrboda had, as Loki was always more of a nuisance than anything when it came to calming their daughter down enough that she would fall asleep—they sat outside the cave mouth, covered in a blanket. The summer was nearly over, and with its end came the first crisp fall breezes.
Not wanting to scare him away with any sort of serious matters when he was so taken with the baby, Angrboda had kept her own anxieties close to her chest when it came to the presence of the chanter in her dreams, whom she could still feel every time she fell into a deep enough sleep. But this fear was beginning to weigh on her.
“I’ve been having dreams,” she told him as she sat there with her head on his shoulder and his arm around her waist.
“Congratulations,” Loki said dryly.
Angrboda pulled away and looked at him. “Dreams in which I leave my body.”
Loki frowned. “On purpose?”
&n
bsp; “No. It’s . . . it’s as though I’m being drawn out, as if someone is seeking me. Someone wants something from me, and I don’t know what.”
“Well, why don’t you let them take you and see what they want?” Loki suggested.
“Because I don’t know what will happen if I do.”
Loki mulled this over. He seemed too untroubled by this, and too dismissive. But of course he saw no reason to panic—he didn’t know the gravity of what she was implying.
She was going to have to tell him the truth about seid. She’d rarely spoken of it to him—or even to Skadi or Gerd, for that matter—for fear he’d become too interested, as Odin had. For fear that, on the off chance any word of Loki’s witch-wife and her abilities made it back to Asgard, Odin could turn his blood brother against her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Loki in this regard; it was that she knew personally just how persuasive Odin could be, and the lengths to which he’d go to get what he wanted.
“Loki . . . when I leave my body, I’m connected to everything. I’m part of all the worlds, and part of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. I can see everything, and if I really wanted, I could learn things I shouldn’t know.” She paused for effect. “Things that haven’t happened yet. Do you know what I’m saying?”
Loki sat up straighter. “Indeed?”
Angrboda nodded. “Such is the nature of seid. Please don’t ask me to tell you more.”
“Why not?” He gave her a puzzled look. “Is it so complicated?”
“No, it’s just . . . knowledge of the future is dangerous, and it’s—it’s gotten me in trouble before.” She gave him a meaningful look.
Loki put his hands up. “That’s where Odin and I completely part ways. Knowing the future would be too much of a burden. It’s just another form of control. No, thank you.”
Angrboda sighed with relief.
“So you truly think it’s Odin who’s after you again?” he asked.
“It doesn’t feel like him. It doesn’t feel like anyone I know.” Angrboda shook her head. “But if it is him, then I know exactly what he wants. Where he wants me to go. I don’t know how to explain it. There’s this . . . dark place at the very bottom of everything, a place I’ve never been, a place that has knowledge I’ve never tapped into before. Knowledge that terrifies me. Whatever this person wants to know, it’s nothing they should know. Nothing anyone should know.”
Loki shrugged. “Maybe they’re just dreams—did you consider that? Maybe you’re capable of having dreams that don’t mean anything, just like the rest of us.”
“It’s more. I know it. I can feel myself being pulled while I sleep. There’s a voice, chanting in my head. Ever since . . . ever since I called Hel back.”
Loki looked skeptical at that but said, “Perhaps it really is Odin, then. It sounds like something he would do.” He shifted. “He practices seid even though it’s women’s magic, and nobody says anything. But I give birth to one eight-legged horse and never hear the end of it.”
“They’re still on about that?”
“It’s a good story,” Loki admitted.
“Aye, and one told at your expense. They continue to mistrust you?”
Loki shrugged. “I can’t say that I blame them.”
“No good can come of your remaining there. You know this.”
“I’m Odin’s blood brother. I can’t just leave. And besides, the only way I can keep myself entertained there involves mischief. That’s why they have no love for me.”
“Well, you are loved here. Is that not good enough?”
He gave her an unfathomable look then, and kissed her on the temple and held her close. “How long do you really think we can continue this?”
“Continue what?”
“This arrangement we have.”
Angrboda jerked away and stared at him. “You mean our marriage?”
“I mean that I’m starting to think you were right before. About Hel’s safety. And your own.”
“I completed the spell to hide this place,” Angrboda said. “We’re perfectly safe. You needn’t use that as an excuse. What’s gotten into you?”
“I have to go back sometime,” Loki said, but it sounded as if leaving was the last thing he wanted to do. He looked over his shoulder at the cave mouth. Angrboda followed his gaze, searching for the pile of furs atop which their daughter slept soundly.
“Then go,” said Angrboda. “I care little. Hel will surely miss you, though. I fear she’ll become bored, only having me to stare at all day again.”
“I don’t think so. You have a very interesting face.”
“You can go now, if you choose. Unless you’d rather sit here and continue to insult me.”
“I don’t consider ‘interesting’ an insult.”
“I know. But your tone suggested otherwise.” Angrboda pulled away from him, pulled her legs up, and folded her arms on her knees. “Is she beautiful, this other wife of yours?”
“Yes,” Loki admitted. He reached over and cupped her cheek, ran his thumb along the darkened hollow of her eye. “But so are you. Even though you look like you haven’t slept for at least these nine ages past.”
“I just told you about the dreams. Coupled with a newborn daughter and a husband like you, you should hardly be surprised.”
“You didn’t sleep before that, unless I tired you out.”
She rolled her eyes and flinched away from his hand.
“Did you watch me sleep?” he asked.
“Only when I was bored enough.”
He ran a hand through his hair and gave her a come-hither look. “It’s because I’m so handsome, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “You’re positively dashing. I can hardly keep my eyes off you.”
“I have that effect on people,” he said loftily. “It’s a curse.”
“I do believe you’ve changed the subject.”
Loki sighed. “Sigyn is a good woman, and loyal. But you have more . . . gravitas.”
Angrboda raised her eyebrows. “You think I possess such a quality as ‘gravitas’?”
“Absolutely. That was one of the first things about you that intrigued me, Angrboda Iron-witch.” He gave her an odd look when she made a face at the nickname. “You’ve . . . never really thought about yourself, have you?”
“No. Should I?”
“Perhaps.” Loki sat as she did now, wrapping his arms around his legs. “I often think about myself. But that’s because I don’t understand me. Not one bit.”
“None do.”
“You do.”
“Hardly.”
“That’s a point I would argue, but maybe another time.” Loki looked skyward. “When my son was born, I thought something in me would change. I thought something would happen to me. But it didn’t. The weeks passed and I just—I didn’t feel any connection with the baby. I know Sigyn is disappointed with me, and I can hardly bear it. So I left.”
Angrboda listened silently.
“And all that time,” he went on, still not meeting her eyes, “I started to think that maybe there was something more wrong with me than even I thought—that maybe I was even more different than they all say I am.”
“You became a father,” Angrboda said. True, he had borne Sleipnir, but she doubted that he had any nurturing feelings for his first child. “It’s a transition—you need time to adjust. The connection will come, and all will be well. You were scared. Maybe that fear was keeping you from bonding with your son.”
He scoffed at the word “fear,” but then he looked thoughtful. “Maybe it was. I know I was apprehensive about coming back here to meet our child. I was afraid I would just look at her and feel . . . nothing. I didn’t want you to be disappointed with me, too. I don’t want things between us to change.”
He looked at Angrboda then, and
she back at him, and she said, “That’s because I love you, and you love me. And even as I speak these words now, they terrify me, but I know them to be true. More than anything else, I know this. And so do you.”
Loki took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re not wrong. But I don’t think the gods consider me to be capable of such a feeling as love. It’s as you said: They mistrust me. Maybe it’s because I never talk to any of them as I talk to you now, as I’ve always talked to you. My existence feels like an act. It is an act.”
“You can’t believe that,” said Angrboda, but truthfully she wasn’t sure.
“I only ever show them one face, and that’s all they know, and that’s all they use to judge me. That, and my deeds. Of which they . . . disapprove. To say the least.”
“Have I not seen all these faces of yours?”
He pursed his lips in a grim smile. “I’m afraid you haven’t.”
“Fine, then. All the more reason not to listen to a word they say,” Angrboda said hotly. “Have I not told you this?”
Loki sighed. “Anyway. The moment I first looked upon Hel’s face, I realized that no matter what anyone says, maybe some good truly can come of me. She’s the living proof.”
Angrboda didn’t respond for a long while. But when she did, she whispered, “I felt exactly the same.”
* * *
• • •
He left again soon after that but did not stay away long.
Angrboda had a feeling that Loki was deliberately missing Skadi’s appearances. Her friend was showing up more than usual, as winter was nearly upon them and Angrboda needed to build up her stores. She assured Skadi that her husband would be around this winter—she was certain of this now that Hel was in the picture. Loki had not stayed away for more than a week or two since the moment he’d met his daughter. And since Angrboda wasn’t in the high mountains with Skadi this year, he could come and go as he pleased even in the dead of winter, being a shape-changer.
He did just that.
Loki came back one time with a small wolf figurine he’d carved for Hel. He was not so crafty with his hands as he was with his words, but Hel immediately stuck the figure in her mouth and sucked on it. And when her first teeth began to appear, she chewed on it, looking irritable all the while.
The Witch's Heart Page 9